Priest builds

[Cheddar]

Any suggestions?  I just started a new toon.  Am I doomed to a life of grouping?

[bhodi]

You solo great. Go straight up the shadow tree. It will be even better post patch.

It's better with heirlooms.

[K9]

Shadow is pretty fun for levelling, and the quality of life improvements for levelling toons that they keep adding just make the whole thing far more bearable.

[Selby]

You are doomed to healing 95% of the time past 80.  Leveling you just go straight shadow to get shadowform ASAP and Vampiric Touch, and your downtime is pretty much nothing.

[caladein]

You are doomed to healing 95% of the time past 80.

Yeah, but any healing-capable hybrid is going to be stuck there.  Priest is nice in that you have two different healing styles, but Shadow is definitely solid and useful DPS if you hate healing-as-a-role.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'm not sure why people even care about healing vs dps anymore with dual speccing so readily available at max level. That said, spriests are solid dps if they know what they're doing and i hardly ever see people turn one down.

[Gobbeldygook]

I'm not sure why people even care about healing vs dps anymore with dual speccing so readily available at max level. That said, spriests are solid dps if they know what they're doing and i hardly ever see people turn one down.

At the moment, shadow priests are the hands-down worst DPS in the game for PVE.  Maybe subterfuge rogues are worse, but rogues have two trees that don't suck, so no-one cares.  They have some incoming buffs that'll hopefully remedy this, but there's no sense in putting lipstick on this pig.

[pxib]

At the moment, shadow priests are the hands-down worst DPS in the game for PVE.

Do their group mana and health regeneration still keep them popular?

[K9]

Unless you're in a guild of skill capped players you are unlikely to be limited by your class.

[caladein]

At the moment, shadow priests are the hands-down worst DPS in the game for PVE.

Do their group mana and health regeneration still keep them popular?

The healing can be non-trivial but Replenishment is replicated by a ton of other classes.

[Tannhauser]

What, no love for Disc Priests?  I have a 75 Disc and he heals and solo's very well.  Fun spec.  Plus the main spec for PvP if I'm not mistaken.
You have the strongest shield and when you put it up a talent speeds up spells like healing so you can get off Greater Heals and Group Heals fast.  Plus the wonderment that is Penance, your best nuke AND your best heal.

Plus the Priest is of course highly coveted for groups.  Probably a bit more downtime that Shadow, but Shadow is so hinkey.

[caladein]

I raided as a Disc Priest, and pre-dual-specs did a ton of quests as one.  It's an awesome spec in groups/raids if it's not pigeon-holed.  It's also not terrible for solo play but I wouldn't level as one if I had the choice.

[Selby]

That said, spriests are solid dps if they know what they're doing and i hardly ever see people turn one down.

Maybe in 25 man content, but in 10 man raids, you will almost always be bumped from the raid unless you heal.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Yeah, I'm not sure what you guys are smoking but at top end spriests are right up there.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-IBmEEqu39p9FN8Fl/

this is a breakdown of some guild attempts at algalon/mim hardmode and a full toc10 man hardmode.

[Selby]

Yeah, I'm not sure what you guys are smoking but at top end spriests are right up there.

I'm just going off of my experience.  Every shadowpriest I've ever run with has been down in the low 1500's for DPS, except one who tops out at 3500 in similar gear level as my mage that does 5k.  I don't doubt that they can be done well, but most people don't seem to be able to and quite a few raid leaders I know of won't bother giving them a chance.

[bhodi]

Yeah, I'm not sure what you guys are smoking but at top end spriests are right up there.

I'm just going off of my experience.  Every shadowpriest I've ever run with has been down in the low 1500's for DPS, except one who tops out at 3500 in similar gear level as my mage that does 5k.  I don't doubt that they can be done well, but most people don't seem to be able to and quite a few raid leaders I know of won't bother giving them a chance.

Lakov you are wrong, Selby is right.

In end-game progression raiding, there is no reason to ever bring a shadow priest or a boomkin except for the buffs. They do terrible, terrible DPS compared to similar classes. And, unlike boomkin, they are a very difficult class to play. I'd say they are THE hardest; harder than affliction warlock. You get to juggle 3 dots and keep 2 spells on cooldown, and, if you aren't 100% uptime your DPS goes into the toilet. Plus, your rampup time means that you're terrible on dungeon trash and on any fights where the boss goes through phases, since you have to reapply all your dots. This doubletap of difficulty means that your average shadow priest is going to suck balls.

