Spam a paladin, leave my priest alone.

[Arrrgh]

52% of priests are holy.

http://okoloth.blogspot.com/search/label/priest

83% of paladins are holy.

http://okoloth.blogspot.com/search/label/paladin

No, I don't want to heal your PuG. Go annoy a paladin. The odds are better.

[Merusk]

Because holy pallies are tiny healing gods.

Mother fucker little uninterruptalbe bastards.  I started running into 2-pally healing teams in the arena this week  We died hard to all three teams because we had no way of taking them out, at all.  The kicker was both of the fuckers had 50-75% mana at the end.

Goddamn pallies.

[Drifting DarkAngel]

yea my 2v2 rogue/rogue for fun arena team actually destroyed most 2v2 combos' we came against except ANYTHING with a pally healer. we instantly lost. can't blind their partner (remove poison) cant sap them (bubble if they have to, rarely) are usually human (perception) can't sap their partner (they have some spell that removes this i forget what now, blessing of something) and if they have a mage or warlock, he can bubble himself and cast blessing of protection on the caster ally and they can roflstomp us without us able to do *any* damage to them.

[Fabricated]

Pallies are the best single-target healers in the game IMO. I have yet to meet a priest that can keep me topped off as well as a good holy pally. Of course, pallies fall apart the instant more than 2 people start taking damage.

[Zetor]

Not necessarily... a holy pally has some tools to deal with aoe damage, namely using Divine Illum, a spellhaste trinket [scarab-that-never-drops from BM] and topping off everyone with 1.7s holy lights. Of course they can only do this if the AOE damage is sporadic.
There are some heroic bosses that are almost impossible for a pally to soloheal [nethermancer in mechanar, pandemonus in mana-tombs, shirrak in crypts] due to constant heavy AOE damage or in Shirrak's case, a gimmick that increases cast time by 400% (basically if you don't have an instant heal/shield/hot, you're SOL). OTOH, holy pallies are completely indispensible for raids not just for the heals, but for their buffs.


-- Z.

[Valmorian]

can't sap their partner (they have some spell that removes this i forget what now, blessing of something)

I'm not aware of any Paladin ability that can remove sap other than the self-only invulnerability one. 

[Drifting DarkAngel]

There is one. I know for a fact, seen it happen several times. Blessing of Sacrifice? i think.

[Dren]

Blessing of Freedom.

[Zetor]

Blessing of Sacrifice.

The paladin puts this on their partner, and whenever the partner gets attacked, some damage is transferred to the paladin instead, breaking "mez" type crowd controls [sheep, sap, trap, seduce, gouge, blind]. However, next patch this is getting severely nerfed; the blessing will have a 1 min cooldown and only a 30sec duration, so it'll both be easily dispellable and not provide complete "mez immunity" (not to mention putting it on all 4 team members, which is pretty effective against dot/AOE strategies).

The only thing that can *break* sap on another person is Blessing of Protection, since sap is a physical effect. Divine Shield and trinkets work, too.


-- Z.

[jpark]

Any kind of priest rules - period.

With power word shield and healing over time - in addition to burst healing - they have many options to keep a clothy up.  And of course fear (used wisely), mind control, shackle, group heal yad yada.  Otherwise, paladins are ideally suited for pvp healing and pug groups - both have similar crowd control effectiveness to protect a healer  :-D

The priest is the most powerful class in the game.  What's better than having one  priest in a group?  Another priest.  Nuff said.

Just let a kara team near you know when your ready to raid :)

[Valmorian]

Blessing of Sacrifice.

The paladin puts this on their partner, and whenever the partner gets attacked, some damage is transferred to the paladin instead, breaking "mez" type crowd controls [sheep, sap, trap, seduce, gouge, blind]. However, next patch this is getting severely nerfed; the blessing will have a 1 min cooldown and only a 30sec duration, so it'll both be easily dispellable and not provide complete "mez immunity" (not to mention putting it on all 4 team members, which is pretty effective against dot/AOE strategies).

