Priest

The priest is the master of healing and preservation, restoring his wounded allies, shielding them in battle and even resurrecting his fallen comrades from death. While he has a variety of protective and enhancement spells to bolster his allies, the priest can also wreak terrible vengeance on his enemies, using the grand powers of the Holy Light to smite and purge them or the devastating powers of the shadow to decimate their minds. The priest is a diverse and powerful class, highly desirable in any group and capable of fulfilling multiple roles.

The priest is perhaps the best healing class in the game with a surprisingly strong damage potential as well (should the player choose to enhance this aspect of the class). Their ability to heal and buff allies, avoid aggro, dispel buffs on enemies, dispel debuffs on their allies, and resurrect fallen comrades makes them an important member of any group, whether it's PvP or PvE. Due to this, priests are one of the most highly sought after classes for any group.

Background


Priests practice a complex, organized form of spirituality built around moral philosophy, the worship of a particular deity (such as Elune) in some cases, and/or idol worship, rather than around the reverence of the elements that shamans practice, or the close divine connection with animals and the wilderness that druids maintain. Priests serve not only as influential religious figures in their respective societies, but also as powerful practitioners of divine magic, which they use to heal and protect, or harm and weaken.

Devotion to the faiths of Azeroth leads many priests to the paths of courage and heroism. In dark times, priests carry the Light of faith with them as a reminder of the powerful forces at work beyond the comprehension of the peoples who walk the land. Powerful healers with an intimate connection to the divine, priests are empowered with abilities that aid them in times of dire need.

Priests comprise quite a varied group in Azeroth. A female priest is called a "priestess". Many are followers, in some manner, of the Holy Light. Some priests choose to be pyremasters or High Priest, while some of the most experienced become epic priests. There are also racial restrictions to some titles, such as witch doctor for trolls and Priestess of the Moon for night elf females.

History


The Clerics of Northshire were human priests who served the kingdom of Stormwind during the First War. The clerics served as healers on the battlefield, but were ill-prepared for the hazards of combat, and thus suffered heavy casualties. This order was largely destroyed, and the Second War saw fragile priests replaced on the battlefield by armored paladins, the Knights of the Silver Hand — established by the clerics' leader Archbishop Alonsus Faol and his apprentice Uther the Lightbringer.

During events of the Third War, despite the high elves' official departure from the Alliance, some elves still remained true to their former human and dwarven allies. The altruistic priests of Quel'Thalas refused to abandon their roles as healers and agreed to remain in Lordaeron despite the edicts from their reclusive masters in Silvermoon. The high elven priests used their Light-given powers to heal the wounded and bolster the spirits of Lordaeron’s fighting elite. A holy field medic, these padres roam the battlefield curing the wounds of fallen comrades.

Forsaken priests


Forsaken who once followed the tenets of the Holy Light altered their philosophy upon their transformation. Forsaken have abandoned religion, just as they believe it abandoned them. Lost and hurt, these priests founded a new religion based on a self-centered version of their former faith. Dubbed the Forgotten Shadow, this philosophy centers around self-empowerment and a desire to balance life with death. While they can no longer use the Holy Light, and have since learned how to use the shadow; the priests teach that there must be a balance between light and shadow, and members must learn the Light as well, but never forget they were born from the shadow.

Troll priests
The troll priesthoods are, much like the shamans and the witch doctors of the various troll tribes, spiritual advisers and caretakers. With trolls being naturally superstitious and spiritual, it allows the various troll priests to manipulate the spiritual energy of the world in order to either heal or harm their targets. The various energies that the troll priests draw can come from various sources, be it Loa spirits, voodoo magic or the target itself. Drawing upon these energies, the troll priests either mend or harm, depending on which blessing the spiritual entity bestows. Arguably, in World of Warcraft, troll priests can be considered witch doctors in a cultural perspective, in equal terms with the shamans.

Tauren priests
With the arrival of Cataclysm, the Tauren have the ability to become priests. It is possible that they use the light of the Sun in their spells just like Tauren paladins do, as opposed to the Holy Light. If this is the case, it would similar to how the Night Elf priests use the power of the Moon, their goddess Elune, instead of the Holy Light. Tahu Sagewind became a priest trainer for the tauren. It is possible that he founded the group of tauren priests due to his conversation with Aponi Brightmane, the first Tauren paladin, before Cataclysm.

Gnome priests
With the arrival of Cataclysm, Gnome priests are finally playable. Gnome priest NPCs (such as the Holdout Medics in Gnomeregan and the North Fleet Medics in the Howling Fjord) have existed in Azeroth for some time, but the destruction brought on by Deathwing will most likely inspire many more Gnomes to turn to their allies and adopt devotion to The Light.

