Hearthpwn

I literally just played against three priests in a row that dropped Barnes on turn four.  That is about the only thing I don't agree with when it comes to priest right now. It's not that strong of a deck as a whole, but you should not be able to just win off of drawing one card early on. Raza priest is strong, but there are some things to use against it and it is going to wild soon enough. If they become even more rampant after the nerfs people will start working in Mindbreaker. It is more effective than Skulking Geist as a tech card. It can just shut down the priest, where geist can barely phase a druid. I'm curious to see. 

It's weird to say this, but Priest has waaaaay too much heal/lifegain.  I've been playing Highlander priest and I literally cannot be killed. It's like easy mode. Nothing phases me. Big minions are not scary at all because even if I can;t deal with them in the two or three turns, I'm able to heal like 8 - 18 life each turn so who cares if a 7/7 hits me? I have all the removal spells I could ever need, so many that I end games with hands full of removals I don't even need anymore.  Aggro is a problem sometimes if i dont draw good, but not much. Honestly it feels cheap playing priest now and I used to love the challenge of this class. 

Quote from IambicAvenger >>

The major issue I see with Priest is that it has become too easy to play. Priest has consistently been a "tricky" class, and the more modern priest decks take a lot of that away.

Big Priest is obviously pretty easy to pilot - keep controlling the board with spells until you get your Barnes and your Shadow Essence, and hope you've lasted long enough that you don't just get run down. It's not unbeatable - aggro can overrun them if they don't get the right draws, and polymorph and bounce effects go a long way to beating them down. It feels bad to lose to it when you don't draw your answers, but it's beatable.

Razakus Priest is traditionally considered a hard deck to pilot, and obviously there's a lot that goes into rationing your removal spells when you only have one of each. That said, one of my major concerns about it is that the most recent versions are hyper-streamlined for tons of drawing to reach the only two cards in the deck that ever seem to matter anymore (Raza the Chained and Shadowreaper Anduin). This has, in my mind, two major negatives:

1. It's much easier to pilot than previous, more interactive Highlander Priest decks. Today's versions just keep playing draw and AOE until they get the combo and win.
2. It's a very linear form of gameplay that just ends up being kind of boring for both players after a while

I'm not sure there's much to be done about either of those. Major changes to the effects of either of the key cards in that deck would be devastating, and the only thing adjustments to card cost would do is slow it down, neither of which make it more fun.

Balanced, the DK is borderline unlayable without Raza (got him in the EU server as my free dk and it just doesn't work :S), so once raza rotates out we won't see more of Shadowreaper anduin.

While Priest requires DK and Raza to work effectively, it also requires the right draws to have that effective combo. And many times it gets rekt by Aggro, without being able to see Turn 5/6, especially with bad draws. Similarly for Big Priest, it requires very specific draws to make it combo work (e.g. Barnes). And the chances of getting Barnes on your starting hand is like the same as chances of getting Patches on your starting hand (for Pirate Warrior); chances are considerably slim, but still possible.

If you play Standard, both Raza and Kazakus will be gone on the next Standard cycle, which means that Razakus/Highlander Priest will be gone as well. And Priest DK won't be as effective as it is anymore; it will be absolutely too high mana cost to keep refreshing your hero power at 2 (instead of 0). No doubt we still have a few months away, and anything could happen especially after the upcoming nerf. Perhaps Big Priest will still be around for quite sometime, due to the newer cards it has in the current archetype.

Priest is fine balance-wise, but Barnes-Eternal Servitude priest is ridiculous and makes you feel like shit when you lose against it. It's basically viable casino mage, gotta tone down the RNG on that one.

Oh man, I can taste some people's tears.

Yes, Barnes into Obsidian Statue or anything else is stupid. But guess what? This is the best Priest has ever been. Priest has been consistently the worst class for ages, and now that Priest has even some strength, people are whining about "It's busted". Yes, I know that I myself have complained about Priest before (but that was due to the deck feeling boring, more than anything), but it's by no means Jade Druid or Pirate Warrior.

Just chill dudes. Let Priest have a moment in the spotlight.

I'm already seeing it....Priest-led meta will not be fun.  At all.  And I say that as a player that has priest as my 2nd most played class.  Raza DK Priest mirror matches simply come down to who can draw Raza/DK faster 90% of the time.  AND it takes 20 minutes (which is fine by me, but considering that it's nothing but getting Raza/DK that matters...I'm not liking it).  Been playing a lot of mirror matches as Raza/DK priest and I'm ALREADY super bored by the matchup.  If other control decks arise, then it might be tolerable.  Otherwise....it's not going to be as fun as all of you other priest mains think it's going to be, IMO.

The problem with priest right now, which will be much worse next expansion and is horrifying in wild is that every card released make the highlander concept more consistant, which by design shouldn't be.. they need to nerf highlander cards for the long term wild health of the game, currently I don't see a reason why not to run reno and kazakus in every kabal deck in wild, and reno in every none aggro/combo deck.

raza should get hit too setting a refreshing hero power to 0 is unhealthy, it's too powerful.. next expansion razakus priest will be druid tier unless nerfed, and warlock and mage will play kazakus again, cause it won't have a real downside with a big card pool.

I currently play mostly highlander priest, and I will be the first to admit the deck is busted beyond what is reasonably funny. But it is also damn fun to play.

Quote from DoubleSummon >>

The problem with priest right now, which will be much worse next expansion and is horrifying in wild is that every card released make the highlander concept more consistant, which by design shouldn't be.. they need to nerf highlander cards for the long term wild health of the game, currently I don't see a reason why not to run reno and kazakus in every kabal deck in wild, and reno in every none aggro/combo deck.

raza should get hit too setting a refreshing hero power to 0 is unhealthy, it's too powerful.. next expansion razakus priest will be druid tier unless nerfed, and warlock and mage will play kazakus again, cause it won't have a real downside with a big card pool.

Yeah, Wild, where a stupid Naga can summon 6 giants for 0 mana.

Do you mind terribly if we focus on Standard?

Welp.

Now that the patches have hit.

EVEN MORE PRIESTSTONE! AMEN!

Personally think Priest is strong, but not overpowered. Will be interesting to see how the nerfs influence what decks are being played. Midrange hunter and tempo rogue might squeeze priest a bit harder. We might even see some control warrior again?!