Disc priest

Underseer

OG
Hey, first post here. I'm twinking a priest and didn't see much info about it here yet. I did read some random guides, but they seemed outdated and left some room for improvement.



My primary concern is weighing the different stats. So far I've went for

4 spellpower = 5 intellect = 5 stamina = 8 spirit



That philosophy gets me to 124 stamina, 81 intellect, 281 spellpower and 56 spirit after enchants (without heirloom items, I don't have a main :{, oh and without deadman's hand)



How would you weigh the stat ratio for discipline though? Even small changes seem to affect the gear setup. Every stat point counts :}





My second problem is the spec. I will be going for discipline, it seems to empower all the instants with a nice balance between healing and dps. This is what I'm going for currently:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcMuhgzrZz





All input is appreciated :}
 
Hey man. Quick heads up - I know nothing of priests when it comes to stats, etc. I'm also not in the 39 bracket. I started this reply after reading that your highest valued stat is spirit.



Straight from PTR notes:

Spirit: The amount of mana regeneration granted by this stat has been reduced by 40%.
 
I used 100 Int = 80 Sta = 90 Spell = 33 Spi for my disc priest.



Health is hardly ever a matter for me, but mana is. And spellpower is always good to have of course.



I am using http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxIMuh0pMZZh right now.

Had http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVIMuhMzbZbZh before.



I have to add that i heal and dps so Spirit Tap and Meditation combined work pretty nicely after a killing blow.



Tbh many talents for a priest are a matter of taste and what you want to do with him. I for one play mostly PUGs and the above specs worked fine for me.
 
Actually spirit is my lowest-valued stat, I just put it out in a weird way :)



As in choosing between 4 spellpower and 8 spirit is 50/50.

So, in actual weightings it would look like this:



spellpower = 1

intellect = 0,8

stamina = 0,8

spirit = 0,5
 
Underseer said:
Actually spirit is my lowest-valued stat, I just put it out in a weird way :)



As in choosing between 4 spellpower and 8 spirit is 50/50.

So, in actual weightings it would look like this:



spellpower = 1

intellect = 0,8

stamina = 0,8

spirit = 0,5
Click to expand...



I really think Int should be highest because no matter with what spellpower i play, i don't really notice a difference but when i have my mace with 30 int enchant equipped i last way longer. And having spirit is nice but it will never be enough especially not after the nerf next patch. So i would never sacrifice anything more important just to get a little more spirit.
 
Hmm good point mojo, I should probably take your advice :p



The only decent tradeoffs for more intellect are revelosh gloves of healing -> eagle and lens of healing -> miner's hat. And possibly 12 intellect on bracers. There's not much intellect on the gear in general to be honest :(



Damnit I regret putting 100hp on the lens
 
there are quite a few good 'cookie cutter' caster pieces of gear.



revelosh's gloves of the eagle (20sp enchant)

deathmage sash

necromancer's leggings (golden spellthread)

AB boots

robes of the lich (+6 stats) or 12/12 of the eagle / whale / owl chest [since priests don't use crit much]

WSG cloak



then if you want more int you can get

bloodband bracers +12 int

whitemane's chapeau +150 mana

necklace of calesia

9/9 shoulder of the eagle or owl



overall i think the gear choices at 39 can be directed a bit away from int, but if you get mana based enchants and get lots of mana in the rest of the slots you should be good.
 
Don't worry about the 100 HP libram as librams won't work at 39 anymore anyway :)



[char=eu-Burning+Blade]Vlcek[/char]



This is the gear that i got after using my above weightscale on wowhead. The chest is a tribute to good looks and not the best you can get. I have a second mace with 30 int enchant. And a http://www.wowhead.com/?item=6803 in case i need even more mana. And yeah http://www.wowhead.com/?item=873 would be the best weapon. But i couldn't find one and now i also like the looks of the mace :)
 
Underseer said:
Hey, first post here. I'm twinking a priest and didn't see much info about it here yet. I did read some random guides, but they seemed outdated and left some room for improvement.



My primary concern is weighing the different stats. So far I've went for

4 spellpower = 5 intellect = 5 stamina = 8 spirit



That philosophy gets me to 124 stamina, 81 intellect, 281 spellpower and 56 spirit after enchants (without heirloom items, I don't have a main :{, oh and without deadman's hand)



How would you weigh the stat ratio for discipline though? Even small changes seem to affect the gear setup. Every stat point counts :}





My second problem is the spec. I will be going for discipline, it seems to empower all the instants with a nice balance between healing and dps. This is what I'm going for currently:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcMuhgzrZz





All input is appreciated :}
Click to expand...



Um.... I'm not sure whether to assume you missed my guide or just called it out of date... >.<

http://twinkinfo.com/forums/f23/39-priest-guide-t1043/



^Did you see it? Obviously I won't be updating it any more until 3.1, but the gear list has always been good. =P



I've always considered stamina to be one of my highest priorities, but that's more because players actually attack me when I play. That, plus if you're going to be relying mainly on instants to keep yourself up, you can use all the breathing space you can get.



