1.10 Priest Builds

[teske]

I personally don't play a priest, but if I would. (And then focusing on raids)
I'd rather choose
Spirutal Guidance + Spirutal Healing
instead of
Mental Strength + Mental Agility + Divine Spirit.

To me, Mental Agility looks rather pointless.
And if I understand our priests correctly only 1/3 of the total mana they use on a boss encounter comes from int. The rest is regenerated. So I'd guess Mental Strength increases total healing by 3%. Which ain't impressive.

Spirutal Guidance doesn't look that good. (But I'm not sure what numbers I used.)
Spirutal Healing, even with the current behauviour of applying before +healing is adding a significant amount to flash heal.

And Holy nova, well take a look:
Holy Nova

Holy Nova
Rank 6

750 Mana
181-210 damage with 10 yard radius
302-351 healing with 10 yard radius

To me that seems to be a rather pointless talent.

[vor_lord]

To me, Mental Agility looks rather pointless.

10% reduction on Renew, Power Word: Shield, Dispel, Abolish Disease (and others of course--shadow protection, Shadow Word: Pain). For a pure raiding priest I would imagine it depends a lot on the encounter.

And Holy nova, well take a look:
Holy Nova

Holy Nova

To me that seems to be a rather pointless talent.
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Utility over a small incremental efficiency boost. It's only one point. I'm thrilled to be able to get it so cheaply.

[Xanthix]

Some feedback:

To me, Mental Agility looks rather pointless.

We have tons of instant-cast abilities. Buffs, shields, renew, dispel. For shadow priests, there's also SW:Pain and VE. I use Renew for 30% of my healing so Mental Agility is huge. For dispel-heavy fights this is also extremely useful.

Spirutal Guidance doesn't look that good. (But I'm not sure what numbers I used.)
Spirutal Healing, even with the current behauviour of applying before +healing is adding a significant amount to flash heal.

Spiritual Guidance is indeed worse than Spiritual Healing, but it does affect damage too for PvP.

And Holy nova, well take a look:
...
To me that seems to be a rather pointless talent.

This is where is shows you are not a priest. :) We are kind of stereotyped into having a limited role, so it's fun to break out of that a little. Having access to an AOE spell, with a bit of instant-cast healing to boot, is very nice.

[vor_lord]

But I keep changing my mind -- I wish I could get on the test realm to try it out.
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So, a restoration shaman, a restoration druid, a disc/holy priest, a shadow priest, and a beast mastery hunter walk into Undead Strat...

and the latest 1.10 talent plan for the disc/holy priest is born.

We were unable to kill the Baron last night. Holy water, bombs, volley, chain lightning, totems, help from that pathetic paladin... combined they weren't enough. In retrospect we might have tried tanking him with the pet so that we had hurricane for two spawns, saving our other 1 minute cooldowns for the spawns when it is in cooldown.

If I had Holy Nova, we win. So I'm happy to be picking that up soon.

Regardless, I realized that in optimal groups my healing capacity is rarely taxed, but some less traditional groups might require more. I also realized that for the sake of pure damage, Spiritual Guidance > Force of Will, and it has healer related benefits that Force of Will doesn't.

So I am still getting some very nice holy damage boosters, but giving up Power Infusion and picking up Spirit of Redemption. Still waffling on improved prayer of healing, and thrashing around in the first two tiers of discipline (I resisted a bunch of silences last night and comments in this thread have made me waver on improving shield).

I'm just going to list them here for my own archive purposes with edits:
Mental Strength + Spiritual Guidance
Spiritual Healing + Imp PoH + Holy Reach
SG over Holy Reach

edit: It wasn't so much the inability to kill the skeletons, as it was a lack of DPS on the Baron while doing so, leading to more skeleton groups, exhausting our resources. We really only had the hunter for DPS, as a shadow priest who can't flay isn't contributing that much.

[Concillian]

10% reduction on Renew, Power Word: Shield, Dispel, Abolish Disease (and others of course--shadow protection, Shadow Word: Pain).  For a pure raiding priest I would imagine it depends a lot on the encounter.

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Don't forget a 10% reduction on holy nova, which is a pretty significant mana savings, since it's expensive.

[Kevin]

So, a restoration shaman, a restoration druid, a disc/holy priest, a shadow priest, and a beast mastery hunter walk into Undead Strat...

and the latest 1.10 talent plan for the disc/holy priest is born.

