Wanna be a warrior? sorry you can only be a priest.

[Deadpoet]

(caveat: this post isn't advised for people who cant read more than 100 characters, or who dont back up their criticism with reasoning and arguments, nor for people who dread any change in the game)

Theres no doubt what the creators of this game wanted to do with this class. The name of the class says it all. The history of the Templars and other military orders who used a large mace instead of swords or axes or spears(to circumvent the prohibition of priests to wield weapons)to kill the unfaithful is carefully and even lovingly portrayed in the game design. Of the three trees of abilities for the class TWO are devoted to melee.

Once, chatting with some players in advice chat about the sad underwhelming state of melee WP, Azarael showed as usual a very understanding and open attitude, but informed us that to make the changes required to give melee WPs CC and a more meaningful role in a party might cause a riot among the player population.

When I play my melee healer (henceforth I will be dealing with melee healing only, I am not concerned here with dps WP) I find that I am a cripple among elite athletes: no charge, no break root, no KD, no disarm, no AP steal (see AM), a pitiful heal debuff, no
ranged snare (see DoK), no armor debuff/ignore, etc etc

But the main problem is that there are many many situations where a WP is snared/punted/rooted away from guard, etc A conventional WP will just continue healing his party unless a BG has sent him flying to the moon. But a melee healer NEEDS to HIT to HEAL.

I understand that making all the changes to allow melee healer to move so quick, so unimpeded as to permit him to continue hitting and therefore healing is very complicated. Even new abilities would have to be added.

Let me suggest something:
A hybrid:

There is one tactic (FUELED FURY) that gives a 25% chance to restore 35 Righteous Fury when hit. Every 3 seconds. If this tactic was beefed up a little bit (50% chance, more RF or can't trigger more than every 2 seconds) it would be too OP for book WPs maybe. Afaik this is the only way for a true WARRIORpriest to gain RF without hitting anybody.

What I propose is to

1. eliminate the tactic that boosts Sigmars Radiance with more dmg and 75% of the dmg dealt and simply incorporate the boost to the ability, an ability that even with the boost, is clearly not precisely a godsend, as all order melee healers know full well.

2. subsitute the beefed RF-chance-when-hit tactic for the sigmars radiance tactic that we have already eliminated.

In this way the ability known as Sigmars shield (you gain health every time you are hit) would finally cease to be a wasted spot in the Grace tree, and also in this way a beefed Fueled Fury wouldnt be easily available to book priests (who dont even need it anyway, correct me here if Book priests slotted this tactic on live), who would have to go out of their way and climb high in the Grace tree to get it.

3. Make Intimidating Repent a tactic not associated to a tree.

In this way a melee healer can spec high in Grace and also fairly high in Salvation. When he has nothing near to hit, thanks to Fueled Fury, he can continue healing his party until he can catch up with the enemy again. Or, if he is ignored, at least he will have a chance against ranged gankers in other situations.

Obviously not recommended for efficiency-obsessed premades. This is only an approach to a dream.

Further suggestions:

Make Sigmars Shield an ability that doesnt need to hit to be activated. (yeah I know this one is asking too much, but hey....)

Give WP the ranged snare of DoK.

If nothing of the above can be considered, AT LEAST consider this one: Some classes (and not dps ones) have a core low low level ability that ignores 25% of the target's armor. How about making Sigmars Radiance the KEY (the only remotely useful) ability of melee healing WP and quite high in the Grace tree, do the same? How else can a subclass that can't debuff nor ignore the resistance to his damage type achieve a shadow of efficiency?

[Deadpoet]

Edit:Kotbs and BG ignore 25% of targets armor are not core, sorry.

