A couple questions I hope you can clear up. I would like to try out a Blood Elf Priest. I find though, that a lot of the early quests involve closely positioned enemies that may be difficult to take down. If I can not find anyone to group with, is there a way to take them on by myself. Also, what I was wondering is how effective soloing with a priest before shadowform is. I found one of my friends is a mage and he says not to even bother with a mage because they can never compare to a mage in pve or pvp.
I was looking up mages and I saw a level 76 paladin taken down by a level 80 frost mage in under 12 seconds. So is what he says about the comparison true? I was hoping some of you priests could help me thanks.
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I've played every class to at least 20, several much higher than that. I found my priest surprisingly efficient and very, very fun to level. It's a matter of playstyle, but definitely don't rule the class out because you're worried about being able to level.
The first few levels are tough, but nothing impossible. With multiple enemies like you mention, pull singles wherever possible, and use your fear, shield, and self-heal to best effect.
Once you get higher level, multiple enemies as Shadow is much less of an issue. DOT 'em and forget 'em.
The first few levels are tough, but nothing impossible. With multiple enemies like you mention, pull singles wherever possible, and use your fear, shield, and self-heal to best effect.
Once you get higher level, multiple enemies as Shadow is much less of an issue. DOT 'em and forget 'em.
The main thing you are going to want to do when leveling is get a good wand, whatever is the best you can find every so many levels. This because you want to get out of the FSR and take full advantage of Life Tap.
You want to pull with your spell that takes longest to cast, dot the mob up, strafe away until they are in range of Mind Flay, then use MF until they get to you or it breaks and start hitting them with the wand. Take this generally (customize as you see fit) and you will be able to pull without stopping for mana breaks, it's very efficient. Just be sure to learn to strafe away, don't run backwards it is much slower and you want to give the dot as much time to hurt them as possible.
For multiple mobs it is similar, always keep your dots up and fear them away when you can. Shield yourself and cast renew.
You won't equal the raw, mass destructive power of a frost mage, but you are still very powerful and this was "old school" pre-BC leveling.
You want to pull with your spell that takes longest to cast, dot the mob up, strafe away until they are in range of Mind Flay, then use MF until they get to you or it breaks and start hitting them with the wand. Take this generally (customize as you see fit) and you will be able to pull without stopping for mana breaks, it's very efficient. Just be sure to learn to strafe away, don't run backwards it is much slower and you want to give the dot as much time to hurt them as possible.
For multiple mobs it is similar, always keep your dots up and fear them away when you can. Shield yourself and cast renew.
You won't equal the raw, mass destructive power of a frost mage, but you are still very powerful and this was "old school" pre-BC leveling.
Your friend is an idiot. Get better friends. Play whatever you want to play. Priests won't have the dps, or damage, like a mage but they don't suck and they can heal. I'd rather level a priest than a mage and I can do it faster too. But I am a little biased.
Leveled a mage to 60ish +, and a Priest to 80. I'll say right now, that the Priest was the easiest and fastest one to level. Nowhere near the burst damage/AoE damage of a mage, but the sheer steady damage I could dish out combined with the survivability and self/group heals? Can't be beaten. As for soloing, it's one of the easiest classes I've ever leveled when it comes to survivability.
Timing Bubble, Fear, DoT(s) and so on, coupled with a steady Renew ticking means that you can basically take down anything but the biggest and baddest groups of mobs. And for taking out elites? The Priest is better at it than mages. Where the mage relies on heavy damage right off the bat, with kiting as the secondary option, Priests quite simply outlast the Elites. A Mage caught in melee combat and the boss is unkiteable? A red smear on the ground. A Priest caught within melee and Fear doesn't work? The Bubble being refreshed every time the debuff is gone, self-heals, DoTs and so on... Well, it beats the Mage hands down.
If you're worried about survivability, go Disc. If you're worried about sheer damage output? Go Shadow. Either way, you'll solo just fine or even better than many classes and you'll be wanted in groups for your healing capability.
Timing Bubble, Fear, DoT(s) and so on, coupled with a steady Renew ticking means that you can basically take down anything but the biggest and baddest groups of mobs. And for taking out elites? The Priest is better at it than mages. Where the mage relies on heavy damage right off the bat, with kiting as the secondary option, Priests quite simply outlast the Elites. A Mage caught in melee combat and the boss is unkiteable? A red smear on the ground. A Priest caught within melee and Fear doesn't work? The Bubble being refreshed every time the debuff is gone, self-heals, DoTs and so on... Well, it beats the Mage hands down.