Notably, following the examples prior to Cataclysm, gnome priests seem to focus heavily on the divine's ability of healing, though more with the intention of practicing medicine rather than sorcery. Their usage of it is actually very similar to first aid, and gnome priests refer to themselves as doctors, medics, and surgeons. As a result, although not confirmed, it is likely that they pay less attention to a priest's capability to control darker powers.

Abilities

 * Healing: single target heals, group heals, heals over time, Resurrection.
 * Holy magic: Power Words, buffs, dispels and cures, direct damage.
 * Shadow magic: Shadow Words, direct damage, damage over time, mana drains, aggro control, Mind Control.
 * Miscellaneous: limited crowd control.

Stats, weapons, and armor

 * The most important stats for a priest are (depending on the chosen talents): intellect, spirit, stamina, spell haste and spell crit.
 * The priest can wield staffs, one-handed maces, wands, and daggers.
 * The priest can only wear cloth armor. For details on set items that are useful for priests, see priest sets and healing equipment.
 * For end-game healing equipment go to BC healing equipment (cloth).
 * For end-game DPS equipment go to BC Caster DPS cloth.
 * For end-game healing equipment go to Wrath healing equipment (cloth).
 * For end-game DPS equipment go to Wrath casting equipment (cloth).
 * Priest recommended enchantments

Races


The priest class can be played by the following races:

Talents



 * Main articles: Priest talents and Priest builds.

Discipline


The Discipline tree primarily focuses on damage mitigation through Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier, with the mastery bonus improving these abilities. The priest receives Penance when choosing Discipline as their specialization, which is one of the most efficient single target heal spells in the game, with the bonus of being able to damage foes. The tree has strong cooldowns for emergency situations: Pain Suppression and Power Infusion. Discipline is the preferred spec for PvP, with the many absorption abilities giving the priest some "breathing room" when under attack. Discipline priests also have the unique ability to heal through the damaging spell Smite, if the talents Evangelism, Archangel and Atonement are chosen (a glyph to keep in mind when doing this is Divine Accuracy, as healing gear doesn't have any hit on it).

Holy


Holy priests are some of the most versatile healers, with a variety of tools to sustain their group. In comparison to the Discipline priest, the Holy priest focuses primarily on reactive healing rather than damage prevention, with their mastery giving healed targets a heal over time effect based on the initial heal. The priest receives Holy Word: Chastise when choosing Holy as their specialization. Holy priests have an instant area of effect 'smart' heal, Circle of Healing, as well as bonuses to Prayer of Healing and Renew. Guardian Spirit is a very strong cooldown, being able to save someone from certain death. Chakra is what gives Holy priests their incredible versatility, allowing the priest to choose between substantial buffs to their direct healing, HoT and aoe healing, or even damage, while Revelations morphs Holy Word: Chastise into a different spell to complement the state the user is in. Holy priests can even heal from beyond the grave with Spirit of Redemption - for a limited time.

Shadow


Shadow talents primarily enhance a priest's damage and gives the ability to enter Shadowform, which makes the user purple and transparent. The priest receives Mind Flay when choosing Shadow as their specialization, a channeled spell that causes damage and slows the target to 50% of its movement speed. Shadow priests focus on using damage over time spells on their target, much like an Affliction warlock, and once the target is below 25% Shadow Word: Death functions like an execute. The mastery bonus causes gives you a chance to receive shadow orbs when dealing damage through Shadow Word: Pain or Mind Flay and they increase the damage caused by your next Mind Blast or Mind Spike. Vampiric Embrace heals the priest and his group for a percentage of damage done. Apart from this heal, the priest will give other useful buffs to the raid, with Vampiric Touch providing replenishment and Shadowform giving raid members a 5% haste increase. Between Dispersion and Shadowfiend, Shadow priests have very good mana throughput, with the former doubling as a defensive cooldown and the latter as an offensive one. The PvP talents in the Shadow tree, such as Silence, Paralysis, Improved Psychic Scream and Psychic Horror increase survivability and crowd control capability.

See also common leveling and end game priest builds.

Tactics


Priests are generally regarded as a tough class to play in PvP, but they are highly desired in groups as the best healer in the game and as a great utility class. They are very dependent on how their talent points are spent. Discipline priests are considered better off in PvP, while holy and shadow priests are highly desired for instancing and raiding. While the discipline and holy talent trees focus on making very strong healers, the shadow tree focuses on damage dealing, while restoring the party's health and mana at the same time.

