Priest talents

[swirly]

One of the characters that I'm playing is a night elf priest. Currently she is level 16 and so far I have been putting my talent points into Improved Renew and Spiritual Healing. I figure that I will probably go ahead and finish those two off, but I am unsure what to do after that. Currently most of my time is spent soloing, but that could change if I ever get caught up to some friends on the server. So its hard to say really if I will be doing alot of solo play or alot of group play because it just depends on how things work out. I've read alot of the older threads here about priests...Mongo's thread about the healing talents and their efficiency/use and another thread where mongo and lissa debated between holy builds and shadow builds. I'm still torn though. So I'm looking for people to comment with thoughts on what to do. Oh and this is on a PvE server.

I guess I'm debating leaving holy with those 10 points and then going into the shadow tree. I just took a break from typing this and used a talent calculator... just kind of putting points where I felt drawn. So with that I ended up with the following. (cut and paste from the calculator except that I added my own notes explaining my thought behind choosing a skill).

Discipline Talents (10 points)

Silent Resolve - 5/5 points
Reduces the threat generated by your damage spells by 20%.
note: As a cloth wearing priest less threat seems like it would be a good thing for when I group with people

Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points
Reduces the duration of your Power Word: Shield's Weakened Soul effect by 15 seconds.
note: Sometimes I find that I want to cast shield again and can't, so this could help. This is probably mostly due to me getting into bad situations though.

Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 2/2 points
Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude spell by 30%.
note: more life is good?

Holy Talents (10 points)

Improved Renew - 5/5 points
Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 15%.
note: I've loved renew so far. It helps oh so much in fights and from what I read its the a very common thing to cast late game too, so seems like a good place for talents.

Spiritual Healing - 5/5 points
Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 10%.
note: The more healed the better right? Mainly thinking that it makes renew even better, but its good for other heals as well.

Shadow Talents (31 points)

Spirit Tap - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target. For the duration, your Mana may regenerate at a 50% rate while casting. Lasts 15 seconds.
note: Basically doubles my health and mana regen for a short period and lets me regen mana at a half rate while casting? Not sure what the normal is for mana regen while casting.

Blackout - 5/5 points
Gives your Shadow damage spells a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds.
note: stun just seems like it could be useful. Both shadow affinity and shadow focus are tempting though so I am unsure which of the three (those two and blackout) should really get the points. Less threat seems nice once again for grouping and less chance for resists makes me more consistent so is nice as well. threat reduction versus resist reduction versus stun chance. Any thoughts on what way to go?

Improved Shadow Word: Pain - 2/2 points
Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 6 seconds.
note: More damage is good.

Mind Flay - 1/1 point
Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 75 damage over 3 seconds and slowing the target to 50% of their movement speed.
note: A damage spell and it slows things in case I need to cast more before they get to me or if I want to run.

Improved Mind Blast - 4/5 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 2 seconds.
note: Another damage spell. I'd kind of like to find a way to get the 5th point into this, not sure what to take it from though.

Shadow Reach - 3/3 points
Increases the range of your Shadow damage spells by 20%.
note: Helps for being able to pull from farther away.

Vampiric Embrace - 1/1 point
Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 20% of any Shadow damage you deal for 1 minute.
note: More healing is good right?

Shadow Weaving - 5/5 points
Your Shadow damage spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Shadow damage. This vulnerability increases the Shadow damage dealt to your target by 3% and lasts 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
note: So makes for more damage being done?

Darkness - 5/5 points
Increases your Shadow spell damage by 10%.
note: More damage is good

Having done that I notice that the build is roughly like the one meantioned here except I went more shadow, less discipline and went with silent resolve instead of unbreakable will in the disciple tree. So I guess, having done all this I am looking for people's thoughts/comments about it and about my notes. Are there talent points that would be better spent elsewhere? Will the build function for what I seem to need (a combo of solo and group play)? Overall what do people think of the build?

[swirly]

This would be another talent build option that I just did in the calculator. Basiclaly going a bit more into holy and less into shadow to improve my holy damage spells. Not a clue which is better, but maybe seeing my selections will show something about how I am thinking and so help people give advice?

Discipline Talents (10 points)

Silent Resolve - 5/5 points
Reduces the threat generated by your damage spells by 20%.

Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points
Reduces the duration of your Power Word: Shield's Weakened Soul effect by 15 seconds.

Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 2/2 points
Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude spell by 30%.


Holy Talents (26 points)

Improved Renew - 5/5 points
Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 15%.

Spiritual Healing - 5/5 points
Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 10%.

Improved Smite - 5/5 points
Increases the damage of your Smite spell by 10%.

Subtlety - 5/5 points
Reduces the threat generated by your healing spells by 20%.

Holy Fire - 1/1 point
Consumes the enemy in flames that cause 90 to 116 Fire damage and an additional 28 Fire damage over 8 seconds.

Divine Fury - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Smite and Holy Fire spells by 0.5 seconds.


Shadow Talents (15 points)

Spirit Tap - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target. For the duration, your Mana may regenerate at a 50% rate while casting. Lasts 15 seconds.

Improved Shadow Word: Pain - 2/2 points
Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 6 seconds.

Shadow Affinity - 3/5 points
Reduces the threat generated by your Shadow spells by 15%.

Mind Flay - 1/1 point
Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 75 damage over 3 seconds and slowing the target to 50% of their movement speed.

Improved Mind Blast - 4/5 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 2 seconds.

[Xanthix]

Your first build is a pretty solid solo build. Lots of priests report success with going mostly shadow to level, then respeccing to holy for high level instances.

As for the holy tree, I would recommend you get at least Subtlety, as long as you are doing any group work in your 20's and 30's. A good priest in a group of 4 or 5 will rarely attack but always be healing.

Also, I recommend against Improved Smite and Holy Fire for damage. If you want to do damage and solo, Improved Mind Blast and SW:P alternated with Mind Flay is the way to go. Since flay is channeled, you will rarely need to use the long-cast-time Smite.

Your discipline portion is good, and typical of priests - improving PW:S and PW:F is too good to pass up. The only question is when to get them. My guess is after your first 10-20 talent points, since the other starting talents are good, and the discipline talents will not be great until the base spells they are enhancing are developed by a few ranks.

Hope this helps.

[swirly]

As for the holy tree, I would recommend you get at least Subtlety, as long as you are doing any group work in your 20's and 30's. A good priest in a group of 4 or 5 will rarely attack but always be healing.
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My only complaint with Subtlety is where to fit it into the build. Where can I take points from? If I go with the first build (which seems the most likely) there really doesn't seem to be any points to move over to subtety.

Also, is Vampiric Embrace worth the point? I'm thinking that that point might be better served going into Improved Mind Blast to finish maxing it out. I guess I'll jus thave to play with it all and find out though. Nothing like a little build on the fly action hehe.

[Xanthix]

First, I took another look at the first build and I recommend Unbreakable Will over Silent Resolve. But them I am a group-only priest so I rarely damage anything. :)

My only complaint with Subtlety is where to fit it into the build.  Where can I take points from?  If I go with the first build (which seems the most likely) there really doesn't seem to be any points to move over to subtety.

As for Subtlety, you could take the points out of Shadow Reach and Blackout. Pulling range is rarely an issue for anyone I know - Reach's only benefit might be extending Mind Flay range. Blackout's stun could be nice... I guess it give you an uninterrupted spellcasting window when it procs, but if you have multiple mobs on you the benefit is reduced, and 10% is infrequent, and you have Mind Flay to slow mobs anyway which is kind of half a stun.

It's up to you I guess, and it all boils down to the central priest talent issue: holy is good for groups and little else, shadow is good for soloing and nothing else.

Also, is Vampiric Embrace worth the point?  I'm thinking that that point might be better served going into Improved Mind Blast to finish maxing it out.  I guess I'll jus thave to play with it all and find out though.  Nothing like a little build on the fly action hehe.

For soloing, it might be worth a try for fun (since you will probably respec at 60 anyway). Escpecially when you get Shadowform, any healing you can get will be good. In groups, I have heard it is a waste. Healing the whole group is tempting, but either you use it with SW:P and the mob is probably dead from the mage before you get substantial healing, or you use it with Mind Blast and get aggro on yourself. Besides, in a group your job should be just healing.

