Priest Leveling Guide

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Phyle » Mon Feb 08, 2016 11:35 pm

@smilkovpetko
smilkovpetko wrote:the most foolish ever i heard is to mindflay when you are questing :

1- mana inefficient due to shielding and fear
2- interrupted and wont do crap damage
3- good for pvp but sadly bugged with server lag
4- good for dungeon

for questing and leveling i have already pointed = spirit tap , mediation , wand spec, imp shield, impr 5/5 mb ,= gg

impossible to oom , you can multidot , your mana will regen like nerd , your shield will survive you long enough , you can time to time renew if you are too low hp after kill

spec for leveling/questing and pvp :

https://en.nostalrius.org/talents/pries ... 5100511251

start with spirit tap , then switch to discipline (except inner focus and mediation) , then switch to shadow again , at very end go get inner focus and mediation.

mindlfay use only against gankers and for dungeons , never for questing.

enjoy


Powerword Shield, and my Mindflay does a lot of damage. Without the shield it is only useful when I dont get any damage.

@ Fisher and Ana
Now on level 36 the damage is higher due to the next mind flay rank. I think I will reach 40 soon. Thanks for the motivation words :).
User avatar
Phyle
Sergeant
Sergeant
 

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Fisher » Tue Feb 09, 2016 9:22 am

Ana wrote:No, the idea was to skip fearing but not have to deal with the fact that PWS is much more expensive by the way of, well, using the less expensive version.


Then yes, as long as the shield isn't breaking so soon that you end up reapplying buffs too often, it is worth downranking your shield.

Ana wrote:With what? Do you spend gold on engineering while leveling? Otherwise you have no CC save fear. And yes, they'll break your fear instantly.


Against my better judgement, I'll go ahead and continue the PvP discussion with you, Ana...

Well, if it's a caster, after they trinket a fear, you can silence them. If it's an undead or a warrior, just focus on doing damage instead of controlling. Not every player is going to have their trinket. Not every player is going to be undead. Not every player is going to be a warrior. And even in any of those cases, or combinations thereof, you're not immediately doomed. Psychic Scream is one ability in your toolkit, and if your DPS is high enough, not an entirely necessary one.

Ana wrote:- any undead opens on you
- you fear
- WotF
- 30 seconds later: you fear
- trinket (majority of gankers are rogues and mages so their trinket removes fear)
- 30 seconds later: fear finally sticks
- meanwhile: you wanna dps them? get a kick / pummel / CS / whatever, enjoy sitting there watching the tide


I'm going to introduce you to the idea of fake-casting. It's where you start to cast a spell, and depending on your latency, cancel the spell either very quickly, or maybe half-way through the cast, causing the player to waste their interrupt on nothing. Most gankers are pretty bad, which is why they are ganking in the first place, and you can easily trick them into doing this.

Even if you fail to fake-cast... remember that really, really important slot you should be upgrading? 'The wand?' Yes! The wand is capable of doing great damage that is unavoidable, cannot be interrupted, and generally unmitigated damage! Combine that with the instant cast spells Power Word: Shield and Shadow Word: Pain, and you're good to go!

Ana wrote:As I see it the best thing that can happen is if they indeed interrupt your Shadow school, because you instantly drop Shadowform, heal up + Renew and destroy them once the interrupt cooldown is over. However you won't heal up because you don't have healing focus.


This is the worst thing that could happen and that is the worst thing you could do to respond to that happening. If your Shadow school gets interrupted, it's usually best to stay in Shadow Form and just wand the target down, or kite them (run away and LoS) while Shadow Word: Pain ticks down. Swapping out of Shadow Form means you'll die faster, and if you live long enough to go back into Shadow Form, you're going to waste a lot of mana doing so. In addition, while you're healing, you're still taking just as much damage as you're healing, if not more, but the enemy is taking none (or only the DPS of Shadow Word: Pain).

Ana wrote:90% was of course an exaggeration but not by much. Iirc roughly 50-60% of Horde playerbase is undead, and we are talking about ganking here, most angsty neckbeards pick UD rogue or something similar for ganking because they want to feel mighty.


