The level 60 Priest.

[Soy]

(Congrats on 60, Yexia! And soon to be Nightengale.)

I'm a huge supporter of a full Shadow spec to 40. Grinding and questing with anything other than that is tantamount to a fork in the eye. After which any combination of Shadow and Discipline talents works nicely on your way to 60.

Don't ever discount Discipline. It's a very powerful line of talents.

But what to do when you hit 60? Stay with Shadow? Respec to a healbot? And if you go healbot, should you go Discipline or Holy?

How you spec your 60 Priest has everything you do with how you want to play the game. If you still like to solo quests or do any sort of PvP, a strong Shadow build is the way to go. If you prefer grouping with others and hanging off in the background helping, there is no stronger support class than a healbot Priest. As such, a strong Discipline or Holy spec would work here.

Make no mistake though, if you do spec as a healbot, any semblence of soloing ability you once had will be forever lost. I have trouble taking down mobs 2 levels below me without having severe downtime. Prepare to always ask for help when you need to grind.

Talents

In my strong opinion, there is no viable tri-spec for Priests. It just doesn't work.

Regardless of whether you want to go Shadow or healbot, I would always recommend 21 points in Discipline if you can swing it. Inner Focus is pretty much one of the Priests most powerful talents, and it has saved my ass (or I should say Sol's ass) many many times.

Soy is a full Discipline build with 20 points in Holy, and I love it. My main focus is on mana regeneration, so the Divine Spirit and Meditation work towards that end nicely. The more mana regeneration I have, the longer I can keep the group alive.

I have never personally done a full Holy build myself. It is my opinion that the Holy tree needs a little work. Up to 20 points the Holy tree is fantastic, but the upper tier talents seem a little lacking. Although... a full Holy build could work. The Master Healer talent intrigues me. While .5 seconds off of your Greater Heal spell doesn't sound like a whole lot, there have been many times where that .5 seconds meant life or death (for Sol). The end Holy talent though, Holy Nova, seems lame. The main reason being that it forces you to put yourself in the middle of the mobs, which in turn makes you susceptible to AE's. The most damaging AE being Silence. Also, the more you run around, the less you're concentrating on those health bars.

A full Shadow build is pretty self explanitory. There are so many sweet talents in that tree, it's hard to go wrong. Silence and Improved Mindblast are a necessity. If you plan on PvP, Shadow Reach is priceless. And while a Shadow Priest can still perform a healing role within a group, it's not nearly as effective as a Discipline or Holy build. It is my opinion that a Shadow Priest has a hard time fitting into a PvE group. As a healer, they are inefficient, and as a DPS class they tend to generate a lot of aggro via Mind Blast. But in terms of soloing and PvP, the Shadow Priest is a bulldozer.

By being able to solo, provide DPS, PvP, as well as fill the healing role, the Shadow build probably is the most versatile in terms of playability.

Instead of giving my opinion on each and every talent, I'll give 3 sample builds for each specialization. If you have specific questions as to why I picked what I picked, ask me.

HOLY - Crit build

Discipline Talents (21 points)

Unbreakable Will - 5/5 points
Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 2/2 points
Mental Agility - 5/5 points
Mental Strength - 5/5 points
Inner Focus - 1/1 point

Holy Talents (30 points)

Holy Specialization - 5/5 points
Spiritual Healing - 5/5 points
Subtlety - 5/5 points
Inspiration - 5/5 points
Improved Healing - 5/5 points
Master Healer - 5/5 points

DISCIPLINE - Mana build

Discipline Talents (31 points)

Unbreakable Will - 5/5 points
Martyrdom - 2/2 points
Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 2/2
Focused Casting - 1/1 point
Mental Agility - 5/5 points
Mental Strength - 5/5 points
Improved Mana Burn - 1/2 point
Meditation - 5/5 points
Inner Focus - 1/1 point
Divine Spirit - 1/1 point

Holy Talents (20 points)

Improved Renew - 5/5 points
Spiritual Healing - 5/5 points
Subtlety - 5/5 points
Improved Healing - 5/5 points

SHADOW - PvP build

Discipline Talents (20 points)

Unbreakable Will - 5/5 points
Martyrdom - 2/2 points
Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points
Mental Agility - 5/5 points
Mental Strength - 5/5 points

Shadow Talents (31 points)

Blackout - 5/5 points
Shadow Focus - 5/5 points
Improved Mind Blast - 5/5 points
Improved Psychic Scream - 2/2 points
Shadow Reach - 3/3 points
Silence - 1/1 point
Shadow Weaving - 5/5 points
Darkness - 4/5 points
Shadowform - 1/1 point


Intelligence or Spirit

In my opinion, there are also two distinct ways to play a Priest, regardless of talent structure. There's the high-intelligence approach, which favors crits, and the high-spirit approach, which favors long fights and survivability.

The high-intelligence healbot is an interesting approach to healing. In this situation, the Priest would wait for the target to be at least half health, and then cast mainly Flash Heals, hoping for crits. Make sure the targets health is low enough that they would be able to absorb the full crit heal. Crits save a lot of mana, but also produce a lot of aggro. Also, hoping for crits is inconsistant at best. If many crits don't land, this approach can be very mana inefficient. The biggest advantage of this is the very fast healing. Flash Heal being a 1.5 second cast time.

