Respec for my priest.

[revi]

I am currently a level 50 shadow spec priest on warsong and plan on respecing to Holy/Disc. I know mongojerry and bolty both have a priest and if you two dont mind sharing your disc/holy build i'd be very grateful. I've been mixing and matching lately myself and read other peoples build on public forums but seeing your build would be very helpful thanks.

[MongoJerry]

I switch on occation, so don't take this as the final word as far as what's the uberrest build. Bolty will have to give you that. Here's the core of my current build, though:

Discipline (21 points):
Unbreakable Will (5 points)
Improved PW:S (3 points)
Improved PW:Fort (2 points)
Mental Agility (5 points)
Mental Strength (5 points)
Inner Focus (1 point)

Holy (25 ponts):
Improved Renew (5 points)
Spiritual Healing (5 points)
Subtlety (5 points)
Improved Healing (5 points)
Improved Flash Heal (2 points)
Improved Prayer of Healing (2 points)
Spirit of Redemption (1 point)

That leaves me with five more points to play with. I play on a PvP server, so I used them to get Improved Mana Burn (2 points), Martyrdom (2 points), and Focused Casting (1 point). However, I'm not that happy with those choices and am considering changing them to either Meditation (5 points), Holy Specialization (5 points -- to improve the effectiveness of Flash Heal among other things), or Master Healer (5 points -- just to see if a half second reduction in cast time would be enough to get me to use Greater Heal more. Probably not). Blackout is another possibility, since a 3 second stun every once in a while is helpful for PvP.

[Bolty]

I switch on occation, so don't take this as the final word as far as what's the uberrest build.  Bolty will have to give you that.
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Why would *I* be the one to give the uberest build? You've got lots more Priest experience than I, having taken two of them to 60 and seeing the top instances...

I'm still experimenting. The build I'm trying now is to "damn the torpedoes" of those who say Spirit is "useless" and go spirit-heavy, with 31 points in the Discipline tree to get the Divine Spirit buff. In the holy tree, I'll be maxing Improved Renew, Spiritual Healing, Subtlety, Improved Flash Heal, and then dump the remaining 3 points into Improved Healing for lack of a better choice.

I expect to respec at some point to try out a build that's more Holy-centric, but I'm just not seeing the points in the latter half of the Holy tree to be worth it.

-Bolty

[MongoJerry]

I'm thinking out loud here, but I thought I'd put this out there to get some input. In a private message, t0a5t put into my head the idea of the Last to Die build. The core idea is to max out both Improved Fade and Subtlety. According to him, he basically is always the last to die in his parties with this build, because he never gets aggro. The problem is, of course, that you're splitting points over all three trees, but maybe it can be made to work. Here's what I was thinking:

Shadow (17 points):
Blackout (5 points)
Improved SW: Pain (2 points)
Shadow Focus (5 points)
Improved Psychic Scream (2 points)
Mind Flay (1 point)
Improved Fade (2 points)

Holy (15 ponts):
Improved Renew (5 points)
Spiritual Healing (5 points)
Subtlety (5 points)

Discipline (19 points):
Unbreakable Will (5 points)
Improved PW:S (3 points)
Improved PW:Fort (2 points)
Mental Agility (5 points)
Mental Strength (4 points)


One would lose some mana efficiency with this build over the strict holy/discipline build I described above, but there are some definite benefits here. For one thing, it's much easier to heal one's party when you don't have to worry about your own health. When my tank dies, it's often because I'm too busy healing myself. Plus, all that mana efficiency of the strict holy/disc build goes to waste when you die. In effect, the LtD build elliminates a lot of those wipes caused by early inadvertent priest deaths. Finally, all those skills in the shadow tree needed to get to Improved Fade are darned useful for solo and PvP play. So, this build would be good for both instance and for solo/PvP play.

I think I just talked myself into trying this out. I have good enough equipment now that I can take a small hit to my mana pool. Why not? Any other ideas out there?

