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F2P Priest Introduction
Updated for patch 5.3.
By Veinte
Modified by Yde
INDEX
Races
Gear & Armories
Basic Tips
Spells
Macros
Helpful Addons
Races
Night Elf - Strong racial in Shadowmeld. If you time meld at the same time as an enemy uses an ability on you then their ability goes on cooldown without actually hitting you. This means that you can use meld to avoid damage that might kill you or CC that someone is casting on you.
Gnome - Really nice, use Escape Artist to run away from rogues that have crippling poison on you or druid/priest roots that are keeping you from chasing someone to heal/CC/damage them, or get away from DPS that would CC you more or kill you. Shorter cooldown too, so it's great for mobility.
Worgen - Darkflight is useful if you need to catch up to someone to CC them or run away from melee.
Draenei - Weak HoT with Gift of the Naaru that you can't use when you're kicked on your holy tree, it's nice to have but might not be as useful as other racials; also 3 minute cooldown means you can't use it that much.
Dwarf - Stoneform reduces a pretty minimal amount of damage and clears crippling/deadly poison, can be useful but isn't really better at anything than other racials.
Human - Gives you a decent stat boost depending on what trinket you decide to use in the second trinket slot, but doesn't have any special utility that makes them super special. They're boring.
Pandaren - Has a single target CC so it's good for both O and D. For Horde the Tauren/Belf AoEs are generally more helpful in group settings.
Forsaken - Currently more at a disadvantage because there aren't that many Warlocks/Priests around, providing fewer opportunities for using Will of the Forsaken. Are the sexiest race in the game.
Blood Elf - For playing really offensive and stopping heals. Arcane Torrent is a strong racial, providing a silence to interrupt healing or damage.
Tauren - War Stomp is more of a defensive choice to let you cast but can also be used to stop heals, it's just harder.
Goblin - Rocket Jump helps with positioning, so if you were too far away to fear or got too far away from a wall and are taking damage it can help you there.
Troll - Okay but not great, the haste racial tends to be wasted because you might need to bubble/fear/move.
Gear & Armories
Best in Slot (BiS) gear
You should (for the most part) prioritize stamina>intellect>everything else on Priests, they're the squishiest healer and need as much survivability as they can get. I'm including other gear because changing a few items to suit your tastes isn't a life threatening catastrophe.
My idea of BiS: Horde, Alliance // Easy alternatives: Horde, Alliance
Alternative Gear:
Trinkets: Discerning Eye of the Beast, Swift Hand of Justice
Weapon:Dignified Headmaster's Charge, Grand Staff of Jordan
Chest: Je'neu's Robes, Robe of Kelris
Cloak: Tumultuous Cloak "of the sorcerer" (haste), "of the elder" (spirit), "of the bandit/soldier" (crit)
Shoulders: Tattered Dreadmist Mantle
Belt: Belt of the Hero, Girdle of Nobility, Ghamoo-Ra's Bind, Enumerated Wrap "of the sun" (crit) / "of the sorcerer" (haste)
Feet: Slippers of Unturned Loyalties, Merger Boots
Notes on Gearing
Hit Rating - Discipline and Holy are both automatically hit capped (15% base hit for all healing specs). To hit cap for Shadow, you need 12 rating (6%).Magician's Mantle: Better than Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle for survivability as of 5.3
Resilience - 5.3 made this stat almost useless by reducing the % of damage reduction per point, making stamina much better to stack for survivability in every slot.
The formula for calculating your effective HP:
Effective health = Maximum Health / (1 - % Resilience)
Armories
Veinte
Yde
Yda
Basic Tips
Priests are offensive support. The damage and CC available to priests make their playstyle more aggressive even when they're healing a flag carrier on defense.
Discipline is generally the stronger spec at both damage and healing, Shadow is the weak utility spec. Holy can do very well if played correctly, but the 6 second cooldown on PW: Shield (and lacking instant burst healing through not having penance) makes Holy overall weaker.
Fearing someone who is taking damage is only useful to interrupt a cast, because Psychic Scream breaks on damage. Don't overlap Fear with another crowd control ability (like Polymorph), it wastes the duration. Don't overextend to fear someone unless you know that other people aren't going to attack or CC you. In Warsong Gulch mid fights you should stay back and use your CDs to peel for yourself. When you're in one of the bases stay close to a wall or pillar and don't get too far away from the people that you might need to fear.
