I can actually see some useful uses for the spell. Healing group got aggro? Pull in one of the AoE offtanks.
Using the spell on just "slowpokes" is wrong on many levels and I assume raidleaders won't rely on priests rescueing people. However there may be tactical advantages; a "feared" friendly player is running out of range? Pull him back in range. Perhaps it's possible to save someone from a mechanic like the valkyrs in the Lichking fight -warlocks can teleport themselves back up if a valkyr drops them of the ledge; if a priest can pull someone back if they're falling- that's one less valkyr to worry about.
If people use the ability to annoy others I think they won't be in a raidgroup for long. I assume using it in battlegrounds and such will probably be frowned upon.
Then again; there may be some novelty uses. Much like how the demonic teleport was deemed underpowered at WotLK launch; I find my lock using it very often. Nearly all ICC fights have a use for it.
Some tools can be powerful to creative people. The novelty of prank-pulling will probably wear off pretty soon.
 

I also don't see a problem with the spell.

A raid member disconnected but is reconnecting on vent... and he's standing in bad stuff? Now at least you can do something.

No raid will blame a priest for not yanking a player fast enough - they already have to juggle so much.
Same goes for Arena - I'm sure arena groups will see the skill as a boom, not a curse.

BG... nobody really balance for the BGs anyway. In fact... priests are so busy dps'ing in BGs I won't see them gripping anybody.
 

Bugger the consequences, I think being able to life grip people is a million kinds of awesome.
 

That spell is wrong is so many ways, I really don't understand why nobody at Blizzard considered the consequences.

If only there was some procedure where they could announce new spells in advance for discussion, followed by an extensive period of public testing.
 

Actually, giving more responsibility to those who already have a lot is a GOOD idea on their part.

The person who already accepted responsibility for others have proven that he is a victim, so it's safe to victimize him more.

Please consider the "central MMO contradiction".
* the content must last for 2-3 months. Since a raid instance have like 10 bosses, it means wiping on them.
* wiping is no fun and games must be fun

The only possible (though completely immoral) solution is to find losers who take the "no fun" for others. Blizzard masterfully noticed that most healers are "good souls" who gladly (or at least without resistance) will suffer to let others have fun.
 

i agree with the other commenters that it is just such a cool idea.

it is definitely open to griefing if its use isn't controlled in come other way (like if it can be used in dalaran while out of combat) but then if a healer wants to annoy those around them they can stop healing and let them die.

i'm sure the first day they get it they will be life gripping all and sundry but the next raid they go to it will be a very fun and useful ability.

also, i don't buy the 'another reason to blame healers' idea. no good raid leader is ging to be pointing fingers at healers when dps kill themselves. maybe bad ones will but bad ones do all kinds of stupid stuff.
 

That spell will be abused so much in PvP to grief other players.
 

Leap of faith is a fun and cool ability. You are going to want this.

How do I know? I play a Death Knight, we have Death Grip, which is a fun and cool ability, and ever since wrath launched I've done everything I could (apart from calling in bomb-threats to the blizz HQ) to get Death Grip to work on friendly targets.
Now Priests get it, and I'm okay with that. But honestly why are you getting upset over this? I know my priest will get to 85, and I know this because he will get Leap of faith then.
Every single whine over "why didn't you save me" will not be wiped of the face of the earth if you do not have this ability, it will just be replaced by "why didnt you heal me a LOT" and 5 heals to keep dumb dps alive is worse than one pull.

Finally healers get a tool to be an active saviour in combat and not a reactive health-regainer. And you whine? Seriously?

The reason I stopped healing was that I wanted more pro-action in my game over reactions, and now priests gets just that.
 

It is impossible to judge this spell based on experience with existing encounters. I can think of a dozen new situations in new PvE encounters where this spell could easily become the best spell in the game.

Simple example: Troll instance (outdoor): rooted player + void zone + insta-death Boss ability 3 secs after void zone appears...
 

Well the problem is there are two different games they are trying to fix.
For regular raiders this ia a great thing. In a team where everyone knows each other and works as teammates it'll be an awesome ability. probably get some group banned as an exploit at some point because of creative use of it.

For pugs it will indeed crank up the blame the healer thing.

But healers in Wrath had everything that made them fun in vanilla taken away. This will probably help those that like to play healers and make it less fun for those that want DPS that can heal too.
 

Oh, the fun we can have with "'tard grip", as it surely will be called. Leap off a cliff, "tard grip", levitate on self.

Can't see any way that could be abused, no sirree...