If you're worried about survivability, go Disc. If you're worried about sheer damage output? Go Shadow. Either way, you'll solo just fine or even better than many classes and you'll be wanted in groups for your healing capability.
10 posts
Im leveling a priest now and im up to 56 so take what you want from this but its a ton of fun.
Start lvling shadow and dont stop. Start with 3/3 spirit tap and you should be good on mana forever. The only time I stop to drink anything is if I run into a mob of 3 and have to bomb a few mind blasts, Shadow word pains and mind flays. 1 thing I can tell you is if you get an add always DOT it up and keep rolling on the initial target.
Start lvling shadow and dont stop. Start with 3/3 spirit tap and you should be good on mana forever. The only time I stop to drink anything is if I run into a mob of 3 and have to bomb a few mind blasts, Shadow word pains and mind flays. 1 thing I can tell you is if you get an add always DOT it up and keep rolling on the initial target.
#7REDACTED,
Posted: Jan 28 2009 at 8:25 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Comments like this are not necessary.
No. Healing as Holy/Disc while leveling is a crutch and won't teach you anything. Heal as Shadow while leveling and in Normals, and you'll have to learn how to heal just because of that. Threat management, mana management, which heals fit where, maximising mana to amount healed ratio and so on. Speccing Holy/Disc or Disc/Holy for healing in normals/leveling means that you are leaning on talents instead of learning how to heal properly.
Once you can heal great as Shadow in normals/leveling, that's when you can specc Holy or Disc for Heroic/Raidhealing and show off your skills. Then the talents will only increase and compliment your already existing skill at healing instead of carrying your lack of skill at healing.
Once you can heal great as Shadow in normals/leveling, that's when you can specc Holy or Disc for Heroic/Raidhealing and show off your skills. Then the talents will only increase and compliment your already existing skill at healing instead of carrying your lack of skill at healing.
At level 5 buy a Lesser Magic Wand at the AH.
At level 13 buy a Greater Magic Wand at the AH.
They are great wands, reasonably cheap and almost always available on the AH as they are good leveling items for enchanting.
At level 13 buy a Greater Magic Wand at the AH.
They are great wands, reasonably cheap and almost always available on the AH as they are good leveling items for enchanting.
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No. Healing as Holy/Disc while leveling is a crutch and won't teach you anything. Heal as Shadow while leveling and in Normals, and you'll have to learn how to heal just because of that. Threat management, mana management, which heals fit where, maximising mana to amount healed ratio and so on. Speccing Holy/Disc or Disc/Holy for healing in normals/leveling means that you are leaning on talents instead of learning how to heal properly.
Once you can heal great as Shadow in normals/leveling, that's when you can specc Holy or Disc for Heroic/Raidhealing and show off your skills. Then the talents will only increase and compliment your already existing skill at healing instead of carrying your lack of skill at healing.
Once you can heal great as Shadow in normals/leveling, that's when you can specc Holy or Disc for Heroic/Raidhealing and show off your skills. Then the talents will only increase and compliment your already existing skill at healing instead of carrying your lack of skill at healing.
Just because it has to be said: that's not the ultimate truth. Levelling as your respective spec teaches you other, more specialized things, but it can educate you on your class as well. I agree on most of what North said, but don't think healing as shadow per definition learns you more than leveling as a healer spec. Either has it's pros and cons.
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I was looking up mages and I saw a level 76 paladin taken down by a level 80 frost mage in under 12 seconds. So is what he says about the comparison true? I was hoping some of you priests could help me thanks.
Unless the paladin was holy that mage was crap. That is more the timeframe I would expect for a 76 mage taking down an 80 paladin. But you have to keep in mind that Paladins tent to have issues with casters.
Put that mage up against a rogue and you'll have a completely different story the mage won't even know what hit em. Put that rogue up agains my prot pally and I'll stand there and laugh at them while they kill themselves on my reflective damage, get the idea?
#12REDACTED,
Posted: Jan 29 2009 at 2:06 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Now-a-days, most people towards the upper 40s and beyond won't invite Shadow Priests to heal or if they find out you are Shadow, you'll be ejected from the party.
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Way too many Priests who spec Shadow and try healing die because they have no real threat reduction.