We were unable to kill the Baron last night.  Holy water, bombs, volley, chain lightning, totems, help from that pathetic paladin... combined they weren't enough.  In retrospect we might have tried tanking him with the pet so that we had hurricane for two spawns, saving our other 1 minute cooldowns for the spawns when it is in cooldown.

If I had Holy Nova, we win.  So I'm happy to be picking that up soon.

Regardless, I realized that in optimal groups my healing capacity is rarely taxed, but some less traditional groups might require more.  I also realized that for the sake of pure damage, Spiritual Guidance > Force of Will, and it has healer related benefits that Force of Will doesn't.

So I am still getting some very nice holy damage boosters, but giving up Power Infusion and picking up Spirit of Redemption.  Still waffling on improved prayer of healing, and thrashing around in the first two tiers of discipline (I resisted a bunch of silences last night and comments in this thread have made me waver on improving shield).

Maybe this spec will last longer than an hour or two...

edit:  It wasn't so much the inability to kill the skeletons, as it was a lack of DPS on the Baron while doing so, leading to more skeleton groups, exhausting our resources.  We really only had the hunter for DPS, as a shadow priest who can't flay isn't contributing that much.
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Not to derail too much, but I think we could have do it had I not been so tired and thinking a little better.

I was worried that Yurtle wouldn't be able to position him well or hold aggro well and that incoming damage might have been too much. However thinking about it again, Yurtle, with MotW and the shadow resistance buff had 120 shadow resist and 7100 armor. Since I was primary damage source and I know Yurtle can hold against me we could have had the druid go bear to position him then stop doing aggro until the turtle got it. Druid could have then gone cat for more damage or used hurricane to help with the skelly packs more.

Since we knew it woudl be a long fight going in but that we had a large amount of healing I should have hit him with a mana drain earlier. Could have sucked him dry and prevented him from healing like he did a few times. I should have placed an explosive trap at the start by the priest so that the first wave of skells would have been dealt with that way. With the druid tanking I should have pulled the pet back FD'd and place more to help with that too. That would not have helped with the DPS issue on the Baron himself though, which is why I think my lack of confidence in the pet doing it was more detrimental to our success than anything. He had the defense and live (4600 HP buffed or something like that) to handle it I was worried about him holding aggro as a missed bite or resisted growl would really hurt and intimidation doesn't work on most bosses. Had I just had the confidence in him and let the druid do more DPS, + additional healing, + additional AoE I think that group could have done it. We knew it wasn't going to be easy going in, but heck the turtle tanked most of, including some of the bosses for most of it, Baron isn't that much tougher.

Ah well, it was really late (2am my time) when we got to him so I wasn't on top of my game.

But yeah I think Holy Nova could have tipped the scales in there as well. We've done it without a mage, or lock before, just a couple of hunters for the AoE, but we had a rogue to help with DPS and two hunters means more DPS (I had no DPS on the Baron when I was dealing with the skeletons via volley or multishot or what not two hunters means you still have some of that DPS there). So non ideal groups can do it in blues and greens we just missed it. The little mistakes that anyone made were too much to overcome and I made some little mistakes.

[Raven Vale]

This is my new planned PvP/PvE build.  With a little gear, and some good Int, it won't be hard to hit 15% spell crit for Smite and Holy Fire, with nearing 10% on MB.

Add in Power Infusion, Inner Focus, and Spell Warding for good PvP output.  Trinket priest ftw.  :ph34r:

Then I added Holy Nova, and Divine Spirit, plus full threat reduction for a rounded out build that I can DPS on solidly, while still having some useful stuff for raiding.

I can't wait!
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Hiya , is this a decent build for grinding on ? I have myself a little lvl 12 priest atm and find I do a lot of soloing , is this build viable , thanks . I have pretty much no idea where priests are concerned but would like to give it a go :)

[ima_nerd]

Hiya , is this a decent build for grinding on ? I have myself a little lvl 12 priest atm and find I do a lot of soloing , is this build viable , thanks . I have pretty much no idea where priests are concerned but would like to give it a go :)
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I prefer Shadow for leveling. I was Shadow/Disc from level 10 to level 60. It's the best for soloing (in my opinion) with Spirit Tap reducing your downtime and Mind Flay giving you an extra, efficient damage spell. Throw in Darkness, Shadow Weaving and Shadow Form and you will be outputting a lot of very mana-efficient damage while grinding. Don't let anyone tell you you can't heal if you're Shadow because they are plain wrong. Until high end content, a Shadow Priest can heal just fine. I can't give you a build for 1.10 because I really haven't looked at the Shadow tree in conjunction with the Discipline enough.

