Tee
5th January 2007, 20:22
Posted by Ming in : World of Warcraft
Priest:
1v1:
It wasn’t long ago when holy/discipline priests were almost impossible to beat. Prayer of mending is the single biggest addition to their arsenal. As long as they keep spamming this thing, they get healed for like 1200 every time you hit them. Coupled with shield and renew you get one of those Kylista videos where he goes from double digit health to full health in a matter of seconds. It is truly a carebear’s delight.
With the change to wound poison, I consider anyone not shadow farm status, and to be quite honest, 1 minute COS coupled with blind bandage makes it very hard for them to beat me, even if they are shadow. Dwarf priest with desperate prayer and stone form can get entertaining, but without high end PVP gear, priests are not going to be very exciting to fight. Undead rogues should be able to keep them on farm status, permanently. COS to wipe DOT near the end of first fear, blind bandage, re-open, good night. Non-UD rogues may have trouble later on when stamina/resilience reaches extreme levels.
Having said that, shadow priest is still one of the easiest to play, “my sister can beat me with her shadow priest” kind of class in 1v1. Later on when I must endure a second fear it can get quite ugly, especially against dwarf priests. Undead priests can also save devouring plague and vampiric embrace until COS is used. I can’t write them off completely because stamina/resilience can get much higher. Troll priests also have shadowguard which works like a lightning shield except it can proc blackout. I do think with the vast improvements to other classes, you won’t see too many people calling them overpowered anymore.
5v5:
Here is a tip to priests that don’t want to be the first one to kiss the floor in arena fights. Play with targets that are more threatening to the other team than you! You see, on a team like war/war/pal/shaman/priest, the priest is going to be the first one to die every single time, because he has zero escape options, and is the easiest to kill. When you add a warlock to the team, it is completely different. Not only the warlock can give you a 2500 health stone, he is also a much more threatening target for the other team. With MS and wound poison, the other team’s healer is no longer the biggest threat. A warlock’s CCs and DOTs are far more devastating if left alone. I would always focus fire a warlock before a priest, because DPS is more valuable than healers when you have -healing debuffs.
Let’s say both teams have 2 healers, 3 DPS, I killed your warlock, you killed my priest, I think I just won the fight. 2 DPS 2 healer will most likely lose to 3 DPS 1 healer as long as that healer is a paladin, simply because 3DPS vs 1DPS is not only extremely demanding for the healers to keep up, that 1DPS when focus fired will be hard pressed to produce any real DPS on his own. Killing the softest DPS will be the preferred attack plan for top teams in 5v5. Basically the warlock is a priest’s best friend, howl of terror, fear, seduce, coil, shadow fury, those can all take a lot of pressure off you, more importantly warlock fears force the opponent to blow their PVP trinkets/WOTF’s, making priest fear that much more potent. Paladin with BOP can also take a lot of pressure off the priest, even if it gets dispelled. If you are holy, you can be immune to crits for 6 seconds when critted. You can also heal the team for 15 seconds even if you are killed.
All in all, as long as you play on a good team with other high priority targets, you are in great shape. “Priest first” is no longer the golden rule in arena fights. Dwarf priest comes with so many advantages it is simply mouth watering. Fear ward for the entire team. Desperate prayer for an extra heal. Stone form to remove wound poison. I will definitely consider replacing one of the paladins with a dwarf priest, if a stamina/resilience heavy dwarf priest is available at 70. Other races will be a little harder to call. I have to see how well holy paladins can keep a group alive compared to priests at 70. Prayer of mending, renew and shield, that is three instant heals that paladins do not have. Not to mention fortitude and offensive dispel.
I don’t really see a future for shadow priests in high level 5v5. But maybe something like 4 warlock 1 shadow priest DOT and run can work on that bridge map. We will see. There will be non-standard teams that do very well with the element of surprise. You can say my heavy melee team is going to be a surprise for most teams to handle as well.
TBC Improvements:
Prayer of mending greatly enhances a priest’s healing potential as well as survivability. Mass dispel is very handy although before you say “omg divine shield is useless now”, the paladin can still stun/interrupt you when you try to dispel his bubble. In group PVP you are still one of the high priority targets, so you may or may not be able to get off the 1.5 second cast. The pet doesn’t do much damage but it brings back significant mana and gives priests far greater lasting power. Shadow word death is also a very nice finishing move to burst someone down in a hurry.