An exaggeration nonetheless. I find it hard to believe Undead make up that high of a percentage of the Horde player base. Granted, I'm Horde, so I'm not getting ganked by Horde to be able to provide personal statistics; And Undead rogues seem to be when you're afraid of, so I'm not able to provide any personal experience with fighting them outside of duels.

Ana wrote:Two side notes:
1. I only noticed just now that you went for Silence instead of Shadow Reach. This does help a tremendous amount. Incidentally, it also explains your issues with MF breaking when doing my fear-on-mob strat. 24 yards of range makes the trick MUCH more reliable. Just to wrap up that thing.
2. PvP considerations make excessive use of MF in grinding favorable. That's because you're generally better off spending as little time as possible with a mob on you, should a ganker show up. You may have less mana to use on the enemy player but you don't have to worry as much about your shield getting eaten in 5 seconds, or pushback on flaying or whatever.


Shadow Reach isn't as useful while leveling because most mobs are melee. Being able to pull mobs 20% further away is not a significant increase to leveling speed, and I picked up Silence because it's far more useful in both PvP and PvE while leveling. I'm not going to go into the Psychic Scream/Power Word: Shield discussion with you again. There were 8 reasons not to use Psychic Scream instead of Power Word: Shield, and the mob running out of range was only one of them. There were 6 reasons to use Power Word: Shield instead of Psychic Scream. Being able to Mind Flay a mob while it runs away is not worth giving up Silence, especially on a PvP server.

Considering how much emphasis you put on swapping out of Shadow Form to heal yourself, I'm amazed you think having less mana is going to be worth killing a mob slightly faster. Your two strategies work against each other, whereas my two strategies work strongly with each other. You spend more mana to kill a mob faster, preparing for the inevitable gank, only to not have the mana to be able to heal yourself when the gank actually happens; Or you end up burning through mana so quickly and so often, that you end up drinking every 2-3 mobs because you were afraid of the big bad Undead rogues, and it turns out the boogeyman isn't under your bed, meaning you're leveling less efficiently. Either way, you've screwed yourself.

With my strategies combined, I have my Psychic Scream (and Silence, because Shadow Reach is a fucking joke of a talent for leveling) ready for any bad situation, whether it be PvP or PvE; I reliably have a full health bar, and I have enough mana to Power Word: Shield myself as many times as necessary, maintain Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Blast on cooldown, Dispel any important buffs, Psychic Scream at any rank necessary (generally 1 or 2, for 2 or 3 mobs, respectively), and Mind Flay spam in-between all that other goodness. And in the worst case scenario, or the best case scenario, I can save my mana by just wanding the poor fool down while Shadow Word: Pain eats away at their health bar and Power Word: Shield keeps me healthy.

smilkovpetko wrote:the most foolish ever i heard is to mindflay when you are questing :

1- mana inefficient due to shielding and fear
2- interrupted and wont do crap damage
3- good for pvp but sadly bugged with server lag
4- good for dungeon

for questing and leveling i have already pointed = spirit tap , mediation , wand spec, imp shield, impr 5/5 mb ,= gg

impossible to oom , you can multidot , your mana will regen like nerd , your shield will survive you long enough , you can time to time renew if you are too low hp after kill

spec for leveling/questing and pvp :

https://en.nostalrius.org/talents/pries ... 5100511251

start with spirit tap , then switch to discipline (except inner focus and mediation) , then switch to shadow again , at very end go get inner focus and mediation.

mindlfay use only against gankers and for dungeons , never for questing.

