Priest FAQ v3 Updated 11/08/08

Post by Aylia

Introduction

This guide is designed to cover most of the basic questions that get asked on these boards, and should hopefully give new Priests a good idea of what the class is about. We'll do our best to cover all of the aspects of interest for the various specs and playstyles.

The majority of this guide was co-written by Aylia and Primar, with contributions from other members of the community as well. Thank you to everyone who has helped out!

PLEASE NOTE: This guide was written prior to the 3.0.2 patch. We have done some of the major updating, but you may find some sections that still need to be rewritten, or that have been temporarily removed because they need to be completely redone.

Updates are pretty much on hold right now until I get to level 80. Once things settle down a bit, I'll get back to polishing things up here again. Have fun in Northrend, folks.

Table of Contents

To be added.

Class Description

At its heart, the Priest class is a hybrid of two roles - healing and DPS. Depending on our talent spec and gear selection, we are capable of strong single-target healing and damage mitigation through the Discipline tree, excellent group and raid healing through the Holy tree, and solid DPS and mana/health regeneration via the Shadow tree. Regardless of spec, our class is generally welcomed in groups from levelling to end-game.

Common Abbreviations

i5sr or ifsr - In five second rule.
oo5sr or oofsr - Out of five second rule.
mp5 - The item bonus "Restores X mana per five seconds." (Example)
DS or IDS - Divine Spirit or Improved Divine Spirit. It is often implied that either abbreviation is referring to the improved version of the spell as it is uncommon to spec for only the normal version.
PW:S - Power Word: Shield
Fort - Power Word: Fortitude or Prayer of Fortitude
CoH - Circle of Healing
PoH - Prayer of Healing
PoM - Prayer of Mending
SW:P - Shadow Word: Pain
SW:D - Shadow Word: Death
VT - Vampiric Touch
VE - Vampiric Embrace
PI - Power Infusion
PS - Pain Suppression
GCD - Global cooldown.

Post by Aylia

Priest Races
As of the 3.0.2 patch, priests no longer have race specific abilities. All races now have Devouring Plague (formerly undead only) and Hymn of Hope (formerly draenei only, a reworked version of Symbol of Hope) as baseline abilities. Desperate Prayer (formerly dwarf/human only) is now a holy talent.

All other priest racial abilities have been removed from the game. These include Starshards, Touch of Weakness, Hex of Weakness, Chastise, Feedback, Elune's Grace, Shadowguard and Consume Magic.

The standard racial abilities remain, though many of them have been altered in some way. As of the current patch, all the racial abilities are fairly well-balanced -- while you should consider them when rolling a priest, it's also perfectly acceptable to simply play a race you enjoy.

Horde Races:

Blood Elf

Arcane Torrent - This is very useful for PvP for the extra Silence, and PvE for the small amount of regen.
Magic Resistance - This is one of the better racial resistance spells available now, since it works for all schools of magic.
Arcane Affinity - Not much to say here. If you want to be an enchanter this will help you level a bit faster, but it's pointless when you reach max skill. You don't get any extra recipes that other people don't get by having a higher max skill.

Troll

Berserking - This is the main reason Trolls love their racials so much. +10% casting speed is brilliant; +30% is even better. No reason not to use then as much as possible. As a note, to get the full +30% buff, you must be at or below 40% of your health.
Regeneration - This one is barely noticable in most situations, and isn't anything to get particularly excited over. Priests tend to have low health regeneration anyway, and 10% of that happening in combat won't make much difference.
Da Voodoo Shuffle is situationally useful, generally moreso in PvP than in PvE.
Beastslaying - +5% damage is +5% damage. Not much to say here, but you will be fighting a large number of Beasts when leveling.

