I would like to ask Blizzard why they design challenging solo-content around the assumption that everybody has an Interrupt but refuse to give one class in the game access to such an Interrupt.
Yes, Priests can spec for an Interrupt in ONE of their three specs. I know that. That Interrupt is still horribly sub-par. Even with 2 talent points invested it’s still on a 30s CD. Compare that to Wind Shear: 12s CD, costs 0 talent points.
I just died 2 times on the final boss of Underkeep on my Healing Priest. Boss channels a spell that stacks+stuns. The stacks can be dispelled, but the spell hits like a truck so you are likely to die in the GCD of that dispell. Since it’s a Boss, fear does not work. I asked Tank Brann - who i suppose Blizzard designed specifically to assist Healers - why he did not interrupt and he said something about Gauda. Not helpful.
There was also the Boss of Mage district in Horrific Visions who was like 3 times harder if you could not interrupt.
It’s been 20 years, Blizzard. You have added 2 more Healers in that time (Monk+Prevoker). Naturally, both of them can interrupt.
I do not expect Priests to get an Interrupt as good as Wind Shear. But something on par with Quell would be nice.
30s Silence is available to DPS Priests for 2 talent points. DPS Evokers get 20s Quell for 2 talent points.
Healing Evokers get 40s Quell for 1 talent point, cannot improve it.
Healing Priests get absolutely nothing.
See the difference? Yes, i do complain about it.
I have now completed Underkeep+11 2 more times to test different things out. The specific spell i mean is this one:
When i first died on the boss, i was Voidweaver Disc with TankBrann. Getting hit with absolutely nothing but the linked spell i was at 1.5M HPS after ~3min fight when i finally died.
I killed the Boss in that same run as Shadow with HealerBrann; since the spell in question is cast exactly every 30s you need to take both talent points as Shadow. Which according to all sources i checked (Icy Veins, Wowhead, WCLogs) almost nobody does…so that helps.
On the second run i used OracleDisc + DPSBrann, just to check the general flow of things and if he would interrupt the spell. The total Delve was quite a bit slower compared to TankBrann, so taking TankBrann is definetly better as a Healing Priest with ilvl 701 equipped. He did NOT interrupt the Boss. Not a SINGLE time during a ~5min fight. He did not DPS it properly, either. Most of the time he ran around like a chicken, trying to get the Boss closer to me so i would have to run out of the huge AOE it does. Confronted with this, he offered me more Gauda. Strange thing was: I completed that fight at just 900k HPS. So much lower than what i had to push with TankBrann before when i still died.
I then did a third run as OracleDisc with TankBrann again just to confirm my numbers. Delve went much quicker with TankBrann compared to DPSBrann. Completed the Bossfight with ~1.3M HPS. Branns DPS were only slightly lower compared to DPSBrann in the kill before so fight length did not differ a whole lot, either.
My conclusions are:
The damage of that spell varies extremely. Sometimes it will tick for <1M dmg only to then come at you with >2.5M per tick. Ticks ten times. Damage is not dependant on the stacks you have. It just varies wildly.
To nullify it, you will need an Interrupt every 30s; which every DPS has access to, but Evokers and Priests need to spend 2 talent points for it. I thought the idea of talents was to be optional? I still think this is a design flaw.
As a healer without a 30s Interrupt available to you, you will have to work quite a bit harder to survive this spell than anybody else.
I stand by what i said in my OP: If Blizzard designs Bosses that channel 25M damage every 30s (so obviously the spell is INTENDED to be interrupted) it is on THEM to give everybody access to a 30s Interrupt.
The game cannot be balanced around solo content. Its impossible. That is why Brann exists.
If you give priest a kick you would make them beyond broken in M+.
So the short answer is NO. Priest should not have a kick.
Just to prove my point:
Who cares about the shaman kick. What about a Blood DK? He can literally pull a whole delve. AoE everything down. And not go bellow 90% health with out kicking a single cast.
Tanks dont even need to kick anything. They dont care. Its like having a 0s CD kick!!
So. What now? How do you balance solo content now?
I, a shaman, want to have tank HP. Death Strike. Bone shield… And grip. Plus 40% permanent DR. To be able to do Delves like a tank can.
See how having a RShaman with tank HP and survivability would break the game completely?
Forgive me when i find that strangely amusing coming from one of two S-Tier Healer classes talking down to one that currently is NOT in that tier.
I would argue that Shaman was actually quite broken over the entire course of TWW. But that is not the point of this topic.
The point of this topic is that there is challenging solo-content in this game that is DESIGNED around the assumption that you can interrupt. Sometimes you can play around that by outgearing it or simply having to work harder, sometimes you can’t.
Priest is the only class in the game that does not have access to an Interrupt on a class-wide-level. No, giving Healing-Priests a 30s CD Interrupt would not make them “beyond broken in M+”. A single 30s CD Interrupt extra for a whole group (that would likely still cost 1 talent point, mind you) would have almost zero impact on anything in M+.
