Feeling PriestlyFollow

Never thought I'd say this... mostly because I am strictly a "DPS" kind of person, but healing people is actually a pretty fun aspect of the game. I always thought that you had to be a certain kind of person to be a healer and enjoy it.

I have a Hunter for my main and while it is very fulfilling, just dpsing away seems to have left me in a void for the past month. So I decided to roll a Priest in hopes that I could see WoW from a different perspective.

After much reading up on the class and being very confused with what stats are important for what spec and why, I decided to level up as the Shadow spec (for mainly fast leveling). I understood that a healing priest is more needed in most cases so I always added in my comment that I was shadow, but willing to heal. At level 65 or so I respecced to Disc. I find the aspect of mitigating damage and putting people in protective bubbles interesting. To say the least, I found Penance an awesome spell! I would sit in Org and just Penance people walking by out of boredom.

I stayed Disc until level 68 when I got to Northrend. I have to say that I liked seeing those crit heals as much as I like seeing all 3 ticks of Explosive Shot crit. I respecced Shadow for faster leveling. Sitting at 76 now and I can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The level where I will respec back to being a healer again and throwin them balls of crit heals at my party/raid members!

I'm glad that these forums are here. I've learned a ton from everyone.

What made you decide to roll a Priest?

*edit* Forgot to add the question that I made the post for.

Edited, Apr 2nd 2009 4:25pm by Bleam

Bleam FFXI (Retired) 75MNK/SAM/NIN/SMN/THF  
Bleam WoW (Retired) 80 Druid 
Golf WoW (Retired) 80 Death Knight 
Tewksberry WoW (Retired) 80 Hunter 
Rahana WoW (Retired) 80 Priest

Okay, I'll tell you the truth, but it's kind of embarrassing. I was switching to Horde because my rotten evil husband is a rotten evil influence on me. I liked undead best but I didn't like how they looked in anything other than robes. I stink at mage (can't kite worth a darn) and don't enjoy playing a warlock. So I grudgingly rolled a priest even though I whined to the aforesaid husband that I thought it would be hard to level and really doubted I'd like it.

I was buying the priest t-shirt from Jinx by level, I'm gonna guess 12.

And in 80 levels, she's never once worn chest armor that wasn't a robe.

I love that you love priest. :D

I started WoW back in November, and I'd only played a single MMO before (FFXI, back for about six months in 2004). I'd played a dps mage in FFXI, but I'd had a close friend who was a healer in that game, and her role always looked so tempting to me. I just liked the way that heals were a pivotal role that everyone depended on...it never got that glory of the nukes and arrow crits, but I could tell there was a real art to it. If I'd stayed in FFXI I would likely have abandoned my Black Mage and gravitated toward White Mage (the primary healing class).

But I left that game a long time ago, and after my half-decade MMO hiatus I was ready for something different...so WoW it was! I rolled a priest knowing very little about the game but anticipating parties, and I was really shocked at how soloable the content is. (For any of you unfamiliar with FFXI, suffice it to say that it is nearly impossible to do anything meaningful in the game without being part of a 6-person group. Period. You cannot level solo in FFXI.)

So my little priest was really lonely for a long time...and I wondered whether I'd made the right choice until I started actually healing parties around level 22 or so. Then I got the bug bigtime. I *love* keeping people alive. There's an adrenaline rush that's not anything quite like the dps buzz I used to get from my black mage nuker.

I leveled shadow (and really enjoyed that class solo in its own right) but healed parties anyway....I think it made me a stronger healer, actually, because in my ignorance of disc and holy mechanics I was forced to learn mana conservation and how to get very creative with a very small palette of heals.

I like that as a healer I have to make a lot of split-second decisions; raiding feels like a constant puzzle to me sometimes, which can be draining when learning difficult new fights but is ultimately rewarding for me on a level dps'ing never seemed to be.

I am also a nursing student in real life, so maybe healy-ness is sort of an ingrained thing for me? ^^

At the time I was going to getting into WoW (before it was released), I thought my best quality was that I loved helping people out. Back then, the priest was still (presented as?) the best healer in the game, and I decided to completely focus on healing. My pall who was going to play with me would be rolling a druid and neither of us had the slightest belief in the possibility that we could play multiple characters. We probably couldn't have, back then, anyway. I played my first priest through pretty much all content around up to MC.

