5 x Priests for PVP

[dancook]

I've not played a priest in years! so a lot of things have changed.

I currently have 5 priests @ level 7 :)

For PVP I originally thought 5 x Shadow - but then considered whether I should have 1 disc, I'm not fully aware of what that brings to the party, but thought if anyone has any advice about them I can start this method of play style early.

[Mokoi]

hmm PvP? I would spec one Holy, and then 4x Frost... oh no wait, thats DKs and a Pally.

Priests? I would spec them.. well i have no clue, they don't work (i have tried) 5x shadow and 5x holy is pretty beast in large scale PvP, though, and you can really help your team out a LOT with any of those specs, and even disc, with a random target shield macro, i guess. but holy for the circle of healing and Prayer is probably superior. with a LOT of gear, shadow would be pretty ballin, but getting it will be.. hard.

fun though, and this is from someone who plays Arcane mages in PvP.. which is even dumber than priests! but FUN as hell :) (I do have 10 though.. which makes it.. 2x MORE FUN!)

[dancook]

Well that doesn't sound promising :) but thanks!

Maybe this is why it's worth doing :D

My Arcane Mages owne d@ 68/69 and 84 - but come 85 dying grew old quickly :(

[Oatboat]

Shadow is good damage if you arent being rushed. I prefered Discipline, being able to heal is crucial with priests as they are squishy.

They still did decent damage as disc. Just alot more survivability.

[zenga]

A while ago I had some attempts boxing 4x priests, and it was insanely good (and pretty hard to setup). This was the thread where you might find some more considerations; http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=44923&highlight=shadow+priest

[Ualaa]

My 5x Priest composition had a much easier time leveling that any other caster composition.
The only set of five toons who leveled quicker were 5x Ferals.
Not that I've done every composition.
And I've only taken them to 70th (or somewhere barely beyond that point).

5x Shadow will have some decent potential, because of all the passive healing.
I'd personally go 5x Disc, or a combination of Holy/Disc.
Even if you're not as deadly or quick to kill others, five on one will take out any equal geared opponent.
And if you stick with the masses in AV/IoC, healing makes a far greater impact on the battlefield than does damage.
Chances are Shadow will do better in the smaller scale BG's and a healer spec in the larger scale (that is entirely supposition on my part, but makes sense).

Nothing precludes having dual-spec.

Also, consider playing them in the 70-74 bracket, 70 if you want to arena.
Or possibly in the 80-84 bracket, as an 84.
Stop experience at the target level.
Both are very large twink brackets, and at times Blizzard has stopped experience players in the same pool as regular players if there aren't enough players with experience turned off.

[zenga]

I disagree with ualaa that 5x disc would do better than having a shadow in the team. Disc Priests are no longer a healing class that is supposed to dps, as they once were. With the health pools, passive healing many classes have, you will find yourself short on damage if you go with 5 healers.

Now i wouldn't go with 5 shadow either, but e.g. 3 shadow + 2 disc could be a wonderful team, even 3 shadow 1 disc 1 holy

[dancook]

I just got two wrecking balls in wsg:)

http://i716.photobucket.com/albums/ww161/dancook1982/WOW/WoWScrnShot_121311_221151.jpg

[zenga]

lol yeah i noticed that when i lately did a wsg on my 14 hunter that priests were quite good at that lvl, are the shields still bigger than their hp pool?

but way to go ... it's a comp that is not played by many

[dancook]

My first shield matched my health pool exactly :)

I had renew x 5 on round robin approaching a pack of horde... what i might do now is renew x 5 on leader then renew x 1 on the slaves. To reduce casting time/mana

At this level -I found sw: pain was a waste of time, and so was disc - as soon as i went shadow and spammed mind flay - i was in love

[Narij]

My first (and only team) is a group of four priests healed by a friend's Resto druid. I hit 85 last Monday and almost finished gearing over the weekend. As soon as I got ~2k resil on all the priests I saw an immediate change in my performance. Sitting now at 3k resil and almost 8k spell power I can lay a hurting into just about anything, as any multiboxer can. Zenga's post on Shadow priests is actually why I took that path.


I've only gone up against another multi boxer once (dks) and the results were expected. I hope with further improvements to my UI and more practice I can show better.

[valkry]

5 priests at 60 was fun, and is still fun twinked at 70 :P

[dancook]

From level 10 - 12 1/2 I haven't lost a WSG since switching to mind flay spam :) wooo..

[Cyrberus]

I have 3 shadow priests and am owning most battlegrounds. They're better in defense then offense though. Either using dots/mindflay or mindspike/mindblast, depending on the target. They're no good at aoe, i'm afraid. They're also very gear dependant.

[smalltanker]

@Dancook:

How are your toons geared by chance. I tried armorying them but no luck. You doing the PVP heirlooms or the PVE ones?

