Priest Discussion

Last night in Magtheridon’s Lair, the [item]Crystalheart Pulse-Staff[/item] dropped. During the bidding phase, it was put up for a minimum of 30 Dragon Kill Points. I placed a 30 bid. After the first round, the highest bid was 30 which I assumed was mine. But just to be on the safe side, my second round bid was 37. At the end, I got the staff with 30 DKP (my original).

I just had this feeling that no one wanted it. Either that or they were busy saving up their DKP for something else. I was frightened that a weapon like this would get wasted and today I wanted to write about the importance of not allowing loot to rot.

Don’t ever be afraid to roll need on an item or bid DKP on an item. If it’s better then what you have, then whisper it to an officer so they can take it into account. There is no sense in replacing someone’s purple items with more purple items when there are other players wearing blues that would benefit more from it. It defies logic and common sense. Every piece of gear no matter how minor or insignificant an upgrade is still an upgrade. That extra 17 spell damage could go a long way in a 30 minute fight.

What is the premise behind World of Warcraft? Once you get to 70, you get the best loot possible, to go into a dungeon to get even better gear to go into the next level dungeon to get even BETTER gear to get into the next highest dungeon. That’s the game in a nutshell.

Skill can only get you so far. Everyone needs better gear. No guild is going to progress if loot continually gets disenchanted. Yet a lot of people pass and hoard DKP for that one weapon or chest piece that will drop off this boss later on in the instance. Guess what? If Vashj drops your chest piece, and you’re still on Fathom-Lord with gear that you can use getting sharded because you’re too greedy, you’re not getting that chest piece anyway.

Anyways, let’s get back to my new staff. A lot of priests prefer a mace/off hand combination because it allows for flexibility (And [item]Light’s Justice[/item] + [item]Aran’s Soothing Sapphire[/item] is just a freakin’ awesome combination). I originally had the [item]Gavel of Pure Light[/item] & [item]Signet of Unshakable Faith[/item]. Let’s compare the stats shall we?

With the Light’s Justice and Sapphire combination, I get:

514 healing (assuming +81 Healing)
43 Intellect
16 Stamina
20 Spirit
8 MP5

The Staff gives me:

463 healing (assuming +81 healing)
50 Intellect
51 Stamina
16 MP5

I lose 51 healing and 20 spirit, but gain 7 int, 35 stamina, and 8 MP5. There’s a lot of discussions out there between the advantages of Spirit and MP5, but I’ve always leaned towards MP5. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I used that gun so much in counter-strike. But that stamina is such an increase that cannot afford to be wasted especially in end game instances. Instead of being 3 shot, now I have a chance of being 4 shot. That one extra shot could mean the difference between a kill or a wipe.

Furthermore, with the acquisition of the staff, I no longer need to compete against another healer for Light’s Justice. In this manner, our healers can proceed to get geared up much quicker. There’s less Kara runs that need to be done. The Guild progresses at a quicker rate. That’s what we all want. My goal is to see Carnage in the Sunwell before Wrath of the Lich King is released. Chances of that happening? Eh, I’d rather see the Spice Girls make a come back. Oh, wait a minute…

I wanted to respond to Ego’s Post (and try out this spiffy trackback function). She asked for player’s definitions of a good priest. Amazingly, gear was not on the list of responses that he had received (although I would argue that it is still somewhat important).

This is what he’s got:

“Timing, attentiveness, and care”

“fast reactions, the ability to prioritize between healing dps and keeping the MT up. Ability to remember encounters and boss events that can kill a tank in a few seconds.”

I daresay that sums it up fairly well. But I wanted to add more to this discussion. Healing a party is one thing, healing a 25 man raid with spells flying off, ceilings caving in, and murlocs running rampant throughout the area is another (Tidewalker sucks). I consider myself the Roberto Luongo of the raid . Just like Robbie Lou, I need to hit that save when your raid needs it the most. A timed Power Word: Shield, Prayer of Mending, Renew and max rank flash heal spams will almost always do the trick.

But here are some other things that I feel good priests bring to the table:

Awareness: Did you ever wonder how Gretzky scored his goals and set up the most beautiful plays? It’s the simple fact that he was aware of where his teammates were, where the opposing team was, and who had possession of the puck. How does this apply to WoW? Be aware of where you are, what’s going on, and where your raidmates are. If the boss fears, apply fear ward. If everyone in your party is taking hit from an AoE, start casting prayer of healing. If you’re taking on Nightbane and the ground’s on fire, move! I can’t count the amount of times that I’ve had to yell at a fellow priest because his eyes were too busy glued onto the side of his monitor at his raid frames and wasn’t noticing that his feet was on fire. These kinds of things kill you.

Perseverance: Never give up. No matter what circumstances, keep trying until you get the encounter down. Nothing beats the feeling of getting that raid boss down for the first time and knowing you played a key role in solving the encounter. Good priests are prepared to die to preserve the health of their tanks. In raids, there are typically seven to nine healers. But there is only one main tank. Even if you’re taking a beating, keep him up as best as possible. Once the tank is down, it’s game over.

Precognition: A little psychic ability never hurt anyone. Time your heals so that they land just after the next attack hits. Try to predict what will happen next so you can get ready for it. Actually, this would apply to any player. Especially in PvP environments like arenas, knowing what move the opposing player will do is beneficial. Knowing that mage’s next frostbolt is about to hit you can be mitigated with a shield on yourself, or a fear next to him. Knowing who your Paladin is healing next can save you precious mana against a raid boss. If your assist window shows three of your healers on the maintank who is at 60% and you were about to heal him too, then you will end up overhealing when you finish casting. Better to move onto the next target and make your heals count. Of course, there is someone who is going to say “but what if those three players weren’t enough?”. To them, I say know your healers and know what they’re capable of. Being aware of how skilled and geared you are relative to other players is a boon.

