Let me say it again. I don’t want Smite Priest to become a pure damage dealer like a warlock or mage (that really goes against the concept of a priest). The end result, in my opinion, should be a competitive semi-support that can deal visible damage and give some benefits to raid members like SP, Moonkin and Elem.
No global changes are needed for this. The Smite Priest is still capable of dealing damage at the same level as other semi-supports. The problem is the rapid mana consumption, and the resulting weakness in the realities of long boss fights. Need to find a clever way to solve this problem.
It’s terrible. Smite has mana problems and you want to increase his mana consumption per second? This can be described by Bjarne Stroustrup’s phrase “to shoot yourself in the foot”. (I’ll write about influence on PvP below).
Let’s look at a concrete example. Suppose the analog of Moonglow (balance druid talant) is added to the Holy branch in the second tier of talents, in which you can put 3 talent points and reduce the mana cost for Smite and Holy Fire by 3/6/9%. Will it affect the mana consumption problem? It sure will! Smite is a filler spell for Smite Priest (Incredible Fact), so you’ll be using it a lot in a raid. Will it affect the other priest specializations: SP, Holy and Disc? Let’s review each of them.
Playing as Shadow Priest you will never want to use this talent. Why would you want to do damage with holy magic? You can’t even use it in Shadow Form.
The situation with Holy and Disc is more interesting. You and Zalanji have touched on PvP in this discussion. Let’s project these specializations into both raid and arena.
Let’s start with Holy. In a raid, you’ll act as a pure healer who uses items that enhance healing. You simply won’t be able to deal meaningful damage. Even if the boss is very weak and you’re asked to change into spell power damage boosting clothing to act as an additional damage dealer, a mana cost reduction talent for attacking spells won’t give you literally nothing because the fight with a weak boss will be a short one.
Now consider Disc specialisation in an arena environment. Both spells Smite and Holy Fire are available to you. And there is even some sense in using them to kill an opponent. But will you be happy about the new talent?
Find some popular build for Disc in the TBC. (I can’t post a link here)
Now try to find some points for the new talent. BOOM. Yes, you got a new talent, but no one will give you extra points. You will have to sacrifice something to use it. Which talents are you willing to sacrifice in order to theoretically gain more benefit from the new talent? (I’ll make a small insertion here. If this is read by people who have shown a high level of play for Disc in the arena in TBC, please write what would you sacrifice if you thought the sacrifice was reasonable?)
So, let’s say you’ve managed to find some free points and you’ve picked up a new talent. You do realise that’s not enough, don’t you? You now need to use Smite or Holy Fire in combat. More than once or twice. Will you do that when you have instant SWP, useful Mana Burn and faster Mind Blast? Doubtful. Even if you suddenly decide to show your opponent the power of your Smite, you should be aware that any Kick from a rogue or Counterspell from a mage can be fatal for your whole team. Because you will be blocked from the entire school of Holy Magic, and therefore most healing abilities, for a long time. Would you want to use this talent after this? No think so.
To summarise, I think the new talent turned out to be quite exclusive to a particular specialisation, and not capable of radically affecting an entire class in the game. If this analysis was not convincing enough for you, please provide real game situations that will help identify the negative impact because of this change.
P.S. In the next wall of text I will do a similar analysis for my proposed changes to the priest set (CoolStoryBob).