The only thing that can *break* sap on another person is Blessing of Protection, since sap is a physical effect. Divine Shield and trinkets work, too.


-- Z.

Blessing of Protection BREAKS sap now?  It didn't before.  As for blessing of Sacrifice, that will only work if you're the one getting sapped, and doesn't help other people who are sapped.

[Dren]

I agree, Sacrifice doesn't make sense.

[Drifting DarkAngel]

Any kind of priest rules - period.

With power word shield and healing over time - in addition to burst healing - they have many options to keep a clothy up.  And of course fear (used wisely), mind control, shackle, group heal yad yada.  Otherwise, paladins are ideally suited for pvp healing and pug groups - both have similar crowd control effectiveness to protect a healer  :-D

The priest is the most powerful class in the game.  What's better than having one  priest in a group?  Another priest.  Nuff said.

Just let a kara team near you know when your ready to raid :)

In the arena priests are as nothing compared to paladins. Much easier to CC Out of the fight, easier to burst down.

[Drifting DarkAngel]

Blessing of Sacrifice.

The paladin puts this on their partner, and whenever the partner gets attacked, some damage is transferred to the paladin instead, breaking "mez" type crowd controls [sheep, sap, trap, seduce, gouge, blind]. However, next patch this is getting severely nerfed; the blessing will have a 1 min cooldown and only a 30sec duration, so it'll both be easily dispellable and not provide complete "mez immunity" (not to mention putting it on all 4 team members, which is pretty effective against dot/AOE strategies).

The only thing that can *break* sap on another person is Blessing of Protection, since sap is a physical effect. Divine Shield and trinkets work, too.


-- Z.

Blessing of Protection BREAKS sap now?  It didn't before.  As for blessing of Sacrifice, that will only work if you're the one getting sapped, and doesn't help other people who are sapped.

i dunno all im saying is i seen a pally remove sap from his partner, in several arena matches. so its obviously possible, just not widely known. (and sucks for us rogues)

[Dren]

Blessing of Protection would also take the partner out of combat for the duration of the spell.  I still don't see why it would break Sap unless it is just a bug or something.

The way Freedom is written it could be taken as a way to relieve any movement impairing effect.  I don't know for a fact.  I've never tried it.

[Zetor]

Blessing of Protection BREAKS sap now?  It didn't before.  As for blessing of Sacrifice, that will only work if you're the one getting sapped, and doesn't help other people who are sapped.

BOP always broke sap, afaik... at least it did when I used it back in early 2006 after I hit 60 and some silly rogue tried to sap me while I was doing the fordring escort quest. You can BOP yourself to break it [even if you're sapped -- this is unwise because of forbearance], or BOP someone else. Next patch you'll only be able to BOP others if you're not sapped/stunned yourself (new change). If you're worried about the [melee] teammate being unable to attack back, just replace it with another blessing right after (though most of the time the victim is a clothy).

I included Sacrifice for the sake of completeness, as it is the #1 ability that allows pallies to escape CC in pvp. Of course you don't use it to dispel sap directly -- you put it on your squishy teammates and then when YOU get sapped and they get hit, the damage transferred breaks your sap.

Edit: my pally alt is here http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Crushridge&n=Zovir just so you can see I indeed have a l70 pally I pvp with regularly :P
Edit2: Blessing of Freedom doesn't break sap; the only things it breaks and provides immunity to are roots and snares, ie. hamstring, frost nova, imp blizzard, entangling roots.


-- Z.

[Valmorian]

i dunno all im saying is i seen a pally remove sap from his partner, in several arena matches. so its obviously possible, just not widely known. (and sucks for us rogues)

The other possibility is that you are mistaken and something ELSE removed the sap, like the aforementioned Blessing of Sacrifice, and not something his partner did.

[Dren]

Along that vein, can't you escape it with that dwarf racial? (Stoneform or something?)  Isn't there a gnome racial for escapes too?

