Priest Class Overview

Priest is a ranged oriented class, using Mana, similar to most other classes. While most other classes have a "fire and forget" mentality regarding their Mana, Priests need to focus on their Mana regeneration often. Both Discipline and Shadow have unique talents and spells that allow them to maintain their Mana naturally, while Holy is one of the most Mana intensive specs in the game. The more gear and experience you have, the easier of a time you will have mastering your Mana usage and increasing your combat prowess.

Priest is able to choose from three specializations: Discipline, Holy, and Shadow.

• Discipline — focuses on a mixture of both offense and defense, heavily relying on buffing allies to increase their fortitude. Cataclysm adds the ability to heal friendly targets by dealing damage with the new Atonement talent, giving this spec a unique playstyle compared to other healing classes.
• Holy — focuses purely on healing rather than buffing and fortifying the party, aiming to quickly heal up groups of injured allies quickly. This spec excels at AoE healing, bolstering some of the highest AoE healing output possible in the game.
• Shadow — is a different playstyle from the other specializations, focusing on dealing damage rather than healing allies. This spec focuses on inflicting deadly damage over time effects on their enemies, draining their life force to heal themself.

Each specialization available to Priest is unique and has its' own playstyle. Ultimately the spec that you find the most enjoyable to play will come down to your own personal playstyle; we recommend trying out each spec on your own to get a feel for them and see how much you enjoy them.

Both Discipline and Holy focus on healing and will use most of the same spells when doing so. The main difference between these two specs is that Discipline will be focusing on single target heals, while Holy will be primarily doing AoE healing for the group. Shadow is different from both previous specs, focusing on dealing very high damage to enemies rather than healing allies.

Discipline brings some of the most utility to a raid, having multiple defensive cooldowns such as Pain Suppression and Power Word: Barrier. Discipline focuses on quickly healing up single targets at a time, and attempting to prevent damage taken by using Power Word: Shield on targets right before they are attacked. While being on the lower end of AoE healing, the raw utility offered by this spec and the ability to prevent damage to multiple players at a time, make Discipline one of the most desired healers in raiding content.

While Holy does not bring as much utility as Discipline does, it makes up for it in sheer healing output. Holy has a wide arsenal of AoE healing spells, putting out some of the best AoE healing available in the entire game. On fights with heavy raid-wide damage, this spec will shine above the rest with its ability to keep everyone alive nearly entirely on its own.

Shadow focuses on dealing damage instead of healing. Your main priority when playing Shadow is to maintain your several damage over time debuffs on your target, wearing down their health gradually. Where this spec excels above most others is when facing multiple, high health targets at once. Here you can spread these DoTS to multiple enemies at once, ramping your damage beyond what most other classes are capable of.

Priests are extremely viable in Cataclysm; you will rarely see a raid without at least two Priests in it, and most will usually have more. Discipline is arguably the best healer in Cataclysm as it offers a ton of shielding and raid utility with all of its available cooldowns. While Holy is not the more popular spec, the incredible AoE healing this spec can do is unquestionable. In raid encounters with high AoE raid-wide damage, groups will want a Holy Priest on their side. Shadow is a very powerful DPS spec in Cataclysm, receiving multiple buffs and improvements from previous expansions. This class starts off strong and remains strong throughout all phases, making it a very competitive DPS in the mid to high damage range.

Priests can play as most of the races in the game, giving you a wide selection of racials to choose from. Below we will give you a breakdown of the best ones for both Alliance and Horde players alike.

• Draenei's main racial ability is Heroic Presence, giving 1% spell hit. At level 85, this is 103 stats, making this a fairly decent choice. However in Cataclysm, getting Hit is fairly easy, making this a bit weaker of a choice.
• Worgens are one of the two new races added in Cataclysm. Viciousness is the main racial offered, granting 1% crit chance. At level 85, 1% crit chance is 180 stats, making this the best racial for Alliance Shadow Priests. You will also get Darkflight, giving you an increased movement speed cooldown, something that Priest usually suffers from a lack of.

• Goblins are one of the two new races added in during Cataclysm. Their main racials are Rocket Jump, Rocket Barrage and Time is Money. Both Rocket Jump and Rocket Barrage share a cooldown and are on the global cooldown, which makes Rocket Barrage almost completely useless. Rocket Jump is a very powerful movement cooldown that will come in handy whenever a boss encounter has high movement mechanics, especially since Priests lack movement cooldowns. Time is Money gives 1% Haste, which is the best secondary stat for all three Priest specs. At level 85, 1% Haste is 128 stats, making this the best race for all three Priest specs.
• Trolls remain a great choice for their strong cooldown Berserking. This grants 20% casting speed, which scales with gear. This is a great cooldown for Holy and Discipline healers during intense healing phases in raids, and Shadow during DPS burst windows.

Priest can only wear Cloth armor with stats focused on the spec you are playing. Unlike other classes that require you to wear all of a single type of armor to unlock your Armor Specialization, Priest automatically gains Mysticism as you can only equip Cloth armor.

Priest is able to equip Daggers, one-handed Maces, Staves, Wands, and off-hand weapons. Typically you will be using either a Mace or Dagger along with an off-hand weapon, as this generally gives you the highest possible stats, but you can find Staves that have more stats than both of these combined.

Both Discipline and Holy Priests desire the same stats, letting you use the same gear if you are interesting in playing both specs. Your main stat priority will be: Intellect > Spirit > Haste Rating > Mastery Rating > Critical Strike Rating. Following these stats will grant you the highest healing output possible and truly maximize your character.

Shadow will want to focus on damage dealing stats exclusively, following a main stat priority of: Intellect > Hit Rating (17%) = Spirit > Haste Rating > Mastery Rating > Critical Strike Rating. Threat is no longer an issue in Cataclysm as Defensive Stance has been buffed to increase all threat generated by 500%, making threat stats no longer needed, letting you entirely focus on defensive stats.

Addons and Macros can greatly improve your quality of life during Cataclysm. Listed below are some of our recommendations on Addons and Macros to help get the most out of your time playing the game.