Source:
http://www.worldofming.com/?p=302&page=3
Priest:
1v1:
It wasn’t long ago when holy/discipline priests were almost impossible to beat. Prayer of mending is the single biggest addition to their arsenal. As long as they keep spamming this thing, they get healed for like 1200 every time you hit them. Coupled with shield and renew you get one of those Kylista videos where he goes from double digit health to full health in a matter of seconds. It is truly a carebear’s delight.
With the change to wound poison, I consider anyone not shadow farm status, and to be quite honest, 1 minute COS coupled with blind bandage makes it very hard for them to beat me, even if they are shadow. Dwarf priest with desperate prayer and stone form can get entertaining, but without high end PVP gear, priests are not going to be very exciting to fight. Undead rogues should be able to keep them on farm status, permanently. COS to wipe DOT near the end of first fear, blind bandage, re-open, good night. Non-UD rogues may have trouble later on when stamina/resilience reaches extreme levels.
Having said that, shadow priest is still one of the easiest to play, “my sister can beat me with her shadow priest” kind of class in 1v1. Later on when I must endure a second fear it can get quite ugly, especially against dwarf priests. Undead priests can also save devouring plague and vampiric embrace until COS is used. I can’t write them off completely because stamina/resilience can get much higher. Troll priests also have shadowguard which works like a lightning shield except it can proc blackout. I do think with the vast improvements to other classes, you won’t see too many people calling them overpowered anymore.
5v5:
Here is a tip to priests that don’t want to be the first one to kiss the floor in arena fights. Play with targets that are more threatening to the other team than you! You see, on a team like war/war/pal/shaman/priest, the priest is going to be the first one to die every single time, because he has zero escape options, and is the easiest to kill. When you add a warlock to the team, it is completely different. Not only the warlock can give you a 2500 health stone, he is also a much more threatening target for the other team. With MS and wound poison, the other team’s healer is no longer the biggest threat. A warlock’s CCs and DOTs are far more devastating if left alone. I would always focus fire a warlock before a priest, because DPS is more valuable than healers when you have -healing debuffs.
Let’s say both teams have 2 healers, 3 DPS, I killed your warlock, you killed my priest, I think I just won the fight. 2 DPS 2 healer will most likely lose to 3 DPS 1 healer as long as that healer is a paladin, simply because 3DPS vs 1DPS is not only extremely demanding for the healers to keep up, that 1DPS when focus fired will be hard pressed to produce any real DPS on his own. Killing the softest DPS will be the preferred attack plan for top teams in 5v5. Basically the warlock is a priest’s best friend, howl of terror, fear, seduce, coil, shadow fury, those can all take a lot of pressure off you, more importantly warlock fears force the opponent to blow their PVP trinkets/WOTF’s, making priest fear that much more potent. Paladin with BOP can also take a lot of pressure off the priest, even if it gets dispelled. If you are holy, you can be immune to crits for 6 seconds when critted. You can also heal the team for 15 seconds even if you are killed.
All in all, as long as you play on a good team with other high priority targets, you are in great shape. “Priest first” is no longer the golden rule in arena fights. Dwarf priest comes with so many advantages it is simply mouth watering. Fear ward for the entire team. Desperate prayer for an extra heal. Stone form to remove wound poison. I will definitely consider replacing one of the paladins with a dwarf priest, if a stamina/resilience heavy dwarf priest is available at 70. Other races will be a little harder to call. I have to see how well holy paladins can keep a group alive compared to priests at 70. Prayer of mending, renew and shield, that is three instant heals that paladins do not have. Not to mention fortitude and offensive dispel.
I don’t really see a future for shadow priests in high level 5v5. But maybe something like 4 warlock 1 shadow priest DOT and run can work on that bridge map. We will see. There will be non-standard teams that do very well with the element of surprise. You can say my heavy melee team is going to be a surprise for most teams to handle as well.
TBC Improvements:
Prayer of mending greatly enhances a priest’s healing potential as well as survivability. Mass dispel is very handy although before you say “omg divine shield is useless now”, the paladin can still stun/interrupt you when you try to dispel his bubble. In group PVP you are still one of the high priority targets, so you may or may not be able to get off the 1.5 second cast. The pet doesn’t do much damage but it brings back significant mana and gives priests far greater lasting power. Shadow word death is also a very nice finishing move to burst someone down in a hurry.
Source:
http://www.worldofming.com/?p=302&page=3