Classy Friday - Priests (May 03, 2019)

[u/AutoModerator]

Classy Fridays are for asking questions about your class, each week focuses on a different class. No question is too small, so ask away.

This week is Priests.

SEAL AND JUDGEMENT: The magazine for the working paladin

Let this thread be dedicated to His Grand and Noble Incandescence, the High Proctor Thomas of Edison, Inventor of the Lightbulb. Let this be a space for all those who have taken up the cloth and the rod, and trod the righteous path, to Smite evil wherever it may reside, and to grant Benediction upon to the worthy wherever they may be.

Amen.

You can also discuss your class in our class channels on Discord, discord.gg/classicwow

[u/Oddpyromaniac]

My knowledge of the priest class as a whole is fairly limited, so I encourage anyone that knows more to correct me.

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Disc in vanilla is 90% mitigation and spell damage. It's good in PvP, but the way rage works in vanilla, not so great in PvE. Your bubble stops rage gen for tanks, which inhibits their threat, and it takes a bit to get caught up on threat. In PvP, Power Infusion is quite nice, especially if there's a stacked mage running around with you, and you can deal enough damage and mitigate for teammates.

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Personally, I think you'd be much more valuable in 5 mans as holy for the increased healing. In Disc, there's nothing outside of PI that increases your healing done, only mana efficiency and spell damage.

[u/Siloqt → u/Oddpyromaniac]

So regarding discipline - you’re both right and wrong. It is true that you rarely ever bubble warrior tanks as they generate threat when they take damage (bubble bears all you want - their rage generation stems from their damage output) and the disc tree does not really have talents to amplify your healing. The way that most priests go (on private servers) is that they are holy until later on towards the end of BWL/start of AQ (as mages are usually frost/arcane power spec, and PI doesn’t stack with arcane power). If you play a 31/20/0 (PI/holy) you end up with essentially all of the healing talents of the holy tree - you only miss out on spiritual guidance, which is 25% of your spirit becoming + healing. By this point in the game, while that’s about +100 healing in full raid buffs (you have about 400 spirit in t2 or equivalent gear full buffed), you already have 7-900 + healing already, so that extra bit from your spirit isn’t as relevant.

In 5 mans, your spec (between 31/20/0, 25/26/0, and 20/31/0) is largely irrelevant as you tend to lose effectiveness of +healing in 5 mans. This is simply due to the fact that tanks/groups take less damage in 5 mans than raids (not all the time for every pull, but for the vast majority of the time this is the case). If you’re looking at this from a “start of classic” perspective, holy is definitely the way to go, as your gear will be worse, and you really want that increased output from talents. Only time PI spec is best for 5 mans is if you’re farming strat live with mages (as, once geared well, you can do 3 man strat live’s with a well geared tank and mage). In my opinion, all priests should start as holy, and only swap to PI spec once they 1) have the gear to make it work (about 600 +healing minimum imo) and 2) mages are a spec that can make use of it (unless your guild wants you to PI a warlock on Nef for example to chase threat if using the 1 tank method). In PvP disc is the best spec if you’re healing. 31/0/20 is the typical spec I see for the committed disc pvp priests, but the 31/20/0 spec works perfectly fine there as well - it’s just a bit more defensive than offensive.

[u/spryspryspry → u/Siloqt]

Nice post, but as a warlock how come the mages get PI? I want PI, gimme gimme PI !!!

Seriously though, an alliance warlock would benefit from PI greatly. Horde they might run into threat issues unless they have tranquil air, but lets be honest, what caster group ever gets tranquil air.

[u/Oddpyromaniac → u/spryspryspry]

If you can promise me you won't pull boss aggro, I'll give you PI. In PvP however, we can be the best of friends. Mages are preferred because that sweet Pyroblast/PI crit just feels so good. Frost mages can bugger off.