Unusual (Valid) Priest Builds

[kershner]

For quite some time I have been intrigued by the idea of utilizing the three aggro reduction talents available to a damage dealing priest: Improved Fade (Fade for 20 out of every 30 secs), Silent Resolve (20% Aggro Reduction), Shadow Affinity (25% Aggro Reduction). It should be noted that my priest has been 31Disc/15Holy/5Shadow (Spirit Tap for soloing) forever and that I am a Spirit build.

My guild has recently begun full-clearing (defined as through Domo, Rag is still some weeks to go) on Sunday's and contrary to most, we have an over abundance of healing. In the average raid we bring 6-7 Priests, 6-7 Shamans and 4-5 Druids, approximately 17 healers.

For bosses this is great, but for trash mobs, we clear slower than might be desirable. This prompted me to take advantage of the opportunity to experiment.

My current build is 34 Disc / 17 Shadow, key talents:
Shadow Affinity
Improved Shadow Word: Pain
Mind Flay
Improved Fade
...
Silent Resolve
Focused Casting
Inner Focus
Divine Spirit
***Force of Will***

It should be noted, that as sacrifices had to be made for this to work, I placed only one point in Improved Power Word: Fortitude. As we have enough priests (four with Divine Spirit for that matter), I didn't deem it necessary. Instead I am the primary Divine Spirit buffer and others cover PW:F.

With this new build I can basically DoT and spam Mind Blast every 8 secs and Mind Flay forever. Thanks to the aggro reduction talents, on an entire Molten Core run, where my *goal* was to try and draw aggro, I only succeeded once, and that was when I decided pull a Firelord myself as the hunter was still being ressed. Even in that case, Fade was enough to allow me to survive.

With Force of Will I can dish out damage at a rate faster than a mage, hunter or warlock because I never pause to wait for the tank to increase his aggro. I can start dps the moment the hunter pulls and act with impunity.

Even outside of MC, I don't miss Subtlety (Healing Aggro Reduction) as it is replaced by Improved Fade (which I use preemptively to any large heal). The reduction in Healing is not noticable in MC (where Renew is rarely used and healing is always overkill on bosses) but is noticable in instances. Fortunately the increased mana regen and the capacity to add significant dps to a fight makes up for it. The fact remains that an untalented priest is still a phenomenal healer.

In Battlegrounds I have dps only moderately lower than a full shadow priest, but with much higher mana regen and the crucial ability to heal mid-fight. The number of battles that have been won through prodigeous use of Focused Casting is staggering to say the least. Mind Flay was meant to use Focused Casting.

A *slight* variation on this build would be to swap Divine Spirit for the second point in Improved PW:F if your guild has this covered. Optionally the 1 point in PW:F could be tossed elsewhere entirely.


On another topic: A Holy Priest with points in Holy Specialization and Inspiration is used by our guild to spam lvl 1 Flash Heals (with CTRAs mana conservation turned *OFF*) on the Main Tank throughout the entire fight. At about 10% crit chance (easy with Holy Specialization) the Main Tank always has a 25% bonus to his armor. We are considering doing the same with a druid as it appears that Ancestral Knowledge stacks with Inspiration for a 50% bonus to armor. Even with just 25%, the additional armor is well worth the cost to the raid of one healer.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

-kershner

Dehmien | 60 Undead Priest | Stonemaul

[TheWesson]

Wow, that's interesting ... I've contemplated a Subtle Shadow priest myself, nice to know it's workable.

One comment: I've understood that Fade doesn't reduce aggro for actions taken while Faded, but instead works like Taunt in statically moving you around on the hate-list (not changing aggro generated). Not so? In other words when you un-Fade. the aggro you generated with a big heal or Mind Blast will reassert itself.

another comment: a Shadow priest should have good DPS synergy with a warlock.

[Kevin]

I was thinking of a slightly different shadow/disc raid build.