You're right to consider int more important than spell power, however this leads into my issues with your build: if you care more about stats, why did you pick up talents that increase your effective spell power rather than your effective mana? Imp PWS is fine, but Twin Disciplines and Focused Power are rather... meh. And Mental Strength is considered to be practically an essential for heavy disc.



Also, look at Mental Agility this way: why decrease the cost of some of your spells by 10% when you can increase your mana by 15%? Unbreakable Will is great unless other players seriously aren't intelligent to stunlock or CC you, and Silent Resolve is a personal choice.



I prefer Healing Focus myself, since when you have to cast a heal (and you will at 39), it's often an emergency, and you don't have time for pushback. If I was in your position, I'd go with this probably:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxcMuuMtbZM



Edit: for 3.1, based on the current tree, I'd go with this in your position:

http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=bxcrzhGVoZc



Personally, I'd have different wants (like silent resolve and healing focus) that are up to personal choice.
 
A 39 disc priest has many possibilities and many talents you just have to try out if they work for you or if you really need them. If you face many purging shamans you want Silent Resolve, if you run oom a lot then you choose Mental Strength. You can decide about many talents like this, there are not too many "musts" for a disc priest i think. Do you heal only or do you also dps? Do you play with friends you can rely on or do you play in a pug? Do you do Arena a lot or do you prefer battlegrounds? A priest can be nicely tuned to fit any of those roles by using talents. If only all classes would be that open for talent choices.
 
trust in jayden's guide as a great starting point for any priest.



Spirit is better than you think, but only for a little bit longer



SP probably doesnt need to be anywhere near 281 for disc. Most good disc priests ive seen roll from like 180-240sp. Stam and Int are extreemly important as you need to be able to last. I lol when I see disc priests running around with 2k health buffed and only like 2000-2500mana. I do swap in some higher DPS gear for silly PUGs that we are rolling where I can safely be DPSing more than healing.\



3.1 though Im definatly excited about reflective shield, so id at least toss that in to start compared with jaydens 3.1 spec ;p Seems especially good if youre gonna do some arenas.
 
Jadyn, I did read the guide but I only found it via pwndepot (no heirloom items and you spoke about downranking) hence it seemed a bit outdated, I wasnt sure if theres some gear updates since the guide or something like that :)

I do see that it makes sense now tho.



As for the mental agility vs mental strength, mental strength will only increase my mana by roughly 10% since part of my mana is base mana (not affected by int). Mental agility on the other hand will improve my mana regen/mana consumption ratio which is why mental agility seemed stronger on paper. I might fit them both tbh, depends on my experiences from some more twinking :)



Healing focus is a good point tbh, I'll include that somehow. I'm not even 39 yet tho, I will probably experiment with a lot of options, including desperate prayer and a heavy spelldamage set for holy dps. Not taking unbreakable will was a 50/50 decision, but 5% bonus efficiency on nearly all the spells that I intend to use seems slightly stronger.



Even if I consider int more important than spellpower, I will end up with ~250 sp. I'm a bit of a spellpower whore, I don't want to let it slip too low :) The point was always to be spellpower heavy. Imo 250 spellpower easily warrants picking talents that benefit from it.



A lot of this might be explained by me running with a warlock buddy. Felhunter dispels will make up for the lack of unbreakable will, and the kiting nature of lock+priest is connected to my heavy focus on all possible instants. Also, his fears will improve my survivability even further against stuns and fears. Maximizing sw:pain should also make the combined dots scary.
 
Underseer said:
Jadyn, I did read the guide but I only found it via pwndepot (no heirloom items and you spoke about downranking) hence it seemed a bit outdated, I wasnt sure if theres some gear updates since the guide or something like that :)

I do see that it makes sense now tho.



As for the mental agility vs mental strength, mental strength will only increase my mana by roughly 10% since part of my mana is base mana (not affected by int). Mental agility on the other hand will improve my mana regen/mana consumption ratio which is why mental agility seemed stronger on paper. I might fit them both tbh, depends on my experiences from some more twinking :)



Healing focus is a good point tbh, I'll include that somehow. I'm not even 39 yet tho, I will probably experiment with a lot of options, including desperate prayer and a heavy spelldamage set for holy dps. Not taking unbreakable will was a 50/50 decision, but 5% bonus efficiency on nearly all the spells that I intend to use seems slightly stronger.



Even if I consider int more important than spellpower, I will end up with ~250 sp. I'm a bit of a spellpower whore, I don't want to let it slip too low :) The point was always to be spellpower heavy. Imo 250 spellpower easily warrants picking talents that benefit from it.



