Priests

[CurryKnight]

Considering playing a priest but am concerned about its soloing ability. anyone know what this is like? although i would probs make a second char (maybe a hunter)

Is it possible to level the priest fairly quick solo or do you need to be in a party all the time.

(Im not planning on playing priest solo exclusively.)

 

[AhoyHoy]

All classes are capable of levelling reasonably well solo, so you dont need to be partied all the time.

 

[Escape]

Notice this thread, still on the first page

 

[Ottar]

> concerned about its soloing ability

Now, all I have is second hand knowledge so feel free to take with grain of salt. But this is what I hear about priests:

1. Priests are relatively difficult to solo for 1st 10 levels.
2. Priests are a bit less difficult to solo for next 10 levels.
3. The higher you get with levels, the better you solo.

Not that all of it matters because:

1. First 10 levels are easily done within few hours.
2. Next 10 levels are easily done in a few days. So it being harder to start off really doesnt matter in the long run.
3. By the time it will get easy to solo as a priest, you will be chronically unable to do so not because you are not good at it but because there will be dozens of people pm'ing you to join their instance groups

Ottar

 

[Deacan]

Am going a Shadow Priest on a pvp server.

At low levels Priest can solo ok, but at later levels once you start getting high in the Shadow Tree, you will solo fine.

Also shadow priests are a force to be feared in pvp, and can still play main healer in any instance, don't listen to the clowns who say you need a Holy priest for a healer.

Shadow Priest can heal just fine, sure they may not be as efficient as a holy priest in healing, but you still fine at doing it.

Plus in pvp you can shut down their priest with a nice Silence, Shadow Spec ftw!

 

[wutae]

> concerned about its soloing ability

Now, all I have is second hand knowledge so feel free to take with grain of salt. But this is what I hear about priests:

1. Priests are relatively difficult to solo for 1st 10 levels.
2. Priests are a bit less difficult to solo for next 10 levels.
3. The higher you get with levels, the better you solo.

Not that all of it matters because:

1. First 10 levels are easily done within few hours.
2. Next 10 levels are easily done in a few days. So it being harder to start off really doesnt matter in the long run.
3. By the time it will get easy to solo as a priest, you will be chronically unable to do so not because you are not good at it but because there will be dozens of people pm'ing you to join their instance groups

Ottar

1. True
2. True
3. I dont think so =) for a strange reason peeps can do
instances w/o priest...

 

[Fedaykin]

if your levelling a priest go shadow early on, i regret not goign shadow sooner on mine, spirit tap 5/5 makes life SO much easier

 

[SilverHood]

Priests can solo as good, if not better, than most classes.

Just get Spirit tap, as someoen else said, at level 10, and then pump it to 5/5 and you're good to go literally seconds after you finish fighting.

Once you get Mind Blast, soloing becomes a hell of a lot easier, and once you get Mind Flay at level 20, you're laughing.

 

[scrow]

priets solo alot better then other primary healers from other games (like daoc). But I dont think you can say that a priest solo well.

I play a lvl 15 priest, rouges, priest and palis kill alot faster then me. Especially when my Power Word : Shield spell is 3+ lvls old, its gone in 2 hits from a mob.

I must admit I dont have good gear...stupid cloth wouldnt drop for me. Think I take Tailorong in retair so I dont have that problem

 

[SilverHood]

I play a lvl 15 priest, rouges, priest and palis kill alot faster then me.

So priests kill faster than you? :worthy:

You will always have fast and slow levels as a priest, especially when SW and PW:S are several levels old.

As I said, once you get Mind Flay, you're laughing

 

[scrow]

lol...mistype

i ment hunters

 

[CurryKnight]

Notice this thread, still on the first page

ahh crap sorry, ill search before making new posts

:worthy:

 

[CstasY]

Shadow Priest is the way to go! From what I've heard they have a fighting chance against the majority of WoW classes 1on1, and Priests in general are a very valued class in group PvP.

 

[SilverHood]

The irony with the Shadow priest, is that in high end PvP, the shadow priest actually has a better chance of keeping the group alive than the Holy priest.

 

[gia]

Little copy/paste from something I posted on another site.

----

Priests solo great, got a priest to 36 in open beta and had no trouble at all doing any quest solo that wasn't elite. You can also grind stuff your level with no downtime with the right talents if that is what you prefer.

Standard strategy when soloing:

-Make sure inner fire is up
-Mind blast
-Cast shadow wordain while running back a bit
-Shield yourself
-Mind blast again
-Melee

Toss in another mindblast/shield if its a tough fight or another dot if it runs out.

Scrap smite once you get mind blast.