Discipline Talents - 21 points
# Silent Resolve - rank 5/5
# Improved Power Word: Shield - rank 3/3
# Improved Power Word: Fortitude - rank 2/2
# Mental Agility - rank 5/5
# Mental Strength - rank 5/5
# Inner Focus - rank 1/1

Shadow Talents - 30 points
# Blackout - rank 5/5
# Shadow Affinity - rank 3/5
# Improved Shadow Word: Pain - rank 2/2
# Improved Psychic Scream - rank 2/2
# Improved Mind Blast - rank 5/5
# Mind Flay - rank 1/1
# Improved Fade - rank 2/2
# Silence - rank 1/1
# Shadow Weaving - rank 5/5
# Vampiric Embrace - rank 1/1
# Darkness - rank 3/5

I don't reduce threat as much but the damage is higher and I add some 5 man utility with silence and vampiric Embrace.

Every 5.5 seconds I could throw out a mind blast that is 35% threat reduced that goes from the 517 average damage to 548 without any of the shadow weaving buffs. Stack those on there and it jumps up to 625. With vamp embrace on there you get to heal the whole party for 103-125 every 5.5 second which is OK. And then Mind Flay is doing 451 over 3 seconds without the shadow weaving buff. If that piles up you get 515 out of MF so it will heal 103 over 3 seconds (so another 100 health to the whole party). And every 3 seconds the SW:P should tick for 150-171 damage healing everyone for 30 more. So every 6 seconds (global cooldowns with flay and Mind blast) you heal the whole party for 260-280 damage without casting a heal spell. Not great but with a renew ticking on the tank for 162 every 3 seconds as well you are doing some decent healing while throwing out the damage.

The idea in MC is that you are in the group with the MT, not his primary healer but as you are throwing out additional DPS like a mage you basically get to add a decent renew level heal to the tank and increase the damage of the warlocks and other priests SW:P as well.

You get to keep the inner focus talent and expand your mana pool to help with 5 man healing. Blackout will throw an occasional stun on the mob (and with unlinking the controlled and the uncontrolled stuns) that will help provide some more damage mitigation. If spirit tap worked when you didn't land that killing blow that skill would most definitely be there over blackout though as you would then have even more mana regen. I'm still debating that one for additional healing help in 5 mans. But I'm not worried about not having subtlety. I've healed 5 mans with my druid without a threat reduction talent when pulling aggro is more dangerous because you can't shed it (and you could very well still need to heal so losing all that mana to go bear form isn't always an option) and I rarely got healer aggro. In MC the only time I see the threat reduction as a help is when the tank misses a sunder early otherwise healers generally don't pull aggro from healing. In BWL it seems to have more benefit especially for the way our group kills Razorgore but the shadow priest would be doing the DPS tricks there anyway so heal aggro wouldn't be the issue. I'll have improved fade to help in the 5 man healing area. And if I could heal 5 mans up through BRD with my paladin or my druid as the only the healer (and the druid has done scholo, strat, and DM as the only healer) I can certainly do it with a priest even without extra healing talents I figure.

My build does have 10% less threat reduction with the damage, will do a bit more damage (since the damage is from shadow and 6% from darkness should be about the same as 3% + 3% crit from force of will) and will also get some healer aggro on top of that from vamp embrace so I'm still not sure about being able to go all out like you were.

Though I've thought about dropping Darkness and just letting shadow weaving up the damage and getting focused casting to help with soloing as well as in situation where you need to heal and fade didn't shed aggro or is in the 10 seconds of cooldown it would have with the improved talent (lasts for 20 seconds and has 30 sec cooldown so if it drops aggro and keeps it off you should only have 10 seconds of it not in cooldown). But I've never really played with focused casting yet so I'm not sure the value of it. It's cheaper than shield and you don't always need the damage mitigation of shield which is nice.

Anyway more feedback on that template would be appreciated.

[Professor Frink]

The idea in MC [...] increase the damage of the warlocks and other priests SW:P as well. 