Shadow Word: Pain ticks instantly and stops people from capping flags in Arathi Basin, spam it on those who try.
You're going to get the most burst damage on a single target by first putting up Shadow Word: Pain, casting Smite or Penance, and finishing with a Holy Fire. The only thing level 20 Shadow Priests can do is spam Mind Flay and put Shadow Word: Pain on everything, so there isn't much damage potential there.
Mana efficiency is still a nonissue for Disc since Blizzard messed up the scaling of mana regen when they normalized mana pools. Be careful with your Flash Heal spam as Holy.
Spells
Smite - Fast cast time, decent damage. This is your main damaging ability.
Flash Heal - Fast, strong heal. Your main healing ability.
Shadow Word: Pain - Weak damage over time, ticks instantly. Used mostly to keep Rogues from restealthing or to get in combat to avoid a Rogue's Sap, but is also useful for getting more damage out on someone you want to kill.
Power Word: Shield - Strong damage absorb. Use often, but only on targets that are taking damage/will be taking damage while it is active. If Disc, spam this on as many people as you want because it doesn't matter.
Holy Fire - No cast time, decent instant damage, weak damage over time. Use this right after Smite or Penance to get some decent burst damage.
Psychic Scream - 8 second AoE fear. Use on as many people as possible, this single ability can and will win games if you use it to stop damage or healing.
Resurrection - Extremely long cast time. Use in Battlegrounds to maintain a strong offense, and try to use it in arenas if one of your teammates die.
Inner Fire - Self buff, keep it up always
Discipline - Penance - Strong, fast heal, also does good damage. Use this as much as possible.Use it for healing when you need an instant heal, someone is low on health and you don't think you can get a Flash Heal off before they die.
Use it for damage when you don't need to heal anyone on your team and don't have any CC cooldowns up.
Holy - Holy Word: Chastise - 3 second disorient, also deals weak damage on a 30 second cooldown. Breaks on damage. Use to interrupt spell casts, kite melee, keep a running target in place so that you can land another CC (like Psychic Scream), or stop damage on yourself or a teammate.
Shadow - Mind Flay - Weak channeled damage. Happens to be Shadow's only DPS ability, but also should be used to slow specific enemy targets (EFC, or peel for healers).
Macros
Macro API
This is the penance macro I use when I play Disc. It casts penance on your target if it's friendly (with no modifier), on yourself if your target is harmful (also with no modifier), and on your target no matter what (harm or noharm) if you hold down shift. You can change the modifier to whatever you want to, this is just what I use.
This is pretty simple, if you hit the keybind while channeling mind control it cancels your cast (so you don't have to click the buff off).
Simple target/focus macro with a modifier, if you don't know how to set a focus target or what a target is I suggest you read through the link I put at the top of this post (wowpedia link).
Casts Shadow Word: Pain at whatever your pointer is hovering over so long as it's attackable, and if you're not moused over anything it casts pain at your target. You can replace "Shadow Word: Pain" with the name of any ability to make a mouseover macro for that ability, but I personally don't use very many mouseovers.
This is an anti-stealth macro. If you're spamming it when you see a rogue or druid in stealth, it will instantly dot them without you having to move your cursor or hit tab to target them.
If you use Void Tendrils or Psyfiend, this shields your Psyfiend/the Tendril closest to you without having to click it or dropping your target.
A simple macro that casts Chastise at your target with no modifier (shift, ctrl, alt) held down and casts Chastise at your focus target if you hold down shift. "shift" is interchangeable with "ctrl" and "alt", and you could also have a mouseover macro for Chastise exactly like the one I listed for Shadow Word: Pain (but replace "Shadow Word: Pain" with "Holy Word: Chastise).
I use this set of macros for when I play arenas as holy, so that I can hit one button and instantly CC an enemy.
This macro cancels your shield (it does the exact same thing as right clicking the shield buff icon, but faster). This is useful because fears and roots don't break if you have a shield active. If you cancel that shield, they break on the next damage you receive and allow you to control your character again.
