Smite Priest

Yshari

Yshari

Member
Hey everyone!

After being away from WoW for quite a while, I sort of stumbled upon the 20s community and was very interested! I both wanted to say hi as well as see if there was anything I'm missing.

I played a Smite Priest both in original classic as well as the re-release of Classic WoW for the first few phases and had a blast both pvping and raiding on it. I loved turning around and critting people to death with smite when they were under the impression I was helpless. I ended up also making a twink for the 19s bracket but it didn't last very long.

My intention is to try to re-create a spec like that in the 20s bracket and I hope it is possible. I've already learned that Holy spec seemingly causes Smite to deal twice as much damage as Disc (any idea why this is?) and I'm sure I'm going to miss more things. But this does imply I'll be gearing my Holy Priest over the next few months!

My account is technically a veteran account but it hasn't had a sub in like 10 years so for all intents and purposes, I'll be attempting to gear like a F2P.

I've set up a spreadsheet for myself to evaluate the relative value of gear from many of the formulas I've found on this forum and elsewhere, which I'd be happy to share if there is any interest. I must say the stickies are insanely valuable to get into this mindset and learn everything.

I'm going for Haste > Crit when it comes to secondaries because even though Vers technically seems to have slightly better returns on damage, I like crit for the burst potential.

I hope I get to meet more of you all whether in BGs itself or while queuing for dungeons. Also, is there any advice anybody has for me when it comes to making a weird spec like the one I have in mind work? Anything at all since you obviously cannot find too much info on such a thing anywhere. FWIW, I love weird off-meta specs, and it's what I live for in games.

Thank you once again <3
 
I have no helpful response but I’m excited to see how this works after being away from retail for quite some time.
 
Yshari said:
I loved turning around and critting people to death with smite when they were under the impression I was helpless.
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I don't think anyone believes that priests are helpless right now lol. Your surprise factor might be gone.

Yshari said:
I've already learned that Holy spec seemingly causes Smite to deal twice as much damage as Disc (any idea why this is?) and I'm sure I'm going to miss more things.
Click to expand...

Holy got a 15% damage buff in 9.2. Holy smacks right now. I don't think you'll be disappointed in choosing priest.
 
Ammonite said:
Holy got a 15% damage buff in 9.2. Holy smacks right now. I don't think you'll be disappointed in choosing priest.
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Yeah blizz keeps buffing their damage for PVE with zero consideration for PVP. Meanwhile disc never recovered from all their PVP nerfs.

Yshari said:
I'm going for Haste > Crit when it comes to secondaries because even though Vers technically seems to have slightly better returns on damage, I like crit for the burst potential.
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Yeah that's what I'd do if you want to be a full offensive holy priest. My priest has vers to try and survive hunters lol https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/bleeding-hollow/idkwhaeva but you should def try haste > crit and honestly I'd recommend the +3 int gems for straight damage.

I don't know exactly how balls to the wall offensive you want to be but there's some items that are just really strong that I'll mention. https://www.wowhead.com/item=11808/circle-of-flame is insane for mana. Maybe you'd prefer a meta gem for the +3% crit dmg though. https://www.wowhead.com/item=17943/fist-of-stone is basically mandatory now since it started procc'ing in BGs again. https://www.wowhead.com/item=113082/precious-bloodthorn-loop is nice to 'shadowmeld' a chaos bolt or aimed shot. https://www.wowhead.com/item=13392/the-postmasters-seal the 2 piece set bonus is no joke for clothie. +24 armor is significant but maybe not for a pure dmg hpriest. You'll probably want a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=54793/frag-belt it'll land you more kills for sure. When you inevitably get sick of fighting OP hunters you can also try https://www.wowhead.com/item=37220/essence-of-gossamer?bonus=6710 (its -94 dmg at lvl 20. I've seen it do 12 k healing before)
 
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raziel83 said:
I don't know exactly how balls to the wall offensive you want to be but there's some items that are just really strong that I'll mention.
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Thank you so much for your suggestions, I actually completely missed some of the options you posted. I imagine it's going to take some trial and error to see how balls to wall offensive I'm going to be able to get away with, but I'd like to have a few gear sets to try! That trinket looks insane for what it's worth. I actually also have a Talisman of the Breaker while queuing for slotted gear so I might give that a try as well!
 