Undead

Will of the Forsaken - Once considered the defining racial of the Undead, Will of the Forsaken was nerfed in patch 3.0 and now only removes Charm/Fear/Sleep effects -- it no longer grants immunity. While still very useful, it's no longer as overpowered in PvP as it used to be.
Cannibalize - This will help reduce your downtime when grinding and will probably save you a bit of cash on bandages. Not amazing, but every bit helps.
Underwater Breathing increases your breath bar from the standard 3 minutes to 10 minutes. A nice passive buff for those quests which require you to go swimming, if you don't want to dedicate a bag slot to a Hydrocane or potions.
Shadow Resistance - Potentially useful in any situation where you face shadow damage.

Post by Aylia

Alliance Races:

Draenei

Dwarf

Stoneform - Some people swear by it, and say it's the best thing ever. I agree it's nice, but I personally feel it's too situational to put Dwarves above other races. Definitely worth considering if you're planning to PvP avidly, and is situationally useful in certain PvE fights (Moroes, Zul'Jin).
Find Treasure - Basically broken currently. It no longer detects quest items in the environment, and there doesn't seem to be chests in instances in WotLK.
Frost Resistance - Potentially useful in any situation where you face frost damage.

Human

Night Elf

Shadowmeld - This is essentially a second Fade when used in combat -- while it is active you lose your current threat on mobs, and regain it when you cancel the effect. It is also a weak version of stealth, for those situations where hiding may be helpful.
Quickness can potentially help your survivability, generally moreso in PvP than in PvE. Unlike the older version of this racial which simply gave you 1% dodge, there is no facing requirement for it to work, it is not negated by being stunned, and it will not cause warriors to be able to use Overpower on you.
Wisp Spirit is not terribly useful. You really shouldn't be making use of this that often when soloing, when PvPing you'll generally get Spirit Rezzed, and when grouped/raiding you'll still have to wait for all of the non-night elves to run back even if you get there first.
Nature Resistance - Potentially useful in any situation where you face nature damage.

Post by Aylia

Leveling a Priest

Section temporarily removed as it was out of date. It's also debatable whether Shadow is still the "best" leveling spec.

We'll get something back in place here soon.

Post by Aylia

Itemization for Leveling
When levelling, there are 3 main stats you should be looking for: Spirit, Intellect, and Stamina. Some people recommend stacking high amounts of Spirit to gain the most benifit from Spirit Tap. I personally preferred stacking Intellect, but that was mainly due to Spirit sucking when I levelled my Priest. These days due to the way Spirit has been dramatically buffed, it's best to have a healthy balance of the three stats.

At low levels, there's a few pieces of spellpower gear that are available, but these items tend to neglect other stats because of this. If you can get spellpower, that's fine, but be careful not to gimp your other stats because of it.

Once you hit 50+, spellpower gear becomes more abundant on gear and you should be aiming to have as much spellpower as possible.

From 60 onwards, spellpower is all that matters. The higher your damage, the bigger the returns you'll get from Vampiric Touch and Vampiric Embrace, and thus lower downtime. Get as much damage as possible (using common sense, of course).

Leveling Tips

Try to get a Lesser Magic Wand at level 5, and a Greater Magic Wand at level 13. At those levels, they do far more damage than you can do with your spells, with the benefit of being mana-free.
Open up with a Mind Blast, pop SW:P on the mob, then wand away.
Once you've got Mind Flay, the rough spell order you want to cast when grinding will be: Mind Blast > Shadow Word: Pain > Vampiric Embrace > Mind Flay > Mind Blast OR Wand, depending on the mob's remaining health.
Because SW:P and VE are instant cast, you can start strafing away from the mob as soon as your
MB has finished casting. This will maximize the time you can cast Mind Flay for; on slow mobs, you can sometimes squeeze 2 full MFs in.
If the mob is above 30-40% health after the Mind Flay, cast Mind Blast then wand the mob to death. If they're already low on health, just wand. Wanding the mob to finish them off maximises your time outside the Five Second Rule, and therefore maximises your Spirit Tap buff - see the FAQs for an explanation.

Post by Aylia

Stats

Spirit and MP5
Spirt and mana per 5 (MP5) both are mana regeneration stats, which restore a certain amount of mana every two seconds (or "tick"). They are generally more important for holy priests than shadow priests -- as a healer mana regen is always a concern, where shadow priests regenerate most of their mana via damage with VT.