Helpful Addons
Icicle or InterruptBar
Tidyplates
Grid & Clique or Healbot or Vuhdo
List of Helpful Addons
Updated for patch 5.3.
By Veinte
Modified by Yde
Please message Yde with questions since Veinte has sadly quit Twinkinfo.  
She still hangs out with Veinte and will pass on the most important questions. Any weird quirks and changes in writing style and mistakes are Yde's fault obviously. |
___________________
INDEX
Races
Gear & Armories
Basic Tips
Spells
Macros
Helpful Addons
___________________
Races
Night Elf - Strong racial in Shadowmeld. If you time meld at the same time as an enemy uses an ability on you then their ability goes on cooldown without actually hitting you. This means that you can use meld to avoid damage that might kill you or CC that someone is casting on you.
Gnome - Really nice, use Escape Artist to run away from rogues that have crippling poison on you or druid/priest roots that are keeping you from chasing someone to heal/CC/damage them, or get away from DPS that would CC you more or kill you. Shorter cooldown too, so it's great for mobility.
Worgen - Darkflight is useful if you need to catch up to someone to CC them or run away from melee.
Draenei - Weak HoT with Gift of the Naaru that you can't use when you're kicked on your holy tree, it's nice to have but might not be as useful as other racials; also 3 minute cooldown means you can't use it that much.
Dwarf - Stoneform reduces a pretty minimal amount of damage and clears crippling/deadly poison, can be useful but isn't really better at anything than other racials.
Human - Gives you a decent stat boost depending on what trinket you decide to use in the second trinket slot, but doesn't have any special utility that makes them super special. They're boring.
Pandaren - Has a single target CC so it's good for both O and D. For Horde the Tauren/Belf AoEs are generally more helpful in group settings.
Forsaken - Currently more at a disadvantage because there aren't that many Warlocks/Priests around, providing fewer opportunities for using Will of the Forsaken. Are the sexiest race in the game.
Blood Elf - For playing really offensive and stopping heals. Arcane Torrent is a strong racial, providing a silence to interrupt healing or damage.
Tauren - War Stomp is more of a defensive choice to let you cast but can also be used to stop heals, it's just harder.
Goblin - Rocket Jump helps with positioning, so if you were too far away to fear or got too far away from a wall and are taking damage it can help you there.
Troll - Okay but not great, the haste racial tends to be wasted because you might need to bubble/fear/move.
___________________
Gear & Armories
Best in Slot (BiS) gear
You should (for the most part) prioritize stamina>intellect>everything else on Priests, they're the squishiest healer and need as much survivability as they can get. I'm including other gear because changing a few items to suit your tastes isn't a life threatening catastrophe.
My idea of BiS: Horde, Alliance // Easy alternatives: Horde, Alliance
Alternative Gear:
Trinkets: Discerning Eye of the Beast, Swift Hand of Justice
Weapon:Dignified Headmaster's Charge, Grand Staff of Jordan
Chest: Je'neu's Robes, Robe of Kelris
Cloak: Tumultuous Cloak "of the sorcerer" (haste), "of the elder" (spirit), "of the bandit/soldier" (crit)
Shoulders: Tattered Dreadmist Mantle
Belt: Belt of the Hero, Girdle of Nobility, Ghamoo-Ra's Bind, Enumerated Wrap "of the sun" (crit) / "of the sorcerer" (haste)
Feet: Slippers of Unturned Loyalties, Merger Boots
Notes on Gearing
Hit Rating - Discipline and Holy are both automatically hit capped (15% base hit for all healing specs). To hit cap for Shadow, you need 12 rating (6%).Magician's Mantle: Better than Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle for survivability as of 5.3
Resilience - 5.3 made this stat almost useless by reducing the % of damage reduction per point, making stamina much better to stack for survivability in every slot.
The formula for calculating your effective HP:
Effective health = Maximum Health / (1 - % Resilience)
Armories
Veinte
Yde
Yda
___________________
Basic Tips
Priests are offensive support. The damage and CC available to priests make their playstyle more aggressive even when they're healing a flag carrier on defense.
Discipline is generally the stronger spec at both damage and healing, Shadow is the weak utility spec. Holy can do very well if played correctly, but the 6 second cooldown on PW: Shield (and lacking instant burst healing through not having penance) makes Holy overall weaker.
