| Name | The Complete Priest Guide: Into Shadow or From the Light (Part 3) |
| Category | Class |
Hyacintha here and today I am interviewing the ever lovely Uni the Holy Priestess. She has many great things to tell us about the Priest class in World of Warcraft, and in this issue she will be going over all of the different talent points!
Hyacintha: Well, now I guess the most important thing to do would be to actually talk about the different Priest specializations and talents. I understand that there are three.
Uni: Yes. I will not hesitate to jump right into this one as there a lot to talk about.
We will start of with Discipline, as this tree is currently not very focused and is usually used as a filler for the other two talent trees. It is rightfully so however! There are some very good talents in the discipline tree that can be used to enhance the other two specializations. Few priests specialize in discipline as their first tree, unless they are using it as a PvP build, which is very possible. The tree certainly offers some excellent talents though, such as ones that focus on mana efficiency and long term spell casting.
Unbreakable Will - (5 points) This talent gives you up to 15% chance to resist stun, fear and silence effects. It is mainly a PvP talent, and I recommend it for ALL PvPers! In PvE being the only one not feared no longer means you are the one the mob attacks as there is no longer an agro wipe. However, most good tanks know how to resist fear, as Feral Druids have improved fear resist, and Warriors can swap to Berserker Stance as well, so no matter the case, if you resist fear you will simply have all the more time to keep casting.
Wand Specialization - (5 points) This gives you up to 25% damage increase from using wands. This is an excellent leveling talent, especially at low level where you are not doing much spell damage and have a limited mana pool. You can always zap things with your wand for a bit of damage. It is even handy for in instances or raids during non-critical healing points. I recommend you take it while leveling at low levels as a backup form of damage.
Silent Resolve - (5 points) This reduces threat generated by holy and discipline spells by up to 20% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by up to 20%. This is major! It is fantastic for talent for healers to reduce the chance of drawing healing aggro which can be very deadly to not only the healer but the group as well! It is of lesser value in PvP, but it does make it so that spells can not be removed as easily or as quickly. I highly recommend it no matter what you do.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude - (2 points) This skill adds up to 30% health to your fortitude abilities. While 30% sounds like a lot, it only equates to being roughly 250 health at max level. It depends on what kind of grouping you do and such, but this is a talent that should be skipped at lower levels and saved for a 70 respec when it actually may make a bigger difference.
Improved Power Word: Shield - (3 points) This adds up to 15% damage absorption to your shield. This ends up coming out to roughly 200 points on your maximum level shield. It is not very much, but it may be just enough extra absorption to keep you lasting long enough for a tank to get something off of you. In the end however, it can be skipped for more important purchases.
Martyrdom – (2 points) A skill that provides up to a 100% chance to gain focused casting for 6 seconds after being critically hit is extremely useful in PvP where you are going to be a prime target and can be critically hit easily. I do not recommend this skill for any reason other than for the added bonus in PvP. With a competent tank you should never find you self in a raid or group situation where this focused casting is needed.
Absolution – (3 points) This grants up to 15% reduction in mana cost for dispel magic, cure disease, abolish disease and mass dispel. For certain raids or PvP situations, this talent can make a big difference. However, it is only situationally useful, and you will find that it may be a poor investment in your points for the ‘low return’.
Inner Focus – (1 point) This talent is one of the best points you can spend. It reduces the mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25%. Even though it has a three minute cool down, you get any spell you want to cast every three minutes for free essentially. This ability will cancel out the global cooldown and will raise your critical chance immensely. I recommend this ability for both holy and shadow priests.
Meditation – (3 points) This allows up to 30% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting. It is extremely useful for long fights both for damage and healing and becomes more useful the longer the fights you are in drag on. Having said that it is an excellent skill for raiders, since many raid fights can last upwards of ten minutes or even longer in some cases. I therefore recommend this skill to all raiders.
Improved Inner Fire – (3 points) This increases the armor provided by the spell Inner Fire by up to 30% but you should know that at max level this is less than 500 armor, which does not come out to all that much damage mitigation. Unless you are a straight up PvP discipline Priest, skip this.