Many players regard healing priests as being the jack-of-all-trades healing class due to the great diversity of healing spells at their disposal. This includes direct healing, healing over time, area of effect healing, and the ability to shield targets from damage. Due to this great diversity, a healing priest can heal any encounter, while the other healing classes may find it more difficult.

Healing priest tactics generally involve conserving mana while deciding the ideal time to heal. The player must decide which spell to use and at what time. Many priests use a tactic known as stopcasting. In this method, the priest will constantly use Greater Heal; however, if in the 2.5-second cast time the target never takes sufficient damage, the priest will cancel the heal before it goes off and begin recasting.

The goal of a shadow priest is to keep a series of spells with unique cool-downs and durations going constantly. A shadow priest must cycle through several direct damage, channeled, and damage over time spells. A shadow priest is unique in that Vampiric Embrace restores health to the priest's entire party, which is based upon the damage the priest deals. They can also help restore mana to up to 10 party or raid members through Replenishment, which they trigger by using Vampiric Touch in conjunction with Mind Blast. A shadow priest, if talented, will also increase the effectiveness of all spell casters attacking the same target as the priest. These abilities make the shadow priest a great utility class while in instances and in raids.

End-game expectations
Though many priests found themselves originally pigeonholed into a single role in classic World of Warcraft, many are experiencing greater freedom in a post-Burning Crusade raiding environment. Priests are capable of filling both healing and damage dealing roles, depending on the priest's spec and the need of the raid. This flexibility is further aided by the increased debuff cap making it easier to allow multiple shadow priests to contribute without being detrimental to a raid.

End game healing
Healing priests are valued by many as proficient and skilled healers, capable of utilizing a variety of heals and numerous buffs that benefit raiders such as Power Word: Fortitude, Shadow Protection and Power Word: Shield. Power Word: Shield can be further improved by spending points in the discipline tree for Improved Power Word: Shield. While sometimes considered by some to be mana inefficient when compared with other healing classes, the introduction of the Shadowfiend in the Burning Crusade allows a healing priest to regain a significant amount of mana used to continue healing while providing negligible damage against one target. The use of the talent Lightwell can allow raiders to regain health by accessing the conjured well, while Spirit of Redemption allows holy priests to continue casting healing spells on a raid for 15 seconds beyond death (21 seconds with Glyph of Spirit of Redemption) with no expense to mana.

Discipline priests' main strength lies in preventing damage. They cannot put out as much raw healing as holy priests can, however the strategy for discipline priests is quite different; they prefer to prevent damage where possible by shielding their allies from harm. Discipline priests are capable of healing multiple targets, but in a large group their role will usually be to keep the main tank alive. While healing priests do not possess the raid healing output of a druid or the tank healing capabilities of a holy paladin, priests are in fact incredibly proficient at both of these roles.

While holy priests collect spirit and haste stats, many discipline priests focus on high spell critical as well as haste.

End-game damage dealing
The strength and versatility of a shadow-specced priest has been recognized as an invaluable asset in both five mans and raids. A shadow priest is capable of contributing significant damage as well as providing a variety of buffs and debuffs that benefit the group as a whole. The Vampiric Embrace talent gives a portion of the shadow priest's single-target shadow damage as a group-wide heal that can aid in keeping the health of group members up; this can be especially helpful when grouped with a tank and warlocks who Life Tap frequently, as well as rogues and Feral druids performing melee damage.

Most importantly, Vampiric Touch benefits a caster or healer group by providing mana over the course of the fight. This is the primary reason to have a shadow priest in raids; to either provide the mana to healers during a healing-intensive fight, or to damage dealing casters in fights which focus on burst or constant area of effect damage, as well as to Paladin tanks who must use mana for their threat generating abilities.

These debuffs are an addition to the base priest Power Word: Fortitude, Shadow Protection, and Power Word: Shield buffs and can be improved by delving into the discipline tree for Improved Power Word: Shield and Twin Disciplines. In addition to providing significant damage and buffs, shadow priests have the flexibility to drop out of Shadowform and provide backup healing if the situation warrants it, though they typically suffer from the lack of points spent in the holy tree and reduced bonus healing from damage-oriented gear.

On the other hand, some DPS priests will go more into discipline and put some in either shadow, or holy to increase their damage even more. A DPS priest with discipline and shadow doesn't have the damage potential of a shadow priest with most talents into shadow, however, they will receive the boost to their group buffs, have a threat reducing move for others, and also have the potential to heal slightly to assist the healer when necessary. A DPS priest with discipline and holy is much more versatile than one with shadow, the holy hybrid has a few key moves that can benefit him/herself and even make things a little easier (little in a rather small sense) for the healer. With the talents in holy, usually a priest will spend points in Divine Fury to reduce cast time of some of your offensive spells, and Desperate Prayer. The discipline DPS class isn't for everyone and can take a long time to master, but it is a fun and challenging class to play and some will enjoy it more than others.

