19 Priest Questions

Is Staff of the Blessed Seer worth it? I thought stats were more important than +healing, but all the guides say Staff of the Blessed Seer. I guess I just assumed that bonus healing doesn't scale enough with low level spells to make it worth it. Just looking for some input here.

Additionally, should I put 22int (once available) on an Evocators Blade / Pouch item set? Or should I also just put 55 healing on the Evocators Blade and have a Twisted Chanters Staff with +22 int?

Finally, I've decided to talent 7/2/1 with 1 point in Blackout. I know some other builds will put 5 points in Blackout and spam rank 1 Pain. Is it worth even using rank 1 Pain with only a 2% chance to stun? And does the stun proc on spell cast or can each dot proc it as well?

I run with 55 healing on my evoc blade with furbolg pouch. and imo if youre going blackout go all in, i personally went 5/5 wand 2/2 imp shield 2/3 imp renew

Wand spec is the way. Since you do most of your dmg with a wand, your mana usage is lower than you might think (if you don't spam pain on everything). All you should need is as much healing as you can get and stam. Play it like a hunter that can heal and you'll start to see the power.

Outofspace said:

Wand spec is the way. Since you do most of your dmg with a wand, your mana usage is lower than you might think (if you don't spam pain on everything). All you should need is as much healing as you can get and stam. Play it like a hunter that can heal and you'll start to see the power.

Click to expand...

So are you saying Staff of the Blessed Seer is the way to go?

jake11241 said:

Is Staff of the Blessed Seer worth it? I thought stats were more important than +healing, but all the guides say Staff of the Blessed Seer. I guess I just assumed that bonus healing doesn't scale enough with low level spells to make it worth it. Just looking for some input here.

Additionally, should I put 22int (once available) on an Evocators Blade / Pouch item set? Or should I also just put 55 healing on the Evocators Blade and have a Twisted Chanters Staff with +22 int?

Finally, I've decided to talent 7/2/1 with 1 point in Blackout. I know some other builds will put 5 points in Blackout and spam rank 1 Pain. Is it worth even using rank 1 Pain with only a 2% chance to stun? And does the stun proc on spell cast or can each dot proc it as well?

Click to expand...

From what I understood from playing and researching and debating classic 19 priest, you can kind of play it in different ways.
Firstly we'll talk about weapons.
You'll want a Staff of the Blessed Seer +55 healing power.
Twisted Chanters Staff +22int ( when it comes out, some people have 9 int on theres for now others have 30 sp, I would use 9 int ).
Evocators Blade with either 30 sp or 55 healing depending - and pair that with a furbolg. Also have a staff of westfall or friar ( same spirit on both, friar has 1 less int and more stamina ) usually when ur oom or low on mana to regain it quicker enchanted with 20 spirit when it comes out and 9 untill then?

The reason for these is 1 is for ur raw healing weapon - one is for having the mana to spam dispell every1 on the enemy team and your team and clearly you need a bigger mana pool for that and then the evocators blade with furbolg I guess depends on different 1v1 and 2v2 situations.

As for specs
The best raw healing spec -
3 Improved Renew
2 Healing Focus
5 Divine Fury
The more 'offensive' priests would argue you go
3 Improved Renew
2 Healing Focus
5 Wand Spec.
Technically you could also run
3 Improved Renew
2 Healing Focus
5 Blackout.
Another spec ( Which I don't agree with but I talked to somebody about a few days ago )
5 Blackout
2 Improved Shadow word pain
3 Improved Renew
- I don't think this spec is good because I feel like losing Healing Focus is way too huge considering no matter what kind of priest you play set up wise gear wise you will still have to heal and not having Healing Focus is such a big loss.

The main point here is that the knockback from healing focus is way too big, and no matter whether you're playing your raw healer build with Blessed Seer +55healing - or Twisted Chanters for 9 int to be more offensive with dispells, you should always have the renew talent as its such a big increase.

When I play Blackout Spec I would not use r1 SWP on everyone possibly only on rogues and warriors and such, anyone else I would use max SWP. Asides some super obvious scenarios

open to critique on all of this also not claiming this is 100% the truth just from my debates and conversations with people, research and testing myself.

All good points, although I personally don't get the point of bothering with Fubolg Pouch. I think you should only need: Seer +55 healing, Twisted +22 int, and Staff of the Friar +20 spirit.