Mental Agility - (5 points) This reduces the casting cost of instant spells by up to 10%. Since many of your spells as a priest are instant casts this can provide a nice reduction in the time you spend ‘out-of-mana’. I recommend it for all priests.
Mana Burn – (2 points) This reduces the casting time of your mana burn spell by up to a second. Essentially, by lowering the casting time by a third you are also increasing your damage output of that spell by 50%, since you can now cast it three times in the same amount of time it took for two castings previously. This is situational, since not all mobs have mana, but it can be very powerful for Shadow priests who like to deal a lot of damage in both PvE and PvP settings. I recommend it if you tend to use mana burn a lot as it is.
Mental Strength – (5 points) This talent increases your maximum mana by up to 10%. In other words, this can essentially add over 1000 mana at max level or close to it, depending on your gear. This is a fantastic talent in every situation and every specialization. I strongly recommend it for everyone.
Divine Spirit – (1 point) This skill gives you a spell increases the targets spirit by 50 for 30 minutes. To look at it one way, 50 spirit adds quite a bit to a players mana regeneration rate and is very useful for long fights such as ones in raids. I definitely recommend that if you are in a large raid at least one priest have this talent. It is not useful for more than one to have it however.
Improved Divine Spirit – (2 points) This adds an effect to your Divine Spirit buff that increases the targets spell damage and healing by up to 10% of their spirit as well. This is a great boost in healing and damage and a fantastic thing for raids. Again, this is essential for at least one priest per raid and highly recommended.
Focused Power – (2 points) This increases your Smite, Mind Blast and Mass Dispels chance to hit by up to 4% and reduces your Mass Dispels casting time by up to one second. It is useful in PvP for Smite builds and Mass Dispel, but overall is not that great. I do not recommend it unless you use a Smite build.
Force of Will - (5 points) This increases your spell damage and critical strike chance of all offensive spells by up to 5%. This is a great improvement to all spell damage and critical chances. It is exceptionally good for Smite critical Holy builds. I highly recommend it.
Power Infusion – (1 point) This new spell increases the targets spell damage and healing by 20% for 15 seconds, with a three minute cooldown. It is spectacular for granting sudden and amazing burst damage or healing for yourself or a party member in a tight situation. It is highly recommended.
Reflective Shield – (5 points) This causes up to 50% of the damage taken by Power Word: Shield to be reflected back at the person attacking you. Almost everyone uses Power Word: Shield to begin with, so if you are this deep into Discipline, you should grab this ability for sure. At max level it will return around 800 damage per shield casting back at the aggressor. I highly recommend it.
Focused Will – (3 Points) After taking a critical hit you gain the Focused Will effect, reducing all damage taken by up to 5% and increasing healing effects on you by up to 10% for 8 seconds. This stacks up to 3 times. As a healer you are not likely to take much damage in PvE or at least you should not. So, never mind criticals as they are even more rare. However this is a very useful ability as a PvP healer. While it is most assuredly pointless in PvE, if you are taking three critical hits in eight seconds in order to proc the effects, you are very likely to be dead soon anyway. Therefore, this ability is nothing special.
Enlightenment – (5 points) Increasing your stamina, intellect and spirit by up to 5%, this talent helps in many ways. It is too bad that this is so far into Discipline, however I you are this deep in discipline you should take it for sure. It is not critical for other builds however.
Pain Suppression – (1 point) This skill gives you a new spell that reduces all damage you take by 65% for 8 seconds, on a three minute cooldown. It is very useful in PvP when facing a rush to take you down, or as a last defense when you draw agro after a tank dies in a raid or instance. However, this point is not essential for healing priests and should only be taken in full out Discipline builds.
Next, we go on to the Shadow Priest. This list brings together all of the Shadow Tree’s talents for you to look over. As most people know, this is the tree that most priests focus on while leveling. The reason for this is that it allows you to do significant amounts of damage rather quickly, while still being able to heal yourself and shield as needed. Most players who find leveling a holy priest slow and painful will never find themselves complaining about the sheer available power as a shadow priest. Once at the end game though, when raiding and instancing are concerned, few Priests actually choose to stay shadow. However, some do for raids that already have Holy priests in place, as Shadow can prove to top the damage meters. Otherwise, they are still viable in end content, if they can get past the stigma which has formed about Shadow, based around the fact that “all Priests are healers.” Shadow is also a very good line for PvP.
