World Of Warcraft

Priest FAQ v3.0 (11/04) priests please read! 3/31/2005

General Questions

Q: Should I make a shadow priest or a holy priest?
A: A shadow priest is more mage like, and a holy priest is more healer like. This is heavily dependant on your personal choice as well as the type of server you play on. (PVP or regular) Keep in mind that you can experiment with both types with talent respecialization but it can get pricy if you change too much.

Q: Which race is best for my priest?
A: This depends on what you want to do with your priest. Dwarves and humans are great choices for holy priests because of their racial spells, and undead has the best racial spell for pvping and damage.

Q: What are these racial spells you speak of?
A: Priests are the only class that gets racial spells at level 10 and 20 through quests given by priest trainers in major cities. There are multiple ranks of each spell that you can upgrade as you level. The highest rank of each spell is described below:

* Desperate Prayer (Level 10). (Dwarf/Human only.)
Rank 7 - Instantly heals the caster for 1324 to 1562.

* Starshards (Level 10). (Night Elf only.)
Rank 7 - Rains starshards down on the enemy target's head, causing 798 Arcane damage over 6 seconds.

* Touch of Weakness (Level 10). (Undead only.)
Rank 6 - The caster's next damaging melee attack will cause 64 additional Shadow damage and reduce the damage caused by that target by -20 for 2 minutes.

* Hex of Weakness (Level 10). (Troll only.)
Rank 6 - Weakens the target enemy, reducing damage caused by -20 for 2 minutes.

* Fear Ward (Level 20). (Dwarf only.)
One rank only - Wards the friendly target against fear. The next fear effect used against the target will fail, using up the ward. Lasts 10 minutes.

* Feedback (Level 20). (Human only.)
Rank 5 - Enchants the Priest's weapon to cause feedback on enemy targets. Each hit has a chance of draining 105 mana from the target. For each mana drained in this way, the target takes 1 damage.

* Elune's Grace (Level 20). (Night Elf only.)
Rank 5 - Reduces ranged damage taken by -29 for 3 minutes.

* Devouring Plague (Level 20). (Undead only.)
Rank 6 - Afflicts the target with a disease that causes 904 Shadow damage over 24 seconds. Damage caused by the Devouring Plague heals the caster.

* Shadowguard (Level 20). (Troll only.)
Rank 6 - The caster is surrounded by shadows. When a melee or ranged attacker hits the caster, the attacker will be struck for 116 Shadow damage. Attackers can only be damaged once every few seconds. 3 charges. Lasts 10 minutes.

Q: Where do we get the upgrades for racial trait spells?
A: You can get them at the priest trainer. Fear Ward is not upgradable.

Q: What’s the best duo with priest?
A: Very subjective – a priest will generally duo ok with almost any class. Read the forums for more information on why a priest can duo with each class.

Q: How do I kill xxx class in PVP 1 on 1?
A: Very subjective – again, a good idea to get some good strategies are to read the forums.

Q: Which professions should I take?
A: This is up to you. Obviously it wouldn’t make too much sense for a priest to do blacksmithing or leatherworking. If you want to make money, take up 2 collection skills such as skinning and herbalism.

Q: I heard priests are not suppose to shield warriors because it prevents rage generation. Is this true?
A: You can test this by shielding a warrior and let a mob beat on him while he does nothing and watch his rage. It seems the answer to this question changes with every patch, so test this for yourself and decide whether to shield your warrior or not before pulls. Some warriors don't mind, some say they can't gain enough rage to hold aggro if this is on, work it out with your warrior.

Q: Can I get some basic information about what stats do for me?

Strength-10 = Attack Power | Takes 14 str to add 1 dps
1 Intellect = 15 mana per point = 1% chance to cast a crit spell every 100 INT
1 Stamina = 10 HP
4 Spirit = 1 mana regen/2 secs
9 Spirit = 1 Hp regen/2 secs
Mana Regen/tick = Spirit/4 + 13
Mana regenerates according to how much spirit you have. Take the amount of spirit you have, and divide it by four. Then add 13 to this value. That is around how much mana you should regenerate every tick (or every 2 seconds). You do not regenerate mana faster if you are sitting down or standing up.

Q: What is aggro, and how does it work?
A: Please refer to Remedy's aggro thread here. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-priest&T=68148&P=1

Q: what are some useful macros for priests?
A: [edit] The good thread is removed. If anybody has some good macros please don't hesitate to post.
To announce heals to your group, use the following macro:
/cast Greater Heal(Rank #)
/p Casting Greater Heal on %t

Priest Spells

Q: What is brainwash?
A: This is a spell that was removed in beta. Unfortunately, a lot of websites still has it listed as a priest spell.

