A Guide to All Talents, Spells, Builds and Mods

Introduction

Hi numerous questions about talents, spells, builds and mods are always asked on the priest forum. There are large amounts of helpful posts by priests and kudos goes out to each and every one of them, hopefully this guide will answer most the FAQ on priests. (All spells that are above level 60 are TBC only).

I’m Kalistra, member of Merged, Aggramar Server (BT/MH), now 70, after staying Healy Holy Spec to do the 60-70 run (thanks to Soulnight for all his help in levelling) and have an alt priest whose level 52 and Shadow Spec. Hopefully that’s enough credentials that I might know mostly what I am on about.

Contents.

Part One: Spells – what each spell does, what is down ranking
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#1

Part Two: Discipline Talents
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#3

Part Three: Holy Talents
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#4

Part Four: Shadow Talents
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#5

Part Five: Discussion on Levelling
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#6

Part Six: Talent Builds
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#6

Part Seven: Mods
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#8

Part Eight: Races
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#9

Part Nine: What profession? What items? Whats Mp5? Whats +healing aka the ‘stuff’ part? Spell haste?
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#9

Part Ten: Conclusions and Thoughts
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=125452547&sid=1#9

Useful links

Very nice healer PVP guide
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=2111522968&sid=1

Theorycrafting - very nice thread
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=233513352&sid=1&pageNo=1

Failes excellent guide, looks at leveling very well
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=298893351&sid=1&pageNo=1

Holy Priest Guide - this is WELL worth a read
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1710791103&postId=17104271675&sid=1#12
Nice one Yasua!

Wajos Guide to Raid Buffing Pottage
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=283128540&sid=1&pageNo=1

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=220402193&sid=1&pageNo=1 - an excellent macro guide (EU) by Layrajha

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=233513352&sid=1 Priest Theorycraft, really good post by Layrajha (EU)

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=264416923&sid=1 Vards excellent Mod list

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12881738&sid=1 - Nightshrouds US Priest FAQ

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11893046&sid=1&pageNo=1 The Priest Mana Regen Model (US)

http://smulan.se/priest calculates priest healing output ONLY WORKS FOR L70 great piece of work and hes still updating the maths!!!!!

Part One: The Spells

A good repository of information has to be http://www.wowhead.com/?spells=7.5 for a complete Priest spell list.

Spells everyone can have

Lesser Heal (LH) – your first basic direct heal. You receive this spell at levels 1, 4 and 10. The all take 1.5 seconds to cast, and have a range of 40 yards. Lesser heals casting time increases however, with the rank of spell you have.

Power Word Fortitude (Fort) – This is one of the staple buffs a priest uses, and increases characters stamina, you can use it on yourself and others. You receive this spell at levels 1, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 & 70. These spells last 30 minutes. Later on you can find three books, which train you in Prayer of Fortitude ranks 1,2 & 3 (PoF), these are learnable at levels 48, 60 & 70, give the same stamina as the single target Fort spell, but effect the entire team and lasts for 1 hour. The PoF spells require a reagent that can be bought for any reagent vendor.

Shadow Word: Pain (SWP) – Is one of the priests damaging spells. This spell is a instant cast shadow DoT (damage over time) that you can apply to any mob within 30 yards. This means you can have SWP running on multiple mobs at the same time, thus doing damage, whilst still being able to heal. You can learn this spell at levels 4, 10, 18, 26, 34, 42, 50, 58, 65 & 70.

Power Word: Shield (PWS) – This is an instant cast, 40 yard, defensive spell that can be used on yourself, a party member or a raid member. It cannot be cast on someone you are not grouped with. This spell generates a ‘protective shield’ around the recipient, which has the ability to absorb damage. Spells cannot be interrupted due to damage whilst this spell holds, however crowd control abilities (e.g. silence & fear) will still break spell casting. When PWS lands on someone, they will receive a 15 second debuff called weaken soul, that prevents another PWS being cast on that person whilst the debuff is running. You can learn this spell at levels 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60, 65 and 70. There is some worry in the priest community that this spell does not scale very well, especially in PvP vs burst damage. PWS gains 20% bonus of your +healing (so 1500 +healing means it absorbs an extra 300 damage)

Smite – This is one of the main attacks a non-shadow priest will use. It is a 2.5 second cast, 30 yard, direct damage spell, doing holy damage. You can learn this spell at levels 6, 14, 22, 30, 38, 46, 54, 61 and 69.

Fade – A very important spell to priests, but takes some time to master when to use it. An instant cast spell that reduces your ‘hate’ on mobs, allowing the aggro to be shifted to another character easier. At the end of the duration ALL threat that was lost through fade will be regained, but hopefully another player will then be above you on the hate list (usually the tank). It lasts for 10 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown. You can learn this spell at levels 8, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 & 66.