[Drifting DarkAngel]

nah I'm not mistaken. I don't know what the pally cast but he flat out removed it and I seen it enough times that I know it wasn't an obvious racial or what not. Gnomes can't escape sap but Dwarves can. The paladin cast a spell, and sap poofed when it landed on him... its really as simple and obvious as that. It was probably just BOP, I can't be sure. I don't know how sacrifice really works.

edit: ah well, i barely run into any dwarves as it is.

[Zetor]

No, neither stoneform or escape artist remove sap. The only other ability that does is the warrior skill 'berserker rage' [this is why warriors go into berserker stance when they know a rogue is nearby].

Stoneform: breaks poisons/diseases, and poison-related CC [blind, wyvern sting] and gives a short immunity to them too
Escape Artist: breaks roots/snares like blessing of freedom, but gives no immunity effect


-- Z.

[Morat20]

Along that vein, can't you escape it with that dwarf racial? (Stoneform or something?)  Isn't there a gnome racial for escapes too?

Stoneform doesn't break saps. (It does cure bleeds and poisons, which pisses off rogues to no end). I used it all the time to fuck over rogues who thought some crippling poison would slow me down.

I don't really blame them for dying from me. I PvPed (at the time -- this was pre-TBC) using Cats-Eye goggles and generally found a Warlock with a Felhunter out to group with me. And they were used to fighting those damn elves.

[jpark]

Any kind of priest rules - period.

With power word shield and healing over time - in addition to burst healing - they have many options to keep a clothy up.  And of course fear (used wisely), mind control, shackle, group heal yad yada.  Otherwise, paladins are ideally suited for pvp healing and pug groups - both have similar crowd control effectiveness to protect a healer  :-D

The priest is the most powerful class in the game.  What's better than having one  priest in a group?  Another priest.  Nuff said.

Just let a kara team near you know when your ready to raid :)

In the arena priests are as nothing compared to paladins. Much easier to CC Out of the fight, easier to burst down.

Agreed - like I said "Otherwise, paladins are ideally suited for...".  I certainly agree with you.

[caladein]

Those numbers have nothing at all to do with the fact that Shadow Priests are about the single-most desirable support/DPS spec, not at all.

That said, for PvE stuff, Priests are in a bit of a jam. They aren't the best single-target or AOE healers under ideal situations for Shamans. Also Druids do better healing a small finite number of targets because they can keep Lifebloom stacks rolling at the same time they can toss a short spell here or there. Priests excel as probably the second best single-target healer (because of Inspiration you want a Shaman or Priest concentrated on healing the tank) and the second best raid healer which makes them less-than-ideal for a min-maxer, but very welcome for everyone else.

Also, I'd probably contend that Priests (and Tree Druids) are more difficult to heal with effectively then a Paladin FoL spamming or a Shaman Chain Healing. Thus, at the top percentiles, we have obvious (and in my eyes acceptable) weaknesses, and with everyone else, retards don't know how to play their damn class making it look worse then it is.

On the PvP front... I'll keep it short, in the popular 5v5 matrices a Priest offers: a second offensive/defensive dispeller, Mana Burn, Mass Dispel, non-HoT instants, and the best ability to heal while pressured. A Holy/Disc Priest is an integral part of the vast majority of 5v5 teams, and of course, a Paladin's worst nightmare.

[ajax34i]

IMO, PVE healer priests are in a jam because they don't provide as much stacking utility as paladins, druids, or shamans.   Shadow-specced, can bring more than one priest, sure, but healer-specced...  meh.  Plus their Holy and Disc talents aren't all that great.  It's all been said, of course, all over the boards, I don't think I'm saying anything new.  I played a healer raiding priest, and I kinda got a bit disillusioned with him once TBC hit.  Parked now, having fun with a 30's druid currently.

No clue on the PVP front; I hear they provide all that, but get targetted and killed first, every time.  Maybe the teams that keep posting that are bad at keeping them alive.

[caladein]

A Priest that isn't spec'd (28/33/0) or geared (9k+ Base Health and 250+ Resil) correctly/well is going to get stomped. Resto Shamans and Paladins do quite a bit better at low levels of gear simply because a Priest's defensive abilities reduce the potential damage from the "next" attacks, so they don't do squat if you get instagibbed.

