Priest Racials updated.

[Holyssa]

By Koraa:

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.

This reminds me of the days when Dwarves were super imba because of Fear Ward, yet not many rolled them for fashion's sakes, or because Blizzard favored Alliance (*COUGH*Fall of Humanity*COUGH*).

Speaking of Alliance...

By Vaneras:

Hi everybody :-)

The next build will feature three significant changes to racials.

The Fall of Humanity:

Removed

A new Human racial will be tested in its place.

Every Man for Himself:

Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character.

This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects, such as the PvP trinket.

This essentially means that you gain flexibility regarding what to do with your second trinket slot.

Shadowmeld:

"Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect."

It has a cooldown of 3 minutes, and it can be used in combat. In PvP it will force enemies targeting you to detarget you. It will cause any mobs currently on you to de-aggro, but it does not take you out of combat unless you are the last one on the hate list of any mobs that you were engaged with.

This effect is very similar to what was previously "The Fall of Humanity".

It should be noted that the 5 extra points of passive stealth value is still there, however it isn't written in the shadowmeld tooltip. It is now just its own passive effect called "Elusiveness".

Shadowmeld is now what Fall used to be (a stupid aggro "pause" button), Humans get a free PvP "trinket", and it's only a matter of time before Blizzard unleashes it's latest surprise for Fall's replacement racial.

They basically gave humans the ol' Orc racial, but without the healing penalty. What on earth is the matter with these people?

[Scryll]

I have no idea what's wrong with their design team. Taking two other groups racials *gnomes Escape Artist and Forsaken's Will of the Forsaken* combining them, and then adding a counterbalancing shared cooldown, is bad design. That sort of move can work with class abilities because there are so damned many of them and they have to do similar things, but there are only 40 or so racial abilities and most of those are passives, not activated abilities. They've got room to work with.

[Perthes]

Somebody must have been smoking something REALLY bad to come up with that..

[Waldonnis]

I think they're trying the "Hey look, it's Elvis!" distraction technique with the new human racial. So far, most of the debate has been about comparing it to Will of the Forsaken, when it really shouldn't be about that at all. I'm frankly surprised that the gnomes haven't tossed a fit over this one, or any of the other Alliance races...and I won't even talk about orcs and other Horde races that should be going bananas.

I'm on the fence with the racial on its own. It seems awfully powerful, but not because of the racial on its own, but simply because it completely replaces the need for a PvP trinket....freeing up that slot for something that could be much more powerful. Will of the Forsaken's lack of a shared cooldown in comparison doesn't totally replace a trinket, as it does nothing to snares or roots, making a trinket still pretty much mandatory for PvP (albeit less important than for other races).

Now here's the kicker for me...just how many racials do (or should) humans get anyway? I do understand that the sting from the Perception nerf is still tender, but geez. Meanwhile, I continue to stare at Underwater Breathing and wonder when, if ever, will that come in handy post-expansion....