I have herd that the tier sets for the 60 priest are horrible? they should be set aside and one should either use the pvp sets or other items that " are much better then tier sets". IYO what do you think the best set is for the priest and if you dont think its a set what are the items. (if you believe holy is best priest say holy set, if you believe shadow is the best say your opinion on shadow sets) Thanks guys,

discuss ^^.

Describing something as "best" always needs "best at what?" defined. What is it exactly you are trying to do? Are you trying to heal in a raid? Are you trying to heal in 5-mans? Are you trying to be a shadow priest in a raid? Are you trying to PvP?

Then there's the problem of access. What kinds of sets do you realistically have access to? I can say, "Wow! Get Faith gear if you want to heal well in a raid," but if you're in a guild that's nowhere near Naxx ready, that's not going to help you.

For the most part, I'm quite happy with the priest sets and items that are available now. Blizzard has recently filled in the gaps with our items. The main problem priests have is trying to fight over the +damage/healing scraps that mages and warlocks leave behind so that we can do well outside of raids. But as to your question, what exactly are you looking for?

That really depends on the spec of the priest. Are you going Healing or DPSing? For Healing, the Tier sets are very much choice items as the bonuses are made for that. For DPS, the AQ40 set is the choice set or the General/Marshal set from PvP.

The only way I could see this being true is if you don't want to heal, or in comparing some of the ZG and AQ20 drops to the T1 set. The other priest set that isn't very good is the dungeon 1 set (often called Tier 0, but the devout set) since the only +healing it has is a set bonus and it has no mana/5. So for priests that want to be as effective of a healer as possible that can't access any raids, only 5 mans, then yeah you will do better to collect various random pieces. But this is not a unique situation for the priest class. A warrior will tank better in various pieces than the will in valor. A warlock will be better off in various random pieces compared to dreadmist. A hunter will do more damage and various random pieces compared to to beaststalker, etc.

The dungeon 2 sets however are generally pretty solid for most of the classes. There will still be a few pieces that are inferior to 5 man blue drops, but in general it takes 20 or 40 man raid pieces, or the PvP rewards, which are in many ways equivalent to low end raid drops, to be superior to them for pretty much all classes. Tanking warriors and most druid specs are a few of the bigger exceptions to that since both of their dungeon 2 sets go for a balanced approach and if you really want to specialize that doesn't work. But there are still a few pieces of the dungeon 2 set even for those classes that will be the best option in that slot for whatever particular role you want to play.

My primary thoughts about priest gear is (coming from the perspective of a dedicated healer, little pvp experience):

Devout: Good, nice spirit. I liked the old set bonuses better. For much 5-man content, random mana-regen blues are better.

Virtuous: Purple pieces are very good. The boots are some of the best in the game.

Prophecy: Huge upgrades over prior gear. Not as much spirit as I would like (I lost spirit going from random blues to Prophecy) but overall lots better.

Transcendence: Good but some pieces are disappointing. IMHO the belt, gloves, boots, and shoulders are all worse than gear that's available earlier. The 3-piece bonus is the best bonus for anything though.

Confessor's: The armor pieces are surpisingly good. Shoulders beat Transcendence.

Infinite Wisdom: Very nice, though harder to get all the pieces. I think the cape beats the Hide of the Wild.

Oracle, Faith: no experience.


Overall, I feel there's great itemization for healing and mana regen for priests. PvP is harder, but there's lots of +damage and defensive cloth items out there.

Lots of our set bonuses are jokes, but some of them are quite good. I am looking forward to having 3 Prophecy and 3 Transcendence, and maybe 2 Confessor. After that we'll see.

Imo for healing best gear is faith, up to naxx 3part trans +other juck from aq/bwl.
For pvp well warlord set. Basically its best to check popular items database sites and check what u and ur guild are able to get and make a list. Then just go and get

Baguette, my priest, is a shadow priest who has just discovered PvP. Last night when Stormrage went down I checked out all the priest sets on Thott. Until she has access to the high end PvP sets her best alternative is Necropile, which is what she has been using. For raid healing she swaps out the chestpiece for True Faith. Your mileage may vary.

