the priest thread thread (book) [Archive]

View Full Version : the priest thread thread (book)

Jumai

01-02-2005, 05:00 PM

Ok, so the main sticky is out of context for many people who missed the initial discussions leading up to the builds posted within, and in addition many (most?) of the priests here are not capped, and thus still specced in Shadow for leveling. Due to the stagnation of debate, priest talents are going largely un-talked about here, leading to a large number of build threads. This is an attempt to consolidate all the lines of thinking on this board into a single post for referance.

This post deals with pure healer builds ONLY. I know exactly what a shadow priest can do, I'm playing one RIGHT NOW. However, for the efficiency freaks on the board (namely everyone) dps-oriented shadow builds don't stack up no matter how flexible they look on paper. If you're not going to just win anyway, healing and dispelling will require 100% of your mana, regen, and attention. Period.

I will not be posting the stats of spells or talents. If you don't know them off the top of your head, I advise you open the following links for referance:
http://wowvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Talents.View&category_select_id=6
http://thottbot.com/?c=Priest

Part 1: the relevant background
As you've probably noticed, every talent tree, priest or otherwise, has at least one shiney-apple skill that would require 21 and 31 points to earn. Since you max out at 51 points, these are very important numbers, as taking a 21 point talent will lock you out of a 31 point talent in any other tree, and taking a 31 point talent will lock you out of 21 point talents in the other tree. For this reason, the skills relevant to two-tree debates begin on the fifth teir. Everything below that is accessable to any two-tree build that does not breach 31 points in a single tree.

The 21 point talents in Holy are:
-Spirit of Redemption: this is not something you should really care about. It requires you to DIE. Fine if you need to make up 25 points, but not worth giving up a 31-point talent for.
-Divine Fury: we're talking healer builds, nothing to see here
-Improved Prayer of Healing: this talent is much more powerful than it appears at first glance. Each cast of PoH (at 60) saves over 200 mana for just 2 points.

The 26-30 point talent in Holy is:
-Master Healer: on paper, this improves your max heal-per-second, reduces the chance of klutzing the big heal, as well as making you mobile more quickly in PvP. In practice, the heal-per-second increase is nearly irrelevant as the niche in which it can matter is quite narrow by PvP standards (though perhaps it is stronger in raid PvE), does not change the fact that GH is not an ohshit spell, and is only 0.5 seconds in terms of going mobile. More on master healer below.

The 31 point talent in Holy is:
-Holy Nova: we don't care about these damage talents, remember? Especially not terrible ones.

The 21 point talents in Discipline are:
-Inner Focus: no serious pure-healer, two-tree build skips this talent
-Meditation: Arguably very strong, arguably very weak. More on meditation below.

The 26-30 point talent in Discipline is:
-Force of Will: yep, another one of those damage talents

The 31 point talent in Discipline is:
-Divine Spirit: worth 35 spirit (approximately 10 mana per tick) at level 60 and castable on group members, this talent is a very serious contender for your points. The main drawbacks to this very powerful regen tool are offensive dispelling (which can totally negate a crucial point very cheaply) and rank 4 Holy's strong showing.

Other points of contestation are:
-Rank 4 Holy: Improved Flash Heal is a very powerful PvP tool, and Improved Healing really should be in every serious build. Not wanting to lose Improved Flash Heal is probably the #1 reason people choose to skip Divine Spirit. 3/5 Improved Healing is an option, as is trying to use Martyrdom + Focused Casting in discipine (must have talents if you choose not to take Improved Flash Heal), but both choices make you a strictly inferior healer. It's up to you to decide whether the regen for your entire group Divine Spirit provides is worth suffering these drawbacks. If you are a pickup-group priest or tend to PvP in anonymous zergs, Rank 4 Holy is a stronger choice than Divine Spirit, since Divine Spirit is gorup-oriented not just by providing the buff to everyone, but by relying on your group to keep you safe as much as possible.

-Rank 4 Discipline: this is largely a dispute between the comparative value of Mental Strength and Improved Mana Burn. Both are great PvP tools. Improved Inner Fire is strong damage mitigation, which is huge out of context, but in context it competes for points with either Focused Casting in a 31 Disc build (which you need more) and either Improved Mana Burn or Mental Strength in a non-31 point disc build (both of which are almost always just better).

-Silence: OMG a shadow skill wtfz0r!!? A tri-specced priest build is beginning to take shape. Though in an Ideal Group this is strictly inferior, many regular groups (including mine) include two priests. A backup healer designed to supply TACTICAL offense, NOT dps, deserves at least a cursory analysis.

Part 2: the template
This is an incomplete build which includes the talents on which consensus has largely been reached. This is the dual-spec pure healer build. I will deal with the tri-spec backup healer later.

HOLY
-5/5 Improved Renew (you are taking two other talents that vastly buff Renew. It's maddeningly efficient. In addition, it's an instant heal (albeit over time) AND increases your potential heal-per-second)

-5/5 Spiritual Healing (if this needs explaination, roll a paladin)

-5/5 Holy Specialization (this seems to work out better than Inspiration in terms of effective Heal over Time. If you are a PvE priest, you may prefer Subtlety. All other possible skills you could take to make up 15 points are icky damage talents)

-5/5 Improved Healing (save your mana. The IGN guy would be proud).
-OR 3/5 Improved Healing, 2/5 Improved Flash Heal (31-disc builds only, your choice)

DISCIPLINE
-5/5 Unbreakable Will (helps in PvP, Silent Resolve does not help at all)

-2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude (life = good)

-3/3 Improved Power Word: Sheild (tactical benefit, PWS is ohshit's finest incarnation but very mana inefficient. A 31-disc build that does not take Improved Flash Heal could make an arguement for dropping this in favor of Improved Inner Fire, but I wouldn't buy into it).

-5/5 Mental Agility (powerful in its own right, but as a pre-requisite for must-have Inner Focus, this isn't even arguable. In combat it helps out your Renew, Sheild, Dispel, Abolish Disease, Fear etc. Out of combat it eases the strain of buffing and lends a hand to Pain etc.)

-3/5 Mental Strength + 0/2 Improved Mana Burn (put the 2 points in one, the other, or split them between the two, all choices are viable)

-1/1 Inner Focus (this is a great talent. Not only is it a free heal, neither Inner Focus nor the spell you cast off it triggers the 5 second rule, meaning you will regenerate at full while casting. Brilliant.)

points: 41/51

Part 3: the schools of thought
This is where our background starts to come into play. There are three basic lines of thinking which manifest themselves four ways, I will explain the arguements and counterarguements of each.

A) 30holy/21disc
Often referred to as the Holy build (or "what Tivoli did"), this build values master healer the most highly. From the template build, it takes 2 points Improved Flash Heal, 2 points Improved Prayer of Healing, 1 point Spirit of Redemption (or whatever), and 5 points improved Master Healer.
This build is the least mana efficient of the schools of thinking. However, it can crank out the most raw heal-per-second, hands down.

What this build gains from the template:
90.5 max Heal per Second (chaincasting greater heals, with or without renew running).
insurance against klutzing (pvp and pve, including mobility)
206 mana every time Prayer of Healing is cast
Improved Flash heal (not really quantifiable, but a mostly uninturruptable flash heal helps SO much) without losing efficiency on Greater Heals

What this build gives up:
about 10 mana per tick
up to either 4% mana or 0.5s faster mana burn
15% regen during casting (or about 15 mana per tick while casting assuming 300 spirit unbuffed, depending on how much you're casting this can be a little or a lot)

Reasons this is good:
This priest can save more people who are dying quickly, as statistically, the extra heal-per-second and klutz insurance is going to pay off. This priest benefits from Improved Prayer of Healing and Improved Flash Heal without losing greater heal efficiency. This priest is not vulnerable to dispell.

Reasons this is bad:
This priest will go oom faster. It is the least mana efficient of the three. This priest also suffers from the (arguably insubstantial) loss of either up to 4% mana or 0.5s faster mana burn compared to the other priests.

My personal opinion:
Since the normal chaincast GH heal-per-second is about 630 and the Master Healer chaincast GH heal-per-second is about 720, I think that the higher max heal-per-second is very rarely useful. The niche (casting GH's every 3.5 to 3.9 seconds with no one attacking you) does not divide nicely into numbers of people on the tank (IE you can't estimate healing the warrior with 1 more warlock dotting him). I think the amount of times it will actually be useful are so far apart that it's not worth it.

31disc/20holy, focused casting
The obvious Discipline build, we're going for max regen here. From the template we take 2 Martyrdom, 1 Focused Casting, +1 to either Mental Strength or Improved Mana Burn, 5 Meditation, and 1 Divine Spirit. This build is the most mana efficient USUALLY (more on this later) but is also the most narrow.

What this build gains from the template:
About 10 mana per tick
About 17 mana per tick while casting at 300 spirit
2% mana or up to 0.2s faster mana burn
regen for group members

What this build gives up:
206 mana each time Prayer of Healing is cast
Improved Flash Heal (martyrdom and focused casting make up in part)
90.5 max heal per second
insurance against klutzing

Why this is good:
You should usually heal the most HP during a drawn out fight with this build by regenning the most. By a substantial amount.

Why this is bad:
When you need Prayer of Healing, this build hurts. When you're getting beat on, this build hurts. When you need to chaincast greater heals, master healer is often stronger. You are vulnerable to dispell, losing this buff brings a lot of your coveted efficiency down.

My Personal Opinion:
I hate giving up improved flash heal, and I fear dispell, but I think it could work well. Nice when your group snares and roots really well and you can always stay far back.

31disc/20holy, flash heal
Nearly identical to disc with focused casting, this build lets you get hit without suffering too badly at the cost of some mana efficiency.
From the template we take (with 3/5 Improved Healing and 2/2 Improved Flash Heal) +2 Mental Strength or Improved Mana Burn, 2 Improved Inner Fire, 5 Meditation, and 1 Divine Spirit. You give up some hard mana for some soft staying power when getting hit.

