For anyone who has played closed beta, you know all too well that the amount
of people playing priests is fairly low. Even worse, the amount of people who
know how to properly play their priest is even lower. I’ve tried my best to
experiment and try different strategies to approaching the primary role of a
priest, the main healer. Of course, some of you may want to be a rebel, go
against the grain and use the priest as a primary damage dealer. I will go ahead
and try to explain strategies to that regard as well, as I have experimented
with the PvP priest. This guide will be written with the knowledge of the state
of the priest during closed beta, so I will try and research any new changes.
I’ve been taking a break until release so I can keep the game fresh for me.
When you first start out as a priest, you’ll find yourself with only a few
spells, namely Power Word: Fortitude (the priest’s stamina buff), Smite (your
holy magic based nuke), and Lesser Healing (if you need me to explain what this
is, please choose another class!). You will also notice that they are marked as
“Rank 1”. As you level, you will gain higher “ranks” of these spells which are,
of course, more powerful versions of what you already have. In addition to these
spells, you start out with a weapon proficiency in 1-handed maces. Although
priests start out with only the 1-handed mace skill, you are able to learn how
to use daggers and staves through a NPC trainer found in the main cities. Some
of you may be wondering which weapon skill is the best. My initial answer to you
is that most times, except when you are soloing or fighting easy encounters, you
won’t be melee’ing very much. Although many people like to go against the mold,
the priests are meant to be a group’s primary healer. So, most times you will
find yourself standing back and healing, but this will mostly take place when
you start grouping later down the road in your teens. With that said, there are
many different weapons with stats and passive/active effects that can help the
priest. In early levels, I’ve found that staves with enhancements to intellect
and spirit are very prominent. When you start fighting in the Scarlet Monastery,
there is a very nice dagger which can add a high amount of intellect. A higher
level instance of the Monastery has the chance of dropping a mace which adds to
your overall healing power. My advice would be to train all weapon skills and
switch to whichever weapon you find to be your best option when it drops.
It is not as apparent when you first start out, but priests are a great solo
class by virtue of the spell Power Word: Shield. The first rank of this shield
is gained at level 6. The rank 1 version of Power Word: Shield absorbs up to 44
damage, while the rank 10 version obtained at level 60 absorbs up to 942 damage.
This is the single best spell in the game, in my opinion, but it does fade
relatively quickly, in about 30 seconds, so it is usually best cast right before
you or the tank is about to engage a mob. Without the use of talents, there is a
30 second waiting period before you can cast it on the same person again, but
we’ll get into talents a bit later. Another great use for Power Word: Shield is
to give you more time to heal the person if they are losing health very quickly.
It is an instant cast spell, so it can save lives in the right situations. For
example, if you begin your heal and your tank is losing health very quickly, you
can cancel the heal, then essentially give him an instant 942 hp, and then start
casting a quick heal. As far as soloing goes, I usually lead off with a Power
Word: Shield on myself, and then pull the intended mob or NPC. This shield
coupled with your Power Word: Fortitude effectively increase your health pool.
The most important aspect of the shield, though, is that you can continue
casting heals and nukes uninterrupted, as if you were not getting hit at all.
At level 4, you receive the 1st rank of Shadow Word: Pain. This spell is a
“damage over time” or “dot” for you rpg newbies. It is an instant cast spell,
which you will find beneficial when chasing a mob, or person, down. The 1st rank
will do 30 damage over 18 seconds, while the highest rank does 852 damage over
18 seconds. It can help wittle down those mobs while you choose to melee or are
grouped. This does stack with other priests’ Shadow Word: Pain, so during a raid
encounter, stacking these would prove to be very beneficial. Since it is
essentially doing damage for you over time, you do not have to constantly
re-cast it, thus allowing you to regenerate your mana if need be. A sample
soloing situation would look like:
Holy Word: Shield self ? Smite ? Smite ? Shadow Word: Pain ? melee
I’ve found the above example to be relatively efficient early on in the game. Of
course, you’ll have to fine tune the casts according to your mana, but generally
you smite the mob/NPC to half health, use pain word, then melee to begin
regenerating your mana. By the time you finish the fight, or by the time you
find the next mob, you should have regenerated much of your mana, thus limiting
down time. Later on down the road, at level 10, you’ll gain a quick nuke called
Mind Blast which you can add to the mix. Though you should be using your mana
efficiently, it is always good to have a supply of food and drink on you just in
case. I usually just find a mage and ask politely if he/she wouldn’t mind
summoning me food and/or drink.