Spirit is able to sustain healing for longer durations. But, the key is to heal in 'groups', as the 5-second rule plays a crucial role here. In WoW, there is no normal mana regeneration for 5 seconds after one casts a spell. If you're not regenerating mana, you're not taking advantage of all that spirit. So wait until someone needs your large (and most mana effecient) Greater Heal spell. Once that is casted, heal others in the group that need it. Or even those that may need healing soon. Use Renews, which are also very efficient. But the key is that you don't want to have to cast another spell for as long as possible, so make sure everyone is looking pretty. Regen mana for as long as you can, meaning until the next time you need to drop a Greater Heal. Sometimes you just have to break regen to dispel nasty debuffs or something. But in general, take advantage of that spirit as often as you can.

In my above builds, the Holy spec'd Priest would benefit more from Intelligence, as would the Shadow build. The Discipline build would favor Spirit. But that's not to say there aren't other effective options either. Those are just the 3 builds I would do.

Hope this helps.

[Sol]

great guide! I don't play a priest, but i enjoyed reading this guide nonetheless.

I was wondering where mind flay is on the shadow spec build?

Soy's "healbot" discipline build works wonders. I can vouch for it. I've started a pull in strath live side in a 5 man group with soy at 50% mana before the pull and he ends the fight with more mana than he started with. The benefits of a build like this are obvious in a place like MC where the boss encounters are designed to run healers out of mana. Soy also is pretty geared towards +spi then +int and finally +sta that he can find. This build was key the legendary "unwipeables" 5 man group runs at strath and lbrs.

Damn, now i am feeling compelled to post a warrior guide.

[Soy]

I was wondering where mind flay is on the shadow spec build?


Yeah, that was a tough call. Mind Flay while soloing is an absolute necessity, there's no doubt about it. But for PvP... I don't know. The only way you could get it is to take a point out of either Improved Mind Blast or Shadow Reach. I would say Improved MB, but that's an extra .5 seconds on the cooldown timer.

.5 seconds in PvP is a long time.

*shrugs*

[Myrcaus]

Interesting insight into the priest. I am curious about a variant on the high-int/crit healer build, if perhaps a lower int +heal would be workable (though that's more gear than spec).

Just musing. Thanks for the post! +1 Informative.

[Thwak]

gotta have flay!! i am guessing that was an oversight. on the pvp build i would drop two from shadow focus and put one in flay and one more into darkness to make it 5/5. good guide though. i shall check back once i level my priest a bit more.

[Soy]

gotta have flay!! i am guessing that was an oversight. on the pvp build i would drop two from shadow focus and put one in flay and one more into darkness to make it 5/5. good guide though. i shall check back once i level my priest a bit more.

How are you magically going to drop 2 from Shadow Focus and still get to the 3rd tier talents?

[Myrkris]

Excellent guide! It provided me some useful insight into a different approach to healing. As a shaman I have to play things a bit differently since I simply don't have access to those talents, but the same basic healer strategies still apply.

[Thwak]

How are you magically going to drop 2 from Shadow Focus and still get to the 3rd tier talents?

ahh yes... damn. that has to be the best tree designs in the game! there are so many nice talents on it that it is really hard to only spend 31 points.

I will have to try out the disc talents you mentioned but currently I just can't see myself dropping mindflay or vampiric embrace which is great for Dot'ing a warrior in WSG while you focus on someone else. Throw a Devouring Plague (Undead racial) in there as well and you get a nice health recovery that can be used with Shadowform.

Add the fact that in 1.7 damage added from items are going to add to the return on VE whereas they didn't before. I want to say that Darkness, Weaving and Shadowform didn't previously add to VE heals but I am not sure. The items adding will be new in 1.7 though.

Hard to say at lvl 39 but on paper I am leaning towards getting imp sheild and fort from Disc and dumping the rest into Shadow.

[Rake]

Thats pretty much the same build I took with Mindshape. It works well. I have respecced in and out of Subtlety and didnt notice any difference with it maxed or with only a few points put into it. (Subtlety reduces the threat of your healing spells)

I have tried a few different builds but as for being an Uber mana regen and healer that seems to be the way to go. :D

I do miss shadow tho.

-MS/Rake

[Potpie]

Rake check your private messages here, thanks. :)

[Soy]

Myrkris raised a very good point via our HLS mailing list:


Sounds plausible. I'm curious, what kind of hybrid
builds are possible for priests? When I respecced a
bit away from Restoration back to Enhancement and
started building a combat gear set, I noticed large
increases in my damage output without any major effect
on my healing capabilities. Is it possible for a
priest to do something similar, using a hybrid
damage/healing spec and customized gear to switch
roles depending on need and desire?

-Myrkris



Hybrid builds with Priests seem tricky. Like I've stated before, in my
(perfectly correct) opinion, there is no worthy tri-spec for them. If
you put 5 points in Shadow, you might as well go the full 31.

Now, there are a few talents in the Holy tree that help beef up a
Priests offense. There's some to improve Smite (which is horrible to
begin with), as well as Holy Nova and Holy Fire. There's even a talent
for improved crits. So I guess the tools are there, I've just never
even entertained the idea of going that route.

And of course, spending points on such talents would take a good bite
out of your healing abilities. But that's not to say you wouldn't
still be a great healer. I would say you'd still fair better than a
Shadow Priest.

It just seems to me that the primary healer of the group shouldn't be
casting any offensive spells. It's purely an aggro concern. Healing
alone generates enough aggro. The last thing a Priest needs is
dropping Holy Fires and critical Smites in the middle of a fight.

But, you WOULD be a hybrid Priest, that's for sure. I'm sure it's
doable, and I'm sure it would add more playability and fun-factor for
the class.

[Myrkris]

Thanks. I'm used to a class that's designed for hybridization of roles, so I'm a bit at a loss what spec options are viable for other classes.