Spirit Tap - (5 points) This talent gives you up to a 100% chance to gain a 100% boost to spirit and 50% mana regeneration for casting for 15 seconds after landing a killing blow. Spirit tap is a very useful talent, particularly while leveling, as it will allow you to restore a sizeable amount of mana every time you kill something. The enemy must be high enough level to provide experience or honor, and you must have the killing blow for spirit tap to activate. It is strongly recommended for almost any situation.
Blackout - (5 points) This talent gives up to a 10% chance for each of your damaging shadow spells to stun the target for 3 seconds. It will proc on Damage Over Times, but only upon casting, not on the damage ticks. Very useful in PvP and soloing, less so in group play due to immunities and sharing diminishing returns with similar effects. It is a solid talent for PvP and soloing.
Shadow Affinity - (3 points) This talent reduces threat generated by shadow spells by up to 25%. Has no application in PvP or soloing, but for group play, it is extremely useful as shadow priests generate comparatively high threat compared to other damage per second. Recommended if you plan on doing anything in a group.
Improved Shadow Word: Pain - (2 points) This talent increases the duration of Shadow Word: Pain by three or six seconds. Essentially it adds one or two more ticks to shadow word pain. Each tick will be for the same amount of damage of a tick without the talent. If you previously had 6 ticks of 300, you will now have 8 of 300. Very useful, as Shadow Word: Pin is used almost everywhere. It is a recommended talent.
Shadow Focus - (5 points) This talent reduces the chance of your shadow spells being resisted by up to 10%. It essentially acts as spell hit, but only for shadow spells. In PvP and soloing, you will rarely get use out of more than three points, unless you are fighting higher level opponents, but against a raid boss you will want the full 5 points until you get to higher levels of gear. It is a recommended talent.
Improved Psychic Scream - (2 points) This talent reduces the cooldown of psychic scream by up to 4 seconds. Improves psychic scream is useful in PvP, both for more frequent fear use and as a requirement for silence. In PvE and soloing, it can still be useful, but less so. It is defiantly recommended for PvP.
Improved Mind Blast - (5 points) This talent reduces the cooldown of Mind Blast by up to 2.5 seconds. A useful talent, Mind Blast provides both burst damage and increased damage per second. The amount of points that should be put into the talent changes depending on the situation. For PvE, one or four points reduces the cooldown to 7.5 or six seconds, which allows Mind Blast to fit cleanly in a rotation with your other damage spells which are either instant/1.5 second casts, or three seconds. For PvP, where you won’t always get to cast in a set rotation, different amounts can also be useful.
Mind Flay - (1 point) This talent gives you the Mind Flay ability, the most iconic shadow priest ability. Mind Flay is a three second channel that does damage every second and also slows the target’s movement speed by 50%. You will use it often and for any application, it is a required talent.
Improved Fade - (2 points) This talent decreases the cooldown on fade by up to six seconds. Fade is only a temporary threat reduction, so it is useless if spammed. Furthermore, the amount of threat it reduces is quite low. This talent is one of the least useful in the tree and should be avoided.
Shadow Reach - (2 points) This talent increases the range of shadow spells by up to 20%. In PvP, additional range is always very helpful in PvP, to be able to finish off fleeing opponents or start with a bigger range advantage on melee. In PvE and soloing, it can give you the range to avoid certain mob abilities, although in a PvE build it can sometimes be problematic to find space in the build for the talent. In general though, it is recommended.
Shadow Weaving - (5 points) This talent gives up to a 100% chance for your shadow damage spells to apply a debuff increasing shadow damage by 2%, stacking up to five times. The debuff lasts 15 seconds, refreshing upon every application. It is both an excellent boost to personal damage, and the damage of warlocks you may be grouped with. It is essential, unless you can guarantee always having another shadow priest in a raid to provide it.
Silence - (1 point) This spell silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for five seconds. It is on a 45 second cooldown. This is an excellent spell for PvP, either for locking down a healer or preventing a damage caster. In PvE, the use is more limited, due to immunities and the requirement of taking improved psychic scream which is also a lackluster talent for PvE. Recommended for any PvP build.