[revi]

Thanks for all your information. Those builds look great and will take it all into consideration before respecing at 60.

[MongoJerry]

Wow! I just tried out the Last-to-Die build described above in two instance runs -- UD Stratholme and Upper Blackrock Spire -- and I really like it. I do run out of mana a little faster, but I was never in any danger in either run. It really works. I'll let you know how it goes as I keep playing.

[Drasca]

I myself am about to start a priest for the horde.

Can anyone confirm Trolls have a racial spell called hex of weakness? Is it seperate from the warlock's Curse of Weakness? Can it stack? According to thottbot rank 6 hex of weakness gives -20 physical damage. This is like one rank less powerful Warlock's unspecced curse of weakness

Given that level 40 elites and most enemies my level 36 Warlock faced did anywhere from 70-150 damage, this 10% damage reduction was useful.

Its either this troll-specific hex of weakness, or undead's devouring plague, which in conjunction with vampire's embrace talent (which I plan to use) may tip the favor to priests.

So, what's typical damage? If Hex of weakness and curse of weakness can be stacked, that's up to 51 damage reduction off the bat--and in my experience after armor has taken into play. Does anyone have high enough level troll priests (for hex of weakness), and a warlock to test with? Can Hex of Weakness be justified?

Shaving that -15 dr as double digits % off total damage done to me and my crew was nothing to laugh at as a warlock.

Considering this is also instant cast, no cooldown, and much cheaper than devouring plague... which costs 3x mana, has 3 min cooldown, but does 1-to-1 damage ratio plus heals over time caster if it isn't resisted . . . makes Hex of Weakness look tempting.

So, how signifigant is that damage reduction guys?


Additionally, does spirit tap work if your team does the killing, but you only wand-tap the beast? I highly doubt priests would get finishing blow consistently.



As I've typically worked with undead (for the) Horde priests as an Orc Warlock, I've come to believe in shadow talent survival skills too, and came up with this build:

Shadow Mastery
Blackout Rank 5
Shadow Affinity Rank 5
Shadow Focus Rank 5
Improved Psychic Scream Rank 2
Mind Flay Rank 1
Improved Fade Rank 2
Silence Rank 1
Shadow Weaving Rank 2
Vampiric Embrace Rank 1
Shadow Total: 24

Note the improved psychic scream for AoE fear, and Mind flay (channeled slow enemy 50% for 3 seconds). Fade and mindflay rocked both keeping the enemy away and keeping the enemy from retreating (which is always a problem, PvP too). Watching from warlock perspective, I saw my priest parter's Mind flay as a leash or a lion tamer's whip to keep the enemy at bay for just a little longer while DoT took effect.

Playing a VW-affiction warlock, fear was used whenever there was room to manuever. Some teammates (warriors mostly) didn't appreciate the adds it made (I don't fear as much in instances or thick mob groups), but they do not understand the combination of how slow and squishy my cloth user is (even with healthstone + alchemy pots), and that I can DoT kill by running away at a distance. Much safer to keep distance with fear as WL. I'm going to try that as a priest.

Vampire's embrace: 1 minute duration, 20 second cooldown, heals 20% of damage done to enemy. Given there are a number of instant cast DoT spells

Discipline Mastery
Unbreakable Will Rank 5 or Silent Resolve rank 5
Martyrdom Rank 2
Improved Power Word: Fortitude Rank 2
Focused Casting Rank 1
Improved Mana Burn Rank 2
Discipline Total: 12

I'm seriously considering Unbreakable will for silent resolve's 20% threat reduction to damage. Given my shadow priest will be dishing DoT spells /w Vampirc embrace in addition to healing. . . might just be worth it. I cannot ignore how useful resisting fear/stun is, but 15%. . . its life or death tradeoff. Given this is a shadow priest... I'll probably have silent resolve for day-to-day damage threat reduction.