I have heard, however, that 5 priests in shadowform all using VE and SW:P can really have some fun. If you kite the mobs right they are all dying while you are all healing. But good luck getting that set up. :)

[swirly]

As for Subtlety, you could take the points out of Shadow Reach and Blackout. Pulling range is rarely an issue for anyone I know - Reach's only benefit might be extending Mind Flay range.
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The problem is with getting Shadow Weaving and Darkness. Basically means I need 20 points in other shadow skills. 20 points plus 5 in each of those gives 30 points used, 10 in disciple and 5 in improved renew, 5 in spiritual healing...thats 50 points. You get 51 total talents to use by lvl 60 (or so the calculator says) so I could put 1 point into subtlety. In other words, what it really comes down to is that in order to get more than 1 point in subtlety I would have to take points out of Darkness, improved power word: shield, or improved power word: fortitude since those are all the skills at the ends of the various trees. Anything below those skills has to stay so that there are enough skills in the tree to move down it to the other skills. So it gets rather rough trying to include subtlety. Darkness is the only one that would see to be able to be gotten rid of. Thats really a question of damage vs healiong threat. Darkness increases shadow damage, subtlety reduces healing threat. I basically can get at most 6 poitns to split between them.

[KiloVictor]

<de-lurking>
First off, thanks to Bolty and all the regulars here for a great resource. I've been tracking it since playing D2, and it's made it much easier to play smart.
</de-lurking>

As for Subtlety, you could take the points out of Shadow Reach and Blackout. Pulling range is rarely an issue for anyone I know - Reach's only benefit might be extending Mind Flay range. Blackout's stun could be nice... I guess it give you an&nbsp; uninterrupted spellcasting window when it procs, but if you have multiple mobs on you the benefit is reduced, and 10% is infrequent, and you have Mind Flay to slow mobs anyway which is kind of half a stun.
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Personally, I'm not sure that I'd take points out of Shadow Reach, and I'd max Blackout. This is all personal opinion, of course, and you need to choose what suits your style.

I've currently got a priest within a whisker of level 42, and I'm about to respec to full shadow - 33 points, not a point elsewhere. From here on, my points will be going into Discipline talents to get improved PW:S and PW:F. My plan is to do this until my life in instances gets too unpleasant to bear, at which point I'll respec to improve my healing. I'm currently at 2/5 in Blackout and 1/3 in Shadow Reach, and those are both going to get cranked. Here's my logic:

Mind Flay works great while mobs are closing on you, but it's got a fairly limited reach. If I open with a big hit + DoT (Mind Blast + SW:P), I find that channelling MF gets broken because the cast delay associated with SW:P gives the mob time to get too close, and they can hit to break your MF. The solution to this is to cast PW:S before every fight, but that's a mana-intensive way to avoid interruption. And since MF is channelled rather than cast, the Discipline talents don't do anything to avoid interruption.

Blackout, however, fixes this -- you get a free shot while the mob is stunned. At 5/5 in blackout, it's 90% chance that they'll get through unstunned on any one cast. But if you're opening with MB/SW:P/MF, that's (0.9^3)~73% chance of them getting to you. Better odds, but not great.

My hope is that combining this with Shadow Reach will give me two more casts of either MF or MB. At that point, the mob's chance of getting to me without a stun is (0.9^5) or ~59%. Still not in my favour, but better -- enough so that it's worth a test drive to see if I like it. I do know right now, with only 2/5 points in Blackout, that the little purple swirl over the mob's head is a really happy sight when it shows!

The other factor in favour of Shadow Reach is that MB has a longer range than MF - at least, I see cases where I pop a mob with MB, MB procs a stun from Blackout, and when I hit MF I get the dreaded "out of range" message. This might be because I habitually start backing up after firing, because I need the space to ensure I have time to get a full MF in. Shadow Reach won't fix the difference in range between the two spells, but I'm hoping that it will give me enough range on MF that if I pull from max range, I don't have to back up in order to get the time for MF to complete.

If all this works as planned, I should get out of using shields so often -- hopefully only when Blackout doesn't proc, about 2/3 of the time. Or maybe I'll switch to using Renew and spamming an improved MB, perhaps coupled with Vampiric Embrace. By my math, I'll be saving a good chunk of mana per fight, and I'll be 100% guaranteed to get Spirit Tap at the end of it, so my downtime should be a lot less.