Renew – An instant cast HoT (Heal over time) with a 40 yard range. A HoT allows the recipient to gain life over the duration of the spell (every 3 seconds or a tick as its known as, they will gain life) allowing you to heal whilst doing other things (like direct healing). Renews stack, this means multiple priests can have renew running on the same character. Druids are the undisputed masters of HoTs but renew is a strong tool in the priests collection. You can learn this spell at levels 8, 14, 20, 26, 32, 38, 44, 50, 56, 60, 65 & 70.

Mind Blast (MB) – A very powerful direct damage, 1.5 sec cast, 30 yards range, spell of the shadow school. Used to generate additional hate on a mob it hit, but that seems to have been removed. You can learn this spell at levels 10, 16, 22, 28, 34, 40, 46, 52, 58, 63 & 69.

Resurrection (Res) – A character is dead, oh no! Well these things happen, and as long as it isn’t you, casting Res on them brings them back to life This CANNOT be cast during combat! You can learn this spell at levels 10, 22, 34, 46, 58 and 68, each one bringing the person back to life with more health and mana. (Sidenote: druids have a Res they can cast during combat, but it is on a 30 min cooldown, shamans have an ability to self-res.)

Inner Fire (InnF) – A defensive self buff that increases your armour rating for 10 minutes or 20 melee or ranged attacks against you. Yes it’s a pain to keep casting it, but its benefit is obvious, you take less damage! You can learn this spell at levels 12, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 & 69.

Cure Disease – Cures one disease on the target you cast it on within 40 yards instantly. You can learn this at level 14.

Abolish Disease – Cures one disease on the target you cast it on within 40 yards instantly, and then every 5 seconds after (for 20 seconds) removes another disease. You can learn this at level 32.

Psychic Scream – Is a PBAoE (personal based area of effect – 8 yards radius) instant spell that sends mobs running from you in fear. The first level makes two mobs run, the top level makes five run. Causing damage to a feared mob can break the fear. You can learn this spell at levels 14, 28, 42, 56 & 60.

Heal (H) – This is the second direct heal you receive as a priest, much slower casting time of three seconds (40 yard range), but the mana it costs to cast, for the amount it heals, it is much more mana efficient. You can learn this spell at levels 16, 22, 28 & 34.

Dispel Magic – This spell can be used to remove a magic effect or either a friendly or aggressive target. It is instant cast with a range of 30 yards. You can learn this at level 18 & 36.

Flash Heal (FH) – This spell is the direct upgrade of Lesser Heal. Takes 1.5 seconds to cast and has a range of 40 yards. Not a particularly mana efficient way of healing, but if you need a heal in a hurry, PWS+FH is where you are at. You can learn this spell at levels 20, 26, 32, 38, 44, 50, 56, 61 & 67.

Holy Fire – A second direct damage holy spell, which also leaves a small DoT on the target. Takes 3.5 seconds to cast and a range of 30 yards. You can learn this spell at levels 20, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60 and 66.

Mind Soothe – An interesting spell that is very situational. If you are trying to sneak past a mob and NOT start a fight with it, you can cast mind Soothe on it, which drastically decreases its aggro radius, assuming getting within 40 yards doesn’t aggro the mob. It lasts 15 seconds. You can learn this spell at levels 20, 36, 52 and 67.

Shackle Undead (SUd) – This is the priests way of stopping those horrible undead from attacking you! (Please note PLAYER undead do NOT class as undead). This spell takes 1.5 seconds to cast and has a range of 30 yards, enveloping the undead in chains. ANY damage done to a shackled mob will break the shackle and the undead WILL attack the priest as it causes high threat. You can only have one mob shackled at a time. You can learn this spell at levels 20, 40 and 60.

Mind Vision (MV) – Target mob, look round corner, causes NO threat. Used to be much better as with MV2 you could bounce from mob to mob to see patrols, they nerfed it. You can learn this spell at levels 22 and 44. Now seems that MV2 can sometimes cast, and sometimes doesnt (own experience) Good for marking up mobs round corner for raid.

Mana Burn – A direct damage spell that destroys some of your targets mana, and damages them in the process. It takes 3 seconds to cast and has a 30 yard range. You can learn this spell at levels 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 63 and 70.

Mind Control (MC) – A great spell, but one that can go HORRIBLY wrong. You take control of your non-friendly target using some of their abilities, be it in PvE or PvP. MC however can break early and produces MASSIVE amounts of hate, also the pet bar you should have can sometimes be missing, making the mob pretty useless. Whilst you are MCing, any other action you perform WILL break the MC. It takes 3 seconds to cast with a 20 yard range. You can learn this at levels 30, 44 and 58.

Prayer of Healing (PoH) – Your entire team is taking damage do you a) panic, run round like a headless chicken and wipe or b) cast PoH which heals your entire team? Some priests choose option a, personally I’d cast PoH. A 30 yard radius, 3 second cast means you have to time it wisely, but a very powerful spell used in the right circumstances. You can learn this spell at levels 30, 40, 50, 60 & 68.