Vampiric Embrace - (1 point) Lasts for one minute, with a ten second cooldown. All shadow damage you deal to a target with Vampiric Embrace is returned in healing to the party at the rate of 15% per person. Although lackluster for short fights, it is still an excellent talent for any longer fight, especially since it is required for Vampiric Touch. This talent is a requirement.
Improved Vampiric Embrace - (2 points) This talent increases the health return of Vampiric Embrace by up to 10%, resulting in 25% damage done as healing for each party member. Due to threat problems, Vampiric Embrace is often left off by well geared shadow priests in groups, but if you find yourself using Vampiric Embrace a lot it is an excellent talent.
Focused Mind - (3 points) This talent reduces the mana cost of Mind Control, Mind Flay, and Mind Blast by up to 15%. An excellent talent that greatly increases the mana efficiency of your most commonly used spells. It is a must.
Shadow Resilience - (2 points) This talent reduces the chance you will be critically struck with a spell by up to 4%. Spells from PvE opponents will never crit, so it is useless there. It has use in PvP, but it only works against a small section of damage you take, and even then does little. This talent is one to skip.
Darkness - (5 points) This talent increases shadow damage you deal by up to 10%. Simply put, it is one of your best damage increasing talents. It should always be taken.
Shadow Form - (1 point) This gives you the Shadow Form ability. While in shadow form, all shadow damage dealt is increased by 15% and physical damage taken is reduced by 10%. However, while in shadow form you can not cast spells from the holy tree. Note that it only blocks out the holy tree, not the holy school. You may still use abilities such as Power Word: Shield and Dispel Magic, as although they are in the holy school they are in the discipline tree. In PvE, it represents a 15% boost to damage for one talent point. In PvP, it represents the same, while also increasing resistance to physical damage. The inability to cast holy spells (heals, mostly) is a fairly sizeable draw back, but the form can be dropped any time if needed. This is a required talent.
Shadow Power - (5 points) This talent increases the critical strike chance of Shadow Word: Death and Mind Blast by up to 15%. This talent increases both overall damage and burst tendency of these two spells. For PvP, it is excellent, as burst damage excels. In PvE, it is still a useful talent, because both Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death are commonly a part of damage rotations. While its not the best talent in the tree, it is not bad.
Misery - (5 points) This talent causes a debuff to appear on any enemy that is under the effect of one of your shadow damage spells that increases all spell damage taken by 5%. It represents both a 5% boost to personal damage as well as 5% to all other magic damage used against the target. A must have talent.
Vampiric Touch - (1 point) Vampiric Touch takes 1.5 seconds to cast, and places a damage over time effect on the enemy similar to Shadow Word: Pain. However, in addition, it causes all party members to gain an amount of mana equal to 5% of shadow damage you deal to a target with Vampirc Touch active. The defining talent of the shadow tree, this talent allows you to serve as a mana battery for yourself and the rest of the group. It causes a very substantial amount in mana regeneration for everyone involved. It is a required talent.
Last but not least by any means is the Holy Priest. The Holy talent tree is for Priests that spend their time healing in groups and raids, or for those that wish to take the path of the ever rare Smiter or Holy Warrior. The holy talent tree is the most commonly used talent tree for high level Priests, as the biggest number of mainstream priests spend their time healing in the end game. The tree allows you to cast superior, quicker, more efficient heals that will keep your group alive longer. As always, when being invited to a group, unless you let players know otherwise, they will automatically assume that you are a holy priest as it is the most important form of Priest for the standard group. Here we go.
Healing Focus – (2 points) This talent provides up to a 70% chance to ignore interruptions caused by damage when casting your healing spells. This removes many of the interruptions that you would get from being hit while trying to cast various spells. It does not reduce the chance of stuns, cancels, or interruption abilities, however. It stacks with other interruption avoiding abilities such as a Paladin’s Concentration Aura. I recommend it for all Priests as it increases the chance that you will get spells cast while taking hits.
Improved Renew – (3 points) This talent increases the amount your Renew spell heals by up to 15% . As this increases one of your common healing spells healing amount, and makes it more efficient, this is an absolute must have if you are a healer. Whether you are a main or off-healer, this is a fantastic set of points to send, and highly recommended.
