Some priestly specs for consideration

Avesther

New Member
These are some of the more workable specs I've used over the years. None are set on stone or required specifically to raid. If you can show that you can use an offspec to do your job, there is no reason why you can't come to a raid with it. If you can't do your job with the spec of your choosing, you may be removed from a raid in favor of somebody who can. And in the mean time, you may want to look at some of these specs to fill in the inbetween times.

None of these specs are exclusive to raiding, they all work perfectly well in 5 man groups. I have a selection of disc builds, holy builds and shadow builds. Tinkering to your taste is encouraged.

We will start off with what I know best and that is the healing builds:

Disc \ Holy build 1a alternative Disc \ Holy Build 1b
Both of these builds add utility to the group, raid or your own personal dps (there are better dps builds but this build provides ample coverage in healing and dps) for questing via divine spirit \ imp divine spirit. Silent reslove is a necessary evil for healers, even though our heal already generate 50% less threat then eqivalent damage. But in a situation where you have to land many spam heals in a row, being able to pump out 2 or 3 more heals before pulling threat is always a good thing. Using build 1b for lightwell is really good if you have the patience to teach people how to use it. There is never a bad reason for increasing the number of healing options available to you. I like the fact that for three minutes I have access to mana free, personal heals. There is never a bad reason for taking holy nova. Most of the builds I come up with require a filler in holy somewhere and taking a talent that adds options to your repetoire. Spirit of Redemptions (aka Improved Death), one point for 5 spirit and the ability to crank out heals for 15 seconds after you die has prevent more then a few 1% wipes. This is a big bang for your buck talent, especially combined with DS \ Imp DS and Spiritual guidance.

Holy \ Disc healing build 1a and Holy \ Disc healing build 1b
This is a 41 point holy healing build that I use. It trades the utility of the spirit buffs for circle of healing. COH gets a very bad rap on the wow priest forums, and for the most part, everyone who disses it, is dead wrong. This is a great, front loaded heal. Front loaded in that the heal lands before the Global cooldown, instead of after. This means, if you need to run to another position, there is no reason why you can't be spamming COH on a tank to keep them up. Mind you, this heal shines after in the raids after Gruuls lair where the raid is almost always under constant AOE damage from trash, bosses or the environment. Being able to select a group COH, and move on to the next group gives everybody in that group 800 to 1000 in healing to lessen the burden on other healers after everybody in the raid just took 2500k damage from an aoe fireball. There difference between 1a and 1b is lightwell and spiritual guidance.

I'll move on to DPS and PvP builds later.
 
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The basic Smite dps build

So you've been shadow to 60, head into the outlands and want to try something different, you want to dps and heal and try the non-shadow route. Here is a build that will give you all kinds of punch for dps and healing. It is minorly variated from my own levelling from 60 to 70 build.

Power infusion (PI) and again spirit is at the heart of this build. You can cast PI on yourself or a member of the group. PI also stacks with healing and damage trinkets so you can kick it into high gear during those hairy times. Using this build, hitting PI a damage trinket and inner focus, I've banged off 2400+ damage holy fires pre 70. The free smites off smite crits come often as you get 6% crit rate from talents plus crit rate from your intel and combining it with some crit gear, and any spell crit, including heals, will trigger it. A zero mana cost spell does not trigger the 5 second rule. Remember, I talked about this in a previous post. There is nothing like adding some free DPS while healing an instance.

Your healing will not suffer, you get 15% cost reduction on lesser heal, heal and greater heals, 10% cost reduction on instant heals such as renews and prayer of mending and you get a 10% boost to your mana pool. And a well timed PI and trigger of a +healing trinket may well cause you to save the day.
 
I thought I would add a few Shadow builds since it's what I know best.
13/0/48

This is my current build, in Disc you grab Imp Fort, Unbreakable Will, Martyrdom, and Meditation. Notice I have 1 point in Imp Shield. You may ask why not 3 in Imp Shield and forget Marytrdom. Here's my reasoning behind it as ranged DPS you shouldn't be getting a whole lot of damage unless it's AoE splash damage, and also as a shadow Priest if you're keeping constant DPS up while using VE, it's basically like a low-level Renew on you at all times. Martyrdom is great as it gives you 6 seconds of uninterrupted spell-casting after receiving a Crit against you, which as a SP, Mind Flay uninterrupted is a definite bonus. Meditation is self-explanatory, more mana equals more damage.

Now on to the Shadow section, you may wonder why I chose Blackout over Spirit Tap. Spirit Tap is good for solo grinding as you will always be getting the killing blow but in raiding especially 25 man raids and even 10 man or 5man groups you rarely get a killing blow in, whereas Blackout is a 3 sec stun which doesn't sound like a whole but 3 secs is the equivalent of 2 Flash Heals, 2 Flash of Lights, 1 Holy Light, well you get the picture, 3 seconds in the life of a healer and tank can mean the difference between wiping and living. Shadow Affinity is a must for any raiding or dungeon group priest as we are drawing aggro from 2 sources VE heals and our damage spells and with Imp VE it is even more, so the less threat on you is a bonus.

The bread and butter of a SP priest damage wise consists of 3 spells, VT, Pain, and Mind Flay, so the longer Pain is up the more damage you can do through Mind Flay and the occasional Mind Blast.

4 points in Mind Blast reduces cooldown by 2 seconds thats the equivalent of an extra Mind Blast cast every 6 seconds. Silence is a great tool for PvP and PvE, you can interrupt a heal or damage spell by an enemy.

I passed up points in Imp VE and Shadow Power, for the following reasons, Imp VE just causes more aggro and those 2 points I placed in Shadow Resilience to lower my chance to be crit upon by spells, really though it boils down to preference. Shadow Power is another story, In PvE I can see the benefit but in raiding as I previously stated the SP's main damage comes from VT, Pain, and Mind Flay.

This is just one type of build, I'll add a few variations later that I've used in the past.
 
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