Priest talents

[KiloVictor]

.... stuff snipped, no need to quote myself.

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After a few levels in full-on shadow priesthood (now halfway to 45), here's what I've noticed so far. This is all qualitative stuff, I haven't collected hard numbers on anything.

* Shadow Priests hit hard! Everybody says so, but when you actually play it, it's a whole different character. Mind Blast hits for a minimum of about 300 and crits over 500, and with 5/5 in the improvement talent, it's almost always ready to go. You dish out damage more like a mage, but you don't crumple as quickly when hit. It's like playing a different class from before. Did I mention it's totally different? :)

* Vampric Embrace rocks, especially as the size of your group goes up. VE returns 20% of your shadow damage as health, apparently to each member of the party. At least, that's what the combat log says, and observation seems to bear that out. It's not a substitute for full-on healing, but it does a good job of keeping everybody topped up, and cuts down the amount of healing required after a fight. My SW:P procs for roughly 100 points when I'm in Shadowform, and the combat log shows heals of about 18-20 hp per party member. Interestingly, each individual also has a chance for that heal to be a critical heal, so I'll fairly often see critical heals in the log. In Zul'Farrak last night, for a 2-on-5 engagement, VE on both mobs usually meant that I wouldn't have to do any direct healing during the fight.

* Shadowform is almost essential for solo (15% reduction in physical damage taken), and nice if you can get away with it in a group (15% bonus to shadow damage, which stacks with VE). However, you can't cast any Holy spells in Shadowform, so you really need to anticipate the heals. Casting Shadowform is instant, but getting out takes a second or so, so you wind up having to throw shields more often if you're not crisp on timing. Mana cost is negligible, I think it's 32 mana to get into Shadowform and no cost to get out.

* Shadow Reach makes life a lot easier. Mind Flay now extends waaaay out there, and can be used for pulling and/or tapping monsters in highly-congested areas. I also *think* that it goes out to the extent of fear range now (i.e. I haven't hit Psychic Scream and seen mobs run out of Mind Flay range), but I haven't thoroughly tested that.

* Maxing Spirit Tap is essential for soloing, and can be handy if your groupmates understand why letting you get the killshot is a good thing. It does cut downtime a lot, especially now that I've gone to wand/melee to finish the kills and therefore start my mana regen that much sooner (usually well before combat ends).

* Mind Control is possibly one of the best CC abilities out there. I'd had it for a long time, but never really worked with it until I respecced. The difference between a 3-on-5 fight in Zul'Farrak is huge when you apply MC to the hardest-hitting mob and turn it into a 6-on-2 fight. Yes, my priest is outta the game while I'm channelling MC, but some of the fighters in there hit harder than I do, and any damage the meat puppet takes while under MC is damage that's 1) not done to the party, so it's healing avoided, and 2) damage we don't have to do later. The double-whammy effect of MC means that it's huge leverage as far as CC abilities go. The only issue is breaking aggro once MC stops; the mobs build a huge hatred for the priest. As long as the warrior knows it's coming, it hasn't been a big deal.

* Bandages can save you a ton of downtime. My old habit was to cast a renew on myself after a fight, but now that I'm trying to manage the five-second rule for mana regen, I just slap on a bandage. Since I don't cast, I don't incur the five-second delay before mana regen starts up again, and I don't waste precious Spirit Tap time. I'm saving a ton on my drinks budget. :)

* Losing Improved Renew is much more noticeable than I'd thought. I ran Maraudon as primary healer at level 43 (right before lvl 44 upgrades to Renew and Flash Heal), and it was *tough*. After the upgrades at 44, I went in with a different (lower-level) group, and the extra 100 hp/heal was huge. If I'd had Improved Renew at level 43, I would have been getting 60 hp/heal more, so it would have been almost as good as my unimproved level 44 Renew.

* Also more noticeable than I'd thought is the extra seconds of the Weakend Soul effect associated with PW:S. (Weakened Soul is the debuff that comes with casting Power Word:Shield, as long as it's still present, PW:S cannot be recast on the same player.) I'm investing my additional skill points into the Discipline tree to get that one back first, even before Improved Renew, since PW:S is such a lifesaver. I've had approximately one zillion times that I've wished for even a five-second reduction in the recast time on PW:S since I respecced.

* I was also hoping that having Shadow Reach would give me enough time to channel a full Mind Flay on mobs as they approached, but that just hasn't happened. Unless you open with MF, they have time to get to you from max range before you can cast SW:P and MF/MB. So I still wind up self-casting PW:S to get uninterrupted channelling for MF. My typical opener is SW:P, wind up Mind Blast as the mob approaches, pop shields up, then alternate Mind Flay with Mind Blast until the mob looks beatable through melee and/or wand.

So far, it's been a good idea. I like actually being able to dish out significant damage, and I'm not totally dependent on finding a group now. I've also learned a lot about how to play the class, which will definitely help later on. I'm now the second-best primary healer in the game; a holy-specced priest still rules that role, but I ran one instance with a group that was used to a lvl 51 shaman as primary healer, and they noticed better healing even with me being almost 10 levels lower. So it's still playable as a healer at level 44, but I do notice the difference in losing the improved healing talents.

Probably the biggest thing I've learned is how to manage mana regen better. I've taken to doing "burst" healing, where I try and find those five-second lulls in combat where I can pitch in a few wand shots before the next heal is needed. More than anything, better management of the five-second regen timer has improved my play.

Right now, I think I can play this up through level 50 without too much trouble. We'll see if that's the case.

Kv