Poster: Tarana at 4/4/2006 3:48:01 PM PDT
Subject: Tarana's Guide to All The Nagging Questions |
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Many of the questions addressed here are on the boards RIGHT NOW. As things change (supposing people read the fuggin' thread), I'll update it.
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Frequently Asked Questions and Even More Frequently Given Answers:
What...
Have you checked the sticky FAQ yet?
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-priest&t=125973&p=1&tmp=1#post125973
What enchant for Benediction?
Easy answer: +55 healing
Long answer: +22 int is a substandard enchant (it's not worth a max rank flash heal in mana), while +20 spirit is better put on a second staff, like Will of Arlokk, that you swap to. Benediction has a boatload of +healing, so it's best to augment that feature, especially since you can swap weapons in combat. If you plan to swap to Anathema for PvP or solo, the +22 int enchant is a slight bit better, but I wouldn't compromise your healing for it.
Shadow vs. Holy in damage specs?
Easy Answer: Shadow
Long Answer: Sustained damage and PvP favor Shadow heavily. Holy is solid burst when properly geared, but is less efficient and more difficult to properly gear. Holy also does not benefit raids in the same ways that Shadow does. Use Holy if you plan on speccing to a combo healing/damage build, whereas Shadow is superior for damage.
Rate my spec
Easy Answer: No
Long Answer: It's better to ask about specific talents than to ask about an entire build about 80% of the time. If you have to ask about your build, it's most likely not going to work well. If all else fails, get onto the test realms and try it out without spending 50g per respec.
FoW vs SG?
Easy Answer: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-priest&t=766505&p=1&tmp=1#post766505
Long Answer: I spent about 3 hours working with that thread to the point where it's at pg 3. Use it. It has a lot of information.
Are priests fun?
Easy Answer: Yes, but masochistic.
Long Answer: Depending on what you're expecting, they can be. If you play a priest with the intent to tank, you'll obviously get laughed at until the next 40 priest instance raid comes around. If you want to heal people, you got it. If you want to nuke the crap out of people, you got it about 40% of the time (100% solo, 20% groups). AoE? We have one of those and it's kinda fun. Control of other players' welfare? Yep (I have a god complex sometimes). If you don't like those things, particularly the notion of ever healing, don't pick priest as your class. It's like picking a warrior and expecting to NEVER be asked to tank.
What race...?
Easy Answer: Dwarf or Undead
Long Answer: If you pick anything other than Dwarf or Undead for a priest, you're opting out of the best racial spells available. You'd better be enjoying the ass you're staring at if you're doing that to yourself. I continue to do so.
Lightwell suxxorz
Yup. We know. It's situational and, as was well stated, one of the best uses is "hide the lightwell" in instances.
Power Infusion suxxorz
Nope. You just don't know how to use it. Get some damage gear, play with 31/20 or a variation thereof, and start Smiting for over 1.5k.
Shadow suxxorz
Are you stupid?
Priests are for healing only!
In some other games, yes. In World of Warcraft, priests are also for PWNING. Until high end raiding, it's usually beneficial for the priest to be casting occasional nukes or dots amongst heals in order to speed the kill rate, which reduces runtime and the likelihood of player deaths. Additionally, any high end raid without a shadow priest is essentially gimping their warlocks.
How do I beat [x] class in duels?
Easy Answer: Kill them before they kill you.
Long Answer: Strategies very significantly within a single class, based largely on spec. In the end, the only general advice we can give here is to heal early, dispel both yourself and them, and try to think about what they're doing with each move. Obviously, beating a rogue stunlock is pretty difficult if you walk into it with 2.5k hp, healing gear, and no shield up. If you're dueling, you want a higher HP total, all of your buffs up (including Shield and Renew) as much as possible, and you want to negate the enemy's strategy before enacting your own.
But how do I beat people?
Think, act, and do, young padawan. If you don't practice, you'll basically be bait. If you didn't look above, you just missed all of the important stuff.
