Rolling a priest...Follow

Are you talking in PvE, PvP or both?

In solo PvE, priests have excellent survivability due to the simple fact that you have a shield and a heal. You can even spec for an instant self heal if you're really troubled about the subject.

In PvP, priests have seriously sucky survivability against specific classes until they get obscene amounts of resilience. They do fair well against most other casters, however.

Alchemy will make money in my experience, especially at high levels. People buy armor once but they buy potions and flasks over and over. You can also sell the raw herbs to other alchemists and inscribers. The potion bonus means any potions you use have much better effect giving I think 40% extra (I was alchemist on my pre wrath pala so I'm not sure if they changed it). This can be a huge benefit to a priest, as any class. The alchemists stones also make nice trinkets for a caster.

I used to be a Paladin and changed to a Priest. I played my Paladin for years all the way up to level cap and beyond. If you have only done it for 20 levels you will find the switch easier than I did. It took me a while to get my head round the changes and I died a LOT at first but as I have grown with the levels I love my priest now and couldn't go back to a Paladin. I am a natural healer (I really enjoy the role) and I found the flexibility of the Priest compared to the Paladin amazing (although paladin healing has improved since wrath).

If you want to go caster a well geared Shadow priest can do some serious damage whilst still having some self healing (you cant use Holy Spells in shadow form, you use this to increase damage done and reduce damage taken, but you have some spells that return health to you as you deal damage) and several mana regeneration skills.

There is a lot of information about levelling a priest here and armed with this I mostly did pretty well. I had a few "sticky spots" but I would say my journey was interesting, challenging and totally worth it.


Edited, Mar 27th 2009 5:26am by ysabellstohelit

Some thing that haven't been mentioned:

1) Buy a wand and use it, especially at low levels. This saves a ton of mana fight to fight. I'd Holy Fire, SW:P, bubble while they approach, and wand until dead. The kills take a little longer, but no down time more than makes up for it.

2) At level 10-12, your first three points should go into Spirit Tap in the shadow tree. This is true even if you're going to go Holy or Disc. until 40. Reasoning is same as the wand thing, save mana between pulls = less down time. In a party this won't help you, though...since often you won't get the killing blow. just fyi.

3) At level 40, you should respec to get Shadowform. Shadow is faster dpsing mobs than anything you can do with Holy/Disc, and for instances at this level, you can still adequately heal.

4) While I agree with the earlier comment regarding two gathering professions, I have found Herb/Alch quite fun and profitable. You'll pick up plenty of herbs questing, which you can sell (even the low level ones atm because of all the new inscriptionists) or make nice buff pots for yourself. The pots/elixirs aren't selling, but they're nice for you. Also, I love being able to keep myself in supply of mana, and to a lesser degree health pots. These give me 2 low cost, oh crap buttons.

5) Design a macro for yourself to respond to all the tells you'll get asking for heals. Something courteous so that no matter how annoying someone is, you'll still come out smelling like a rose. E.g.:

Nub: Spec?
You: [Macro] /w I'm shadow thanks for asking, and I'm not interested in an instance atm. Good luck!
Nub: You can dps then right?
You: ((No Reply))

or

Nub: Can you healz 'insert instance name here'?
You: [Macro] /w I'm shadow thanks for asking, and I'm not interested in an instance atm. Good luck!
Nub: You can heal fine in shadowform! 'group invite'
You: ((No Reply)) ((Declines invitation))

or my favorite

Nub: Wana heelz H 'insert instance name'?
You: Ok
Nub: 'group invite' 'inspect you' zomg ur Dics, wtf nubsauce ur pvp spec u cn't heal!
You have been removed from the group
/facepalm

of course there are a million variations of this exchange. Be ready for this. Have fun making up a macro. ;)

6) Finally, check out elitistjerks.com for some good guides about the various trees and their abilities. This is mostly for high level theorycrafters and mini-maxers, but it'll give you some good pointers on improving your performance via gear and spec, spell rotation and so on. There are some good guides on this site and the O boards, but I like those the best.

Enjoy being a priest, I personally love it.