For grouping, the spells you will be using most often will be your healing line
of spells, which include: Renew, Flash Heal, Lesser Healing, Healing, and
Greater Healing. Renew is much like a healing version of Shadow Word: Pain. It
heals the target player over time for a certain amount of health. At rank 1, the
amount of health healed is 45 hp over 15 seconds; while at rank 9 it heals 810
hp over 15 seconds. In many cases, this is an extremely efficient method of
healing the person. It costs little mana, and allows you to rest in between
heals in order to regenerate the lost mana. If there is any spell that I keep on
a tank while we are grouped, it is renew. Depending on the tank’s gear, renew is
often good enough to keep him/her healed throughout the fight. You may need to
throw a small heal in now and again during those moments the mob goes crazy and
deals loads of damage, but for the most part, renew is probably the most
efficient healing spell. A sample healing situation might look like:
Renew ? Shadow Word: Pain mob/NPC ? wait 15 seconds ? Renew ? Lesser Healing (or
Flash Heal when you get it to top off the tank’s health bar)
Your healing strategies will differ with each fight. At higher levels, you will
have Flash Heal, Renew, Prayer of Healing, and Greater Healing in your arsenal.
Prayer of Healing is a group healing spell. It is nice in certain situations
where a mob may be performing area effect (AE) attacks on the group, but this
spell shouldn’t be used all too often due to the high mana cost. I often use it
to top off the group if everyone has taken damage after a fight, and then
quickly consume a drink to regain mana. During general encounters with a group,
I find that greater healing is your best bet. It is a very big heal with the
highest rank healing upwards of 2396 to 2674 hp, but the downside is that it has
a relatively long casting time. It takes 4 seconds to cast, so timing is crucial
when using greater healing as your main method of healing. I can’t tell you the
correct time to start using greater healing. It depends on the rank of healing
or greater healing that you have, and the rate at which your tank is losing HP.
In most cases, starting greater healing when the tank reaches half health, or a
bit above half health, is enough to heal him/her back to full when greater
healing lands. But again, you need to tailor the timing according to your
healing rank and the encounter itself. Some mobs deal damage faster, some don’t
deal too much burst damage. If your tank is not losing health quickly, then a
simple renew would be fine.
Boss encounters are quite different than the normal encounter. You’ll find that
the tank will most likely lose health at too quick a rate for you to time
greater heal to land and for renew to do much good. For those cases, keeping
renew on the tank and then spamming flash heal as needed would prove to be a
great healing strategy. You may burn through your mana quickly with this method,
though. Being a priest is very meticulous. It takes a form of precision that
most other classes will not recognize.
As far as gear goes, the main stats a priest will be focusing on are primarily
intellect and spirit, with stamina not too far behind. Intellect will increase
your overall mana pool, while spirit increases your overall mana regeneration
rate per tick (a tick is about 2 seconds). Some priests like to go full
intellect, while others go full spirit. I aim for a balance of the two, but
having full intellect gear as backup will help during high end boss encounters.
You cannot begin to regenerate mana until 5 seconds after your spell has been
cast, so during those encounters where you will be healing non-stop, a huge mana
pool would prove very useful. Although you are not meant to be a tank, having
extra stamina is always a plus as a priest as you will catch a lot of agro
through the hate generated by your healing spells. When you seem to catch agro
and the tank hasn’t pulled the mob off of you, your Fade spell is a saving
grace. Fade lasts 10 seconds and lowers the hate a mob has towards you. If fade
doesn’t seem to work to get the mob off of you, then you have Power Word: Shield
to help you take some extra damage while the tank tries to taunt off of you.
They have changed talents a bit since I’ve played, but I will do my best to
describe sample trees that may prove useful for whichever type of priest you
want to play: PvP, PvE, solo. The discipline tree remains the same, so I will
start off with a sample talent build in discipline. The single most useful
talent in the discipline specialization line is Inner Focus. When activated, it
reduces the mana cost of your next spell by 100%, and also increases the chance
for you to get a critical spell. Having a spell with a free mana cost is
extremely valuable during those situations where you run out of mana and just
need that one extra heal (i.e. an extra greater heal free of cost).
