“In an upcoming build all Priest racials have been retired, except the following:
Desperate Prayer – This is now the 11-point talent in Holy, Holy Nova is now a base ability. Cooldown also reduced to 30 seconds.
Devouring Plague – Now a base ability. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, mana cost greatly reduced.
Symbol of Hope – Now a base ability. Now restores 5% base mana every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to your party. Renamed “Hymn of Hope.”
While this change does reduce the “uniqueness” of different Priests, we feel game balance as a whole will benefit.
Note: These new “racials” are not racials, they are trainable to all Priests.”
Source: Blizzard Forums Blue Post
Thanks to Ravageclaw for letting me know. Expect this news to filter out to the big sites momentarily (I’ve alerted them).
Thoughts? Initial reactions? I’m going to reserve judgement for the time being.
I actually had to look up Devouring Plague to see what it did. /blush
Looks cool to me. I don’t know that this will actually change anything I do, though.
Well, except that now I’ll kill rats other vermin with Holy Nova instead of SW:D, since Holy Nova will be a base spell 😀 Just for funsies!
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So no more Chastise at all now? I always felt jealous about it being a human, but it’s sad to see it just go like that.
@Oleg: Chastise, gone. Hex of Weakness, gone. Feedback, Starshards, Elune’s Grace, Consume Magic, Touch of Weakness, Shadowguard, gone.
A moment of silence, please, for Hex of Weakness.
/sob
New blog post: BREAKING: Priest Racials Removed http://tinyurl.com/5zmhwj
Well… I’m a little hurt that all my reasons for rolling draenei are now gone (I still miss you, pre-2.3 Fear Ward)… But overall this doesn’t change much for me. I’m still not going to use Holy Nova. Symbol/Hymn of Hope will still be there. I’ll lose Chastise for pvp, but I rarely pvp. Devouring Plague, whatever. The only thing I really gain is a self heal in the form of Desperate Prayer. Meh, okay.
I can imagine some other races aren’t too happy about it though… We’ll see how much of a difference this makes.
The one thing I will say though… Devouring Plague doesn’t seem an appropriate name for something all of us get. It made sense for undead… but…. my sweet little Draenei giving people the plague? What?
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As a change, it seems to be overall “ok”. Without any kind of testing, it’s just wishful thinking.
But I will miss Shadowguard the most.
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For balance purposes I believe it was a needed change. They are trying to pay a lot more attention to that than they used to and that much difference between priests has got to be a pain. Will I miss our uniqueness? Sure. Will I miss getting told that I picked the “wrong” race? Not at all. It’ll also be nice to have Holy Nova without the talent point. I haven’t found it worth the point but it can be a fun ability to break out every now and then.
I rolled dwarf… so long ago… fear ward… chastise… you will be missed.
*sob*
The Holy Nova thing amuses me mightily for some reason, lol.
As a NE Priest, I can’t say I’m torn up about losing Elune’s Grace. I don’t think I ever used it. And Lolshards? Well, lawl.
I’m sure others probably feel more strongly about it than I do. My reaction was a combination of “Meh” and “Lol”.
I was discussing the viability of a Holy Nova DPS Priest (for clearing BRD, for example, mostly as a joke) with a friend the other day… looks like I wouldn’t have to spec for it to test it out now…
I am sure that it was removed because someone out there whined that we were too “op.” Whatever. I have taken everything I have come across now as a matter of “roll with the punches.” Blizz finally found something that hits home.
Was there really a need for doing that?
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Give a little, take a little.. I agree that it was a needed change, though..
And Holy Nova, like it or not, works wonders for running lowbies thru RFC.. 🙂
Well – I actually will miss feedback. While grinding or doing PvP, I love popping feedback and my reflective shield. Makes burning a mob down doing my Sunwell dailies go just a little faster.
I have never liked the cooldown of feedback and that really is what made is useless.
I will REALLY miss desperate prayer as a Healing Disc priest and will have to find a way to build in the points. While I don’t use this often, it is a great way to quickly catch myself when nothing else is available or I am on the run. Hence the name desperate. 🙂
Lets see – Supremus and Illidary Council come to mind. 🙂
Meh, as a human priest, I don’t think I’ll be missing anything. I’ll still get holy nova to kill hunter snake traps with in PvP and now desperate prayer will only have a 30 second cooldown as opposed to 10 minutes. A self “oh s%847” button that can be used repeatedly if need be? Pretty cool to me. And better than a bandage.