What this build gains from the template:
About 10 mana per tick
About 17 mana per tick while casting at 300 spirit
4% mana or 0.5s faster mana burn
Improved Flash Heal
regen for group members
some armour

What this build gives up:
57.6 mana each time Greater Heal is cast (ouch)
206 mana each time Prayer of Healing is cast
90.5 max heal per second
insurance against klutzing

Why this is good:
Hard to articulate and hard to quantify. A regen-reliant build that can handle someone on them.

Why this is bad:
It loses a lot of mana efficiency by dumping 2 points Improved Healing. If you use a lot of flash heal, this won't hurt you as much... but you'll progress beyond that point. Prayer of Healing stings without the talent. You're vulnerable to dispell.

My Personal Opinion:
I feel this is strictly inferior to the next build.

27disc/24holy
I originally postulated this build here whilst favoring 30holy/21disc, but I've since begun to advocate it. It has a lot of emphasis on mana efficiency without giving up the flexibility toys. From the template we take 2 Improved Flash Heal, 2 Improved Prayer of Healing, 5 Meditation, and +1 Mental Strength or Improved Mana Burn. You give up some raw regen, but you hope to gain it back through Prayer of Healing, and keep Improved Flash Heal.

What this build gains from the template:
about 15 mana per tick while casting at 300 spirit
2% mana or 0.2s faster mana burn
Improved Flash Heal
206 mana each time Prayer of Healing is cast

What this build gives up:
90.5 heal per second
insurance against klutzing
about 10 mana per tick
about 2 mana per tick while casting

Why this is good:
If you cast Prayer of Healing more than once in 12 spells while casting a lot of the time, this is the MOST mana efficient build. You have improved flash heal. You're not vulnerable to dispell. 2% mana or 0.2s faster mana burn.

Why this is bad:
You don't have the highest regen or highest heal-per-second.

My personal opinion:
I like this one the best, since it has the least weaknesses. You can compete in terms of mana efficiency without losing the things that hurt the disc builds, and the loss of master healer is offset by regen while casting.

part 4: the backup healer
Here we'll deal with the tri-specced tactical offense and backup healer priest. I am not as farmiliar with this thinking as I am with pure healer builds, and I won't pretend to be. You will need Silence, Improved Mana Burn, and Inner Focus. From there you have 9 points left, which should go into improved renew and spiritual healing. Without improved flash heal you will want focused casting. From there a build takes shape. I would propose the following:

HOLY
-5/5 improved renew

-4/5 spiritual healing

SHADOW
-5/5 Spirit Tap

-5/5 Blackout

-2/2 Improved Shadow Word: Pain

-2/2 Improved Psychic Scream

-1/1 Mind Flay

-2/5 Improved Mind Blast

-3/3 Shadow Reach

-1/1 Silence

DISCIPLINE
-5/5 Unbreakable Will

-2/2 Martyrdom

-3 to 5 points between the Improved Power Words

-1/1 Focused Casting

-5/5 Mental Agility

-2/2 Improved Mana Burn

-0 to 2 points Mental Strength (depending on the Improved Power Words)

-1/1 Inner Focus

You can mana burn, you can silence, you can channel a snare. Your DoT can stun. You have strong heals. You'll want to divide your mana between renews supporting the main healer and silences, mana burns, snaring, and the occasional DoT or flash/greater heal when called for. I think this could be a decent priest in a group with a pure-healer main priest. I will not be playing one.

part 5: I want to be a better healer!
Short answer: practice.
Long answer: there are a number of indispensable things most good healers do. You will need a custom UI for a few of them. I highly reccommend the nurfed UI, available from the main page. The following are things you will need to do to be at max efficiency (by no means a complete list):
See your mana per tick. You have to know how many seconds before the next heal. This requires a custom UI.
See your actual mana points. Custom UIs usually do this, in interface options you can also check "show status bar text". Without this seeing mana-per-tick is useless.
Use multiple big heals. At least two, three is better, should be on your hotbar(s).
See the actual health of your groupmates. This requires a custom UI.
Call your heals in groups with multiple healers. It's a waste of mana when you both heal the same person and he only needs one heal. This is easier if you use a voice comm program.
Carry a weapon setup with as much raw spirit as possible. You can switch weapons in combat. If you're oom, 4 spirit will help you more than 40 int.

If anyone wants to talk live, send a tell to Mjeshu on archimonde/horde or Liam-K in nurfed's IRC channel.

etheran

01-03-2005, 03:38 AM

good stuff man. read it once, but i'll probably read it again later.

thanks.

Tivoli

01-03-2005, 11:18 AM

Nice write up, i will sticky it at the top ^^.

goehed

01-03-2005, 03:43 PM

great write up. It's making me reconsider my template (which was a copy and paste of Tiv's). I can see the seduction of the 27disc/24holy. A couple questions/comments I had in my head About that spec.

Holy:
I realize it's an icky dmg spell, but 1 point to unlock a new dot line (if I am understanding it properly) seems worthwhile considering all you would have to tank for it would be 1% chance to crit. Especially for holy/disc priests who can't always get a group (growing phenom on Deathwing). That seems like a very worthwhile compromise to me. Am I reading it wrong or undervaluing that 1% chance to crit?

Disc:
Wouldn't the 15% (or 30% or even 45% pending preference) increase to Inner Fire help your survivability in PvP and PvE due to the increased armor? At lvl 60 (assuming thottbot's spell values are accurate) we are talking 140 armor for the 15%. Would that not be more appropriate for a priest who "will require 100% of your mana, regen, and attention. Period."?

Jumai

01-03-2005, 07:01 PM

1 point to unlock a new dot line? Do you mean Holy Fire? If so, read it again. It's a nuke with a 5 second cast and a little bit of dot at the end (like pyroblast, but crappier). I've played with holy fire and the cast time is too prohibitive for me to see it as remotely useful, but it has a cooldown too and couldn't even be used to speed up soloing if the damage was increased enough to make it a decent opener.

On Inner Fire, yes the talent is pretty nice, but like I said there's simply no room for it. 140 armour at 60 is (and I'm making an estimate here) probably about 1% physical damage reduction. 2% mana is a bigger percentage of a bigger pool (and mana converts to life at a great ratio).

broski

01-04-2005, 07:24 PM

l-c

01-05-2005, 06:05 AM

so does shield and fort.
and as an alliance player shield fort and fire is useless more so than you guys by alot b/c of shamans.
I beginning to think an alliance priest setup and horde setup should be diffrent especially for someone on a shaman heavy server.
what do yall think?

Jumai

01-05-2005, 03:30 PM

No.

What could a shaman possibly change about our healing? If you're putting so much stock in Purge, rethink it.

Straem

01-05-2005, 03:40 PM

Damn great write up, you must group with some great priests to be able to test all of this information!

Jumai

01-05-2005, 07:34 PM

haha, ninja self-compliment fot teh win

Landogarner

01-07-2005, 10:33 AM

Your tank must be pretty badass to keep you alive while you are trying out all this stuff.

What's his name ingame? I'd like to group with him I might learn a thing or two.

Straem

01-07-2005, 10:37 AM

Youll learn how to charge the wrong mobs due to your camera being backwards. Jump off cliffs mid instance.

The only thing hes great at, is pvp.

Landogarner

01-07-2005, 10:46 AM

Good thing that's all that matters in the end :wink:

Good job on the post mj.

eucalyptus

01-11-2005, 01:47 PM

mj! me love you long time

Straem

01-11-2005, 03:08 PM

Euca!

Janus

01-15-2005, 04:07 PM

Use multiple big heals. At least two, three is better, should be on your hotbar(s).

Do you mean keeping 2-3 tiers of Greater Healing on the bar? Since Flash at lvl 56 heals for 900 and Greater Heal is about 2800, I can see the use for the 2nd lower G. Heal which heals for 2200. Do you also keep the 3rd tier of G. Heal which heals for 1750? It seems with the 4 second casting time, no more than two tiers is necessary.

When do you opt to use the lower tier G. Heal in a typical situation? For the offtank (typically shaman) with less hp than the warrior?

Jumai

01-16-2005, 01:24 AM

I use lower GH for 5 second rule reasons. If it's convenient to heal someone directy after breaking regen (say, you had to dispel polymorph) but they aren't hurt enough for the highest GH to be efficient, a lower one is your best choice.

Some characters also don't have enough hp for hte biggest GH to be a wise choice. If you're healing a mage throwing PBAE and he only has 3k hp, trying to time a 2.8 heal just right is not that smart.

undie

01-20-2005, 01:34 PM

mmn, that 3 tree build seems viable to level with ...

first you get shadow, later holy and disc => you solo more in the beginning and switch to instance grinding/solo later on..

how does that sound ? for me that beats shad/disc..

Jumai

01-20-2005, 10:12 PM

Leveling isn't really what this thread is about, but there's no reason why a tr-spec build wouldn't level fine. Lower level instances are much less stressful on the healer, at 57 I have solo healed BRD (just barely) using a 31 shadow 17 holy build. Do whatever works best while leveling.

etheran

01-23-2005, 04:43 PM

how often is PoH used in endgame instances? (specifically during combat)

kary

02-05-2005, 03:56 PM

how often is PoH used in endgame instances? (specifically during combat)

Quite a lot, it's an incredibly mana efficent spell, irreplaceable in the face of AOEs .

Da'Grim

02-09-2005, 11:00 AM

Would the part 4, backup healer / shadow priest, be of any use for a smaller group in pvp? Say 3v3 or 5v5? (if the groups does'nt have a holy/disc priest or any other healer that is)
The priest would still mostly heal but use his utility spells such as silence, dispell, fear and snare when called for.