You can cherrypick fights where they are decent, of course, they are OK at yogg and any fights where you can dot up multiple guys, but, given equivalent gear and player skill, they are about 20% behind where they should be. Hence all the buffs in the next patch.

Look at the averages - they are pretty much on the bottom for most of the fights: http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/8


Yes, you can level up as a disc priest, just like you can level up as a prot warrior or a prot pally. It's simply not as efficient or fast.

[Fordel]

Protection is arguably the best leveling spec for a warrior these days.

[Rendakor]

Protection is arguably the best leveling spec for a warrior these days.

Agree, especially for Outland/Northrend levels. 90% of group quests are soloable as a tank, leveling up. Protection warriors do almost as much damage as Arms while leveling, and take much less damage.

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's not my fault shadow priests are hard to play or that a lot of bad players might bring the average down but that doesn't disprove my point. Played well, there's no reason shadow priests can't be top ten dps or higher in any 25man.

[Fordel]

Protection is arguably the best leveling spec for a warrior these days.

Agree, especially for Outland/Northrend levels. 90% of group quests are soloable as a tank, leveling up. Protection warriors do almost as much damage as Arms while leveling, and take much less damage.

Even at the lowest levels, I've been leveling a Prot Warrior as Prot since level 1, I can't say enough praise about Shield Spec. A amusing side effect due to leveling as Prot, is the best solo 'dps' gear is actually lowbie tank gear that no one ever wants normally. Same with talents, Anticipation is one of my best 'dps' talents, due to the extra rage generation.

Incite is another great lowbie talent, that's a HUGE amount of crit at a level range where 5-10% is the usual norm.

Once I got Revenge and Imp Revenge talent, I was laughing to the bank.

I just got high enough for Shield Slam recently, not too long till devestate either 

[bhodi]

It's not my fault shadow priests are hard to play or that a lot of bad players might bring the average down but that doesn't disprove my point. Played well, there's no reason shadow priests can't be top ten dps or higher in any 25man.

I told you, you are wrong. Given equivalent gear and player skill, they are 20% behind a warlock or a mage. The fact they are difficult to play on top of that is simply the nail in the coffin. I posted an average of the top 50 in that link, as you can see they are on or near the bottom of most of the fights. If you need even more proof you can look at any theorycraft website, they'll say the same thing.

I assume you're in a guild with a shadow priest who holds his own. Congratulate him; with his gear and skill, next patch, when they are finally equalized, he'll be on top. Yes, GOOD shadow priests can break top 10, but that's because even in high end guilds there is a skill and gear gradient.

Simulcraft, elitistjerks, rawr, shadowpriest.net, and various other websites back me up on this. I'm not just going by personal experience here.

[Zetor]

Obligatory ontopicness: the first 20 levels are the worst part of leveling a priest (and to some extent, it is still pretty bad until you get to 40). Persevere, it gets a lot easier afterwards.

About spriest dps: pretty much what bhodi said. Anecdote time!

My shadow-offspecced priest is the best geared character of my 'stable' (which isn't much since I don't raid; but it's a full h-toc set with 2 pc healing t7.5, 2pc healing t8.5 and some i226 offpieces, all gemmed and enchanted to be useful for both specs; I only dps in heroics, and you don't really need too much +hit there), and I can only break 2.5k dps in a 5-man when mindsearing a ridiculous number of mobs. For comparison, my destro lock was invited to a normal TOC 5 minutes after hitting 80 (I haven't even trained my level 80 spells and was using a mish-mash of heirlooms, two blue instance drops and green quest rewards from sub-75 zones) and did 2.3k easy. After getting him a set of h-toc / toc gear, he's doing 3k+ by just pushing the same 4 buttons in a predictable rotation. My worse-geared unholy DK (still with a lot of blue gems, i200 gear with two pieces of t7.5 and the h-toc axe) can push 4k in a 5-man by me furiously rolling my face across the keyboard [granted, that's with some AOE abuse and/or cooldowns... but then, do spriests have cooldowns? fiend doesn't count :p]. So yeah, shadow needs some lovin', I hope next patch will be enough.

