07-26-2004, 01:04 PM
The Priest is the healer class of World of Warcraft. One of its core design goals is, unlike in other MMORPGs, to be a fully playable class while soloing. This makes balance issues difficult - how can you give a healer class enough offensive capability to solo well without making them into uber gods due to their power to self-heal? The answer: mana costs, which is what makes the class a real tightrope of balance.
I'm approaching level 40 with my Priest, so I'm giving a report on how they're generally played. At low levels, Priests are positively uber due to the fact that spirit provides a huge percentage-wise boost to mana regeneration. Someone should make a chart showing how spirit's benefits really level off at high levels, because it does play a significant factor. The view of any spellcasting class at level 10 is far different from that at level 40. Gaining 10 mana per second when you have 250 mana is a lot different than gaining 20 mana per second when you have 1700 mana - at that point, you're obsessed with mana efficiency.
OFFENSE
A priest's offense is primary made up of three spells and melee attacks. Holy Smite, a casting spell requiring a period of time to cast; Mind Blast, an instant-cast spell with a cooldown, and Shadow Word: Pain, a damage-over-time (DoT) spell. These spells do damage almost on par to that of a Mage (without talents), but drain huge gobs of mana without any real way to regain it quickly. While Mages can summon drinks and Warlocks can trade hit points for mana, Priests are *always* starving for mana due to no method of replenishment except for Spirit and purchased/found mana potions. As a result, while a Priest *could* smack down an enemy rapidly with its spells, it wouldn't want to, for the mana cost would mean a huge downtime post-fight and the loss of more drink(s).
This is why the Priest's main item is one-handed maces; Blizzard intends for the class to melee some instead of being a pure caster. This is the balancing factor that prevents Priests from dominating the game. Inner Fire is a 3-minute buff that can only be used on the caster, granting huge attack and armor bonuses. This, supplied with the melee weapon, is a significant portion of the Priest's offense while soloing.
Currently, it's usually better to train in staves and ditch maces. This is because staves can do just as much damage while providing bonuses to spirit and intelligence easily beating that of an off-hand item. I'd bet that Priest-specific quests, when implemented, will give out nice maces that have bonuses useful to the Priest class, mitigating the need to learn staves to be optimal.
Back to the spells - all of the Priest's attacks hit the target instantly. "So what," you might be thinking - but this prevents you from queueing up the next attack as the first one is travelling toward the target. Any Mage player can tell you that when starting off a fight, that's a very sweet thing.
A priest's offense is supported by a number of secondary spells. Mind Control allows the Priest to take over an enemy creature for a period of time, with a chance to break off at any moment; Mana Burn, which allows the Priest to drain the enemy of mana - great against casters, and crowd control with Psychic Scream, which can cause up to three attackers to flee from the player for a period of time. I don't consider Mind Control to be a crowd control spell, for when controlling an enemy, you are unable to take any action. The character is a sitting duck.
Again, a Priest CAN kill quickly if it needs to, but the downtime is very, very costly; to kill quickly also sacrifices your ability to defend you and your groupmates.
DEFENSE
You'll never have a hard time finding a party as a Priest, and it's because of the defensive abilities they possess. Holy Word: Shield is one of the most powerful and yet most dangerous spells in the game, giving the Priest the ability to make anyone essentially invincible for a period of time. Shields, aka "bubbles," absorb a set amount of damage dealt to the character, whether it be from melee, ranged, or magical attacks. It's an instant-cast spell that's a way of saying "for the next X damage dealt to you, you won't feel a thing." It also protect spellcaster classes from having their spells interrupted/stuttered by standard enemy attacks.
Problem is, it draws a lot of aggro as well. Newbie priests often run into trouble using Shield, because they spam it too much on their partymates in a fight and wind up drawing all the aggro on them. Shields should be used only when the situation warrants, such as *before* a fight begins and as a protective anti-stutter for spellcasting friends who are being attacked. Since it's instant-cast, it can also be the saving grace of a tank player being annihilated, granting you that time you need to get off a full healing cast. Learning how to use Shield correctly is a big part of playing a Priest. It's one of their best spells and can make or break a party's battles.
