A Note on Posts

Sorry I haven't gotten a new post out in a while, I've been busy with school and other things. I'll try to get a new post out in the next few days! Thanks for bearing with me.

Why Priests are the Best Lovers

Alright Matticus, you challenged me to make a list of why my class is the best lover, so I decided to take on the challenge!

3. We are Huggable

Ever try hugging through plate or mail? It doesn't exactly work too well. Luckily robes are nice and soft, and much easier to get out of too if you know what I mean.

2. Mind Soothe

Nothing helps settle down for a nice romantic evening than a little Mind Soothe. Gets the worries off your mind and helps you focus on your love.

1. Power Word: Fortitude

Increases Stamina by 79. Every woman loves a guy with good stamina, if you know what I mean, ahem, making for some enjoyable nights with your love.

Priest Racial Changes!

After hearing the new racial changes announced not too long ago, I've gotta say it's about time!

• - Desperate Prayer - This is now the 11-point talent in Holy, Holy Nova is now a base ability. Cooldown also reduced to 30 seconds.
• - Devouring Plague - Now a base ability. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, mana cost greatly reduced.
  
• - Symbol of Hope - Now a base ability. Now restores 5% base mana every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to your party. Renamed "Hymn of Hope."
  

Priest racials have long been a total mess, with lots of whining all around by the priest community. Priests were the only class for a while that had different racials for different races of that particular class. Blizzard tried it with horde and alliance paladins, but just like priests they realized that it should be changed.The only difference is it took them much longer to figure out the Priest racial problems.

I must say as a Human priest, I was extremely happy to be getting these racials, especially the new version of Symbol of Hope. That was until I realized that it only restored 2% of base mana. At level 80 this comes out to just over 700 mana. Basically one greater heal. Not very impressive I must say.

From another point of view, these changes could be pretty painful. Draenei and Dwarves will doubtlessly be missing their chastise, and the main appeal of picking a Draenei over a human is now gone with Symbol of Hope. Draenei priests will no doubt wish they were human for the 5% extra spirit now that their unique spell is no longer...well...unique.

You have to read a little bit of the fine print to see it, but the second big beneficial change here is the change to Holy Nova. Nova will now be a baseline talent, being replaced by Desperate Prayer on a 30 second cooldown. Priests have been waiting for a change to Nova for years and it is finally here.

All in all these changes make me look forward to playing a Priest in Wrath, although there is still alot of work that needs to be done to the class before I would consider it balanced.

How to Fix the Disc Priest in Beta

I know at the end of the last post I said that I would get a post off about kiting melee, but that will have to wait. What I have on my mind right now has to do with the state of the Disc Priest in beta for PvP purposes.

Disc Priests didn't gain too many new tricks in Wrath, but they did get some improvements on what they already had. Most of our new talents focus on Power Word: Shield in some way, and it is pretty clear that we will be relying heavily on the shield for our damage reduction and mana regeneration.

This sounds good to me, and I honestly don't have any problems with it except one. If a Priest goes against a Paladin, Shaman, or another Priest who spam dispel on our shield, we are basically screwed. All it takes is a class that can dispel magic effects, and we are reduced to nothing. Blizzard can buff PW:S as much as they want, but that doesn't change the fact that if it is dispelled we are helpless. If we spec into it we can get a 30% dispel resist by way of Silent Resolve, but even with that small resist chance, the shield is still way too easy to get rid of.

Blizzard recognized this problem with the Druid class, giving them Lifebloom. The "on dispel" effect on Lifebloom made it almost pointless to spam dispel on, effectively giving them protection against dispel spamming. I think it is time that Blizzard includes an "on dispel" component to PW:S, either by adding it to the spell itself, or taking an even easier solution and making a glyph.

Here are some ideas I have to prevent dispel spamming:

• While Weakened Soul is active, dispel resistance increased by 50%.
  
• On dispel, Heals target for 100% of shield absorbtion.
  
• On dispel, increases chance of a critical heal on target by 50% for 10 seconds.
  
• On dispel, removes any harmful effects on target along with PW:S.
  
• On dispel, Grants target 50% extra resistance for dispel for 1 minute.
  
• On dispel, refunds priest 200% of the mana it cost to cast PW:S.
  
• On dispel, reduces damage done to target by 10% for 15 second.