The formula for spirit based mana regeneration is: Mana Regen = 5 * (sqrt(Int) * Spirit * Base_Regen)
Base_Regen varies based on character level, for level 70 it is 0.009327 (For a complete list of values see wowwiki).

Normally spirit based regen is stopped completely for five seconds after casting a spell which consumes mana (the five second rule). However priests have Meditation available as a talent, which means that 30% of your spirit based regen is always active, regardless of how long it has been since you cast a spell.

MP5 is an item stat that restores a given amount of mana per tick. These effects work independantly of the five second rule, so they are always active regardless of when you last cast. Although it is based on five second intervals, the effect does actually occur every two seconds.

For holy priests spirit is generally considered superior to MP5. You will end up with similar i5sr numbers stacking either one, however your oo5sr regen will be much higher with spirit. Priests can benefit from this by making use of abilities like Holy Concentration and Inner Focus to get ticks of full regen while in combat. Spirit also scales with buffs such as Blessing of Kings and IDS whereas MP5 does not. In addition to the healing bonus from IDS, holy priests gain even more healing from spirit via Spiritual Guidance.

Intellect
Intellect increases the size of your mana pool, one point equals 15 mana. It is a factor in spirit based mana regeneration (see the formula above) -- the more intellect you have, the more regen you receive from spirit. It also provides a relatively small amount of spell crit, 80 intellect equals about 1% crit at level 70.

Stamina
Stamina increases your hit points, one point equals 10 health. While this is of obvious importance for PvP, many people tend to neglect it in PvE (sets like Primal Mooncloth that have zero stam certainly don't help). While it's not recommended to sacrifice other stats to stack a lot of stam, you should try to reach some kind of balance. You do no DPS or healing if you're on the floor eating dirt. There are also some boss encounters that require you to have a certain amount of health in order to survive spike damage abilities (ex: Shade of Aran, High Warlord Naj'entus).

Spell Power
This is the attribute that increases the effect of spells. It works for both damage and healing spells. For damage spells, the amount of damage caused is increased, and for healing spells, the amount of healing is increased.

Hit Rating
Hit rating reduces the chance that an offensive spell will be resisted by the target. Since it only applies to offensive spells, this stat is not needed by healers. For level 70 characters, 12.6 hit rating is equal to 1%.

You should always try to reach the hit cap, as this is the most effective way of increasing your DPS. However, there is no point in stacking additional hit rating once you are at the cap, as you will gain no additional benefit.

Shadow priests can get 3% hit from Shadow Focus, and an additional 3% hit when Misery (or Improved Faerie Fire) is on a target. If you have a Draenei in your group, then you also gain another 1% hit. The hit rating caps for level 70 are shown below.

6 points Shadow Focus/Misery - 139 hit rating
5 points Shadow Focus/Misery - 152 hit rating
4 points Shadow Focus/Misery - 164 hit rating
3 points Shadow Focus/Misery - 177 hit rating
2 points Shadow Focus/Misery - 189 hit rating
1 points Shadow Focus/Misery - 202 hit rating
0 points Shadow Focus/Misery - 215 hit rating

Crit Rating
Some spells are capable of dealing a critical strike, which means that they do 150% of normal damage or healing. Critical strike rating increases the chance of such a hit. While stacking crit rating was previously a bad idea, the changes to priest mechanics in patch 3.0 has made crit significantly more valuable.

Prior to 3.0 there were only two spells for shadow priests that were capable of critting, Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death. Currently, Mind Flay has been changed so that each tick of damage can now crit, significantly increasing the damage it can do. In addition to this, the changes to Shadow Power and Shadowform (and to a lesser extent, Improved Spirit Tap) mean that crit is no longer a bad stat to aim for.