Holy Mastery
Improved Renew Rank 5
Spiritual Healing Rank 5
Subtlety Rank 5
Holy Total: 15

Basic healing adds and healing threat reduction.


Short of it all: I refuse to be pidgeon-holed into healbot. I want a stealth healer. DoT damage/healing through Vampiric Embrace passive healing, with fear and threat level control skills.

Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms?

I know people will say both "But you should really try to play the class" before you comment on it and "play your priest this way, healbot! we don't want shadow users here". Well, due to racial based skills, I need to ask before I get whiny, and has anyone actually tried actively using vampire's embrace? Hmm? Haven't heard too many reports. Given this is the lurker lounge, I do not expect the healbot comment except in jest. Some like healbots, I'm not one. My warlock was a tactician controlling the pace of the battle through VW pet minion drawing enemies, Curses adding damage, reducing damage, and controlling fear. Warlocks can induce fear or prevent fear in enemies (Curse of recklessness) so they run or do not run away. I expect to create a lot more control with my priests. Master healer? Nope. Stealth healer, yes. Max fear and fade out.

Profession wise: Herbalism, but only maybe alchemy. I'll leave other guildmates to invest in alchemy recipes, while feeding them necessary herbs for themselves. Second primary profession unknown right now. Maybe mining, maybe something else. First Aid definitely needed for secondary. I'll definitely enjoy having mana pots by my side.

[Quark]

Well, due to racial based skills, I need to ask before I get whiny, and has anyone actually tried actively using vampire's embrace? Hmm? Haven't heard too many reports.
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One of the priests I frequently party with has Vampiric Embrace. From the viewpoint of the Rogue, it's been a helpful spell so far. If we're in an area where the enemies can do some AoE damage, I'm taking some damage from that. If I get two crits in a row, it's really easy to pull aggro off a tank. A Feint usually fixes that, but in the mean time I'm getting hit once or twice. Vampiric Embrace allows me to be healed in these cases, without the Priest having to focus on me to make sure I'm okay. This also helps because when Things Go Wrong, generally all but one person is fully healed from any damage they may have taken throughout the battle. It's easier to get out of trouble if you don't start down 300 hitpoints.

[Xanthix]

Can anyone confirm Trolls have a racial spell called hex of weakness? Is it seperate from the warlock's Curse of Weakness? Can it stack?

Trolls do have this skill. I do not know the specifics of its operation, but the forum concensus (take it with a grain of salt) is that trolls have the worst priest racial spells.

Additionally, does spirit tap work if your team does the killing, but you only wand-tap the beast? I highly doubt priests would get finishing blow consistently.

You have to make the killing blow to activate Spirit Tap. If you practice with Mind Blast and wands you can get it a decent amount of the time, especially if your party knows what you're trying to do.

Regarding Devouring Plague, it does seem like a really nice spell, but I have heard that it is rather mana intensive.

[malphigian]

I'm glad improved fade got mentioned (didn't want to presume to answer this thread, since it wasn't addressed to me).

My troll priest (60 for a couple weeks now) uses a disc/shadow build, and since getting improved fade there is no way I would spec it out. One of the other 60 basin priests has been using a 3 tree build very similar to the one mongojerry posted. We're all in love with Improved Fade.

In and of itself it makes me last to die (or close to it), since it leaves only a 10 second window when I can get attacked, and others have almost always built up more aggro in the intevening 20 seconds. (Heck, toss in some truefaith vestaments and make it 22 seconds out of every 30, if you're a tailor)

I personally do not believe any of the other threat reduction talents are necessary, and points are better spent elsewhere.

Hex of weakness is indeed garbage. I might use it if it's mana cost wasn't so high for the minimal effect it has. Maybe in PvP with a rogue with a lower damage fast weapon? Certainly has no real impact on the high level instance mobs.

