(Note: only some of this applies to Shadow Priests)

The Burning Crusade has altered the PvP landscape. Thanks to the new invention of Arenas, Blizzard has had to pay much, much more attention to PvP balance in accordance to Arena environments - controlled, consumable-free warzones that are direct, pure PvP bouts without the constraints of strategical objectives like in the Battlegrounds. If you think this hasn't altered the balance between the classes, you either don't PvP or you live under a rock. :)

Before TBC, PvP was dominated by PvE'ers. Basically, the gear you obtained via PvE would allow you to succeed in PvP - guilds decked out in Naxx gear would positively wreck groups in PvP blues or BWL gear. This is no longer the case. Show up to an Arena match in your PvE gear and you're just plain squishy. The players dedicated to PvP still had to have PvE guilds to "use" to gear up, since Battleground and Honor rewards only got you so far.

As the game progressed, damage output kept increasing substantially over the ability to defend against it. I know that as a PvP healer, my ability to heal off incoming damage just flat out became harder and harder as time went on. Yes, my healing gear kept getting better and better, but a +100 heal increase paled in comparison to the stacking damage increases that DPS'ers would obtain from super high-end weaponry (remember, back then, healing didn't increase percentage-wise with talents, but damage did).

I figured that TBC would "reset" this paradigm. It didn't - in fact, it's gotten worse as time has gone on. The multiplicative effects of increased damage and talents from DPS'ers has created damage outputs that seem to fly off the deep end sometimes - Mortal Strike crits for 5000+ on cloth, Moonkins that can Starfire for over 4,000 damage a blast, the list goes on.

I think I reached my low around April. I'd walk around and just get destroyed. As a healer, I'm generally targetted quickly and removed from a fight first in a battleground, and my survivability went into the toilet, despite having great PvE gear that focused on stamina (a dead Priest does 0 healing).

I had to adapt or reroll. So I adapted.



The New Priest Paradigm

The first thing any aspiring PvP Priest has to realize and smash into their skulls is that they are not primary healers. While Priests were the undisputed "kings" of healing pre-TBC, that torch has passed on to Paladins and Shamans in PvP along with PvE raiding. The discussion of a Priest's role in PvE raid healing is best discussed separately; we're still good, but we lack serious utility that the other healing classes can provide (and stack). No, in PvP, Priests have three main roles:

1) Dispelling
2) Mana Burning
3) Main Tanking

Yes, Main Tanking. In PvP, battlegrounds or arenas, the Priest is often the Main Tank.

Let's face it. We wear cloth, and that makes any Warrior or Rogue salivate. Put a melee character in our face and we wilt. Without appropriate defenses, a geared and spec'ed Mortal Strike Warrior can kill us in less than 6 seconds - and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

Or is there?

Blizzard has altered the PvP landscape by making PvP an alternate means of progressing one's character. In other words, playing a lot of PvP is no longer just something to do on the side because good PvE gear is better than the PvP stuff anyway. No, PvP is a must in order to progress your character for more PvP - because without PvP gear, you'll just get wrecked. Players who haven't realized this, thinking that epics they've obtained in PvE raiding will let them kick butt in battlegrounds or arenas, get positively destroyed in these environments and wonder what the heck is going on. They're used to the old system, where being ahead of others on PvE progression gave them an advantage. It's just plain not true anymore.

Priests, possibly more than any other class in the game, need to gear up for PvP. Why? Well, when you look at a PvP Priest's top gear priorities, you'll see why:

1) Stamina
2) Resilience
3) Armor

Your biggest threats in PvP in terms of dying quickly are Warriors and Rogues. Mitigating how much they own you is everything, or you simply won't last long. Priests gear up for survival, just as the Main Tank of a PvE raiding guild has by far the harshest gear requirements to succeed. Without the gear, prepare for a very frustrating experience.

Ok, so where do you get the gear? Arenas and Battlegrounds. But how can you progress in either when you don't have the gear? Well, there's the rub - you have to work your way up, just as you would in PvE progression.

We're in Arena season 2 now. The PvP gear is item level 128 and 136, which corresponds roughly to Tier 5 gear. Obtaining the "Tier 5" PvP gear is easier if you have the "Tier 4" (season 1) gear. That's how it works. Going in to PvP now with PvE epics is like walking into Serpentshrine Cavern wearing all blues. You won't get far. Again, this is such a dynamic shift from the past that it really catches people by surprise. Someone dueling in Tier 5 PvE gear against someone in "Tier 4" (season 1) PvP gear will get completely smashed by the PvP-geared player, assuming equal skill/experience.

However, all is not lost. Unlike with PvE progression, "starting late" doesn't put you permanently behind the curve. For starters, the battleground honor gear can be obtained simply by playing a lot - it's gear that rewards time spent over skill/ability. As for the Arena gear, if you're starting out now, you have to accept that for the current season, you are using it to gear up for the *next* season. You can get into the action at the high end, but you need to accept that you won't push the top of the arena this season.

For Priests, what does PvP gear give you?

1) Stamina
2) Resilience
3) Armor

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Once you accept your role as a tank - a target - you'll realize that gearing up for survival is the top priority. Blizzard's realized that too and added armor bonuses to our Season 2 gear.

