08-26-2008, 06:05 PM
I'm not the best priest player either. But Treesh and I have done 2 warrior/priest duos. The first started around L10 and produced Gnolack and Aleri. These two toons are almost as old as Mogo and Marn (Taranna and Etheramwen were made before them alliance side). Probably created mid Decmember of 04 and hit L60 around May of 05 I would guess. So they were old school. Gnolack was always prot, Aleri was always holy. They survived a lot of stuff, but they didn't move quickly at all. :)
We also have Bini (warrior) and Gnoldren (priest). Bini is a DPS spec, Gnoldren is shadow. They are only L38 or so and haven't really been played much since TBC came out. They were probably started in March of 05 so that we could each experience the other side of the coin (this time I was the priest). The difference was they had pretty much the same survivability in the world and doing the elite quests, but they killed a lot faster. They were able to duo SM Library at L31-33, back when Doan was L36-37 (he's been reduced in level now). Yes they went in twice, there was a server crash the first time they went in after they were about 8 pulls from Doan so they did pick up a few levels. Much of that was done with me simply VE healing via mind flay with the occasional gheal. I didn't have shadow form so DPS to healing transition didn't mean anything to me.
The VE healing you can get from the mobs that will stay up long enough goes a long way to keeping the warrior healthy. We communicated on attacking to generally let the priest get the killing blow so that they could spirit tap and we could keep on trucking. Mind flay slowing the runners so the warrior could still get at them and execute if need be was a quite nice. But a DPS warrior and a shadow priest can still easily go tank and heal if need be out in the world, there just isn't that much that is dangerous to a duo. I'd pull 6+ mobs a lot just so we would have a bit more fun and so that I would have a reason to actually tank, but mowing through single targets really rapidly worked well too.
Taiza and Kam also did a fair bit of duo quest at L70 (I'm not exactly sure why they ended up together but a lot of Blade's Edge and Netherstorm got duo'd by those 2). Kam was of course prot, Taiza was of course her holy DPS spec. When Taiza had spirit tap I would again try to make sure she got the killing blows as spirit tap was more powerful than victory rush. :) There was a lot of "hamstring" tanking by Kam since I would generally be in my DPS gear, charge in, not have time to do anything and see a holy fire and surge of light hit the mob. So I would hit it was a hamstring so it wouldn't hit her and then move on to the next mob with a bit of lead time so that a few of my devastates would land and then I would have aggro on that one. We of course could duo most anything, especially when Kam got up around 400 block value because at that point if I didn't want to get hurt I could put on stripped down version of my tank gear and avoid pretty much all damage by blocking. I sometimes solo like that if I'm in a mood where eating will annoy me more than killing really slowly. Kam does around 500 - 750 DPS soling in DPS gear but needs to eat/bandage every 5 - 10 mobs (it depends on what I'm killing). I can put on tank gear, dropping down to 300 or so DPS but pretty much never having to stop because the OOC health regen will get me back the 200 or so that I might lose after killing 5+ mobs.:)
But it was fun, we'd look at what we were killing and I would decide tank or DPS gear and she would decide healing or DPS gear. Taiza changed gear less than Kam. But we duo'd everything in Nagrand, including Durn (this was after Kam was Kara geared though), and most everything in Netherstorm and didn't even stop to think about it. Heavy tank + solid healer worked. But again she stayed in DPS gear more than going healing gear because her DPS was generally always higher than mine. :)
It's a fun duo. Not the most powerful, and certainly not the fastest moving, but it's fun and there is pretty much nothing it can't handle, but there isn't a lot of variety. It wasn't like hunter shaman where sometimes you plan on the shaman off tanking for a bit or have to plan trap usage out or burst down this mob while the pet keeps those 3 on it and that one is trapped. The hunter shaman could still deal with pretty much everything (though this is getting harder as they make shaman and hunters weaker and weaker at tanking) as well but you had to think a lot more about it. And the DPS burst of hunter shaman was nutso stupid too.:) Our rogue druid was a lot of fun and killed rapidly but the tank and healer being the same toon couldn't always be dealt with because some mobs can't be stunned, blinded, or gouged so the healer couldn't always safely heal. But I know that duo did a lot of L60 kills of the dude in BRD that dropped the random fire resist bracers and we stealthed to some other bosses and had fun with them, which other duo's couldn't always do because the instance trash was too much at times or was simply too slow to make it worth the time.
