Priest Sandbox

[Nuadria 20]

Hello! Recently I found the Paladin sandbox on the paladin forum and thought why not have a topic for priests to share information, experience, and ask questions? This topic is inspired by Paladin sandbox, and as such, along with priests of all three specs, anyone else can join in and talk. If you do talk, please introduce yourself with your name, and WoW gaming/raid experience.

 

I'll start off with introducing myself; I'm Timothy, and i've been playing since Vanilla, originally on my druid, close to eight years now. I raided a few times in vanilla at Molten Core, but due to the lag from it I stopped from doing it. I resumed doing raiding on MoP on my healing druid when ToT was the major raid, then SoO, and now still raiding with the 6.0.2 patch. I raid primarily on my Disc priest, and only raid on my druid now in my spare time if my priest has done her raids for the week. I raid 25n/heroic SoO on both characters on the weekends if possible, and plan to do mythic before WoD comes out. To me, as a disc priest, I feel that with patch 6.0.2 the disc priest will finally be more of a healing class, as opposed to a hybrid dps/healing class as it was before the nerf. The only issue I have is that they nerfed Cascade, which is mandatory for Immerseus, and the fact that when compared to other healing classes/specs, they dont have any real emergency heals, since they lack an AoE, and only have PoH as a heal that effects more than one target. Does it seem balanced that they did that for the disc priest, or underpowered?

[Wetty 6]

Following a similar layout: I'm George, I'm 20 and I've been playing since late Wrath of the Lich King. I originally played as a Paladin (Protection) during the first few raids of Cataclysm but decided to try out healing on my Priest. Since Firelands, I've mained Priest in all three specs. I was Holy during Firelands, Discipline during Dragon Soul and have been LOVING Shadow since the start of Mists.

 

I'm quite ignorant to the changes made in patch 6.0.2 as I've amassed a playtime of roughly 10 minutes since its release so I can't comment on how I feel any of the Priests specs are doing. A huge disappointment for me is the whole "actively buffing/nerfing" DoTs when they're on a target. I can honestly say I never felt underpowered as a Shadow Priest due to having good DoT refresh times (of course, who wouldn't like a bit of movement DPS!).

 

I was planning to play Rogue in Warlords but something about the Priest class always drags me back toward that Holy (or Shadowy) awesomeness!

[Espiee 161]

My name is Kim, been playing on and off since late vanilla(late 1.10). Been playing loads of different classes, but been a healer on either since bc. Currently maining a priest, while spending a good amount of time on paladins and shamans as well.

 

 

The only issue I have is that they nerfed Cascade, which is mandatory for Immerseus, and the fact that when compared to other healing classes/specs, they dont have any real emergency heals, since they lack an AoE, and only have PoH as a heal that effects more than one target. Does it seem balanced that they did that for the disc priest, or underpowered?

 

Healing specs can be defined by a variety of categories, one of them is reactive vs pre-emptive healing.This is not so much about absorbs versus direct healing as it's about how much you need to plan ahead to play your class optimally. Every healer needs to think ahead to some degree, to know when damage is coming in and prepare for it, though some are more affected by this than others. On the one hand you have holy that is mostly upfront healing with little planning needed to heal well. There is still some effort to know when to pop a major cooldown, pre-emptively using GS or casting DH as the raid will start taking damage, and cast Renew on targets that'll need the healing(though in warlords everyone will be taking damage so this is mostly a non-issue).

 

On the extreme other end of the spectrum do you have discipline. Disciplines potential output is great, especially now that grace is at 30%. But almost everything relies on you being able to think 15, 30 or even 60 seconds ahead to pull it off. You need to know who's taking damage, if it's worth casting SS at a given point(if you choose that talent). You need to position yourself in preparation for heavy AE damage to use HN optimally, etc.  It's an incredibly rewarding feeling knowing that you did things right and succeeded, but the trade-off is that discipline lacks direct burst healing, our way to burst heal is to front-load the raid with absorbs, not clean up the mess after. This is ultimately the play style discipline was designed for and in warlords I actually think they did a very decent job at getting us there. 

[Nuadria 20]

The reason for my concern on Immerseus, is that I am usually always assigned to be a tank healer, but they also expect me to heal half of the raid thats near me, and since I cannot place down an AoE or use wild growth like I would do on my druid, it makes it more difficulty to heal both the tank and the raid, since the amount of healing Cascade does has also been nerfed.