[Arrrgh]

The doomsayers are correct. There's no reason to level a priest atm. You'll do less damage than a pure DPS class in almost every case, and you'll heal less than tree druids.  If you enjoy BGs you'll live longer as a tree.  Unless you happen to have a mage and rogue friend you want to do 3v3 arena with you're better off as a tree there too.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Equal gear/skill spriests are indeed behind. I'm not refuting that in the least and they do need a bump.  IMO locks need a nerf though because the one in my guild pulls way ahead of all the other 'pure' dps classes.

However did anyone bother looking at the logs I posted? Right now I'm pulling around 5k-5.5k dps on single target fights and beating similarly geared mages/moonkin fairely regularly.  While the buff is certainly needed, spriests are in now way gimp dps.

[apocrypha]

The doomsayers are correct. There's no reason to level a priest atm. You'll do less damage than a pure DPS class in almost every case, and you'll heal less than tree druids. 

These situations are rarely constant though... in a few months time it could be the other way around.

If you wanna level a priest then surely that's enough reason. I play classes cos I like playing them, not cos they're the current top of whatevercharts. I lived through the Great Shaman Nerf and have always loved my shaman :)

[Soulflame]

Equal gear/skill spriests are indeed behind. I'm not refuting that in the least and they do need a bump.  IMO locks need a nerf though because the one in my guild pulls way ahead of all the other 'pure' dps classes.

However did anyone bother looking at the logs I posted? Right now I'm pulling around 5k-5.5k dps on single target fights and beating similarly geared mages/moonkin fairely regularly.  While the buff is certainly needed, spriests are in now way gimp dps.

Moonkin dps also sucks, beating them as a spriest doesn't win you any prizes.  If you are beating mages, get new mages.  There's zero reason you should ever beat a mage on single target dps.

Locks don't need a nerf, at least when it comes to sustained DPS.  Your other "pure" dps players need to play better.

[Ingmar]

Gear and skill are almost never actually equivalent so I tend to throw that out the window for anything but the most theoretical of discussions. For all of elemental shamans overall weakness on paper, when I actually bring mine to our raids I'm typically very competitive on dps, the same thing should apply to a well-played shadow priest.

Also, shadow priests are useful to have around for a variety of reasons - stamina buff + replenishment on a single character is a really nice thing to have available in 10 mans, where you can't be assured that there's one of everything, same goes double for stuff like heroics. It doesn't sound like Cheddar is going to be diving headfirst into raiding or anything like that, too, so there's really no reason that a theoretical lack of bleeding edge endgame dps from the spec should stop him from rolling it.

And no, you won't be forced to heal. That's people'e experience from 2006 talking. It isn't like that anymore, unless you're on a weak server/side.

[bhodi]

Gear and skill are almost never actually equivalent so I tend to throw that out the window for anything but the most theoretical of discussions. For all of elemental shamans overall weakness on paper, when I actually bring mine to our raids I'm typically very competitive on dps, the same thing should apply to a well-played shadow priest.

No, sorry. You do one thing, keep lava burst dot up and spam lightning bolt. With the proper gear and low latency, you can do very well. You aren't even in the same category as moonkin/spriest, either in terms of playing difficulty (which makes it easier to be competitive while there's shit flying around) or in terms of raw DPS.

[Ingmar]

Gear and skill are almost never actually equivalent so I tend to throw that out the window for anything but the most theoretical of discussions. For all of elemental shamans overall weakness on paper, when I actually bring mine to our raids I'm typically very competitive on dps, the same thing should apply to a well-played shadow priest.

No, sorry. You do one thing, keep lava burst dot up and spam lightning bolt. With the proper gear and low latency, you can do very well. You aren't even in the same category as moonkin/spriest, either in terms of playing difficulty (which makes it easier to be competitive while there's shit flying around) or in terms of raw DPS.

This has very little to do with what I was talking about, but ok.