[Raven Vale]

I prefer Shadow for leveling. I was Shadow/Disc from level 10 to level 60. It's the best for soloing (in my opinion) with Spirit Tap reducing your downtime and Mind Flay giving you an extra, efficient damage spell. Throw in Darkness, Shadow Weaving and Shadow Form and you will be outputting a lot of very mana-efficient damage while grinding. Don't let anyone tell you you can't heal if you're Shadow because they are plain wrong. Until high end content, a Shadow Priest can heal just fine. I can't give you a build for 1.10 because I really haven't looked at the Shadow tree in conjunction with the Discipline enough.
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Ahh great , thanks . I'll keep my eye out on the boards for anything that comes along :)

[Concillian]

This pic shows one persions build with some damage / healing numbers with different trinket usages:

http://www.untamedguild.net/images/patchdmg.jpg

[MongoJerry]

I'm just wondering why you chose to add Holy Nova over other options.

Why *wouldn't* you get Holy Nova now? Forget the "oh crap" healing. It'll make make aoe clears so much more fun. Toss two priests in with three mages and watch them aoe the mother out of everything with priests providing both damage and healing at the same time. I'm going to make sure to bring my +damage/healing gear along with my ZHC to raids just for these opportunities.

Incidentally, I tried a power infusion holy nova build the other night on the test server and got mixed results. In my +326 damage/healing gear with a ZHC+Power Infusion+Inner Focus powerup, I was only able to get a group of six furbolgs in northern felwood down to 20% health before I ran out of mana. So, if one wants to solo aoe grind this way, one has to fight lower level mobs, use mana potions a lot, wear a flask, or make sure to have arcane intellect and other +mana buffs on them. On the other hand, a priest+mage combo would really clear through mobs quickly -- much more quickly than the previous method of having the priest stand back and shield and heal while the mage does all the fighting. And, heck, a priest duo would work now, too.

[MongoJerry]

I prefer Shadow for leveling. I was Shadow/Disc from level 10 to level 60. It's the best for soloing (in my opinion) with Spirit Tap reducing your downtime and Mind Flay giving you an extra, efficient damage spell. Throw in Darkness, Shadow Weaving and Shadow Form and you will be outputting a lot of very mana-efficient damage while grinding. Don't let anyone tell you you can't heal if you're Shadow because they are plain wrong. Until high end content, a Shadow Priest can heal just fine. I can't give you a build for 1.10 because I really haven't looked at the Shadow tree in conjunction with the Discipline enough.

You'd better start looking at it, because 1.10 changes the class a lot. I'd still go with shadow for leveling, though. However, a person could get away with powering up their Holy Smite now if he or she wanted to stick with holy throughout their character's life.

[Kevin]

Why *wouldn't* you get Holy Nova now?  Forget the "oh crap" healing.  It'll make make aoe clears so much more fun.  Toss two priests in with three mages and watch them aoe the mother out of everything with priests providing both damage and healing at the same time.  I'm going to make sure to bring my +damage/healing gear along with my ZHC to raids just for these opportunities.
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Because the mana efficiency is ungodly bad. You have to hit all 5 people in the party with the heal to make is efficient as a flash heal now.

You have to hit 4 critters I think with the damage to make it as efficient as a smite. I think once all the priests get past the "ooo fun new toy" side of it and really start seeing how rare the situation where it actually makes things faster, safer, or better is that they'll start dropping it for a point somewhere else.

It's even more situational and less useful than the old holy nova now.

[TheLuminaire]

This pic shows one persions build with some damage / healing numbers with different trinket usages:

http://www.untamedguild.net/images/patchdmg.jpg
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Now THAT is some good info right there. Love seeing those numbers!

Even though it's an extreme case(Flask + Oil + ZHC + DI), I thought this one was too funny:

Your Smite crits Heavy War Golem for 2175 Holy Damage.

"lol, smite."

[MongoJerry]

Because the mana efficiency is ungodly bad.  You have to hit all 5 people in the party with the heal to make is efficient as a flash heal now...

It's even more situational and less useful than the old holy nova now.

This comes from the retail thought that Holy Nova is a healing spell. It's not. It's an offensive spell -- back to the way Holy Nova was in beta -- with some healing. You can dish out a great deal of damage in a short amount of time if you have many targets available. Plus, you can heal *yourself* as well as party members in the area at the same time. That's something that mages can't do. Combine the two abilities and it's understandable that the mana cost is high. If the mana cost were the same as, say, arcane explosion, Holy Nova would be the most powerful spell in the game. Why? Because you would then be able to solo aoe almost any set of mobs in the game as you tear them apart with damage while simultaneously healing yourself.

