Priests in CTF

[kary]

I was wondering what people are laying out for CTF priest builds?

I'm looking at 30/10/11.

30 disp. Matyrdom/Focused, to replace part of improved FH, and keep the rest of the disp tree for raiding.

10 holy to keep the heals at the same strength (missing crits and improved FH/PoH -- I don't use PoH a ton outside of 5 man anyway... and hell I might as well get some use out of alchemy besides being a transmute bot)

11 shadow to get mind flay as a snare (not thinking of it as a damage spell -- purely as a snare) and a 3 second stun (which is pretty dependable when you just spam SW:P rank 1).

---

I'd leave defense to a shadowpriest/warr/ice mage group, have the big range dps mid and then do offense with a warr/flagcarrier (sham/druid)/priest. You're still able to heal under some pressure (2shields and focused is decent) and on the way out you can pull someone off the carrier with a snare.

Of course a snare is useful all over the place -- seems like it'd be extremely handly in CTF, could be overplaying it's usefulness though.

Anyone else aiming a spec at mainly CTF with raiding on the side?

[ferdelance]

I got the spec you just mentioned and its pretty ok, you really need mindflay...
But it really sucks you loose imp flash heal, I got martyrdrom, but it just isn't the same.
I got spirit tap on 5 cause I think its really usefull to gain some mana when you kill someone, but its a personal opinion...lot of people want max blackout. But spirit tap can be nifty in instances as well, where blackout is not.
I think this build is the best build if you wanna go both sides, but still a dedicated healer with inspiration =).........
anyway im still in doubt as you can go many ways like taking imp innerfire and or mana burn
But still I think if im raiding I wanna be usefull, the spec is ok if your support healer, but Im a priest because I want to be the one who decides the tank dies =)

[wheaties]

Ya I've been thinking the same thing.
prolly 23-25 in disc.. might try martyrdom since those mele classes crit like crazy.. not sure on focused casting tho. I really dislike how pummel, shield bash and kick inturupt focus casting tho ><.
15-17 in holy (depending if I get improv flash heal)
11 shadow for spirit tap, blackout + mindflay
go go rank 1 swp + rank 1 mf

[Jumai]

IMO mind flay as a snare is pretty useless, as it doesn't stop anyone getting away OR help you get away, due to the duration and the fact you have to channel it.

I run 34 disc 17 holy right now. No matter how much it bugs me I can't justify greater healing when the DPS to a target isn't predictable.

[gnarkill]

Mindflay is useless. You are really going to build a template around the worst snare in the game? Also if you are worried about snaring people as a priest then your team is already losing. Leave snaring to rogues, shamans, mages, hunters, druids, warriors....ummm just leave it to everyone else because they can do it much better without interupting their jobs. All you should be doing as a priest is staring at HP bars and making sure you are hidden as best as possible. Dont like that? Then I suggest playing a different class.

I suggest a minimum of 17 points into holy to get Imp Flash Heal. It is the spell you will be using 90% of the time and for it to be near uninteruptable is the way to go.

[Inconsiderable]

I would not even group with Priests that dont have Silence. Silence + Mindflay = must-have. I cannot make a groups and play like 'well we got a hunter, he is going to slow everybody down when we bring the flag home'. Now the hunter is dead. Who is going to slow something down? Maybe too many people follow the flag carrier, what now?
Rogue behind your flag carrier, ready to slow him down so the mage on his mount behind you can nova or whatever. Priest and Flag Carrier are the only ones not dead or ressing or the others are slowed down, polymorphed, whatever. Mindflay saved your day.
Someone grabbed the flag and is about to get away? Uh. Mindflay, Mindflay, you cannot run!

[tng]

I would not even group with Priests that dont have Silence. Silence + Mindflay = must-have. I cannot make a groups and play like 'well we got a hunter, he is going to slow everybody down when we bring the flag home'. Now the hunter is dead. Who is going to slow something down? Maybe too many people follow the flag carrier, what now?
Rogue behind your flag carrier, ready to slow him down so the mage on his mount behind you can nova or whatever. Priest and Flag Carrier are the only ones not dead or ressing or the others are slowed down, polymorphed, whatever. Mindflay saved your day.
Someone grabbed the flag and is about to get away? Uh. Mindflay, Mindflay, you cannot run!

The hunter wouldn't be dead if the priest would stop using mind flay and heal.

[Inconsiderable]

If nobody is going to die, the spec will not make a real difference. Maybe it works for Nurfed to run in, kill everybody, keep everybody alive and get the flag home. When my Team grabs the flag, we usually had one battle infront of their base, then start to mass fear / etc the flagroom and then someone grabs the flag and makes a run, while we try to disable and slow everybody down - and try to keep the flag carrier alive.

[tng]

If the priest was healing instead of using mind flay, then the spec WOULD make a difference because those 11 points could be used elsewhere, giving an advantage in mana usage, allowing more heals. That was the point.

[deathjester]

Discipline Talents (28 points)

# Unbreakable Will - 5/5 points
Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by 15%.

# Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points
Reduces the duration of your Power Word: Shield's Weakened Soul effect by 15 seconds.

# Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 2/2 points
Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude spell by 30%.

# Martyrdom - 2/2 points
Gives you a 100% chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents you from losing casting time when taking damage.

# Mental Agility - 5/5 points
Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 10%.

# Improved Mana Burn - 2/2 points
Reduces the casting time of your Mana Burn spell by ?.

# Mental Strength - 5/5 points
Increases your maximum Mana by 10%.

# Improved Inner Fire - 3/3 points
Increases the effects of your Inner Fire spell by 45%.

# Inner Focus - 1/1 point
When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect.



Holy Talents (23 points)

# Holy Specialization - 5/5 points
Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 5%.

# Improved Renew - 3/5 points
Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 9%.

# Spiritual Healing - 5/5 points
Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 10%.

# Inspiration - 5/5 points
Increases your target's armor value from items by 25% for 15 seconds after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing spell.

# Improved Flash Heal - 2/2 points
Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Flash Heal.

# Improved Prayer of Healing - 2/2 points
Reduces the Mana cost of your Prayer of Healing spell by 20%.

# 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.



Shadow Talents (0 points)

# None


______________


my spec for BGs

i do not defend. my role is to protect the flag bearer and to keep the whole raid alive during battles. we always have 2 priests, the other one is disc/shadow specced and keeps his place in the defense most of the time because of flay and blackout or taking my place, if i die while healing myself and the flag bearer.

[kary]

I've tried both now, mind flay is a reasonable snare when you're pulling people back off the runner. Rank1 SW:P is more useful though. Other classes have many snares that are superior though... shaman alone.

I've gone back to an improved FH spec, I play offense pretty much exclusively so being able to heal, until you can get the FC back to mid healing, is all that matters. Hell even suicide angel is a semi attractive talent at this point -- never thought I'd say that.

[Ford]

the only advantage to using up 11 points to get mind flay is that it's a unisipellable snare.

so next time you see a pally spamming dispel preventing your druids and mages from stopping him you may want to think about it.

I on the other hand will keep all my points in disc and holy

[Inconsiderable]

If the priest was healing instead of using mind flay, then the spec WOULD make a difference because those 11 points could be used elsewhere, giving an advantage in mana usage, allowing more heals. That was the point.

I wouldnt spec Mindflay. But Silence rocks. And you get Mindflay when you go for Silence anyway. I dont think Holy/Disc is worth sacrificing both. If you go smth like 21 shadow and 10-15 holy / 15-20 disc (or whatever you prefer) you will not lose any important stuff.
The only decent talents (beside the first 15 points..) in holy are Improved Flash Heal and Spirit of Red.
Divine Fury / Holy Nova is a joke and Flash Heal / Shield is what you are going to cast - not Greater Heal.
Disc is nice, up to mental strength. Meditation is good for long fights, like Raid Encounter but is losing alot of it strength in PvP (still good) and Inner Focus is nice, but not "that" awesome. Silence beats both.

But I guess PvP on european servers isnt as good as on US ones. Equip isnt as good and many players miss experience. On my server Ragnaros is still alive and most groups just started farming Molten Core. Nobody has a full sets, etc. Only 3 Horde Guilds killed Onyxia so far.. It sucks to get the game half a year later.
Maybe I miss something about the holy/disc talents.

[deathjester]

my spec (s.a.) helps me alot to keep my group and the flag bearer alive (and myself^^) but you're right, silence is one of the most powerful spells the priest has, it was hard to accept that i wont have it anymore after respeccing my first time to holy/disc.
but pvp has changed. during lvling i didnt care about holy but the pvp is getting better, it is important to manage my mana absolutely perfect to stand against grps with more members and i cant throw my dots around as i did 3 month ago. every mana point i spend must be spent wisely, especially because of the amount of dispeller the alliance has.

so the most used spells are: flash heal, shield, renew, inner fire, inner focus (use it every 5 minutes to cast devouring plague (sickness, most dont get to dispel it)) fear and pain if i see a rogue sneaking around. the absolutely number 1 spell -> Dispel.
that's why i love my spec. and in the BGs the point is, that i often die preventing the death of our flag bearer, so spirit of redemption is a must have. if i die, i'll be back with 100% mana/hits, so with spirit of redemption it gives me the freedom to just die if my mana is out, it helps my grp and it helps myself for getting mana/hits back.

[tng]

I would take inner focus over silence any day. Mages can silence, but they can't heal. Let the mages do the silencing, and keep the healing to the priests.

[doN]

Get them both. Thats what I did, 21 shadow, 21 diceplin and 9 holy. You loose some mana, that sucks, and you loose 2 % healing. I miss Improved Flash Heal, but Martyrdom makes up for it somehow. And a priest that can silence is very welcome to any attacking party for WG imo, but if I was on the def squad I would spec pure holy/disc

[deathjester]

i'm a bit confused that so many ppl think an attacking priest should silence.

my job while attacking always is

a) to survive (paladin job @ alliance) and pull the whole bunch of newbs in another floor so the flag bearer has the time to run away

or

b) to heal/dispel/shield/hot the flag bearer (and survive myself)

i do love shadow-priests in defense, silencing a mage with flag or putting flay on a running rogue/druid is great, but doesnt help in the offense.
as we have 2 priests in our raid (we often play together) and one is shadow/disc and i have holy/disc it is just nice. loss 2 times (we did not have 10 ppl on our side :\ ) but alot of 3:0 wins.