If not, would he be of any use if having a second "off healer" too, say a group with the shadow priest and an healing paladin or druid?

In short is it worth getting a shadow priest if realising that your main goal is'nt to do damage but heal and then secondly use your utility spell if not certain that you always would play with a main healer?

kary

02-09-2005, 02:53 PM

Smaller group is a bit of a question mark, the larger the numbers the more of your energy is spent purely on dispel/flash heal/fear. In a smaller group there is less going on and utility comes more into play.

You can heal fine with 21/9/21, the main difference in healing is that you don't have the staying power of a disp/holy priest. You also don't have the 70% uninterruptable flash heal, but that is somewhat replaceable with focused casting.

Silence (as another spell interupt) is priceless, and depending on the make up of your 3v3/5v5 team critical -- but if you've got a paly stunning, a mage counterspelling and a rogue it might not be that critical.

Mind flay doesn't seem to be as useful as I had hoped vs a competant group. It is channeled and vs a good team you won't be wearing a shield for long. As a priest your guarrentied that someone is going to be attacking you. Flay is great when the fight is already decided and you need to stop runners, but the I'm not sold on the in combat utility.

I really like 21/9/21 (dueling is a ton easier ;) ), and the utility is there -- but I'm playing 28/23/0. Probably will try it again in Battlegrounds, and after I have an epic (50gold a respec stings :) )

Da'Grim

02-09-2005, 03:53 PM

Thanks a lot for the quick answer. Perhaps it was a bit stupid of me to post more or less the same thing on two different threads and therefore I'll keep to my intial post from now on. Therefore if you want please read (Should I roll a) Shadow priest thread and give me more feedback there. :p Thanks

Shotai

02-13-2005, 01:28 AM

If you are in to exchanging opinions here, Jumai and Tivoli, I would like to discuss the usefulness/uselessness of the priest holy line compared to other classes talent lines as far as efficient is concerned.

Also considering the fact that priests are the main healer and should have, in my opinion, more/better healing tools, but instead of this they have damage spell tools. And off the top of my head I cannot think of another game that has given the main healer the ability to nuke others as much as priest does. Basically, my opnion is that the priest should have more healing tools and less damage tools.

Jumai

02-13-2005, 07:16 AM

We're pretty well rounded as far as "healing tools" go. We have an efficient heal that requires a degree of stability in the situation to use, we have a patch heal that's pretty damn fast and not too inefficient, an instant ohshit "heal" that can't have it's effectiveness reduced by max hp of the target, a group heal, and a solid heal over time with no cast bar. I can't think of anything directly related to healing that I'd find useful on a regular basis and can't already do (a mid-efficiency, high heal-per-second channeling heal-over-time is about the only thing that comes to mind, but it's nothing you can't do with sheild/flash and requires you to channel, I can't see it having a real niche especially in pvp).

We do have a variety of damage tools, some of which go pretty much unused. So? It's not like having 3 nukes, a channeling damage skill and a DOT makes my healing spells somehow less, nor does it force me to use any of them (I explicitly reccomended against holy fire in fact).

As for the holy line, many of the talents there are still largely full of holes and it's certainly not the one of the best talent trees for overall average effect. Yet, the talents there we tend to talk about are very solid. While having exactly 30 useful talents in a tree does absolutely axe diversity, they're not bad talents.

Shotai

02-13-2005, 12:04 PM

You're right, our damage spells don't somehow make our heals any less, but each class has a certain degree of tools and I would much rather see healing tools instead of damage tools. Priest is definately not lacking in heals, and maybe its just me that thinks this, but I would like to have seen other spells in place. For instance an instant heal, instant group heal, or even chanelling group heal-over-time like tranquility. All with reasonable cooldowns of course.

Maybe I am just used to healers in DAoC and all their tools.

Jumai

02-14-2005, 09:35 AM

For instance an instant heal, instant group heal, or even chanelling group heal-over-time like tranquility. All with reasonable cooldowns of course.
We have PWS, that's effectively an instant heal. The channeling group HoT doesn't acheive much that PoH does not, especially since it would have to lock you in place for more than 3 seconds. I think having to time your PoH or co-ordinate them with another healer's assistance adds a bit of skill to the class, so I don't really buy into the channeling can keep someone alive until you can patch heal them theory. Likewise, an instant group heal... just screams overpowered to me.

Shotai

02-14-2005, 11:24 AM

Nobody complained about it in DAoC :D
But oh well, different game, different system.

Dendriath

02-14-2005, 11:48 AM

I'd like to see a Imbaladin shield spell. =D

Katannah

02-14-2005, 12:30 PM

Also considering the fact that priests are the main healer and should have, in my opinion, more/better healing tools, but instead of this they have damage spell tools. And off the top of my head I cannot think of another game that has given the main healer the ability to nuke others as much as priest does. Basically, my opnion is that the priest should have more healing tools and less damage tools.

Priests have traditionally, in almost all RPGs and several MMOs to date, had the ability to "Smite" (yes, normally what it's called) their enemies with their deity's divine wrath etc etc. Often there are secondary specializations based on race or alignment or deity preference--ie., Searing Light or Nature's Wrath or in the case of WoW, Shadow.

Other similarities to WoW include larger heals than druids/shaman, more mana-/time-efficient heals, and larger pools or spell lists from which to draw heals.

That being said, key differences between the traditional cleric model and the WoW priest are the inability to wear heavy armor, cure poison, remove curse, and otherwise perform secondary healing roles. So for the amount of damage we can do with a Shadow specialization, we're trading off greater longevity and more utilitarianism.

I agree with you in that I would prefer to have the latter. But don't underestimate the priest's traditional role in damage dealing.

Shotai

02-14-2005, 02:16 PM

In previous games ive played my favorite classes are the pure healers, which is also what im best at... imagine that. :shock:

One problem, not necessarily for me, with a priest having holy damage spells and also shadow damage spells is that people want to heal as a priest, but also want to be able to kill people, taking away from the healing effectiveness. I don't care much for killing people as a priest unless I have to (i.e. 1v1). Killing is for every other class except main healer imo.

What I was really hoping the priest, main healer, was in this game is a class with almost nothing but healing tools. I understand having smite for the sake of lore, but doing holy damage and shadow damage.. from past experience the main healer has only had one damage type, and its borderlining gimp. It is put there for lore, but fairly bad to discourage all but the truest of fanbois from speccing in it.

However, in WoW, alot of the main healer's tools were given to shadow spells and these spells were actually beefed up with a really good line (shadow) to make them better. I see two things that blizzard 'could' have done: take away the priests smite or shadow and put it into healing tools, or made a different character that is a 'pure healer.'

Just my thoughts, though I think I am the only one that shares them.

Katannah

02-14-2005, 03:14 PM

I don't typically go around quoting canon just for canon's sake... and in this case, I have to say I agree with canon. ;) There really aren't many pantheons where a deity would allow its faithful servants to be defenseless, and for good reason, too. Hard to keep converts that way.

The pantheon aspect has been downplayed in WoW, but the concept is still the same. Impressing the masses requires a show of divine favor. This is the difference between a cleric and a healer.

And while traditionally a priest's offense tree is smaller than the healing tree, I have to say that given the tradeoffs here vis-a-vis armor and cures, I'm mightily glad of the extra damage. It is game-balancing. I'd prefer to have the turtle plating, but if I can't... give me damage.

Jumai

02-14-2005, 09:20 PM

lol, not only do we have a damage tree AND a damage talent tree, we have (wait for it) a skill called smite. Your generalization is also true in WoW.

They want every class to be able to solo. Shadow and smite is pretty much designed to ease the pain of grinding as a priest. I think that's friendly of blizzard, I don't use my nukes in groups and play like they weren't there, I don't feel the need not to have them just so I can wave a flag and claim to only have healing spells. I only buy healing talents, and I would roll a character without damage spells if it were a better healer, but I don't think there is a net effectiveness formula that forces blizzard to balance our heals around the fact we have smite. They do balance smite around heals, and that's enough.

Shotai

02-15-2005, 06:10 PM

On another note, priest res shouldn't take so long and they should be able to res in combat. Discuss.

Akuji

02-17-2005, 08:55 AM

On another note, priest res shouldn't take so long and they should be able to res in combat. Discuss.

I agree. Didn't there used to be a talent that allowed you to rez in combat? I just recently started playing my priest. But I think in beta there was a talent. Not sure though.

Tattersail

02-20-2005, 07:38 PM

Just a note about the priest healer only vs more diverse class discussion :) You all have valid and indeed interesting points, but I think you might be forgetting something.

Blizzard cares a lot about us gamers, and wants us to have as much fun as possible, but what's equaly important is the non-gamer that also plays WoW. Especially if you don't play a lot, you are mostly stuck with just 1 class. Non-gamers don't know what a class is about when they pick it, they don't know if they will like it. To decrease the chance of disliking a class after playing it up to *gasp* level 25, it has to be very diverse, and _fun_ to play in every situation. That is probably a very important reason for Blizzard to give priests a strong shadow tree.

Blizzard doesn't care so much about lore, tradition, hard-core gamers etc. as it does about _having fun_. That's what WoW is all about in the end.

(and we sure are having fun, damn addicting game)

Shotai

03-18-2005, 03:19 PM

/revive thread

Blizzard obviously has given every class the ability to solo no matter which talent tree the player specs in. Blizzard could have, and imo should have, made the holy line for priests based completely around healing instead of holy fire, holy nova, smite, and healing combined. Granted, healing has the most in that line, but imo healing should have all of the line except one 5 point talent to improve smite somehow.

The Holy tree has 3 special 1/1 abilities.

Holy Fire ( Rank 8 )
365 Mana 30 yd range
5 sec cast 1 min cooldown
Consumes the enemy in flames that cause 464 to 570 Fire damage and an additional 128 Fire damage over 8 sec.

