How to Win Friends and Influence Priests

[Thecla]

By Boltress, level 53 Priest

If you play a Priest, (I hope) that you picked it because you like to group up for instances.  It's what they're made for.  Priest aficiados know that the Priest, with shadow talents, is quite the nuker.  Still, when the time comes to group up for instances, it's time to play the role your class was made for.  Some players have troubles with this - they want to do all the cool things they do when they play solo, and refuse to reduce their bag of tricks for the good of the group.
-Bolty
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Actually, I've been dabbling in a low lvl Priest recently -- she's a lot of fun, not to mention quite the nuker. I really enjoy being able to heal/buff people. But, even with the best will on my part to use my skills for the good of the group, I pity the poor party that relies on me to heal them. They will be going down while I wonder which darn healing spell I should be using (takes a while to alt-tab out to MongoJerry's healing efficiency table), or which hot key I should hit; and even if I succeed in hitting it they'll die while my heal spell is going off, or because my renew spell didn't heal enough, or because I hit cure disease by mistake. If I'm anything to judge by, lord knows what kind of priests all those "LFG VC NEED HEALER" tells are really getting. They'd honestly be better off with my de-sheeping/de-shackling hunter.

[acidjax]

A good Hunter can do amazing things for a group. http://www.nuklearpower.com/hunter.php has some great strategies for how a Hunter should pull. I've been the primary healer in BRS and Stratholme and this method of pulling makes life easy.
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Though I agree with some of what that article talked about, I feel the thing about a hunter pulling is that although the actual pull will be better (less wipes to bad pulls) you might lose the benefit of additional CC.

In a LBRS group last night (priest, mage, paladin, rogue, hunter) the safety zone idea was still applied but the intial rogue sap made a huge difference. I played the rogue (no improved sap) and when I immediately side strafed after sapping a mob, I was not hit by any melee attacks. The mage would poly as the mobs approached the group and the hunter's preplaced freeze trap at the edge of the group camp spot would incapacitate another mob. In a pull of 4 (sometimes can't be avoided) with these tactics you would be fighting mostly one mob at a time. The mage ends up casting poly (very low mana cost) 2-3 times during the entire fight.

The rogue's skill "Vanish" functions similar to fein death. However, as far as I've seen, the "drop agro" portion of the skill cannot be resisted. As long as you use the vanish while outside the agro range of where the mobs were when they were pulled, they will drop agro and return to their original pre-pull location. A missile in flight can cause the rogue to become visible again but the monsters will have returned after vanish is used.

Now, if a hunter were to pull you would lose the benefit of sap. The puller (hunter) would be at additional risk due to fein death resists. Lastly, having to re-apply traps (near the safety zone) while waiting for roamers adds to pull time.

[kandrathe]

A good Hunter can do amazing things for a group. http://www.nuklearpower.com/hunter.php has some great strategies for how a Hunter should pull. I've been the primary healer in BRS and Stratholme and this method of pulling makes life easy.

Another thing is a good tank makes a Priests life soooo much easier. I find that if I party with a tank that knows how to hold aggro I enjoy the instance much more.
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I had a very good first instance (RAGEFIRE CHASM) experience as a tauren hunter, with a druid tanking, a mage, and two shamens. The tactics relayed in the article are how I survive against tightly clustered mobs when I play solo (which is usually). Only that I need to transfer aggro to the pet, which with my tricks and his growl is very easy. We lacked a good tank, but using team work we made up for it. However, I can see that for more difficult instances better strategies are required.

In the end the team made a mistake trying to shortcut to finish a quest (one player needed), and jumped down off a cliff to get to the boss without clearing his minions. I made a mistake in assuming that since they had jumped down, that my pet would not be able to find a way. He did, and he had all the uncleared bosses minions in tow. It was the "Holy Crap!" moment that precludes a wipe. It was a good learning experience for me, and the team was gracious in sharing the blame for ignomious hike back to our corpses. My only option while my pet was alive and for not having this heppen would have been to stay up out of the fray, and keep the pet with me.