 

Edit: Since SS is now a talent, I have to choose between it, and power infusion. The output of power infusion versus SS usually places PI ahead of SS, since on the immerseus fight I have to stay on my assigned tank, who usually always tanks on the back platform. I have to have power infusion for my AA 2pc proc which buffs up my crit to 34%, and i use that with shielding raid members right before the puddles shoot out after immerseus splits, with using PW: S, and Divine Aegis. I'm still unsure if PI is better than SS in the immerseus fight; I'll have to do some more testing. On fights like the protectors/Norushen/Sha of pride, though, I bring along SS, since everyone is stacked much more often, and it is more viable to use SS with PoH for the shields since it will effect more people, and won't go to waste. Aside from the Cascade issue(I use cascade with my AA 2pc proc for the 10% crit increase to go along with divine aegis, for the shielding of raid members farther off from the tank i'm healing), they have done a great job with the Disc priest changes, and I especially enjoy Holy Nova, it provides good shielding during phases where the raid has to stack. Lately, I've been noticing my top heal is always Divine Aegis(49-50% of my heals come from divine aegis). I currently prioritize crit and mastery, with crit my number one secondary stat, and then mastery, and then haste. Spirit was made obsolete when patch 6.0.2 came out, and mana regen isn't an issue anymore, so my third priority stat would probably be haste.

 

http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/us/Ysera/Glorynymph/

Edited October 22, 2014 by Nuadria

[Brewmonksta 157]

Hello im Luke,

 

So a bit about me and then some ramblings of what i hope WoD will be and why i will like/dislike it

 

I am one of the monk moderators that will at this stage be maining and returning  to my Disc/Holy Priest for WoD and i currently raid lead a 20man mythic team.

I started playing wow in ICC as a shadow priest and raided with friends until joining my current guild looking for a taste of a more hardcore progression.

I have at least one of every class at lvl90 and have dabbled into at least LFR in all specs.

 

Im finding that almost every class at 6.0 is either broken(OP or nerfbatted), boring or missing something ie lvl100. With Mythic SoO being easy beyond a joke and boring rotations im looking forward to WoD in a few weeks and then happier days.

 

I am loving the changes to healing overall with the triage style of healing being implemented and the disc moving away from mindless smite/penance/holy fire spam to actually requiring more pre empting the damage and then semi relying on your HoT class healers to pick up the slack while you throw some more shields to mitiage and provide the buffer they need for the top up.

To me this will make healers the more engaging spec to play after the ability prune. Some DPS classes have had their rotations dumbed down so much that it will be very repetitive IMO and the heals and tanks will be the classes that will provide more differentiation to encounters each week rather than who can hit a bigger number with dps.

It will also make the healers work together across their different abilities alot more with mitigation vs topup rather than, who can snipe the fastest or whats leftover to do after/if the disc bubbles wear off.

 

I can remeber when disc was a healer for fights with constant damage sources so that it gave the topup healers time to catch up and when holy was for fights with burst damage then downtime allowing for a burn of mana then a conserve. I would love to see a raid where specs were changed almost as much as the lvl 90 talents were in SoO and that there isnt a clear winner for each spec. So far there has been 1 fight with that in MoP, Malkorok. With almost every other boss having an AoE nuke on a 1minute cooldown disc and spirit shell just fit too well.

 

Whilst disc still appears "broken" at 90 i am really looking forward to lvl 100 and WoD and finding and working strats for my healers and playing both disc and holy depending on the fight and pushing some good progression.

 

Happy Killing :)

 

[Nuadria 20]

It seems the Disc priest also lost the passive Grace effect, as well. Regardless of that fact, my character is still reletively good for her iLevel, and hopefully I can get the 4pc bonus for her gear this weekend, as well as a garrosh weapon.

[Espiee 161]

Grace isn't lost. All passives that are simply 'increases' your healing by x% have been hidden in your spellbook. It's still very much here.

Edited October 23, 2014 by steve

[Nuadria 20]

Grace isn't lost. All passives that are simply 'increases' your healing by x% have been hidden in your spellbook. It's still very much here.

Oh. So it applies it sort of to all targets now, instead of a stacking system of up to 30% on a single target?

[Espiee 161]

I might've misunderstood you. Grace, the buff that increases your healing on single targets is gone and has been for most of the beta. In the beta however they implemented another spell with that name, a passive that increased your healing and absorption spells by first 10, then later 20 and now 30%.

[Nuadria 20]

Luckily, they changed the 4pc disc priest raid bonus, so when I use AA it'll give me the 10% increased crit, and the 4pc bonus of disc priest Item - Priest T16 Healer 4P Bonus is also useful now, as well. Due to these bonuses, if I were killing mobs on my own, AA could also be considered a minor offensive CD as well, since I always try to activate it at five stacks when farming timeless isle.

