Priest Discussion

Discussion about the Priest class.

4 Tips on Priest Shackling Successfully

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Shackle Undead

As Priests, we’re limited to blessed with 3 forms of crowd control:

  • Mind Control
  • Shackle Undead
  • Psychic Scream

Unlike mages, Priests are not frequently called upon to CC targets. That means some of us are a little wet behind the ears on shackles. Honestly, how often have we used Shackle Undead on the road to 70? Maybe once or twice leveling in Duskwood. Or on a ghoul out in either Plaguelands. While you don’t need to be a Gnomish rocket scientist to figure out how to shackle targets, there’s no reason why you can’t shackle better.

Shackle Position

Figure out where your tank is going to stand when he engages the mobs. It’s doubly important if you have a Paladin tank. Is your tank going to pull mobs back or is he going to charge in? Don’t forget that any kind of damage will break shackles. Ideally, you want to time your shackles to land the moment your tank gets threat on all mobs. Try to park the Shackle in an area where it can’t receive AoE Damage. If there’s two Priests and you end up shackling your targets above one another (I’ve had it happen), you can try to split them up. What you want to do is get some distance between you and your shackle, put a shield on yourself, hit it Shadow Word: Death, and then shackle it again.

In the case of a Pally tank, I shackle after he hurls his Avenger’s Shield. If for some reason the shackle ends up getting consecrated, there’s nothing more you can do but heal your Pally tank and pray.

Shackle Often

The tooltip says that Shackle Undead lasts up to a certain amount of time (30 seconds or something, but I never read tooltips). Up to is the operative phrase here. It means that Shackle could break at any moment. I mentally set up my own heal rotations so that it ends up looking something like flash heal, greater heal, renew, shackle. I might throw in a Prayer of Mending or a shield to vary it up. The point here is that shackle is not going to last the entire duration.

Max Range Yourself

I’ve gotten myself killed by loose shackles before. Why? Because I was ingrained to keep my shackle target and my healing assignments on the screen in front of me. This leads to me literally standing on top of my shackle so I can watch it and the tank at the same time. If the shackle breaks, I die since Shackle generates something along the lines of 9000 threat.

The solution is to park yourself as far away as possible while being able to heal your tanks. Remember you don’t need to look at them. Look at your shackle and use your frames to heal.

Shackle When in Doubt

I almost always defer shackles to the Shadow Priest. But if both of you are holy, then it doesn’t matter. Draw straws or something. If there’s one shackle target, only one needs to stay on it unless it breaks.

I did Hex Lord yesterday out in Zul’Aman and one of the 4 mobs was an undead ghost. My Shadow Priest guildmate locked him down for a while until he got stunned and then killed because he was not able to get the shackle off in time. I think his shackle got resisted.

That’s why it’s nice to have 2 shackles go off. If the mob is secured by you and the shackle responsibility belongs to the other Priest, let him know so he can shackle it again so that it’s on his cooldown.

Raids are no time for showing off your ego. If no one volunteers to shackle, then step it up and volunteer.

On another note, thanks for all the positive comments and emails. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to read my blog. I would not have put this much effort into it if I didn’t think the effort was worth it. Have to admit though, I’m a little surprised no one’s expressed displeasure about the ads on the side. I was expecting at least 1 or 2 people. I guess it’s because it’s out of the way and doesn’t seem to be bothering the main stuff in the middle.

Staves vs Maces and Off hands

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Staves vs Maces“First off i have to commend you for your hard work at making your blog the only one i have ever read. World of Matticus has almost all of the priest information i could hope to read and I have put to use many of the tips found therein. But i can’t find anything about the debate of Staff vs Mace+Offhand (healingwise). Is there a certain point where a staff would be better than the duel wielding combo? Is a mace-offhand settup always better? Please let me know what you think. Thank you for your limited time.”

That was an email I received from a player last night. Incidentally enough, I had a post about this already lined up. What excellent timing!

Back before Burning Crusade, there was one weapon that truly defined a Priest. Those who had it were idolized by Priests everywhere. When you saw it on the back of a Priest in front of you, immediately you would feel an aura of safety. I am referring to [item]Benediction[/item]. Oh how times have changed.

I’m going to present argument from two different sides: The best possible Priest approach and the team Priest approach.

The Best Possible Priest Approach

Do you want to be THE Priest? Do you want to have so much healing and MP5 that you can bring back Elvis? Then this is the setup for you. From what I’ve noticed, a Priest with an MH/OH combo will have slightly higher healing bonuses and a little more mana regeneration than a player with a Staff. But staves aren’t completely useless in their own right. They might lose a bit of +healing when compared to to the MH/OH, but there’s a lot more stats (stamina, intellect, etc). Therefore, if you care that much about min/maxing your Priest (in other words, making it as best as possible), then grabbing an MH/OH is the best way to go. But you have to realize that you’re not the only class that is able to use it.