As for your what-about-ism concerning tanks: Tanks have been the best in MOST solo-content for more than a decade because Blizzard thinks that will make more people play tanks in groups. Which it does not. But that is still their reasoning behind it. Amusingly, i would NOT play tank over DPS on this specific boss because:
a) he does absolutely zero damage except for that one spell
b) tanks do far less single-target-DPS, so you would play the fight in the exact same way without any benefit, just taking longer
But the point still stands: If you WANT to play the fight as Blood over Frost/Unholy, you still CAN. Why? Because all three of those specs have Interrupts. You cannot simply ignore the cast as Blood, btw, unless you are very overgeared and push other CDs like a Healer has to. 25M damage is too much for an ilvl700 Blood DK afk-ing.
So, you have actually proven my point: If your class has access to a tank spec and you want to roll it easy: Go for it. Want to push it faster? Go DPS. Both work.
That is exactly which falls apart for Priests (and to a lesser extend: Evokers).
Also if u complain about tanks there are only 2 somewhat broken tanks ingame right now that Protection warrior and Protection paladin. wich they deserve to be for ones.
So i changed my mind and i actually read what you said:
But Shamans dont have access to the Tank roll. So what is your take on that. Should i get tank skills or not?
That is literally your point. You dont have any CC. You want the CC other classes have. I don’t have any tankyness. I want the tankyness other classes have.
What now? We give shamans death strike or not?
No. Solo content is unique to TWW. Before TWW playing solo was a meme. And it still is to a degree. So it hasent been decades…
Tanks are OP in solo content by design. To loose in wow you need to die. And tanks by design are made not to die. That’s what tankyness means.
So? He IS a tank. His purpose is to assist all those DPS and healers that cannot take 2 white hits.
The holy trinity exists for a reason Nellja. Trying to fit Solo play in WoW is impossible. As I said.
And part of that deal are the abilities that classes have. And that deal goes beyond having a kick or not.
Its not the same to play Solo with a Rogue with 0 self-healing potential. Than with a Ret or DK that do. Or a ranged with kiting potential or a melee, that WILL eat white attacks and cant colum/kite.
If you bring a 2nd player, the Delve experience becomes trivial. Because the game is MADE with the holy trinity in mind. Its just that OP to bring a buddy. In particular a tank.
So they have to nerf Brann (or buff the mobs, which has the same impact).
And it’s not exclusive to Delves. Lets look at PI for example. PI in 20 man content is inconsequential. Nobody cares about the 0.5% extra damage overall it will create. In 5 man content, its already 2/5 people with a 2 min BL. In arenas 2v2 its OP because BOTH players get a 2 min BL.
They have to nerf brann because DPS can’t play with him as tank because he requires healing to stay alive and do damage?
You’re better off putting brann as healer or dps if you’re playing DPS. As a DPS he won’t die constantly compared to as tank, he’ll deal a decent amount of damage as well instead of basically nothing because he’s not getting healed if tank.
Hell, I don’t run with him as a tank as a healer because it just takes too long, faster to just set him to dps and blast through, after the tank version got nerfed.
Brann Tank used to behave like a proper tank. And it was OP and had to get nerfed. If you remember in S2.
All the things you describe of the current Brann is because he is nerfed so bad he plays with crutches.
Because bringing a proper tank is that OP. Bringing a proper DPS is not that OP, so Brann DPS does something of value.
Think of it: How do you loose in wow? By dying. If you got someone with a specific kit of skills made to “not die” and make sure nothing hits you… well… its OP.
My fastest clear times in delves are as DPS. It’s slow as hell as healer
or tank compared to as DPS. Yes, you can’t die but it takes a hell lot longer compared to DPS.
It’s faster even if you don’t even assign him a role, as DPS. The mobs just melt when a DPS unleashes their damage on them despite them getting more hp when you’re DPS.
A mob that has 45 million hp in a delve, if I play with tank brann, on my healer, will take roughly 25-30 seconds to kill.
The same mob has 60 million hp as DPS, but I deal like 6-7 times more damage, hp increase doesn’t offset the damage difference. It’s a ton faster as a DPS.
https://i.imgur.com/K1Ld9aF.png
I can’t get sub-10 minutes as a healer. I just don’t know how to do it but as shadow I just blasted through and this was at ilvl 674, the difference would probably be even bigger now that I have 4-set and better gear.
Unless you really want to play healer, it’s just better to switch to dps and make brann dps or healer if you want to do delves fast.
But if Brann was a 720 tank. Then he could pull half the room and you can AoE melt whole rooms of mobs. And get a Delve done in 5 minutes. The reason you cant do that is because Brann Tank is 650 and dies. So you have to go pack by pack, hence why its more efficient to simply play as a DD.
But the point is that if you went with Brann DD. You cannot pull a whole room and survive. So you could technically do more DPS, but a tank allows you to do things faster. That is why DD < Tank in those specific situations, assuming equal power between tank and DD.
Which is a bloody lie btw. Just like everybody else, shaman have to spec into wind shear. Its not baseline.
This, too, btw, is blatant misinformation.
Hello, i have been running tank brann on all my dps all season. The only thing, that has a chance of killing him, is the nexus princess.
I just tested it. He can’t even last long enough for a nemesis pack + normal pack to die.
Tank brann’s damage intake:
https://i.imgur.com/kX1gSEv.png
He doesn’t live without a healer. They hit him harder than they hit me and these are just some normal trash.
2 million per hit, 3 mobs. He has 35 million hp. He lives like 6-7 rounds of white hits, from 3 mobs and then he’s dead. Their ability dealt like 4 million to him.