All direct healing spells are capable of critting. Most healing priests spec for Inspiration, which is an armor buff that triggers from critical heals. This can be very useful when healing tanks, as it helps their damage mitigation. Holy priests have the option to spec for Holy Concentration and Improved Holy Concentration, which results in better mana conservation every time you crit. Discipline healers rely on crit to proc Divine Aegis, which is one of the defining abilities of the spec.

Post by Aylia

Stats (continued)

Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration reduces the target's resistances to spells. It only works on targets that have resistances (meaning a buff that increases a specific resistance, ex: Shadow Protection), and it cannot reduce resistances below zero. Please note that this is not the same as spell hit rating.

This stat is considered pretty useless in PvE since there are very few mobs with school specific resistances. It has limited use in PvP against people with shadow resistance buffs (Shadow Protection, Shadow Resistance Aura, Mark of the Wild).

Haste
Haste rating decreases the amount of time that it takes to cast a spell, and it reduces the channeling time for channeled spells. It also can reduce the GCD down to a minimum of 1 second, although you need a realistically unobtainable amount of haste (785) to reach that point.

To determine the casting time of a spell based on a certain amount of haste, you must first calculate the spell haste percent:
% Spell Haste = (Spell Haste Rating / 15.7)
Then you use the following formula to determine the new casting time. For note, if you have a talent that reduces the cast time of a spell (ex: Divine Fury) you should use the improved cast time for the base casting time value.
New Casting Time = (Base Casting Time)/(1 + (% Spell Haste / 100))

For shadow priests, after you have around 1400 shadow damage, one point of haste rating is equivalent to one additional point of damage. There isn't as clear of a point where haste becomes valuable for holy priests, but in general, being able to pump out heals faster is a good thing.

Post by Aylia

Common Builds

This section was massively out of date due to the changes of the 3.0.2 patch, so I've opted to just remove it.

If you want to contribute ideas for what constitutes a good build these days (for level 80 only, it's not worth the effort at this point to include level 70 builds), feel free to leave a reply.

Post by Aylia

Primary Professions
All characters are able to have two primary professions. The current crafting professions are Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Engineering, Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking and Tailoring. There are also three gathering professions, which also take up a primary slot. They are Herbalism, Mining and Skinning.

It's fairly common to take one crafting profession and one gathering profession that are complimentary to each other -- for example, Alchemy and Herbalism. This is practical because you can provide yourself with materials to make things at no cost. There are other options, however. If you are new to the game, or just new to a particular server, and don't have a lot of money you might consider taking two gathering professions. You can sell everything that you collect and make a decent amount of cash. On the other hand if you are very established on your server and have a comfortable amount of money, you could consider taking two crafting professions. This way you get to benefit from all the BoP/unique goodies of two different professions rather than just one. You can always foist the gathering professions off on an alt if you'd still prefer not to have to buy your materials on the AH.

Alchemy
Alchemy is a pretty solid choice for a priest, regardless of spec. You will be able to create your own potions, elixirs and flasks, which can save you a lot of money. You also get Mixology which is incredibly powerful, making elixirs last for two hours, flasks for four, and giving you increased benefit from either. Alchemy uses Herbalism to gather most of its necessary materials, so it's common to take the two professions together.

Blacksmithing
This may not be the best option for priests since we cannot benefit from mail or plate gear and melee weapons, which makes up the majority of the things that blacksmiths can craft, but there are some benefits to it which are worth considering. Blacksmiths are able to add an additional socket to their bracers and gloves. You can make and use keys and never have to track down a rogue to open your lockboxes again. These items are not BoP and thus available to non-blacksmiths (which also means you can sell them!), but you can also add sockets to your belt or make yourself a rather shiny mace.

Enchanting
Enchanting can be fairly expensive to level, and even more expensive to obtain all the level 80 formulae, but it is a good profession if you can afford it. In addition to being able to enchant your own gear, you will be able to accumulate enchanting mats via disenchanting which can either save or make you money depending on what you choose to do with them. Enchanters also have the unique ability to enchant their own rings.