Talents that help soloing: spirit tap, improved shadow wordain.
Even if you're planning on going holy/discipline it's a good idea to start out with these. If you want to go a little bit deeper in shadow put 3 points in blackout and get mind flay.

Mind flay is a great spell when soloing or in small (2-3 person) groups, extremely mana efficient and if you stack it with sw stuff dies pretty quick.

Use a staff, much better melee damage than hammers and usually better stats too. You want a good mix of INT/SPI, leaning on INT for instances/high end stuff or SPI for soloing, some STA as well if you pvp.

 

[Khale]

You guys really gotta stop thinking talents is a way to spec and makes a class totally different cause it ain't. They are just small boosts and sometimes a new spell in it. A shadow priest may have a few better damage increasers but they have 90% still the same spells as a holy priest. (Don't take holy anyway cause it's crap). Priests solo fine, did mine to 60 in 20 days played. May seem long but I also did some instances without gaining xp (guild hunt and I like to help guildies if they are nice). Power word : shield, only used it in group combat when I had to avoid getting more aggro (heal -> aggroes) so the others could take aggro again (when my fade was down). It's sometimes nice versus specific mobs that are really annoying. But I've found 1 mob so far who can totally remove a spellcast (instead of just an interrupt in the timer).

And PvP combat... wouldn't worry about that too much cause atm it seems a lot of zerg vs zerg wars. Think a good group that knows how to play can easily kill loads of a zerg (cause most of em are randoms who think they gotta defend their country... Hmmm where did I hear that before...)

 

[CurryKnight]

I was thinking all out healer but now i dont know :/ . Although someone on another forum said he (as a shadow priest) had trouble finding parties that would take him because although he was a better healer than most, most people would look no further than the name and didnt want him. Is it possible to mix and match? go half shadow, half holy? or would that be a crap idea?

 

[[TB] Benedictine]

Discussed here.

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/showthread.php?p=576668#post576668


By the way I want to play a group PvP healer (as usual) and I was thinking Priest - not played Beta, but from looks of it Ill play shadow priest - Horde probably.

 

[Nirawen]

Hmmm everywere i look people say Holy talent is shite. Originally i was thinking Disc/Holy but if it really is that shit ill just go shadow

 

[SilverHood]

You guys really gotta stop thinking talents is a way to spec and makes a class totally different cause it ain't. They are just small boosts and sometimes a new spell in it. A shadow priest may have a few better damage increasers but they have 90% still the same spells as a holy priest. (Don't take holy anyway cause it's crap).

Khale, while partly true that 90% of spells are identical, Talents really make a difference to the characters final ability. 15% resistance to CC effects, 20% range increase, 45% more effective inner fire, uninteruptable casting for 8 seconds, timer decrease on certain spells.

How does this not make end game characters very different? According to most lvl 60 PvPers who post an opinion, Shadow Priests are one of the toughest classes to kill, where as holy priests get walked on.
If Talent speccing doesn't make a class different, then why is no one speccing holy, if it doesn't make a difference?


Though I have to agree with some misconceptions - all priests get the same baseline abilities, in Holy, Discipline and Shadow, regardless of where they use their talents.


And CurryKnight, I don't recall there being a way to see how a character is specced... a priest who has points in Shadow is just as much a priest as one who has points in Holy or Discipline. The baseline spells are all the same anyway, and all 3 can keep a group alive when fighting same level, or slightly higher level mobs.

 

[scrow]

I go for shadow/disc spec. That way I get the best spells for protecting myself. I rather have tools to live longer then tools what makes me heal better.
(I want shadow form+improved inner fire, improved shield, improived hp buff thing, silence etc)

I didnt do any high lvl pvp yet, so can some high lvl priest with pvp ex comment on this ?

 

[Galelawyn]

Manaburn just looks nifty for a shadow priest, don't know if it is though

 

[gia]

"Power word : shield, only used it in group combat when I had to avoid getting more aggro (heal -> aggroes) so the others could take aggro again (when my fade was down)."

Shield generates aggro like any other heal fyi.

"I was thinking all out healer but now i dont know :/ . Although someone on another forum said he (as a shadow priest) had trouble finding parties that would take him because although he was a better healer than most, most people would look no further than the name and didnt want him. Is it possible to mix and match? go half shadow, half holy? or would that be a crap idea?"

I wouldn't recommend going full holy, but I wouldn't recommend going full shadow as well.

My planned spec was a disc/holy build but I put the 11 point in shadow because the added utility when solo/duo was too hard to give up. It's possible to solo even without points in shadow though, you just have a tad more downtime.

I had thought of something like shadow up to mind flay, discipline up to inner focus/improved mana burn and holy up to improved flash heal. If you want to focus on support more you can take out the points in shadow at higher level and go for meditation or master healer.