[KiloVictor]

Regarding Devouring Plague, it does seem like a really nice spell, but I have heard that it is rather mana intensive.
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My undead priestess has DP, and I like it a lot, but I find it very situational. It is fairly expensive, so I wind up saving it for fights that I know are going to be rough. I tend to value it more for the health it returns to me than for the damage it does, although it is pretty good damage (904 + shadow bonuses @ lvl 60) too. Efficiency doesn't seem that bad; it's 2:1 mana:dmg (a bit better with bonuses), but you also get free healing (Renew compares at ~1:3 mana:hp).

It's probably most useful in solo play, for multiple pulls, bosses, or especially adds. I load up SW:P and VE on both targets (or as many as possible), and DP on the one that's going to be toughest/last to kill.

At that point, my strategy is basically to put small life drains on all the targets to decrease the net damage that I take, and start working on the targets one by one in a war of attrition. Often I'll throw in a Psychic Scream to fear them off if it's safe to do so, and Mind Flay as they run. If I'm getting beaten on badly, I'll have to bubble up under a shield to keep MF from getting interrupted, but I think the benefits of uniterrupted MF and VE healing outweigh the mana cost of PW:S.

It seems to work; I've had lots of close fights where I win out over multiple mobs and end up with only a fraction of health left. I've also gotten beaten the odd time and asked myself "Why did you forget about DP in that fight?" as I've run back to my corpse. :) That's all subjective, YMMV. Note that I'm 32/10/9 shadow/disc/holy, so I'm forced to use VE/DP for healing in a fight if I want to use shadowform. For a holy/disc build, I don't know if it would be as valuable. Presumably more damage and less healing required is still a good thing, but the mana cost might be better spent on SW:P/smite/renew.

Given that undead have Will of the Forsaken, and DP, I think common wisdom is that they're a better race for priests than trolls. But I haven't really looked at it in detail, I mostly chose UD over Troll 'cause I liked the /silly and /emotes on the UD better. :)

VE in groups is nice "top-up" healing, but it sure doesn't cut it for keeping a group upright in an instance. I use it in small groups on quests, where aggro isn't a problem, but against elites I have to be really careful because it's a huge aggro multiplier.

The one thing that I'm not sure about VE is how it relates to the 8-slot debuff limit on a mob, because I'll often see it disapper from the debuff icons on the target, but I don't remember seeing it ever stop adding health (as recorded in the combat log). If I were forced to guess, I'd say it's not treated strictly as a debuff, but maybe as a healing spell that's associated with my character somehow. Perhaps I'll experiment with that tonight in BRS.

Kv

[KiloVictor]

I think I just talked myself into trying this out.  I have good enough equipment now that I can take a small hit to my mana pool.  Why not?  Any other ideas out there?
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One of the talents that I find golden is Silence. As one of the WoW Forum posters put it, "Silence: A nice warm glass of shut-the-hell-up." :)

In places like Hordemar City in LBRS, it's great for bringing casters into melee range. I usually arrange a left/right split with the mage on casters, and we'll use Counterspell and Silence to bring the casters in where the melee types can whack at 'em. It's really nice as it prevents having to move up and engage them where patrols can add.

So, personally, I'd be tempted to take 4 points out of Mental Strength and go for Shadow Reach 3/3 (just to get the 20 required to open Silence) and Silence 1/1.

I guess you don't need it if you're playing in a group that's good with LoS pulling for casters, but sometimes Things Go Wrong, and it's nice to have. Plus the extra range gives you more room to stay out of AoE effects while using Mind Flay.

Kv

[MongoJerry]

I myself am about to start a priest for the horde.

Can anyone confirm Trolls have a racial spell called hex of weakness? Is it seperate from the warlock's Curse of Weakness? Can it stack?

You know, I still haven't conclusively figured out if they stack or not, but my impression from some attempted in-the-field testing was that they don't stack. However, since most high level warlocks cast curses other than Curse of Weakness, I've found Touch of Weakness (the undead version) to be extremely useful. It's great when soloing and also for when fighting a big boss mob in a group situation. With Hex/Touch of Weakness on, I figure that's 20 health per hit that I don't have to heal. I like it. Also, Hex of Weakness does stack with a shaman's stoneskin totem.