Engineering
Engineering is also fairly expensive to level, especially when you get closer to 375. As an engineer you can make some pretty nice goggles for both DPS and healing (which also have the potential to be upgraded if you are lucky enough to get the schematics from Sunwell trash). You can also make various toys and gadgets that range from useful to just amusing, such as something to help farm primals, flying mounts, pets, and many more. Most engineering matrials come from Mining, so the two are often paired together.

Jewelcrafting
Yet again, this one is not cheap to level. Being a jewelcrafter gives you access to special gems, trinkets, and (possibly, if you are able to get the patterns from Sunwell trash) necklaces. Getting rare (blue) gem cuts can be rather expensive as the majority of them are non-BoP world drops. Ironically, epic gem cuts are actually easier to come by since they are found on rep vendors. It's common to take Mining with jewelcrafting, since you can get gems from raw ore through Prospecting.

Leatherworking
Generally speaking, leatherworking is not a desireable profession for priests because the BoP gear that you can make is obviously leather. However, it's not uncommon to see people in high end raiding guilds take up leatherworking regardless of their class in order to use Drums of Battle. Drums are not quite as powerful as they used to be because of the introduction of the Tinnitus debuff, but they can still be useful depending on how many leatherworkers there are in your raid.

Tailoring
Tailoring is one of the most popular professions for priests. There are several very nice pieces available at lower levels, which can be helpful while leveling. At 70 shadow priests have access to the Frozen Shadoweave set (generally regarded as T5-T6 equivalent) and holy priests have Primal Mooncloth (generally regarded as T4-T5 equivalent). Being a tailor also allows you to benefit from the set bonus on the BoE sets, Spellstrike and Whitemend. At BT and Hyjal level raiding (or if you can afford the patterns and mats off the AH) there are DPS and healing shoulders available, and if you are lucky enough to get patterns from Sunwell trash you could also be the proud owner of a very nice DPS or healing robe.

Post by Aylia

Herbalism
In addition to giving you the ability to pick pretty flowers, herbalism also grants the Lifeblood ability. It does not scale with spellpower. It is worth noting that this spell is in the nature school, so it is castable while in shadowform. It is also castable if you are locked out of the holy school from Earth Shock or similar abilities.

Mining
As well as letting you gather shiny rocks, mining grats the Toughness ability. More health is rarely a bad thing, so this can be a nice little perk.

Skinning
Learning how to slice the hides off of animals and make them into leather results in you becoming a Master of Anatomy. Crit is benefitial for all priests regardless of spec, so this can be handy.

Secondary Professions
There are also three secondary professions, Cooking, Fishing and First Aid. You can take all three of these if you choose to. They don't interfere with primary professions in any way.

It's a good idea to have First Aid on any character. Bandages help immensely with grinding, leveling, and just general survival. Sure you can heal yourself, but that costs mana, and if you're Shadow you have to spend more mana getting back into Shadowform. First Aid is dirt cheap to level, and you'll have cloth coming out of your ears when you're leveling anyway.

Cooking and Fishing are more optional. It's nice to be able to cook your own buff foods, but if you don't want to put in the effort you can usually find someone else to cook for you or just buy food off the AH. Some people enjoy fishing (I personally find it relaxing), others think it's incredibly boring. If you've never tried it, give it a shot and see what you think. It's not for everyone.

Post by Aylia

AddOns
AddOns are simply files that you put into your game folder that change some aspect of your User Interface (UI), ideally making your play experience better. They can give you more information readily available, make certain things easier to do, just make your screen look prettier, or a whole host of other things.