Quackbesteu said:

From what I understood from playing and researching and debating classic 19 priest, you can kind of play it in different ways.
Firstly we'll talk about weapons.
You'll want a Staff of the Blessed Seer +55 healing power.

The reason for these is 1 is for ur raw healing weapon - one is for having the mana to spam dispell every1 on the enemy team and your team and clearly you need a bigger mana pool for that and then the evocators blade with furbolg I guess depends on different 1v1 and 2v2 situations.

Click to expand...

I guess this is what I was looking for, having the healing staff is essential for raw healing in different scenarios. Thanks.

Outofspace said:

All good points, although I personally don't get the point of bothering with Fubolg Pouch. I think you should only need: Seer +55 healing, Twisted +22 int, and Staff of the Friar +20 spirit.

Click to expand...

I think furbolg is important for the extra surviability if you're getting focused pretty hard

I also want to share a comment I saw on the classic wowhead priest guide written by xSimonSaysx that convinced me to go 7/2/1. I would love to hear your guys thoughts.

Great twink information here, thanks for the guide!

I have extensive experience in classic with 19 priest in twink premades. I would like to point out a few things here with the talents real quick.

Firstly improved renew: Let's assume we have +117 healing power in phase 3 (staff w/chant, ring, cloak, and bracer chant) then the three talent points there only add 15 healing (3 per tick) for rank two and only 7 healing (1.4 per tick) to your rank one renew spell. This means these talent points have several better places to be spent.

This brings us to my second point: Martyrdom is the best talent for a level 19 twink priest, especially against twink rogues and hunters which tend to rule the 19 bracket. It will proc almost immediately and make you and your team very tough to kill buy ensuring NO push back which is huge against all the pets and players that will be focusing you while also providing 20% resist to kick. Without this talent it is very tough to survive that initial test of "focus the healer" and if you fail that test on the first try you may have singlehandedly lost the battleground as the enemy team will essentially GY camp you after that.

Lastly, priests at this level have access to one of the most overpowered DPS items in the gulch in Gravestone Scepter. When combined with the +25% damage provided by wand specialization you will almost never lose a 1v1 against another 19 regardless of class due to the high consistent damage output and extreme mana efficiency which means you never run out of mana for heals. I feel it is too powerful to pass up even in a premade situation. I tend to go 7/2/1 putting two into healing focus for extra push back insurance while martyrdom is down and just one point into blackout will make you swear the proc rate is higher then 2%.

I have so much more information on this class in this bracket, please feel free to DM me if anyone has any questions and thanks again for the guides, happy twinking!

Click to expand...

jake11241 said:

I guess this is what I was looking for, having the healing staff is essential for raw healing in different scenarios. Thanks.



I think furbolg is important for the extra surviability if you're getting focused pretty hard

I also want to share a comment I saw on the classic wowhead priest guide written by xSimonSaysx that convinced me to go 7/2/1. I would love to hear your guys thoughts.

Click to expand...

Also not a bad idea, but I wouldn't run that spec.
Just prefer either wand spec or blackout spec like I listed above.

gonna swap to 7/2/1 and see how it feels will report back

Just wanted to interject this Martyrdom spec which hasn't been mentioned. I think it's a really powerful talent.

Twiztid7652 said:

gonna swap to 7/2/1 and see how it feels will report back

Click to expand...

Let me know what you think!

Outofspace said:

Just wanted to interject this Martyrdom spec which hasn't been mentioned. I think it's a really powerful talent.

Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I'm going based on that comment I saw on wowhead in my previous response. Something that got me is how 15% increased healing to renew sounds much better than it actually is. It only adds 15 overall healing which results in 3 extra healing per tick. Which is pretty much useless.

Outofspace said:

Just wanted to interject this Martyrdom spec which hasn't been mentioned. I think it's a really powerful talent.

Click to expand...

i'll try this out on release, i'm personally running 5/5 wand 3/3 renew 2/2 heal focus which i'll probably end up switching wand out for something else in group WSG's

You could even get cheeky and swap imp renew for one in blackout. I personally can't really stand playing with out Martyrdom. How else you going to compete with insane holy paladins for healing

Ah, I see now that's exactly what that forum link was talking about, mb :|

Is anyone able to provide some input on down ranking Lesser Heal? My main is a 60 priest so the concept and application of down ranking is simple to me, I just am unfamiliar with how beneficial each rank is based on the bonus healing at level 19. Or what situations you might be using which heals. As a reference lets assume you only have +55 healing.