Holy Specialization – (5 points). These five points increase the critical effect chance of all your holy spells by up to 5%. This works for all of your holy spells and is a must for Smite or Holy warrior builds, as well as your standard healing builds considering that. I highly recommend this as it is useful in both damage and healing.
Spell Warding – (5 points) This talent reduces all spell damage that you suffer by up to 10%. In most situations you will not be hit by spells, since your tank will be the center of attention in groups and raids, however, this ability really comes into play in PvP. In PvP, healers are nearly always selected as the first targets. Therefore, I do not recommend this for PvE characters, but strongly recommend
Divine Fury – (5 points) This talent reduces the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Greater Heal spells by up to 0.5 seconds. It essentially reduces the cast time of your Greater Heal by 16%, which more effectively increases its mana efficiency by that much as well. It also offers a significant improvement to your over all damage output, if for example using a Holy Warrior build. This does not change the ‘base time’ of the spell, therefore it does not effect the amount of addition +healing or +damage which would be added by your gear. This is definitely a must have for damage builds, however you should use your own judgment if you are a strict healer.
Holy Nova – (1 point) This talent gives you a new AoE spell that damages all enemies and heals all friends within 10 yards, without causing any extra threat. It is the priests only AoE damage spell. While the healing is not spectacular, it can be very useful in certain situations. I recommend it, although there is a high mana cost for this in particular skill.
Blessed Recovery – (3 points) This skill heals you for up to 25% of the damage taken over 6 seconds, whenever you are critically hit. This is meant mainly as a PvP talent. However, since it does not stack, you will find it has very limited usability for you as a healing Priest. Even as a PvP priest, you only have the most recent critical active, and it still only heals a fourth of that. If you have your shield up, it may activate, but as shield absorbs damage, you do not take any damage, and will not actually heal. I recommend skipping this ability.
Inspiration – (3 points) This talent increases your targets armor by up to 25% for 15 seconds after each critical heal on them. This is an excellent ability to have when healing tanks, especially raid tanks, since extra armor on then means less healing is needed in the first place. Not only does extend your mana pool in the longer fights if you are healing the same target over and over, but it simply provides an excellent buff that can make a raid go so much smoother. I definitely recommend this talent for raiding priests.
Holy Reach – (2 points) These points increase the range of your Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of Prayer of Healing, Holy Nova and Circle of Healing by up to 20%. However, range is not an issue with most of these abilities in PvE, especially with Holy Nova since its radius is so small that a 20% increase is next to nothing in reality. Furthermore, it basically only makes sense for a PvP talent, where Smite and Holy Fire have a reach of 36 yards total, making you able to hit enemy players before they can get to you. It is somewhat useful in PvP, yet, I still cannot recommend it completely as it is not entirely essential.
Improved Healing – (3 points) This talent decreases the mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal and Greater Healing spells by up to 15%. This is a must have for Holy Priests, because it’s quite obvious that it lowers a the mana consumption on some of your major heals by 15%, meaning your mana pool is open that little bit extra to do what you need to do in tight situations.
Searing Light – (2 points) This ability increases the damage you cause with Smite and Holy Fire spells by up to 10%. For Smite or Holy Warrior builds, this is excellent and a must have, as it raises your main damaging spells by 10%. For Holy Priests who attempt to solo through the levels, these are an easily justified two points to take. I recommend it for anyone who needs that extra little bit of damage.
Healing Prayers – (2 points) This talent reduces the mana cost of your Prayer of Healing and Prayer of Mending spells by up to 20%. While Prayer of Healing is a great group heal, it suffers a major downside of it’s rather inefficient mana cost. The 20% reduction on cost makes this a much easier ability to use as you can use it more often without fear of running out of mana. As a priest, you want maximum efficiency and this talent will help you get there. Raid priests are forced to use this spell a lot in fights that do area-of-effect or damage over time damage, thus, it is a must have for straight up healing Holy Priests.