But, up until that point I felt very effective in using my pet to get attackers off of the mages and shamen, and pulling using ranged attacks or using the pet to quickly run in and pull one mob at a time where possible. It wasn't mentioned, but I find that many times if a lone walker can be pulled from very far range using the pet rather than ranged attack providing extra attack time for me with ranged (stun) when they return to my zone of lethality. When I see that the pet has pulled too many, we both continue running until the mobs return back. Worst case scenario is that the pet gets stunned or knocked down and dies, which means a res for him and some fish.

[Magicbag]

I played in a 5-man guild group consisting of a priest and a druid and we used mind control very effectively to handle difficult 4-5 pulls of elites.
I would simultaneously sheep with the MC priest removing two adds from the fight. The priest then aggros all the other mobs as best as possible while doing the most she could with the mob's abilities. We usually went for priest or pally mobs. This not only held most of the agro for all the adds (until the MC died, but removed an add from the fight completely. The other members were free to use assist kills on the remaining mobs one by one while the MC was tanking. The druid woudl have an easy time covering the heals on the main tank on these 1on 4 situations.
-MB

[swirly]

My only option while my pet was alive and for not having this heppen would have been to stay up out of the fray, and keep the pet with me.
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It seems to me that you could have also dismissed your pet and then resummoned him after the drop. This would have caused him to lose some happiness, but that would be the only drawback I believe. You could have also told him to stay instead of to follow. I do agree with the overall point though that alot of the shortcuts groups take make it tough on the classes that have pets and often make things more dangerous.

[mjdoom]

In our frequent BRD runs (see Windsor escort thread for why we keep clearing the jail) we have used Mind Control to great effectiveness. Talking about the jail specifically (but these tactics extend to other areas as well) a standard 4 pull involves a polymorph and an MC. Depending on the group a banish or Succubus' seduce can also be used. The standard tactic is to then kill the one remaining mob with the MC and the rest of the party and then take out the other mobs one by one.

When this is done properly and MC doesn't break early the other 3 mobs are all dead before the MC breaks. I then run the MCed mob a small distance from the party so everyone can set to intercept the mob as it tears after me when I break the control. Lately Nini has saved his Hammer of Justice to stun the mob as soon as the MC breaks and then we finish it off. This allows us to safely take out 4 pulls without really needing a healer. If I'm ever concerned or there are hounds involved I'll throw up a few preshields before casting MC. The only time there are issues is if the MC breaks early but that is manageable as long as I let everyone know that I now have an extra angry mob tearing after me. This is usually done in haste so it is understood by the group that any random string of unintelligible characters typed by Flyndar mean that MC broke early :blink: .

- mjdoom

[kandrathe]

It seems to me that you could have also dismissed your pet and then resummoned him after the drop.  This would have caused him to lose some happiness, but that would be the only drawback I believe.  You could have also told him to stay instead of to follow.  I do agree with the overall point though that alot of the shortcuts groups take make it tough on the classes that have pets and often make things more dangerous.
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I did put him in passive mode. I'm still a little new at this, but the idea of dismissing him never crossed my mind. I probably would never dismiss him, but I should have told him to stay. :)

[Treesh]

It seems to me that you could have also dismissed your pet and then resummoned him after the drop.  This would have caused him to lose some happiness, but that would be the only drawback I believe. 
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Or you can tell him to stay, jump down yourself, use Eyes of the Beast (if you're bigger than level 14) and use that to jump the pet down with you. No loss of happiness, no need to feed him after calling him back again and no training.

[swirly]

Or you can tell him to stay, jump down yourself, use Eyes of the Beast (if you're bigger than level 14) and use that to jump the pet down with you.  No loss of happiness, no need to feed him after calling him back again and no training.
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"good point, well made."

I would have never thought to use Eyes of the Beast. I couldn't even swear that I have learned it. (though I probably have since my hunter doesn't lack for money like some of my other characters) Thanks for enlightening me to that option.

[kandrathe]

"good point, well made."

