Roughshod priest guide for hoofsies
So a lot of you have decided that Draenei make fabulous priests and have decided to roll one. Not that I blame you. The Draenei are sexy with hoofies that no one can resist. And thus, since I am insane enough to have leveled two priests, some of you have asked me, “OMFG, wut do I do 2 levl teh preist?” Well I’ll tell you. It’s a long strange trip, not unlike following the Grateful Dead on tour, but you all can make it, given a little time and masochism.
First thing to go over is the racials for Draenei. These Russian cosmonauts have some extremely useful traits, which leads me to believe that Blizz was not smoking their crack pipes when planning out this race.
-Racials-
Inspiring Presence: Gives everyone in your party (but not you) an extra 1% chance to hit with spells. This will make you popular with mages and locks. Perhaps even other priests will get moist in the pants since higher % to hit makes for more solid mind conrolling.
Gift of the Naaru: This is a heal over time that increases in effectiveness as you level. It costs no mana and has a three minute cooldown. It’s useful for those “Oh fuck, out of mana” moments. Keep in mind that even though it isn’t listed as a holy spell specifically, you can’t use it in shadowform as of this most current patch. Which I think is bullshit, but that’s how it goes.
Symbol of Hope: This priest specific Draenei racial is a gimpy group innervate skill. It regenerates a certain amount of mana every 5 seconds for 15 seconds. In other words, three ticks of whatever it happens to be. It’s not stellar, but it can save your ass in a pinch as it’s usually enough mana for a couple more heals. It comes with a five minute cooldown.
Fear Ward: Pretty simple skill. You cast it on anyone and it makes the target immune to fear for 10 minutes. The catch is that you can only cast it once every thirty seconds. When you first get it, it will only be good for one charge. So the target gets guarded against one fear, then you have to reapply. You get more charges as you skill up.
-Starting out-
Here are a few basic tips for getting started.
1. Get a wand. The level 5 wand you can make through enchanting works spiffily. The bulk of your damage early on is going to be wand damage.
2. Get bags. Nuff said.
3. Send over enough money to cover your skills and water addiction.
4. Learn first-aid and level it.
-Gear-
Until you hit the level cap, you’re going to focus on two primary stats. Spirit, and intellect. In that order. Spirit is a wonderous thing for us priests, and the more of it you have, the faster your mana is going to come back to you. Since we’re not like those bastards with life tap and evocation, you’re going to need to become spirit whores to keep from having painful downtime.
Therefore, you should be investing in anything “of the owl” from level 1 until you hit the level cap. Avoid gear that is just spell or shadow damage unless there is ample spirit attached to it as well. Avoid gear that gives plus to healing until you’ve hit the level cap. Healing gear doesn’t do jack unless you get that shit past +200 anyways. Just focus on gear that helps you manage your mana, and you will be a happier priesty.
Keep in mind that your most important piece of gear is going to be your wand. My secret to less time sitting and more time killing, is that I’m wanding the mob for at least the last 30% of its health. This gives me time to get outside the five second rule when spirit tap procs… more on that later.
Anyhooters, it’s important that you keep your wand upgraded. Running around with a wand twenty levels below you will cause me to point and laugh at you. And maybe cry a little inside. Seriously, if you buy anything off the auction house, make it a wand. And carry two on you at all times.
Yes, I said two. Here’s why. Ever fight those annoying shits that are immune to a certain school of magic? Ever get pissed off when some fucker has a fire shield up and it absorbs all your fire damage? Having two wands of different elements will help you not be fucked in situations like this. My favorite elements are arcane and nature, since not a lot is resistant to those. Just keep your old wand when you upgrade and you’ll always have two.
-Builds-
Naturally, I’m going to tell you to spend all your points in the shadow tree. Of course, only smart and beautiful priests level as shadow, leaving the holy-tards to their painful lament. You will smirk to yourself as you walk past that guy spending ten minutes killing a mob with holy fire, knowing that you can melt its face in only a few seconds. Yes, you will be a badass.
Here is how I go about spending my points.