Welcome!

I would highly recommend a damage holy priest! Nilicia was an old 19 twink damage holy priest in 2018, recently resurrected. Still working on some gear but mostly done.

I'll explain a few things that I did. Apparently it's rather unorthodox and I'm sure there will be a lot of disagreement.

Stat wise (scaled to lvl29):
Completely ignore Mastery.
Largely ignore Stamina.
Get as much Intellect/SpellPower as you possibly can, even at the expense of secondaries.
Get Haste to 1.3 second cast on Holy Fire/Smite/Flash Heal then stop.
Get Versatility to 18-22%.
Then, get as much Crit as you can!

Remember, you are on everyone's "kill it first" list. Crit has saved my butt more times than I can remember; whether it's a crit Power Word: Shield for 1k+ absorb or a running Renew spam double tick crit for 250 each. Plus, it's too fun to burst with Holy Fire/Death both critting for 45-60% of their healthpool. Many of the lvl20 twinks stack secondaries other than Versatility and are rather squooshy. On the other hand; they hit freaking hard, so you will need a decent amount of Versatility to survive.

You will get interrupted and Holy Locked quite a lot, especially in a large group of enemies where you can't keep track of everyone's interrupt. When you do get Holy Locked and need a heal, I use this macro (The Belt has Spinal Healing Injector on it):

#showtooltip [mod:alt]Desperate Prayer;Mindfire Waistband
/use Mindfire Waistband
/use Desperate Prayer

Some other macros I use:

#showtooltip
/use [combat]Endless Mana Potion
/use [nocombat]Conjured Mana Pie
/use [nocombat]Sweetened Goat's Milk

#showtooltip [mod:alt]Saltwater Potion;Drums of Fury
/use Drums of Fury
/use Saltwater Potion

#showtooltip
/use [mod:alt]Crate of Bobbers: Can of Worms
/use Soul Evacuation Crystal
/use Alchemist's Flask
/use Power Word: Fortitude

As far as healing teammates; keep the useful ones alive and let everyone else die.

Finally, I'll link my mega which contains some unedited pvp videos which may give you an idea. These videos were taken before I upgraded my gear a good bit, my stats in the videos are int 198 (unbuffed), crit 12%, haste 13%, vers 24% @ lvl20. These videos are not really for sharing and mega is slow but may be useful.


Good Luck!


https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/alterac-mountains/nilicia
https://mega.nz/folder/HtRE2RZL#iUt7HZtadRIHEVDbHylajQ
 
Very good advice, usually for equipped items, I prefer using the item code, (e.g. /use 6 ) to Macro the belt item rather than have the item name, even though I believe it does prefer equipped items over inventory items. Can also use /15 to macro the glider back tinker

0 = ammo
1 = head
2 = neck
3 = shoulder
4 = shirt
5 = chest
6 = belt
7 = legs
8 = feet
9 = wrist
10 = gloves
11 = finger 1
12 = finger 2
13 = trinket 1
14 = trinket 2
15 = back
16 = main hand
17 = off hand
18 = ranged
19 = tabard
20 = first bag (the rightmost one)
21 = second bag
22 = third bag
23 = fourth bag (the leftmost one)

Nilicia said:
Welcome!

As far as healing teammates; keep the useful ones alive and let everyone else die.
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Sadly, in this current meta, true. Pre-SL, when Healers were OP and interrupts in the bracket were rare, I could literally heal entire teams and carry them to victory. Nowadays, with the hunter/dps meta, healers are really only effective when they're pocketing strong dps, and it is almost never worth it to heal a clueless leveler, because you risk getting interrupted and having your strong players die
 
raziel83 said:
I don't know exactly how balls to the wall offensive you want to be but there's some items that are just really strong that I'll mention. https://www.wowhead.com/item=11808/circle-of-flame is insane for mana. Maybe you'd prefer a meta gem for the +3% crit dmg though.
Click to expand...

Apologies but I actually might have missed this option. What +3% Crit Damage meta gems are available to me? The only one I could find was one with AGI, is there one for INT users?