A far more useful spell would be to give tanks a "hold party", which freezes the gogogo crew in place for 5 seconds while the tank gathers aggro.
 

Any decent guild still won't allow slackers who can't walk out of the fire.

But loosing control over your character is indeed frustrating. It's why they spent so much time adding diminishing returns to sheeping, sapping...
 

The only problem I see with this spell is that in random BGs people misuse it.

Blizzard could always hotfix it by allowing you to select that you do not want to be affected by this kind of spell.
But I am sure they won't need to do this.

There are several reasons:

1) it won't work outside of your group/raid/BG party.
2) it only applies to priests of a certain specc.
3) Heal priests in general are played by nice players. That is not just a prejudice, but based on experience.
4) Blizzard knows the problem here, I am certain. They are very careful with such things, which is also why they never allowed taunt to affect players (at all).

This is a test. It will be tested on PTR and before the expansion appears in the usual patch. It is very limited to one specc of one class. They had similar tests with push effects (moonkins, fire mages, elemental shamans).

This might work out. I think it will. If it does, it will be a very innovative ability. I applaud Blizzard for the courage.

PS: Your point with players blaming healers for not pulling them out of the fire in a raid is silly.
 

Actually, giving more responsibility to those who already have a lot is a GOOD idea on their part.


I disagree with the statement that healers bear a lot of responsibility in raids.

I know, it seems common knowledge, but I played every role in a raid extensively so far and can tell you that healing in raids is not very hard or a 'responsible' activity.

That's for several reasons:
1) If you heal less than others that not automatically means that you heal worse. So, in contrast with dps, your performance is much harder to compare and thus you face less competition.

2) A lot of healing is about spamming buttons, not about reaction nowadays. Group healing means to use every GCD to heal anybody. The question is just who is to target for the spell. With grid that is rather easy.

3) If you heal less, other healers can make up for it. Just as other dps can make up for you if you're a dd. Only as a MT you cannot mess something up, because rarely can anybody help you then.

4) In 5 man dungeon you need one healer, one tank and three dps. In raids you need 2 tanks (perhaps a few dual skilled ones), 6-8 healers and rest dds.

5) Healing rotation are terribly simple. And since you ought to use every GCD (it's not like you can run oom) you do follow that stupid rotation. Like chain flash of light or chain group healing or chain healing ... Only the targets change, which is done with a mouse-click on grid, while you spam a few buttons.

6) While tanks are the problem in 5man dungeons, healers are the problem in raids, because the demand is much higher, but the supply is the same. Since healers are always in demand it's not as much of a problem if you are not as good.

In my experience i have very rarely heard, that the healers are responsible for something. I do not believe the notion that this is because healers are just better players or because players don't dare to blame them (well - I do not raid in casual-noob-13-year-old-raids).

Therefore: it sounds good to tell the public on Sunday that taxes need to decrease and it sounds good to tell that healers bear more responsibility than DDs/Tanks. It is wrong.

In my opinion the hardest part is playing DD, because you can be compared with other DDs perfectly. It is a fierce competition out there. if the sum of DDs is not good enough the raid willwipe, just like when the sum of the healers is not good enough.

Second are tanks (and in some encounters where bosses need to be moved around they are clear #1).

Healer are easiest.

Actually playing a healer in leveling dungeon groups is so incredibly boring that I simply cannot stand it.
 

Ok. Here is the ultimate priest griefing method:

Step 1) walk near edge
Step 2) cast levitate
Step 3) jump (or walk) off the edge
Step 4) life grip ally
Step 5) ... :D
Step 6) Profit!
 

@ Okrane S.

Brilliant. That's why Blizzard firsts posts ideas and then tests them on a testrealm.

You can bet that you won't be able to use this ability while levitating nor while 'jumping'.
 

I see so many potential abuses of Leap of Faith it's not funny. What happens when one of our priests "accidently" life grips a tank? My main is a dk tank and I already see tons of abuse of death grip against other mobs. I get gripped off a mob because someone thought it'd be funny or because they just wanted to screw me up? Eh, I'll probably just sit down and watch the raid wipe.

The fact that bloggers are already pondering ways this can be abused should be telling as well :)

And I DO know, that some players will blame a priest for not yanking them out of fire. I already see so many people blast healers for not healing them through stuff.

The more I read about Cataclysm changes, the less I want to read to be honest. Because from what I hear, I wonder if I'll still want to play :( I'll give it a chance but yeah... not liking what I'm reading.
 