Q: Where do I find light feathers for levitate?
A: You have to farm them off of bird creatures. Plainstriders in the barrens and darkshore drop them frequently.

Q: How come when I cast vampiric embrace on a mob and then hit them with my shadow wand, my group isn’t healed?
A: Wand damage does not count as “shadow damage” even if it’s a shadow wand.

Q: What does it mean when a spell is channeled?
A: Channeled spells have a set duration. During this “channeling” process, the caster is unable to cast any other spell. If a mob hits you while you are channeling your spell, your channel breaks. The only exceptions are classes with talents that decreases the chance of channeling breaking such as mages and warlocks.

Q: How does spirit tap work?
A: With 5 points in spirit tap, you receive 100% chance of doubling your spirit for 15 seconds if you get the killing blow. This doubles your mana regeneration. During the 5 second rule, mana regeneration is at 50%. Spirit tap will only activate when you receive exp from the mob.

Q: What is the 5 second rule?
A: You will not regenerate mana for 5 seconds after you have casted a spell. This is the case for all casters. Priests can take the meditation talent to regenerate mana at a reduced rate under the discipline tree.

April 19th Patch changed the 5 second rule in this manner --
before patch:

[--- casting heal ---] [--- 5 seconds ------------]
[ ---- meditation working here -------------------]

after patch:

[--- casting heal ---] [--- 5 seconds ---------------]
[--- 100% regen ---] [-meditation working here]

Q: How does mind control work?
A: Mind control lets you take over a mob or a player. When you take over a mob, you have access to all their abilities and spells. When you take over a player, the only thing you can do is melee. There are 3 ranks of mind control, first rank is at level 30. To break mind control, simply hit one of your spell keys or your melee key. Most priest will target themselves and cast shield to break mind control early because the mob will beat on you if it's not taunted off.

Q: What are prayer of fortitude spells and where do they drop?
A: There are two ranks of prayer of fortitude, 1 and 2. The spell requires a reagent and buffs your entire group with fortitude. As of the 3/22/2005 patch, this spell is now targetable, enabling the priest to buff other parties as well. Prayer of Fortitude Rank 1 drops in Blackrock Depths, Temple of Atal'Hakkar, plus all the locations rank 2 can drop. Prayer of Fortitude Rank 2 drops in Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire, Stratholme, Scholomance, Dire Maul. Azuregos and Onyxia are reported to drop this as well.

Q: Do I need prayer of fortitude rank 1 for me to use prayer of fortitude rank 2?
A: No you don't.

Q: Why can't I shackle undead players?
A: At release, blizzard changed the classification of undead players to humanoids. If you mouse over them and look at your tooltips, you will see "Humanoid" instead of "Undead". Shackle undead only works on "Undead" creatures.

Q: How do I use fade?
A: Fade is an aggro reducing spell. This means that if you have 100 points of aggro built on a mob, after you cast face, you will have 100-X points of aggro for 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, X points of aggro is returned. However we don't have information regarding aggro numbers, so the value of X is unknown.
You will never use this spell when you are soloing. It makes no difference whether the mob has 100 or 200 points of aggro on you when you are the only person it cares about. This is a group only spell.
How to use:
When you are grouped with a warrior for example, and he pulls 2 mobs. He is only damaging mob 1, so he is building aggro on it. Mob 2 however is untouched, only proximity aggro exists. For simplicity's sake, I'll make up some numbers to illustrate this. Lets say the warrior has built 100 points of aggro on mob 1, and 1 point of aggro on mob 2.

You cast a heal on the warrior, causing 50 aggro points:
Mob 1: aggro on warrior = 100, aggro on priest = 50. Mob stays on warrior.
Mob 2: aggro on warrior = 1, aggro on priest = 50. Mob turns on priest.

You cast fade. Your aggro is reduced by 50.
Mob 1: aggro on warrior = 100, aggro on priest = 0. Mob stays on warrior.
Mob 2: aggro on warrior = 1, aggro on priest = 0. Mob goes back to warrior.

Now if the warrior continues to ignore mob 2, he will come after you after 10 seconds when fade has worn off.

You want to use fade when you are getting hit by mob(s) and you want them to stop hitting you.

This spell does not work in pvp.

Q: Does the shadow damage from Devouring Plague and Touch of Weakness count toward Vampiric Embrace's effect?
A: Yes it does.

Q: Why does Vampiric Embrace never seem to heal for the full 20%?
A: Currently, vampiric embrace only heals your party for the *BASE* amount of shadow damage that you do. Say you have +200 shadow damage, vampiric embrace does not take that into account. This is believed to be a bug.

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