Regarding Devouring Plague, I like it for PvP situations and sometimes when I'm fighting a tough elite mob on my own. It's like casting an extra Pain and Renew in one instacast. I don't use it a lot, though.

Regarding Troll abilities in general, the consensus is that Trolls have the worst racial abilities, not priest-specific spell abilities. The priest spell abilities are pretty balanced across the board, with the dwarf anti-fear buff being the one priest ability that's totally out of line.

Its either this troll-specific hex of weakness, or undead's devouring plague, which in conjunction with vampire's embrace talent (which I plan to use) may tip the favor to priests.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Do you know that priests get two race specific spells? For example, Undead get Touch of Weakness and Devouring Plague. Trolls get Hex of Weakness and Shadowguard.

Additionally, does spirit tap work if your team does the killing, but you only wand-tap the beast? I highly doubt priests would get finishing blow consistently.

You have to get the finishing blow. Spirit Tap, like most shadow talents, are well designed for solo/PvP. I don't bother with it right now while I'm running a lot of instances. I pick Blackout instead.

I'm seriously considering Unbreakable will for silent resolve's 20% threat reduction to damage. Given my shadow priest will be dishing DoT spells /w Vampirc embrace in addition to healing. . . might just be worth it. I cannot ignore how useful resisting fear/stun is, but 15%. . . its life or death tradeoff. Given this is a shadow priest... I'll probably have silent resolve for day-to-day damage threat reduction.

Basic healing adds and healing threat reduction.
Short of it all: I refuse to be pidgeon-holed into healbot. I want a stealth healer. DoT damage/healing through Vampiric Embrace passive healing, with fear and threat level control skills...

...Well, due to racial based skills, I need to ask before I get whiny, and has anyone actually tried actively using vampire's embrace? Hmm? Haven't heard too many reports.

Good luck with that. Yes, I and many others have attempted this. Vamp embrace is a useful PvP item, since in PvP you want to deliver as much damage as possible in as short amount of time as possible and don't want to stop to heal yourself. Also, in PvP situations, mana isn't usually the big concern, so you can blast away.

But in high level instance group? You will be beaten to death every time you cast anything more than SW:Pain. If you try to nuke, you'll have wasted your mana that could have been spent healing the other characters more capable of dealing damage, and wipes will ensue. You could tell your group ahead of time that you aren't going to be the group's primary healer, and then the group will boot you for a more useful shaman or paladin. You could take the points from the holy tree, place them in the shadow tree to increase your shadow damage, and then attempt to tell your group that you can nuke as well as a mage. Then, you'll be booted for a more useful mage (who can also aoe and sheep) or a rogue.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but you really do have to try out the class to see what it's like, because your comments seem quite naive. Your description of a healing priest as a "healbot," in particular, leaves me to wonder if you understand what you're getting into. A "healbot" leaves the impression of something mindless, and playing a healing priest is anything but that. There's a tremendous amount of skill involved and a dazzling array of tools at one's disposal. A priest is deeply and intensely involved in every fight, and there is little time or mana to act as a faux mage while trying to heal your party.

For the first 40 or so levels, you can get away with it. Heck, you could probably play naked and not assign any talents for the first 40 levels and do just fine. But in the high level instances, a priest's primary role is to heal his or her party, and if you feel that that is tedious, then you should play a different class. If you want to be able to heal a little, then try a shaman or paladin. If you want to deal damage, play a mage, warlock, hunter, or rogue.

[Olon97]

The unholy weapon enchant (-15 damage dealt by enemy mob for 12 seconds) stacks with the warlock curse of weakness, so I would be quite surprised if the troll priest ability didn't stack as well.

