Class Guide Priest

The Definitive Priest Class Guide, from 1-70 and beyond:

Index:
1.0 - Introduction
2.0 - Class Basics
3.0 - The 1-60 Grind, Leveling
4.0 - 60-70, Outland
5.0 - 70 and Beyond
6.0 - Talent Builds
7.0 - Gear Guide

1.0 - Introduction

Priests, one of the classic stable of classes chosen for practically any MMORPG in history and almost any game with a hint of strategy or tactics has a like class. As one of the classic triumvirate core classes such as warriors and rogues you'd probably think that priests would be the best at their designated omnipresent role of healing no?

Well if you did you'll find yourself extremely dissapointed should you compare yourself to an equally geared healing specced paladin of comparable skill, and even more so if this happens to be during a PvP encounter due to your rather lacking survivability.

Now, things aren't all so bad as to abandon your priestly ideals or anything, obviously we have a role to fulfill, it's just that a number of priests feel somewhat... weak, when compared to their supposedly less powerful, healing wise that is, compatriots such as the druid and the paladin. So yes, I would highly advise you prepare yourself for the rigors of having one of the weakest defenses in the game while being practically the most targeted and overall most likely killed class as well.

With all my disbarraging of the class done with I'll tell you why you would *want* to roll a priest, a number of things jump to the forefront such as the general lack of priests over most servers and the huge amount of healing gear present in outland, but also for your own personal enjoyment theirs always the shadow priest role to fulfill.

You may have encountered the shadow priest before burning crusade, at that time alot of players viewed it as a sort of "taboo" version of the priest class similar to the ire that retribution or "damage" paladins have held for quite some time and now more than ever.

Ignore anyone who tells you running a full shadow talent build is bad and or wrong, it's practically the only way to reach level 70 whilst maintaining some semblance of sanity, although you may lose even that should you run with pickup groups very often.

With that said, I'll move on to the meat, or leaves should you be vegetarian, of the guide.

2.0 - Class Basics

As I've mentioned above priests have two main talent trees to focus upon, one being holy, obviously the more traditional path for a priest, and the other being shadow, something that makes the priest far more of a damage dealer/killer than he/she is healer. Neither path is exactly *right* or *wrong,* they simply pose different challenges and improve upon differing aspects of the class as a whole.

I'll start with holy then, as you might expect holy is about healing, and healing, and more healing. Honestly yes their are a few damage talents scattered here and there throughout the tree but for the most part I wouldn't attempt to be some sort of holy damage machine until at the very least 60 plus if not 70. Anyway, picking a gear style to match your holy talent spec is actually quite easy, you can't take half a step in outland without running into some sort of +healing gear, alot of it is admittedly plate, mail, and even leather, but an equally large amount happens to be cloth.

I'm not going to go into the exact science of the whole matter, but you should really gauge your desires when choosing either spirit gear or straight up mana regeneration items, both have certain advantages and drawbacks, I'll let you decide which suits your purpose better at this point.

As a point of importance, both spirit and mp/5(mana per five seconds) gear come in handy for both shadow and discipline builds as well as holy.

Moving on to shadow, this is quite obviously a damage focused build due to the massive amount of damage increasing talents and the simple fact that it is ya know, shadow, evil, unholy, all that good stuff. However, shadow is also amazing as a support healing, mana regeneration, and healing character, vampiric touch and vampiric embrace respectively return a good amount of mana and health all while dealing damage to the target/targets.

Shadow has become something of a required class to have along on any competent raiding team, a well geared shadow priest bringing too much damage, healing, and mana regen, to ignore any longer.

Finally I'll get to the build I've neglected to mention very much at all so far, discipline. Discipline was previously something of a support talent tree, only used in conjunction with a larger amount of points in either shadow or holy, this applies no longer however, discipline is very much capable of standing on it's own ever since the talent review.

The heart of discipline is a mixed focus of damage and defenses, something of a middle road between holy and shadow with it's own touches added in, discipline improves healing, mana regen, armor/overall survivability, and damage, a good mix if I say so myself.