Here is the minimal build for discipline for a primary healer:
Discipline Mastery
Unbreakable Will Rank 5
Improved Power Word: Shield Rank 3
Improved Power Word: Fortitiude Rank 2
Mental Agility Rank 5
Mental Strength Rank 5
Inner Focus Rank 1
Discipline Total: 21
Although Unbreakable Will never seemed to be all that powerful, you do need to
invest in it or Silent Resolve. Unbreakable Will increases your chance to resist
stun, fear and silence, so I find it to be a better investment than a talent
that reduced threat generated by your damage spells when you are primarily
healing.
Improved Power Words are a great benefit, especially the Shield version. The
investment into gaining rank 3 in Improved Power Word: Shield will reduce the
time you must wait before you can cast Power Word: Shield on the same person by
15 seconds.
Mental Agility reduces the mana cost of instant cast spells by 10%, while Mental
Strength increases your overall mana by 10%.
And then, of course, Inner Focus which reduces your next spell’s mana cost to 0.
The Holy tree has shifted around a bit, and they have also removed the most
useful spell of the Holy line, Combat Resurrection. It was a quick casting
resurrection spell that resurrected the target with no sickness and most of
their health and mana. The Holy tree wasn’t very impressive to begin with, but
for someone who will be looking to be primarily a healer, it’s the best option
to increase your mana efficiency.
But, anyway, here is a sample holy build for the primary healer:
Holy Mastery
Improved Renew Rank 5
Holy Specialization Rank 5
Spiritual Healing Rank 5
Subtlety Rank 4
Improved Healing Rank 5
Spirit of Redemption Rank 1
Master Healer Rank 5
Holy Total: 30
Improved Renew, at rank 5, will increase the amount healed by Renew by 15%, thus
allowing it to heal more HP per tick.
Holy Specialization is mostly a throw-in talent. It increases the chance to gain
a critical effect by your holy spells by 5%, which isn’t all that much. It’s not
a very important skill, but something nice.
Spiritual Healing increases the amount healed by all your healing spells by 10%
at the highest rank.
Subtlety will reduce the threat generated by your heals by 16% at rank 4. I
chose to forego rank 5 in order to invest 1 point into Spirit of Redemption.
Ultimately, the 4% difference between rank 4 and 5 is negligible, and you won’t
notice much of a difference agro-wise. Spirit of Redemption is new to me as a
talent. It was not in the game when I played, but it seems like a nice saving
throw to a group, pending you have an extra class that can resurrect in the mix.
I see a lot of utility in it as far as boss and raid encounters go.
Improved Healing and Master Healer are probably self-explanatory. Improved
Healing will increase the amount that Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heals will
actually heal for by 15% at rank 5. Master Healer will reduce the casting time
of your Heal and Greater Heals by 0.5 seconds. It may seem small, but anything
that will shorten the duration of your 4 second Greater Heal cast is nice to
have.
Holy Nova is a fun spell to have, but it isn’t a necessary talent to me. As far
as the holy tree ultimate, it actually is somewhat disappointing. If you choose
to use Holy Nova, you’ll have to give up Inner Focus in the discipline tree.
Here is a recap of a healer’s build:
Holy Mastery
Improved Renew Rank 5
Holy Specialization Rank 5
Spiritual Healing Rank 5
Subtlety Rank 4
Improved Healing Rank 5
Spirit of Redemption Rank 1
Master Healer Rank 5
Holy Total: 30
Discipline Mastery
Unbreakable Will Rank 5
Improved Power Word: Shield Rank 3
Improved Power Word: Fortitiude Rank 2
Mental Agility Rank 5
Mental Strength Rank 5
Inner Focus Rank 1
Discipline Total: 21
As far as soloing and PvE goes, many people like to have Spirit Tap in the
Shadow tree. At rank 5, spirit tap increases your mana regeneration by 100%
during periods of non-casting, and by 50% during times you are casting spells
provided that you get the killing blow on a mob that gives you experience. This
is a very valuable tool while soloing and has its usefulness during general PvE
encounters. If you want to gain Spirit Tap with your healer’s build, then I
would probably give up the 5 points into Master Healer and put them into Spirit
Tap.