Holy Nova ( Rank 3 )
345 Mana
Instant cast 5 sec cooldown
Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing 171 to 188 Holy damage to all targets within 10 yards. The effect also temporarily reduces your threat level against nearby targets for 5 sec.

Spirit of Redemption which only has one rank but the values increase with each level up (if a level 60 priest that has this posts the exact values I would be very grateful):
Spirit of Redemption - 1/1 point
Upon death, summons a Spirit of Redemption that heals nearby friendly targets for 318 to 360 and another 343 over 21 seconds.

Starting with the first one, Holy Fire. The Priest's Holy tier 3 spell is a 5 second (4.5 second with talents) cast direct damage and DOT. This is a relatively powerful spell that is as good as the Mage's Rank 11 Fireball which does 561-715 and 72 over 8 seconds assuming it was only casted once and the follow-up DOT was left to run its full course.

Now for the second one, Holy Nova. The Priest's Holy tier 7 spell is an instant pbae with low damage output and its castable every 5 seconds. I don't know a single Priest that has specced for this since it is pretty much useless. Speccing for this makes it so you have to give up a few things in Discipline and, if you are tri spec, Shadow.

And the last one, the only healing ability, Spirit of Redemption. This is the Priest's tier 5 ability which is pretty good for what it is but the downside is that the Priest has to die first. It wouldn't be that much of a problem if the Priest's group has a Druid or a Warlock with a Soulstone on the Priest. If the Priest dies and every other person in the group is at full or close to full hp then this ability is wasted.

The Priest is named by Blizzard to be the main healer so one could only assume that the main healer would have the best healing tools... right? Unfortunately this isn't how it worked out. If any class gets a combat res one would think that the main healer would get it... wrong again. In fact the Priest res values aren't even close to being as good as the Druid's. Also, one would assume that if any class would get an instant heal that it would be the main healer... Instead its the Druid that gets it.

The Priest really only has 2 spells that the Druid does not: Prayer of Healing which is a 3 second cast time group heal with no cooldown (Druids get Tranquility which is a channelling group heal with 10 minute cooldown) , and Power Word:Shield. Some say that the Priest's instant heal is PW:S which is far from true since most smart groups would dispel the shield instead of trying to take it down with melee and spells.

As far as abilities go the Priest's Holy talent line is garbage. IMO there should be at least 2, if not all 3, heal-type abilities in the Holy line. Priests 'should' have better/more tools than any other class. On top of this Priests should have all tools that another class gets (excluding something such as Tranquility since Priests have a group heal).

Discuss... and Tivoli why don't you put some input here? :P

gnarkill

03-18-2005, 06:07 PM

Shotai

03-20-2005, 10:24 AM

Inconsiderable

03-20-2005, 11:07 AM

You cannot dispel shield. Its like +1000 Hits instant.

gnarkill

03-20-2005, 04:54 PM

Personally for the holy line I would like to see a nice channeling heal and a "holy form" like "shadow form". This form would have a bonus to holy spells but you couldnt cast shadow spells and would be a DMG shield.

I don't think a "holy form" really addresses the issue. I'm looking for healing tools not buffs to current tools.

So you think the priest class is broke or something? I think our heals are fine but it would be nice to see the holy tree worth a doodoo.

What are these 'issues' that you think need addressing?

Shotai

03-20-2005, 06:27 PM

You cannot dispel shield. Its like +1000 Hits instant.
Uh.. yes you can I do it all the time, thx. I could show you a video if you like.

So you think the priest class is broke or something? I think our heals are fine but it would be nice to see the holy tree worth a doodoo.

What are these 'issues' that you think need addressing?

The Priest doesn't really have any issues that need addressing. However, it is named the main healer yet does not have every healing tool and does not heal 'by far' the best as it should. If any class has a combat res, it should be Priest. If any class has insta heal (Druid and Shaman) the Priest should. There is no reason a class should have a good healing tool that the main healer does not.

Jumai

03-20-2005, 09:55 PM

Shotai

03-20-2005, 11:16 PM

the priest is NOT intended to be far and away the best with every little spell. We're overall the most effective healers already, and other classes deserve their toys. We don't need nature's swiftness, we have pw:s and a small heal that doesn't cost 900 mana.
Its obviously that Priests aren't intended to be far and away with every single spell, however as the 'main healer' they should be. How many games have you played as the main healer before, or games that even have a main healer. They are always the best by far, not just by a small margin. And what do you mean 'other classes deserve their toys.' The main healer SHOULD have all the healing toys to play with since it is the MAIN HEALER. I don't think I am getting through to you. Druids have forms and attack spells on top of heals that they can play with, they don't need an instant heal and a combat res. Shamans have melee, shocks, and totems on top of heals that they can play with. They don't need an instant heal.

Think outside of the box.

Scorpicore

03-21-2005, 02:14 AM

The Priest doesn't really have any issues that need addressing.

spirit needs a buff to boost meditation and divine spirit
holy nova...needs a replacement
the whole holy tree needs an overhaul, there simply is no flexibility at all in there which talents to pick over another
the only nearly 'complete' tree is the shadow-line and when blizzard gets rid off shadow affinity its even perfect

Anonymous

03-21-2005, 02:28 AM

fj0tt

03-21-2005, 02:51 AM

Hi, i've got a little problem you guys probably can help me with.

I'm a lvl.48 priest specced shadow atm. I'm thinking about speccing holy/disc in a not to far away future. My problem is that i dont know how i should place my point when i respec. My build is something along the lines of Tivolis but that build is for when you are lvl60 and if i will be lvl 50-52 when i respec i obviously wont be able to get all the talents.

So, which tree is best to finish first? Disc to inner focus then holy tree?

gnarkill

03-21-2005, 08:53 AM

No need to respec till 60. Dont goto instances before 60 because everyone wants to raid them, so that means you will get no exp. Just grind as much as you can and if you feel you have to go holy/dis then first put your points into the benefits for your heals because that was the reason to switch from shadow right? then put them into dis till they run out. At your level yuo will be able to get the most important ones in dis.

Shotai

03-21-2005, 10:44 AM

so, while your on it:

Give Rogues MortalStrike and the ability to wield all weapons.
they are the Main Melee Damage dealers and therefore deserve to have all the nice melee damage toys.

Your argument is flawed man. Beeing the main healer does NOT mean having each and every healing skill/toy.

It means beeing the best char for healing purposes. What a Priest in fact is. Even if he speccs shadow, i , as a warrior, would always take a priest over a druid in the group.

I played Uldaman on the WE with a lvl 46-41 Group and the Priest was the 41ish Char.

In the Archaedas Fight he did not run out of mana. He just would not stop healing, and he was healing me citically for 1992 hp at one point.

Needless to say he is specced full shadow.

I know, endgame instances need a holy/disci specc.

But do you wanna tell me you would want to switch the druids level 30 in combat rezz that is on a 30 min timer against the priests rezz?

Didn't think so.

1: I would switch out Priest res for the Druid res.
2: Just because you won't take a Druid over a Priest does not mean others won't (because some do since Druids can heal almost just as well).
3: Rogues are not tanks, they are pure DPS class and that is exactly what they have. Rogues specialize in single target DPS in melee and there is no replacement for one.
4: Priests, on the other hand, have a replacement and that is the Druid, also sometimes a Restoration spec Shaman. Priest is main healer, Druid/Shaman is backup healer, not to take the place of main healer or be marginally close to being able to. As I said before, Druids and Shamans have other toys on top of heals, they don't need insta heal when a Priest could use it more.
5: You, as a warrior, need to not tell me what is/isn't an issue with my class. Until you play a Priest, any arguement you put here is skewed and from the wrong perspective (the person getting healed, not the person healing).

Devilnaut

03-21-2005, 11:01 AM

"Priest is main healer, Druid/Shaman is backup healer, not to take the place of main healer or be marginally close to being able to."..

..in your opinion?

"As I said before, Druids and Shamans have other toys on top of heals"...

Priests have plenty of toys, IE dispell, or the best DoT in the game, or AE fear, which all rock. On top of this they are the most efficient healers. As a class, druid needs far more help than priest does and I see priest as fairly well rounded.

Why don't you try thinking outside the box? It's like I'm not getting through to you.

Shotai

03-21-2005, 11:17 AM

Priests have plenty of toys, IE dispell, or the best DoT in the game, or AE fear, which all rock. On top of this they are the most efficient healers. As a class, druid needs far more help than priest does and I see priest as fairly well rounded.

Druid obviously doesn't need any help at all, they heal really good even without an instant.

Dispel Magic, Shadow Word:Pain, and Psychic Scream really do help out on my healing effectiveness... I almost forgot about those. /sarcasm off

EDIT: I couldn't care less about main healer having an ubr dot that is, to me, a waste of mana. Psychic scream... Druid has Nature's Grasp and Shamans have Earthbind totem.

Anonymous

03-21-2005, 11:19 AM

Devilnaut

03-21-2005, 11:39 AM

"Dispel Magic, Shadow Word:Pain, and Psychic Scream really do help out on my healing effectiveness... I almost forgot about those. /sarcasm off "

Well, dispell most certainly does help your healing effectiveness (in a very big way) and so does psychic scream as a defensive manuever. I mean, if we're talking about pvp, those two skills are absolutely huge for a healer.

Blizzard obviously does not intend to balance classes towards one specific playing style and if you choose not to use the DoT because it does damage, or because it has an orange icon, or because you hate the letters D o or T, well... I dunno what to tell ya...

Shotai

03-21-2005, 11:40 AM

ok, you take the druid rezz over the priests.

So, if by any means more than one of your party members die at any point (instance/pvp/whatever) you'll consider that a wipe.

Unless you have a shammy/pally with you you will be able to rezz one party member every 30 mins. wow, that would make the priest much better than all other healing classes. He would just need another char to rezz if more than one dies.