This seems particularly underutilized, I was looking over the shoulder of a warlock freind of mine doing an MC fight with some unreasonable number of locks -- 6 i think -- and not a shadow weaving on the boss in sight. One shadowpriest -- either replacing a dpsser or as a slightly feebled healer doing dispels and casting 25 mana rank 1 sw:p on the boss to keep up weaving -- would have greatly improved that party's DPS. Another priest in a regular MC running guild on that same server told me that until he went shadow for PVP purposes they'd never used shadowpriests in MC either.

Though I've thought about dropping Darkness and just letting shadow weaving up the damage and getting focused casting to help with soloing as well as in situation where you need to heal and fade didn't shed aggro or is in the 10 seconds of cooldown it would have with the improved talent (lasts for 20 seconds and has 30 sec cooldown so if it drops aggro and keeps it off you should only have 10 seconds of it not in cooldown).  But I've never really played with focused casting yet so I'm not sure the value of it.  It's cheaper than shield and you don't always need the damage mitigation of shield which is nice.

Anyway more feedback on that template would be appreciated.
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I respecced away from focused casting a long time ago and never particularly missed it soloing -- If you want to save the mana and don't need the damage mitigation, just melee until your mind blast cools down (or smite if the enemy's about to die). Otherwise just pop the PW:S and flay. Similarly, PW:S is much more useful than focus cast for making sure that emergency heal gets off.

Both PW:S and focused casting can be removed by dispel magic/devour magic/purge, so there's no particular pvp advantage either (aside from devour, if you're dispelled once you're likely to be hit by several rapidfire dispells, so having a second chance skill isn't likely to help much either)

Without reach you're going to have to stand a whole lot closer to the baddie than you may have been used to--flay at 20 yds from the hotspot of the boss instead of healing at 40 yds from the hotspot of the MT.

Also, if you're getting Mental strength for 5-man healer utility, you might want to consider swapping it for spirit tap--triggering spi tap isn't too hard then, pretty much only a problem at the one-big-boss part (in my less than massive experience, wipes from healer oom mostly happen in the chaotic multiple-enemy parts of late game 5-mans anyway). I was doing pretty well healing fully shadow-spec by switching into tons of spirit gear, although unless your tank has damage mitigation or health bowl of massive proportions you'll need a backup healer to take over for a few seconds while you charge up for a second burst of healing.

If you could pull it off, ditching blackout (iirc virtually everything in MC is immune to it, doesn't do anything while you're healing, though you'll miss it solo and in pvp if that's your thing) for spi tap and mental strength for the last 2 shadow affinity, darkness and a shadowform would greatly boost your dps and vamp embrace hps, while keeping your threat-reduction on par. Shadowform in particular is going to be a big win (vs MS) for dps and damage-till-oom in everything but the straight-healer role, the damage reduction is great for soloing, and people seem to overstate the cost of not being able to heal--it only takes a global-cooldown cycle to drop it in midfight.

-- frink

[Kevin]

If you could pull it off, ditching blackout (iirc virtually everything in MC is immune to it, doesn't do anything while you're healing, though you'll miss it solo and in pvp if that's your thing) for spi tap and mental strength for the last 2 shadow affinity, darkness and a shadowform would greatly boost your dps and vamp embrace hps, while keeping your threat-reduction on par.  Shadowform in particular is going to be a big win (vs MS) for dps and damage-till-oom in everything but the straight-healer role, the damage reduction is great for soloing, and people seem to overstate the cost of not being able to heal--it only takes a global-cooldown cycle to drop it in midfight.

-- frink
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First A link to play with it that I forgot in the original post.

Next my biggest priest is currently only L26. :) I've been in Molten Core, BWL, and ZG with a Warrior, Druid, and Paladin. This is food for thought down the road and possibly thought sparking for some of our current priests.

The real issue isn't mental strength, it's inner focus which requires 21 points in discipline and thus locks out shadow form. Giving that up would just make you a full shadow priest, which I do think is perfecrly viable in MC now and as a 5 man healer. Though I imagine you have to limit your DPS in 5 mans a lot I was just trying to give a few more tricks to the healer while being able to throw out DPS too since you don't need all the healing you bring with you on trash mobs and shadow weaving will help with DPS (and with the change to CoS in 1.9 it will be probably be even a bigger deal). Since inner focus will allow you to land a high crit chance heal for free (seems huge in a 5 man for a big prayer of healing at the right time) that just seems like a good thing to have around, since you will still be trying to do DPS and burning your mana pool faster the inner focus trick seems like a way that you could help avoid a wipe if you don't estimate the damage/healing balance correctly.