Average position of priests on those charts you yourself linked: 8.4th
Average position of shamans: 8.6th

Yes, I realize that includes enhance shamans, but neither shaman spec is in a particularly good place for endgame dps. And yes shadow priests are probably overall worse, they're only ahead of shamans because they're so much better on the heavy AE fights. But I don't think this is supposed to be some kind of "OMG I'M WORSE" anti-epeen fight.

[Shrike]

Shaman AoE is notoriously bad. Any fight that has any sort of AoE component will have you sucking wind on the meters regardless of spec. Single target fights without a lot of bullshit distractions will have (enhance at least) near the top of the meters--for what they're worth. Normally, I'm usually in the top 5 in 25s and always in the top 10, unless there's something really weird about the encounter. My gear isn't exceptional, either.

Our screwy itemization works against us (as opposed to rogues, magelings, or dps warriors), but we're always solid in damage output. Most galling is the lack of decent weapon upgrades in reasonable boss progressions, despite Ghostwolf's crap about adding axes to rogues helping us out (quite the opposite, really). Last Uld/TC run we ended up sharding like 4 swords. Yeah, lots better for shaman. Luckily, the Grinder finally dropped in ToC, but it's just illustrutive of the hassles with enhance weapons.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Also I'm not sure people realize it but priests actually have the best aoe in the game stat-wise.  Mindsear is basically a channeled seed or corruption with a high spellpower coeff and chance to crit per pulse and per mob. Any fight where a shadow priest gets to aoe they should be number 1 on the meters or they're doing something very wrong.

[Rasix]

Also I'm not sure people realize it but priests actually have the best aoe in the game stat-wise.  Mindsear is basically a channeled seed or corruption with a high spellpower coeff and chance to crit per pulse and per mob. Any fight where a shadow priest gets to aoe they should be number 1 on the meters or they're doing something very wrong.

Back when I was actually raiding, a SPriest friend of mine continually topped the charts in Naxx because of all of the trash packs.

edit: Him being competent in a guild of idiots helped some also.

[Cadaverine]

Hmm, I don't even know what my SPriest's dps is because I'm playing a video game, as opposed to whatever contest everyone else seems to be involved in. I can only imagine that Blizzard is giving away $1,000,000 to the most anal retentive douchebag.  It does allow for people to be dicks to everyone they meet, though.

I actually saw some fucktard saying they were checking Achievements for a 10 man ToC, or perhaps TToC.  Achievements?  For real?  What the fuck is wrong with people anymore?  All wrapped up in .0001 co-efficients, and other stupid bullshit, rather than just having fun.

Roll a priest, spec it however the hell you like, and if anyone gives you grief, tell them to eat a dick if they're not funding your sub.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Hmm, I don't even know what my SPriest's dps is because I'm playing a video game, as opposed to whatever contest everyone else seems to be involved in. I can only imagine that Blizzard is giving away $1,000,000 to the most anal retentive douchebag.  It does allow for people to be dicks to everyone they meet, though.

I actually saw some fucktard saying they were checking Achievements for a 10 man ToC, or perhaps TToC.  Achievements?  For real?  What the fuck is wrong with people anymore?  All wrapped up in .0001 co-efficients, and other stupid bullshit, rather than just having fun.

Roll a priest, spec it however the hell you like, and if anyone gives you grief, tell them to eat a dick if they're not funding your sub.

Look, I'm as annoyed by constant epeen waving as anyone else but this is a thread specifically about priests, levelling, dps etc.  Now you can play the game however you want and that's fine.  There are however people out there who enjoy being good at what they do. Whether that be baseball, running or sitting on their asses tanking/healing or dps'ing. 

For some people, doing the most you can with a character IS the fun part so can we please get rid of the whole "you should be having fun X way" argument? it's stupid no matter who tries to push it.

[Merusk]

The doomsayers are correct. There's no reason to level a priest atm. You'll do less damage than a pure DPS class in almost every case, and you'll heal less than tree druids. 

These situations are rarely constant though... in a few months time it could be the other way around.

Nah, Druids have been outperforming priests in healing for a long, long time - since at least early BC.  The only time priests begin to catch up is when CoH is bumped.. which gets nerfed to hell in the update patches following.   With all the toys buffs and removal of penalties being thrown at druids you'd think they were grossly unpopular.