You guys are all forgetting the most important part.

Wear what looks good.



Seriously, the Priest sets are mostly healing-centric except for Oracle. If you have no interest in healing, you're better off cobbling together items from all over the place. Fairly straightforward.

-Bolty

Here we see the "WHAT NOT TO DO" example.

DON'T SAY THAT! You really, really, really, really ad infinitum, don't want to make Bolty post another shot...

Bleeding eyes come to mind...

Necropile (I still think they left out the 'h') is pretty effective and it does look good! Except for healing duty I have not found any pieces to swap out. And Baguette really has to work to tank the baron wearing True Faith Vestments, as she had to do again last night.

The color of Necropile is dark charcoal gray, which goes well with the blue glow of her dagger and blue glow of her off-hand. Unfortunately the Belt of Tiny Heads is red and clashes with her hair. O how she would love to cobble together a Sash of Whispered Secrets!

This is as good a place as any to ask: which is a better priest cape, Cloak of Warding or Archivist's Cape of Shadow Wrath? The +21 damage and mana regeneration is nice, but with the added armor and def (Necropile alone gives only +3) a priest might live to get off another mind blast. Baguette has been using the Archivist's Cape of Shadow Wrath but has the materials for Cloak of Warding and knows how to sew one. But is the added armor and def really going to stop that tier two warrior coming at you with the big axe?

Any other realistic cloak choices that I'm missing?

I have also wondered if going for armor and def would be interesting as a priest. You can get the cloak of warding with an armor enchant, there's some trinkets with armor, and you could get the Band of Resolution from AD rep (18 stam and +5 def). You could also get some of the priest talents to reduce incoming spell and crit damage. Then there's the Ironweave set.

I never tried it myself, but whenever I have asked someone who pvp's with their priest, they seemed to think it would be a waste. They recommended going for stamina and more traditional priest stats instead. I can see the logic of why should you try to get damage mitigation when you can instead just heal yourself, and work on your offense instead. But I can't help thinking it would be interesting to play as a priest with the AC of a mail wearer and the stamina of a warlock!

One of the priests in my guild took the zandalarian hero badge, and got the BWL priest trinket, with both of those and inner fire he can get 6k+ ac. It really suprises rogues/warriors when he doesn't fold as fast as they would like.

True beauty.

-Bolty

Uncanny resemblance to Carrie Fisher.

I would imagine you would need to be in the 6k armor range with 300 or so defense before I feel like I'm whittling away on a priest. Better in my opinion to have a larger stamina pool.

...and the Orc Veteran said, "Female Dwarven Priest...in those robes...she took my eyes!"

Ehh, Carrie Fisher *now* perhaps. The only cast members that seemed to have aged well were Harrison Ford and I'm pretty sure Billy Dee Williams (though not 100% on that one)

Someone please take mine...

Actually, it's pretty standard among priests who PvP a lot (at least on Tichondrius) that you load up on stamina and try to get as much armor as you can. Basically, you want stamina, +damage/healing, armor, and int in about that order.

I'm still waiting for my Necro-Knight's Garb to drop for me. *drool*

Dropped last night for Avarice in Naxx on a learning run. We cleared to both Razvious and Anub'rekan.

I do believe that was a "nyah nyah."

-Bolty

Fine. I'll take my Widow's Embrace, Noth's Frigid Heart, Wand of the Whispering Dead, and Crystal Webbed Robe and go home!

Dang, I'd love to get that Garb, though.

Do you guys have 40 attuned? I'd love to show you the Instructor fight. Give me a priest to borrow!

We had 35 or so. I would offer up Krystian but she doesn't have the gear for Naxx or the cash to attune. :/

The lack of attunement would be the only problem. Equipment-wise, the MC'ing priests could be in green gear as long as they have either 3% spell hit or have some talent points spent in Shadow Focus.

Done and done. I tanked him on Monday.

-Bolty

No Sash of Whispered Secrets, but now that Baguette is honored, I can report that The Highlander's Cloth Girdle goes perfectly with Necopile! Lovely silver accents!

http://www.thottbot.com/?i=51643