This is the same argument I've had repeatedly over the usefulness of Devouring Plague. Devouring Plague is my favorite on-on-one PvP spell and I couldn't imagine not having it. But others just look at the spell description and say, "It costs too much mana. It's worthless." To those people, I always say, "If you could cast an extra SW:Pain and Renew simultaneously, would you do it?" Looking at it this way, Devouring Plague costs only a little more than SW:Pain + Renew taken together, benefits from +damage/healing and all +shadow damage talents, and unlike Renew can even be cast in Shadowform. You have a spell that's doing two things at once -- damage and healing -- so it makes sense that its mana cost is higher than other spells. However, if you're in a situation where you're not running out of mana -- like PvP where people usually die well before their mana tanks are exhausted or say when a huge wave of low health mobs are charging at you -- then it doesn't matter how mana efficient a spell is. All that matters is how much damage and/or healing you can dish out. Devouring Plague and Holy Nova are very similar in this regard. They both cost a lot of mana, but boy they can dish out a lot of damage and healing in a short amount of (cast) time.

The new Holy Nova is of far greater utility than the retail Holy Nova has ever been. For the first time in retail, priests are a bonafide aoe class. For a short burst, they're nearly as powerful as mages and warlocks and can simultaneously keep themselves and their teammates up at the same time. As long as the mobs die before the priest runs out of mana, mana efficiency doesn't matter. You can always drink after a battle. Imagine the difference if on the clear to the Broodlord in BWL you had another 6-8 aoe'ers. That's what this change to Holy Nova brings. Far from being "situational and less useful," this change to Holy Nova will by itself alter the way priests are viewed and played in the coming months.

[TheLuminaire]

Imagine the difference if on the clear to the Broodlord in BWL you had another 6-8 aoe'ers.  That's what this change to Holy Nova brings.  Far from being "situational and less useful," this change to Holy Nova will by itself alter the way priests are viewed and played in the coming months.
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This is the exact situation I was just thinking of. I can think of a ton more just off the top of my head where having a priest or two would make the killing speed much faster, and infinitely safer.

I've never had more fun with my priest than running around Stratholme on the PTR, AOE'ing with the mages. It's certainly convinced this shadow priest to respec.

[Treesh]

I really think this is a case of just different playstyles. I hated the "new" holy nova on the test realms. Yes, it can deal some damage, but unless you've got quite a few mobs around it's just not worth the mana expenditure. With Aleri's current gear and a holy spec, she's got just under 6k. I can only cast seven holy novas before I'm drained of mana. That's it. If it cost slightly less mana (I'm not saying drop it to what it is right now), it might be worth it. 750 mana for that little healing and damage (unless you've got lots of critters around) just isn't worth it in my opinion except for certain situations. Of course, you and I have never seemed to agree on how to play a priest Mongo and Lum so I'm not surprised that we don't agree about this change.

[lfd]

750 mana for that little healing and damage (unless you've got lots of critters around) just isn't worth it in my opinion except for certain situations.[right][snapback]104451[/snapback][/right]

So, it was of situational use before, and it's of (perhaps a different) situational use now. Except it can be spammed.

Spammable spells are always more fun :-)

[Treesh]

So, it was of situational use before, and it's of (perhaps a different) situational use now.  Except it can be spammed.

Spammable spells are always more fun :-)
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Oh I'm not denying it's fun. I thought it was really fun to use pre-1.10. It's still fun, but it just simply costs too much mana for how little it does (except for specific cases). I just find it funny that I used to defend holy nova pre-1.10 and now, I'm telling folks it's just not worth it for most things. :)

[MongoJerry]

I really think this is a case of just different playstyles.  I hated the "new" holy nova on the test realms.  Yes, it can deal some damage, but unless you've got quite a few mobs around it's just not worth the mana expenditure.  With Aleri's current gear and a holy spec, she's got just under 6k.  I can only cast seven holy novas before I'm drained of mana.  That's it.  If it cost slightly less mana (I'm not saying drop it to what it is right now), it might be worth it.  750 mana for that little healing and damage (unless you've got lots of critters around) just isn't worth it in my opinion except for certain situations.  Of course, you and I have never seemed to agree on how to play a priest Mongo and Lum so I'm not surprised that we don't agree about this change.

It's 680 mana with talents and don't forget that Inner Fire is easy to get now, too, which gives you an extra cast right there, along with a +25% chance to crit!