Tactics and Techniques
Early Priest Tips
While pulling solo be sure you are healed to full, you are buffed (Spirit and Fortitude), and cast a shield on yourself. If you really feel you need that extra help, precasting Renew on yourself before a pull is never a bad idea. However, you should be able to kill most mobs quickly enough that they won’t even make it through your shield.
Aggro (Threat)
One of the most important things you will need to learn as a Priest regardless of if you are healing or DPSing is how NOT to gain aggro while in a group. Never forget that as a priest you are wearing cloth, and if you manage to pull aggro from your tank you will be killed quickly.
Let’s start with a simple definition of aggro and how it works. This is in no way 100% complete, this is the basics. Aggro is the rated aggression or threat that a MOB has towards someone. Each MOB has a table that tracks the threat points for all targets it is aware of. It is aware of everything in its threat range (varies depending on your relative level to it). Ignoring abilities that generate extra threat, each point of damage generates a point of threat against that MOB. The MOB will aggro (or go aggressive against) the target it has the most threat points against.
Threat gain can get very complicated and confusing, especially when large groups of mobs are pulled. Healing, shields, and any kind of DPS will gain aggro on one or more mobs depending on the situation. Learning what to cast and when to cast it will come with time and some trial and error. However, for an easy way to watch your threat downloading a threat meter such as Omen is recommended.
Fade is your friend while worrying about aggro. It should be used any time you use a large heal, gain numerous large hits on a mob, or a tank dies. Fade works by temporarily dropping a set amount of aggro points from all mobs with you in their threat table. Don’t get to comfortable though, all this threat will be returned as soon as Fade wears off.
The Shadowfiend and You
As mentioned in the Basics page of this guide the Shadowfiend is a very valuable tool for both healing and Shadow Priests. When you find yourself running out of mana, summon this creature to help you gain it back. Using this ability early in the fight may mean you can use it again later in the same fight.
The Shadowfiend allows the caster to gain back 5% mana each time the Shadowfiend attacks. The Shadowfiend lasts 15 seconds, and is on a 5 minute cool down, however Shadow Priests can spec into Veiled Shadows which will reduce the cool down of the Shadowfiend ability by 1 minute for each point (up to two points) placed in the talent. The one flaw of the Shadowfiend is it has rather low health. While Blizzard has increased it, it has a tendency to die early without returning much mana. To combat this, you can use Glyph of the Shadowfiend which will allow you to receive 5% of your maximum mana back if your Shadowfiend dies from damage.
Inner Fire
Another class defining spell, Inner Fire is available to all Priests and especially useful while soloing. While active Inner Fire increases armor by 2440 and your spell power by 120. The buff lasts for 30 minutes, or until 20 charges are used. Each melee or ranged damage hit against the Priest will remove one charge. Priests can choose to spec into Improved Inner Fire which increases the effect by 45% and also increases the total number of charges by 12.
Grouping as a Priest
Priests of any spec should have no problem finding a place in a group, and knowing your role will help make things that much easier.
Healing Priests
In large groups Healing Priests will be asked to either be tank healers or raid healers. Both are difficult jobs, and require split second reactions and can mean the success or failure of the raid.
Main Tank Healing
Tank healers must never forget that their primary priority is the tank. Without the tank, the raid wipes, and you will have some very unhappy people on your hands. As a general rule, if you are the MT healer, you should not be healing anyone else besides the tank you are assigned to (there are exceptions to this, but they will be learned over time and as you gain more skill). Trust in your other healers to keep the raid alive, because if the tank dies because you weren’t doing your job, there is no one else to blame besides you.
MT healing requires the Priest to be prepared for the spikes in damage all tanks take regardless of gear. As the fight progresses (and if you heal the same tank over and over again) you will get used to the damage they take and come to anticipate when these spikes in damage will come. Try to smooth them out as best as possible by keeping Renew up at all times. Keeping a heal always casting will help you be prepared to save the MT in a pinch. If while casting you see the heal is going to land while the tank is still at full health, simply cancel the heal. No mana spent means no 5 second mana regen rule. Don’t be afraid to throw shields on your tank if needed, and when in doubt it is much better to overheal than to let your tank die.
Raid Healing
Raid healers are responsible for keeping the entire raid alive, and it’s no small task. Keep Renew up on as many people as possible, especially those you know are going to take damage. Throw shields out to any player who is low health. This may save them long enough to allow you to heal them back up. Circle of Heal, and Prayer of Mending are powerful spells that heal many players at once and are the heals of choice for most raid healing Priests.
While in smaller groups such as 5 mans, Priest healers will be required to do both tank healing and raid healing at the same time.
Shadow Priests
Shadow Priests have it a little easier than their healing counterparts, as they will only be required to DPS in groups. However they do have responsibilites. Shadow Priests will be expected to pump out the DPS, while not pulling aggro off the tank. It is also expected that Shadow Priests keep up Vampiric Embrace and Vampiric Touch as often as possible to help benefit the group. After a pull, or a boss fight Shadow Priests should also help resurrect the dead.
To be successful as a Shadow Priest pay attention to your DoTs and cool downs and the threat meter. Refresh DoTs as needed, and be sure to back off on threat if you are close to pulling aggro. A dead Shadow Priest is not helpful to anyone. Shadow Priest Cooldowns do not overlap in a way that allows any set sequence so a priority scheme should be used. The default is: Vampiric Touch > Shadow Word: Pain > Mind Blast > Shadow Word: Death (be careful not to off yourself with this ability) > Mind Flay.
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