Preparation: I bring 20 super mana potions, 10 TK potions, and 10 SSC potions. I keep two stacks of Brilliant Mana Oils on me at all times. The Guild Bank supplies me with Marks from SSC and TK so I can turn them in for flasks. I ensure I have a steady supply of Blackened Sporefish within my inventory. Don’t ever be afraid to use consumables.

I could sum up this entire post by simply saying only good priests aren’t careless or lazy. But if I did, I would be careless and lazy.

Main Entry: are?na
Pronunciation: &-'rE-n&
Function: noun
1 : an area in a Roman amphitheater for gladiatorial combats

Main Entry: ¹team
Pronunciation: 'tEm
Function: noun
4 : a number of persons associated together in work or activity: as a : a group on one side (as in football or a debate)

When Blizzard first introduced Arena into World of Warcraft, I did not have the time or desire to compete. I only had a Priest then. I knew I would get my ass thoroughly handed walking into combat with the lack of survivability in my gear. I took a new approach and leveled a Shaman. I’ve always wanted to create one but I had no interest in rolling on the opposite faction to do so. Burning Crusade solved my dilemma. A Shaman brings a lot to the PvP circuit in comparison to a holy, dwarf priest (at least MY holy dwarf priest). I could cultivate my Shaman from the ground up instead of having to slowly and meticulously migrate my PvE build priest to a PvP build priest. A restoration Shaman offers much more survivability and utility then my Dwarf priest would have been able to. Besides wearing mail, Nature’s Swiftness and Earth Shield are a staple and a godsend.

I signed on with several long time friends in the creation of our main circuit: 5 v 5 Arena.

Presently, from my observations, there are two distinct types of teams: A 3DPS, 2 healer type and a 4DPS, 1 healer type (Also known as gib). The team I’m with runs the former as I’m not sufficiently geared enough to sustain a team on my own.

We feature 2 Warriors, 1 Paladin, 1 Mage, & 1 Shaman (me). Two Warriors bring two Mortal Strikes to the board applying pressure to two separate targets (Casters or healers). The mage brings CC. The Paladin brings durable and resilient healing. I bring spell interrupts, heals, and Heroism.

After a few forays in the five’s arena, it didn’t take me long to figure out that I would be the main target. This week we ran into some difficulty against several teams. After taking down notes, I’m beginning to see a pattern emerge which needs to be broken.

Match 1: Warrior, Warrior, Shadow Priest, Shaman, Druid
DPS pressure was applied onto their Shaman. Kaliburn (our Paladin) got repeatedly mana burned.
We were caught off guard as Demi, one of our Warriors, randomly rushed up and started to DPS before the rest of us were prepared.
Their Druid kept repeatedly cycloning and CC’ing either myself or Kaliburn as much as possible.
Eventually, their Shaman dropped, then their priest, then their warrior, druid and other warrior. Not a bad start, albeit a shaky one.

Match 2: Shadow Priest, Warrior, Warlock, Paladin, Elemental Shaman
This was the first real instagib team I’ve played against. Sixvisix, one of our Warriors, went down super fast due to line of sight issues. The map was on Lordaeron and that stupid tomb was in the middle. Kaliburn was unable to heal him as well. I’ve never seen a Warrior go down that quick before. Demi advised him to slap on a shield and sword and switch to defensive in the event he noticed his health dropping super fast until his health became topped up. I didn’t even have time to get Heroism up that fight. The best I can do is drop a Grounding totem and hope it mitigates something really bad. I’m contemplating Earth Shield on Six, but Earthshield costs a hefty 900 mana. I only have about 8.6k. That’s over 10% of my resources. With Six down, it didn’t take much longer before the rest of us dropped.

Match 3: Shadow Priest, Shadow Priest, Elemental Shaman, Paladin, Warrior
Another fast damage team except they decided on applying pressure on Frostyone (our mage) first instead of me. Frosty wasn’t able to hit his Iceblock fast enough. I truly think in a situation like this, we could’ve won. It’s just a matter of gear. Two shadow priests are quite lethal in tandem. Again, we fell quickly. The worst of the bunch was coming up

Match 4: Warlock, Warlock, Paladin, Shadow Priest, Warrior
Forget Strength of Earth totem, Tremor and Grounding’s/Windfury would be the order of the day. Two Warlocks and a Shadow Priest meant we would spend a good portion of our time running around. A quick NS Heal and a BoP delayed the inevitable. With so many fears going off, the only decent way I can think of surviving is if our Warriors stance danced (Does that even work in PvP?), and if our Paladin glues his ass to my tremor totem. The Paladin can dispel me while I busy myself with healing and E Shocks. I think this was one of our longest matches, but we had no choice but to succumb to the fears and insane damage output by the other team.

There is still a lot more that I need to learn and more gear I need to acquire before I can truly be an asset. By next week, I will definitely have my Season 2 shoulders to go with my helmet. Then I’ll slowly finish out the Chest and Legs before concluding with the gloves. I have a decent shield for the time being, but I’m gunning for [item]Light’s Justice[/item] or [Item]Shard of the Virtuous[/item] so I don’t have to put points in yet. T4 pieces will be converted to Elemental sets.

Perhaps the one thing Blizzard may learn from NC Soft is to make WoW more spectator friendly by adding options to spectate and record matches live. I’d love to watch my own demo’s to learn what I did wrong and how I can get better. The only way to improve is scrutinize your own actions and learn from them. They added replay’s to Starcraft nearly half a decare after it’s debut. For WoW a similar function would be a boon.