You’ll be in direct competition with Paladins and Shamans (maybe Druids).

The Team Priest Approach

You don’t want to be the best Priest possible. You know that all the maces are being greedily eyed upon by the other healers because they are way more powerful. You also know that your fellow healers won’t give that awesome healing staff a chance and that it will get sharded. I have seen this happen far too many times. Healers are passing on items that help them in favour of getting an even better item. You may or may not know of my thoughts about this. Precious loot should not be wasted because you never know for sure when you will get the weapon that you want. I never once saw Light’s Justice or Shard of the Virtuous on my Priest.

I hope you can understand my main argument here. I’m not arguing from the perspective of being the super best healer. I’m arguing from the perspective of a healer who wants to contribute to the best of his or her ability with the tools they have.

By accepting the staff, you remove yourself from competing against the Shammies and the Pallies. Let them fight over the mace and spend their precious DKP. A simple minimum bid just gave you nearly the same amount of healing at half the price. Again, this is dependent on your Guild and the style of loot distribution that you have.

Think about your raid healer setup.

In Carnage, we have:

  • 2 Holy Priests
  • 3-4 Paladins
  • 1 Resto Shaman

The Paladins and Shamans are going to go after 1H’s because they want something to complement their Shields. The other holy Priest doesn’t like staves. That leaves me to obtain loot at half price because these turkeys aren’t going to use it anyway! By taking it, I benefit the raid as a whole because it increases my healing and speeds up the gearing process.

I even save a little DKP because I don’t have to bid on both a mace and an offhand. I don’t have to wait for 2 bosses to drop the 2 items that I need. I only need to kill 1 boss repeatedly.

I am sacrificing my potential to be the best possible Priest later to help the raid now.

To finalize

Whatever weapon you choose to go with is affected by different factors.

  • Your guild
  • Loot distribution methods
  • Your style of play
  • Personality
  • Phase of the moon

Just understand that arguments can be made for either class. I don’t view myself as a selfish raider. I want to get to the end of the game as fast as possible and if I have to lose 30 healing over it, then I can sleep soundly with no problems. Besides, the extra stamina means I’ll live just a bit longer then Paulina Priest over there.

That’s why I opted for my new staff instead of waiting on Vasj to drop her mace.

What weapon do you use?

  • Main Hand and Off Hand (47%, 16 Votes)
  • Staff (32%, 11 Votes)
  • I like to go in there without any weapons (21%, 7 Votes)

Total Voters: 34

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Choosing the Right Meta Gem

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I’ve touched on gems briefly in my Priest gear list. What I failed to address at the time was what meta gems to use when you had an item that could use it.

What are Meta Gems?

Meta gems are like your standard blue, red, or yellow gems but with one very significant exception: They are fairly rare to obtain. These gems are special because they bestow a special effect or passive ability to the head piece that it is socketed in.

Light-Collar of the Incarnate

Mouse over that link for a moment and you’ll see a helm that has a meta socket and a blue socket which activates the healing bonus. Most head pieces don’t have meta gems. But for healing helms with a meta gem, there’s a few options.

What gems should I use?

3 Choices:

Mystical Skyfire Diamond

  • Abilities: 15% chance on spellcast – next spell 50% casting time
  • Requires more Blue gems than Yellow gems

Insightful Earthstorm Diamond

  • Abilities: +12 Intellect, Chance to restore mana on spellcast
  • Requires at least 2 Red gems, 2 Blue gems, 2 Yellow gems

Bracing Earthstorm Diamond

  • Abilities: +26 Healing Spells, 2% Reduced Threat
  • Requires more red then blue gems

I can tell you right off the bat that I would knock off Bracing Earthstorm Diamond from the list of considerations. The abilities are attractive. But the requirements are too difficult to meet as Priests. The requirements are a little more reasonable now. The 26 healing is nice. I’d consider using it if you’re having some issues with lack of healing. I’ve never really had much of a problem. You’re going to be socketing Nightseyes more than anything else anyway.

You’re better off weighing the other two choices.

In a nutshell, it’s either going to be faster spellcasting or mana regen over time. In a raid setting, Priests will be spending mana like crazy. It would help to have other ways of replenishing your mana, so that’s the argument for the Insightful Earthstorm. I don’t know how often I’ve preached mana regen. If you close your eyes and click a post of mine at random, you’ll probably find some mention of it. The requirements aren’t insanely hard or ridiculous to meet either. 2 reds, blues, and yellows are easy to slot up with. The trick is to find the right combination of gear which will have the necessary slots available.