Shadow Protection – Increases the Shadow Resistance of you target for 10 minutes, can be learnt at levels 30, 42, 56 & 68.

Prayer of Shadow Protection – Casts Shadow Protection on an entire group, lasting 20 minutes (uses a reagent), can be learnt at levels 56 and 70 from books.

Levitate – Your falling, oh wait, this instant cast spell makes you float nicely to the ground instead... as long as you remembered to farm the right feathers that is. You can learn this spell at level 34.

Greater Heal (GH) – A direct upgrade to Heal, this slow and steady direct heal is the mainstay of many priests. You can learn this spell at levels 40, 46, 52, 58, 60, 63 & 68.

Shadow Word: Death (SWD) – A direct instant cast, 30 yard, shadow damage spell, however if it does not kill the target the priest takes the same damage as the target (hint: Prayer of Mending). You can learn this spell at levels 62 and 70. Heavily nerfed in 2.1 to a 12 sec CD.

Binding Heal (BH) – A very situational heal, I love it, good for healing under-fire, plus holy talents affect it. It heals both your target AND yourself at the same time (range 40 yards, 1.5 seconds cast). Generates low hate by mobs around you. You can learn this spell at level 64.

Shadowfiend – A pet for priests. Now contolled by a pet bar, you have to tell it to attack a target

Fear Ward (FW) - An instance cast spell that places a buff on the target that lasts for 3 minutes, the next time the target is feared (NOT TERROR) they will auto-resist it. 3 minute cooldown.

Prayer of Mending (PoM) – An instant cast buff that lasts 30 seconds on a friendly target (group/raid member), with a 10 second cooldown. When they get hit, it instantly heals them (they gain the hate, not you) and then it jumps to another friendly target within 20 yards of them. When THEY take damage, this repeats. It lasts 5 charges or when a 30 second period elapses with the current holder not taking damage (Hint: SWD). I recommend a mod SPECIFICALLY for this spell called Mendwatch. This spell should not be confused with mages PoM (Presence of Mind). This spell can be learnt at level 68.

Mass Dispel – Level 70 only spell, it dispels 1 harmful (from friendly) and 1 beneficial (from hostile) spells from up to 5 friendly and 5 hostile people within a 15 yard radius. Takes 1.5 seconds to cast. This can dispel effects that normal cannot be dispelled. If one of the enemy target has an immunity protection running, it will target this first. Dispelling bubbles etc is resistable.

Talent Specific Spells

Holy Nova – Holy Tree Level 20. Instantly heal everyone in your group within 10 yards and damage all mobs within 10 yards of the caster. This causes no hate. Very mana expensive however for little damage and healing. You can upgrade this spell at levels 28, 36, 44, 52, 60 & 68.

Mind Flay (MF) – Shadow Tree Level 20. MELT FACES!!!! A channelled spell that slows the mobs movement speed and causes damage. Very mana efficient. (Hint: fear+MF) You can upgrade this spell at levels 28, 36, 44, 52, 60 & 68.

Divine Spirit – Discipline Tree Level 30. A buff that increases the targets spirit. You can upgrade this spell at 40, 50, 60 & 70. You can get Prayer of Spirit a group version at 60 & 70. Having one person with this in a raid is nice.

Lightwell (LOLwell) – Holy Tree Level 40. To say this spell hasn’t gone down well with the majority of the priest community, would be accurate. You can upgrade this spell at levels 50, 60 & 70. It basically creates a clickable summoned well, that people can use as if it were a bandage (and can bandage at the same time). I now have this in my build, it is affected by +healing now (at 2k+heal mine ticks for about 1.4k) and if you have it running on yourself, you cannot reclick until the current one goes.

Circle of Healing (COH) – The last holy talent you can get (L50) enables this spell. An instant cast heal, that heals the target and any members of their group within 15 yards of the target. This spell is still being worked on by Bliz, as long as the raid set-ups are right (ie melee groups) then i have found it helpful personally.

Vampric Touch (VT) - The last Shadow Talent you can get (L50) enables this spell. A 1.5 second cast shadow DoT this spell is just flippin awesome (Lasts 15 seconds)! It places a debuff on the mob that ANY shadow damage you do the mob, is then converted back into 5% mana for everyone in your party (So you nuke for 1000 damage, everyone in the party gains 50 mana, this obviously causes some confusion to warriors). You can 'upgrade' this spell at levels 60 and 70.

Race specific spells I won't be covering, if I start going on about how bad the NE ones are a) I'll cry and b) people will starting flaming :p

Down ranking

Down ranking caused much debate in the priest community, especially when it got nerfed. What priest were doing (myself included) were gaining lots of +healing items, and then using MUCH lower level spells to be mana efficient. I myself was using H2 and healing for about 1.3k per heal, for hardly any cost.