Fearing someone who is taking damage is only useful to interrupt a cast, because Psychic Scream breaks on damage. Don't overlap Fear with another crowd control ability (like Polymorph), it wastes the duration. Don't overextend to fear someone unless you know that other people aren't going to attack or CC you. In Warsong Gulch mid fights you should stay back and use your CDs to peel for yourself. When you're in one of the bases stay close to a wall or pillar and don't get too far away from the people that you might need to fear.
Shadow Word: Pain ticks instantly and stops people from capping flags in Arathi Basin, spam it on those who try.
You're going to get the most burst damage on a single target by first putting up Shadow Word: Pain, casting Smite or Penance, and finishing with a Holy Fire. The only thing level 20 Shadow Priests can do is spam Mind Flay and put Shadow Word: Pain on everything, so there isn't much damage potential there.
Mana efficiency is still a nonissue for Disc since Blizzard messed up the scaling of mana regen when they normalized mana pools. Be careful with your Flash Heal spam as Holy.
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Spells
Smite - Fast cast time, decent damage. This is your main damaging ability.
Flash Heal - Fast, strong heal. Your main healing ability.
Shadow Word: Pain - Weak damage over time, ticks instantly. Used mostly to keep Rogues from restealthing or to get in combat to avoid a Rogue's Sap, but is also useful for getting more damage out on someone you want to kill.
Power Word: Shield - Strong damage absorb. Use often, but only on targets that are taking damage/will be taking damage while it is active. If Disc, spam this on as many people as you want because it doesn't matter.
Holy Fire - No cast time, decent instant damage, weak damage over time. Use this right after Smite or Penance to get some decent burst damage.
Psychic Scream - 8 second AoE fear. Use on as many people as possible, this single ability can and will win games if you use it to stop damage or healing.
Resurrection - Extremely long cast time. Use in Battlegrounds to maintain a strong offense, and try to use it in arenas if one of your teammates die.
Inner Fire - Self buff, keep it up always
Discipline - Penance - Strong, fast heal, also does good damage. Use this as much as possible.Use it for healing when you need an instant heal, someone is low on health and you don't think you can get a Flash Heal off before they die.
Use it for damage when you don't need to heal anyone on your team and don't have any CC cooldowns up.
Holy - Holy Word: Chastise - 3 second disorient, also deals weak damage on a 30 second cooldown. Breaks on damage. Use to interrupt spell casts, kite melee, keep a running target in place so that you can land another CC (like Psychic Scream), or stop damage on yourself or a teammate.
Shadow - Mind Flay - Weak channeled damage. Happens to be Shadow's only DPS ability, but also should be used to slow specific enemy targets (EFC, or peel for healers).
___________________
Macros
Macro API
Code:
#showtooltip Penance
/cast [@target, help, nomod][@player, nomod][@target, modifier: shift][] Penance
Code:
#showtooltip Dominate Mind
/cancelaura Dominate Mind
/cast Dominate Mind
Code:
#showtooltip
/cast [@target, nomod] Holy Word: Chastise
/cast [@focus, modifier: shift] Holy Word: Chastise
Code:
#showtooltip Shadow Word: Pain
/cast [@mouseover, harm, exists, nodead][] Shadow Word: Pain
Code:
#showtooltip Shadow Word: Pain
/cleartarget
/targetenemyplayer
/cast Shadow Word: Pain
Code:
#showtooltip Power Word: Shield
/target Psyfiend
/target Void Tendril
/cast Power Word: Shield
/use 1
/targetlasttarget
Code:
#showtooltip Holy Word: Chastise
/cast [@target, nomod] Holy Word: Chastise
/cast [@focus, modifier: shift] Holy Word: Chastise
Code:
#showtooltip Holy Word Chastise
/cast [@arena1] Holy Word: Chastise
Code:
#showtooltip Holy Word: Chastise
/cast [@arena2] Holy Word: Chastise
Code:
#showtooltip Holy Word: Chastise
/cast [@arena3] Holy Word: Chastise
Code:
#showtooltip Power Word: Shield
/cancelaura Power Word: Shield___________________
Helpful Addons
Icicle or InterruptBar
Tidyplates
Grid & Clique or Healbot or Vuhdo
List of Helpful Addons
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