Advanced Topics in Priest Play

[MongoJerry]

Good stuff. Your #s seem a little bit off from the official forums, but the general gist is there.

Keep in mind the assumption of 10 points spent in the holy tree. That's probably the difference in the numbers. A priest without at least that minimum investment in the holy tree at level 60 should be immediately booted from any instance or raid party.

Regarding PW:S, i feel it's important to talk about it further since it's one of the tools that define a Priest vs any other healer.

I view it oppositely in that I think people, especially non-priests, put too much emphasis on PW:Shield, because of its visibility rather than its actual usefulness. It is my contention that the better a priest is, the less often he or she will cast PW:Shield, because the better the priest is, the less often emergency situations will come up where casting such a mana-inefficient spell becomes necessary.

In regard to the writeup, I give PW:Shield two paragraphs -- one describing pre-shielding and one describing its use as an emergency form of healing. That seems sufficient for the spell. If people really want to know the healing spells that define the priest class over other healers, they should look to Flash Heal and Prayer of Healing.

There's a reason why the balance team slapped a significant 30 sec lockout timer on this spell that's really absent from any other spell type found in the game...it's extremely useful.

They added it for PvP reasons where PW:Shield definitely was overpowered. This guide is focused on group PvE, however.