Probably not the best effect for hard hitting MC mobs, but for any fast hitting trash mobs, it does add up. I quite like my unholy enchant (I suspect it generates extra aggro too).

[Concillian]

The unholy weapon enchant (-15 damage dealt by enemy mob for 12 seconds) stacks with the warlock curse of weakness, so I would be quite surprised if the troll priest ability didn't stack as well.

Probably not the best effect for hard hitting MC mobs, but for any fast hitting trash mobs, it does add up. I quite like my unholy enchant (I suspect it generates extra aggro too).
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I don't know about the enchant, but Curse of Weakness, without a doubt, generates considerable aggro.

[Drasca]

I don't know about the enchant, but Curse of Weakness, without a doubt, generates considerable aggro.
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Just to be clear, is this the Warlock's Curse of Weakness or the Troll Priest specific Hex of Weakness? There is a slight difference.

Has anyone made a relative aggro chart? Grouping certain skills together by intial or final aggro ... these being low, those being medium, or high with respect to each other? Its common knowledge high damage 'nukers' are high aggro, but what about these misc skills like Hex of Weakness that aren't so obvious in relation to other priest skills.

My warlock's curses generally do not pull aggro in and by themselves, and initial pull aggro by curse is usually (but not always) pulled away from me by a VW. What are your troll priest experiences with Hex of Weakness aggro?

[Drasca]

I've stepped on some toes with the word Healbot, I'm sorry. I don't want to end up as what healbot implies. Healing only. Priest does much more, and is pivotal, but I believe not just for simple healing. However, a nuker is not what I have in mind.

But in high level instance group?  You will be beaten to death every time you cast anything more than SW:Pain.  If you try to nuke, you'll have wasted your mana that could have been spent healing the other characters more capable of dealing damage, and wipes will ensue. 

Overall strategy is a mixed character focusing on threat reduction, fade, while still having the 10 Holy tree strengthened heal talents, but definitely not damage. Note the lack of damage enhancing talents. Those can go out the door. Less mana efficiency per spellcast, but perhaps fewer casts required.

Use SW:Pain as a streaming healing effect. Multiple targets if applicable. Focus on shadow tree and discipline tree utility spells, rather than pure holy tree healing criticals and mana efficiency.

Wanna save mana? Silence, so enemy casters don't DO damage to be healed. Fear (granted, instances not so good to fear most of the time) so enemies don't touch you. Range, same reason. I've learned as a warlock, if there's room to work with, use it! Keep those enemies bay with fear while DoT works, or enough breathing room to regen mana, bandage up, whip up a new heal pot, healthstone. Time-buying, rather than ever diminishing returns on being per/time efficient.

Heck, curse of recklessness (makes enemy immune to fear and running away) made the problems of gogogo adds party-wiping poof into smoke. Essentially, that buys time to rest up.

I approach the battlefield not by looking at factors, but the derived result. What is healing trying to achieve? What is the subset of healing, mana-effiency, trying to achieve? Its buying time. The priest's role is death prevention, buying time to work. Direct healing per time or per mana only make for one part of the equation. You can buy time in other ways. Buy damage receiving time, buy non-combat time sparsed between damage-receiving, but buy time in more ways than healing.

With overheals inducing aggro effect, I'm not sure I want terribly more critical heals. That draws threat to my priest, and actually losing time. Time wasted on priest defending or running off, rather than concentrating. Maybe, maybe not. How've your critical heals faired?

Simply, I don't think healing is end-all be-all. I don't want any party to expect me to only expend mana on healing, and talents on mana efficiency. Shadow opens up many new options. Silence, Mind flay (leash of slow!), Improved Fade (less damage to self, less mana spent).

The damage enhancers don't have much utility, but the ability to silence and channel (instant) slow? IFade.

Healbots are heal per mana per time efficiency only fanatics. That's narrowly looking at one factor of the equation. When increasing time available, or decreasing damage needed to be healed, the net efficiency changes dramatically. Damage-to-enemy enhancers don't have that kind of effect (except at low levels).