enjoy


  1. Mind Flay is the most mana efficient DPS spell available to a priest, excluding Starshards.
  2. Power Word: Shield prevents spells from being knocked back.
  3. Mind Flay does damage similar to a Shadow Word: Pain tick, only it does it much faster. That's not "crap damage.
  4. Mind Flay applies stacks of Shadow Weaving, increasing the damage of Shadow Word: Pain, Shadow wands, Mind Blast, and Mind Flay.
  5. How does server lag cause a bug? Perhaps you are mistaking not compensating for your latency with the spell being "buggy."
  6. No set of talents will ever make it impossible to run out of mana. Your playstyle and rotation will determine that more than anything.
  7. Yes, you can multidot, but you will spend a lot of extra mana doing so consistently. It's better to avoid doing so if you can, and just fight one mob at a time.
  8. Renew is the most mana-inefficient healing spell available to a priest. If you're going to heal yourself, use Greater Heal. Renew is only useful for when you are constantly taking damage and need to improve your HPS (healing per second) by healing over time and by casting at the same time.
  9. Swapping out of Shadow Form to cast heals, then swapping back into Shadow Form is going to cost mana. It's cheaper and faster to just apply Vampiric Embrace and continue as normal.
  10. Improved Mind Blast is only useful for dedicated PvP or raiding, not leveling. Mind Blast is horribly mana-inefficient, and, therefore, horrible for leveling.
  11. Taking no points in Shadow Focus is a great way to waste your mana casting the same spells more than once when they get resisted.
  12. Blackout isn't as useful as the other talents available to you while leveling. Blackout is great, but it doesn't provide a constant benefit like the other options do. The talent has a pretty high chance (90%) of doing nothing.
  13. Martyrdom is nearly useless for leveling as it requires you to be crit, then only provides you with interrupt resistance and knockback immunity, the latter of which you already have via Power Word: Shield.

I don't mind you asking questions, or even making suggestions, but this is my guide, not yours, and I'm not very fond of the idea of you telling people how to play priest on my thread*. Please don't come into my guide acting like it's yours, and please don't go around making posts like you're tired of explaining to us how we're doing it wrong when you are actually the one doing it wrong. Before you post any further, just do yourself a favor and read through the thread a little bit. Read and learn.

*Ana is at least coherent and has, at the very least, a moderate understanding of how to play a priest. Ana and I argue back and forth quite a lot, but what Ana says has some merit. They make some feasible suggestions that are worth looking into, even if they aren't always right.
User avatar
Fisher
Grunt
Grunt
 

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Ana » Tue Feb 09, 2016 3:11 pm

Quoting all this is really a lot of work, so I'll just address particular points instead.

Re: mana use on mobs / efficiency / preparedness for ganks - assuming I employ the idea of downranking shield and skipping fear altogether, then the issue is rendered moot :P basically the difference between our playstyles would boil down to how many Mind Flays per mob we use. I assume you're flexible on that account even if you focus on wanding (I mean, if you're nearly at full mana, obviously you can do more than 1 MF, it's a cheap spell after all)

Re: undead boogeymen - I'm taking data from some monthly population censuses I saw during leveling. Was indeed roughly 50% of Horde being UD. It may have changed a bit by now.

Re: fake casting and wanding in pvp - I used to attempt both frequently but gave up because of it being ridiculously unreliable thanks to how laggy Nost is. The time of the day you play at comes into consideration here, of course... but if you happen to play at a crowded hour, be prepared to take 5 attempts to actually start wanding the target (because you're clearly facing them on your end but the server thinks otherwise); have little hope of maintaining the barrage for more than 2-3 shots if the opponent is melee ("target needs to be in front of you"), and so on...
Fake casting gets hilarious sometimes, too. You basically can't predict what the opponent sees on their screen. I once tried to fake with MC (mindblast is too fast, they won't react), stopped it about 2 seconds in, took half a second break and started MFing only to get instantly pummeled. The guy didn't react to the MF, he reacted to the MC with a second's delay. You will never know if their interrupt is gonna be a second or half a second late...

Re: healing = not doing damage - flash heal is OP. You can easily get yourself patched up and throw in a wand shot or two while the cooldown on Shadow is ticking down, they can't outdps flashing. After the cd is over, continue melting faces. You do NOT go back into shadowform after that, costs too much mana.
Ana
Stone Guard
Stone Guard
 

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Garfunkel » Tue Feb 09, 2016 5:46 pm

Jeesus christ you guys are taking this seriously!