Hoping some of the veterans might be able to provide some general guidance.

So first we can see that as cast time goes up, so does the spell mod. This is consistent throughout WoW and it's the main reason Holy Paladins are so OP (FoL cast time doesn't change). Say you downrank from three to two, you're only saving 20% of your cast time while losing 50% of your spell mod. Now you also save about 40% of your mana and that has value, but the main thing to remember is that downranking a spell for a quicker cast devalues your +spellpower (or healing). So for instance someone in full eagle gear is going to have better itemization when downranking than someone maxing out healing.

I've tried a lot of downranking on a lot of healers and the main thing that I keep coming back to is having a R1 keybind handy for those times that you are so completely out of mana that there's nothing else you can cast and you need to heal through some dots or something. Any more dire a situation than that and your downranked spell isn't going to get it done either way meaning there's not a lot of scenarios where it's worth it. Sometimes I run a R1 HoT as well but that's really it (except on a Paladin).

TLDR: There's not enough value in most downranked heals to make them worth using imo.

Outofspace said:

So first we can see that as cast time goes up, so does the spell mod. This is consistent throughout WoW and it's the main reason Holy Paladins are so OP (FoL cast time doesn't change). Say you downrank from three to two, you're only saving 20% of your cast time while losing 50% of your spell mod. Now you also save about 40% of your mana and that has value, but the main thing to remember is that downranking a spell for a quicker cast devalues your +spellpower (or healing). So for instance someone in full eagle gear is going to have better itemization when downranking than someone maxing out healing.

I've tried a lot of downranking on a lot of healers and the main thing that I keep coming back to is having a R1 keybind handy for those times that you are so completely out of mana that there's nothing else you can cast and you need to heal through some dots or something. Any more dire a situation than that and your downranked spell isn't going to get it done either way meaning there's not a lot of scenarios where it's worth it. Sometimes I run a R1 HoT as well but that's really it (except on a Paladin).

TLDR: There's not enough value in most downranked heals to make them worth using imo.

Click to expand...

So it sounds like Lesser Heal (Rank 2) has no reason to be on your action bars, and Lesser Heal (Rank 1) will only ever be used in dire situations. That's kind how I interpreted those abilities as well.

However, in regards to Heal (Rank 1) and Lesser Heal (Rank 3), if you could choose your "main" heal, which would it be? I know every situation is different, of course. Heal (Rank 1) seems like the obvious choice, but a 3 second cast time is pretty damn long if trying to pump out steady healing. Do you still foresee Heal as the go-to ability? I can't help but think it would lean more towards Lesser Heal (Rank 3).

Casting Heal for three seconds is going to be a big luxury that you don't usually have or even need. Let me give you the two extreme ends of the spectrum for rationale.

First one being the ideal situation - you have plenty of mana, your targets are not pressed, you are not pressed, you can be as efficient as you want - but you also don't have to worry that much about efficiency. Some HoT's and a cast or two of Lesser Heal aren't going to really impact your next engagement, and this one is wrapping up. Here your main goal is to just keep everyone topped off and buffed, you could let folks get low enough to need a full Heal but there's not that much point in being a stickler either.

Next we'll look at the big clash where you're under fire, people are losing health, needing dispels - it's chaos. You going to cast a three second spell? Hell no. You'll be lucky to sneak a couple Lessers in. Here you need short enough heals to get through CC but also powerful enough to make a difference (again downranking won't help).

Now if you get a clean Fear and Martyrdom is up then yeah this is your big moment to get a long cast off. Heal is great it's going to get a twink's hp up by like 40-50% but the problem is landing it at the right time when someone's hp can absorb that much healing and you don't have any chance of being interrupted. Because if you get kicked while trying to cast that on someone who's down 50% they are probably done. It's a risk / reward situation that rarely favors a three second cast.

Twiztid7652 said:

gonna swap to 7/2/1 and see how it feels will report back

Click to expand...

So... how did it feel?

Oldpunk said:

So... how did it feel?

Click to expand...

honestly, i dont think im going back. idk what i was thinking with imp renew and shield. i went a solid 7/3/0 and i love it.

Imp renew is underwhelming because it only increases the base healing on renew, it does not account for any + healing