[REVISION] - Looking down at what I had before, I thought I'd make this more solidified instead of fluid and so sarcastic. I was tired that night.

Well, I thought being the only Holy Priest in the guild who raids thus far, I'll try my hand at this build thing and advice, yadda yadda. This will also be seperated into sections for better organization. Anywho, on with it!

I. Introduction
a. Why a Priest?
b. Pros/Cons
c. Group Role
II. Priest Makeup
a. Stats
b. Equipment
c. Professions
d. Builds
III. Misc Tips & Tricks

I. Introduction

a. Why a Priest?
Many people these days in WoW are very confused about the priest class right now between its trees. Whether one should be Holy for its intended healing purposes or whether to be shadow for damage modifiers and mana regen. For the sake of this segment, I will focus on the healing aspect of the priest, as that is my main priority here anyway.

The priest class isn't as broken as many people tend to think. It just has many discouraging elements that can stretch your playstyle to the limits. Let's get it in everyone's head that priests will NEVER be the BEST healing class. Ever. However, they are the most FLEXIBLE. Outhealing and such will be done to you, but you can also do the same to others. So let's get into Pros/Cons.

b. Pros/Cons
Pros
-Best +healing gear in the game
-Big Heals, Small Heals, HoT, we got it all.
-Despite what everyone says, we are still in demand. We compliment other classes VERY well.
-We can hybrid and actually be decent....
-Mana Regen/Sec is now a standard stat

Cons
-We aren't as mana efficient as Paladins, even after their Illumination nerf.
-We wear cloth.
-We also probably have some of the lowest hp in the game after our gear, so we must compensate gear for the situation.
-AoE heals are slim to nill.

Now of course there are more Pros/Cons, but these are usually the biggies.

c. Group Role
Your group role as a priest is very important. Note that your role CAN and WILL change between Raids and Instances, so I'll separate them. Reason being that in Instances, you're honestly, more often than not, going to be the ONLY healer, whereas in raids you'll have more support.

~*-*INSTANCES*-*~:
Your role here is the essence of what a great healer is. In a 5-man you will be the bane of success. Depending on your spec (more on that later) you will be shelling out huge buffs of extra HP, Shadow resistances (comes in handy) and depending on your spec, spirit. Your job here is to keep everyone alive. Obviously. You'll want to keep as little aggro as humanly possible since aggro mitigation is possible. Make every heal count. In the Discipline tree, this becomes much less a problem with Silent Resolve.

At 70 your objective will most likely be to keep the MT topped off while spot healing the other clothies/melee in the party. I won't list much for tactics, but your greater heal/renew/prayer of mending spells will become your bread and butter. In short, keep the aggro low, keep your tank healthy, and give some mercy to your other three comrades. You'll need to be able to judge your casting time, and that's probably the MOST important aspect of being a priest and being mana/efficient.

~*-*RAIDS*-*~:
Here we take on another outlook of priesting. Almost completely different from your 5-man job. You WILL have support healing in Raids as there is almost no way to heal 10-mans by yourself. You'll never have the mana/+healing for it.

In a raid, your focus will most likely be to help another healer keep the MT topped off, while spot healing the other raid members. Your role this time, as well, will be to decurse a heck of a lot when the time arises, as they get nasty at level 70. Your buffs must remain on all party members at all times for max efficiency, and your heals will have to be much smarter. Don't be afraid if on a couple pulls you find yourself flash healing a heck of a lot (because we all know flash healing is probably the most NON-efficient healing spell. Smart healing. Learn it.) Reason being other healers will be taking care of the tank, who's most likely wearing plate and able to take a couple stabs and shield bashes to the face. Your other friends in less-armored gear will not be so happy.

II. Priest Makeup

a. Stats

Priest stats, like the entire class itself, can be nothing more than confusion in what you need. I'll list these somewhat in order of importance, if needed at all.

~*-*INTELLECT*-*~: Concerning you Spirit users, I'll get to it in a second. Intellect is one of the most important stats you can achieve. This is your mana. As I've used both spirit and intellect, I find it much more important to start out with as large a mana pool as possible. Though not so important, this will also put up your spell critical strike rating, and when you start getting into +8k - +10k heals that makes our beloved MT who was previously crying at 2% HP and about to die, piss his pants that he's alive again, you've done well.

~*-*HEALING*-*~: Kind of a new level raised with TBC, and much needed. Your +healing will allow your average heal percentage to raise. This is a good thing. The more HP you can get up, the less mana you'll be spending. The less mana you spend, the more efficient you are. And you want to be efficient, do you not? As far as formula, the basis is the longer the heal cast time, the more bonus the heal receives from your +healing. So what about renew? Well when you start ticking between 700-800 hp per tick...Nice.

~*-*STAMINA*-*~: This should be on par with +healing. Again with the more +healing gear you start to get, you might notice on some items this stat goes missing. Stamina is very important as a healer because in tougher boss fights, even AoEs will hurt a ton. Getting AoE or one-shotted for 5k is not fun if you only have 7k HP. Later on, try to keep this stat above 8k as much as possible for good measure.

~*-*SPIRIT*-*~: Ah, the most notorious make-or-break priest stat. This stat can be good and bad. People loved this for the 5sr (look it up, please) in that the more you have, the more regen you get. However, for the 5sr to take effect, you can't be casting for 5 seconds. This is a LONG time in a raid boss fight, especially endurance fight, as you'll have almost no time to just sit there...