Getting reach means either no imp fade and silence or dropping even more disc talents. And while I can live without imp scream, I just like the utility of a priest that can silence. Imp fade my not really be needed though and I did debate on it. I'm also not sure if 24 yard flay is really much different than 20 when dealing with MC mobs. That is still too close on Mags, Geddon and Shazz. You would be pushing it on Rags but you should be able to get in range and not be in range of others. Not a problem with Luci, Gehennas, Sulfuron though. So I figured that on bosses I would be more likely to be a weaker healing priest with the rare damage spell on the boss and the buff for the locks, probably not flaying on them at all, even for ones where range shouldn't be an issue.

I did think about swapping blackout and tap, but as you mentioned blackout is nice solo and PvP. I really need to see the reliablity of tap in a 5 man. I know that even in a duo it goes way down. Of course even if you only get it on one of 5 or 8 kills it still helps cut down time or provide you with more mana in a pack fight.

[castille]

This is my build for Genkar

Improved fade is actually sort of a waste with Shadow Affinity and Silent Resolve. Those points can be better spent actually making you do more damage overall -- I have YET to pull aggro from the MT in almost any situation I've used this build, and I've been able to burn things down with the MT only having one, maybe two sunders on something. I do use fade, but only when I prox aggro or pick the wrong target because the MA was still hunting for his specific target.

I've regularly been pushing between 200-300 DPS, depending on which DPS monitor you use, and who else is in the party with me (Warlocks, for instance, really up my DPS).

I can't wait to use this build in MC tonight.

One thing I will note: don't be afraid to sacrifice some stats, in the beginning, to +dam/heal gear. It really, really makes things easier to be doing more damage, and I have yet to hit a 'ceiling' and I have about +175 on me right now.

(Edit)
Also, to note, the reason I put only 2 points in Improved Mind Blast is because shaving off that 1 second makes it perfectly sync up with 2 mind flays. So it's Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay, Mind Blast .. it works wonderfully, and keeps shadow weaving topped off easily.

Also, Mind Flay seems to 'lock' things in range when they've been feared, so don't be afraid to use fear while soloing and mind flay as a combo together.

[Kevin]

This is my build for Genkar
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Good to know about improved Fade was wondering about that.

I wonder about this: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classe...555212210015151

dropping reach and some of the resistance lowering talents to get spirit tap as well.

It just seems that 24 vs 20 yards on flay doesn't really matter much and the 36 vs 30 yards on mind blast and pain won't matter too much either. Both of those spells stay well within the danger zone in MC improved or not. I just wonder how much spirit tap would help with the mana pool in 5 man (possible that you get the killing blow) and 40 man (very doubtful you do).

[castille]

Good to know about improved Fade was wondering about that. 

I wonder about this: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classe...555212210015151

dropping reach and some of the resistance lowering talents to get spirit tap as well.

It just seems that 24 vs 20 yards on flay doesn't really matter much and the 36 vs 30 yards on mind blast and pain won't matter too much either.  Both of those spells stay well within the danger zone in MC improved or not.  I just wonder how much spirit tap would help with the mana pool in 5 man (possible that you get the killing blow) and 40 man (very doubtful you do).
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That is one consideration -- I would love to have had spirit tap on Genkar back when he had something like 270 spirit, and with mind flay and swp, it's semi-likely that unless you have a hunter with you, you're going to get that last hit .. however, spirit tap becomes less useful the more you five man, and even moreso in the longer fights against higher level mobs, raid or not. Since it relies on killing blow, it's hard to justify using it for combat, since you will rarely have a combat scenario that either lasts long enough for mana regeneration to be worth it, or has multiple mobs in it that might allow you killing blow. In a 40-man raid, or a 20-person raid, it's next to impossible to even approach a 20% killing blow ratio.