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Gear
MP/5 vs Spirit
This is a complicated subject, but the basic rundown is this:
If you are inside the 5 second rule (i5sr) the majority of the time, then MP/5 is a good stat for you. Since spirit, at best, regens at 30% of the normal rate while casting (with Meditation and 3/8 transcendence), spirit's returns aren't near as high as mp/5 while chain casting.
If you are able to get out of the 5 second rule (o5sr), then you are going to benefit more from spirit than mp/5. Since Spirit regens at a rate of ([spirit/4]+13) mana per tick o5sr, it goes at a much faster rate when not casting.
In general, the rough numbers are:
o5sr: 1 mp/5 = 1.66 spirit
i5sr, 15% regen while casting: 1 mp/5 = 10 spirit
i5sr, 30% regen while casting: 1 mp/5 = 5 spirit
On most gear, if choosing between spirit stat and mp/5, the ratio is approximately 4 spirit per mp/5 on equal level and quality items.
Int vs. Regen vs. +healing
Int is good for short fights in which you have little chance to regen o5sr. This is a preferrable stat in pre-raid instances (Ragefire Chasm through Blackrock Spire).
Regen is best used during longer fights. Examples of this are Onyxia, Nefarian and Chromaggus, where the fight takes more than 5 minutes and will require multiple "med" periods.
+healing is best for mid-long fights or burst healing fights, depending on which spell ranks you use. +healing is often bundled with Regen gear to allow the priest to sit out for a while, then be very effective, then sit out again in a rotation style. If you're in a longer fight, +healing can use lower ranks of the spells to conserve mana. In a burst fight, top rank spells can be used to keep the tanks alive.
The best builds out there incorporate more than one of these gearing options. A balance of stats will allow the priest to perform many different jobs very effectively.
Different weapons?
Keep multiple weapons. At the raid level, keeping Benediction with +55 healing, Will of Arlokk with +20 Spirit, and Staff of Dominance with +22 int will give you many, many options in regards to each situation, as well as giving you all of the positives of each stat focus. Starting with SoD will give a higher mana pool to start. Once that mana is depleted, swapping to Benediction for heavy +healing can keep you healing efficiently until you're LOM, when you swap to your regen Arlokk staff.
Damage Gearing
In general, +damage is the best option for DPS builds. Crit has mediocre returns without it and much of Shadow, our primary damage tree, can't crit. Scholomance and Undead Stratholme (Baron runs) both carry a wide selection of spell damage and shadow damage gear pieces. BRS carries a small selection of +damage. DM carries a LOT of damage and crit gear. Be aware that warlocks, mages, and druids may get annoyed at the "healbot" taking damage gear.
ZOMG! EPIX!
We know that T1 and T2 epic sets do not have any great deal of solo play capacity. Transcendence and Prophecy are both healing sets. Prophecy focuses on mp/5 and the augmentation of Flash Heal, whereas Transcendence focuses on +healing and Greater Heal. Benediction is a healing staff, whereas its counterpart, Anathema, is a shadow damage staff. Given that the T1 and T2 sets are "by raiding for raiding", it makes sense that they are devoted to healing, which is the primary role of most priests in raids.
If you're looking for epic +damage gear, you'll have to go for the non-class specific stuff. Just a few that I can think of offhand are: Neltharian's Tear, Cape of the Broodlord, Lok'amir il Romathis, Master Dragonslayer's Orb, Ebony Flame Gloves, Staff of the Shadow Flame, Staff of Dominance, Shadowwing Focus Staff, Ring of Spell Power, Zandalarian Hero Charm, Talisman of Ephemeral Power, Briarwood Reed (blue), Aurastone Hammer, Choker of Enlightenment, Choker of the Firelord, Band of Dark Dominion, Firemaw's Clutch. There are more. Look for the non-class stuff when sifting through the lists of gear. What I recommend doing is looking at the bosses that your guild is capable of killing with Thottbot and sifting through the drop list, as the search function is horrendous.