Truly though I'd recommend only going heavy discipline at 60+, before that shadow still reigns supreme as damage dealer and most efficient grinder.

3.0 - The 1-60 Grind, Leveling

As a general guideline you'll want to level your priest to at the very least 50+ if not even longer, perhaps as far as 60-62, before even considering choosing any talent build except for a full-blown shadow priest selection. I'll be frank, leveling as anything but shadow will not only waste hours of your time, it'll be extremely painful on both your overall enjoyment of the process and probably leave you somewhat zombie like.

Okay, so maybe that was a bit of an exageration, still, my point stands, don't even think about going holy or even discipline until you've put at the very least 20-31 points purely in shadow. Now, you may be wondering about such a harsh restriction on your own personal experimentation, but trust me, you'll thank me for this later as you speed past any non-shadow specced priest at insane rates of XP per hour, grinding or quested, and hit 60 that much faster.

Your first five points in shadow will be spirit tap, it's insanely useful at the lower levels and merely downgrades to very useful at the higher ones, from 14 to about 20-25 you can even get nearly your entire mana pool back during the spirit tap proc.

Yes, as you level spirit tap will become weaker due to your ever increasing mana pool and the fact that you want to balance off your spirit, the stat that improves spirit tap, with int and stamina as well as +damage gear 40+.

As a general rule of thumb you'll want a wand as soon as possible, it saves such a large amount of mana over time that you should improve it every chance you get, infact I'd even be willing to let it go should you throw 5 points in the improved wands talent of the discipline tree if this happened to interest you.

Wands really are a life-saver whether it be for more efficient grinding or just to finish off a mob if you mana pool happens to run dry, either way it helps enormously.

Finally, the winnning combo for grinding: Mind Blast, SWP(Shadow Word: Pain,) mind flay, a second mind flay if the mobs still out of range, and either another mind blast before wanding or you can just get straight to the wanding depending on the mobs HP.

4.0 - 60-70, Outland

Upon hitting level 60 and hopefully making the wise choice to leave Azeroth all but behind except for the occasional auction house runs you'll discover much the same bonuses as almost everyone else. Those would be the sudden viability of a number of hybrid talents builds, holy and discipline both becoming actually somewhat alright at leveling rather than feeling like a sloth compared to our shadow specced companions and such.

Of course I could continue to talk about dull things such as all the lovely quest XP out there to gain and how easy it is to level but... that's too boring, instead I'll tell you about all the new loot there is to grab and why you'd want it. As I mentioned in the paladin guide healing gear now drops from practically every single boss like candy and even some as world drops, at least more often than any other gear, thus you might as well regard Outland as healing heaven from here on out.

Never fear though, for those of us shadow priests plenty of damage gear remains to be snatched up should you be willing to partially compete with warlocks on various items of interest, the nice new thing about Outland gear is the mixture of MP/5, Int, Stam, and even some +damage/+shadow for good measure.

It might not be so much of a difference if you already possessed great gear pre-Outland but anyone entering with a single piece of greens or low quality blues/purples will find some rather immediate upgrades avaliable, rather nice no?

The final lovely thing about Outland, or rather level 60+, is the nifty new abilities we gain, a few examples being shadow fiend, mass dispel, and a new low threat heal. That coupled with more accessibility to our 41 point talents can switch things up quite a bit, enjoy the ability to try a variety of new builds and gear suits, you'll find your optimal playstyle after a bit of testing.

5.0 - 70 and Beyond

Upon reaching 70 and hopefully finishing your victory dance, especially should this be your first 70, you'll have a number of paths upon which to begin advancement, both gear wise and reputation/key wise. Some people, actually alot of people, choose the PvP route, one of my favorite methods of gaining gear, another would be the traditional PvE, a path more suited to those who prefer holy or discipline healing rather than the killing fields.

A handy thing about world of warcraft is that it rewards whatever path you pursue with gear making it easier to become that much more powerful at whatever you did for the gear, pvp more to get pvp gear, pve/raid more for better healing gear.