FTFY. The first but is true, but this has absolutely nothing to do with threat reduction. The only thread reduction healing priests CAN have over shadow priests is Silent Resolve, and most priests no longer include that in their builds because well... it sucks. Even in PUGs with the most worthless tanks I can easily live without it. And to add in to that, even shadow priests generally go into the disc priest up to Meditation, which means Silent Resolve can be picked up along the road anyway.
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Now-a-days, most people towards the upper 40s and beyond won't invite Shadow Priests to heal or if they find out you are Shadow, you'll be ejected from the party.
Doing that is pretty stupid, but aye, it is indeed a con of levelling shadow. Good example that ties in with my earlier post.
Not only stupid, but bloody retarded. All leveling instances, and even 80 normals are tuned for people in green questgear and offspeccs. And I can tell you right now, while leveling my Shadowpriest, I only got to dps in two instances. In all other instances I was the healer and I was expected to be. And this is after I tell them my specc before the group gathers at the instance ( I always play with such cards open, to make sure there's no "omg u r shado lol?" later on ). I never as a Priest had the slightest problem getting groups to instances. Especially not if I said "(insert level) Spriest lfg (insert instance), I'll dps or heal".
Group invite within two minutes maximum. Usually I could barely get my finger off the enter key.
Another thing? There wasn't a single instance I couldn't heal perfectly on normal, as a Shadowpriest. No Holy/Disc threat reduction. No healing talents. No special gear, hell it was even sub-optimal as I went for Stam/Int for PvP instead of Spi/Int on most of my gear. The reason I healed it just fine? Because I learned how to heal. I healed every last instance I went into perfectly, because I learned exactly how my spells worked and which fit in that situation.
And it helps if you take the effort to maximize your UI efficiency with Stopcasting macros, proper unitframes and DoT/HoT/Buff/Debuff timers.
Flip side: If you actually find that you can't heal a normal instance as fully Shadow, with a semi-decent tank in semi-decent questgear... Well, reroll or stay Shadow entirely. You quite simply suck too hard at healing. Remember, all normals are tuned for offspeccs and questgreen gear.
Anyway, you claim that healing as Holy or Disc teaches you something, while completely refuting that healing as Shadow teaches something. Yet, you don't give a single example or point out anything to back up that argument. Care to do so, or should those of us who know these things from experience just ignore you as yet another fail?
Group invite within two minutes maximum. Usually I could barely get my finger off the enter key.
Another thing? There wasn't a single instance I couldn't heal perfectly on normal, as a Shadowpriest. No Holy/Disc threat reduction. No healing talents. No special gear, hell it was even sub-optimal as I went for Stam/Int for PvP instead of Spi/Int on most of my gear. The reason I healed it just fine? Because I learned how to heal. I healed every last instance I went into perfectly, because I learned exactly how my spells worked and which fit in that situation.
And it helps if you take the effort to maximize your UI efficiency with Stopcasting macros, proper unitframes and DoT/HoT/Buff/Debuff timers.
Flip side: If you actually find that you can't heal a normal instance as fully Shadow, with a semi-decent tank in semi-decent questgear... Well, reroll or stay Shadow entirely. You quite simply suck too hard at healing. Remember, all normals are tuned for offspeccs and questgreen gear.
Anyway, you claim that healing as Holy or Disc teaches you something, while completely refuting that healing as Shadow teaches something. Yet, you don't give a single example or point out anything to back up that argument. Care to do so, or should those of us who know these things from experience just ignore you as yet another fail?
I went disc at 78, because I met a fun tank in an instance and ended up running stuff with him non-stop. I intended to respec at 80 anyway, so it was no big deal. After a few heroics, I was a damn good disc healer. None of the skills that a disc priest use to be effective were available to me as shadow, so there was no way I could have learned them otherwise.
Then I went holy. My first few days were terrible, as I no longer had the abilities I was used to, and went into a sorta brain dead panic state when I got confused. Now I'm pretty darn good at holy, using all the tools in the toolbox appropriately. Once again, I could not have learned this as shadow.
If your idea of healing is spamming renew, shield, flash heal, and greater heal, then sure, you can "learn your class" as any spec. You can heal any pre-heroic using these tools, and they are certainly available to any priest spec. However, any further than that, and all your experience as shadow does you little good. I still fully support leveling as shadow, even if you plan to respec at 80, as it is faster and you can still heal on the way up. I wouldn't say that not knowing how to make full use of a disc or holy spec makes you a fail healer if you've never done it.