The Oracle set, which is gained via quests in AQ40, is another damage/healing option. Because it's quested, your guildies can't complain about you "ninjaing" things from the DPS casters. The set requires drops from bosses in AQ40 and idols/scarabs from AQ20, as well as Brood of Nozdormu reputation.
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Speccing And Specs
The basics of Discipline
For any priest, I heavily recommend at least a 14 point investiture in Discipline for Meditation and Inner Focus. These two talents are tremendously good in every area of play, as they extend your mana pool drastically. For Horde, Silent Resolve is a nearly mandatory talent, as threat reductions are not as readily available as Alliance's Blessing of Salvation. If you don't have Improved Power Word: Fortitude, most other priests will want to lynch you, so I heavily recommend getting that, too. If you get all of the talents I mentioned at max rank, you'll be looking at a minimum of 16 points in the tree. Power Infusion, Force of Will, and Improved Inner Fire are all good PvP talents, as well as solo talents. Mental Strength and Mental Agility are both solid talents for any priest.
The basics of Holy
Any priest who doesn't consider fitting in Healing Focus is thinking very selfishly about their points, and, in my opinion, possibly not thinking at all. For 2 points, this talent has IMMENSE returns. It has no pre-requisites, so it's the ideal point dump for non-Holy builds, as well as a solid talent for healing specs. At some points in your career, you will be healing, if not others, then yourself.
Divine Fury is a substantial talent for the tree and, if you're going to be primarily healing, it is a fantastic choice, as it gives a boost to solo play as well as group play. Later talents that are nice include Improved Healing, Spiritual Guidance, and Spiritual Healing.
The basics of Shadow
This is the priest damage tree. If there's a new skill in this tree in your reach, you want it. Silence, Mind Flay, Vampiric Embrace, and Shadowform are all amazing talents with exceptionally high return on investment. Shadow priests can get among the highest DPS against single targets in the game. Mind Flay is the highest efficiency damage spell we have in our arsenal. Shadow Weaving increases raid damage from Warlocks while being a substantial increase on personal damage, as well. One of the lessons of the Shadow tree is that heavy investments bear the greatest rewards. In patches past, 40+ point investments in Shadow had amazing returns for damage, while tri-spec builds held their own for both healing and damage (tri-specs often took both Vampiric Embrace and Silence to add utility to their spells, while taking substantial amounts of Discipline to augment their staying power).
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Suggestions for additions? Comments? Go ahead.[ post edited by Tarana ]
I wish I had real class racial spells.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-priest&t=771216&p=#post771216 | | | Poster: Coreiel at 4/5/2006 11:51:32 AM PDT
Subject: Re: Tarana's Guide to All The Nagging Questio |
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I enjoyed this post, and think it deserves a blue flag, but I'm curious about this "Hide-the-Lightwell" concept. Is it a game? :) [ post edited by Coreiel ]
But even yet, I have so many miles to go.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-priest&t=771216&p=#post773246 | Poster: Coreiel at 4/5/2006 12:01:29 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Tarana's Guide to All The Nagging Questio |
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Q u o t e:
It is indeed a game. The premise is that you find an obscure location with a fair amount of objects in the way to hide the lightwell from the people who might consider thinking about possibly attempting to be healed by it (until they get AoE'd). You then see how long it takes them to find it.
Haha, so cruel.
It just goes to show, even the Holiest of Priests have a little Shadow inside. ;)
But even yet, I have so many miles to go.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-priest&t=771216&p=#post773274 | Poster: Coreiel at 4/5/2006 12:01:29 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Tarana's Guide to All The Nagging Questio *edited post* |
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Q u o t e:
It is indeed a game. The premise is that you find an obscure location with a fair amount of objects in the way to hide the lightwell from the people who might consider thinking about possibly attempting to be healed by it (until they get AoE'd). You then see how long it takes them to find it.
Haha, so cruel.
It just goes to show, even the Holiest of Priests have a little Shadow inside. ;)
But even yet, I have so many miles to go.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-priest&t=771216&p=#post773274 |
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