The Priest: PvE (player vs environment) overview

[TheDragoon]

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.

I'm not going to give my full-out description of my experiences with priests right now, but I WILL detail an alternate battle strategy.

First though, here's a quick critique of Bolty's battle plan. :) The really cool thing about Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Pain is that they are instant cast. You can actually cast them WHILE you're engaged in melee with mobs. Also, the time spent between spells tends to be less than the time my Priest takes to attack. Thus, I generally use Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Pain while in melee, not before. It's a bit more time-efficient that way.

For comparison, here's my usual battle set:

1) Pre-Battle: I like to shield myself before a battle. Particularly against multi-mob groups it's useful to have the extra time to use your nukes that shield provides (since your casting cannot be interrupted while shielded). I also keep Inner Fire up at all times since the defense and offensive boosts it provides are very helpful for when the mobs reach you.

2) Nuking Phase: Here, I tend to start the battle with a series of Holy Smites to cut off a good portion of the mob's health before it reaches me. Usually 2 Holy Smites are enough so that the mob has just reached me. However, sometimes if I want things done quickly I'll fire off as many as 4 Holy Smites to start the combat (though this drains mana and will eventually lead to some downtime). Since I shielded myself, this means that I won't get stuttered by the mob attacking me as I do this.

3) Begin Melee: Once I'm done using Holy Smite, my next action is to cast Shadow Word: Pain and then immediately engage in melee combat. I use Shadow Word: Pain before Mind Blast because that way the damage over time gets done sooner and, for a given set of casting, it does the damage a little quicker. Next, I let my priest get in one attack and immediately use Mind Blast. Again, since it's instant cast you don't lose any time in between the melee attacks to cast the spell.

4) Rest of Fight: From here, I generally just melee until the mob dies. I usually try to keep Shadow Word: Pain up at all times since it's rather mana efficient and effectively doubles my damage output of just meleeing. If I run low on life, I like to use Flash Heals since they heal a large portion of a Priest's HP (though less of a Warrior's) and generally only get stuttered once, if at all. I might start trying to use Renew here more, though, since it also seems like it might be a good solution. Also, if I'm up against two mobs at this point, I like to shield myself and cast the heals. This prevents me from getting stuttered and gives me a little extra room to cast should I wish to drop a few more Holy Smites (which, again, drains mana and leads to me needing to drink soon after) because things have gotten kind of hairy.


That's just my quick and dirty look at battle with a Priest. I'm sure I'll come back with more comments later when I'm more awake. :)