Hello folks!
So after leveling and gearing my alt (Disc Priest) and playing a few keys with him, I found the absence of a kick in conjunction with the fact that literally all other classes have access to a kick rather… odd.
So I was wondering if Blizzard ever stated a reason for this and if this is a deliberate decision or just a “well… it used to be like this and now we don’t even think about it” thing.
Does anybody know if Blizzard commented on this matter in a somewhat recent timeframe?
https://www.wowhead.com/news/blizzard-on-current-state-of-priests-healer-priests-will-not-have-access-to-328843
Has quite some insight in their DF design decisions at least.
Having access to an interrupt is not something we view as necessary for all specializations. In PvP, Holy and Discipline already provide valuable control to their team and additionally having Silence would provide more control than we’re comfortable with. This is especially true with how much control is becoming available across all classes in Dragonflight.
They just don’t consider it necessary.
Yeah, I absolutely see that in PvP as Priest do indeed already have a lot of control and are often played in RMP, which is a control monster comp in 3v3 but with the new spell queue changes in TWW, it’s rather odd for priests to not have access to an interrupt (not even silence… just a kick).
They could theoretically bake a kick into SW:D that doesn’t work on players, or another ability, or a new ability that, as mentioned, just doesn’t work on other players.
I wouldn’t find the decision for priests to not have a kick odd at all and I actually really never did until TWW but given the recent spell queue change, where kicks have WAY more importance in M+ than they ever did before, I just can’t see how they’d reason this.
Now before somebody jumps into here and yells: “But Disc is S+ Tier in M+ right now!”. Yes, correct, thanks to prot paladins enabling them because prot paladins have enough kicks to cover them.
Probably by taking the next part in consideration:
Now before somebody jumps into here and yells: “But Disc is S+ Tier in M+ right now!”. Yes, correct, thanks to prot paladins enabling them because prot paladins have enough kicks to cover them.
Other specs offer so much interruptive utility nowadays that it can be argued that one spec without an interrupt is ok. Not sure if I’d agree with this sentiment, but it could be argued as such.
But yeah, I think the spell queue system change didn’t do much in favor of the fun factor nor the viability of specs, so I rather have them just revert that change and leave Priests without an interrupt.
I’m 100% onboard with this. Not every class needs access to absolutely every tool there is in the game and the spell queue change overall was receveid overwhelmingly negatively, as far as I’ve noticed.
Tying the viability of a specc, or entire class even (can argue about SP because 45sec is a LONG CD), to the overabundance of kicks of a single other specc is … iffy at best though.
Since right now, those changes are in place and I’m not sure how the viability of any priest specc would look like if prot paladins where nerfed into oblivion.
Ofc that’s all just speculation but, on a quick glance, having the spell queue change and an entire class without access to a kick… that just doesn’t seem like the best idea tbh.
It’s even more odd to think that this is the case because Priest is literally the only class in the game that has this issue and Blizzard, at some point, decided that every class NEEDS a kick… well… except priest that is.
And the argument of “priests already provide a lot of control” also is a bit off imo, considering how much control mages or rogues bring, which is arguably at least twice as much as priests do.
There is much more to it than Kicks. Priests also can’t cure Poisons and Curses - which has to be covered by Prot Pala and Enh Shaman.
Disc also has really weak spot healing which has to be covered by Prot Pala again.
Despite this, Discipline has always found its way to higher keys eventually because of the Damage Reductions they provide. So even if Prot Pal and Enh Sham got nerfed, the top teams would still try to build their comp around a Disc Priest.
The idea of interrupts has been discussed in feedback threads and, personally, I like the idea of Psychic Scream having an interrupt on non-player enemies suggested by Heartie.
True, I didn’t want to get into too much detail because posion/curse dispels can also be covered by other classes and this is more of a “current dugeon pool” issue rather than an overall class issue but yes, correct.
I’ve also noticed this, yes. Outside of our Rift windows, the healing is rather lackluster and getting a low target back up to full can be quite the challenge.
100%, the thing is that “always” didn’t include the spell queue change that we just got in TWW so I’m not sure if they’d be able to incorporate a Disc into the comps if PPal was not viable even if they wanted to.
Not sure about that because this solution would also semi take away our only aoe stop, which are also really valuable currently. Having your aoe stop and interrupt shared by the same ability could be a potential issue, especially given its CD.
If it has to be baked into an existing ability I’d be more in favor of baking it into SW:D, even though that could hurt our torment window a bit because you’d hold SW:D for a kick.
Ultimately though, I’d rather have it on a separate button/new ability.