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Priest Arena Talent Specs
June 20, 2008 by Zuggy
Prior to the release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, shadow priests were seen in both PvP and PvE as being useless. Their damage was lacking, their survivability was limited, and they offered little utility. All this changed with the release of resilience and 41-point talents, and shadow priests are now staples on arena teams of all sizes.
The premise of the spec is fairly obvious, it’s a spec that allows the priest to not only do considerable amounts of burst damage, but also sustain said damage over long fights. In addition, with the proper gear setup and itemization you’ll have the ability to literally tank an entire DPS assist train you. The true utility of the class, and gray area where good shadow priests are separated from the poor ones, comes in the ability to make quick decisions. Very early in the match the shadow priest needs to decide, is this a team I can DoT, throw a couple mindblast + shadow word: death combos, silence the healer, and get the kill? Or is it a team I need to play more defensively, relying more on shielding to survive while mana burning the opposing teams healers to win the mana battle? All of these factors will depend on both your own team’s composition and your opponents setup. However, the spec allows you to take a wide variety of roads to victory, as the shadow priest it’s now your responsibility to make the correct decision for yourself and your team that allows you to take full advantage of the many bonuses the shadow spec offers you.
41/20/0 Discipline Spec
41/20/0 Discipline (offensive disc, ideal for rogue/priest)
Though disc sat in the shadow of holy (no pun intended!) until Burning Crusade it finally made it’s big debut in patch 2.2. The changes and additions of many talents have finally made the spec a big contender for PvP healing, and certainly the dominant spec currently.
Though disc doesn’t have quite the healing power of holy it exceeds holy’s versatility by adding many offensive capabilities. This makes the disc priest ideal in many arena setups.
Depending on how you choose to customize your spec you can have the ability to throw out a lot of extra damage, or have greater defensive capabilities. Talents like searing light, reflective shield and power infusion allow the priest to take on a whole different hybrid role in certain team compositions.
Though holy is no longer the dominant healing spec for arena it still offers great utility and viability if it fits well with your play style and team’s composition. With improved mana burn you are still able to fill the “tank the enemy and mana burn” role. In addition you have a wide range of insta-cast heals you can throw as you kite the opposing team.
The big talent from holy is without a doubt the blessed resilience talent. The talent is the only saving grace for priests when it comes to fending off warriors and rogues. Blessed resilience combined with a solid set of resilience gear, the correct itemization and gems allows you to quite simply tank the other team. Though the ability to tank the opposition is great, the spec truly shines in the hands of an player who understands the intricacies to the kiting aspect of the game. Just as much as your gear plays into your ability to execute this talent spec, so does understand of kiting. Between prayer of mending, renew, and shield, you can quite simply run the other direction of your enemies (assuming they are attacking you) and continually heal yourself without ever having to stop.
Needless to say, this is certainly going to be mana inefficient, though if it’s the difference between you dying and not dying, or the difference between your teammates being able to kill the enemy in time, well it’s a necessary evil then. 28/33/0 is going to be your bread and butter when it comes to maximum efficient PvP healing, it allows for great survivability, lots of insta-cast healing, the ability to tank many opposing players and offers a great deal of utility if you understand the benefits of the kiting game.
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I’ve dropped my Disc with a bit of mindflay action spec in favor of zuggy’s recommended spec. I’ve seen an immediate improvement in my team. We are 1675 and were 8-2 last week. I feel we will get to 1700 this week easily. With imp casting speed of smite and the added dmg bonus of holy wrath we have snatched victory from defeat several times with a fortuitous fear/ DROP THE BOMB on the main dps target .With PI up my smite cast i believe is 1.75 seconds. It hits for 1200-1300 dps on avg. I can generally rip off about 3-4 before the healer gets out of fear and gets any kind of real heals landed… this is 3700-5200 dmg over that time. Add my rogues dmg output and you can see that in a mere 5.25-7 second window we rip off a lot of dps. This strat has been hard to defend against as during the time of a match we usually get a chance to drop the bomb so to speak on a target. On blades edge we had a 20 minute match against a shaman/rogue. My rogue pulled a nice move of jumping off the bridge after the other rogue and blinding the shaman on the way.. his partner probably didn’t realize immediately his healer was blinded.. as soon as we hit the ground.. PI/Smite+rogue = dead enemy rogue. So you just have to find that opening. This is not the only way to win a match but in mana battles where I am losing.. this strat comes to the front of my tactical options due to its ability to quickly end the match. I know my mana is low and the other healer’s is not. I know that this now becomes my #1 option for a win. Secondary of course would be to get a drink as soon as possible. But that, as any good priest knows, should always be on your mind. I like Zuggy’s positioning LOS guide.. this is something i’ve naturally learned over time and I do struggle with the bridge map and would recommend that you attempt to stay up top.. fighting below is just not real easy.. LOS is harder and kiting poles is harder as it’s easy to get stuck on the lips at the base of them.
Also, and I don’t know why, but in Mirror matches we have a lot more success when my rogue hits their priest. I’m not sure if this means i stink mana fighting other priests (i think it does hehe) or just that my rogue is very good at locking down the priest and preventing her from keeping herself up (which is also true). Most rogues cannot kill me without some sort of aid from their partner. LOS’ing their partner while the rogue is hitting me is paramount. Don’t turn your back to the rogue.. walk backwards to a pole. Don’t allow his partner LOS to you.
Faithdriven ~doomHammer~
guild ~sprawl~ (tiny little pvp chumps)
zuggy,
Could you get engage to post a guide on how she handles healing in arena?
That would be very kewl.
~Faithdriven~
You make a lot of very good points in your comment, Faithdriven. Good stuff. I’ll see if I can make some sort of priest healing strategies for arena guide this weekend.
That would be great. I noticed in your video you do come off a warrior or any dps class when a priest is present to hit him with crippling I”m assuming… also to lock him down as well if possible to let your priest rip off maybe 2-3 burns. Is this a common strategy when you see a priest or does your partner call this out when the opposing priest has perhaps caused him issues (movement or mana burning him) ?
Or is it just that you like to bounce back and forth between the healer/dps combos to sort of interupt their synergy?
thx
~Faithdriven~
“have faith”
Generally when I can switch easily I do. If all goes well the opposing healer will burn though some mana and potentially open himself up to be mana burned. This, as you said, also aids in interrupting their synergy.