Then I went holy. My first few days were terrible, as I no longer had the abilities I was used to, and went into a sorta brain dead panic state when I got confused. Now I'm pretty darn good at holy, using all the tools in the toolbox appropriately. Once again, I could not have learned this as shadow.
If your idea of healing is spamming renew, shield, flash heal, and greater heal, then sure, you can "learn your class" as any spec. You can heal any pre-heroic using these tools, and they are certainly available to any priest spec. However, any further than that, and all your experience as shadow does you little good. I still fully support leveling as shadow, even if you plan to respec at 80, as it is faster and you can still heal on the way up. I wouldn't say that not knowing how to make full use of a disc or holy spec makes you a fail healer if you've never done it.
#16REDACTED,
Posted: Jan 29 2009 at 11:18 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Not calling you a liar or anything, but I can claim that I main tanked Naxx as my arcane mage if I wanted to and had no problems.
Saaru wrote:
*snips all the stuff, just marking who I am replying to.
Yes, speccing Disc or Holy means you'll have to learn how to use those talent trees. But that doesn't mean you can learn healing from it. No matter which Holy/Disc specc you choose, there'll be new tools for you to use, but that doesn't help you in the slightest if you don't know the basics. And to learn the basics, you start with the basics. Gheal, Renew, weak Bubble, FH and Dispels. That's more than enough for anyone leveling a healing class for the first time.
Once you've mastered healing as Shadow, that's when you're ready to start dealing with much more massive Singletarget healing (Disc) with more incentive to use Bubble and so on. That's when you're ready to proceed to use CoH and so on within a holy specc, because you already know the basics and can now expand into more complicated raidhealing and judging which tools are good for what.
Jumping straight into any of them right off the bat will give you a plethora of tools, and no real place for you to learn where they fit in. And once you get into more serious situations where you have to do exactly the right things in the right sequence, it's too late to learn the basics. Level as Shadow, heal as shadow, learn to heal as Shadow. Then you're ready to leave kindergarten and start educating yourself within Holy/Disc.
Oh, and Matt... As I said earlier. Back your posts up with something. Anything. Even if it's just completely personal reasonings with no real mechanics behind them. Just anything... Everyone can be a liar, but until you've given anything to counter their arguments they still stand as the most reasonable ones.
#18REDACTED,
Posted: Jan 29 2009 at 12:27 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) What more do I need than the facts that were laid out in front of you? lol
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A couple questions I hope you can clear up. I would like to try out a Blood Elf Priest. I find though, that a lot of the early quests involve closely positioned enemies that may be difficult to take down. If I can not find anyone to group with, is there a way to take them on by myself. Also, what I was wondering is how effective soloing with a priest before shadowform is. I found one of my friends is a mage and he says not to even bother with a mage because they can never compare to a mage in pve or pvp.
I have levelled a priest and a mage to 26 so far (both alts, and my druid is taking up most of my time these days) but to be honest the priest was definitely more fun than the mage.
It was hard/boring to start with, but I found after around level 15 I had enough new spells to pretty much just power through quests and never look like dying. I could handle adds much more easily as the priest, and I solo'd stuff in Ghostlands with my priest that my mage needed to group for... make of that what you will. :)
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I don't find that it sucks and neither do a lot of experienced healers.
Sure, in the end it's just a matter of opinion since threat is a variable that depends greatly on group make-up. But it's a fact that the average Naxx run allows you to heal without ever aggroing without picking the talent up. "The average" technically means "that which is to be expected", and it's generally a smart thing to gear and spec for "that which is to be expected". While there might be servers where the tanks are unconditionally more worse than normal, on the average PUG run you should be able to heal without ever getting aggro without grabbing Silent Resolve, regardless of spec.
Yóur experience might be that plenty of healing shadow priests died trough grabbing aggro, but I'd say such an experience is so exceptional one should not expect to come across it enough for the phenomenom to be actually specifically named. If you think differently, feel free to back your point of view up with examples from other players who share your view.
Edited, Jan 30th 2009 4:35am by Mozared
#21REDACTED,
Posted: Jan 30 2009 at 1:50 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Back my point of view with examples from other players? We're keeping on topic and between us, Bob. You also wanna be careful because the OP is looking for serious information.