10-14: Spirit Tap: When you land a killing blow on a mob that gives you experience or honor, your spirit doubles for 15 seconds and it will allow 50% of your mana to continue to regen if you start casting. But there’s a catch. You won’t get the full benefit of this spell unless you are outside the 5 second rule. What is the 5 second rule you ask? Of course you asked. Simply put, your mana doesn’t regenerate naturally while you cast and for five seconds after. So make sure you kill those mobs with your wand, so that when spirit tap procs, you’ll be well outside the dead mana zone and get the full benefits of this talent.
15-16: Improved Shadow Word: Pain: This talent simply makes the DoT last longer, which in turn makes it deal more damage. You’ll have this on every mob you kill. This and your wand will deal the bulk of your damage.
17-19: Shadow Focus: Reduces the target’s resistance to your shadow spells. Maxing out this talent will allow you to take on mobs three, even four levels higher than you without being resisted constantly. It’s baaaadass.
20: Mind Flay: AKA: MELT FACE. Mind flay is a channeled spell, so make sure you’re either shielded, or not being hit before using it. Due to its low mana cost and lack of cooldown, you’ll be using it a lot.
21-22: Shadow Focus: Get this talent maxed.
23-24: Improved Psychic Scream: Reduces the cooldown of this skill by 4 seconds. It’s handy, but the real reason you need it is to open up silence.
25-29: Shadow Weaving: AKA: Makes warlocks in your party cream their pants. For every application of a shadow spell, you place a debuff on your target which stacks up to 5 times. Each stack makes the target take 3% more shadow damage.
30: Vampiric Embrace: Everyone in your party gets 20% of your shadow damage back as health. No, shadow wands do not count.
31: Silence: Useful for pulling caster mobs and shutting people up in pvp. Admit it, it makes you quiver in your pants.
32-33: Improved Vampriric Embrace: Bumps up the total health received from shadow damage by an additional 10%.
34: Blackout: This is a skill that you grab a few ranks of here and there as you can. 1 point gives your shadow spells a 2% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds. At 5 ranks, that becomes a 10% chance. It procs like crazy at 5 points and pisses casters off like mad.
35-37 Darkness: Increases shadow damage from 2% to 10% based on rank.
38-39 Blackout: Grab two more points here.
40: Shadowform: At last you are a true shadow priest. Mobs and players will flee from your awesome evilness. Basically, this boosts your shadow damage by 15% and reduces the damage you take by 15%. You can’t cast any holy spells in this form. So, bandage! Remember, I told you to level first aid. This is where you need that.
41-42: Finish off Darkness.
43-44: Good time to get Blackout maxed too.
45-49: Misery: Your SW:P, Mind Flay and Vampiric Touch will put a debuff on the target, making it take 5% more spell damage. This is any spell damage, which will make mages and locks wet themselves with glee.
50: Vampiric Touch: Finally, priests get another DoT. This causes a moderate amount of damage over 15 seconds and causes all of your party members to receive 5% of the damage you do in mana. That’s right, this DoT is like Vamp Embrace, but it throws mana back at you. Cool, innit?
51-55: Wand Specialization: this is in the discipline tree. You won’t notice much difference until it’s maxed, but it will help speed up your grinding at these higher levels.
56-57: Improved Power Word: Fortitude: More stamina. Nuff said.
58-59: Martydom: After getting hit by a critical strike, for 6 seconds, you’ll have a focused casting buff. This will keep you from losing cast time while being hit.
The last ten levels are up to you. Depending on whether or not you want to be exclusively a face-melter or a hybrid with some extra support talents, there are a number of choices. Here are some recommendations.
Silent Resolve: 20% less threat from all of your spells and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 20%. Useful for group healing and in pvp.
Inner Focus: Basically this gives you one mana-free spell every three mintues. A lot of priests use this before buffing. You’ll need to pop one more point into Disc to get it, but it’s a worthwhile talent for any build.
Mediation: Allows 15% of your mana to continue to regen while casting. It’s mana regen, therefore nifty.
Healing Focus: gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption when casting a healing spell. This is one of those life and death situation talents. If you’ve shifted out of shadowform to heal yourself, you’ll definitely be glad you have this.
Shadow Affinity: 25% less threat from shadow spells. If you manage to find that rare guild that wants you to melt face in raids, you’ll need this. If not, ignore it.
Shadow Power: Increases the crit chance of Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death by 15%. Since you don’t get SW:D until level 62, I’d say wait until 62 to get it.