Congratz on WB x 2

[dancook]

PVE Heirlooms
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/magtheridon/Soulei/advanced
I went over 500 HP last night.. I think I'll get the PVP trinket when I get enough :)

I will be getting my tailor to make some greens to fill those other slots.

The first 3 matches 2 wsg and 1 ab with the priests @ level 10 went terribly... really almost wanted to give up and I did /afk in all of them, but I thought no - i'll learn from it and adapt... that was when I switch from disc to shadow :)

Since then I never lost a match, it was nice to have the confidence at the beginning of WSG to say we WILL win. If there are any naysayers I link my wrecking ball and perfect wsg achievements. Then I throw 5 renews on everyone, and the crowd goes wild hehe.

[dancook]

Just an idea of my macros so far, still young though

DPS (Main)
/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence mind flay, mindflay
/cast mind blast
/cast gift of the naaru

DPS (Proc)
/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence mind flay, mindflay

Round Robin Renew (Great to keep my main alive versus focus fire)
i)
/tar {FTL}
/cast Renew
ii)
/cast [@player] Renew

Round Robin
/cast Psychic Scream

/cast [@player] Power Word: Shield

And then I just have renew and flash heal on the tool bar for 5 x cast on target.

[Wokomehee]

I have 3 priests at 85, and 2 lowbies on their way. With priest as my main solo char, i have alot of ideas on how to play them in pvp. Im thinking disc tho. With gear, my solo priest can survive "almost anything". I cant see how alliance can be able to recap SHB or anything else if i got 5 of them.. rr on fear, dots, hots and healing cc, it should be hard for them atleast.. i might be wrong tho :p not the first time!

[dancook]

Just got iron man - I feel like the wills of the horde are broken...

[smalltanker]

I think I might have to dry this this weekend. How do you deal with the inevitable rogues hitting you with ambush + shadowstep type attacks. You would pretty much have to have continual shields up.

[zenga]

I think I might have to dry this this weekend. How do you deal with the inevitable rogues hitting you with ambush + shadowstep type attacks. You would pretty much have to have continual shields up.

you have fear + disarm (psychic horror) + dispersion, if he pops cloak of shadow you can disperse through it, basically a rogue shouldn't kill you when you box priests (well except at lower levels, but that doesn't really count)

[smalltanker]

if I do this I will do a tauren, Belf, forsaken, troll priest ... etc... with all different names so I can't be called out for boxing by looking at the names... my last two team get bagged on instantly ... /ugggh.

[dancook]

I'm just about to hit level 15 from WSG runs and a couple of AB, I've got about 1350+ honor points.

AB was a serious pain, I had afk'ers following me (5 x report!), I had people at their keyboards following me... i seemed to distract people from the objectives whilst I was busy doing what I could.


I think I might have to dry this this weekend. How do you deal with the inevitable rogues hitting you with ambush + shadowstep type attacks. You would pretty much have to have continual shields up.

I do pretty much run with shields up crossing the WSG field.. I also pop 5 renew's on my main who's most often the target. Then as said, I use fear etc...

I am level 14 still though..

[smalltanker]

Sweet... just created my new team "The Grimms" used the monster names from the new TV show: Blutbod (M Belf), Mellifer (F Belf), Bauerschwein (Troll), Reinigen (Tauren)... and Ziegevolk (Forsaken). So after I drop kid off at school it is on... gotta get my set up going and all my items mailed aroun. Woot. Glad I capped on Points this week already.

[Narij]

Rogues and DKs are the only things that can give me problems. (CoS and AMS). If there's only one or two, I can throw dots up and dispersion through the opening damage. Afterwards, it’s just a fear into nuke rotation. Death knights are only an issues if they AMS before you get dots up.

The other thing people haven't mentioned (in this thread) is the mass mana burn. In ~5 seconds you burn a healer down to nothing and can go back to killing things.

I use three macros that look like these, but I'm open to options. Also note, that DoTs are all on a separate keybind.

1) Mind spike x3 Mind Blast, Mind spike
The goal here is to just nuke a target used mainly when you pop Archange or if your shadow tree has been locked out.

2) Mind Blast, mind flay x2, shadow word:Death
my generic nuke build, in PvE I add another Mind flay after the death.

3) 1)Archange, on Use trinkets, Troll Racial
Self explanatory

I'm looking forward to AV this weekend and may try a 5 disc build for tower defense.

[dancook]

i've been switching between disc and shadow - now at level 49 - favouring shadow so far.

It's enjoyable to through 5 x SW Pain and 5 x Imp Devouring Plague on horde as they run to enter the tower :)

I found that disc didn't have enough fire power, cast times too long - mind flay auto rotates character to follow target which is a big bonus for us.

I've only managed about 4 AV's so far.. queuing at the moment. I'm wondering whether it will be fine to stick with 5 shadows - or whether i should dedicate one to healing for the future as disc.