Well, you are correct, i do NOT know how a priest is played.
I cannot argue from the same perspective you can from, which is the healing guy, the guy behind the priest.

What i can give you though is 1st hand xperience from MY perspective, and from the "feeling" of grouping with a priest and/or a druid.

And maybe, just maybe you should actually consider taking other views but your into account.

But you might as well say:" bleh, you are a warrior what do you know about beeing a priest." Nothing. Right.

I assume you have a warri alt, and know for a fact what the difference between a priest healing and a druids healing is/feels/plays like.
Is all you think about PvE? Start thinking about PvP and how much more useful a Priest would be if he had combat res. I'm gonna go record a pvp video, host it, and post it here for you to see. If you are smart, you would respect my input a little bit more instead of just looking for someone to argue with. If Tivoli posted this you would think its a good idea or, at the very least, not argue against it because you know he is a good/well experienced priest.

EDIT: I'm not bragging when I say I am a skilled Priest. Most people I group with actually take the time to send me a tell in an instance and tell me so and want to group with me later on. If, by chance, only one person in the group dies every half hour then that is not a problem. Usually if someone dies in my group its usually everybody because of a bad pull. If I let just one person die (unless he is a caster and dies in 2 seconds) I would reroll because I don't deserve to play a Priest.

Devilnaut

03-21-2005, 11:44 AM

You're the one that started calling peoples' credibility into question...

If you want to have a discussion you're going to have to prepare yourself for disagreements.

FallenDevil

03-21-2005, 12:00 PM

So much hostility.

Ok having played both sides of this card, i can tell you i would rather have either healer around or both...situational. Playing as a Healing Druid blows. But in Massive PVP (5v5 or more) i cant tell you how many times i have heard countless "thanks" either due to Rebirth on a priest, a Innervate on a priest and even a Nature's Swiftness+Healing Touch for more then the priest's total HP.

Now in PVE, A priest is almost essential. But when i have my priest in ST or Maur I love having a druid around incase things go ornery.

Druids are limited Priests are limited...but damn if you have noticed yet but every damn class is limited if there was one that wasnt no one would play anything else

Shotai

03-21-2005, 12:09 PM

FallenDevil

03-21-2005, 12:22 PM

This is very true for druids and priests alike. Resto specced Druid is very limited when in PVE due to can really only melee to preserve mana for heals. Since it costs a buttload more then any priest anyday. But Scorch could probably back me up on this...that when a Druid pulls aggro from heals he/she is in dangerous territory due to lack of fade/shield/scream...But in turn we do have bear form which can take a big ol' arsekickin....You know the more i type this out the more i question my own reasoning...well shoot how my guild and i prefer to have healers is druid in pvp priest in pve and Both when possible...

Of course i'm the only high level of either...so yeah

Anonymous

03-21-2005, 01:39 PM

If Tivoli would have made that point it wouldn't change shit about my opinion on it. the only person here that i am fanbois to, are sintor and inda, though they ruined my life by rerolling. I jumped of a bridge, unluckily it was not all that high.

I did not want by any means question your credibility nor your skill as a priest/healer.

You were the one telling me to not argue against you, questioning whether i am allowed to have an opinion on this, let alone voice it.

I just said that the rezz of the Druid is a cool feature to have, yes. but the rezz of the Priest is a NECESSARY thing to have.

Especially in PvP IMO i'd rather group with someone who can actually rezz more than 1 person within 30 mins. talking group PvP. Of course Incombat rezz is an "xtra life" and thats VERY NICE, but losing out on the ability to have a group PvP and win closely with, like, only the priest standing or w/e, wouldn't it feel like losing if half your group had to do a corpse run?

Also, in the PvE part it, i dont know how many people died on my 1st Molten Core Run, b4 we even saw a boss, within the 1st 30 mins.

Granted, you will have more than one rezzer, but do you, as a main healer want to be the guy that is only to rezz one guy?

Anyway. I do not wish to argue with you, and it was not my goal to argue for the sake of it. I didnt want to piss you of neither, if i did, well, too bad.

Shotai

03-21-2005, 02:55 PM

Anonymous

03-21-2005, 04:19 PM

Well you'd switch out the rezzes, that was what you said.

anyway, that would sure be nice and is a nice idea.

I agree with you on the point that the top tier spell in the holy specc should NOT be a damage spell.

having something like a combat rezz/insta heal though would not quite cut it though.

Would you go 31 points holy for a combat rezz? hmm, normally nobody in your parties dies, assuming you make your job. so, you'd prolly seldom let someone die to justify speccing into holy that deep. ;)

what exactly is your point on arguing against something like a "holy form" ?

Wouldn't that, from what i read out of your posts, be exactly what you want?

better healing (you could even put a insta heal into the holy form) would take the cake, but you wouldn't be allowed to use your shadow damage tools.

Sounds not all that bad to me.

Ah, well i might just be a lil late already.

Shotai

03-21-2005, 07:26 PM

I was talking about healing tools, not healing effectiveness.

Devilnaut

03-21-2005, 08:49 PM

How about this for a top-end holy tree talent:

The ability to create custom heals, based on a fixed DPS / mana efficiency ratio. (EDIT: what I mean is not a fixed ratio, but fixed DPS / Mana efficiency values. Just a fixed ratio would make this skill too good!) Make your heals 1 second long, 8 seconds long, or anything in between. This would allow hardcore healers to micromanage their efficiency beyond their 3 or 4 pre-set heals and inject a well needed dose of creativity into one of the game's classes.

Part of the reason I don't really play WoW anymore is because they don't have many creative ideas like this. It's all worrying trying to please everybody and is therefore watered down (I guess that's what happens when a lot of money is put into anything: less willingness to take risks, and less individual vision).

I miss the stone age of gaming where designers presented ideas, instead of simply regurgitating their perceptions of competition / audience desires.

I digress, so I'll stop :)

Jumai

03-28-2005, 02:05 AM

gnarkill

03-28-2005, 08:08 AM

Ouch...that was harsh heh.

Shotai

04-10-2005, 07:12 PM

I'm not talking about copy and pasting the Druid's combat res to the Priest. What I would like to have seen done is the tier 7 talent for Priest to be an instant heal or a combat res with a 5s cast time or so and little to no cooldown.
You sunk your every arguement right there. Two pages of making this a penis measuring contest between the healing classes on who has the most toys was bad enough, but that suggestion there would utterly ruin raid encounters.

You are a main healer. You are not THE healer. You don't need more "healing tools," you have one for every situation. You don't need to have everything every other healing class can do. That would render them obsolete.

Just stop. You're not arguing in favor of balance, diversity, or anything that would benefit the game. You just want more buttons to put on your action bar, because other people have some that you don't. This is a stupid complaint.

My arguement was, is, and will be that the Priest is main healer and should completely excel in healing instead of damage (holy vs shadow with shadow being the better tree) and Druids should excel more in their forms than anything else (Druids are welcomed into groups most of the time because of their heals, not their forms since their forms are/were pretty bad) and Shamans... well I'll just say Shamans could go without an instant heal, better health/mana regen totems would work fine.

laki

05-25-2005, 06:38 AM

Part 2: the template
This is an incomplete build which includes the talents on which consensus has largely been reached. This is the dual-spec pure healer build. I will deal with the tri-spec backup healer later.

Quote:

HOLY
-5/5 Improved Renew (you are taking two other talents that vastly buff Renew. It's maddeningly efficient. In addition, it's an instant heal (albeit over time) AND increases your potential heal-per-second)

-5/5 Spiritual Healing (if this needs explaination, roll a paladin)

-5/5 Holy Specialization (this seems to work out better than Inspiration in terms of effective Heal over Time. If you are a PvE priest, you may prefer Subtlety. All other possible skills you could take to make up 15 points are icky damage talents)

-5/5 Improved Healing (save your mana. The IGN guy would be proud).
-OR 3/5 Improved Healing, 2/5 Improved Flash Heal (31-disc builds only, your choice)

DISCIPLINE
-5/5 Unbreakable Will (helps in PvP, Silent Resolve does not help at all)

-2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude (life = good)

-3/3 Improved Power Word: Sheild (tactical benefit, PWS is ohshit's finest incarnation but very mana inefficient. A 31-disc build that does not take Improved Flash Heal could make an arguement for dropping this in favor of Improved Inner Fire, but I wouldn't buy into it).

-5/5 Mental Agility (powerful in its own right, but as a pre-requisite for must-have Inner Focus, this isn't even arguable. In combat it helps out your Renew, Sheild, Dispel, Abolish Disease, Fear etc. Out of combat it eases the strain of buffing and lends a hand to Pain etc.)

-3/5 Mental Strength + 0/2 Improved Mana Burn (put the 2 points in one, the other, or split them between the two, all choices are viable)

-1/1 Inner Focus (this is a great talent. Not only is it a free heal, neither Inner Focus nor the spell you cast off it triggers the 5 second rule, meaning you will regenerate at full while casting. Brilliant.)

points: 41/51

Has anyone noticed u cannot take inner fire in this basic template,because it requires 20 talent points in disciple tree?

Guess u have to take 5 points in m.strenght then or divide them between m.strenght and manaburn in order to reach inner fire...

-3/5 Mental Strength + 0/2 Improved Mana Burn (put the 2 points in one, the other, or split them between the two, all choices are viable)

.....0/2 in manaburn has to be a typing error:)...

JonChron

06-03-2005, 02:01 AM

Targettable AoE heal would be a nice treat for the bottom of the holy tree.

Say Flamestrike radius with a couple second cast time for 700 or so?

I would never give priests back their combat rez talent, it's much better on druids.

07-31-2005, 10:02 PM

Information about using proxy servers for privacy, with socks and proxy lists: http://www.checkproxy.net

AzouN

08-06-2005, 03:46 AM

Laki: I suppose you mean Inner Focus since Inner Fire only requires 15 point in Disc tree. However, you seem to fail to have noticed the paranthesis.