Recommended Sites
Curse
WoWInterface
WoWUI @ IncGamers

Raid Frames and Unit Frames
Replacing the default Blizzard unit and raid frames is almost necessary for healers. Custom frames will display a lot more information very cleanly, which makes doing your job easier. They're also nice for non-healers as well, if for no other reason than that they look nicer. These are some of the most popular ones available. They're all viable, it's really a matter of which one you prefer (my personal favorite is Grid).
Grid
X-Perl
Pitbull
AG_Unitframes
Healbot

Raiding Assists
If you raid, chances are that your guild will require you to run raid mods. They give important warnings and timers that make it much easier to keep up with what is going on around you.
Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs
oRA2

To be added:
- Casting Bars
- Threat Meter
- Damage Meter
- Other

Please Note: For the safety of your account, only download AddOns from reputable sites like the ones listed at the start of the section. Never use something that claims to be an addon but is a .exe file. If something seems like it's too good to be true (such as an anything that claims that it will allow you to change your stats in game, etc.), it probably is. There are people out there that try to mask programs that will steal your account info as addons. Be careful, and just use some common sense.

Post by Aylia

Macros
A macro is a method of combining several actions to execute in a single button press or keystroke. Each character has access to 18 personal macros, as well as 18 shared across all characters on your account.

To create a macro, hit ESC and select the macro menu, or type /macro. Click on the "New" button, and choose an icon and name for your macro. Put the actual macro commands in the text box at the bottom of the menu, and you're done. The macro is ready to be placed on your bars.

For more information, you might try the UI & Macros Forum.

There are tons of possible macros available, here are a few suggestions that you may find helpful.

Left click casts PW:F, right click casts Prayer of Fort.
/cast Prayer of Fortitude; Power Word: Fortitude

Resurrects the target and announces who you are targeting to the raid. Does not work if you are in combat or in shadowform.
/stopmacro
/cast Resurrection
/stopmacro
/ra Resurrecting %t.

Dispel yourself without losing your current target. (Can also be used for pretty much any other spell, PW:S, renew, etc. Just change the spell name.)
#showtooltip
/cast Dispel Magic

One button self buffing sequence. Requires multiple clicks to cast each buff -- once for inner fire, twice for fort, etc. Resets in 10 seconds if not used.
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=10 Inner Fire, Power Word: Fortitude, Shadowform, Shadow Protection

Shackles your target, and sets it as your focus so that you can re-shackle it without having to target it again. Also has an optional line announcing to the raid which target you are on.
#showtooltip Shackle Undead
/clearfocus
/focus
/cast Shackle Undead
/raid Shackling %f

Summons your shadowfiend and sets him to aggressive, so that if your current target dies he will go after someone else rather than running back to you. (Be careful using this one around CC.)
#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/cast Shadowfiend
/petagressive

Spammable mass dispel. Any amount of keypresses will not remove your targeting reticle unless you press the escape key.
#show Mass Dispel
/cast !Mass Dispel

This is your standard aoe fear followed by an auto target to a nearby tremor totem (if it exists, no error message otherwise) and will start your melee swing timer. This is very useful when fearing shaman teams.
#Show Psychic Scream
/cast Psychic Scream
/target Tremor
/startattack

Arena macro for PI. Uses it on your DPS partner if they are present, otherwise uses it on yourself.
#Show Power Infusion
/cast Power Infusion; Power Infusion

Links casting a spell (starshards is just an example, you can use it with other spells as well) to using a trinket. Good way to make sure that you are using your trinkets every time the cooldown is up.
#showtooltip Starshards
/use <my trinket name>
/cast Starshards

For shadow priest tailors: uses netherweave nets to keep your target from running away while silenced.
#showtooltip Silence
/use Netherweave Net
/cast Silence

Post by Aylia

General FAQ

What's the Five Second Rule?
This refers to the fact that normal spirit based mana regeneration stops for five seconds after casting a spell which costs mana. Being "in" the rule (i5sr) means you have cast a mana consuming spell within five seconds and are not regenerating mana at a full rate. Being "out of" the rule (oo5sr) means it has been five seconds or more since you cast a mana consuming spell and are regenerating mana at a full rate. For more detailed information please see The Five Second Rule, A Story of Love & Hate.