However, if you specced into Discipline for Imp. Divine Spirit, then you'll notice it says +healing from your total Spirit. We like +healing don't we? My rule of thumb is to take as much spirit as you want, as long as your intellect is higher.

~*-*MANA REGEN/SEC*-*~: Now this part is kind of new with TBC. And it's almost standard on gear to where you don't have to worry about it. On most gear set items you'll find this stat in higher quantities, usually up to 11-12/sec. These numbers seem low per piece, but when you add them up, well..they add up. Gems being socketed into gear can also boost this stat, and this will also help in making you more mana efficient.


b. Equipment

Your gear as a priest can possibly make you more dependant on it than Warriors on theirs. As mentioned before, since you can only wear cloth and since Stamina becomes harder to find on later gear, you need to keep at least one extra set. Preferably one for +healing an done for +stamina. Each set should have +intellect on it already.

Now, your gear dependancy is also going to start with sockets, and their color. Sockets are amazing for customizing your set. The nicest thing about our gear is that they will usually be red sockets, blue sockets, or yellow sockets, of which each color has a direct +healing gem or +healing/int or +healing/mana regen. These are what we want and are listed below. Now, usually I see a lot of priests ignoring the color and straight filling in their +18 Healing gems in EVERY socket. Do NOT do this, as with later sets you will lose out on a bit of intellect. And later on, we need as much as possible, as seen previously.

Red: Teardrop Living Ruby (+18 Healing)
Blue: Royal Nightseye (+9 Healing and 2 Mana/Sec)
Yellow: Luminous Noble Topaz (+9 healing and +4 Int)

***IMPORTANT***
As a 70 priest, you NEED to be carrying a mace/off-hand. Having a 2H staff is only going to HURT you. In TBC they upped a lot of +healing on the 1H weapons. They also made nice +healing bonuses to your off-hand stuff, so please take this into consideration. (Don't forget you can get a +81 weapon enchant to 1H weapons. Nothing beats maces, trust me)

c. Professions

Here is a list of useful professions for the avid priest.

Hardcore Healing: Tailoring/Enchanting - I would merely explain this as "Duh" but I'll elabortate. At 375 tailoring you have the ability to make Primal Mooncloth and the Primal Mooncloth set. If you're luck, you'll find someone to make the Whitemend set. GET THEM. This gear, however, does NOT come with a good source of stamina, this is purely for +healing. You can also make spellthread if you choose Aldor. GET THEM. Enchanting will also offer +healing to your weapon, rings, bracers, and gloves. GET THEM.

And on note, just for the record, Primal Mooncloth set STILL laughs wickedly at T4, even AFTER the patch, in regards to +healing/sockets. Feel free to grab the gloves, though.

Not so hardcore healer: Tailoring/Gathering Profession - This is me right here becuase Tenath is wickedly awesome at ecnhanting. And Wolly. But with a gathering profession of herbalism, what I have, it's easier to supply your guild with mats for much needed potions as well as making money to buy mats for enchants. gg

d. Builds

Below are some common builds priests will use for being a healer. The most common will be the one I'm using because it makes you more efficient and versatile in what you can do during fights.

THE CLERIC

This build is what allows you to maintain the lowest aggro possible with max silent resolve. You'll see we sacrifice two points in Empowered Healing to get into Imp. Divine Spirit. Reason being Imp. Divine Spirit works for spell damage as stated, so your casters are going to get more DPS, which is VERY good.

THE BISHOP

I've started seeing this build going up where priests will pretty much put every point they can muster into Holy. Which is fine. You'll see Lightwell and Circle of Healing lit up. You'll also see in the Discipline tree points being used for more health for Prayer of Fortitude and more mana regen while casting. I don't personally like this build, but it has its uses with Lightwell. And why people are speccing CoH in Holy is beyond me. It is instant cast but it's not worth the HP and mana, even after the patch.

***Did you spec Holy and try to level with it? Ugh...Fine, here.***

THE MASOCHIST

Typically you should have just specced Shadow or in the very least, Discipline...But this build has recently come up as a myriad of skill points in all three trees. You're getting Lifetap for extra mana regen, wand specialization to do more damage, free Smites being cast and extra +spell dmg %. The nice thing about it though is you have the majority of your skill points in the Holy Tree, so you can still be an avid healer in instances. Of course at lvl 70, respec asap.


III. Misc Tips & Tricks

I'll point out some tips and tricks/tactics I commonly use, and have used, since level 1 all the way to 70.

-Learn to downrank your spells, we're trying to avoid overhealing and trying to use as little mana as possible to keep people alive.
-Fade is your aggro controller. Push it. Love it. Marry it. Do naughty things with it.
-Your Flash Heal is the most inefficient heal spell you have. Use only when trying to smart heal.
-Shield is also a mana sucker. Use it in EMERGENCY situations only. (It's okay to shield a tank at 1%. Not at 100% before pulling)
-Renew, believe it or not, is your MOST mana efficient spell. Keep this on the tank after he builds some aggro, it can give you time to reach other members in need of heals.
-Greater Heal is your most mana efficient RAW HEALING spell. This is good to use on MT between 40%-80%, depending on the situation.
-Even though you're Holy, dont forget you still have Shadow Word: Pain. In fights where dps is crucial, keep this bad boy up. It still ticks, it still hurts. (Holy fire, on the other hand....)

Alright, so this has been revised a bit more, hopeflly this helps any priest out or at least allow them to form an opinion on what they want. Do not let these builds be the "set-in-stone" builds. Customize to your pleasure, and if you have questions, feel free to PST me in game.







-- Edited by Seraphir at 22:31, 2007-05-15