Of course, I haven't played this yet, but it sounds good on paper... :)

The good thing about this build is that it's generally agreed to be great for soloing. The bad thing is that giving up improved Renew and the other healing talents will make instances a lot harder, and I'll be depending on improved Fade rather than Subtlety to manage healing aggro, which might eventually drive me to another respec. I fully expect to respec once more for the end game, trying to keep shadow up to MF and cranking up the healing talents to 21 points. Something may have to give, it'll include giving up Spirit Tap for sure, and probably Shadow Reach once I'm doing more grouping and less soloing.

Anyhow, that's just where I'm at right now. Ask me tomorrow, it might not seem like such a good idea after I've tried it.

Kv

PS - If you want to have real fun with this, find a good mage to partner with, and watch your killrate soar. With some creative dancing, you can use monkey-in-the-middle tactics to keep the bad guys from ever hitting you as you trade aggro back and forth, and the damage output is amazing. Give it a whirl!

[Raven Vale]

Welcome to the board KiloVictor , hope you have a pleasant stay :)

[swirly]

PS - If you want to have real fun with this, find a good mage to partner with, and watch your killrate soar. With some creative dancing, you can use monkey-in-the-middle tactics to keep the bad guys from ever hitting you as you trade aggro back and forth, and the damage output is amazing.&nbsp; Give it a whirl!
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Reminds me that it might be helpful to state what charcaters I am playing with mostly. The main person I play my priest with is a hunter. The other one (who we need to catch up to level wise still) is a druid. Not sure how much of a different it makes, but those are the main two that I know I will be playing with a good deal.

[Xanthix]

Personally, I'm not sure that I'd take points out of Shadow Reach, and I'd max Blackout. This is all personal opinion, of course, and you need to choose what suits your style.
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You make some great points for Shadow Reach. I'm still not sure about Blackout, since the % of stun is so low, but your arguments are excellent for a soloing priest.

I have heard that some people use Mind Flay with Psychic Scream: fear them and flay while they are running. Since Flay slows them down, there is less chance they will run into other mobs and bring adds. I don't know how well this works in practice though. I also don't know if Shadow Reach works with this: can a feared mob run out of Flay range, or will it still channel?

[KiloVictor]

Reminds me that it might be helpful to state what charcaters I am playing with mostly.&nbsp; The main person I play my priest with is a hunter.&nbsp; The other one (who we need to catch up to level wise still) is a druid.&nbsp; Not sure how much of a different it makes, but those are the main two that I know I will be playing with a good deal.
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I play a bit with a hunter pal, and the one great thing is that his pet does such a good job of holding aggro that I can just spam Mind Blast all day. I do sometimes get aggro, but we're dishing it out so fast that I only get tapped once or twice before the mob goes down.

Now if he could only supply me with the free drinks that my mage buddy does... :)

Kv

[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

[swirly]

My priest is now level 33 and I'm thinking of some changes to the build. So here is what I am thinking now and my thoughts as to why.

First lets talk about the discipline tree. Basically, I'm thinking about cutting this tree out completely. I'm wanting to put 15 into the holy tree and I want to get to darkness in the shadow tree. So this leaves basically only leaves 6 points to spare and I think those can be put other places. Both of the power words are very nice, but they just kind of feel like they only matter when I'm in a situation I shouldn't be in anyway, and even then I'm not sure how often they will save me from it going bad. I haven't found that I use shield all that much and when I do, its not that critical for me to get another one up quickly. Sure it would help and would make some fights easier, but I just feel like it can be done without. Fortitude is the same way. Sure it gives more life and that is always a good thing to have. I'm just not feeling like I really need it though.

So now about the holy tree. I want to spend 15 points here instead of the 10 from before. Thats 5 in Improved Renew and 5 in Spiritual Healing to give my heals more power. Then thats also 5 in Subtlety to help keep my threat lower. I've noticed that I only really pull aggro when I am required to do more healing than normal. So I'm hoping that by getting Subtlety that I will be less likely to pull that aggro and so things will go easier in instances.

I'm thinking of a min of 30 points in the shadow tree. I'll map this one out more individually since there are more skills to talk about

Spirit Tap: Rank 5

This skill is very useful while soloing. I am still doing alot of solo play as well as a good amount of group play and so I want to keep this to keep the downtime down when I am soloing. Its not completely useless in a group either, jus tcomes up less often.