Focused Mind: Reduces the mana cost of Mind Blast, Mind Control and Mind Flay by 15%. Mana saved is mana earned. It’s nice, but not essential. Put leftover points here if nothing else tickles your fancy.
That's about it. Have fun and enjoy hoofsies.
First thing to go over is the racials for Draenei. These Russian cosmonauts have some extremely useful traits, which leads me to believe that Blizz was not smoking their crack pipes when planning out this race.
-Racials-
Inspiring Presence: Gives everyone in your party (but not you) an extra 1% chance to hit with spells. This will make you popular with mages and locks. Perhaps even other priests will get moist in the pants since higher % to hit makes for more solid mind conrolling.
Gift of the Naaru: This is a heal over time that increases in effectiveness as you level. It costs no mana and has a three minute cooldown. It’s useful for those “Oh fuck, out of mana” moments. Keep in mind that even though it isn’t listed as a holy spell specifically, you can’t use it in shadowform as of this most current patch. Which I think is bullshit, but that’s how it goes.
Symbol of Hope: This priest specific Draenei racial is a gimpy group innervate skill. It regenerates a certain amount of mana every 5 seconds for 15 seconds. In other words, three ticks of whatever it happens to be. It’s not stellar, but it can save your ass in a pinch as it’s usually enough mana for a couple more heals. It comes with a five minute cooldown.
Fear Ward: Pretty simple skill. You cast it on anyone and it makes the target immune to fear for 10 minutes. The catch is that you can only cast it once every thirty seconds. When you first get it, it will only be good for one charge. So the target gets guarded against one fear, then you have to reapply. You get more charges as you skill up.
-Starting out-
Here are a few basic tips for getting started.
1. Get a wand. The level 5 wand you can make through enchanting works spiffily. The bulk of your damage early on is going to be wand damage.
2. Get bags. Nuff said.
3. Send over enough money to cover your skills and water addiction.
4. Learn first-aid and level it.
-Gear-
Until you hit the level cap, you’re going to focus on two primary stats. Spirit, and intellect. In that order. Spirit is a wonderous thing for us priests, and the more of it you have, the faster your mana is going to come back to you. Since we’re not like those bastards with life tap and evocation, you’re going to need to become spirit whores to keep from having painful downtime.
Therefore, you should be investing in anything “of the owl” from level 1 until you hit the level cap. Avoid gear that is just spell or shadow damage unless there is ample spirit attached to it as well. Avoid gear that gives plus to healing until you’ve hit the level cap. Healing gear doesn’t do jack unless you get that shit past +200 anyways. Just focus on gear that helps you manage your mana, and you will be a happier priesty.
Keep in mind that your most important piece of gear is going to be your wand. My secret to less time sitting and more time killing, is that I’m wanding the mob for at least the last 30% of its health. This gives me time to get outside the five second rule when spirit tap procs… more on that later.
Anyhooters, it’s important that you keep your wand upgraded. Running around with a wand twenty levels below you will cause me to point and laugh at you. And maybe cry a little inside. Seriously, if you buy anything off the auction house, make it a wand. And carry two on you at all times.
Yes, I said two. Here’s why. Ever fight those annoying shits that are immune to a certain school of magic? Ever get pissed off when some fucker has a fire shield up and it absorbs all your fire damage? Having two wands of different elements will help you not be fucked in situations like this. My favorite elements are arcane and nature, since not a lot is resistant to those. Just keep your old wand when you upgrade and you’ll always have two.
-Builds-
Naturally, I’m going to tell you to spend all your points in the shadow tree. Of course, only smart and beautiful priests level as shadow, leaving the holy-tards to their painful lament. You will smirk to yourself as you walk past that guy spending ten minutes killing a mob with holy fire, knowing that you can melt its face in only a few seconds. Yes, you will be a badass.
Here is how I go about spending my points.
10-14: Spirit Tap: When you land a killing blow on a mob that gives you experience or honor, your spirit doubles for 15 seconds and it will allow 50% of your mana to continue to regen if you start casting. But there’s a catch. You won’t get the full benefit of this spell unless you are outside the 5 second rule. What is the 5 second rule you ask? Of course you asked. Simply put, your mana doesn’t regenerate naturally while you cast and for five seconds after. So make sure you kill those mobs with your wand, so that when spirit tap procs, you’ll be well outside the dead mana zone and get the full benefits of this talent.