Just level as disc/holy, no need to argue about shadowform then :D
FInd me on: Laureliana - Lauraliana - Lauroliana - Lauruliana - Lauriliana
NELF POWER!
User avatar
Garfunkel
Stone Guard
Stone Guard
 

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Fisher » Tue Feb 09, 2016 9:13 pm

Ana wrote:Lots of stuff about PvP


This is why I didn't want to get into the PvP discussion. While leveling, mobs do predictable things. They run straight to you, they auto attack, sometimes they cast spells. In PvP, there are so many factors to consider in each fight, that even if you have an exact counter in mind to every action the player could take, you can never rely on things to go the way you want them to.

Discussing how to play in PvP is something that pertains only to PvP, and I'm done discussing it in my leveling guide. The only reason I addressed the PvP issues was because some of the things mentioned were applicable to PvE situations as well, particularly ones you'd encounter while leveling. If you want to further debate on how to PvP, go argue on one of the many Shadow priest PvP threads, or start your own and tell us all how to play.

Garfunkel wrote:Jeesus christ you guys are taking this seriously!

Just level as disc/holy, no need to argue about shadowform then :D


This is a horrible idea. Even with the talents available in Discipline or Holy, your damage is absolutely atrocious by comparison. The reason Shadow Form is worth arguing over is because it's a 15% multiplicative damage increase and 15% physical damage reduction. Without a doubt, it's something you'll want/need while leveling. Do you deal damage while leveling? Yes. Are you primarily attacked by physical damage dealers while leveling? Yes. Bam. Shadowform.

If you're deciding to level outside of Shadow to avoid having to be in Shadow Form, you're purposely gimping yourself.
User avatar
Fisher
Grunt
Grunt
 

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Phyle » Wed Feb 10, 2016 10:49 am

Garfunkel wrote:Jeesus christ you guys are taking this seriously!

Just level as disc/holy, no need to argue about shadowform then :D


If you want you can level without Shadow, but it will take too much time in my personal opinion.

Fisher is right about to put the PvP discussion i a other area. Now I see how much different opinions are available for PVP, this would be too much for a only leveling Guide.
You can avoid World PvP in most of the times while leveling. And for the rank to have cheaper mount you do not need a PvP Specc.
User avatar
Phyle
Sergeant
Sergeant
 

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Garfunkel » Wed Feb 10, 2016 6:04 pm

Fisher wrote:This is a horrible idea. Even with the talents available in Discipline or Holy, your damage is absolutely atrocious by comparison...


Dude, chill. I was making a joke, hence the smiley.

And while Disc/Holy build is slower to level than Shadow, it's nowhere near as bad as leveling a Prot warrior. I did it once back in 2005 and, just to really enjoy nostalgia, did it again last year when Nost launched. Took me 8 days /played if I remember correctly and I wasn't hurrying along by any means.

Anyway, I don't want to derail your leveling guide thread further, just tried to inject some levity into your grim argument with Ana.
FInd me on: Laureliana - Lauraliana - Lauroliana - Lauruliana - Lauriliana
NELF POWER!
User avatar
Garfunkel
Stone Guard
Stone Guard
 

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Ana » Wed Feb 10, 2016 7:51 pm

Priesthood is serious business! Repent, heretic!
Ana
Stone Guard
Stone Guard
 

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Phyle » Wed Feb 10, 2016 9:04 pm

Ana wrote:Priesthood is serious business! Repent, heretic!


Haha :lol: :D
User avatar
Phyle
Sergeant
Sergeant
 

Re: Priest Leveling Guide

by Forcerius » Thu Feb 11, 2016 5:10 pm

Garfunkel wrote:Jeesus christ you guys are taking this seriously!

Just level as disc/holy, no need to argue about shadowform then :D


Only way to be the best is to take it seriously. Not everyone cares about that though. I do.

Also, does mind flay do more damage (relatively) later? Because my wand does more damage it seems at 26.
studyquran.org/resources/Quran_Reformist_Translation.pdf
Submission to God alone and doing good work is the only path to Paradise.
Peace be upon you.
User avatar
Forcerius
Sergeant Major
Sergeant Major
 

PreviousNext

Return to Priest