I thought I should enter my first post (opinion) about priests.


Shackle (The undead CC)

I remember using this as a form of CC when doing undead Deadmines. By removing one mob attacking the main tank (MT), you will have an easier time healing the party. Aside from Karazhan, I only remember Sethekk Halls as the other spot to help control the amount of attackers. Don't forget that shackle is another option of CC. Mind control is good but it takes you out of the battle.


Discipline (alternate solo spec at level 50+)

Shadow is definetly the number one solo spec for a priest. However it leaves the priest short on healing capabilities when doing dungeons after BRD. When I heard the discipline route, I decided to give that a whirl. When going down this path, be sure to be able to get all the way to "Reflective Shield". Combined with this porcupine bubble and wand specialization, a priest can DPS thru most regular quest mobs. Downside is that mana regen is slow if low on spirit and you used a lot of spells. If the solo holy warrior is your playstyle make sure to combo it with Divine Spirit and Spirit Tap.


Circle of Healing (CoH) vs Divine Spirit

After watching several priests use CoH in raid fights, I was seriously impressed. When I tried it the healing didn't even come close to what I saw. This talent spell is really conditional and is not meant to be spammed (unless you have special trinket,etc). Plus it was mentioned in wikis that CoH heal bonus only improves after the 1338 healing power mark. By taking CoH, priest have to give up on Divine Spirit. I think Divine Spirit is a much better talent buff for priests (+50 spirit and +10% spell dmg).


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i was thinking about taking yae with half dis/half holy but im not sure how to spread out the points to make the best possible healing. i think this helped some but i might try to stay with circle of healing untill shes ready for raids

-sae

One place I get build ideas is wowwiki:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Priest_builds


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gaaaah - did a guild-based low 50s run of ZF yesterday. Completely forgetting the number of Undead mobs while painting - could have made thigs easier for Chamomile/Rae & the rest of us >.<

I think that perhaps Wiki was wrong regarding circle of healing?

I do not use it alot but there was one encounter I remember from one of the dungeons leading up to the Kharazan key where we got wiped because someone said to be behind the tank (Vengence in this case) so I was my normal distance behind him doing my thng and wondering why we were getting our butts handed to us on a nonboss type critter . . . on the way back to out corpses they said they meant RIGHT behind Vengence. So second time around we were in a 'group hug' around vengence and I was spamming away on circle of healing and doing in teh neighborhood of 1500 healing to each member. Now the tool tip says 409 - 451 so my + heal (whhich was only around 800 back then) looked as though it was kicking in biug time.

I also use it quite often when many members of the team are down slightly in health, enogh to make me want to heal them all, so I get in the middle fo them and do this circle once or twice and we are all back to full.

So yes it is situational but YES in some situations it is invaluable.

My raiding guild did hyjal trash a few times before I quit playing, we weren't geared for it, but were having fun. the first 8 pulls are all about the AoE. with a huge amount of raid members taking hits, so i'm pretty sure the only thing the priests did was Spam CoH.