[Espiee 161]

The tier bonuses definitely make AA a powerful cooldown. The haste and mastery increase also helps your healing. 5% more haste means 5% more HNs cast, the 100 mastery is roughly a 3.5% extra increase to HN's healing and a 7% increase to it's DA shields. Yum.

 

I definitely agree that I'm glad they tied it to AA instead of SS! SS is not needed at level 90 with HN being so strong and PoH having a 70%+ crit chance. PI on the other hand is godly. 25% haste is an incredibly powerful throughput cooldown for phases like i1 or WC on Garrosh.

[Nuadria 20]

On sunday, I got the 25m normal version of hellscreams warmace for my disc priest, and on my druid, I got the 569 heroic warmace for my druid. Score!

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/Ysera/Glorynymph/advanced

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/Ysera/Nuadria/advanced

Edited October 27, 2014 by Nuadria

[Brewmonksta 157]

So happy for Aussie servers.

 

Ping went from 320 to 94.

 

I guess simcraft will have to change their ms scale and remove Aus as the highest setting lol

[Nuadria 20]

Have their been any class changes/updates with the 6.0.3 patch?

[Brewmonksta 157]

No changes to classes, just a few quest and random bug fixes.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/16561637/603-hotfixes-october-28-10-28-2014

[Nuadria 20]

Good to know. Hopefully I can get Hellscream's War Staff, and Hellscream's Tome of Destruction for my Disc priest and Resto druid this weekend.

[Espiee 161]

There was a battery of DPS adjustment this week, primarily to balance druids. Only thing for disc/holy priests would be a fix to smite healing for too much, which is hardly a big nerf considering how little it's used.

 

Link: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/347451-603-hotfixes-october-30/

 

 

Ping went from 320 to 94.

 

Congratulations on the aussie servers! Playing with 300ms would drive me insane in no time.

Edited November 1, 2014 by steve

[Brewmonksta 157]

Its not so bad when you have never known any differnet :P

[Espiee 161]

As a sidenote we really should get this place up in shape for warlords. With 6.0, 5 of the 7 stickies became sorely out of date as most of the discussion pertains to 5.4. And in 2 weeks all but one will be deprecated.

 

With the major changes to play style and talents for both holy and disc, the SoO guides for holy and discipline are not only out of date, they can be misguiding. The metagem sticky should at least be updated to say the dps metagem is considerably better now with the 4% base mana regen, but might as well be altogether removed seeing as it's deprecated in less than 2 weeks.

 

The sticky about tier bonuses likewise I'd argue may as well be removed considering the bonuses were changed with 6.0.

[Gwenymph 414]

Sounds good, I'll see about getting them unpinned.

 

 

Done and ty!

Edited November 2, 2014 by Gwenymph

[Espiee 161]

Cheers!

 

I imagine similar posts will take their place when we get closer to release of warlords, namely getting spec specific T17 threads and one for the tier bonuses as well?

 

I notice other class forums have UI stickies with info on WA, is that something we should get as well? Perhaps make a UI/WA thread since we get a lot of questions about that specific topic and having a thread with info on addons/WA strings would simplify addressing these.

 

If needed I can start assembling and updating various strings for WA.

[Gwenymph 414]

Cheers!

 

I imagine similar posts will take their place when we get closer to release of warlords, namely getting spec specific T17 threads and one for the tier bonuses as well?

 

I notice other class forums have UI stickies with info on WA, is that something we should get as well? Perhaps make a UI/WA thread since we get a lot of questions about that specific topic and having a thread with info on addons/WA strings would simplify addressing these.

 

If needed I can start assembling and updating various strings for WA.

 

I would be ok w/ a Sticky Thread of a Priest UI's w/ Addons they are using as well as their WA Strings

[Moozedude 47]

Silly Priest, absorbs are for Holy Pallies.  :P

 

Chris, 30, 4.0.3.  Boosted a priest about three weeks ago, so no bad habits to break.  Always kept track of the class and theory, gonna be fun coming in right at the beginning of something.

[Espiee 161]

Discipline was the absorption spec before masteries were introduced ;)..

 

Discipline right now is.. broken. On live it's basically HN/PWS spam with some atonement for AA. On beta it's mechanically broken and the gameplay has really been destroyed.

 

I would be ok w/ a Sticky Thread of a Priest UI's w/ Addons they are using as well as their WA Strings

 

 

I'll see if I can work something out then.. Good thing I still have today to get WA working before they shut it down!

[Nuadria 20]

http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/us/Ysera/Glorynymph/Priest is good to go.