Yes, my talent tree choices will be going under revisions. I don't like spells failing to resists, so I'll be investing in resist suppression.

My baseline shadow investment is 22 talent points, with 3 optional in shadow affinity:

Blackout Rank 5 -- startup investment and stun. Time-buying
Shadow Affinity Rank 3-5 (optional) -- threat reduction. May not be necessary as per one comment earlier with IFade, but 3 needed somewhere to invest in tiers Shadow Focus Rank 5 -- fewer recasts, less mana wasted
Improved Psychic Scream Rank 2 -- near constant fear utility
Mind Flay Rank 1 -- low cost slow 'leash'. extreme utility
Improved Fade Rank 2 -- IFade boons already mentioned
Shadow Reach Rank 3 -- Range improvement to all shadow spells, particularly Mind flay
Silence Rank 1 -- Bring casters to melee
Vampiric Embrace Rank 1 -- One talent point for up to 9.4 healing per second per SW:Pain for minimal 36 mana per minute. Passive healing to compliment Priest's natural healing abilities. Adds to other shadow damage spells as well, but SW:Pain is the only consistent one.

Spirit Tap's reliability will vary. I find it difficult to even consistently lash on a channeled Soul Drain before death, let alone finishing enemies off with a spirit tap mid battle. Wouldn't I be focusing on healing spells?

Holy Tree investment minimum: 10 pts for aforementioned Renew and Spiritual healing

That's 33 talent points spent so far. I'd probably spend the rest in the discipline tree. Go for resist/fear/silence effects, Improved Power Word, and lower cost of the instant Power Word, then shave off mana burn.

Unbreakable Will Rank 5
Improved Power Word: Shield Rank 3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude Rank 2
Mental Agility Rank 5
Improved Mana Burn Rank 2
Discipline Total: 17

That is what I would build. I think I'd keep Mind flay a low trained rank to keep mana costs down. Its utility is in slowing and passive healing, not high damage and threat.

Non-sequitor questions:

I wish Orc's passive resist stun ability worked. My guildmates at mannoroth and I have never seen "resist" when it came to stun. Ever. Can any others confirm this?

Do any casters here use swords (I keep seeing casters being able to train in swords), or does "one staff to rule them all" apply? I trained my Warlock in swords for amusement purposes, but generally do not use swords.

[KiloVictor]

I think I'd keep Mind flay a low trained rank to keep mana costs down. Its utility is in slowing and passive healing, not high damage and threat.
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I agree with your idea that damage prevented is damage healed. I've got Mind Flay trained right up, and use it with SW:P and/or MB fairly frequently in instances. It's only 205 mana, and it's useful in a few situations:

1) Finishing/slowing runners that nobody else can get to.

2) Slowing incoming adds (as long as I'm sure that the tank's ready to taunt 'em off me).

3) Self-defense.

2) and 3) are things that you have to be careful with... spending mana on damage is not usually the best thing for a priest to be doing. If you can afford the mana, and most importantly, if the team can spare your attention for a few seconds, they can be valuable.

I pull self-defense once in a while in places like BRD/BRS. Never on elites that the group is tanking and killing, but sometimes on non-elite mobs (caster imp pets, golem technicians, spire spiderlings, etc) that are part of the overall pull. If they get missed in the opening melee, they will sometime come to me beacuse of heal aggro. If there are many, I usually Fade. If it's only one or two, and I'm confident that I have a few seconds where healing won't be needed, I'll just kill 'em myself.

You have to be pretty sure you're going to get away with it, because once you hit them for significant damage, shaking them off might be impossible. But sometimes taking out one or two little non-elites on your own can save a bunch of healing later.