[lilsabin]

good luck with your post p.s. i read it all

[wos]

back on live there was a wp who was dps he could solo party after partys of desto he was the frist to hit rr100 on our server herby i think his name was. wp and dok are slow to get g
ood but by the time there getting in to t4 there op as **** u only have to look down ur skill tree to see ur class has the best solo skill in the game and u want to bypass more armor u can heal ur self with spells and when ur hitting toons its not like ur a mdps or tank that can not heal and ur hit for heal spells deal in spit damage so armor dont mater to u

[wos]

and a hit for dps healers the hp u get from dps spells is not part of dvine fury tatic so put it in and hit as hard as u want the harder u hit the more hp u get win win wp use to be able to clens root/sneas from self and had a party clens to

[Penril]

back on live there was a wp who was dps he could solo party after partys of desto he was the frist to hit rr100 on our server herby i think his name was. wp and dok are slow to get g
ood but by the time there getting in to t4 there op as **** u only have to look down ur skill tree to see ur class has the best solo skill in the game and u want to bypass more armor u can heal ur self with spells and when ur hitting toons its not like ur a mdps or tank that can not heal and ur hit for heal spells deal in spit damage so armor dont mater to u

He was the first to get to 100 when 100 was incredibly OP. That's the only reason he killed everyone. Once Dommflayer and Warpforged got nerfed he became irrelevant as a DPS WP and basically had no choice but to go heals. After a while he quit the game.

Having said that, melee DoKs and WPs are excellent for small scale fights.

[Kaladrin]

+1 to the OP, I would love to be able to heal from melee (but I'm affraid it would require way too much work -gap closer, melee-heals buff etc-, and seeing how ppl look hostile to changes, it will probably not happen sadly.

[Evildoor]

FIrst of all, i said this once and i'll say this many times more - melee WP is not underpowered, they are fine. Sure, maybe there is no place for such WP in "efficiency obsessed premades" (and so is no place for many other classes and specs), but they can hold their own in normal premades/pugs. Therefore, i strongly disagree with any DRASTIC changes such as reworking the mechanic or giving them hard CC, but i agree that some tactics and abilities can be tweaked and the game will improve (and this should be done for all classes, not just WP).

I'm somewhat confused about some of the changes suggested - in game you either slot Divine Fury + Fanaticism and go full STR/WS/melee crit/defence/etc or you don't and make some kind of hybrid(although i've not seen much WPs doing this). If you do - you have 0 willpower + 40% reduced non-melee heals, so salvation tree is pretty much nonexistent for you, therefore you don't need such tons of RF to slot Fueled Fury. If you don't - then your damage will be crappy, and so will be your heals from Radiance/Assault, and 25% armor ignore will not save you.

Giving WP snare/root removal - why? You are a healer, in place of this and charge you have other things (res, cleanse, etc).

Giving WP snaring prayer like DoK - what for? I played both melee WP and melee DoK in t4, Covenant of Celerity is not that strong in proper fights to make WP that much worse than DoK. WP has stronger damage from Prayer of Righteousness, which can be more useful than 20% snare in some cases.

Being punted away/unable to reach your target - sure, that's a problem, but all melee classes have to deal with it. And it can be done, even without charge and other things.

Incorporating Grace of Sigmar into Radiance - well, maybe this will be okay... Not that OP, will open more options for tactic sets diversity... But has to be tested thoroughly, so lets wait for t4.

I do believe that there are things that can be safely changed even before t4 - take a look at Absence of Faith or Divine Aegis. They are not meh or bad, they are outright worthless. But even here i think it is better to wait until t4, because if something is changed now everyone will start shouting "hey, then make my class better too, do this and that", which will apply more unneeded pressure on devs.

In conclusion, i want to ask those who want to be a melee WP one thing: go into game and play melee WP. In last few months i've seen like 2-4 threads about "melee WP is UP, lets buff/rework/whatever", and only one melee WP (besides myself) playing more-less regularly in SCs. Sure, WP is strongly handicapped by lack of Radiance for now - but this does not means that you should give up.

[zarg64]

Stop asking for change before to be lev40 with stuff 60-70 mini...
To change a class you will have to change quite the others so that the mechanics follow...

[Deadpoet]

Hastened autoattack tactic is a dps tactic not a melee healing one and it doesnt contribute a bit to healing, except for a negligible increase of prayer of devotion proccing. Divine Fury is awesome, but other tactics (Greave of Sigmar) are very good. So no -40per cent healing. I still think hybrid, with a little tactics juggling and some very minor abilities beefing is the only way to approach a meaningful role for melee healing without making any major changes. Please remember l am not talking about dps WP!