But don’t discount faster casting entirely. Sometimes, having a fast heal can pay off. My Shaman has this meta gem equipped. I’ve gotten many timely procs of the ability when I thought my party would wipe. The requirements for this to activate are even easier. You just need 1 blue gem and no yellows and you are set. There’s going to be encounters where tanks are taking huge hits and you need that spell haste. Those heals have got to land or else your healing assignment is dead because you can’t keep up with it.

Bottom line

If you’re still unsure of which meta gem to choose, I would suggest picking up the spell cast gem first. Odds are, you may not have enough gear with the necessary sockets for effects to activate. Go with that for now then as your gear progresses, make the shift towards the Insightful Earthstorm Diamond (mana regen). You can’t heal without mana. Always remember that.

Sadly I’m still using the Headdress of the High Potentate which doesn’t even have any slots. I’m waiting for Vashj to surrender a token so I can finally replace it.

Patch 2.3.2 Coming To You

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Yup, it looks like it’s been officially announced. The first thing I do when upcoming patch notes are available is scanning the Priest section. I want to see what they’re changing to my class. Well guess what?

No changes.

As far as we can tell, Priests have had no adjustments made so far. Now isn’t that just peachy? Apparently, our class is balanced. However, I beg to differ. Take a look down below at exhibit A.

You might be able to recognize that screenshot. That’s me on my Shaman clearing to Attumen. To my left is a Shadowpriest (Hi John!). To my right is one of those undead horses being mind flayed. Or is it? Look at the angle of the flay. Normally, John’s a straight shooter. But to be fair, his CS skills have waned somewhat. Did it carry into Warcraft? Nah. This has got to be a graphical bug of some kind. That Mind Flay is clearly way off target.

However, my Shaman is getting some rather interesting changes.

Shaman

  • Earth Shield (Restoration) mana cost reduced.
  • Lightning Shield mana cost reduced.
  • Water Shield now restores mana periodically regardless of how many charges remain. Duration increased to 10 minutes.

In a nutshell, Shamans just became a lot more mana efficient. We don’t know for sure yet how often Water Shield will activate or how mana it returns. We’ve already seen the Mana Spring Totem get buffed.

Imp. Water Shield + Mana Spring Totem = Lots of Chain Heals

Shamans used to be at the bottom of the barrel when it came to mana efficiency. That no longer appears to be the case.

Fear Ward Sucks, says Tremor Totem

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The 2.3 patch brought about many sweeping changes for Priests. Fear Ward, a spell once exclusive to Dwarves and Dranei, is now available to all Priests at level 20. Before Burning Crusade, the Horde answer to Fear Ward was Tremor Totem. On raids like Onyxia, the two abilities were the few that helped make fear manageable.

(Definitions courtesy of WoWWiki.com)

Fear Ward

Fear Ward is a spell available to all priests at level 20. This spell renders the target immune to one fear effect. The buff lasts 3 minutes, has a 3 minute cooldown to recast, and is considered a magic effect. The buff is consumed even if the character is already immune to fear (i.e. warrior using Berserker Rage or Death Wish).

Tremor Totem

Summons a Tremor Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster that shakes the ground around it, removing Fear, Charm and Sleep effects from party members within 30 yards. Lasts 2 min.

Analysis

So the big benefit to Fear Ward is that it is now available to all Priests. The really big downside is that it has a three minute uptime and a three minute cool down. On engagements like Nightbane, Warriors are going to have to be more alert in their stance dancing. You can avoid the first fear easily and it gets nullified. If you have a second Priest, you can mitigate the second one. But subsequent fears will need to be danced.

Enter the Tremor Totem

What about the tremor totem? If a Shaman drops it down, it does not prevent fear effects (THAT would be overpowered). It pulses every few seconds and when the pulse hits, the fear effect is removed (along with silence, charm, etc). Tremor totems can be placed at any time and have a shelf life of only two minutes. When a Shaman drops the totem down, any fear effects that are already up are immediately removed effectively ‘cleansing’ the players. Bear in mind, totem affects only those currently in your party.

So going back to our Nightbane example, if you have a Shaman, I think this will alter some of the group makeups to include a Shaman. Tremor totem hasn’t become stronger. Fear ward just became weaker. It’s viability in PvE encounters has diminished. The only downside to tremor totem is that there may be some cases where players run out of range of it’s effect (can be lessened if you invest a point to extend totem range).

So bottom line? Advantage, Tremor Totem.

I won’t touch the PvP side of things. I’ll leave that to my buddy Pwyff to take care of.