Spirit of Redemption – (1 point) This ability increases your spirit by 5% to start off with, which is a nice bonus in of itself. However, when you die, you become a spirit of redemption for 15 seconds. While you are the spirit you can cast all healing spells for free. This makes this talent fantastic as a last moment effort to save the group, even if you die as the main healer. While 15 seconds does not sound like a lot, it allows at least 5 greater heals to get off in essence, which if you are close to the end of the fight, can save the group overall. In a raid, this is useful in case you are soul stoned, as you can get those extra heals off before you resurrect using it, or before a Druid battle resurrects you. If nothing else, the 15 seconds of healing allows the group’s backup healer to get out of combat and switch roles to healing. I believe that the 5% spirit bonus is worth the point alone and therefore strongly recommend this for all Holy Priests.
Spiritual Guidance – (5 points) This talent increases all your spell damage and healing by up to 25% of your spirit. This is pretty fantastic, as on most level 70 priests this talent will provide a healthy sum of extra healing and damage, all for only 5 talent points. Very few people refuse to take these points this far into holy. I highly recommend it.
Surge of Light – (2 points) This talent makes it to where up to 50% of your spell criticals allow your next Smite spell to be an instant cast spell, costing no mana but being unable to critical hit. Any spell on your list can grant this ability. You can be healing, receive a critical, cast your free Smite spell and then go back to healing. In the same note, if you are DPSing, you have the chance to get a free Smite any time you critical. For that reason, this is highly recommended for Smite builds.
Spiritual Healing – (5 points) This talent increases the amount healed by all your healing spells by up to 10%. Absolutely no one can argue the strength of this talent. It is a must have for all Holy Priests, as it makes your healing 10% more efficient under all circumstances.
Holy Concentration – (3 points) This talent provides up to a 6% chance to enter a clearcasting state after any Flash Heal or Greater Heal is cast. When in this state your next Flash Heal or Greater Heal costs 100% less mana, or in other words, is free. Any free spell is a good spell when you look at it! Any rank Flash Heal or Great Heal spell cast can trigger the ability, which may then be used on any other rank. Basically, this means you can spam rank 1 Flash Heal to get the proc and then cast a max level Greater Heal. However, you should only use that in situations where it is viable and does not have a chance of wiping the group. Situations where you have absolutely no mana or no way of getting it back quickly would be a good example of when it is most useful.
Lightwell – (1 point) This talent gives you a new spell which allows you to create a Lightwell that members of your group can click to restore health over 6 seconds. Any damage taken cancels the healing effect, and the Lightwell itself only lasts for 3 minutes or for five charges. This was supposed to be a core holy ability, however, it is not very popular as it is often misused. Therefore, many Holy priests simply skip this ability in order to spend another point somewhere else. It can be very good if your groups know how to use it, but not so good if it does not get used as all.
Blessed Resilience – (3 points) This talent makes it to where up to 60% of the time when critically hit, you will become immune to critical hits for 6 seconds. It provides some defense to the multiple critical hits which are common in PvP situations. However, it is not recommended at all in PvE where as a Priest you are not nearly as likely to get hit, let alone critically hit. Therefore, it only has a stock value for the PvP player.
Empowered Healing – (5 points) This talent increases the healing bonus from your gear (armor, weapons, trinkets, etc) to your Greater Heal by up to 20% and your Flash and Binding Heal by up to 10%. The math on this one can get a little fuzzy since the bonus is based on your +healing stat and then reduced by the spell coefficient. How it works out in the end however, is that Greater Heal ends up getting +105% of your +healing bonus and Flash and Binding Heal get +53% of your +healing bonus instead of the base 85% and 43% values before the talent. It also scales amazing well leveling and improving, as your gear really determines the bonus. It is simply a must have for holy priests, especially since it will only continue to get better.
Circle of Healing – (1 point) This skill heals all party members within 15 yards for up to 550 health. Essentially, it heals the target party or raid member, and then everyone in their group around them. It is very mana efficient if the target has multiple people around them and in the same group. For example, if in a ten man raid, all your melee members are in one group, that group will be tight knit and therefore good candidates to receive Circle of Healing. However, it is very difficult at times to use this spell effectively due to range limitations. Fights that require ‘clusters’ or small groups of people standing in one spot, make this spell a great one to have. This far into the holy tree, it is definitely worth the point.
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