The template says:

5/5 Unbreakable Will
2/2 Imp. PW:F
3/3 Imp. PW:S
5/5 Mental Agility
3/5 Mental Strength
(Thats 18)
Now it says in the paranthesis, quoting: (put the 2 points in one, the other, or split them between the two, all choices are viable) in reference to Mental Strength and Imp. Mana Burn. Meaning you either go up to 5/5 Mental Strength = 20 points or stay at 3/5 Mental Strength and get 2/2 Imp. Mana Burn, also bringing you to 20 points total.

:)

// AzouN

Jumai

08-08-2005, 02:05 PM

You can go 4/5 1/2 if you want as well =p

My own reasoning has evolved with time, and I'm currently running a build that isn't exactly as described here. I can update the guide to be current if there's interest.

Elerion

08-10-2005, 07:28 AM

There's interest. I love hearing other people with clues' reasoning.

Elerion

08-12-2005, 05:40 PM

While waiting for Jumai, I'll throw up the template I will likely respec to right after returning from my vacation. I was a 26/25 d/h priest with strong PvE orientation for months, but expect to do a bit more pvp after my return now. I still want to stay as good a healer as possible for BWL, so I'll run with something like this:

Discipline Talents (29 points)

Unbreakable Will - 5/5 points
Martyrdom - 2/2 points
Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 2/2 points
Focused Casting - 1/1 point
Mental Agility - 5/5 points
Mental Strength - 5/5 points
Meditation - 5/5 points
Inner Focus - 1/1 point

Holy Talents (22 points)

Improved Renew - 5/5 points
Holy Specialization - 5/5 points
Spiritual Healing - 5/5 points
Inspiration - 5/5 points
Improved Flash Heal - 2/2 points
That means I've dumped the PvE favoring talents of subtlety and improved healing in favor of the critbuild with spec and inspiration, which I'm pretty sure I'll stay with. PoH and SoR have been ditched in favor of Martyrdom/Focused, which is a test project more than anything. If I was horde I'd probably pick up imp inner fire instead, but purge scares me away from relying on buffs.

Cleaver

08-25-2005, 02:14 AM

First of all, I havent read all of the thread, since I'm at work and my break wasnt long enough to read it all :) I just wanted to know what you guys thought of the guild I'm thinking of speccing, for most efficient/continious healing. Please give your ups and downs about this build, mainly gonna be used for Onyxia, Kazzak, Azuregos, MC and BWL of course, and ZG when that patch comes in Europe.

Discipline Talents (26 points)

Unbreakable Will - 5/5 points
Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 2/2 points
Mental Agility - 5/5 points
Mental Strength - 5/5 points
Inner Focus - 1/1 point
Meditation - 5/5 points

Holy Talents (25 points)

Holy Specialization - 5/5 points
Improved Renew - 4/5 points
Spiritual Healing - 5/5 points
Inspiration - 5/5 points
Improved Healing - 5/5 points
Spirit of Redemption - 1/1 point

Scorpicore

08-25-2005, 02:59 AM

put that point from spirit into impr. renew for 5/5 and since you have inspiration you might want to pick holy specialisation over improved healing for that

Cleaver

08-25-2005, 03:12 AM

So the general oppenion is that spirit is completely useless?

Jumai

08-26-2005, 04:58 AM

Spirit is good. It's not really as good as int unless the fight is long as hell though.

TBH I haven't been playing WoW lately. When I was, I had basically stopped pve'ing and just wanted to pk, but my buddies weren't around when I was and I got bored.

I use divine spirit only because I have the transcendance 3 piece bonus. If I didn't I'd drop it. I'd been experimenting with blackout (3/5 right now) with strong but unreliable results. The stun can happen at a crucial moment and make all the difference, or it can do absolutely nothing, or not happen. I think it's a better proc than inspiration since I rarely play with a warrior anymore, so meh.

31/3/17 right now. From memory I have mental strength, the improved PW's, mental agility, mental strength, improved inner fire, meditation, inner focus, 1 force of will, divine spirit, 3/5 blackout, renew, holy spec, spiritual healing, and improved flash heal. At this point I'm happy with the build.

The only enigma to me at this point is inspiration. There are just too many variables. Target's base armour, physical damage sustained by target throughout duration, proc chance, it's mitigation yes but it's one of those things that is so unreliable you have to treat it like it isn't there. I HATE that when healing. In my mind it's competing for points with Blackout and it gets deemed strategically inferior. Inspiration reduces the damage you take while you're getting owned. Blackout gets you vital seperation, and actually does something against casters. Inspiration reduces an opponents advantage. Blackout gives you and advantage. Inspiration is passive, blackout creates an opportunity.

ps find a warlock who knows what he's doing and get your groove together, you'll be amazed. I don't get to play with Shako much, but I'll happily attack a 5-man non guild group (or even a guild group unless it's a pretty respectable name) with just him. It's a super-flexible 2-man that can do some really amazing stuff.

Scorpicore

08-26-2005, 07:01 AM

the spirit I mentioned above was an abbreviation for spirit of redemption that guy had in his build and even tho it's only one talent point it still is useless ;o

Jumai

08-30-2005, 08:15 AM

I deeply hate SoR. It's so inherently wrong on so many levels, and it's a disgrace of creative design. If you can't think of any better cool heals, just make us heal better please.

kary

09-01-2005, 12:23 AM

Subtlety is good in BWL. Thats just deeply wrong.

Waffle Crisp

09-03-2005, 03:14 PM

If you had to choose one or the other, is the consensus that Holy Specialization is better than Inspiration? I know they're both pretty poor, but I'm playing a build that needs to fill 17 points to get to Improved Flash Heal. Inspiration sounds pretty dodgy to me, and I think Holy Spec would be decent if you're doing a lot of flash healing since it shouldn't have the wasted overhealing problem as much as when using big heals, but I'm not sure...

Edit: Jumai, that's a cool idea to take only a bit of Blackout from the Shadow tree; I hadn't seen anyone else do that. Does anyone know if Mana Burn can proc Blackout? I know Mana Burn is listed as a discipline spell, but I'm wondering if the game engine considers it a shadow spell, being that I heard some stuff about being counterspelled while using it locking out the shadow (not discipline) school of spells.

Elerion

09-04-2005, 08:38 PM

For choosing one or the other, holy spec is definitely better.

Inspiration's usefulness almost doubles with 5/5 holy spec, but without it, it's pretty poor.

My tanks are absolutely loving Inspiration in my current build, but I'm finding I have to respec to subtlety for deeper BWL, so I'm either dropping 5 inspiration or 3 imp inner fire + 2 inspiration. The judges are still out on that one.

Scorpicore

09-05-2005, 03:26 AM

Elerion

09-08-2005, 10:53 PM

Inspiration's usefulness almost doubles with 5/5 holy spec, but without it, it's pretty poor.

not really, you can gather lots of crit items to make up for that
for example: 5 propehcy set bonus (+2% holy crit), benediction (another +2%) and eye of the beast (again, +2%)
when you are running bwl you have spent alot of gearing up time before in mc so gathering those items isnt a problem at all

Eye of the Beast is a horrible healer trinket. With options such as Royal Seal of Eldre'Thalas and Mindtap Talisman easily available for PvE, there's no way Eye of the Beast should be a staple choice. The extra mana regen/healing will be far more useful than a 2% chance to crit, in every encounter Vaelastrasz, on which you should be wearing FR over it.
For PvP, survival/utility trinkets are far more useful than the Eye.
There's just no situation where Eye beats other common alternatives for a healing priest. I picked Mark of Tyranny over it, for those PvP situations where you are focused a lot.

I stand by my comment. Inspiration without Holy Spec is picking a decent talent over a more versatile one which in turn boosts the decent talent into a good one.

Waffle Crisp

09-09-2005, 02:05 PM

For PvP, survival/utility trinkets are far more useful... I picked Mark of Tyranny over [the Eye], for those PvP situations where you are focused a lot.
Speaking of PvP trinkets for priests, is Insignia of the Horde/Alliance + Mark of Tyranny the way to go? It seems like the engineering net could be useful, but I heard it got nerfed. There's the Smoking Heart of the Mountain, although you have be an enchanter to use it, and it can be difficult for mere mortals to obtain. If you regularly group with someone who can dispel, I suppose you could ditch the Horde insignia to swap the Smoking Heart in, no? I hear there's also a great, new armor trinket from BWL, but I'm never going to go on raids, so it's out of my reach. Heart of Noxxion seems to have utility, but I'm skeptical about it for group PvP.

Are there any other good and relatively easy-to-obtain PvP trinket options for priests?

Elerion

09-11-2005, 03:06 PM

Royal Seal of Eldre'Thalas is a great all round trinket. Mana, healing and fire resist. It's very good for PvE as well, so worth picking up. Just swap it out for Mark of Tyranny if you are being focused by melees, and use the other slot for utility trinkets (Insignia, engineering goods, stopwatch, six demon bag, etc), switching them out until their cooldown is down again.

Other than Seal, Mark and Smoking Heart, there aren't many good passive trinkets for a non-raiding PvP priest. If you start raiding, there's quite a few.

Jumai

09-12-2005, 05:24 PM

If you find yourself using eye of the beast, go get a briarwood reed instead

AzouN

09-13-2005, 04:06 AM

If you find yourself using eye of the beast, go get a briarwood reed instead

So you're telling me I'm better off with my ~1150 HP Flash Heals healing for ~1163 than 2% extra chance to proc inspiration and a large chunk heal on my defspec, MC-geared flagcarrier of a warrior?

Pfft :P

Noristat

10-24-2005, 10:39 AM

I really hate to post this so much later down in the forum when every one has moved on, but when I saw all of Shotai's bitching and everyone else's obvious disagreements with him (I was cheering for you, twoDog and gnarkill), I just felt compelled to register on here and respond myself.

