Loving my new PriestessFollow

Hi folks.

A while back, I decided to level a healer, having leveled a warrior, rogue, mage and DK to 70 (the mage has gone to 75, and the warrior is on the brink on 80.) I play all 4 classes as DPS (well, I suppose that's all a rogue or mage can do), but have recently committed to respecing my warrior and building him as a tank.

I've been playing this game for 2 and a half years now, and have finally decided that I should start playing according to the Multiplayer rules that this game is based upon .. ie, playing with others ;-) Respeccing as tank was the first step ... rolling a healer is the second (seeing as none of my other toons can pass as a healer ... bandaging doesn't count ;->)

So I came here, my go-to resource for all things WoW, and read up a few things regarding all the healer classes available ... I settled on Priest purely because it's the class which (to me at least) embodies the essence of a healer (much the way the warrior embodies the essence of a tank).

I just came here to say thanks for all the wonderful advice you guys deal out. How I managed to get to level 8 (I'm 16 now) without a wand, I will never know ... as soon as my enchanter mage made a "lesser magic wand" and sent it off in the mail, things took a drastic turn for the good (who'd have thought a 12 dps wand would be a better stand-in than a 3 dps mace ... go figure). Using a wand for anything but stats never entered my head before I read it here.

Of course, spending the first 3 points in Spirit Tap turned out to be a mandatory move (something I wouldn't have done, putting my points in blackout instead) ... they should be allocated there by default as soon as you hit level 10, 11 and 12 ... such is the profound difference it made on the leveling experience. I went from (before acquiring the wand) using 75% of my mana pool per mob, and subsequently drinking after every fight to now pretty much not stopping at all (Wise use of the wand at relevant times helping out there amazingly).

Just point or 2 I've picked up while reading some of the recent threads here.

1) Someone mentioned casting SW:P before MB once you get to a certain level to make use of some talents at that level, specifically pointing out that this would change your earlier leveling rotations. I'm assuming the talent being referred to here is Misery. Now, the question is ... is the 15% extra damage to Mind Blast calculated when you start casting, or when the cast is finished. I ask this because if it is calculated at start of the cast, then sure, it makes perfect send to hit your SW:P button first. However, if (while using quartz or the equivalent) you start casting MB, then hit SW:P just before the cast bar finishes ... then SW:P is applied before MB, theoretically giving MB it's extra 15%.

2) Is blackout any good in a Shadow leveling spec ... a chance to stun sounds great, but if I wanted to get Mindflay at 20, I would need to skip either blackout or imp SW:P. I suppose I could always go back and pick those up, but with Mindflay applying a slow, is spending 5 points searching for a stun really worth it.

Thanks again folks, keep the good stuff coming.


Edited, Feb 4th 2009 10:26am by Calimo

Edited, Feb 4th 2009 10:27am by Calimo

Fair enough, makes sense actually ... the only reason you're actually able to cast SW:P "Before" MB is finished casting is because MB has actually already finished casting ... that little red section in quartz is actually indicating that the cast is finished.

So, once I start getting misery, I open with SW:P ... seems contrary to the basic rules when working with timed casts and instant casts from a GCD perspective ... but it makes perfect sense.



That's pretty much what I figured .. I just need confirmation.

Thanks.

I also say skip blackout. Its nice, but it just holds you up from getting the better talents further down the tree.

Besides, IIRC, there were some blue posts recently about the desire/intention to remove those random stuns entirely.

Thanks Tea, I sure will stick around, I'm really enjoying the priest (it's my 3rd attempt at one, I wish someone had told me about the importance of wands and spirit tap before ;->).

Yup, the frost talent is Frostbite, and there's an equivalent one in the fire tree called impact. Impact is a 50/50 talent, as in 50% of people will tell you that you need it for leveling, the other 50% will say it's useless. I leveled fire and never speced intto impact, and I can't say I missed it, specifically for the reason Moz pointed out ... things die way before they get to you even if a stun isn't around to stop them for 3 seconds.

Frostbite's another issue though - it's useful not because of the mechanic that allows it to stop your target in it's advance, but rather for the synergy with the talent "Shatter", which drastically increases your crit chance against frozen targets, which targets are considered under frostbite. And yes, it's helluva helpful for kiting.

Heh, yup - the other goodies in the shadow tree are what really got me thinking about the necessity of blackout ... it all looks awesome, and I can't wait to dip further into it ;-)


Of course (D'oh) ... that makes perfect sense, never even thought about that .. thanks.


Edited, Feb 4th 2009 3:07pm by Calimo

I don't usually use my shield unless I absolutley need it. I just put up VE.
So are you saying that I should try and use SW:D every time the cooldown is up, or just once on a mob?

I got it.
I will practice that tonight.

Thanks for your help.