Blizzard changed this and introduced a formula, the bonus +healing you get from items is now
(Spell Level+5+6) / character level

For example,
heal rank 2 is learnt at level 22, and it's effect scales up for 5 levels.
after that we add those lovely 6 "slack" levels.

benefit from +healing gear on rank 2 heal spell
at level 60 (22 + 5 + 6 ) / 60 = 55%
at level 70 (22 + 5 + 6 ) / 70 = 47%

Thanks to Mirmir for the correction :)

Part Two: Discipline Talents

Tier 1: Unbreakable Will (5) – Increases resistance to Stun, Fear and Silence – Good talent, all three are annoying and 15% resistance doesn’t hurt. Addendum: most raiding priests now spec OUT of this talent, as if they resist a fear they get pwned in one shot.

Tier 1: Wand Specialisation (5) – Increased your wands damage – If you use your wand a lot, then this helps, personally I wouldn’t spend 5 points in this though.

Tier 2: Silent Resolve (5) – Decreases the threat that all your spells cause and makes your buffs harder to dispel – Much debate as to whether this is a helpful or weak talent. Some priests swear by it, some don’t. (Nerfed in 2.0.10 to NOT affect Shadow spells, so a DISCIPLINE talent now only works on HOLY abilities)

Tier 2: Improved Power Word: Fortitude (2) – Increases the stamina bonus from Fort – whats not to like? Most priest (especially healers) take this

Tier 2: Improved Power Word: Shield (3) – Increases the amount absorbed by PWS – only increases by 15%, maths wise a poor talent for the return of 3 points in it

Tier 2: Martyrdom (2) – If critically hit by a melee or ranged attack, for the next 6 seconds damage does not interrupt your heals and you have a 10% resistance to interrupt effects – PvP talent IMHO.

Tier 3: Absolution (3) – Decreases the mana cost of Disease and Magic removal, good talent, throwing even one point in (if you are trying to break tier locks) is worthwhile.

Tier 3: Inner Focus (1) – Your next spell if free and has an increased crit chance of 25% - for one talent pint its good, taking this won’t hurt you

Tier 3: Meditation (3) – A fantastic talent, allows 30% mana regen to continue while you are casting, well worth taking, also a pre-req for Divine Spirit

Tier 4: Improved Inner Fire (3) – Increases the armour bonus Inner Fire provides, personally I wouldn’t take it, but PvP priest might want to for extra survivability.

Tier 4: Mental Agility (5) – Decreases the cost of instant casts spells, fantastic for PoM and well worth getting overall

Tier 4: Improved Mana Burn (2) – Decreases the casting time of mana burn, I don’t rate it that much, if you are a dualist then it may have some value, but priests are saying mana burning at high level is pointless.

Tier 5: Mental Strength (5) – Increases your mana pool, and is a pre-req for Power Infusion, if your doing a disc build, you take this talent

Tier 5: Divine Spirit + Improved Divine Spirit (3) – You don’t take one without the other, if your build has room for DS take it! The improved part grants bonus to healing and damage based on spirit.

Tier 6: Focused Power (2) – Increases your smite, MB and mass dispel chance to hit. Reduces casting time of Mass Dis by 1 second.

Tier 6: Force of Will (5) – If you are going for a discipline build dps variant, you would take this talent as it increases all damage you do and your offensive crit chance.

Tier 7 Focused Will - After taking a critical hit you gain the Focused Will effect, reducing all damage taken by 2/3/4% and increasing healing effects on you by 4/7/10% for 6 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times. This is to give deep disc a talent to rival blessed resiliance, (deep holy) howveer people are reporting this is a weak talent in comparison.

Tier 7: Power Infusion (PI) (1) – Increases spell haste by 20% and decrease spell mana cost by 20% for 15 seconds, on your target, cooldown 3 mins. Does what it says on the tin, great for that healing/dps increase you need (or your friend) also good for getting mages dead as the increased damage causes them to get aggro and get squelched :p

Tier 7: Reflective Shield (5) – Causes (top level) 50% of all damage absorbed to be reflects back at the attacker – whilst I don’t rate it, I don’t PvP much and have had good feedback from my friend who have like ‘HA HA the lock dotted himself to death’ and other :p

Tier 8: Enlightment (5) – Increases Stam, Int and Spi by 5% - not bad just very deep in the tree

Tier 9: Pain Suppression (PS) (1) – Decreases the damage the target takes by 40% for 8 seconds 3 min cooldown, also reduces threat by 5%.

Part 3: Holy Talents

Tier 1: Healing Focus (2) – Decreases healing spell interrupt by 70% from physical damage, anyone whose a healer will take this talent.

Tier 1: Improved Renew (3) – Increases the amount your renew heals for per tick, I like it, others don’t

Tier 1: Holy Specialisation (5) – Increases the crit chance of all holy spells by 5%, you will probably take some in this talent to break tier lock further up the tree

Tier 2: Spell Warding (5) – Reduces incoming spell damage by up to 10%, OK for PvP, not fantastic out of it.