So wait, what's all this fuss over Resilience? Resilience reduces the chance that you will be crit by an enemy attack. On top of that, resilience reduces the damage that a crit does against you. Stacking resilience is critical to your survival (pun intended). In Arena fights especially, crits are usually what determines success or failure in balanced groups - the ability to burst down an enemy while healers are occupied - and survival against huge spikes give Priests the edge they need. Resilience does even more than that for a Priest, however.

Since World of Warcraft's game engine has no way of saying "hey, that hit WOULD have been a crit, if it weren't for your resilience, you know" to the victim of an attack, resilience provides Priests with especially nice boosts. Priests have three key defensive PvP talents that proc off of crits.

1) Martyrdom - a 100% chance to gain Focused Casting for 6 seconds, preventing spells from being "pushed back" while casting and gaining 20% resistance to spell interrupts.
2) Blessed Recovery - heals back 25% of a crit's damage over the next 6 seconds.
3) Blessed Resilience - 60% chance to become completely uncrittable for the next 6 seconds when crit.

So, when we're crit, and we have these talents, we gain 20% resistance to interrupts, an automatic HoT to heal back some of the damage, a 60% chance to be uncrittable, and zero spell pushback when casting. All for 6 seconds (notice the synergy of that timing).

But wait! Wouldn't resilience be a bad thing then? It almost sounds like it's GOOD to be crit, and resilience prevents crits. Ah, but here's the kicker: since the victim has no way of knowing that a crit was turned into a normal attack by their resilience, Blizzard added a percentage check, based on your resilience, that normal (non-crit) hits against you can proc crit-based talents. Thus, one or more of the above talent effects can proc even on normal hits.

Yeah, baby.

Priests want to look at two "sets" of gear: The Merciless Gladiator's Set from the Arena vendor in Area 52, and the Veteran's gear from the battleground honor vendor. Combining the two covers all eight armor slots. Then, of course, there's PvP gear for all other slots as well from honor/arena rewards. These items come with high stamina, loads of resilience, and armor bonuses. You'll find that the main tradeoff between these gear pieces and their Tier 5 PvE equivalents is that Spirit is completely tossed out in favor of more Stamina and resilience. Trust me, Spirit won't do you much good in PvP. You are constantly casting, always.

#1 priority for Honor points is to get the advanced PvP trinket, the one with the 2 minute cooldown and resilience. This is absolutely essential for any serious PvP.

The difference in survivability from PvP gear - once you collect enough of it to pull in an extra few thousand hit points and resilience protection from crits - is substantial. Again, Priests really benefit from this, possibly more than any other class, because in group PvP we tend to be the first target. In high rated arena PvP, that actually changes somewhat, simply because Priests at that level are all so highly geared for tanking that teams will go for someone else. You need the gear to get there. :)



Talents

There are six key talents for Priest PvP. Three I've mentioned already: Martyrdom, Blessed Recovery, and Blessed Resilience. All of these are the "oh noes, I've been crit" talents that are set up for your role as Main Tank in PvP.

What was one of the other key roles in PvP? Oh yeah, Mana Burn. As such, Improved Mana Burn is another key talent. It turns your Mana Burn from a 3 second cast to a 2 second cast. The difference is enormous. In Arena play, Mana Burning opposing Paladins especially is a key duty of a Priest. In general PvP, there are many classes that you can just plain neuter with solid Mana Burning. Hunters will find themselves in trouble after you've hit them with a few burns and they've lost the use of many specials.

Seeing Bloodlust/Heroism (the Shaman temporary buff) combined with Mana Burn turns your burns into 1.4 second mana obliterators. Left alone, a Priest with this buff will completely wreck an enemy's spellcasters. In fact, I won a 5v5 match once, despite us losing the first player, simply because I had burned off all of a Paladin's, Priest's, and Mage's mana during a Heroism-Mana Burn orgy. Suddenly, three opponents became near-useless and it turned into a 4 vs 2.5 match.

The fifth key talent is Healing Focus. If you don't have this talent anyway, there's no hope for you.

Last of all, there's Focused Power. Focused Power reduces the casting time of Mass Dispel by a full second, allowing you to cast it in 0.5 seconds, and gives it 4% more chance to hit (bringing it to the spellhit cap against other players). It also bumps up your chance to hit for Smites and Mind Blasts by 4%, but that's more of an ancillary benefit. You won't be casting either of those two spells very often. Don't think that second matters? When a Paladin bubbles, removing it in less than a second prevents him from getting off a heal and lets your teammates smash him flat. Also, a 0.5 second cast is so fast that it's very difficult for enemies focusing on you to stop you from casting it. There's nothing like starting an arena match and ripping the enemy team's buffs off them in a few seconds tops with a couple of quick mass dispels.

If you're studying hard, you'll see that to get these key talents, you'll need to spend at least 33 points in Holy and 27 points in Discipline. There will be "spare" points along the way and builds differ in how those points are spent. For Holy, many of the common healing-oriented spells shouldn't be skipped, but don't forget Holy Nova. That one talent point gives you the option to break stealth of opponents with cheap Rank 1 casts, and nuking Hunters' Snake Traps with a cast of max rank.

