dps'ing as priest?

[svejk]

Hello!

I was thinking of building myself a 39 twink priest but am in desperate need of some advice about speccs.



First of all I've heard that shadow is kinda gimp right now, or at least so much worse than disciple (and holy?) that it is pointless to play. So which specc should I play if I want to dps as priest? Guess I wont be able to dish out as much dmg as mages or warlocks but atleast enough to kill ppl.



Secondly, if discipline is the specc to play even if I want to dps, is it a good specc to play by myself? (as i mostly will be pugging)

 

[Bansil]

The World of Warcraft Armory



in a pug you will do supporting dps most of the time. pick out some viable dps players and stick together. you can keep them alive while manaburnin/smite/etc...

the best you can do is having some dps around and do something like 50/50 heal and dmg.

 

[Zvit]

If you feel like trying out shadow to dish out some damage, then I suggest you to do so. You might experience a bit manaproblems, but that's maybe just the cost of being able to do more burst/silence etc.



Else you can do just fine assistdps as discipline-specc with Holy fire, dots and Mind Blast with the correct gear. Personally I do 650 holy fire and 400 Mind blast-crits after all. Combine that with some dots and you're fine.



So try out what you like and see what works out the best for you. But in some cases you're better off keeping a few teammates alive and then assisting once in once when needed. That depends on your playstyle really. Differiates a lot from player to player, some being more offensive and defensive than others.



/Zvit

 

[svejk]

thx for the replies!



I've checked alot of armory profiles and so far almost everyone i checked was discipline.

Does no one want to dps as priest? (cause shadow is so bad or whatever)

or is it so that discipline actually does better dps than shadow atm? (cause you'll be able to stay alive much more and wont go oom and such)



If i'm only looking for a caster dps and not some support class should i skip priest and do mage or warlock or ele shaman instead? Dont wanna level up and gear up just to discover that the only viable way to play the class is through supporting or healing.

 

[Zvit]

If you're only looking for a caster dps class, Warlocks and Mages does better. I guess an Elemental Shaman and a Shadowpriest is somewhat the same, it's hybridspeccs and hybridspeccs can work yes, but they're not the "strongest".



Roll a mage or lock if you want a pure caster dps class and don't want to bother supporting/healing But I'm sure spriest can be viable too - there's just not many of em and priests is very strong as disc, that maybe explains the huge amount of disc-priests you find.



/Zvit

 

[Alteffour]

Not any Holy DPS mentions here? Holy DPS is at least as viable as shadow imo, maybe less util (no silense and less fears) but more sheer power.



Disc is still best overall spec, you lose some bang, but gain soooo much more in survivability and utility that it makes it far and away the best priest spec currently availible for 39s.

 

[useabandage]

refelctive shield is the shiznit for 1v1's

 

[elm]

i miss shadow on my priest, when i'm shadow i use the same gear Kataris has on now except i have a staff of jordan with soulfrost and a green lens of shadow wrath (boo 34). i generally use this talent/glyph setup

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft



i see some shadow priests taking imp mind blast which is a cooldown reduction, imo this is somewhat useless as most my shadow dps is dots and mindflay, the only time i wind up using mindblast is if it's feared or is paying no attention to me at all. and before you ask the haste on gloves is only cause i'm holding out for eagle modifier gloves for +dmg...stupid rev

 

[Orcishbrutality]

If you wanted to check out a wicked 39 SPreist Armory Ã…tonement on the Quel'dorei server. The only problem he runs into is going OOM alot. Spirit Tap and Improved Spirit Tap would help this, but at the cost of some pretty solid other talents.

 

[svejk]

If you wanted to check out a wicked 39 SPreist Armory Ã…tonement on the Quel'dorei server. The only problem he runs into is going OOM alot. Spirit Tap and Improved Spirit Tap would help this, but at the cost of some pretty solid other talents.

first 39 shadow priest i've seen on armory, good to see that there is one at least

But as you said, guess he will have a lot of mana probs seen as he doesnt have either spirit tap or focused mind

 

[Orcishbrutality]

Yeah, just gotta have a healthy supply of drinks and mana pots and you should be good.