I’m conflicted on this one. On the one hand, I think this will be used by immature players as a bitchslap to teammates who can’t retaliate, further distancing healers from the WoW population as a whole. At the same time, I think healers do what they do because they recognize the abstract challenges of the role, and accept those challenges as an appropriately higher level of difficulty. Giving them another (very different) tactical ability will add even more depth and responsibility to the role, which sounds terrible to most of us, but to true healers its probably an exciting prospect.

I rarely played the role of healer but I have immense respect for those who do. Its one part altruist and two parts masochist, but that’s the way most healers like it. Like a silent badge of honor, they pride themselves on being selfless, taking the punishment from enemy and ally alike, and responding only with help and protection. For some healers this ability will appear to be a “last laugh” allowing them to finally strike back at those who denounce them and take them for granted. For the lesser healers, this will look like a problem, another thankless responsibility of an underappreciated class. For true healers this will come as a challenge, a new level of responsibility and power that they will now be expected to wield intelligently, and they will rise to the task.
 

Personally I'm surprised at the amount of hate Priests are giving to LoF. It seems to be based around the idea that having it will have DPS blame us for not saving them from a fire, but let us be honest here: those DPS would be the same DPS who would die in that fire and then blame us for not healing them. And then there's the idea that it will be used to grief in raids or something, but really, a Priest does it once and then you get booted and /ignored.

Honestly I think it will end up like Levitate or Army of the Dead: a spell you want to use as much as possible, but only when it's useful, so you are constantly on the lookout for a good time to use it.
 

I don't buy your argument that priests will be expected to pull lazy dps out of fires. In fact I would see it as a mark of shame to have to be pulled out of one. I foresee this being a spell that will let a priest be an absolute hero at times.

In arena, it's an awesome tool.

In pickup bg's, yes, it could be used to annoy your teammates, but there are already many things you can do to grief in bg's if so inclined.

For those playing coordinated in the new ranked bg's, again this will be awesome.
 

I think the boat has sailed on healers getting blamed for DPS being stupid already. They already expect you to heal through avoidable damage in heroics.

In their mind, if you have the capacity to keep everyone up through all damage the instance throws at you no matter how easily avoided, then you have an obligation to.
 

I see so many potential abuses of Leap of Faith it's not funny. What happens when one of our priests "accidently" life grips a tank? My main is a dk tank and I already see tons of abuse of death grip against other mobs. I get gripped off a mob because someone thought it'd be funny or because they just wanted to screw me up? Eh, I'll probably just sit down and watch the raid wipe.

I also see so many abuses of the idea to use players to heal other players. What if they don't do it or forget it?

Excuse me ?

Since it won'T work outside of group and since you can always kick someone from a group (or leave it) the only problem left is a BG. Even there this will become boring pretty soon for the preists who do it to annoy people.

This ability won't be spammable, btw. It will have a nice CoolDown, so that you might forget that you actually whated to griev as much as possible.
 

Healers are overall WAY more aware of any given situation than DPSers, especially melee DPSers. They already save DPSers lives days in and days out with heals, now they can just go: "dude, watch out!".
Personally I love the idea of Leap of Faith, both in term of game play and game design.

As for Heroic Leap, you find it different than charge just because it's a jump instead of straight line. There's no difference whatsoever when you think about it. It's just a charge, with AE clap instead of single target stun.

Imho, apart from Warlocks REALLY scaring me now and the whole "more hp, no DEF stat" tank stuff which worries me a LOT, it's goodie.
 

Hmm, just to add a quickie here, it's true that there could be MUCHO abuse with this spell as it's the ONLY spell that allows you to control FRIENDLY targets, which possibly opens a lot of...grief....
 

oooh oooooh I just thought of this... in PVP you have 6 priests. You line them up on the Warsong Gulch field.. Flag carrier jumps down.. then priests yank them all the way across the field at super speed FTW!
 

I don't get Gevlon's reaction to the GC-announced changes that he says will make the healer role so uber-responsible. And I certainly don't get your negative reaction to this amazingly cool mechanic that could seriously impact PvP & PvE tactics.

It's a bold move. This game needs more bold moves.

Yanking someone inappropriately during a boss fight could cause a wipe...just like breaking CC. That's good.

Healing can be dull. You stare at raid frames and play whack-a-mole. Giving us a different mechanic to save someone from either aggro or fire is quite cool IMO. And it will draw us into the action more.

Guarantee the cool down will be longer than 45 sec, though, or will be nerfed at some point.
 

Actually, I think this is a really bad idea until we learn more about it from Blizzard. There's no mention in the preview of how it affects aggro.