Tier 2: Divine Fury (5) – Reduces the casting time of Smite, Holy Fire, H and GH, if your going to be healing this is a very strong talent and it is rare people who are taking holy talents miss this one

Tier 3: Holy Nova (1) – As previous spell description

Tier 3: Blessed Recover (3) – Mainly a PvP survivability talent, which causes you to slowly heal dmage back after being a victim of a crit, but this talent has been reported as being slightly buggy

Tier 3: Inspiration (3) – Increases the armour rating of a friendly target who is the recipient of a critical heal, quite a common talent taken by priests, often in tandum with Holy Spec

Tier 4: Holy Reach (2) – Increases the distance of your direct damage holy spells and the radius of PoH and HN, not the most exciting talent, but useful in some builds

Tier 4: Improved Healing (3) – Reduces the mana cost of LH, H and GH, shame it doesn’t do FH as well, but well worth taking in any healer build

Tier 4: Searing Light (2) – if your doing a holy dps build, take it, increases smite and holy fires damage

Tier 5: Healing Prayers (2) – decreases the cost of PoH and more importantly PoM, if your going deep into the holy tree, take it

Tier 5: Spirit of Redemption (SoR) (1) – Increases your spirit by 5% and when you die, makes you into an spirit who is capable of healing only (and for free) for 15 seconds, shame the spirit bit is buggy.. you lag into it loosing time, but 5% spirit for 1 point is good

Tier 5: Spiritual Guidance (5) – Transforms your best stats, spirit, into an engine of destruction, increasing both damage and healing, great talent

Tier 6: Surge of Light (2) – After you crit with a spell, cast a free and instant smite, good for holy dps

Tier 6: Spiritual Healing (5) – Increases the amount you heal by, whats not to like

Tier 7: Holy Concentration (3) – After a FH, BH or GH, you can have up to a 6% chance your next FH, BH or GH is free, same as the mage talent, but that one goes up to 10% for 5 points and is in tier 2. Reasonably good ability BUT should allow more points in it, or more bonus per point, 6% is a tad low. You have 15 seconds to COMPLETE spell casting, otherwise you lose the free spell.

Tier 7: Lightwell (1) – Also refered to as Lolwell, but i like it, and so do the locks in my guild ;p

Tier 7: Blessed Resilience (3) – A blatant PvP talent, gives you a 60% chance of being immune to crits for 6 seconds after being the victim of a crit… rogues hate it

Tier 8: Empowered Healing (5) – Increases the bonus you receive from +healing items on FH, BH and GH, I rate this more than Imp DS, others don't.

Tier 9: Circle of Healing (1) – As previous spell descrip, Blizzard are still looking at CoH

Part 4: Shadow Talents

Tier 1: Spirit Tap (5) – Allows excellent mana regen if you land the killing blow, good for grinding

Tier 1: Blackout (5) – Gives a 10% chance of a stun off your shadow spells, whats not to like there!

Tier 2: Shadow Affinity (3) – If you are guild raiding as shadow, this talent is almost a must, shadow can generate HUGE amounts of hate, this really helps negate that

Tier 2: Improved Shadow Word: Pain (2) – This increases the duration of your SWP and is an excellent talent, some people think that this decreases damage, because it spreads the damage out over longer INCORRECT, it ADDS extra ticks of the same level of damage, thus making you have to recast SWP on a mob less often – take this talent

Tier 2: Shadow Focus (5) – Reduces a targets resistance to your shadow spells, making your spells easier to land (including mind control) excellent talent

Tier 3: Improved Psychic Scream (2) – You only take this if you want Silence as it’s a pre-req

Tier 3: Improved Mind Blast (5) – brings your MB back on-line faster, with properly chained MFs 1 point is all you need here. More is a waste of talent points overall. (Obviously will come down to your spell rotation). However in raid specs, having more than 1 point Im am assured by a number of raiding shadow priests I know does increase your overall DPS, but at the cost of mana efficency.

Tier 3: Mind Flay (1) – If your shadow this is the FIRST tier 3 talent you take, see previous spell description

Tier 4: Improved Fade (2) – Don’t know a single priest with it, you can fade more often.. yay…

Tier 4: Shadow Reach (2) – if there is a single issue with shadow spells, its their short range, good talent to take later on when your going back and filing in extra stuff

Tier 4: Shadow Weaving (5) – Heavily nerfed in 2.1 to a max bonus of 10% for 5 points instead of 15% due to WARLOCKS DOING TO MUCH DAMAGE

Tier 5: Silence (1) – Silence your target for 5 seconds, now has more PvE use than before, with it being noted by others as useful in ZG and the new instance in Kara, so gives some flexability to what is normally seen as a PvP talent (and a VERY good one at that)

Tier 5: Vampric + Improved Vampric Embrace (1+2) – A debuff you place on your target, all shadow damage you do to the target then heals everyone in your party for 25% of the damage you do. This is enough with a retri-pally to heal a group of 5 correct levels through mauradon. Plus this is a pre-req for Shadowform. (nerfed in 2.0.10)

Tier 5: Focused Mind (3) – Decreases the mana cost of your main shadow damage spells, like duh, take it

Tier 6: Shadow Resiliance (2) – A 4% chance not to be crit by spells.. ermm gee thanks..