However, both the PvP gear and the PvE gear can be used in a number of situations beyond the main intended usage, this is somewhat obvious however as I've never heard of more +healing hurting in PvP nor having alot of health being a dis-ad when choosing party healer.

Another viable method of gatherings improvements, gear or trinket wise, is both crafting and farming/auction house hunting, alot of very nice BoE world drop items can be found on the AH or perhaps with some luck whilst grinding, and just as nice if not better can be crafted should you have the right materials or alot of cash on hand.

Remember, your main focus is to get either a "good" PvP set or a "good" healing set, just enough so that you can handle what you need to do, whether that be healing through a karazhan raid or taking out the opposing arena team. In time the gear you get from doing such things will replace practically everything you have now anyway.

One last word of advice, never get rid of your PvP/PvE gear should you advance far enough along either road, you never know when you'll want to run a few dungeons or hop in the arena/battlegrounds and start killing, be cautious of focusing too hard on one thing and burning yourself out.

6.0 - Talent Builds

7.0 - Gear Guide

Helm:

Scintillating Headdress of Second Sight - Drop(Heroic Auchenai Crypts)
Watcher's Cowl - Cenarion Expedition Reputation Reward
Hallowed Crown - Drop(Arcatraz)

Neck:

Karja's Medallion- Quest Reward
Natasha's Guardian Cord - Quest Reward

Back:

Light-Touched Stole of Altruism - Drop(Heroic Auchenai Crypts)
Lifegiving Cloak - BoE World Drop
White Remedy Cape - Crafted

Shoulders:

Primal Mooncloth Shoulders - Crafted
Vestia's Pauldrons of Inner Grace - Drop(Mechanar)
Hallowed Pauldrons - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)

Chest:

Primal Mooncloth Robe - Crafted
Shroud of Spiritual Purity - BoE World Drop
Watcher's Tunic - Quest Reward

Wrist:

Bindings of the Timewalker - Keeper of Time Exalted Reputation Reward
Blackstrike Bracers - Crafted

Hands:

Prismatic Mittens of Mending - Drop(Botanica)
Hallowed Handwraps- Drop(Shattered Halls)
Gloves of Penitence - Quest Reward

Belt:

Primal Mooncloth Belt - Crafted
Lifeblood Belt - Crafted
Black Belt of Knowledge - Crafted

Legs:

Whitemend Pants - Crafted
Hallowed Trousers - Drop(Sethekk Halls)
Pants of the Naaru - Quest Reward

Boots:

Jeweled Boots of Sanctification - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Curate's Boots - Quest Reward
Light-Woven Slippers - Drop(Sethekk Halls)

Rings:

Spiritualist's Mark of the Sha'tar - Quest Reward
Ancestral Band/Ring of Convalescence - Thrallmar/Honor Hold Revered Reputation Reward
Celestial Jewel Ring - Quest Reward
Cosmic Lifeband - Drop(Mechanar)

Trinkets:

Scarab of the Infinite Cycle - Drop(Black Morass)
Bangle of Endless Blessings - Drop(Botanica)
Scryer's Bloodgem - Scryers Revered Reputation Reward
Lower City Prayerbook - Lower City Revered Reputation Reward

Weapons:

Shockwave Truncheon - Drop(Heroic Shadow Laybrinth)
The Ancient Scepter of Sue-Min - BoE World Drop
Lightsworn Hammer - Drop(Shattered Halls)
Hammer of the Penitent - Drop(Mechanar)
The Essence Focuser - BoE World Drop

Off-hand:

Faol's Signet of Cleansing - Drop(Heroic Shattered Halls)
Windcaller's Orb - Exalted Cenarion Expedition Reward
Swamplight Lantern - Drop(Heroic Slave Pens)

Two-Hand:

Seer's Cane - Scryers Revered Reward
Epoch-Mender - Drop(Black Morass)
Serpentcrest Life-Staff - Drop(Steamvault)

Wand:

Rejuvenating Scepter- Quest Reward
Soul-Wand of the Aldor - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
Calming Spore Reed - Drop(Slave Pens)