Friday, April 9, 2010

*Blink* where did I go? - Life Grip

Blizzards is drippling cataclysm class information into the community and the first thing I see back when new information is posted is....yes, chaos.

I was online when the priest info came up yesterday, and while I (of course) jumped to it immediately (hey, it's my class) I noticed an immediate uproar in trade.
What I want to say is:

CALM DOWN!!

We're not there yet. And while I'm certain that Blizzard would love constructive feedback from us, I'm also sure that this sort of emo crying ain't going to help much.

Sooooo....this is what I suggest. All of you out there who feel they have something to say about the information they're giving us. Stop. Think. Write.

Yes, create your own blog, go to the forums, or whereever you feel like commenting on the information, but do the first two things first. Stop and Think.

Righty, that being said. I do have my own things to add. Stuff is being discussed on my guild forums already of course, but I did want to go into some more detail on various information being posted here as well. I'll be starting with some of the priest information, but I do play various classes, so don't be surprised if I pick up another class next.

Life Grip


Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown. 

I love, love, love the thought of this ability. Finally I can actually save people who are standing in the wrong spots. And while my 10man will not see much use of this ability, since the dps there actually knows what they are doing it could come in handy at times.

Some considerations:

  • Aggro wipe
    Imagine gripping someone away and having the boss follow along, ooooh boy, that could cause all sorts of interesting wipes. The other option would be to simply make people who have agro immune to this ability, like tanks...I wouldn't want to accidentally grip the tank to me...with boss, or worse, wipe the tank's threat...byebye dps. 
  • Cooldown on gripped target
    I can just see tactics of "Hey You, go agro the boss and with our 14 priests in raid we'll chain pull you quickly to this corner so that we don't have to deal with boss adds"  yeah...
  • Range...hmm
    So my feeling is that it should just be the range of every other healing spell, 40 yards. If not the priest would have to move into danger her/himself first and then pull and then move back, and wow...way too much, instead of use life grip I'm much better off healing my target 
  • Name
    Leap of Faith? Wha? That sounds like I'm the one leaping..and leaping to my death, not to my rescue. Nono, just stick with Life Grip, much easier and better, I know it's not as fantasmagastic, but hey, it's what it will be called anyways. 
  • Cooldown
    If a debuff is left on the gripped person, no cooldown is needed. It could even be off the global cooldown. 
  • Glyph
    Increase range or reduce debuff time perhaps..though, thinking about it, increased range would do not much good, since I would be out of range to begin with. It would be nice if Life Grip also protected my target for the duration of the grip. Otherwise I grip someone with a dot to me and they'll fall dead at my feet. 
  • Cast time?
    No. If this would have a cast time it would become useless. If someone is standing in the fire, now, I need to be able to pull them out, now. If I have to start calculating that people might be standing in the wrong spot, so I have to start pre-casting this...bad idea. 
  • Shadowform
    Yes, this should be usable in shadowform. If this is the lvl 85 ability, it should be usable by all specs equally. 
Of course this is all from my point of view, I am a priest. 

On my guild forums someone already mentioned that they would not like being gripped away outside of his own control. But to be honest, everybody's health is in the healer's hands anyways, if you cannot trust your healers to know when they would need to use this ability, replace the healer. 

All in all, a very cool spell, situational, but I think it could be lots of fun! How 'bout you?

4 comments:

  1. I think it'll be most fun of all when someone accidentlies Lifegrips the tank just as the boss fires up a Whirlwind. Bowling fer guildies!

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  2. I think its one of those great idea spells. I kind of want to wait on how its implemented before I really decide. The most common complaint I see running around about it is people are presuming QQ from dps "I diaf where's my LG" I personally know my group won't do that but if your basing your assumptions off what you might here in a pug then you are clearly playing the wrong game. I liked your analysis, sound ideas across the board.

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  3. Best use I thought of, straight up, was pulling people who have DC'ed into a safer position.

    Perhaps i'm a cynic ;-)

    Gobble gobble.

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  4. I am going to have to level a priest. That ability is simply too awesome to not play with.

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