Then I had some huuuuge real-life and in-game drama (real-life drama being in relation with said pall), and I decided to completely reroll on a completely different server. I had a level 4ish rogue which I liked a lot on an RP server, and I started playing him more because I wanted to be on a RP server than because I wanted to play a rogue. I never 'purposefully' decided I wanted to be a rogue, but I was just enjoying the horde, RP and sneaky life so thoroughly that I had my rogue to 60 before I knew it.

Then TBC came, and I leveled the rogue on to 70 while I made a Blood Elf priest, had a very good time questing out Eversong and the Ghostlands and spend 3 days /playtime on RPing in Silvermoon. After that, more real-life drama ensured that I was going to take a break from the game as a whole. During this time I actually played LOTRO, but fair enough. 2 months later two palls of mine decided that they were going to give WoW a try, and they got me to decide to join them. I went back and logged in on my level 18 druid, which was the only character on the server I had close enough to my two palls to play with them. I actually got him all the way to 65 playing with the two palls, before I went back to my rogue.

At that point I became interested in raiding once more, but absolutely hated that I needed to be combat specced on my rogue for that (a spec I thoroughly detest). I then decided healing was simply the thing that I liked most to do in a raid, and got the idea to level up a new healer. I had tried all healing classes pretty intensively at this point and simply liked the priest the best since it was most 'jack-of-all-trades'. I could let go a greater heal on target A, shield target B, flash heal target C and follow up with a renew+flash heal on target B. No other healing class played like this. Druid had too much focus on HOTs while paladin had too much focus on direct heals, and shaman just seemed very odd to me to play with abilities like chain heal. I went back to that Blood Elf priest I had RP'd on earlier, leveled him up to 70, then up to 80 when WOTLK came, and got him into raiding.


Long story short, I started off as a priest because I felt that 'helping people' was my best quality (and as an in-game priest I would actually be rewarded for it in the form of being able to find groups/guilds more easily), left the class due to drama and got back into it when I decided priest was in fact the class to raid with for me.

I currently have a 64 priest and love the hell out of it. I tell people I know/knew in game that it is my new main.

I rolled priest out of frustration with the "dps" class. Playing rogue for 2.5 yrs, the current style of any dps toon makes me sad (holding back from a f*** DK's rant b/c I despise the class and feel it ruined the game FOR ME! FOR ME, not you, so shhh). I just got tired of hitting the same gd buttons and doing nothing interesting but "staying out of the fire". I know my 1,2,3,4,5 keys are getting tired in general, but I just got tired of being able to watch TV while playing my role.

Healing was were I set my mind, and priest was were I landed. I have a 66 paly who is holy spec'd, but after enough encounters with a pally on my rogue I developed a deep hatred for the class regardless of who's side they are on. Along with being holy from the moment she stepped into outlands, I just don't like the way they heal. One of my rl buddies plays a pally, the other plays a druid, another plays a shaman... so it was all I could do to be original, and at least half my rl friends who play long for a priest when I talk about it.

Disc priest FTW, have been since lvl 13, and he will be until I stop playing..

I decided to roll a (Holy from level 10!) priest for many of the same reasons other people have listed. I always wanted to be part of somthing larger than myself; I always wanted to be a hero. In real life I feel like I've never had the power to do some kind of major thing to help other people. I have a deep need to be needed and appreciated. I don't care about the glory so much as just seeing my team do well. It fills a psychological need for me.

WoW was not my first MMO. I've played Runescape, Dark Ages of Camelot, Dungeons and Dragons Online and a couple of others and any time I've had the option I have always played a healer. :)

Hmmm... A priest was my first character when I started waaaay back in Dec 2005. I've always been group oriented when working, so doing something that will help out in a group was what I'd thought I'd do ... and over 20 years of playing Clerics in one form or another in D&D didn't kick me out of the healbot mode, so I guess nothing will. :)

And to this day, healing (5 mans, duos/trios, or raids) is one of the things I enjoy doing most in the game. Also being one of the premier DPS (not necessarily the highest numbers, but the most consistent and versatile) in my small-ish guild, is fun.