Blackout: Rank 4

With my first build I was using Shadow Affinity as the place to put points when I needed more to get from one level to another. I've noticed that I really don't cast many shadow spells while grouped though. In a solo situation, Shadow Affinity does pretty much nothing. So I'm thinking that Blackout will be a better investment of those points. In groups I usually only case Shadow Word: Pain and maybe an occasional Mind Flay. This usually isn't enough to really pull aggro onto me though. So Blackout is the choice now.


Improved Shadow Word: Pain: Rank 2

The soell that I cast in both solo and group situations. Definately a required talent for me.


Improved Mind Blast: Rank 5

This is pretty much a solo only talent. I find that I never cast Mind Blast in groups because I don't want to pull aggro. It might have worked alright with Shadow Affinity, but I still never really used it for fear of it drawing aggro. In solo situatiosn though, this is used any time it is available. So making it available more often is a huge help.


Mind Flay: Rank 1

This gets used both in solo and group play, though not constantly in either. I am finding it a good spell though and so definately worth the one point.


Shadow Reach Rank 3

My hope is that with Shadow Reach I will be able to get a Mind Blast, SW: Pain, and a Mind Flay in before a mob gets to me in solo. I know one poster said that it didn't do that for him, but I noticed that he was casting SW: Pain first. These seems like a mistake to me in most situations because you then are letting the mob close on you while casting Mind Blast. If you cast Mind Blast first, then its cast time is not counted in the closing time of the mob. So then you can cast SW: Pain and then Mind Flay. Even without Shadow Reach I am sometimes able to get a full Flay off, so I'm thinking that Reach will make it even easier to do that.


Shadow Weaving: Rank 5

I'm not actually all that excited about this ability. It is more damage though and so its nto a bad talent. The main reason to have it though is that its a requirement for darkness.


Darkness: Rank 5

A flat damage increase on damage spells? Why yes, I think I'll take that.


That leaves me 6 points left to spend. The only Holy talent that seems useful would be Improved Healing. I use Renew and Flash Heal for most of my healing though and so I just don't feel that its worth putting 5 points into. I could put the 6 points in the Discipline tree, but thats not even though to max Improved PW: Fortitude so it also seems kind of a waste.

Once again we are left with the Shadow tree as where to spend the points. I have enough points in the tree that I could get Shadow Form, but I really like being able to use my heals and since I'm not getting Improved PW: Shield it just seems like Shadow Form would be less useful to me. So what I am thinking about doing is to finish maxing out Blackout, which will use up 1 of those remaining points. So 5 left. Then I can go 2/2 Improved Fade since Fade seems very useful in instances for when I do happen to draw aggro. 2/2 Improved Psychic Scream mainly because its required for silence, but also because its nice for any PvP I might end up doing. 1/1 Silence because it just seems like it would be useful in both solo and group play to be able to Silence a caster we run into and also it could be useful for any PvP I do. So that would put me at level 60 and all my points used. So here is the final layout.


Shadow Mastery

Spirit Tap Rank 5
Blackout Rank 5
Improved Shadow Word: Pain Rank 2
Mind Flay Rank 1
Improved Mind Blast Rank 5
Improved Psychic Scream Rank 2
Shadow Reach Rank 3
Improved Fade Rank 2
Silence Rank 1
Shadow Weaving Rank 5
Darkness Rank 5

Shadow Total: 36

Holy Mastery

Improved Renew Rank 5
Spiritual Healing Rank 5
Subtlety Rank 5

Holy Total: 15

Total
Total Points Spent: 51
Level Required: 60


I'm thinking that this build might fit my current play style the best. Don't know if it will be the end game build I go with, but it is my current train of thought.

[KiloVictor]

Well, dropping Discipline entirely is a bit unconventional, but nothing wrong with that. Think different!

FWIW, I've levelled my pirest to 60 now, and I'm currently on a skill mix of 32 shadow, 10 Discipline, and 9 Holy. That's full shadowform, improved PW:F and PW:S, and Improved Renew 5/5 and Spiritual Healing 4/5. I skipped Darkness in the shadow tree, opting instead for Spirit Tap and Blackout. I've also specced in Vampiric Embrace.

Obviously soloing is very different from being healer/group support, and I'm finding that high-end play involves a lot more instance raiding and teamplay, so overall my shadow skills aren't getting used as much, my discipline skills are just as handy as ever, and I wish I had more points to stick into additional holy (and perhaps discipline) skills.