What you do with that last talent point is also up to you.



Summary

If you want to be a healing Priest in PvP, and not die in seconds, you've got to gear up for it. You just have to. Other classes don't have to as much - Paladins in particular are so often completely ignored (or just CC'ed) by opponents who dislike whittling them down only to see a bubble pop. But Priests - Warriors and Rogues especially love annihilating the hell out of you, and the only way to stop them from getting away with it is to gear up with the mindset that YOU are the tank in PvP. If you get the appropriate talents, it just makes you all the tougher to take down.

Interestingly, the effect that Arenas have had on the Battlegrounds is substantial too. As I've mentioned earlier, the difference between those with PvP gear and those without can be enormous for some classes. When I'm pugging Battlegrounds now, I'm almost a god sometimes, even with just 5 PvP gear pieces. 11,000 hit points and 200 resilience makes me tough to kill for players sporting mostly PvE gear or those who aren't serious about PvP, and I've had times where I've kited multiple players across an entire battleground trying desperately to kill me. Meanwhile, my battleground groupmates would take key objectives, cap flags, whatever. I recall one WSG in particular where 4 Horde chased me from the Alliance GY all the way to the Horde GY before finally killing me. Their earnestness in trying to get one measly HK turned the fight around from an Alliance GY campfest into a win, simply because I took 4 players out of the match, effectively, for over an entire minute. Had one of them been more PvP-oriented, with Arena gear and such, I doubt I could have gotten away with it. Had one of them wised up and realized that chasing me all over the map wasn't worth it, it wouldn't have worked either - but not everybody is all that smart. :)

Anyhow, I'm no PvP god - I started late (about halfway through season 1) and only recently started playing 5v5 arena. But I obtained a Rival rating (top 10% in my battlegroup) in just pure PvE gear and a PvP trinket, and I thought I'd relate what I've learned in the process to anyone starting out this "PvP thing" and wondering what to do as a healing Priest.

As always, comments/questions welcome, especially from other Priests. I keep wondering if the Lounge needs a PvP forum. :)

-Bolty

Very well said Bolty. Looking back on the "old" roles of priests in pvp I find the new metagame remarkably different. Priests have gone from primary healbots to some sort of offensive caster/healer hybrid. I think this shift is great, while the priest is a little more dependent on gear than other classes, priests are very much dependent on individual player skill and knowledge and have a lot of room for an outstanding player to really shine.

Oh Bolty, you're so right!

I find it interesting that you favour Blessed Resilience over Pain Suppression. I think you have probably made the correct choice: Pain Suppression can be dispelled, purged or spellstolen, can it not? In any event a passive beats something you have to activate by a mile since the assist train often starts with a Cheap Shot or a Charge stun.

On the other hand going for Pain Suppression means you can pick up Power Infusion and 5% stamina on the way

Next when you say

are you referring to outlook rather than capacity for killing? With the exception of certain pvp set bonuses (eg lowered Intercept cooldowns) the PVP gear does not improve your ability to dish out damage. Or do you feel that PvP gear out damages PVE gear on players and, if so, how come?

Lastly having arena-ed quite a bit with my Paladin (but in less competent teams) my feeling now is that players are quite easy to keep healed unless the healers are disrupted. Often a match will have 3 dpsers focussing someone while 2 healers keep them up very successfully. Then we get owned when someone stops dpsing and starts shutting down the healers. We met one Mage who alternately sheeped us two paladins and counterspelled and did remarkably well in shutting down 2 paladins for approx 10-15 seconds. (I permitted the Polymorph at first since it wasnt crucial then when it started to look bad I got countered shutting down both heals and bubbles, that Mage really out-thought me and my co-healer)

Lastly some mechanics questions:
Does Silent Resolve's anti-dispel stack with Pain Suppression's anti-dispel for a total of 85%?
Does anti-dispel also cover Purge and Spellsteal?

That's correct, and it's why Pain Suppression is not a popular talent for PvP and the 28/33 combo is considered the cookie-cutter. An activated defense that can be dispelled just doesn't compare to a passive defense that fires all the time...and with a Warrior/Rogue on me, I mean *all* the time.


The stamina's nice, but Power Infusion is a crap PvP talent. Compared to Bloodlust/Heroism, it's not even close - another common Priest complaint about why healing Priests have little raid stackability. A DPS boost on one person for 15 seconds compared to a 30% speed buff on the entire party for 40 seconds!?!?!?!? Especially since my arena teams have no offensive spellcasters, Power Infusion would do me little good. And, like Pain Suppression, Power Infusion can be dispelled or stolen!


Have you seen those PvP weapons?


High-level arena play in 5v5 comes down to:

1) Mana
2) Crowd Control

This is because everyone's got great gear and just doesn't die easily. If someone ever gets "burst down", it's because either that side's healers were CC'ed or OOM, or else that side did a poor job of CC'ing the enemy and let 4 players tee off on someone. Nobody survives against four DPS'ers for long.