One thing I have wondered about, is Spirit Tap in PvP, but not enough to spend 50G on it (speccing to it, and speccing back out ;). Blackout is -VERY- handy, however. 3 seconds is enough to get vampiric embrace on something you were worried about getting healing off of, or just getting in another 600-1200 points of damage on without any worry of damage back. But, in some situations, that stun is just terrible for someone trying to 'set something up'. (Even though, I do say that as soon as it comes out of the stun, it goes right where the warrior wants it, regardless).

A discipline priest with meditation and spirit tap would have almost nigh-unmatchable regen of mana, since spirit tap allows 50% while casting, and meditation does another 15%.. that's a hefty bit coming back in. However, I'm almost matching my old spirit regen with mana/5 gear. Almost, not quite. ;) I've just about tripled my old meditation regen, however, with mana/5

[Kevin]

But, in some situations, that stun is just terrible for someone trying to 'set something up'. (Even though, I do say that as soon as it comes out of the stun, it goes right where the warrior wants it, regardless).
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The only times it really annoys me is when it procs right after I taunt/shield bash something to move them (and shield bash can stop some of the ranged attacking mobs from doing special ranged attacks making them easier to move too, it isn't just for casters). Taunt gives me 2 seconds of garunteed control and shield bash is 3 seconds of silence so I can move a caster and not have them go to another school of casting. If a blackout (or any other random stun for that matter) hits, that caster is still sitting there and I will need a CS or other type of silence/interrupt that I can't use to get them to move again.

Since I don't like to rely on anything else in the group (because I never know what I'm going to have) to position mobs this is the one time where an unplanned stun or a gouge that was just meant to stop the cast since kick was in cooldown, etc will make me sigh.

Though admittedly the mob is usually in a bad spot (too near a patrol path, in a spot where if it runs it could wake up other mobs) because of something else that went wrong (someone attacks the mobs you are LoS pulling too soon, the pull itself was bad, etc).

[castille]

Though admittedly the mob is usually in a bad spot (too near a patrol path, in a spot where if it runs it could wake up other mobs) because of something else that went wrong (someone attacks the mobs you are LoS pulling too soon, the pull itself was bad, etc).
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The only time this has really come up was when Anadrol had to tank two warders because of repop, and that second warder was heading STRAIGHT for everyone else. Blackout proc'd on a SWP tick while Anadrol was moving to capture the second one for aggro. I'm not sure if he had taunt on or not, but it still aggravated him a little (not that he got pissy, but he did comment on it). Since Blackout doesn't proc until you're using shadow, and you shouldn't be doing anything shadow until DPS is called, I can't really see this being a huge issue unless things have Really Gone To Crap and we're allout DPSing just to try to save the situation by killin' stuff.

[Kevin]

The only time this has really come up was when Anadrol had to tank two warders because of repop, and that second warder was heading STRAIGHT for everyone else. Blackout proc'd on a SWP tick while Anadrol was moving to capture the second one for aggro. I'm not sure if he had taunt on or not, but it still aggravated him a little (not that he got pissy, but he did comment on it). Since Blackout doesn't proc until you're using shadow, and you shouldn't be doing anything shadow until DPS is called, I can't really see this being a huge issue unless things have Really Gone To Crap and we're allout DPSing just to try to save the situation by killin' stuff.
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Actually that was me that complained. I picked up the repop on Gnolack and was backing it out of the raid to Anadrol when blackout proc'd. Since I was planning on handing it off to Anadrol I had tenuous aggro as it was. But same type of deal as I described above. And as mentioned it isn't just blackout. When the caster mob sheep is broken and I'm moving it for whatever reason and a stun procs it annoys me. :) There are times where you should be doing DPS and you still want to move the mob (even if just off the wall so the rogues can get behind it easier). But black out is no worse than impact or frost bite or mace spec or any other random stun effect. Heck improved revenge has done the same thing too me. :)