Priests have four choices for healing: Renew, Flash Heal, Heal (aka Lesser Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, etc), and a Group Heal. Renew is the most mana-efficient of the four, an instant-cast heal-over-time spell. For solo Priest players, it's much more mana-efficient than Shield to engage Renew during your fight with a monster as you whack away at it. Of course, it doesn't provide the big healing boost or instant protection that Shield does. Flash Heal is a "mini-heal" that has a much shorter casting time, but heals for less than the full Heal spells. Flash Heal is great for use in the heat of battle to heal up a hurt partymate. For situations when a large heal is needed, it's best to throw up a Shield and cast the main Heal spell, which can have a significant casting time but heal for a ton of hit points. Finally, the Priest's group healing spell is a mass-heal that affects everyone in the party, but be warned - the aggro generated by it shoots through the roof and will land a Priest in hot water almost every time. It's best to use it after a fight.
BATTLE
Priests need to be masters of aggro management. Newbie Priests, myself included when I was new to the class, will go overboard with the healing at first and wind up drawing aggro all the time. In groups, the goal of the Priest is to NEVER draw aggro. Priests even have a spell specifically designed to reduce their threat level, called Fade, and many of their spell descriptions detail how much threat (aggro) will be gained by using the spell.
A typical group battle by an experienced Priest player will have the Priest cast Shield on the primary tank before the fight starts, giving the group some extra time before any healings have to begin. If a caster draws aggro and needs help casting spells, the Priest can shield them as well during the fight. In general, healings should only be commenced well into the fight, if necessary. Otherwise, it's best to heal only when the fight is over. If you save your heals only for when they're necessary, the chances of you drawing aggro onto yourself lessens significantly.
Mana is everything. As long as you have mana, you and your party can survive an engagement. Successfully managing your mana level is crucial. Mages don't need to worry about mana management nearly as much - they can always chug their conjured mana to quickly and cheaply replenish themselves. When in large (5 player) groups, offense is no longer a priority from you. If you find yourself running out of mana often, don't even bother engaging in offense at all. It may seem like you're not "helping" the group this way, but you are in fact reducing downtime and allowing the group to safely go from fight to fight to fight without fear of getting wiped out. You are thus providing offense by playing defensively.
Generally, I limit myself to casting the Shadow Word: Pain damage-over-time spell in instance groups, for it provides a lot of damage for a small amount of mana. Other offensive spells suck up too much mana. When fighting enemy casters, the Mana Burn spell can be very helpful as well.
Soloing: the dynamic for a Priest changes significantly when soloing. I've mentioned before that a Priest CAN blast a creature fairly quickly if it needs to, but doing so will eliminate your mana pool each time and require downtime to drink up. My solo battles generally follow a script, when engaging monsters at or around my level:
1) Cast Holy Smite to start off, since it is a casting-time spell. Monster will immediately start closing the gap between it and me.
2) Cast Mind Blast to smack its hit points down some.
3) Cast Shadow Word: Pain to begin the damage-over-time spell. By this time, the monster has closed the gap.
4) Engage in melee. Beat the monster down with staff/mace while the Pain spell also slowly brings it down.
5) If necessary, cast Renew to counteract damage done to me by the monster. This depends on the "toughness" of what I'm fighting.
6) Cast Mind Blast again if Shadow Word: Pain has run out and there's still a significant chunk of hit points left.
By this point, anything I'm fighting is dead, barring special circumstances (monster much higher level than me, elite monster, etc). It also leaves me with enough mana to immediately engage another monster. This is good. But don't ever think you're a Mage - Priests kill slowly compared to some other classes.
BUFFS
Priest have a buff that everyone likes, Holy Word: Fortitude. It simply raises stamina. When I'm traveling around from place to place, I'll buff random passerby with it. About 1 in 5 players will thank me for the buff. 1 in 10 will buff me back, with Mages giving Arcane Intellect and Druids providing their buffs as well. It's a way to "spread the love." Priests can also provide resistance buffs against shadow and holy damage, which are only required in situations where those spell types are encountered from monsters, which isn't all that often I'm finding. The ultimate buff is, of course, Shield - but that only lasts 1 minute (thankfully, or it would be ridiculous).
TALENTS
Coming in the next patch! Should be interesting to see what Blizzard comes up with. This class is a balance tightrope, and they need to be careful or it will swing too far one way or another. Also, Priests have far more power in PvP than in PvE, for their healing and protective abilities have a much larger sway on battles when dealing with player vs. player combat. If they're nerfed for PvP, the PvE Priests will suffer egregiously.