15-16: Improved Shadow Word: Pain: This talent simply makes the DoT last longer, which in turn makes it deal more damage. You’ll have this on every mob you kill. This and your wand will deal the bulk of your damage.
17-19: Shadow Focus: Reduces the target’s resistance to your shadow spells. Maxing out this talent will allow you to take on mobs three, even four levels higher than you without being resisted constantly. It’s baaaadass.
20: Mind Flay: AKA: MELT FACE. Mind flay is a channeled spell, so make sure you’re either shielded, or not being hit before using it. Due to its low mana cost and lack of cooldown, you’ll be using it a lot.
21-22: Shadow Focus: Get this talent maxed.
23-24: Improved Psychic Scream: Reduces the cooldown of this skill by 4 seconds. It’s handy, but the real reason you need it is to open up silence.
25-29: Shadow Weaving: AKA: Makes warlocks in your party cream their pants. For every application of a shadow spell, you place a debuff on your target which stacks up to 5 times. Each stack makes the target take 3% more shadow damage.
30: Vampiric Embrace: Everyone in your party gets 20% of your shadow damage back as health. No, shadow wands do not count.
31: Silence: Useful for pulling caster mobs and shutting people up in pvp. Admit it, it makes you quiver in your pants.
32-33: Improved Vampriric Embrace: Bumps up the total health received from shadow damage by an additional 10%.
34: Blackout: This is a skill that you grab a few ranks of here and there as you can. 1 point gives your shadow spells a 2% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds. At 5 ranks, that becomes a 10% chance. It procs like crazy at 5 points and pisses casters off like mad.
35-37 Darkness: Increases shadow damage from 2% to 10% based on rank.
38-39 Blackout: Grab two more points here.
40: Shadowform: At last you are a true shadow priest. Mobs and players will flee from your awesome evilness. Basically, this boosts your shadow damage by 15% and reduces the damage you take by 15%. You can’t cast any holy spells in this form. So, bandage! Remember, I told you to level first aid. This is where you need that.
41-42: Finish off Darkness.
43-44: Good time to get Blackout maxed too.
45-49: Misery: Your SW:P, Mind Flay and Vampiric Touch will put a debuff on the target, making it take 5% more spell damage. This is any spell damage, which will make mages and locks wet themselves with glee.
50: Vampiric Touch: Finally, priests get another DoT. This causes a moderate amount of damage over 15 seconds and causes all of your party members to receive 5% of the damage you do in mana. That’s right, this DoT is like Vamp Embrace, but it throws mana back at you. Cool, innit?
51-55: Wand Specialization: this is in the discipline tree. You won’t notice much difference until it’s maxed, but it will help speed up your grinding at these higher levels.
56-57: Improved Power Word: Fortitude: More stamina. Nuff said.
58-59: Martydom: After getting hit by a critical strike, for 6 seconds, you’ll have a focused casting buff. This will keep you from losing cast time while being hit.
The last ten levels are up to you. Depending on whether or not you want to be exclusively a face-melter or a hybrid with some extra support talents, there are a number of choices. Here are some recommendations.
Silent Resolve: 20% less threat from all of your spells and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 20%. Useful for group healing and in pvp.
Inner Focus: Basically this gives you one mana-free spell every three mintues. A lot of priests use this before buffing. You’ll need to pop one more point into Disc to get it, but it’s a worthwhile talent for any build.
Mediation: Allows 15% of your mana to continue to regen while casting. It’s mana regen, therefore nifty.
Healing Focus: gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption when casting a healing spell. This is one of those life and death situation talents. If you’ve shifted out of shadowform to heal yourself, you’ll definitely be glad you have this.
Shadow Affinity: 25% less threat from shadow spells. If you manage to find that rare guild that wants you to melt face in raids, you’ll need this. If not, ignore it.
Shadow Power: Increases the crit chance of Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death by 15%. Since you don’t get SW:D until level 62, I’d say wait until 62 to get it.
Focused Mind: Reduces the mana cost of Mind Blast, Mind Control and Mind Flay by 15%. Mana saved is mana earned. It’s nice, but not essential. Put leftover points here if nothing else tickles your fancy.
That's about it. Have fun and enjoy hoofsies.