Kv

[vor_lord]

Shadow (17 points):
Blackout (5 points)
Improved SW: Pain (2 points)
Shadow Focus (5 points)
Improved Psychic Scream (2 points)
Mind Flay (1 point)
Improved Fade (2 points)

Holy (15 ponts):
Improved Renew (5 points)
Spiritual Healing (5 points)
Subtlety (5 points)

Discipline (19 points):
Unbreakable Will (5 points)
Improved PW:S (3 points)
Improved PW:Fort (2 points)
Mental Agility (5 points)
Mental Strength (4 points)

I finished planning out my talents for my baby priest. Then savaughn's thread linked this one. I discovered your build above to be very similar to what I am considering, with a few exceptions (which I would love to hear your opinion on).

For background, this build is intended to mostly solo except have a regular instance runs with a set party once a week. Thus my desire to balance party needs and some in shadow to speed soloing a bit. Once I get to 60 I quite possibly will respec.

Basically, I was planning on just 8 in discipline, giving up IPW:F, Metal Agility, and Mental Strength. I would put 4 of these points into Shadow to pick up Silence. The other seven I would put into Holy to pick up Improved Healing and Improved Flash Heal.

This puts me at 22(Holy), 21(Shadow), 8(Discipline).

I tried to pick the most party friendly shadow skills. I really want Improved Fade: our current party is Alliance, and our main healer is a druid. We stack his threat reducing talent for healing (don't know it's name) with my Blessing of Salvation to really reduce heal threat. The only times we worry about him drawing aggro from heals are when there are "free" mobs, i.e. things have gotten hairy enough that the tank and off-tanks haven't gotten hold on everything yet (this has wiped us two weeks in a row trying to finish off the last boss in Uldaman :(

So with our next party, we'll have subtlety for 25% threat reduction, compared to 60% reduction with the Druid + Blessing of Salvation. I'm thinking Improved Fade will cover that gap.

I suppose what I'm really losing out of discipline is mana efficiency. Agility is for instant cast -- how much of your mana is really spent with Renews in a party battle? I'm hoping that I was also thinking improved heal is 15% mana improvement, over 10% for Mental Strength, as I expect I won't be spending mana on much else other than healing in our runs.

Improved Flash Heal I am assuming will be most useful for soloing.

Can anyone comment on these tradeoffs? I have basically no priest experience as yet, but I can count on having a very skilled tank in our party.

[Xanthix]

Basically, I was planning on just 8 in discipline, giving up IPW:F, Metal Agility, and Mental Strength.  I would put 4 of these points into Shadow to pick up Silence.  The other seven I would put into Holy to pick up Improved Healing and Improved Flash Heal.

[snip]

I suppose what I'm really losing out of discipline is mana efficiency.  Agility is for instant cast -- how much of your mana is really spent with Renews in a party battle?  I'm hoping that  I was also thinking improved heal is 15% mana improvement, over 10% for Mental Strength, as I expect I won't be spending mana on much else other than healing in our runs.

Improved Flash Heal I am assuming will be most useful for soloing.

Can anyone comment on these tradeoffs?  I have basically no priest experience as yet, but I can count on having a very skilled tank in our party.[right][snapback]70247[/snapback][/right]

I can comment a little.

As for shadow, you know what they say. Silence is golden. No need to say more.

But for holy, I think Improved Healing and Improved Flash Heal are very situational. IH only works for your big slow heals, not flash heal. So if you find yourself using those heals mostly, it could be worth it. But you might not have a feel for that until later levels. I'm not impressed with IFH either - it casts very quick as it is and is thus interrupt-resisitant. For parties, if you are already taking enough hits for it to be worth it, are a few flash heals going to be enough to save the party? And for solo, I typically shield myself or cast scream before I heal/bandage, so I wouldn't use it there.

Overall in holy I would recommend Holy Spec (+5% holy crits), followed by Improved Prayer if you use Prayer of Healing a lot. Another option is to leave some of the points in disc. Improved PW:F is really nice (70 stamina instead of 54 at level 60), and I think you can't go wrong with more mana and cheaper instants.