For example, let’s say you have a DPS class that suddenly pulled aggro off of the tank. How does this spell “rescue” them from aggro? Does it drop all aggro on the target or does it merely bring the enraged boss over to the healer since he’s also brought the number one threat target over to his position? I can also see all sorts of accidental misuse of this spell. What happens if your priest accidently targets the main tank and leaps them back? If the spell drops all aggro, holy cow you also just rearranged the mob’s threat table. You’ve moved yourself up to the number one spot based on proximity aggro and pretty much wiped your group or raid.
 

oooh oooooh I just thought of this... in PVP you have 6 priests. You line them up on the Warsong Gulch field.. Flag carrier jumps down.. then priests yank them all the way across the field at super speed FTW!

I guess the affected person gets a debuff just like with shield, so that one guy cannot be pulled around.
 

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I don't play WoW anymore, but wouldn't this ruin BGs? Stick a few priests 30 yards apart in a line and have them insta-grab a flag carrier halfway across the map in 2 seconds. Wheeeee...
 

The main problem with Leap of Faith is that the raid member who can't learn to get out of the fire in time now is able to point the finger at the healer and shout "I died because you didn't pull me out of the fire".

I disagree with this statement. Right now, there are already several ways to save DPS standing in a fire which includes healing them through it and using CDs.

I believe in all raids (from high-end to low-end), standing in the fire will still universally be considered bad.
 

And as for the potential for griefing, there already exists several spells in the game which can do it - Misdirect, Paladin BoP, DPS taunts, etc.

Leap of Faith can only be used on party and raid members. If a priest becomes annoying, simply /kick. So, I believe this issue is blown way out of proportion.
 

To those who are worried about griefing in raids (or somewhat less apllicably, battlegrounds): how often does your raid wipe because a melee DPS taunted the boss? How often does your raid wipe because someone Hand of Protectioned the tank? How often does your raid wipe because someone misdirected or tricksed a healer? How often does your raid wipe because someone Divine Interventioned the tank? How often does the raid wipe because the Pally tank bubbled? There are already plenty of ways to punk a raid, this is just another on the list. It's not unprecedented, people will do it for shits and giggles, and then once the novelty wears off a bit people will put it to great use, like all the other tools.
 

Just wait until a priest in a raid, battleground, or random invite pulls you somewhere that will get you killed, ganked by the other faction, forced to hearth, etc.

I'll be waiting to see player made videos of priests abusing this to grief other players. Terrible idea very exploitable and with few practical applications.
 

No offense meant, Adam, I am just honestly curious here:

What is the function of the comments function in blogs/this blog? Is it a dialogue between commenters or a place where readers can type their words of encouragement/discouragement to the blogger? How do you see it, Tobold?

More specifically, is it considered good form to read through the comments to a blog post before commenting on it yourself?

As I said at the beginning: I don't mean any disrespect to you, Adam. I am just genuinely unsure what the purpose of the comments function is. For the record, I have always seen the comments as an extension of the post itself.
 

What is the function of the comments function in blogs/this blog? Is it a dialogue between commenters or a place where readers can type their words of encouragement/discouragement to the blogger? How do you see it, Tobold? More specifically, is it considered good form to read through the comments to a blog post before commenting on it yourself?

I would say the comment section certainly should be a dialogue, but some commenters choose to discuss only the original post, while others start a discussion among themselves.

On the one side it is somewhat annoying if two people post the same idea or information in the comments, with the second poster obviously not having read the first poster's comment. On the other side a comment thread can grow much longer than the original post, and I can understand if somebody doesn't want to read all of it.
 

Yes, you're probably right. I'll just grin badly whenever it happens and move on, with a proudly superior attitude ;)
 

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Oscar: I usually scan over a majority of the existing posts and then make my comment. I don't have the time nor inclination to read every post in a long discussion, so I go with probability. Sadly, someone had brought up my same issue in the few comments between when I stopped reading (about 20 posts down) and when I posted.
 

I'm a healing priest (well, sometimes) and I love this spell for many of the mentioned reasons. I love it for the amazing depth of the mechanic ("heals" for a variable amount based on the amount of damage you caused them to avoid, can aid in kiting, positioning, damage, etc.) I love it because flying and throwing people around is fun (in fact, I suspect the glut of jumping spells is due to the amazing reception the ICC funship battle got.) I love the spell because of the potential for griefing.

The only caution I think the community ought to take with regards to Life Grip is that killing someone with your joke isn't funny. I learned that the hard way when I put on Path of Frost at the bottom of that really deep pit in Azjol-Nerub.