If I'm soloing, I'm in shadowform. 15% damage reduction and 15% increase in shadow damage is just too good to pass up. I have to drop it if I need to heal, but that's not often. Usually it's more convenient to just pop a quick shield and/or bandage than it is to drop out of shadow, and Vampiric Embrace brings enough healing that usually I don't need to do either.

In groups, I only get to use shadowform if I'm secondary priest in a raid, or the group is massively over-levelled for the instance. Instead, it's heal-and-shield stuff, and that's where I wish I had more points in the healing talents (reduced threat, improved mana efficiency, and reduced cast time on Greater Heal all look lovely). Plus the discipline talents of Mental Agility and Mental Strength would really help, as running out of mana is a constant challenge in the high-end instances.

In either case, I'd hate to give up improved PW:S. In groups, it's the thing that allows the mages and warlocks to go nuts on AoE (and there's a lot of that in the upper instances) without getting killed, and it's a lifesaver when you mistime your healing. And it's really handy when you have to make a strategic advance to a rearward position. :o I tried going without it for a while, but I just found so many situations where I was stuck waiting for the last few seconds of the "weakend soul" effect when I *really* wanted to recast it, so I wound up spending the points.

I think I will respec soon, and I'll have to give up shadowform (and probably VE) to gain some points in the holy/discipline trees. I'll try and keep Silence and Improved Fade, as those have great utility for both solo and group play. Spirit Tap will probably go the way of the dodo, but I'll keep Blackout if I can. And Shadow Reach is really nice to have too, but I'm not sure I'll keep it.

Anyhow, that's just FYI. I'll be interested to hear if you decide down the road that having improved PW:S is worth the investment; it seems that almost every priest goes that way, but that doesn't mean they're all right to do so. :)

Kv

[swirly]

So my plan has shifted yet again. Now I'm thinking like the following:

Shadow Mastery

Spirit Tap Rank 5
Improved Shadow Word: Pain Rank 2
Shadow Focus Rank 3
Mind Flay Rank 1
Improved Mind Blast Rank 5
Improved Fade Rank 2
Improved Psychic Scream Rank 2
Silence Rank 1

Shadow Total: 21

Holy Mastery

Improved Renew Rank 5
Spiritual Healing Rank 5
Subtlety Rank 5

Holy Total: 15

Discipline Mastery

Unbreakable Will Rank 5
Improved Power Word: Shield Rank 3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude Rank 2
Mental Agility Rank 5

Discipline Total: 15

Total
Total Points Spent: 51
Level Required: 60

Holy tree is the same, but the other two have changed a good bit. I've decided to forego Darkness and Shadow Weaving in the shadow tree which gains me 10 points. I've also decided to drop Blackout and put 3 points into Shadow Focus to get me to the next level. So thats 12 points free now. Then I drop Shadow Reach which puts me at 15 free points.

These points I'm moving into the Discipline tree. Unbreakable Will seems like a decent talent to climb the tree since the effects it help against are very annoying. Then Shield and Fortitude are useful. (though I'm still not really sold on them, they are more just something to get to go farther down) Then Mental Agility to help my mana last longer by reducing the cost of my Renews, Shields, Fortitudes, Shadow Word: Pains, and Silences. I'd like to go farther and get Mental Strength, but I would have to give up Silence for it and I'm just not willing to do that as of yet.

One thing I have noticed is that my build is alot like Mongo's LastToDie build. the main difference being that I'm taking Spirit Tap and Improved Mind Blast for soloing purposes as opposed to Blackout, maxing Shadow Focus, and whatever he put points in to get to Silence (he said he shifted to Silence, but didn't say exactly how). So overall I'm pretty confident about the build. I think that losing Blackout, 2 from Shadow Focus, and 3 from Shadow Reach (my guess for where he put the 3 extra points needed to get to Silence) in order to get Spirit Tap and Improved Mind Blast is a great trade off. Maybe Blackout, Focus, and Reach will help a little in both groups and solo, but I think you gain so much more solo capability with Tap and Blast that its worth it.

The other alternative I see is to lose Silence and Psychic Scream and use those 3 poitns to go into Mental Strength. For me, it is basically a choice between 6% mana and Silence since I don't use Scream that much. This could still go either way, but currently I'm leaning ever so slightly towards Silence.

Anyway, thats my current plan for those who are interested.