The best 5v5 matches are the ones where both sides are low or out of mana and you're desperately trying everything you can to keep going.


Yes, but there have been reports that Silent Resolve doesn't work too well. It's hard to properly test and I don't know if anyone's put it to hard testing, but rumors are that Silent Resolve only winds up applying to the Priest's personal buffs. If I'm buffing my group, I'd want the buffs on my entire group to have a lower chance of being dispelled, not just for me.

As for anti-dispel, it does apply to Purge, but I don't know about Spellsteal.

-Bolty

BTW, you can dispell bloodlust and heroism as well. I don't know about spell stealing it since I don't have a high level mage, but they can be dispelled too. They are still better than PI, but they have the same issue of being purged/dispelled off.

Silent Resolve does not apply to Pain Suppression currently, that is a known bug scheduled to be fixed:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...ageNo=1&sid=1#6

You can spellsteal these buffs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bloodlust/Heroism is something all Shamans get. Priests have to spec 31 points into Discipline to get Power Infusion, a far crappier ability than Bloodlust/Heroism, and 41 points into Discipline to get Pain Suppression.

Which can both be dispelled. Grr. :-)

So it's not shocking that many Priests say "screw that" in disgust. Oh - and the easiest way to kill a Priest is put one DPS'er on them, and one other player to dispel or purge them nonstop. This is because:

Renew
Power Word: Shield
Prayer of Mending
Pain Suppression
Blessed Resilience
Blessed Recovery
Focused Casting

Are all dispellable/purgable. These are all the instant abilities Priests actively and passively use to stay alive.

Anyhow, thanks for the info everyone on the spellsteal stuff. Seeing a Mage spellsteal Pain Suppression would be...scary.

-Bolty

Bolty, I'm brand new to the forums...found them through this post.
I have to say that my current pvp story is exactly like yours...I have slightly less arena gear, but all of the honor pieces and trinks. Priest pvp has become very exciting again, especially in BGs where rogues are expecting to drop you instantly.

I run with 366 resilience atm, and I have a question about advanced pvp gameplay.
In 3v3 arenas I am ALWAYS a first target, and I have come to expect it. My biggest problem is that I can rarely get a casted spell off, particularly mana burn. I have the focus gem, and that certainly helps occasionally, but generally speaking I get interrupted 4 out of 5 casts.

....HOW do you effectively use mana burn in an intense pvp situation?
(please assume that the opponents are sharp and are using interrupts consistently)


Some tools I have been thinking about include Talisman of the Breaker which reduces interrupts by 20%. I haven't been wearing it, favoring instead the pvp healing neck.
Mainly, though, I am convinced that I am doing something WRONG strategically or positionally since I get interrupted so damn consistently. Many rounds today we lost and it was mainly because my team lost the mana battle and I was unable to effectively mana burn.

My general pattern for arena gameplay 3v3 is to get a few initial burns and then turn to keeping myself alive. Lately though, I've been getting killed a bit quicker (probably because of a higher rating). I spent most of my time TRYING to cast but not successfully casting.

Should I try to draw the interrupt with a casted heal? Should I use a fear/burn combo? Is there something else that I'm missing here? Is offensive dispelling more valuable in the beginning?
I know it's a lot of questions, but I'd like you to address some of the more advanced strategies for priest arena healing. I certainly have some of my own ideas and patterns, but as of late I don't think they have been very effective.
Thanks in advance.
Smoogee - Smolderthorn

Smoogee, heya, welcome to the forum. :) 366 resilience sure beats my 275. Nice gear. What's the "focus gem?"

Whether or not you're the first target depends greatly on your group makeup. My 2v2 group is a Rogue and myself. While many groups go for me first there, there's quite a few who go for the Rogue first - and die horribly as a result (most Rogues are squishier than Priests).

My 3v3 group is a Rogue, Hunter, and me. The Hunter is usually the first target - Hunters are rendered ineffective when someone gets in their face, and unfortunately our Hunter is also the least geared and tends to go splat. Success rate isn't so hot.

My 5v5 makeup is Warrior (of course), Rogue, me, resto Shaman, feral Druid. Interestingly enough, most groups so far tend to go for the Shaman first and leave me alone. The temptation of removing totems and powerful healing quickly usually draws them to the Shaman like flies to a bug zapper. It depends on the enemy group makeup. Melee-heavy groups would likely go for me first, due to cloth, while ranged groups like to eliminate the Shaman.

Now, keep in mind too, none of these Arena groups are "high rated" (~2000). My 2v2 group got up to around 1900 last season and my new 5v5 is just getting to 1700. If you're higher rated, your experiences are going to be different than mine.


If you're getting focus-fired, Mana Burn is just straight out. You'll never get it off. Once you've determined that you are the initial target, you need to go into pure survival mode and let your teammates either blow one of the enemies away or else crowd control them to relieve the pressure on you.

It does drive me nuts sometimes when there's a Priest on the opposing team, I'm getting focused, and I'm watching that Priest mana burn me down untouched. Not much you can do, though; just try to live as long as possible. Communicate to your teammates about what's the biggest threat to you so they can neutralize it.