Hope you enjoyed the read. Questions/comments?
-Bolty
I'm approaching level 40 with my Priest, so I'm giving a report on how they're generally played. At low levels, Priests are positively uber due to the fact that spirit provides a huge percentage-wise boost to mana regeneration. Someone should make a chart showing how spirit's benefits really level off at high levels, because it does play a significant factor. The view of any spellcasting class at level 10 is far different from that at level 40. Gaining 10 mana per second when you have 250 mana is a lot different than gaining 20 mana per second when you have 1700 mana - at that point, you're obsessed with mana efficiency.
OFFENSE
A priest's offense is primary made up of three spells and melee attacks. Holy Smite, a casting spell requiring a period of time to cast; Mind Blast, an instant-cast spell with a cooldown, and Shadow Word: Pain, a damage-over-time (DoT) spell. These spells do damage almost on par to that of a Mage (without talents), but drain huge gobs of mana without any real way to regain it quickly. While Mages can summon drinks and Warlocks can trade hit points for mana, Priests are *always* starving for mana due to no method of replenishment except for Spirit and purchased/found mana potions. As a result, while a Priest *could* smack down an enemy rapidly with its spells, it wouldn't want to, for the mana cost would mean a huge downtime post-fight and the loss of more drink(s).
This is why the Priest's main item is one-handed maces; Blizzard intends for the class to melee some instead of being a pure caster. This is the balancing factor that prevents Priests from dominating the game. Inner Fire is a 3-minute buff that can only be used on the caster, granting huge attack and armor bonuses. This, supplied with the melee weapon, is a significant portion of the Priest's offense while soloing.
Currently, it's usually better to train in staves and ditch maces. This is because staves can do just as much damage while providing bonuses to spirit and intelligence easily beating that of an off-hand item. I'd bet that Priest-specific quests, when implemented, will give out nice maces that have bonuses useful to the Priest class, mitigating the need to learn staves to be optimal.
Back to the spells - all of the Priest's attacks hit the target instantly. "So what," you might be thinking - but this prevents you from queueing up the next attack as the first one is travelling toward the target. Any Mage player can tell you that when starting off a fight, that's a very sweet thing.
A priest's offense is supported by a number of secondary spells. Mind Control allows the Priest to take over an enemy creature for a period of time, with a chance to break off at any moment; Mana Burn, which allows the Priest to drain the enemy of mana - great against casters, and crowd control with Psychic Scream, which can cause up to three attackers to flee from the player for a period of time. I don't consider Mind Control to be a crowd control spell, for when controlling an enemy, you are unable to take any action. The character is a sitting duck.
Again, a Priest CAN kill quickly if it needs to, but the downtime is very, very costly; to kill quickly also sacrifices your ability to defend you and your groupmates.
DEFENSE
You'll never have a hard time finding a party as a Priest, and it's because of the defensive abilities they possess. Holy Word: Shield is one of the most powerful and yet most dangerous spells in the game, giving the Priest the ability to make anyone essentially invincible for a period of time. Shields, aka "bubbles," absorb a set amount of damage dealt to the character, whether it be from melee, ranged, or magical attacks. It's an instant-cast spell that's a way of saying "for the next X damage dealt to you, you won't feel a thing." It also protect spellcaster classes from having their spells interrupted/stuttered by standard enemy attacks.
Problem is, it draws a lot of aggro as well. Newbie priests often run into trouble using Shield, because they spam it too much on their partymates in a fight and wind up drawing all the aggro on them. Shields should be used only when the situation warrants, such as *before* a fight begins and as a protective anti-stutter for spellcasting friends who are being attacked. Since it's instant-cast, it can also be the saving grace of a tank player being annihilated, granting you that time you need to get off a full healing cast. Learning how to use Shield correctly is a big part of playing a Priest. It's one of their best spells and can make or break a party's battles.