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Do you ever browse other forums? I've read quite a few threads in the past of people complaining to healers who have no reduction. Most of the "end-game" healers i've seen who do not do so are...
http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t35208-wotlk_healing_compendium_v3_0_theorycraft_specs_etc/
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Q: What talents are low priority, or useless now? (for PvE)
A: Silent Resolve. Blessed Recovery. Focused Will. Blessed Resilience. Reflective Shield. Searing Light. Unbreakable Will. Improved Divine Spirit. Improved Mana Burn. Martyrdom.
A: Silent Resolve. Blessed Recovery. Focused Will. Blessed Resilience. Reflective Shield. Searing Light. Unbreakable Will. Improved Divine Spirit. Improved Mana Burn. Martyrdom.
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I read through the forums, and I am completely baffled as to why anyone would spec into improved inner light? Why not silent resolve? I tried to look around for this reasoning. Could someone tell me
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Inner fire at level 71 also boosts spellpower. Silent Resolve is essentially unnecessary, as threat is not a concern in any reasonable environment.
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They're both weak talents, but Improved Inner Fire at least does something, which is more than you can say about Silent Resolve with the current state of tank threat. Of course, if the threat situation changes, it's easy to move the Inner Fire points over later.
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I know that Silent Resolve isn't on anyone's list for raiding, but from the 5-mans I've run, I wouldn't go without it.
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I don't have Silent Resolve and I haven't had any problem in 5-mans. Not even with undergeared and inexperienced Death Knight tanks.
(Comments can be found on page 1, 3, 9 and 10 if you want to look them up)
I stopped looking after page 10, but for the first 10 pages nobody has even tried to argue the point that Silent Resolve is useless for raids. And only one person states he really wants it for 5-mans.
Also, http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t39858-raids_healing_3_0_priest/
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4. Threat will be a problem, only fight in the game I reccomend specing Silent Resolve.
(That fight being Sartharion with drakes up)
And there's tons more of that on EJ which I'm not going to bother all linking here. But since you asked if I ever read other forums and EJ is just one, here you go:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=37168.0
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=31606.0
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=26871.0
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=26014.0
Also, http://bobturkey.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/silent-resolve-vs-improved-inner-fire/
And http://www.wowinsider.com/tag/silent-resolve/ (Even though it's a somewhat old source).
While looking up all these posts for you, aside from that one person on EJ stating he wants it for 5-mans, I yet have to see anybody shed a different light on the talent. Feel free to show me if I've missed it.
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Also, Naxx is nothing.
Regardless if it's easy or not, it's the most high end raiding instance in the game right now, and it's difficulty is only bested by fights like Malygos. Sure, there might be some huge threat change when Ulduar comes out where Silent Resolve becomes a must, but until we know what is going to happen to end-game we should focus on what the situation is like now.
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Back my point of view with examples from other players? We're keeping on topic and between us, Bob. You also wanna be careful because the OP is looking for serious information.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here? The OP was basically asking about information about the priest class, and we've run off into discussing a somewhat important part of it, threat. We are on topic and I'm giving serious information. The reason I'm asking you to back your point up is because you keep saying you've "read" and "heard about" priests constantly dying to threat gain, yet you haven't given us any sources or examples of people who share this way of thinking. If you've read threads about people agreeing with this point of view, link them. I'd have no problems accepting that you are right and I was wrong, if you could only prove your point - all evidence is pointing in the other direction.
#23REDACTED,
Posted: Jan 30 2009 at 12:29 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Someone just went through a lot of work just to back up something that cannot be proven. Kinda reminds me of that one movie... the one with the Baldwin brother... damn, what was it?
SirMattelot wrote:
Someone just went through a lot of work just to back up something that cannot be proven. Kinda reminds me of that one movie... the one with the Baldwin brother... damn, what was it?
You should STFU and try backing up your claims. So far you've proven you're a dubmass around here.
#25REDACTED,
Posted: Jan 30 2009 at 1:44 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Yikes! My angry stalker is blowing his top! I better flee before he tells his mom on me!
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Someone just went through a lot of work just to back up something that cannot be proven.
What I just have attempted to proof is that most sources state that threat as a healing priest isn't a problem and that therefore on average, threat for a healing priest isn't a problem.
Please explain to me how that 'cannot be proven'?
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