[Sintor]

50 shadow 1 holy.

I call it "Holy Sh...adow"

[Tattersail]

Improved Flash for the win. I can't survive more than 5 sec without it.

[Backdoor Beauty]

there is no need for a priest to have a snare in any way/shape/form.

Warriors have hamstring + charge + intercept.

Rogues have crippling poison

Shamans have earthbind/frost shock.

Warlocks if specc'd for it, have curse of exhaustion.

Paladins have Hammer of Justice (not a snare, but effective)

Mages have poly/frost spells

Druids have root.

Hunters have concussion shot and scatter shot.


Every class has some form of root or snare, why does a priest need one too if everyone else in the group has one? (except possibly a warlock specc'd without CoE).

Also, silence.

Mages have counterspell.

Warriors have pummel/shield bash.

Warlocks have spell lock with felhunter

Rogues have kick.

Shaman have earth shock.

Why you need a 6th class for silence is beyond me, as i doubt you'll have a group without ANY of these classes.

[Ford]

50 shadow 1 holy.

I call it "Holy Sh...adow"I laughed out loud for some reason :)

[Devilnaut]

I'm running same build as Jumai, except swap 2 from Martyrdom over to holy in Improved Healing.

IMO being a healer is a fulltime job, and the more I am able to narrow down my build away from having to consider offense the more I can concentrate on healing the correct targets at the right times and moving properly around the fight. I honestly can't imagine having to worry about ever using mana on shadow in the middle of a large battle; it's not even just the mana, but offensive positioning and mindset. I am concentrating ALL my energy in a fight on staying well away from guys who can hurt me, and just in range of guys I can heal. If I'm next to their priest by chance I will spam my manaburn- I love this spell, it's uber efficient, but even that I have to ease up at times once my party starts losing HP.

Gotta understand too that healing DPS and mana efficiency is far higher than any damage spell. There's a reason people go for the priests first and it's not because of their lame snare ;P

[WindiaN]

If you are playing a competent group silence is worthless. 20 yard range. I don't even dispel anymore i just hang back at 35+ yard range and make sure my pallies stay 20 yards away from the dps and 20 yards from me so i can dispel them. If you stay out of intercept range you can stay alive a lot longer. If you have to get within 20 yards to silence a mage you are almost guaranteed to get steamrolled by the assist train. If they are geared out and you don't have armor like a few priests have been assembling, good night. 90% of the times I die are becuase I have to run in to dispel AP and dispel is a 30yrd range.

You need imp flash heal as it is the most used spell. Holy/disc is the way to go, hands down.

EDIT: My build is basically the same as vhell's except I think it is more valuable to get 2% mana than 10% mana on PoH only so I'm 27/24. I will likely respec when I get 3 piece trans but I'll probably test out the regen on the test server first.

[mediocre]

The 46pt healing priest spec:


Discipline Mastery
Unbreakable Will Rank 5
Martyrdom Rank 2
Improved Power Word: Shield Rank 3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude Rank 2
Focused Casting Rank 1
Mental Agility Rank 5
Mental Strength Rank 5
Inner Focus Rank 1
Discipline Total: 24


Holy Mastery
Improved Renew Rank 5
Holy Specialization Rank 5
Spiritual Healing Rank 5
Inspiration Rank 5
Improved Flash Heal Rank 2
Holy Total: 22




Which leaves you 5 pts for the big questions:

Impr POH
Impr Inner Fire

Meditation

Impr Mana Burn
Spr Redemp



Ranked in tiers of importance

[WindiaN]

I can't remember the last time I thought about casting mana burn in anything greater than a 2v2.

[tng]

I used in in a 5v5 once



But we had 3 priests, a warlock, and a mage. :?

[deathjester]

i like mana burn. it saved my ass that much against MC-Geared casters (i have no good gear, my guild is a 12 member pk guild) that i cant drop the talent, its something like an old teddybaer ^^

[gnarkill]

The thinking of some of the people here trips me out. I cant figure out why people think a priest should be in charge of snaring.

Wow just wow. Keep the free entertainment coming.

[Hybby]

the only advantage to using up 11 points to get mind flay is that it's a unisipellable snare.

so next time you see a pally spamming dispel preventing your druids and mages from stopping him you may want to think about it.

I on the other hand will keep all my points in disc and holy

Blessing of freedom can get them outta mind flay.

And since you've been sitting there, channeling, you have to run to get into dispel range to get rid of it, then flay again.

Therein lies the problem.

Whereas if you and your warrior are going along, the pally gets hamstringed, BoF's, you dispel it and your war hamstrings them again. No time loss.

[khan3817]

Actually if you're alliance just don't bring priests period since they get wtfraped by any geared dagger rogue (who you will be going against in any matches that matter) and all MS wars. Stack up on paladins instead.

[khan3817]

Whoops, just 1.