I absolutely hated my Priest early in Season 1, but now that I'm decently geared (10k base Health and ~400 Resil) I'm really able to stay alive for a very long time. A Holy/Disc Priest, more so then anyone else is the 5v5 Tank.

[Chenghiz]

Holy priests in arena

[jpark]

A Holy/Disc Priest, more so then anyone else is the 5v5 Tank.

That was the big lession of shadowbane pvp for me - who's the tank in pvp?  The healer.  It's interesting that the priest becomes viable in arena when sufficiently geared - but does that mean he has truely crossed a threshold or just out gears his typical opponent sufficiently?

I agree that with comments above healing priests could stack better on raids (e.g. vs. paladins) but their burst healing is great and they can stack their heal over times with each other.  Of course, I guess the same can be said of druids - but they are too busy with their feral builds.

[ajax34i]

I absolutely hated my Priest early in Season 1, but now that I'm decently geared (10k base Health and ~400 Resil) I'm really able to stay alive for a very long time.

Yeah, story of the priest, in a nutshell.  If you work harder than other classes, and / or have "decent" best-of-the-best gear, you can survive ok and/or be just as good as the other healers in the raid.

[Threash]

A holy priest in the arena needs teamates that cant be ignored to do well.  Mages, Shamans, to a lesser extent UA locks and druids.  Make the other team pay for going right for the priest, a war/pali/mage/shaman/priest will destroy you if you ignore the mage and shaman to go for the priest.  My team runs with war/rogue/hunter/priest/pali most of the time, we've managed to crawl to a 1900 rating mostly relying on being very good players with very good gear, but our team make up sucks because we have no priority targets besides the priest.

[caladein]

That was the big lession of shadowbane pvp for me - who's the tank in pvp?  The healer.  It's interesting that the priest becomes viable in arena when sufficiently geared - but does that mean he has truely crossed a threshold or just out gears his typical opponent sufficiently?

That's also been my experience from PvPing in other games: as the healer you're automatically the center-of-attention. In the Arena, a smarter team will leave you alone to tank "nothing" and take out someone else, but you're equally dangerous as anyone else because of Mana Burn (+ Bloodlust).

On the gear issue, I'm not in anything fantastic, just 3/5 S2 and 2/5 HWL and am middle-of-the-road on my 5v5 (our Paladin/Warrior are in a bit better gear because of recent upgrades; our Shaman/Mage in a decent bit worse). That said, as an Enchanter with the +15 Resil to Chest formula, I do see lots of Priests getting it on a robe with like, +18 Healing gems and just shake my head, so it's probably a combination of decent gear and intelligent (if cheap) gemming/enchanting.

If you work harder than other classes, and / or have "decent" best-of-the-best gear, you can survive ok and/or be just as good as the other healers in the raid.

I completely agree, Priest as a Healer is not an easy class to play and the same is true for Druids, ironically the two classes flagged as "main healers". More then anything I feel this is because the "secondary healers" (rightfully) have specific roles they excel at and are thus a min/max dream. At the same time, if you overpower Priest/Druid you've just reversed the situation and honestly, healing in WoW is not so varied as to allow for four unique and distinct styles. That said the strength of Priest/Druid is at its core an irrelevant one at the high end: as a "main healer" each heals well and has healing-related talents in every tree.

I see the biggest problem as the prevalence/strength of mana pots making the high-regen/low-throughput versus inefficient burst continuum completely irrelevant. Likewise our burst-regen ability (Shadowfiend/Innervate) is available as a core skill unlike Illumination/Divine Illumination or Mana Tide which is an advantage to healing as a non-healing spec. Again though, regen and off-healing aren't important in the current game so those "advantages" go down the drain.

[Morfiend]

i dunno all im saying is i seen a pally remove sap from his partner, in several arena matches. so its obviously possible, just not widely known. (and sucks for us rogues)

The other possibility is that you are mistaken and something ELSE removed the sap, like the aforementioned Blessing of Sacrifice, and not something his partner did.

PVP Trinket. Those things win.