 

[Illegal]

if you want to try a caster dps, might i suggest a balance druid.

 

[svejk]

if you want to try a caster dps, might i suggest a balance druid.

Yea i have actually been thinking of making a balance druid, the only prob is that I play alliance I am not a big fan of night elfs (I'm more into draniis).

But I could maybe learn to like them .

I guess balance would suit me better than priest since I want a hybrid class able to focus on dps.

 

[Maerduk]

Yea i have actually been thinking of making a balance druid, the only prob is that I play alliance I am not a big fan of night elfs (I'm more into draniis).

But I could maybe learn to like them .

I guess balance would suit me better than priest since I want a hybrid class able to focus on dps.

I'd also suggest elemental shaman then, for caster dps. The damage and burst you can get out of a shaman is huge, and they have tons of support/utility abilities with totems. You can easily deal with other casters with grounding totems and earthshock as well. Speaking from experience, I love boomkin I played both 39 and 49 as a balanced drood, but the moment you hit a silence or imp cs on you, you're f-d and it's not so fun. Not to say that you can't survive it, but if you have more than one person on you it's gg and you lack moonkin form at 39 to take the brunt of the melee damage. Ele shaman can't really prevent that either, but I drop grounding totem before hand and I can usually catch the cs with it. Being a shaman also fulfills your love of dranei



Anyway if you do choose priest I'd suggest disc in this bracket as their survivability is ridiculous if spec'd and geared right. They never run oom and when they do the regen is so high that it doesn't really phase them much. I've seen a disc priest with at least 5 people trying to kill them and they couldn't even when the priest had gone oom. Not to mention the fact that imp mana burn is a killer to other mana using classes.

 

[Weiland]

0/27/3

Holy DPS is hands down one of the most fun priest specs I've played. Now I havnt played much recently but pre 3.1 this spec tore shit up.



Smites hit for 450.

Holy Fire ht for 500 plus another 110ish from the dot.

DP and SW ticked for around 100.



Surge of Light crits gave you some nice RNG burst for ~1200 damage in only a couple of seconds.



Spirit tap gave you a ~30 spell power boost when you killed someone and you regened a good chunk of mana.



However a lot has been nerfed since 3.1 so it may not be as awesome as it used to be. Mana regen got shafted, and a good chunk of spell power too.

 

[Dye]

holy dps and disc spec are probably my top choices for 39 since 3.1 came out. If I went shadow spec, it would be more so to run around with warlocks helping their shadow dmg. However, disc is so much better at surviving through the burst in this bracket, doing damage, keeping people alive, and then ooming the opposing factions healers in under 5 seconds that its hard to not go disc.

 

[elm]

If I went shadow spec, it would be more so to run around with warlocks helping their shadow dmg.

wouldn't do anything, shadowweaving was changed to a stackable self buff (5 stacks max).

I actually spec'd my priest shadow for a bit last week, ran around 240 +shadow (with oil) and was getting up to around 239 crit mind flays and up to 164 noncrit (shadowweaving max) and i got a 449 mindblast noncrit (4 stack of shadowweaving). So the dps isn't horrible mind flay being able to crit is a nice buff, but as has been mentioned you do run oom quite a bit.

 

[Dye]

I did not realize that. Thanks for the info elm. I still can't justify shadow dps in my mind with the incredible amount of ooming that happens. If i wouldn't go oom within a fight or two then I would really consider it, but running back to the hut every minute or so in WSG because i go oom just sucks :/. If they fixed the oom problem then i would definetely reconsider shadow spec again.

 

[elm]

ya the oom is pretty annoying, but i like being a offensive dispeller/supplemental dps sometimes, and in all honesty i PUG almost all of my games and i get tired of being the healbot for the FC that runs away from me or the guy who grabs the flag but can't live through a berserking ambush. Therefore i play shadow quite a bit, the change to leg armor made it a bit worse for me, as i used to run mp5 enchants to help my regen, but now i have to chant for stats or stamina to achieve a decent amount of hp and continue at the same +shadow dmg.