I can never find the time to do heroic Blood Furnace runs for a Talisman of the Breaker. It's a fantastic neck. A Mage's 8-second counterspell would get reduced to a 6.4-second counterspell - that's a difference of a flash heal in time. Something to consider. So far I haven't been faced with a choice because I'm still using a PvE neck.


All of these are answered by "it depends." What makes PvP so fun is that it's so fluid and you have to make so many decisions instantly and on the fly.

Launching a few Mass Dispels at the outset can really screw up certain groups. Other groups, not so much. It depends on who's in the group.

The big-time group buff classes in PvP are:
Priest
Druid
Mage
Paladin

Although every class can provide some buffing, especially self-buffing. But consider this: if the opposing team has a Priest in it, shooting off a Mass Dispel or two at the onset of the fight can rip off 1,000+ hit points from every opposing player. It's effectively a 1,000-point AoE done to the enemy. If talented for it, Mass Dispel only costs 734 mana. That's worth it.

Secondly, you have it right with the interrupts and "drawing out." Both Mana Burn and Mind Control should be used when focus-fired to draw interrupts. Once that gets interrupted, and your shadow school is locked out, you're free for a bit (hopefully) to use your holy spells to stay alive. If I have a Warrior in my face, I always use Mind Control on him to force an interrupt - he can't let it go through or he loses control of his character, so he has to pummel it...and then I start the Flash Heal spam.

Other than that, it sometimes just comes down to dice rolls. If you're getting focused, you're going to have Focused Casting up because crits or resilience effects will kick in. That gives you a 20% chance to resist interrupts, and Unbreakable Will + Powerful Earthstorm Diamond metagem gives you 30% stun resistance. No character can survive focus fire from 2+ characters for very long. Your teammates are a big part of whether or not you survive it - or if they can take advantage of their relative freedom to lay waste to the enemy's healer and turn it into a 2v2 or 4v4 match.

Sometimes you're just destined to die. If the other team wants you dead, it's going to happen. In that situation, how long you live determines whether or not your group wins. The reason Priests don't get focus-fired sometimes is because, like Paladins, it can just take too long to get the kill.

The best thing is when it takes them forever to kill you, they finally take you out, and Spirit of Redemption pops up to give you an additional 15 seconds of absolute free healing. All too often that winds up turning the tide of a fight. Take that, you bastards. :)

-Bolty

Funny how you (who often mocked Improved Dying in the past) are finding it amazing now.


Overall, I would say that you should not discount a team defense. In particular, classes with crowd control can make a HUGE difference in a fight if they are given time to disrupt the other team's actions. As said feral druid in Bolty's group, I usually spend most of my time disrupting the opposing team's warriors (because they eat Bolty alive) and healers to try and keep them from killing our team members and disrupt their ability to keep their team members alive. Most of the time, it feels like I'm definitely helping the group out.

Of course, in my feral druid experience, the best (or at least funniest) part is when the opposing team's melee DPS decides that I am too annoying to be left alone, so they attack me. So I shift to bear form and laugh at them from behind my 22k armor, 40% dodge and 14k life as I hit them with demoralizing roar, faerie fire everyone and feral charge healers to lock them up. That sort of meat shield getting attacked rather than our shaman or priest definitely makes things a bit easier.

And that's why I said that Bloodlust/heroism is better than PI. I never disputed that. I never said priests should get PI or even bother to use it. I merely gave info about bloodlust/heroism that wasn't mentioned. You complained about PI being purged or spellstolen, but didn't mention that bloodlust could too. It's about the only drawback that both skills share, with PI having more drawbacks. I'm telling ya Bolty, reroll a healy shaman. =D

To explain that phenomenon, let me use another quote that I ran across.




Shaman die faster (just as susceptible to interrupts and stuns), have few things they can insta cast to keep the purge bots busy, have less resistance to push back and only have earthshield and NS as instants (both can be purged, even macro'd I've had NS heals stopped because the NS gets purged before it is used or I get stunned before the heal goes off). Yes they have a bit more armor, but armor means nothing vs warlocks, priests, mages, some druids, and some shaman, and doesn't mean as much vs a hunter (arcane shot is magic damage and any hunter will use it as part of the burst rotation). I've mentioned it elsewhere, the only healers easier to kill in arenas (or at least neutralize) are resto druids who can be purged away just like a priest but have fewer tricks (go bear form eating mana and removing the ability to heal party mates at all).



The reason to leave a shaman alone and kill the priest or pally that takes longer to kill first, is that the shaman is the only class that can you can just interrupt away all the heals. The paladin can bubble and heal for a bit without fear and they can spec to make it harder to interrupt them. The shaman you can just shock, CS, kick any heal they can cast on a party member. If you have good interrupts you nullify the shaman that way and take longer to kill the priest who will almost always last longer because you use the same method to kill both classes and the priest has more tricks to survive it.