In my head I was going to use the +12 Crit, 5% Stun Resist meta gem, but I'm actually rather interested in using a Crit Damage gem, now that you mentioned it!
 
Yshari said:
Apologies but I actually might have missed this option. What +3% Crit Damage meta gems are available to me? The only one I could find was one with AGI, is there one for INT users?

In my head I was going to use the +12 Crit, 5% Stun Resist meta gem, but I'm actually rather interested in using a Crit Damage gem, now that you mentioned it!
Click to expand...

No int version but there's this
https://www.wowhead.com/item=34220/chaotic-skyfire-diamond
Works on heals too.
 
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https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/bleeding-hollow/yshari

Figured I'd post an update! I'm mostly done with TBC socketed gear as well as most other gear slots. I'm crying over my bad luck farming Maraudon for BoED, seems like whether it is WoW Classic or Retail, this weapon continues to elude me. Other than that, I'm starting on enchanting all my gear before starting the profession shuffle for F2Ps! For now, I've chucked in +1 INT gems everywhere to tide me over till I swap over to jewelcrafting. My planned upgrades are in the following order.

1. Weapon -- Blade of Eternal Darkness (https://www.wowhead.com/item=17780/blade-of-eternal-darkness)
2. Trinket 1 -- Essence of Gossamer (https://www.wowhead.com/item=37220/essence-of-gossamer)
3. Trinket 2 -- Ghost Iron Dragonling (https://www.wowhead.com/item=77530/ghost-iron-dragonling)
4. Headgear -- Lightweight Retinal Armor (https://www.wowhead.com/item=77533/lightweight-retinal-armor)

After the above 4, the only things left is to farm are socketed versions of Bracers, Cloak and Rings. Socketed Bracers from Atal'Dazar, and both the Cloak and Rings I have a rotation of killing apexis rares once a day.

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm going heavy Haste/Crit and Vers wherever I can get it. If there's anything obvious I've missed, I'd be happy to hear about it.
 
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the essence doesn't seem worth it to me. Its 2 inconsistent and ive had games where i took 100k dmg and have 60k heals and i really didnt notice it helping. Good only pvp trinket on a class that lacks mobility is probably where its at.
 
Yshari said:
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/bleeding-hollow/yshari

Figured I'd post an update! I'm mostly done with TBC socketed gear as well as most other gear slots. I'm crying over my bad luck farming Maraudon for BoED, seems like whether it is WoW Classic or Retail, this weapon continues to elude me. Other than that, I'm starting on enchanting all my gear before starting the profession shuffle for F2Ps! For now, I've chucked in +1 INT gems everywhere to tide me over till I swap over to jewelcrafting. My planned upgrades are in the following order.

1. Weapon -- Blade of Eternal Darkness (https://www.wowhead.com/item=17780/blade-of-eternal-darkness)
2. Trinket 1 -- Essence of Gossamer (https://www.wowhead.com/item=37220/essence-of-gossamer)
3. Trinket 2 -- Ghost Iron Dragonling (https://www.wowhead.com/item=77530/ghost-iron-dragonling)
4. Headgear -- Lightweight Retinal Armor (https://www.wowhead.com/item=77533/lightweight-retinal-armor)

After the above 4, the only things left is to farm are socketed versions of Bracers, Cloak and Rings. Socketed Bracers from Atal'Dazar, and both the Cloak and Rings I have a rotation of killing apexis rares once a day.

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm going heavy Haste/Crit and Vers wherever I can get it. If there's anything obvious I've missed, I'd be happy to hear about it.
Click to expand...

Socketed Rezan (atal'dazar) Ring is better than an apexis rare ring! And Ring from Council of Captains (Freehold) is haste/crit that can roll a socket as well.

Just a heads up if you didn't already know - that should save you some time as well, since you can queue for them right?
 
raziel83 said:
Bruh I literally post my priest with the items equipped at the top of the thread. https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/bleeding-hollow/idkwhaeva

It's an extra 5% physical mitigation in a bracket that's dominated by physical damage. Only really worth it if you stack some vers though.

Unless you're talking about wearing the full set? You'd lose way too much imo.
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its physical dmg reduction so you wear them vs hunter/war comps otherwise keep the vers sets?
 
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