Tier 6: Darkness (5) – Increases your shadow damage, take it!

Tier 7: Shadowform (1) – Every Shadowpriest wants this, you should ensure you talent spec means you will get this as soon as possible. It increases your damage, decreases the physical damage you take, and means you cant cast holy spells.. good trade off, Vampric Embrace covers the healing nicely Also a pre-req to Vampric Touch

Tier 7: Shadow Power (5) – You will want this EVENTUALLY, it is not a priority in the slightest, it increases the crit chance of your two offensive shadow spells that can crit… nice but you can live without

Tier 8: Misery (5) – While one of your shadow effects is running on a target ALL spell damage done to that target is increased by 5%, your raids dps really increases.

Tier 9: Vampric Touch (1) – A DoT you place on a target, thereafter whilst the DoT is running (gee you mean I have to recast it.. yes yes you do..) when you do shadow damage to that target, you return 5% of that damage as mana to your party. This and Misery make 1 Shadowpriest in a raid amazing (most high end guilds use 2 SPs).

Part Five: Discussion on Leveling

There are three main ways in which you can level a priest, shadow, holy dps or a holy healer (and by holy I mean disc and the holy tree, talking about concept)

1) The Shadowgrinder – this has to be the most efficient way of levelling your priest. You can kick out some amazing damage, you have plenty of survivability and your downtime is minimised. You CAN still heal in instances that are 5 man (I’ve proved it) , in fact you can even do it in Shadowform, especially if there is a 2nd healer there (retri-pally was my playing partner for that). Just be aware that a raiding top end guild will probably have only one slot for a Shadowpriest, so whilst you may level this way, you probably will respect out later if you want to raid, if you also want to PvP whilst levelling, shadow wins.

2) The Holygrinder – you want to feel like a healer, but still do some DPS, its possible. No matter WHAT people tell you, it is doable as a non-shadow priest, but also do not believe people when they say a good disc build > shadow.. for levelling its not. A good Holygrinder can heal reasonably well and DPS reasonably well and has little downtime, so good if you want to do grouping a lot, but also solo, this is the way to go for you.

3) The Healer – you do what it says on the tin… heal and heal a lot. Your going to have to group mainly.. soloing is hard and not time efficient, this is what I did on my first priest and I do not regret it, just be aware you are dependant on others.

Part Six: Talent Builds

This can NOT please everyone, these are builds that I personally think are viable. These are IDEAS ONLY, you will create your OWN finalised builds. Please note I always use unbreakable will over wand spec, choose which you prefer.

HEALTH WARNING: I DON'T CARE IF YOU WANT X TALENT INSTEAD OF Y TALENT, THATS FINE THESE ARE SUGGESTIONS, JUST MOVE THINGS ABOUT A BIT - AT NO POINT AM I SAYING YOU WILL BUILD EXACTLY TO THESE SUGGESTIONS - DO WHAT YOU LIKE AND ENJOY

Deep Holy Raider

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVT0zhZfxxcfMqVuVo

This is my current build, which I'm enjoying

DS Raider

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVT0zhxzbZfxxcc0qVhc

Holy Grinder

This is an unusual build to take as shadow is blatantly the best for grinding, but people have an impression that shadow can’t heal in 5 man.. well up until the top end content, yes they can, but if you want a hybrid build for leveling you have got a few choices.

AKA holy dps *dont do it, go shadow!!!*

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVMG0IxzbxZbxxcfbqb


Heavy Disc

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVgh0hxtbzEofMxhc

Not so comfortable with building heavy disc as i don't rate it, so thats more of an idea than a omg must have!

Shadow Raider

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVMhzhZZxGxkMxRhtEo

With Silence

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVMhzhZZxGgkMtRhtio


REMEBER BUILD WHAT YOU ENJOY

Part Seven: Mods

These are the current mods as recommended by me or people I trust know who use them.

The 'raid suite', you need all three of the mods mentioned here for it to effectively work

sRaidFrames - A CT style raid frame producer, this I have personally found generates no lag for me

Grid - I have just installed Grid and I can honestly say, cracking mod. If you like the CT style of display grid is NOT for you. However with a bit of playing around and setting up I have honestly found Grid to be an excellent raid display tool (which works in 5 man to) and one that I will continue to use.