We also have Bini (warrior) and Gnoldren (priest). Bini is a DPS spec, Gnoldren is shadow. They are only L38 or so and haven't really been played much since TBC came out. They were probably started in March of 05 so that we could each experience the other side of the coin (this time I was the priest). The difference was they had pretty much the same survivability in the world and doing the elite quests, but they killed a lot faster. They were able to duo SM Library at L31-33, back when Doan was L36-37 (he's been reduced in level now). Yes they went in twice, there was a server crash the first time they went in after they were about 8 pulls from Doan so they did pick up a few levels. Much of that was done with me simply VE healing via mind flay with the occasional gheal. I didn't have shadow form so DPS to healing transition didn't mean anything to me.
The VE healing you can get from the mobs that will stay up long enough goes a long way to keeping the warrior healthy. We communicated on attacking to generally let the priest get the killing blow so that they could spirit tap and we could keep on trucking. Mind flay slowing the runners so the warrior could still get at them and execute if need be was a quite nice. But a DPS warrior and a shadow priest can still easily go tank and heal if need be out in the world, there just isn't that much that is dangerous to a duo. I'd pull 6+ mobs a lot just so we would have a bit more fun and so that I would have a reason to actually tank, but mowing through single targets really rapidly worked well too.
Taiza and Kam also did a fair bit of duo quest at L70 (I'm not exactly sure why they ended up together but a lot of Blade's Edge and Netherstorm got duo'd by those 2). Kam was of course prot, Taiza was of course her holy DPS spec. When Taiza had spirit tap I would again try to make sure she got the killing blows as spirit tap was more powerful than victory rush. :) There was a lot of "hamstring" tanking by Kam since I would generally be in my DPS gear, charge in, not have time to do anything and see a holy fire and surge of light hit the mob. So I would hit it was a hamstring so it wouldn't hit her and then move on to the next mob with a bit of lead time so that a few of my devastates would land and then I would have aggro on that one. We of course could duo most anything, especially when Kam got up around 400 block value because at that point if I didn't want to get hurt I could put on stripped down version of my tank gear and avoid pretty much all damage by blocking. I sometimes solo like that if I'm in a mood where eating will annoy me more than killing really slowly. Kam does around 500 - 750 DPS soling in DPS gear but needs to eat/bandage every 5 - 10 mobs (it depends on what I'm killing). I can put on tank gear, dropping down to 300 or so DPS but pretty much never having to stop because the OOC health regen will get me back the 200 or so that I might lose after killing 5+ mobs.:)
But it was fun, we'd look at what we were killing and I would decide tank or DPS gear and she would decide healing or DPS gear. Taiza changed gear less than Kam. But we duo'd everything in Nagrand, including Durn (this was after Kam was Kara geared though), and most everything in Netherstorm and didn't even stop to think about it. Heavy tank + solid healer worked. But again she stayed in DPS gear more than going healing gear because her DPS was generally always higher than mine. :)
It's a fun duo. Not the most powerful, and certainly not the fastest moving, but it's fun and there is pretty much nothing it can't handle, but there isn't a lot of variety. It wasn't like hunter shaman where sometimes you plan on the shaman off tanking for a bit or have to plan trap usage out or burst down this mob while the pet keeps those 3 on it and that one is trapped. The hunter shaman could still deal with pretty much everything (though this is getting harder as they make shaman and hunters weaker and weaker at tanking) as well but you had to think a lot more about it. And the DPS burst of hunter shaman was nutso stupid too.:) Our rogue druid was a lot of fun and killed rapidly but the tank and healer being the same toon couldn't always be dealt with because some mobs can't be stunned, blinded, or gouged so the healer couldn't always safely heal. But I know that duo did a lot of L60 kills of the dude in BRD that dropped the random fire resist bracers and we stealthed to some other bosses and had fun with them, which other duo's couldn't always do because the instance trash was too much at times or was simply too slow to make it worth the time.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.