A lot of this might be explained by me running with a warlock buddy. Felhunter dispels will make up for the lack of unbreakable will, and the kiting nature of lock+priest is connected to my heavy focus on all possible instants. Also, his fears will improve my survivability even further against stuns and fears. Maximizing sw:pain should also make the combined dots scary.
Click to expand...



Ah ok. Yeah, the pwn depot version is out of date. The updated version is here in twinkinfo now, I don't like pwn depot as much, takes too long for me to load on wireless.



Fair point on Mental Agility, especially since in 3.1 it's also going to 3 talent points instead of 5. However, your int does vastly outweigh your base mana, so I'd focus on the consumption-regen ratio as a good reason.



Healing focus is an option, even if I think it's really useful. Useabandage is a big supporter of not using it. For unbreakable will, when I'm choosing talents, I consider gear-related bonuses to be less important. In other words, if I could get a similar bonus simply by stacking more spell power, I'd rather get the bonus that gear won't give (the stun duration reduction).



250 spell power is pretty high. If you're going to focus heavily on instants, that might work, but I'd watch out for twinks bursting you, and oom issues.



I'm not sure what the pug situation is where you play, so I don't know how many good twinks are going to come after you. However, depending on your warlock teammate, you might want to forget the instants thing in favor of better throughput. It's quite possible that he's going to get focused hardcore, at which point instants are going to be sufficient.



Ultimately, you'll have to just use trial and error to decide on what you want in the end. I know what I've wanted has evolved over time as my preferences have changed, and as the knowledge of my twink opponents has changed and improved.
 
It's sort of disappointing that I didn't get into this when +healing got turned into +dmg and down ranking was still available because high +sp would of been wicked on a disc. priest.



But as it is now without down ranking stacking spell power will mean that your heal spells will over heal probably most the time and if you are over healing you are wasting mana imo.



I don't think +sp is the way too go if you stack enough stam/int/spirit you can basically tank whole groups of people till the warlock has doted everyone up and starts blasting with shadowbolt. Dmg reflection is an insanely good talent that's when the tide got turned between me and twink rogues as I was pvping/leveling a disc. priest to 70.



Keep in mind unbreakable will is getting buffed to 30% from 15 and you can't devour cheap shots.



I also posted on Jadyn's guide with how some 3.1 changes are going to impact disc. 39 priests.



Your main DD is mana burn and that is not affected by spell damage. Anything but mind blast/PW:p is wasting mana that could be spent shielding/healing.



The idea in my mind is to be a tank with a bb gun for a weapon. Martydom, Unbreakable will, improved power word shield, healing focus, improved inner fire, improved pw:sta all make that possible(in order of importance).



This would be my build:

http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=bxcruhRboZf



There would be some hard choices to get silent resolve and the big question would be if that would really help in preventing a dispel spamming shaman from kicking your butt...
 
I consider Silent Resolve to be an essential talent in premades, but optional in pugs.
 
opposing priests and shammys and locks make silent resolve pretty good in pugs too....



There is really no point in more SP as a disc priest...test it, put a renew or a flash heal spam on your buddy with 250sp, then do the same with 225sp, then 200sp...how big of a difference is there? While the higher sp will make you a tad more mana efficient, it wont make as big of an overall impact on either your survivability or your teammates as some of the other skills. I run with like 230 and I wouldnt mind dropping 30 of it off at all if it meant I could get more hp and mana.
 
The guide is very helpfull for a new 39 priest. I played at 19 for about 2 1/2 years so movibng to 39 was a big change. Guide helped alot
 
What's your view on spell hit for a priest?

I'm basically having a bit of problems deciding on shoulders.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=7060 vs http://www.wowhead.com/?item=14247 vs http://www.wowhead.com/?item=6685 vs http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19507 vs http://www.wowhead.com/?item=7712



Currently I'm leaning towards the latter, it is kind of annoying to get fears/dispels/dots resisted. It also seems like the best source of spellhit to reduce that 4% miss rate.

(On gloves you would need to trade 20 spellpower for 15 spellhit. On shoulders it's pretty much a point-for-point conversion). All this assuming that one cannot get BoA's, like me.



It is possible that 15 spellhit would also be overkill (more than 4%), I can't find a source that calculates spellhit on lower levels.
 
15 spell hit to gloves seems overkill to me, id rather get the hit rating from shoulders and if need be boot enchant. Surefooted and shoulders will hit cap you and the crit from the boots is nice for holy dps....



Of course it hardly matters at all if youre primarily healing with only a secondary damage goal. In that case there are better ways to go than +hit.



Its 4% to miss, but you can only get 99% so you need to look at 3% to max out your hit rating (unless they changed this for casters in the last few patches and ive just not been paying attention)



Of your choices I like Mantle of Doan overall though, best overall stats with the hit rating. That or of the owl shoulders, or eagle, (eagle gonna be good come 3.1 with the spirit changes) The sp shoulders are just not needed for healing imo.
 
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