I play a shaman and a hunter in 3v3 (crap level for both teams and the hunter just joined a 5v5 team where I am by far the most geared in my 2 BG pieces and 1 arena piece) and the advantage my shaman has is that I can use deception. I go in with all visual indicators showing healing/casting. But I'm enh. So after I get hit and stunned and get my first heal interrupted (and I will generally give the big 2.5s cast healing wave as enticement) I go dual wield and suddenly throw out 700+ DPS on our target. The interrupt was used on me and that means the priest didn't get hit with it and can heal. I really thought a enh shaman (21 in resto for NS heal) would be a big liability in arenas, but in 3v3 I think it could prove to be very helpful. Now we just need to get some gear on that team (most of us don't have any arena gear yet and only 1 or 2 pieces of battleground gear as well as no PvE raid gear) to see. But without gear I don't care how good you are getting past 1600 in end game PvE blues (not purples) isn't gonna happen. You can still be flat out, out geared in arenas.

I don't understand the die horribly as a result part of your statement. I'm running with a priest now in season two (specced holy disc similiar to your build) and the absolute nightmare teams for us are the warrior X teams that go for myself, the rogue, from the start forcing a zergdown strat for the warrior with timed cc on the healer. The teams that do spend the entire time on our priest are more or less the only warrior x teams that we beat regularly. Just a nit I suppose but since warrior paladin warrior druid warrior priest even is more or less flavor of the month (for the past 4-5 months) I'm suprised to see you say that O.o

It's been the exact opposite for us. The best was when we fought a Warrior/Druid team we know from Stormrage. Warrior and I duked it out for a long time, me always getting away with a timely gouge or stun to survive. When the druid went low on mana, the warrior flipped to Bolty and ripped him to shreds - right as I finished him off. The druid was pretty easy after that.

It's odd; we have the opposite experience. It probably depends on a number of factors. What kind of Rogue are you, talentwise? Are you daggers?

My Avatar of War (my affectionate name for He Who Kills Things While I Heal/Disrupt/Annoy) is a dagger Rogue quite skilled at keeping enemies under control. We've won matches against the Rogue/Priest's worst enemy, MS Warrior/Holy Paladin, with my Rogue and the enemy Warrior duking it out while the Paladin and I stand on opposite sides and heal our constituents. Without me even getting a chance to mana burn (Paladin's too smart to let me get close), we win the mana war. We shouldn't. But somehow we do. Part of it may be gear, part talents/spec, but a huge part is the amount of control the Rogue exerts over the Warrior in terms of prevention of damage via Stuns and poisons and such. Plus, he's a rabid twitch player who just outmaneuvers the hell out of people.

We have much less success when the Warrior wakes up and tries to kill me first instead. I have to blow much more mana healing myself than my Rogue in this scenario, and it's typically a loss. Yes, a Rogue and a Priest have around the same armor, but I have...what, 40 agility? I don't exactly dodge much (although one time on a wipe to Malchezaar I dodged 2 hits and then parried one before he one-shot me; wish I saved that log because it made me bust my gut). Blade's Edge is a nice arena for this because sometimes I can get lucky and MC the Warrior to throw him off the bridge and buy some time to harass the Paladin, but...eh.

Warrior/Mage? Had a match where both the Warrior and the Mage tried to kill my Avatar and failed, only to watch him steadily destroy them both in turn. Leave me alone and my healing will wreck you. :) ProM, Renew, Shields, Flash Heals - I can pump out a lot of healing very quickly, and that's a mana-be-damned situation. Killing the Mage fast is the only option. If the Warrior had turned instead to harass me, letting the Mage try to deal with my Rogue via the typical kiting methods, it might have turned out better for them. Trading their Mage for me would probably work out in the end, since a Rogue shouldn't beat a Warrior solo.

We also have Fear Ward, Stoneform, Desperate Prayer, etc...which helps negate quite a few CC options opponents have. A Warrior can't Intimidating shout my Rogue and then Intercept him. Yeah yeah, I know, overpowered racials ftw. Hey, I rerolled a level 60 Night Elf Priest to a Dwarf for a reason.

-Bolty

Goddammit, what did I start.

Ever run into any hunters in 2v2? I know it's a rough bracket for the class but I just wonder if the pet annoyance on you helps any or if you can spare a GCD every now and then for a shield and/or renew. The 150+ DPS of the hunter pet if they were beast I don't think could be completely ignored and they could stop they could break/prevent your fear. I don't know if the stutter and the need to spend GCD on yourself would be good enough. I also don't know what you would want to pair with the hunter.

I guess I'm mainly wondering if you find a pet in your face enough of an annoyance (3v3 or 5v5) for me to keep using it that way in general. I know it works well against shaman, and it works well against pallies that aren't running concentration aura. It's not as big deal on a resto druid, but I still put it on them a lot to help burn them down (I mostly 3v3). I just wonder how annoying a priest finds it. I'm also a bit of an odd build, I think marks is probably better for PvP, but the beast/survival has it's moments (and yes I could do dailies and respec all the time, but I'd rather have that money to finish out my gem cut list, the build I have works well enough in raids, it's excellent in heroics for damage and CC, longer traps is huge, and we run with me as the only CC a lot, and it works well enough in PvP, I don't want to respec 3, 4 times a week) like popping deterrance when the warrior is on me and continuing to kill the healer or another DPS while taking no damage or a timely stun from the pet when something thinks they are going to break LoS on me or get more distance on the warrior.