Cataclysm changes
'''Please Note: The following are previews of changes to the Priest class posted in April 2010; while much of the below is still accurate, some details have changed. For more up-to-date and detailed information on the current implementations of abilities and talents for the Priest class, see the relevant pages.'''

General preview
{{Bluepost|poster=Zarhym|title=Cataclysm Class Preview: Priest|date=04/07/2010 11:57:38 PM PDT|link=http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038432151&sid=1|body= In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you'll get an early look at some of the changes in store for the priest class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, as well as an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

New Priest Spells
Heal (available at level 16): While priests already have a spell called Heal, the existing version becomes obsolete at higher levels, which is something we intend to change in Cataclysm. Introduced at a low level, the "new" Heal spell will functionally work much like a down-ranked Greater Heal did in the past, adding more granularity to your direct-healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an issue (making Flash Heal the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to use. Heal is intended to be the priest's go-to direct-healing spell unless they need something bigger (Greater Heal) or faster (Flash Heal). We will be following a similar philosophy with all the healing classes.

Mind Spike (level 81): Deals Shadowfrost damage and puts a debuff on the target that improves subsequent Mind Spike damage. The intent of Mind Spike is to fill a niche missing in Shadow DPS, though it may be occasionally useful for healers as well. Mind Spike provides a quick nuke to use in situations where the priest doesn't have time to set up the normal rotation, such as when adds are dying too fast or you have to swap targets a lot. Spamming Mind Spike will do about as much damage as casting Mind Flay on a target afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain. The idea behind the debuff is that when you cast Mind Spike, we expect you to cast a lot of them; we don't intend you to fit it into an already full Shadow rotation. It also provides Shadow with a spell to cast when locked out of the Shadow school. (School lockouts will no longer affect both schools for multi-school spells.) 1.5-second cast. 30-yard range. No cooldown.

Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you can't have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner Will should be useful on a more situational basis.

Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
In addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.


 * All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately. Hasted HoTs and DoTs will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks (meaning they will gain extra ticks to fill in the duration as appropriate).
 * We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an "execute" -- something you do when the target is at 25% health.
 * While we want to keep the priest's role as a well-rounded healer, we also want to make sure the class is a viable tank healer, which is something priests moved away from a little in Wrath of the Lich King. Greater Heal will probably be the tank-healing spell of choice, though we've also discussed giving Discipline a second shield so that they have a small shield to cast on lots of different targets, and a big, more expensive shield to cast on a tank or anyone else taking a ton of damage.
 * Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit will be removed from the game. As Spirit will be the primary mana-regeneration stat, we don't want it to vary as much between solo, small group, and raid play. Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild will not boost Spirit either.
 * Mana will be a bigger consideration for all healers. We aren't trying to make healing more painful; we're trying to make it more fun. When the cost of a spell isn't an issue, then casting the right spell for the job is less of an issue because you might as well just use your most powerful spell all of the time. We are, however, getting rid of the five-second rule, because we don't want to encourage standing around doing nothing. We're also going to cut back on the benefits of buffs such as Replenishment so priests (and all healers) don't feel as penalized when those buffs aren't available.

New Talents and Talent Changes

 * We want to improve Discipline's single-target healing capacity. One key is to make sure shielding isn't always a more attractive option than healing.
 * We want to improve Holy for PvP healing. One way to do this is to make sure that Heal's throughput is similar between both specs.
 * We want to improve Shadow for short fights and reduce its susceptibility to school lockouts.
 * Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.
 * We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent will push the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies depending on the heals cast.
 * Since the Shadow tree has a lot of passive damage-boosting abilities -- something we're trying to avoid in Cataclysm -- we will need to replace several of the tree's talents. One idea is to play off of the new Shadow Orbs mechanic (see Mastery section below), possibly allowing you to consume an orb to increase damage from Mind Blast or reduce Mind Spike's cast time.
 * Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gear themselves around a Hit cap that isn't variable depending on group composition.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

 * Discipline
 * 1) Healing
 * 2) Meditation
 * 3) Absorption: Improves the strength of shields such as Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier.


 * Holy
 * 1) Healing
 * 2) Meditation
 * 3) Radiance: Your direct heals add a small heal-over-time component to the target.


 * Shadow
 * 1) Spell damage
 * 2) Spell Crit
 * 3) Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feel more like "Shadow priests" before they obtain Shadowform.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues. }}

Note
The priest prestige class was eliminated from the World of Warcraft RPG and replaced with the priest core class.

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