For those who primarily would like to PvP, here is a build that I’ve found to be
a consistent damage dealer:
Shadow Mastery
Blackout Rank 5
Improved Shadow Word: Pain Rank 2
Shadow Focus Rank 5
Improved Psychic Scream Rank 2
Improved Mind Blast Rank 3
Mind Flay Rank 1
Shadow Reach Rank 3
Silence Rank 1
Shadow Weaving Rank 5
Vampiric Embrace Rank 1
Darkness Rank 5
Shadowform Rank 1
Shadow Total: 34
Discipline Mastery
Unbreakable Will Rank 5
Improved Power Word: Shield Rank 3
Improved Power Word: Fortitiude Rank 2
Mental Agility Rank 5
Improved Mana Burn Rank 2
Discipline Total: 17
As far as PvP builds go, I find this one of the strongest. The shadow mastery
tree of the Priest is probably our best designed talent tree as far as utility
goes. It can totally change the game of the priest and make them an efficient
damage dealer.
Blackout provides the priest with a 10% chance to stun their target for 3
seconds with any shadow spell you cast on the target. Although it is only a 10%
chance, I have found that goes off quite a bit.
Shadow Focus reduces the target’s chance to resist your shadow spells by 10%.
Some may argue the utility of Shadow Focus, but I find that it really does help
during PvP if someone has high resists towards shadow.
Psychic Scream is one of your best shadow spells. It is an instant cast area
effect fear. It comes in handy during both solo and group PvP, as well as solo
PvE, situations. If someone gets the jump on you, you can fire off a psychic
scream and fear kite them. It makes encounters so much easier.
Mind Flay is the bread and butter of the shadow mastery tree. Coupling mind flay
with Power Word: Shield makes you a very dangerous damage dealer. It is a
channeled spell which does a certain amount of damage per tick depending on
which rank you are trained in. You can buy higher level ranks of Mind Flay at
the Priest trainers. Along with the consistent damage that mind flay deals, it
has the added effect of slowing the target’s movement speed down by 50%. An
example encounter may look like:
Power Word: Shield self ? Psychic Scream ? Shadow Word: Pain target ? Mind Flay
? Mind Flay ? Mind Blast
While your target is busy running away from your psychic scream, you can DoT him
and slow his movement back to you. Shadow Reach can help you in this regard as
it increases the range of your shadow spells. For added measure, you can throw
Vampiric Brace on the target. This will heal you for 20% of any shadow damage
you deal to the target.
Shadow Weaving and Darkness both have the effect of increasing your shadow
damage against a target. Shadow Weaving makes the person or mob vulnerable to
shadow spells, thus lowering their resists by a bit and increasing your shadow
damage.
Shadowform is, by far, the best talent ultimate of all the trees. It has the
upside of increasing your shadow damage by 15%, while also reducing any physical
damage dealt to you by 15%. The downside of being in shadowform is that you can
only cast shadow and discipline based spells. This rules out the use of Smite
and any of your heals while you are in shadowform. You can deactivate it quickly
to gain the use of your heals again, but that is your call. Vampiric embrace is
sort of your “replacement heal”.
Silence and Mana Burn are there to help you deal with casting classes. Silence
stops the target from casting for 5 seconds, so the timing of its usage is
pretty important. Improved Mana Burn will allow you to deplete your enemy’s mana
even quicker due to reduced casting time.
The shadow/discipline build mentioned is mainly for PvP, but can also be used in
solo PvE combat. You may choose to invest into Spirit Tap for soloing. I’ll let
you decide which talent(s) to give up in order to gain Spirit Tap. Other than
that, the previously mentioned build is good for either PvP or soloing in PvE
(or for being a damage dealer in a group if that’s your thing).
Well, I think that’s it for now. I’ve rambled on for a few pages and I’m sure
some of you got tired of reading halfway through. For those who have read all of
it, I hope that what I’ve said has helped you gain a bit more insight into the
class. Please feel free to post and correct anything I may have said that you
feel is wrong. I’m writing this based on the knowledge gained from closed beta,
and from what I’ve read, much has been changed around for the priest class.
Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoy playing a priest
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