World of Warcraft Priest Guide
Wow Priest Guide
Priests in the very beginning when the World of Warcraft was new game were mostly considered healers. It was pretty much true, as back then everything was quite straight forward and simple. As the time passed, new elements were added to the game and one of these new elements was the damage the priests could do if they spend their points the Shadow Talent Tree. Today, the priests can be either magical damage dealers or healers.
The interesting fact about the Priest Class is that 2 out of 3 talent trees are related to healing. Priests spending points in Discipline or Holy tree get various healing and damage mitigation bonuses, while Priests who spend their points into the Shadow Talents tree become damage dealers. This however does not mean that the Discipline and Holy trees are about the same – not at all. They both do focus on healing the wounded allies, but that’s where the similarities end.
Here are the main differences between the 3 talent trees and hopefully these will help you decide which kind of Talent Specialization you would like to try most:
Discipline
The Discipline talents are mostly focused on damage mitigation and increased amount of healing done from the priest to their primary target (usually the tank) though the ability called Grace. Grace increases the amount of damage the player receives from the healer after the healer has landed several direct heals. It stacks up to three times and is very useful to be applied to your main target all the time. Discipline priests are also given some buffs which allow them to now and then greatly reduce the damage their friends take from all attacks (Pain Suppression) or to increase the casting speed for all spells for either themselves or an ally (Power Infusion). Power Word: Barrier is new ability added to the Priests’ arsenal of spells in the Cataclysm which allows the Discipline priest to cast area of effect protective semi sphere which reduces the damage taken by everyone who stands inside it for a period of time. Most of the time the Discipline priest would focus on one or two targets and would keep as many shields us as his / her mana would allow him to reduce the damage taken from the people in the group.
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Holy
The Holy talents are mostly focused on raid healing/ group healing as the Holy priest has just 1 damage mitigation ability – the Guardian Spirit which can increase the healing received from the target for short period of time. Rest of the talents the priest has access to in the Holy tree are focusing on increasing the healing done – both direct healing (Healing over time spells and channeled spells) and mass healing effects. Holy priests have enough abilities and spells to heal single targets; however they are even better placed on group or raid healing because of their very good mass healing abilities Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing. Holy priests have options in their talent tree to improve Healing over time effects (Renew) even farther and to gain access to special set of Holy Words which even more improve their abilities to heal groups of wounded allies.
Shadow
The Shadow talents are mainly focused on abilities which do damage. However since the Shadow priests are not main damage dealing class, they are given some small bonuses to bring to the table which would make them welcomed to every group. Such ability is for example the Vampiric Touch, which provides mana regeneration to some group or raid members. Another really nice bonus a Shadow Priest brings to the raid is 5% haste buff, as long as the priest remains in Shadowform.
All three different specializations are quite fun to play but I will leave it to you to decide which one you like best. I’ve played all 3 at one point or another and I can say that all of them are fun and bring unique things to the game.