Oz-Raid - Another graphical display of health, seems quite tidy and doesnt take up much room, but lacks any of the additional options others bring with them. Works in single player up to 40 man raids. http://ui.worldofwar.net/ui.php?id=3207

oRA2 - Works with sRaidFrames/Grid etc to produce the required tank lists, personal targets etc etc etc

BigWigs - Boss warnings eg A'nub is casting locust swarm - now with added littlewigs for 5 man boss support!

Decurse

SmartBuff - Creates a small window allowing much easier removal of magic and disease effects

Clique - A very powerful mod, this adds an additional tab to your spell pages, in here you can assign a spell to mouse over clicks, for example bind to RMB Dispel Magic, whenever you are over a portrait or raid box, right clicking will then cast Dispel Magic on that person AS IF you had targetted them and cast it.

UI enhancements

Chronometer - with the stacking of renew, seeing a bar that tells you when your renew is about to run out on someone (plus loads of other similar info eg inspiration, dots etc) I find very helpful

Bartender3 - movable, resizable bars, and gets round the Instructor bug, showing a pet bar

Dorjes Healing Bars - Forecast but a) working b) better!

http://ui.worldofwar.net/ui.php?id=3701

I have some other mods, but if you use the ones listed above you will have an overall good level of raid capability from a UI perspective.

All the mods bar SmartBuff are Ace2 and can be found at http://www.wowace.com and if its low bandwidth mode I recommend http://www.wowace.com/files . SmartBuff I got from http://ui.worldofwar.net also try http://www.wowinterface.com

I also mentioned earlier Mendwatch for PoM, that can be found at http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6576-MendWatch.html

Part Eight: Races

ALL priests now have access to fear ward, though a cut down verison.

Healbot wise, alliance, Draenei are blatently the best due to their mana regen ability. NE now have a free DoT.

PVP wise, some debate, Dwarves and Draenei get chastise an instant cast 2 second root, very nice, soo hmmm.

Alliance: id roll Draenei, but take yer pick

Horde side, well UD have WotF and DP, two very nice abilities. Trolls have shadowguard, great for PvP. Both the others are fine, so, really hard call.

I’ll let others rant over racial imbalances :p

Part Nine: Stuff!

Ok, what profession. The obvious one is tailoring, especially with some of the kit you can make at the very high end. Engineering (whilst poor atm about 60) does bring some nice things to the priest, but so does Jeweller.

One to avoid: blacksmithing and leatherworking unless you want to craft purely for money.

If all you want is money, take mining and skinning and lots of empty bags!

Item wise, you want to aim for either:

Shadowspec: +shadow damage, +damage, +Spirit, +Int, +Stam gear
Healer:+ heal never fails :)
Spirit + Int are now a godly combination, but still get mp5 to!
But overall, you need to find a mix that suits you, at the moment I'm slightly decreasing my +healing in favour of more mp5

Both require spirit, int and stam.

At the end of the day, its pretty obvious what’s good when you see it, tuning is the hard part.

Whats the ‘5 second rule’. I saw an EXCELLENT definition of this the other day, so I am going to steal it  This was written by Vladrik, all kudos for this definition to him (if you want me to remove it I will Vlad)

Upon successful MANA USE, the mana regeneration from spirit STOPS, after 5 seconds from this, mana regeneration STARTS again.

If you've got any talent, gear or spell with a text in the tooltip like "allows X% mana regeneration while casting", that means you regen that X% of the mana regeneration from spirit during those 5 seconds (FSR).

Realise that:
- A channeling spell consumes mana when you start it, so 5 seconds start when you press the button.
- A cast spell consumes mana when you finish its cast, so FSR doesn't start until you actually finish the spell. That thing is what makes spell cancelling tactics keep yourself out of FSR.
- When you cast under the effect of Inner Focus or Clearcast, you don't use mana, so these cast don't make you enter in FSR. That's why after some time without casting any spell, wise priests use Inner Focus to cast first heal, and they cancel until they can land it at whole (a big big one) in order to increase the time out of FSR and therefore make your spirit worth more.

Great work with that Vlad!

Spell Haste

This is a hard call, as to how good spell haste is. Lets look at it froma shadow point of view first... it speeds up mindflay and mindblast... thats it.. probably a bit useless, so im going to concentrate on healing and is it worthwhile

IMHO the answer is no, whilst you do not lose any spell power by speeding the spells up, (ie +healing works off the spells 'base' casting time not actual) Blizs item budget means you lose out on other stats, noticably +Mp5. The argument is, with enough haste you will be outside the 5 second rule more often, so regen that way, fair argument, but not one I personally would follow.

So in a nut shell, spell haste speeds up your spells but loses you mp5.

Part 10: Conclusions and Thoughts

People says ‘priests are a dead class’. I cannot agree with this statement. I do honestly believe the priest class needs a revamp, especially the Holy and Discipline trees, but hey, overall we work!

So, hello to any new priests, hope this has helped you, and good luck!