Very interesting. Yes a rogue can exert quite a bit of control over the warrior but with all the higher rated warrior x (especially warrior paladin or priest) teams we've found that the warrior saves his berserker rage for gouge and relies on his partner for the fear breaks. This means that I will have to try to gouge the warrior twice before I can actually gouge him and effectively waste half my energy bar once every 30 seconds or so. I can also expect to have one kidney shot trinketed every 2 minutes and have no real control over which kidney shot is broken. My blind is cleansed. I am combat mace pure pvp/arena 18-43-0 spec and not to gloat but am probably one of the best toe to toe specs for dealing with warriors. I've tried using gouge to get away as often as possible and restealthing often but in the end the warrior does manage to get his hands on me and unleash the full rage bar my hits have worked against me to accumulate, and it's all downhill. Outlast just has not worked for us.

Warrior priest is an easy matchup for us because priests go down quick with myself on the other priest and our priest offensive dispelling everything the priest does. Warrior druid is a bit more of a technical matchup with my priest trying to fear the warrior when BR is down only to run into cyclone spam whenever he does. Warrior paladin is just a logistical nightmare.

See, this is why we need a PvP forum.


Gotta admit, no, I don't see a lot of Hunters in 2v2. I can't remember the last time I fought one in 2v2, actually.

I remember playing a 5v5 against a group with 3 Hunters, though. It was in the Nagrand arena, and they took position out in the open and actually expected us to walk out there in the open and get destroyed. Nuh-uh, didn't play that game - we hid behind a pillar and made them come to us. We're not that stupid. But I was thinking after we won the match that a 3-Hunter group would positively destroy the groups that like to mount up and charge in to catch the enemy by surprise. Hello, 3 Hunter traps! Pew pew pew, die die die!

Hunter pets don't bother me, sadly. They follow me around, beat me up some, and trigger all my anti-crit talents. Remember, even their white hits can trigger these talents. Your pets are much more disruptive to a healer who doesn't have such talents and doesn't have shields. You'd have to consider your pet as a mana-drainer for me since I will obviously have to heal myself some and blow mana that way.

Typically though if I see an enemy Hunter I will look to stay out of their LOS at all times. If they get close to me, I'll fear, and that'll send their pet running as well. I do not want to get Viper Stung, Scatter Shot, or Silencing Shot. Those are the three ways to really irritate me.

If a Hunter sends in their pet on me without anyone else around at the onset of a fight, my Avatar will just kill it for me. But that's par for the course.

I fear Felhunters WAAAAAAAAY more than Hunter pets. Curse of Tongues + Felhunter and I might as well just stand there and take it, because I've just been brought down to 20% usefulness.

Note: Hunter pets against Shadow Priests or healing Priests not spec'ed for PvP will really, really do a good job though. If the Shadow Priest wants to take the pet out to gain freedom, well, that's time and mana not spent on you and your partner...if not, best of luck getting off Mind Flays.

-Bolty

So make one, boss. We'll keep an eye on it.

I'm not much on PvP, but I'm finding this discussion interesting.

Yeah I was starting to think that a PvP spec priest isn't that annoyed by a pet, but I figured I'd take the opportunity to ask. Just like a paladin running concentration aura doesn't care much about the pet. It just because a DoT at that point in time. Of course I do still send my pet in right away, with a mend pet ticking and if there is anyone that can fear a beastial wrath. The stun at the right time can be really nasty. Though in general I save the stun for a DPS that is trying to get out of LoS. I don't mind if they kill the pet. I'll have time to get it back up before anyone gets to me usually (4s rez) and by then we've had the time to figure out the opponents and plan start on TS.

But yeah the pet on the shaman is my favorite because not only is it a DoT, it's disruptive. I'll probably keep it off healing priests more and just use it as extra DPS on the focus target or an annoyance on mage (if the mage isn't the first target). A mage blowing a blink or frost nova on a pet is a win in my book. Especially when I can break FN with wrath.

Am I crazy, or do priests not parry?

Any shadow priest will have martyrdom too, pets aren't a huge annoyance. They are free martyrdom procs and if the other team doesn't have a dispeller VE will keep up pretty well with the damage the pet is doing. Keep in mind that with S2 arena gear a shadow priest has about as much physical damage mitigation as an MS warrior.

Was thinking the same thing

I've recently (last hour or so ) been considering leveling my currently 60 Priest to use as a PvP character. I have a week and a half between semesters with nothing to do. So, questions for anyone willing to answer:

In a 3v3 team where I expect to be FFed, how well can I keep myself up? The most likely team makeup would be Hunter, Rogue and myself. It could be swapped to Hunter, Paladin and myself but that seems really painful and slow in the DPS department.

For the talent build - what does everyone think of Improved Inner Fire? Initially it seems worth it but the thought occurred to me that it's likely insta-dispelled. Is this the case?

I can't say I'm all too experienced in Arena play (check my Warrior's rating ) so don't use big words

You may be crazy, but not about priests and parry.

The secret is to yell "I'm going to die!" and then that activates the secret parry ability.