[Cyrberus]

This weekend i've been playing with my 3 shadowpriests in AV, together with a disc-priest friend. It felt like we were unkillable. So yeah, having one disc in your team might help.
Not sure if it makes things more complicated though.

Another thing i noticed is that if you get better gear, mindsear gets really powerful. specially using mindsear in a big crowd is lots of fun.

[dancook]

I've been enjoy shadow - but now i'm level 62 with holy nova - i'm going to see how much fun it could be.. defending balinda for example -all glyphed up waiting to get in :)

Disc - devine aegis kicking in on crits mmmm

[dancook]

I was so loving shadow over disc - but after playing with holy nova! i'm a temporary convert:)

I kept balinda safe last game.. generally mixing up holy nova with my main dps spam and the occasional penance.. it is very resilient.

the aim is to holy nova whilst looking for their healers and taking them down with penance.:) works very well

[Cyrberus]

I should give disc a go too then.

Holy nova was a bit disappointing when i last tried it. But that was with green gear and a shadowspec. Curious how its performing now with full season11 set.

[muffe]

With the proposed Vow of Unity in the next expansion you could theoretically have them all soul linked up to share the damage around.:eek:

[dancook]

Level 70 and I just cleared Utgarde Keep with these priests:)

level 71 I did nexus.

[dancook]

I started up a new priest team on grim batol, it's actually quite fun! even at level 10 I had a flawless victory in WSG.

Setup as disc, currently keep shield alive and dot everything and cast penance on CD.

If you try to use shield whilst on CD, it will put it ready for you to click shield a target - this can prevent you using other attacks so I am using this macro

/cast [@player] power word: shield
/cast flash heal

The flash heal gets rid of the power word: shield target cursor .. and heals you or your target if you spam it.

I've got 5 x psyfiend on round robin, doesn't seem to have any effect on stealthed targets though.

[valkry]

I started up a new priest team on grim batol, it's actually quite fun! even at level 10 I had a flawless victory in WSG.

Setup as disc, currently keep shield alive and dot everything and cast penance on CD.

If you try to use shield whilst on CD, it will put it ready for you to click shield a target - this can prevent you using other attacks so I am using this macro

/cast [@player] power word: shield
/cast flash heal

The flash heal gets rid of the power word: shield target cursor .. and heals you or your target if you spam it.

I've got 5 x psyfiend on round robin, doesn't seem to have any effect on stealthed targets though.
Be ready for when someone drops a psyfiend in the middle of your group. You will be able to solo dungeons and holy nova is great for low hp mobs in dungeons but not as good for pvp. Glyph of penance is mandatory.

[dancook]

Be ready for when someone drops a psyfiend in the middle of your group. You will be able to solo dungeons and holy nova is great for low hp mobs in dungeons but not as good for pvp. Glyph of penance is mandatory.

I flew through RFC at level 12, without problem - much easier than tank/3dps/healer. Mob packs were dead before shields went down. 5 x penance = overkill.

It wasn't until level 15 that I could do quests in RFC, and then I shot up to level 17 upon handing them in.

I used to love holy nova (pre 5.0.4) @ level 84 in AV. Used to wreck horde at balinda.

[Ualaa]

If 5x Penance is overkill, you could set that up as a round-robin ability.
Tweak it a little, with say 1-3 Penance firing (or attempting to fire off) on each press of the hotkey.

[dancook]

If 5x Penance is overkill, you could set that up as a round-robin ability.
Tweak it a little, with say 1-3 Penance firing (or attempting to fire off) on each press of the hotkey.

Against a disc priest, 5 penance is barely enough :) but I hear what you're saying, I'm only level 17 now... so things will change a lot

[Xixillia]

How's your team progressing? I've a 4x disc team that's just waiting for av to come around again. I did 2x disc the first week and it was awesome! 4x feels really frantic in pvp for me, hopefully it gets better ( that's for everything that I have - I may not be cut out for mb)

Also, since this is a priest thread,
How would having a 2 step thing that spams a macro like this work
/stopmacro [channeling]
/stopcasting
/cast mind spike

Button 1 would be dps
Button 2 would be mind spike proc

[dancook]

I think it would ruin your GCD :)

It would start mind spike, trigger GCD then stop casting.

I've already had a level 85 priest team on another server, I haven't got that far with the new team yet.

[Multibocks]

I think now that shadow dps is not providing the passive healing that it once did this team is not as good. Someone might be able to make this team work, but its far from ideal or efficient.

[Mokoi]

shadow is too proc based, and disc doesnt do enough DMG. passive healing with DISC is amazing, but only close to your target, nd you will run OOM very quickly at lvl 90 I think.

[valkry]

shadow is too proc based, and disc doesnt do enough DMG. passive healing with DISC is amazing, but only close to your target, nd you will run OOM very quickly at lvl 90 I think.

At lvl 80 disc is godly... godly!!

2 tank + 8 disc could prob take on algalon for a herald of the titans group