Nice book. Sticky!

I didn't even read that :< But I looked at the shadow part and it looked very nice!

Hey. Good job by the looks of things. Reading through it now, I'll post anything I spot that needs changing :P

Firstly, Lesser heal ranks 2 and 3 have cast times of 2 and 2.5 seconds respectively.

Probably a typo, but Smite is 2.5 second cast (talented to 2 seconds) - although rank 1 doe have a 1.5 second cast time and rank 2 has a 2 second cast time, all the other ranks are 2.5.

Its probably worth noting that mind soothe works on humanoids only and can be resisted (which aggros the mob). Are you also sure that it can only be cast on one target at a time? I'll have to experiment...

You missed VT off the spells list! :( )

Last thing, about the FSR definition. While its mostly good, I'm not so sure about the channelling spells part. It used to be true, but I thought there was a point where it was changed so that full mana regen only began when the spell finished channelling. I don't know if this is true or not though.

Dont really understand your builds.

Did not find one decent build among them, maybe a base that can be used but several points needs to be moved around..

Full Shadow is easy to spec so that does not really matter thus your so called "pvp" build is really ...

On the holy / disc builds, well they are just wierd.

On your builds where you have smite tallents, for grinding for example you are prefering tallents like imroved shield, absolution and inspiration over martyrdom and several other usefull tallents for holy / disc grinding like improved renew and improved healing which actually lesser your downtime and also make you more effective at healing at instances if need be.

Improved shield is something that some pvp builds with reflective shield prefer over silent resolve but for pvp, those builds should be completely differend.

When grinding you avoid shielding cause it consumes a lot of mana and you use renew for example instead. Shield is something you use if you must, martyrdom for example has not procced and you have several mobs on you but the extra ~200 absorb still changes nothing.


You have unbreakable will over wand specialization for grinding, that tallent is pure pvp or a full raid heal spec who never uses wand, wand spec is really awsome for grinding in holy / disc.

Again Stuff like inspiration over improved healing or improved renew make no sense not to mention that in some of those specs you have like 1 or 3 points in holy specialization and 3/3 inspiration.



Your heal builds lack silent resolve, in one you have 41 points in holy and no CoH but you do have holy nova and holy reach?

And again absolution and improved shield etc. and skipping a tallents like inner focus is just plain stupid.


Heavy disc heal build is basically pvp only but you miss again martyrdom, or for pve, you only have 2 points in silent resolve or absolution, skipped inner focus but you do have 5/5 reflective shield?
And 42 points in Disc when you could have 41 (if you want PS) and have for example 1% more crit from holy...

Stuff like this in every build, again, can not see any purpose that one of those builds are good for..



Of course builds are matter of game style and oppinion so not something to argue over but posting 10 differend builds fomed mostly on same tallents you seem to value maybe even too much (and all seem to have the same lacks) is maybe little too much?

Your tallent explinations are just repeating what the tallent discriptions say anyways mostly, see no point there either.

Only usefull parts of this post that i would not mind to be stickied since so many seem to be constantly asking about them is:

Racials, (oh you missed that)

And "what is 5 second rule" (Ripped this off from some other post)


Well you did put quite a lot of effort in to the post so respects for that.

Cool FAQ but the mind vision still allows you to jump from target to target. And the range is 50000 yards.

Could you bold out the headliner of each part? it's somewhat hard to read.

Hehe, very nice compilation, you've put a lot of effort there. You can keep the quote if you want, after all i've posted it to make it public ;-).

About this:

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Q u o t e:

Last thing, about the FSR definition. While its mostly good, I'm not so sure about the channelling spells part. It used to be true, but I thought there was a point where it was changed so that full mana regen only began when the spell finished channelling. I don't know if this is true or not though.

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Maybe Cydney is right, i don't use channeled spells since long time now cause i've being holy for ages. Also MCing in Naxx is hard to say if you regen mana or not while mindcontroling mostly cause you almost don't use mana in that and TBH don't care about that either. Maybe you'll have to look at it to keep the correct version in your guide, only in case it becomes sticky (deserved IMO for the hard work and cause you touch most of the recurrent topics in this forums).

The fact is that mana regeneration stops when you begin the spell, but question is if 5 seconds start counting in that instant or after finishing the spell casting time.

Great job, congratulations.

Yay, can finally log in again, forums we're being wierd, then went to Kara :p Right blitzing some errors and doing some formatting, sorry ran out of time yesterday.

Thanks Fusion for all your positive feedback! Perhaps you should learn to read some of my opening comments ^^

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Q u o t e:
Cool FAQ but the mind vision still allows you to jump from target to target. And the range is 50000 yards.

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Cerb thats interesting, when I'm using it now, if a mob wasnt in LoS when I use it, it NEVER appears, even is a stealthed rogue is saying theres a mob there. (yes Im using rank2)

I'll do some more testing on this later.