So what does the 5SR have to do with Spirit Tap and Wanding?
Spirit Tap lasts for 15s after you kill the mob, increasing your Spirit by 100% and allowing 50% of your regeneration to continue inside the 5SR. If you cast a spell to kill the mob, you would end up with 5s of 50% regeneration, then 10s of normal, 100% regeneration. Because wanding doesn't use mana, it means you can get the full 15s of 100% regeneration.

I bought a wand, but I can't work out how to use it! Help!
First off, you need to equip the wand (either by right clicking it or dropping it into your Ranged slot on your character sheet).
Then, open your Spellbook (P by default), go to the General tab and look for an ability called Shoot. Drag this to your action bar, and then push the button. You only need to press it once; you'll auto-shoot your target until they die, go out of range/run behind you, or you move/start another action.
While your wand's DPS won't be amazing once you start getting to a higher level, it's a useful way to do some damage while saving mana.

For the record, the only way to directly increase the damage of your wand is through the Wand Spec talent. If you have a Shadow damage wand, its damage is also increased by Shadowform and Shadow Weaving.

What's a global cooldown?
The Global Cooldown (GCD) is the 1.5 second cooldown between using the majority of your abilities. This is separate from spell or item-specific cooldowns (Mind Blast, for example), and is there to prevent players from simply firing off instant-cast spells as fast as they can mash their keyboard.

Although it's called a Global Cooldown, not all spells/abilities trigger it (Inner Focus does not), and most instant-cast consumables ignore the GCD (for example, Healing and Mana Potions).

Does overhealing generate aggro?
No. Only effective healing generates aggro, not overhealing. Overhealing is still something that should be avoided within reason, since it is a waste of mana.

What percent overhealing should I have?
There really isn't a good answer to this question. It will vary with your spec and with what your healing assignments are. For example, spamming CoH on your whole raid will generally result in a lot more overhealing than single target healing on a tank.

If you're worried about overhealing, ask yourself the following questions. Did you completely run out of mana before the fight was over (including using appropriate consumables)? Did anyone who you were responsible for healing die (unless they did something dumb)? Did you kill the boss? If your answers are no, no and yes... don't worry about your overhealing. You did your job, and that's all that matters.

I keep hitting Fade, but it doesn't seem to help! What am I doing wrong?
First, fade will do absolutely nothing for you when you are soloing. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Don't use it, you're only wasting mana. It also does nothing in PvP. Threat mechanics do not apply to players, so that burly fellow with the giant axe is still going to want to bash your face in even if you get all transparent for a couple seconds.

Fade is ONLY useful when you are in a PvE group, and works by temporarily reducing your threat on mobs around you. The current max rank reduces your threat by 1500. When the buff expires, the next threat-generating action you perform will generate its normal amount of threat plus the amount that you lost from fading.

Important things to note:

Because Fade is temporary, you regain the threat that you dropped when the buff disappears.
Fade has no effect when there is nobody else on the threat list -- if you aren't paying attention and accidentally pull a patrol in an instance and everybody else is in a different room having a picnic without you, hitting Fade won't help at all.
Fade will drop a specific amount of threat, and therefore won't always work. If you are more than 1500 threat ahead of where you're supposed to be, you will still have aggro even after fading.

One more time in case you missed it: Fade is TEMPORARY. Spamming it does nothing but burn your mana and waste the cooldown, since the threat will return to you after 10s regardless. Wait until you have, or are about to pull aggro before using it.
Shadowpriests who tell people to spam Fade to help with their threat make me sad. :(

Pfft, who cares about Fade anyway, I've got Psychic Scream! That way the mobs won't be hurting people, everybody wins!
Although this seems like a good idea at first, it can be very dangerous to use PsyScream in instances. It's very hard for you (or anybody else) to control where those mobs will run to, and there's nothing worse than pulling additional mobs.

It's still a tool available for you to use as long as you're careful and check that it's safe to do so.

What race should I make my Priest?
Did you read the huge section about priest racials up above here? Yes? Well, you can make your own mind up then.

Dude, seriously, just tell me.
Fine. Gnome. +5% intellect is awesome!