Any of the above would fix Disc Priest in PvP, and go a long way toward making it viable against other classes with dispel.

The Magic Number

Now that I've gotten the first few posts out there, I think it's time that I try to create some kind of method to the madness. The way I see it I can either try to post on certain days a week, every week, or try to get a certain amount of posts in every week on whatever day I decide to get it done. I definately don't want to overdo it and put out all my ideas at once so that I have nothing left, but at the same time I want to give the readers something interesting to come back for.

Currently I think I am going to shoot for 2-3 posts a week, 3 if I decide to write some short posts, or 2 if I write an essay like the last post. What do you guys think is the magic number?

Tanking Melee as Discipline

In the arenas, Disc Priests are often one of the first targets that is focused. Because of this, whether it's in 2v2 or 3v3 you will often be tanking 2 DPS at once. It is your job to live for as long as possible and buy time for your team to finish off one of the other team's players before you might die. I was originally going to try to make a helpful flowchart, but then I realized that your actions can change from fight to fight.

A Priest's Resources

A Priest has many tools at his disposal when he is being attacked. Your spells in this situation are generally instant and short cast spells because of spell pushback and Pummel / Kick.

Instant Cast:

• Power Word: Shield
• Prayer of Mending
• Renew
• Psychic Scream
• Inner Fire
• Pain Suppression
• Depending on race/arena partners: Desperate Prayer / Healthstone. Dwarves also have Stoneform and Chastise but I can't really advise on these because I have never used them.
  

Short Cast:

• Flash Heal
• Binding Heal

Having to choose between all of these can seem overwhelming at times, but I am going to tell you how to use them.

The Basics

This post is mainly about melee DPS, so the number one thing to remember is to always keep Inner Fire up. Priests have little armor as it is, especially with armor penetration which was introduced onto Season 3 armor. Keeping Inner Fire up is well worth a global cooldown, and will help you against most melee.

Your main spells that you will try to use every time they come off of cooldown are Power Word: Shield and Prayer of Mending. ProM is useful because if it bounces to a teammate who is also taking damage, it will come back to you making it extremely efficient. It is usually best to use ProM before PW:S because there is a good chance that the hit that breaks through PW:S will be half absorbed, and as such most of the healing from ProM will be wasted. This however doesn't always go for fights where you are taking a large amount of damage and you will not be at full health when PW:S breaks. It is also different against warriors (see the next section).

In between PW:S and ProM cooldowns, you want to keep up a constant renew, casting it again whenever it runs off. This might be different against rogues (see the next section).

What Classes are on You?

The way you want to react in the middle of a fight can really depend on what classes are attacking you.

Warriors rely mainly on rage, so your first priority should be to put up Power Word: Shield as soon as it comes off cooldown. Because they don't actually hit you when breaking through PW:S, they don't gain rage off of it and as such they do less damage. Warriors are significantly harder for Priests because of their resistance to fear. They have numerous ways to break out of fear, so if a Warrior is on you, only count on Psychic Scream to gain you a second or two of breathing room, followed by an Intercept. Inner Fire is especially important here because of warriors' armor penetrating abilities in addition to Excecutioner which almost all of them use. Warriors will Hamstring you, slowing your movement by 50%. It is important to note that if your partner is a Rogue, and they are also on the warrior, then you will actually be able to walk away from a warrior because the Rogue's crippling slows them by 75%. Just watch that you don't get Intercepted.

Rogues are especially a pain because of their stuns. If a rogue catches a Priest in a full stun without his PW:S and/or Renew up, it can get ugly quick. If you are forced to trinket a stun, remember to trinket Kidney Shot and not Cheap Shot. When going against a rogue it is usually wise to refresh Renew before it finishes, because you don't want to get caught in a stun without it. Especially helpful against Rogues is an addon that keeps tracks of cooldowns, so you can expect when the next Kidney Shot is coming.

When Things Get Ugly

Priests have a couple things to do in "oh crap" moments such as Psychic Scream and Pain Suppression.

Psychic Scream should generally be used when both ProM and PW:S are on cooldown, and you need to get a heal off. Pop scream, and as quickly as you can get off 1 or 2 Flash Heals. If a rogue is on you, you should also try to walk out of line of sight before the fear runs out so that he can't Shadowstep right back onto you.