Works for warriors too.

Hmm, in my case that usually only activates a shout of "Hell yeah!" and has 4 other people running towards the instance portal...

Perhaps I shouldn't have enforced the new loot rules of Me Gets All, Kek. Nah, can't be it.

take care
Tarabulus

Then Armory must not show it, because Necrali's parry must be 100% if that's the trigger...

A Priest, just like everyone else, dies fast when being assist trained without support. How well you can keep yourself up depends greatly on your Hunter and Rogue. Both are classes with the ability to stun/disorent/lock people out of a match for a short period of time, and need to do so if you're getting trained.

However, it's very likely that you won't be the primary FF target much of the time. The Hunter will be. I'm in a 3v3 group with a Rogue/Hunter/Priest, as you are, and only now are we starting to move up (went 9-1 this week and got into the 1700's) because our Hunter started gearing up for PvP. Before then, most matches started with some solid FF on him and he'd die so fast you'd miss it if you blinked. Enemy groups know that if they FF the Hunter, the Hunter can't do much, and you're forced into a healing position (defense) instead of a dispelling/mana burning one (offense). If the other team put a solid CC on me, they could burst the Hunter down before I'd get out of it. Now that the Hunter has some PvP gear, though, that's getting harder for them.

If they focus fire on you, the Hunter/Rogue can really tear them up pretty hard and you're just playing the typical Priest here-we-go-again-time-to-heal-myself-until-I-die game. In short, focusing on you takes you out of the offense. Focusing on the Hunter takes him AND you out of the offense. That's a win for them.

The evolution of arena DPS players goes something like:

1) Haha, PHEAR MY PHAT DPS! DIE! DIE! PEW PEW PEW what do you mean everyone else is dead?
2) Hmm, straight DPS doesn't work too well, I need to do solid crowd control as well.
3) I need to control my enemies, keep pressure on them, and limit the damage I take as well.
4) I'm really just here to pressure the enemy healer(s) and run them out of mana, either by attacking them directly or by providing solid DPS on a target, before my healer(s) run out of mana. Then I can pwn!

If your Rogue/Hunter is on step 3 or higher, you'll do well :) Step 4 only really develops once you get to higher brackets where everyone has 10,000, 11,000+ hit points and hundreds of resilience. At that point, you can't burst down anyone anymore and matches become mana/attrition wars. It was a real shock last night when Quark and I, after playing at the mid-1800 level for a while, played some 3v3 at the mid-1500's level. Quark and the Hunter would just burst down enemies so fast I'd be saying "he's dead already? WTF?"


This was my conclusion as well after running a while with Improved Inner Fire. I ditched it and went with my current build. It's not just that Improved Inner Fire can be dispelled/purged easily, it's the classic problem that 20 hits just doesn't last long. I need Inner Fire against Rogues and Warriors, right? How long does it take them to get in 20 hits, with all the specials they whack you with? Not long, in the grand scheme of things. As you get higher and higher in rankings, arena matches last longer and longer. Many times I found Inner Fire fading off and wishing I could put it back up, but doing so costs a global cooldown that I don't have to spare. I chose instead to go for cheaper dispels so that I could last in mana wars longer.

This is just my opinion. Many top Priests use Improved Inner Fire, so it's a matter of preference.

-Bolty

But since we don't have one: I have leveled my priest, Baguette, to 70 in the last two days. I want to get her ready for arena. For gear she has her old Field Marshal's set, supplemented with crafted items -- Unyielding set, some Frozen Shadoweave, Destruction Holo-gogs, JC rings, and after we get a few more primal mooncloth, Resolute Cape. She has always been mixed spec (Improved Mana Burn, Holy Nova, Silence and Shadow Reach). At 68 I gave her Shadowform, which was great at killing through the last half of Karazhan last night, but probably not so hot for modern PvP. When she turned 68 I did a couple of AV's with her in Shadowform. In one case a rogue kept her completely stunlocked. In another fight the rogue lost: the log showed she doged the rogue's final attack and dispatched him with a dagger stroke, just like in the old days. The rogue had the level advantage too.

In any case, Baguette wants to respec to go deeper into Discipline, 27/11/23, primarily to pick up Focused Power and Mental Agility. What she is thinking of is: Spec 1

However I am not sure two points in Improved PW:F would not be better spent in additional Silent Resolve. Comments welcome. Gear suggestions would be welcome also. How much spell hit should she try to pick up from items for Dispel to be capped? About 40? She uses Dispel a lot. Her spam macro (bound to the caps lock key) is:

/castsequence [target=mouseover, harm, nodead] [target=targettarget, harm, nodead] [] reset=6/target/combat Shadow Word: Pain, Dispel Magic

Macro ideas are welcome as well. I have never been thrilled with the published priest macros I've seen. If mana proves to be too much of an issue in arena, I would consider downranking the SW:P in the macro.


Edit: What she finally went with was very similar Spec 2

I do notice that she drinks after almost every fight in PvE. In contrast to my paladin and shaman who hardly ever need to drink. Indeed, my shaman recently finished the Sunwell dallies with drinking once.