Soooo, either your pally is now a boss, or.... is this your pally?


jussmessenwitcha =P

Yeah ok I had a nub can't explain myself moment. Rate up for making me laugh though. I meant I played it a lot after I hit the level cap, I'm not so uber I levelled beyond the cap, well not yet anyway. *Insert evil laugh here*

Anyway the actual point:



This is mine as well. I get it a lot, usually goes like this:

Nub DK: What spec are you? Looking for healer for XX please?
(if they type like this: "Nub: Wana heelz H 'insert instance name'?" I don't even reply)
Me: Disc Spec and sure I will join
Nub DK: wtf Disc can't heal, go respec Holy and you can come
Me: No thanks, I'll go and heal another Heroic instead, one with people who like Disc healers and realize how good we are. Enjoy looking for another healer.

usually followed about 30-45 minutes later with:

Nub DK: err hi, are you free to come and heal XX please please please? We really need a healer, you can come as Disc if you want. (sometimes, if the wait is like an hour or more they may even apologize to me)
Me: No thanks I'm very busy now for a long time. I have also remembered your name as someone who thinks they know my class and spec and what I am capable of better than I do. Good luck getting me to heal for you, ever. Have a nice day :D

Just for the record I do actually have a list of nubs who do this to me although I have yet to find one who has approached me again


Edited, Mar 30th 2009 5:35am by ysabellstohelit

I open with boom b/c of cast time ... rarely do I need health off VE when opening a fight. If VE increaced the dmg output of MB I would agree with you that it is a fail, alas it does not. As far as VT, speaking to someone "rolling a priest" a level 50 skill seems a moot point at this time.

and Wanding prolongs mana pool for lowbies which equals longer runs which equals more exp with less downtime drinking, Sir

Good point, but one reason for starting with MB is that the entire casting time takes place before the battle begins.

If I start with MB, then VE, SW: P, VT by the time I am done MB is off of cool down and ready to used again with full shadow weaving.

Several things about putting VT at the beginning

• VT doesn't actually damage the mob until it's first tick hits - 3 seconds after the spell lands. SW:P is the same way. This used to be REALLY annoying when a mob wasn't tagged until you damaged it.
• Shadoweaving - this has already been said, but it bears repeating - VT puts up the first stack of Shadowweaving which makes every other spell cast after, more powerful, including Mind Blast.
• Replenishment - Putting VT up makes sure that you get that first replenishment cycle going, early. It helps keep downtime under control while soloing and makes your mana using party members that much happier when you're grouped or in a raid.

My rotation goes like this:

Note: SW is Shadow Weaving and the # after is the number of the stack

VT(SW1) -> VE (No mana, only uses GCD, can be ignored on trash) -> SW:P(SW2) -> MB (SW3) -> MF (SW4 & SW5) -> SW:P (see below) -> VT -> MB -> priority system.

VT starts it. It takes 3 seconds for the first damaging tick to land. With a 200% spellpower coefficient, it's also one of our most damaging spells. Mine, at the start of a fight ticks for 1200. Fully buffed out with SW and no other trinket procs goes for ~1500 per tick. Allowing this to crit in 3.1 for 100% bonus damage is going to so ROCK!

VE can be ignored on trash, but it helps prevent the healer from panicking about you. :) Since it takes no mana, it only uses the GCD it costs you. If you don't want to waste the GCD, this can be left out. I find that spending one GCD a mob means a lot less downtime after a fight. And with the cooldown going away in 3.1, including this on EVERY mob is now an option. And means one less person the healer has to worry about in AOE heavy fights.

SW:P is cast at this point in the rotation because of 5/5 Twisted Faith in my Shadow build (Armory on Shamandin of Garona's useless right now 'cause I logged out Holy). That 10% damage boost to MB and MF makes it important to put SW:P up first. And if SW:P is glyphed, it gives another 10% damage to MF. And yes, MF does give 2 stacks of Shadow Weaving - one for the initial spell hit and one at the first damaging tick. After the first MF, I cast SW:P again due to a quirk in the way Pain & Suffering works on refreshing SW:P. It accounts for changes in spellpower (like trinket activation/procs) but not percentage based damage boosts (like Shadow Weaving). So, if we want SW:P to take into account the extra 8% damage boost (it only got the 2% you had when you cast it, not the extra 2% from the SW stack it proc'd), you need to recast it. If you're doing it right, this should be the last time you cast SW:P on that mob.

At this point, your initial barrage has been laid down. From here on out, it's a priority system. VT should NEVER drop. Mind Blast should not spend more than 3 or 4 seconds (and only because you're finishing off a MF, refreshing VT or DP) off cooldown.

Notice, I didn't mention DP. I only use DP (and I drop it in at the end of the rotation) on bosses that tend to have AOE heavy abilities. This ups my survivability a little. This might (probably will with the Imp DP talent) change in 3.1. I'll have to see. Also, when working with a DK tank, I'll drop DP at the start of the rotation on the mob he's targeting. DP does get passed around when the DK does his Pestilence. Nice little trick for effortlessly boosting yourself on the DPS meters.

Using this rotation, I can honestly say that I've not had to use my Shadowfiend on trash pulls and only seldom on bosses. Most fights (in an instance) will find me finishing the fight with 75% or greater mana remaining. Only on fights that have truly fallen apart and I end up taking over healing duties will leave me running OOM.