My Mind Control sucks, it keeps breaking! Why?
There's a few reasons this can happen:

You're moving the mob too far away from your character. Any more than 25 yards or so, and it will break. Keep the mob fairly close to you to prevent this.
You're not hit-capped. MC repeatedly resist-checks throughout the channel - if you have low spell hit, it can break earlier than expected.
You're getting hit, or interrupted. Other mobs attacking you, or AoE will cause pushback, greatly decreasing the remaining channel time. Anything that would normally interrupt spells - Kick, Counterspell, knockback effects, stuns/incapacitates - will completely break the channel.
/emotes also break the channel as well, so don't try getting your mob to /dance. :(
Your target has been repeatedly Charmed and is subject to Diminishing Returns. Only really applies in PvP, but it's worth bearing in mind.
Your target actively broke the MC with a Trinket or other Charm-breaking mechanism.

Post by Aylia

General FAQ (continued)

Mind Vision and Mind Soothe are rubbish! What's the point?
While these are both very situational spells, they're not entirely worthless.

Mind Vision is very useful for quickly scouting an area or instance without any risks - checking for a rare spawn, seeing where patrols are, marking up packs that are out of LoS, or finding flag carriers in WSG. A useful tip is that you can "jump" Mind Vision from one target to another - simply select your new target while Mind Visioning, then hit it again, and you'll Mind Vision the new mob.
You'll need to be in the same area as your target to MV them - you can't MV a party member inside an instance while you're standing outside, for example. Equally, you can't MV something that you can't already see - you have to "jump" your MV to them.

Mind Soothe can occasionally be useful for sneaking past mobs when you don't want to pull them, or to get closer to them for whatever reason. Examples for this might be when you're trying to get past a mob in an enclosed space, getting close enough to Mind Control pull, or letting people get closer to mobs that have to be snared/killed (Scouts in ZA and SPlat). Not something you will use all the time, but certainly worth keeping in mind.

What are Spell Coefficients?
This is a property of spells that determines how much benefit they receive from spellpower from gear, buffs and talents. These values vary from spell to spell based on things like cast time or spell type (DoT/HoT, channeled, AoE, etc).

Here is a list of coefficients for priest spells.

Which is better for a Holy priest, Spirit or MP5?
Short answer, spirit. For more details see the stats section of the FAQ.

What is downranking?
Downranking refered to using spells lower than the max rank, usually for the purpose of conserving mana. This was most commonly associated with healing.

As of the 3.0.2 patch this style of healing is no longer viable. Lower rank spells actually cost more mana than max rank spells. If you find any guides that give tips on downranking, you're looking at outdated information.

What is "lolsmite"?
This generally refers to holy DPS builds. While they can be fun or novel, they're not well regarded because they are inefficient/ineffective in any sort of group PvE.

I have a weird burning sensation when I urinate. Can you help?
Dammit Jim, I'm a Priest, not a Doctor!
Seriously - see a doctor.

This FAQ sucks!
That's not a question.

This FAQ sucks, because you didn't include . Could you add it in?
That's better! Improvements, suggestions, and other ideas are always welcome, and will get added when I have the time.

Post by Aylia

Stuff to be added later:

Gear
- Glyphs
- Content Benchmarks
- Weight Scale
- Item Sets

Enchants and Gems
- Holy
- Shadow

Play Style
- Basic healing
- Crosshealing
- Overhealing
- DPS rotations

Consumables
- Holy
- Shadow

Post by Aylia

Reserved.

Post by Aylia

Reserved

Post by 17744

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Aylia

Ooh, excellent. The levelling/general FAQ bit of mine's nearly done, want me to send it your way?

Absolutely. :)
I guess you can just post it here and I can copy it into the appropriate section. Seems easier to do that than tracking each other down for emails or something (since I'll be damned if I'm posting mine here >_>).

Your writing style is scarily similar to mine. :(

Hehee. At least they'll blend well together that way?

Post by 17744

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Priest FAQ v3 Updated 11/08/08

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