I would have never thought to use Eyes of the Beast.  I couldn't even swear that I have learned it. (though I probably have since my hunter doesn't lack for money like some of my other characters)  Thanks for enlightening me to that option.
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I didn't buy it, but I think now I will. However, jumping down was a very risky stupid thing to do IMHO. I won't do it again.

[Quark]

I didn't buy it, but I think now I will.  However, jumping down was a very risky stupid thing to do IMHO.  I won't do it again.
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The nice thing about this game is that death makes you learn. In D2 you could die all day long not knowing what went wrong. In WoW, it's usually quite obvious who messed up :)

[Thawwing Light]

Though I agree with some of what that article talked about, I feel the thing about a hunter pulling is that although the actual pull will be better (less wipes to bad pulls) you might lose the benefit of additional CC.

In a LBRS group last night (priest, mage, paladin, rogue, hunter) the safety zone idea was still applied but the intial rogue sap made a huge difference.  I played the rogue (no improved sap) and when I immediately side strafed after sapping a mob, I was not hit by any melee attacks.  The mage would poly as the mobs approached the group and the hunter's preplaced freeze trap at the edge of the group camp spot would incapacitate another mob.  In a pull of 4 (sometimes can't be avoided) with these tactics you would be fighting mostly one mob at a time.  The mage ends up casting poly (very low mana cost) 2-3 times during the entire fight. 

The rogue's skill "Vanish" functions similar to fein death.  However, as far as I've seen, the "drop agro" portion of the skill cannot be resisted.  As long as you use the vanish while outside the agro range of where the mobs were when they were pulled, they will drop agro and return to their original pre-pull location.  A missile in flight can cause the rogue to become visible again but the monsters will have returned after vanish is used.

Now, if a hunter were to pull you would lose the benefit of sap.  The puller (hunter) would be at additional risk due to fein death resists.  Lastly, having to re-apply traps (near the safety zone) while waiting for roamers adds to pull time.
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Doing SM last night in a group of four leads me to agree with this, largely. Between our rogue's sap and our mage's sheep, we could usually deal with just one in a fight. Strangly, our mage was the best puller, sheeping one mob of a pair and (improved) counterspelling the other, causing him to rush the group, at which point I would taunt and sunder the rusher to pull hate.

I say largely because I think the best way to handle multipulls is to CC the adds down to a manageable fight of one, using the various methods available to classes (Sheep, Hibernate, Shackle Undead, Banish, Seduce, Sap, and Freeze Traps. Did I miss any?). If this doesn't cover it, having the warrior pull with a quick thrown dagger and CCing prechosen monsters as they rush the group also works.

[KiloVictor]

However, jumping down was a very risky stupid thing to do IMHO.  I won't do it again.
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I think Blizz has actually designed a lot of instances so that a jump in the right spot allows you to skip "trash mobs" that you've dealt with on previous trips to the instance. Maraudon's waterfalls are one good example of this, as are parts of Scholomance (read MJ's writeup for details on that), LBRS, and BRD.

Jumping down to save time is a common and valid WoW tactic. Sounds like you've now got it in your bag of tricks, so don't be afraid to pull it out in future. Just remember what you've learned. :)

Kv

[Zelc]

In the end the team made a mistake trying to shortcut to finish a quest (one player needed), and jumped down off a cliff to get to the boss without clearing his minions.  I made a mistake in assuming that since they had jumped down, that my pet would not be able to find a way.  He did, and he had all the uncleared bosses minions in tow.   It was the "Holy Crap!" moment that precludes a wipe.  It was a good learning experience for me, and the team was gracious in sharing the blame for ignomious hike back to our corpses.  My only option while my pet was alive and for not having this heppen would have been to stay up out of the fray, and keep the pet with me.

At least you didn't think that the cliff was a ramp... :whistling: :blush:

A better idea to the Jump First, EotB Second "strategy" would be to use Eyes of the Beast before you jump, so you won't ever get into LOS or out of range issues. I've also heard that flying pets WILL follow you down jumps, but this has not been tested. Besides, I don't like flying pets, and I've heard they take up so much room it's not even funny at higher levels.