Seriously, Shotai, it seems that every time someone tried to offer some sort of solution or addendum to your view of the priest class, you pissed on them and struck them down, demanding "more healing tools NOW!"

"I don't want more healing effectiveness, I want more healing tools."

Why would you need more tools if your heals are infinitely better than your supposed-Godlike druid class that you keep ranting about? You want priests to be main healers that blow druids and shamans out of the water. A better 30 point holy skill that beefs up your healing would do just that. But no, you stick to the terminology and specific wording. As Tivoli said, you demand more buttons to press on your hotbar, and not a solution to the problem, which multiple people on here have provided.

No matter what anyone says, you're just going to keep blowing hot air.

I'm asking you to stop (and hopefully, your rampage is over), because it's pissing all of us off, and it's wasted a good bit of my time looking for relevant information from other SATISFIED priests in this thread..

Thanks..

Noristat

10-24-2005, 02:35 PM

I'm currently shadow specced and grinding this character up to 60, but following Jumai's line of thinking that improved flash heal is a life-saver in almost every situation, this is what I'm leaning towards for my current build:

Holy Talents (22)
5/5 Improved Renew
5/5 Holy Specialization*
5/5 Spiritual Healing
3/5 Improved Healing**
2/2 Improved Flash Heal
2/2 Improved Prayer of Healing

Discipline Talents (29)
5/5 Unbreakable Will
2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude
1/3 Improved Power Word: Shield***
2/2 Martyrdom
5/5 Mental Agility
3/3 Improved Inner Fire
5/5 Mental Strength
5/5 Meditation
1/1 Inner Focus

There are only a few key differences that separate this from any other disc/holy build, but I think they're notable.

*Holy Specialization - It would be incredibly difficult to crunch the numbers and decide once and for all whether Inspiration is better than this talent or not. Jumai makes an excellent point when he notes that a critical Gheal or even sometimes a critical flash heal will simply top off the target's health, making the crit a large waste in the first place...while more armor from inspiration would reduce -further- damage and increase the mitigation of the tank. A critical prayer of healing stands a chance to increase the armor of your whole group....very nice, but then again, it happens rarely and only sounds nice in theory. If someone does the math and discovers that Inspiration is better in the end, please let me know...honestly, I don't really give a shit either way since both talents are only decent, and not really vital.

** 3/5 Improved Healing - Most would say that I'm a fool for taking inner fire or meditation over this, but this build is built around some raiding, some instancing, and a lot of PvP. If the extra mana for your big heals is really that vital, then go 5/5. Most of the time, in my opinion, the mana regeneration while casting, the extra armor from inner fire, and the fact that flash heal has infinitely more utility than a huge heal in almost EVERY PvP situation simply tells me not to put too much stake in this talent.

Prayer of Healing is hands down the most mana efficient spell in the priest's arsenal. If at any time, three of more of your party members have lost 20% health or more, which does happen often even in the best of instance groups, then this spell automatically out-shines any other heal. It's an "oh-shit" spell in some circumstances, spammable in others, and great for making a quick recovery for your team in a PvP cirumstance. I can't express how much I love the spell itself. Saving a fifth of its mana cost every time you cast it really holds a lot of appeal to me in the long run, moreso than burning my target's mana down faster, or having more efficient single target heals.

*** Improved Power Word: Shield - I'm a mana efficiency whore. If you're having to cast this spell a lot, then something is wrong, especially in PvE. As far as PvP goes, if you need to throw up a shield on someone to save them, or yourself...then do it, but if you have to do it again in the same 30 second interval, then consider your healing strategy, rather than wanting to use this spell over and over again. Don't get me wrong, I really love this spell and all the benefits it provides...but I would call for most mature priests to "wean" themselves off of it, because becoming dependent on a mana-hogging crutch isn't really a good thing if there are other combinations of more mana-efficient healing spells that you could use. An exception would be the PW:S and renew combo...excellent in all situations, but then again, I like that because of renew's awesome efficiency, and not the shield's. It only provides time for my favorite heal spell to kick in, really. Taking 1/3 is my personal choice, and I don't particularly care for Martyrdom or Focused Casting, especially since pummel can ruin the potential of them in the first place. But, it's my way of playing my priest in a more mana efficient manner. A good enemy priest will also dispell it whenever he sees it, robbing you of your mana even more. Most will disagree here, and that's perfectly understandable.

A few more notes:

I hate Spirit of Redemption and I will never take it, not once, ever. It looks good on paper, makes you look like a martyr, and goes with the whole "I'm a priest and I sacrifice for others" deal...but, why would you ever take a talent that would have your group to WANT you to die? I just don't like it.

The holy tree needs an overhaul, and meditation isn't quite worth it in my opinion, but I'd rather have regeneration than a dispellable spirit buff or the ability to crank out a bunch of big heals really fast, draining my mana. Master healer doesn't quite fit a PvP build, because slow heals and fighting an enemy with real human intelligence don't mix together at all.

In summary, this is not the most independent, perfect PvP build. It's not the best instance or raid build. Most would say the improved inner fire is a waste, and that the improved healing would be better. In the end, I'm just looking for a nice balance with utility, and 29 disc/22 holy is a good way to achieve that. Let me know what you think..

Elerion

10-24-2005, 05:36 PM

A better 30 point holy skill that beefs up your healing would do just that.

A better 30 point holy skill that beefs up your healing would be the worst thing to ever happen to the priest class.

Raid content is balanced around potential player/character ability. If priests have the ability to heal 20% better by going 31 points in holy, raid content will be designed to require 20% more priest healing. If it wasn't, then guilds could just spec all their priests holy and breeze through it.

The bigger the difference in heal ability between a disc/shadow/trispec priest and a full holy priest, the more necessary it will be to spec all your priests holy. That will pigeonhole us into a certain talent build if we want to do the endgame content.

As it stands today, you can do the hardest content in the game with all shadow priests. It will be slightly harder, but it's doable. If holy priests healed twice as good as shadow priests, this wouldn't be possible.

Finally, we don't want to blow druids, shamans and paladins out of the water healwise. If we do, then the consequence will be that raids will ideally contain 10+ priests and a couple of the other heal classes to do buffs and pick up loot.

As it stands today, the raiding priest is perfectly balanced. He is the best healer, but only by a little, and not in all aspects, which makes you want to bring 3-4+ of the other healers as well. He can spec to become more powerful as a healer, but not so powerful that any other builds are invalidated. Serious changes to the healing power of the priest in general or the holy tree specfically will skew this balance and bite us in the ass.

A character class' strength is measured in it's relative power to another class performing the same role

So what do we need?
We need something to make the life of the priest more entertaining, the holy priest in particular. Better grind ability for holy priests would go a long way in that respect, as well as increased utility.
We need something to increase the survivability of a healing priest in PvP. Balancing this will be a nightmare, so will probably take a long time.
We need banana robes. Check.

Noristat

10-24-2005, 07:30 PM

I think you misunderstood. I wasn't calling for a 30 point holy talent that beefs up heals. I agree with you 100%...we should have something different.

But, when you say that would pigeonhole us...it's a hell of a lot better than holy nova. Having a 30 point skill that's absolutely useless in the tree that should be a main healers primary focus is just ludicrous.

I was only using that as an example for Shotai, who seems to think that priests are strictly inferior and should be replaced by druids. The way he sees it, our "healing tools" are so broken that we all should just reroll druids or shamans now and slit our wrists as well, because it's the end of the world.

I don't really care WHAT we get, honestly. But I would like to see holy nova taken out of the game, or at least improved so vastly that putting 30 points into the tree would actually be worth it.

Sneezer

11-28-2005, 05:06 AM

when will priest talents have their "revamp" ?

Noristat

11-28-2005, 04:24 PM

when will priest talents have their "revamp" ?

I don't know, but I'm waiting for that glorious day. Let me say one thing that really pisses me off, though..

In the upcoming 1.9 patch, Blizzard has announced a revamp of PALADIN talents. What the fuck are they thinking? Paladins are FINE they way they are. They might need a few slight tweaks in PvP to make them contend with warriors on the front line, but FFS, druids and priests are getting the biggest shaft I have ever seen here.

I really hate to see a class that only has two viable talent builds. You either go one, or the other, and if you don't, you're pretty much gimped in comparison to other players of that class. At this point in time, a few classes fall in to this category, and while paladins are one of them, they do not have any talent tree that is just completely broken at the top end. The holy tree for priests certainly is. This gives WoW a "Diablo 2" feel, when you really only have one or two choices, despite there being three separate talent trees with forty points each in them.

Priests can go shadow, or they can go healer. They either take divine spirit, master healer, or neither, and choose to focus on the admittedly better talents in the lower rungs of both support trees. Crappy talents that will NEVER be used, such as wand specialization, divine fury, holy nova, and force of will, should be taken out in favor of something different. Should it make priests the god of all support roles? No, but at least put something fun in place of these crappy ideas. Here are a few propositions of mine:

-A talent that adds a critical effect and stacks with certain discipline spells. For example, a talent that makes your holy shield absorb 30% more damage, or causes your mana burn to drain double the mana, but still do the same amount of damage. This would allow priests to gain an "ooh-ah" moment here and there, but it would only supplement what they already do now.

-A talent that increases the amount healed by spells cast on yourself for a duration. Priests are usually on the top of the hit list of the enemy in PvP, and allowing them a chance to actually heal themselves and get away when they get hit for 1k damage two or three times in less than a second would be nice. This would still keep priests in the same territory for PvE (since if a raid mob targets the priest, he's dead instantly anyways), allowing them to continue to do their job, but also allow them a fighting chance when other classes fail to protect the priest in PvP....at least for a couple of seconds. Warriors and mages can't whine about getting healed in AV if they aren't distracting the enemy from blasting the priest into mush, but it does happen. So, let us do something about it.