Pain Suppression, I like to use early in the fight so that it is off cooldown later. In a 3v3 or 5v5 if you see 2 or more melee heading toward you, it is generally good to pop it right then and there because you are not going to last long anyway. Oftentimes it also discourages people from attacking you, possibly forcing them to switch targets. In a 2v2, use it when everything else is on cooldown and you need to buy time.

As a last result (or you can usually pull this off regularly against bad/laggy players) a Priest can spam a Flash Heal or two on himself in the middle of the fight as a result of the Martyrdom talent. Only try this when Martyrdom procs and is up. This allows you to cast without spell knockback, but it still leaves you at the risk of getting Pummeled or Kicked. Getting interrupted will lock you out of the holy tree, making things much harder.

Well that's it for now. This layout on the blog at the moment makes it hard to post long articles because the margins are so narrow. I'll try to change this when I can to make it easier for you to read. As always if you have any more tips or you disagree with me feel free to leave a comment for the article. Next post I will expand on this one and talk about ways to kite melee.

edit: fixed page width, this should be a bit better.

The Top 5 Things I Love about the Priest Class

Ah, the first actual blog post. Before we get into more specific topics I figure that I'll tell you guys a bit about why I love the Priest class.

5. We Look Good

Out of all the gear sets in the game, Priests without a doubt have some of the smexiest. We go from having wings in our Tier 5, to sporting one of the most badass looking hood and shoulder combos in the game with our Tier 6. Unless you have just walked freshly into Outland and are forced to don a slew of mismatched greens, it's hard not to look fresh as a Priest. Heck, we even have a high level staff with a bust of a Priest on the end of it!

4. We are as Close as it Comes to a Pure Healing Class

Although some Priests might argue that we have lost our status as the "best" healer in WoW, we are still the most focused on healing. Priests are the only class in the game that has two talent trees that are focused on healing. Because of this you get more bang for your buck from the class. In the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Discipline will be viable in PvE. This gives Priests two healing trees with vastly different healing styles. No other class plays like a Priest.

3. We can be Offensive as a Healer

In arenas, Priests are the most offensive healer class. Becuase we might not have the mana efficiency of a Druid or the survivability of a Paladin, we need to get the game moving. Mana Burn is a central part of this, and we are constantly trying to attack the other team's healer(s). We also have more burst ability than a Paladin for example. Got the other team's healer blinded? Help your partner out with a Mind Blast + Shadow Word: Death combo in order to finish off your target.

2. There Aren't Alot of Us

There really aren't that many Priests running around in most realms, especially compared to Hunters or Rogues. This means that in instances you can nab some nice drops without having to compete with, say, 3 other Paladins.

Even rarer than a Priest is a good one. If you know how to play your class you will be recognized for it. A good Priest is something that most arena teams and Guilds will want (I say most arena teams because honestly in many situations a Druid outshines us).

1. Versatility

Partly due to the fact that we are the most pure healing class in the game, we are also blessed with the most versatility of all healing classes. A jack of all trades you might say. While Pallys have spam heals, Druids have HoTs, Shammys have group heals, we have everything. We are not forced to adopt one particular play style like many other classes are. We have many unique and useful tools at our disposal like Prayer of Mending and Binding Heal that other classes don't have anything like. Priests are fun to play, period. We have a trick up our sleeve for every situation, and the fun of playing a Priest is picking what to use.

Mission Statement

The first blog post. A trial that every blogger goes through at some time in their career, but not one that most people notice. Chances are that by the time most people discover this blog, this post will be bumped so far back that the average reader will never lay eyes on it. Either way it is something that has to be done, and is important in its own right. The majority of what I have to say in this post will also be put in the blog description, but what the hey.

Twin Disciplines

A tier-1 holy talent for the Priest discipline spec? Why on earth would you name a blog after that? Turns out that the blog is not so much named after the talent, but what it implies. My two disciplines are the Holy and Disc specs. I take both PvP and PvE seriously enough that I want to share my thoughts about them with you! The goal of this blog is to give the readers helpful and insightful information about life as a Priest who raids and does PvP. Granted I might not be a Gladiator, and I might not have Sunwell on farm, but I'm sure that I can find some semi-useful tips to share with you guys! Enjoy the blog and if you have anything to say about a post, feel free to comment away.