Priests have four choices for healing: Renew, Flash Heal, Heal (aka Lesser Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, etc), and a Group Heal. Renew is the most mana-efficient of the four, an instant-cast heal-over-time spell. For solo Priest players, it's much more mana-efficient than Shield to engage Renew during your fight with a monster as you whack away at it. Of course, it doesn't provide the big healing boost or instant protection that Shield does. Flash Heal is a "mini-heal" that has a much shorter casting time, but heals for less than the full Heal spells. Flash Heal is great for use in the heat of battle to heal up a hurt partymate. For situations when a large heal is needed, it's best to throw up a Shield and cast the main Heal spell, which can have a significant casting time but heal for a ton of hit points. Finally, the Priest's group healing spell is a mass-heal that affects everyone in the party, but be warned - the aggro generated by it shoots through the roof and will land a Priest in hot water almost every time. It's best to use it after a fight.
BATTLE
Priests need to be masters of aggro management. Newbie Priests, myself included when I was new to the class, will go overboard with the healing at first and wind up drawing aggro all the time. In groups, the goal of the Priest is to NEVER draw aggro. Priests even have a spell specifically designed to reduce their threat level, called Fade, and many of their spell descriptions detail how much threat (aggro) will be gained by using the spell.
A typical group battle by an experienced Priest player will have the Priest cast Shield on the primary tank before the fight starts, giving the group some extra time before any healings have to begin. If a caster draws aggro and needs help casting spells, the Priest can shield them as well during the fight. In general, healings should only be commenced well into the fight, if necessary. Otherwise, it's best to heal only when the fight is over. If you save your heals only for when they're necessary, the chances of you drawing aggro onto yourself lessens significantly.
Mana is everything. As long as you have mana, you and your party can survive an engagement. Successfully managing your mana level is crucial. Mages don't need to worry about mana management nearly as much - they can always chug their conjured mana to quickly and cheaply replenish themselves. When in large (5 player) groups, offense is no longer a priority from you. If you find yourself running out of mana often, don't even bother engaging in offense at all. It may seem like you're not "helping" the group this way, but you are in fact reducing downtime and allowing the group to safely go from fight to fight to fight without fear of getting wiped out. You are thus providing offense by playing defensively.
Generally, I limit myself to casting the Shadow Word: Pain damage-over-time spell in instance groups, for it provides a lot of damage for a small amount of mana. Other offensive spells suck up too much mana. When fighting enemy casters, the Mana Burn spell can be very helpful as well.
Soloing: the dynamic for a Priest changes significantly when soloing. I've mentioned before that a Priest CAN blast a creature fairly quickly if it needs to, but doing so will eliminate your mana pool each time and require downtime to drink up. My solo battles generally follow a script, when engaging monsters at or around my level:
1) Cast Holy Smite to start off, since it is a casting-time spell. Monster will immediately start closing the gap between it and me.
2) Cast Mind Blast to smack its hit points down some.
3) Cast Shadow Word: Pain to begin the damage-over-time spell. By this time, the monster has closed the gap.
4) Engage in melee. Beat the monster down with staff/mace while the Pain spell also slowly brings it down.
5) If necessary, cast Renew to counteract damage done to me by the monster. This depends on the "toughness" of what I'm fighting.
6) Cast Mind Blast again if Shadow Word: Pain has run out and there's still a significant chunk of hit points left.
By this point, anything I'm fighting is dead, barring special circumstances (monster much higher level than me, elite monster, etc). It also leaves me with enough mana to immediately engage another monster. This is good. But don't ever think you're a Mage - Priests kill slowly compared to some other classes.
BUFFS
Priest have a buff that everyone likes, Holy Word: Fortitude. It simply raises stamina. When I'm traveling around from place to place, I'll buff random passerby with it. About 1 in 5 players will thank me for the buff. 1 in 10 will buff me back, with Mages giving Arcane Intellect and Druids providing their buffs as well. It's a way to "spread the love." Priests can also provide resistance buffs against shadow and holy damage, which are only required in situations where those spell types are encountered from monsters, which isn't all that often I'm finding. The ultimate buff is, of course, Shield - but that only lasts 1 minute (thankfully, or it would be ridiculous).
TALENTS
Coming in the next patch! Should be interesting to see what Blizzard comes up with. This class is a balance tightrope, and they need to be careful or it will swing too far one way or another. Also, Priests have far more power in PvP than in PvE, for their healing and protective abilities have a much larger sway on battles when dealing with player vs. player combat. If they're nerfed for PvP, the PvE Priests will suffer egregiously.
Hope you enjoyed the read. Questions/comments?
-Bolty
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.