Last but not least, my bold proposition for an alternative to holy nova..

- ANYTHING!

So, Blizzard, in case you read this, even though I'm sure the chances are slim that you won't, since you decide to read some of the cesspool crap on your official forums while ignoring the voice of perhaps the most educated WoW community I have ever seen here on nurfed.....FORGET paladins and fix classes that NEED fixing. Thank you..

Elerion

11-28-2005, 07:32 PM

If I was a designer:

21 point talent in the holy tree:
Holy Phase Shift Thingamabob
Low Mana Cost
3-5 minute cooldown
Instant
Makes the priest "special invisible" for 10 seconds. This invisibility can not be detected by players by any means. Damage over Time effects do not break this invisibility. If the priest casts a spell, he becomes visible. NPCs see through "special invisible".

That talent would singlehandedly solve many of the problems holy priests have in group pvp. It would allow you to escape the assist train momentarily, forcing them to focus their attention elsewhere, and allowing you to reposition yourself. It pretty much doubles the time a priest can spend healing against a skilled team (from 5'ish to 10-15'ish seconds).

The talent is stronger than Ice Block, in that it lets you move, and you can't be easily spotted while doing it.
The talent is weaker than paladin shield, in that you can't heal while under it's effect.

It will only have an effect in PvP.
By making it a 21 point talent, it can't be taken along with shadowform, so it can't be used by shadow priests to facilitate ganking. It can however be taken along with other talents vital to a healing priest's survival in PvP, like Martyrdom and Improved Inner Fire.

Sneezer

11-28-2005, 07:40 PM

nifty idea

Devilnaut

11-28-2005, 07:46 PM

How about this one... instead of invis, since that is a bit like Fade and sort of encroaches ice block territory (and might be overpowered)...

30 pt holy talent of 'flight'? Or improved Levitate? Lasts 1 minute (or something), takes you into the air high enough that no melee can hit you... you'd still be killable by ranged obviously (and perhaps become an even bigger target)... but it might get you out of the assist train or at least signal to your team that you're about to die :)

Sneezer

11-29-2005, 04:43 AM

no, hunters already kill me like there is no tomorrow :(

Noristat

11-29-2005, 10:16 PM

That's not a bad idea at all. Thank you, Elerion. :D

Any ideas for a holy nova replacement? I was thinking of maybe a talent that adds additional healing over time to flash heals, sort of like a mage's fireball...

Scorpicore

12-02-2005, 01:25 PM

Any ideas for a holy nova replacement?

yes

Someone set up us the bomb
30 min cooldown

Turns the priest into a frenzy (increases priest runspeed by 50%, increased size and red colour like bestial wrath) and a 10 second counter starts, (numbers will fly over the priests head like a halo for everyone to see) after it runs out the priest will explode, dealing 100% the amount of his current manapool in a 30 yard radius as holy damage to everyone, including the priest himself. Players who die to it will lose 10% durability.

Suck that one up, MS/enrage biotches ;)

Noristat

12-05-2005, 04:31 PM

That's a funny mental picture, but sadly, I think once those numbers appeared above our heads, we would just get intercepted/stun locked/wtfpwned before we had a chance to explode anyway...

Seriously, though, nobody likes HN but nobody has a really good idea for a replacement I guess. Blizzard can't be expected to change it if someone doesn't tell them how retarded they are and offer a solution...

ÆnÊma

12-14-2005, 11:45 AM

Noristat I think you just need to learn2play a priest :/. Good priests dont come across any of the situations you listed, sorry bud ><.

Devilnaut

12-14-2005, 12:52 PM

What are you talking about, ascii name guy? What situations?

Noristat

12-14-2005, 02:17 PM

Noristat I think you just need to learn2play a priest :/. Good priests dont come across any of the situations you listed, sorry bud ><.

I need to learn to play a priest?

So, you DO play one?

And you're telling me you've never ONCE been charged by a warrior, then MS'd in Alterac Valley? Oh...maybe you're not 51 yet and you haven't been inside it. I guess you'll learn that it doesn't matter how far back you are, or how good your group is. You will be targeted by instant skills, and you will die. No amount of PW:S + renew + spam flash healing will change that.

Actually, I'll bet you're one of those "good" priests that runs around trying to shadow word and mind blast people for killing blows, while the paladins and warriors get spammed.

Don't patronize me. You're obviously the one that needs to "learn2play."

ÆnÊma

12-15-2005, 10:29 AM

Yes i am a good priest, only because im a holy priest =).

My guilds completed bwl,mc,zg, killed all 4 outdoor dragons before any other guild did, and" (since if a raid mob targets the priest, he's dead instantly anyways)" made me laff.

etheran

12-21-2005, 03:54 AM

I'm planning on PvP'ing a bit, and will be adjusting my build to do so. I'm trying to decide where to place my last 5 points. I appreciate your opinions. (I'll still be raiding weekly so I'm mostly picking up stuff like Imp. FH)

Discipline: 29
Holy: 17
Shadow: 0

Discipline Talents - 29 points
Unbreakable Will rank 5/5
Martyrdom rank 2/2
Improved Power Word: Shield rank 3/3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude rank 2/2
Focused Casting rank 1/1
Mental Agility rank 5/5
Mental Strength rank 5/5
Meditation rank 5/5
Inner Focus rank 1/1

Holy Talents - 17 points
Improved Renew rank 5/5
Spiritual Healing rank 5/5
Subtlety rank 5/5
Improved Flash Heal rank 2/2

Elerion

12-23-2005, 07:34 PM

Improved Inner Fire
Divine Spirit
1 wherever.

AzouN

12-23-2005, 08:53 PM

Volkov

01-03-2006, 07:35 AM

Hi2u. ;)

In my opinion a trispecc offering more control works better than a full disc/holy specc in 5on5 fights and Warsong Gulch whereas disc/holy's lasting power is better for Arathi Basin.

My trispecc (which I use currently) is

20 discipline
5 unbreakable will
2 martyrdom
3 imp. pw. shield
2 imp. fortitude
1 focused casting
4 mental agility
3 imp. inner fire

10 holy
5 imp. renew
5 spiritual healing

21 shadow
5 blackout
5 shadow focus
2 imp. phychic scream
4 imp. mind blast
1 mind flay
3 shadow reach
1 silence

Quite typical I guess but that's the build I prefer. :) Only thing that really suffers is mana (buildwise) I like having decent heals (about 500+healing in pvp gear) 5K health selfbuffed and 2,8K-3,2K armor with the option of using zg/bwl armor trinket. Itamz-wise could really need a health-boost of about 700 health or so that would be neat. :>

Sulcus

01-17-2006, 01:34 PM

I'm in a guild that currently is attempting Rag while also moving into BWL and was wondering what sort of talents I might need in there that I don't already have. We have 2 full disc priests already so while DS would be nice to help them out, I'm not real worried about not having it. I looked at Tiv's listed spec but I think that's been there quite a while so I'm not sure how current it is...

I also find myself doing less and less pvp these days, so I guess that issue is sort of secondary. I'll freely admit that martyrdom and focused casting are wasted talent points for me right now.

This is my current build:

Discipline Talents - 29 points

Unbreakable Will - rank 5/5
Martyrdom - rank 2/2
Improved Power Word: Shield - rank 3/3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - rank 2/2
Focused Casting - rank 1/1
Mental Agility - rank 5/5
Mental Strength - rank 5/5
Meditation - rank 5/5
Inner Focus - rank 1/1

Holy Talents - 22 points

Improved Renew - rank 5/5
Holy Specialization - rank 5/5
Spiritual Healing - rank 5/5
Inspiration - rank 3/5
Improved Flash Heal - rank 2/2
Improved Prayer of Healing - rank 2/2

Any thoughts, hints or suggestions any one could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Elerion

01-23-2006, 10:48 PM

Here Sulc, these are in my eyes the best highend raid specs currently:
Base:
Disc (26):
Unbreakable Will - rank 5/5
Improved Power Word: Shield - rank 3/3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - rank 2/2
Mental Agility - rank 5/5
Mental Strength - rank 5/5
Meditation - rank 5/5
Inner Focus - rank 1/1
Holy (15):
Improved Renew - rank 5/5
Spiritual Healing - rank 5/5
Subtlety 5/5

These talents will give you the basic talents needed to perform at maximum potential as a high end raid healer. Subtlety is an important talent while you're learning BWL, since it basically gives your raid a lot more time to work with on the aggro-sensitive encounters (broodlord, firemaw).

Now add either of these two
Pure raidhealbot
Holy (10):
Holy Spec 5/5
Inspiration 5/5
(alternatively drop holy spec to 3/5 and get imp flash heal 2/2)
PvP healer on your spare time
Disc (7):
Martyrdom 2/2
Focused Casting 1/1
Improved Inner Fire 3/3
Divine Spirit 1/1
Holy (3):
Holy Spec 1/5
Imp Flash Heal 2/2

Build 1 focuses purely on increasing your heal capability and tank damage mitigation, while build 2 focuses on PvP survivability (and picks up DS, since you go that deep in the tree anyway)

TheQue

07-26-2006, 10:08 AM

:eek:

Molakar

08-27-2006, 01:14 AM

I'd like to try a trispecced priest focusing on shadow, anyone can help me with a spec that allows me to heal while still doing some damage and/or pvp. Shadowform isn't a must but it would be nice to have. My attempt on trispeccing were something like this: 16/2/33 with unbreakable will, silent resolve, imp pw:s, meditation in the disc tree, healing focus in the holy tree and all the "musthave"-abilities in the shadowtree (except blackout and imp mind blast).

Edit: This is what I came up with: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priest/talents.html?5050300300000002200000000000000050252 0101511251