Daffnae commented on my last post about healing about getting myself a holy spec and switching between shadow and holy.
She's right in many ways - I should try.
Sardonica came into existence by chance really. In a previous like I played a Cleric on a MUD called Dark Castle. His name was Wynn and he was pretty damn good. In fact I've played Clerics in many RPGs and they are easily my favourite class in Dungeons and Dragons.
The D&D Cleric was described as:
So when I first logged into WoW I was disappointed that there wasn't a cleric class. I saw priest and decided that they must be as close as the game got and pressed select.
Priests really aren't like clerics. They use daggers, they are limited to cloth, they are generally 'good' and unable to control undead other than a shackle her or there. Not a shield for love nor money. When I started (Burning Crusade) they were squishy as hell and levelling them painful at times. But as I entered WoTLK and hit 80 I grew to appreciate that, although definitely not a cleric, the priest was a lot of fun.
The introduction of dual spec gave a lot more in a way of depth to Sardonica. Suddenly I was able to melt faces one minute and heal the next - the cleric within began to show through. And yes, right up to today I feel this is a vitally important aspect of the toon. He needs to be able to melt faces.
I openly acknowledge that I am a far better hunter than I am a priest - but deep down I am a DPS at heart. And this is another reason I cannot give up shadow as an offspec. I run with shadow priests who are stunning - who pull numbers I disbelieve. A friend on the GKP runs is one of these - and I am blown away when she pulls 12k on Festergut.
And there seems to be little rhyme or reason about the DPS a priest can do. I know two shadow priests who pull 10k+ on fester. One swears by haste - stacks it everywhere and has 1200+. The GKP priest has less that 800 and was surprised when I queried her about it.
The shadow priest is indeed a conundrum.
Hunting is easy. Standard 7/57/7 MM spec**. Fixed shot priority. Work it out and you are just watching GCDs
(** Yes I know about ArP - but to be honest I am yet to be convinced. Some would say that completely stacking ArP over Agil is a massive change to how the hunter is tuned but ultimately you just drop arcane and spam steady. And its a stand and fight spec and hunters are generally moving in a lot of fights these days)
But priest DPS - well it continues to beat me. I spec. I respec. I stack this stat and that stat. Yet I cannot come close to the numbers I know are possible. It frustrates me - but its a challenge
Holy - been there for 2 days - hated it. Its a long story but I was asked to change because the lead heals in the guild I was in at the time was disc and they didn't need two. I changed. I didn't like it. I gquit and moved on. Some would ask why when I enjoy the challenge of trying to work out shadow I don't rise to the challenge of Holy healing. Its a good question and I doubt I can answer it to everyone's satisfaction.
It comes back to being a cleric I guess - heal and beat the crap out of stuff. So that just leaves the choice of Disc and Holy. I admit that currently I am confused which is the better of these two specs but before leaving disc for a while to explore Holy I want to finish investigating disc as a raid healer.
She's right in many ways - I should try.
Sardonica came into existence by chance really. In a previous like I played a Cleric on a MUD called Dark Castle. His name was Wynn and he was pretty damn good. In fact I've played Clerics in many RPGs and they are easily my favourite class in Dungeons and Dragons.
The D&D Cleric was described as:
In the game, clerics are versatile figures, both capable in combat and skilled in the use of divine magic. Clerics are powerful healers due to the large number of healing and curative magics available to them. With divinely-granted abilities over life or death, they are also able to repel or control undead creatures. Whether the cleric repels or controls undead is dependent on its alignment.Clerics were limited to blunt weapons, but were versatile in armour they could wear. They even used shields. Basically Clerics were a complicated class which were strong in all aspects of play.
So when I first logged into WoW I was disappointed that there wasn't a cleric class. I saw priest and decided that they must be as close as the game got and pressed select.
Priests really aren't like clerics. They use daggers, they are limited to cloth, they are generally 'good' and unable to control undead other than a shackle her or there. Not a shield for love nor money. When I started (Burning Crusade) they were squishy as hell and levelling them painful at times. But as I entered WoTLK and hit 80 I grew to appreciate that, although definitely not a cleric, the priest was a lot of fun.
The introduction of dual spec gave a lot more in a way of depth to Sardonica. Suddenly I was able to melt faces one minute and heal the next - the cleric within began to show through. And yes, right up to today I feel this is a vitally important aspect of the toon. He needs to be able to melt faces.
I openly acknowledge that I am a far better hunter than I am a priest - but deep down I am a DPS at heart. And this is another reason I cannot give up shadow as an offspec. I run with shadow priests who are stunning - who pull numbers I disbelieve. A friend on the GKP runs is one of these - and I am blown away when she pulls 12k on Festergut.
And there seems to be little rhyme or reason about the DPS a priest can do. I know two shadow priests who pull 10k+ on fester. One swears by haste - stacks it everywhere and has 1200+. The GKP priest has less that 800 and was surprised when I queried her about it.
The shadow priest is indeed a conundrum.
Hunting is easy. Standard 7/57/7 MM spec**. Fixed shot priority. Work it out and you are just watching GCDs
(** Yes I know about ArP - but to be honest I am yet to be convinced. Some would say that completely stacking ArP over Agil is a massive change to how the hunter is tuned but ultimately you just drop arcane and spam steady. And its a stand and fight spec and hunters are generally moving in a lot of fights these days)
But priest DPS - well it continues to beat me. I spec. I respec. I stack this stat and that stat. Yet I cannot come close to the numbers I know are possible. It frustrates me - but its a challenge
Holy - been there for 2 days - hated it. Its a long story but I was asked to change because the lead heals in the guild I was in at the time was disc and they didn't need two. I changed. I didn't like it. I gquit and moved on. Some would ask why when I enjoy the challenge of trying to work out shadow I don't rise to the challenge of Holy healing. Its a good question and I doubt I can answer it to everyone's satisfaction.
It comes back to being a cleric I guess - heal and beat the crap out of stuff. So that just leaves the choice of Disc and Holy. I admit that currently I am confused which is the better of these two specs but before leaving disc for a while to explore Holy I want to finish investigating disc as a raid healer.
5 comments:
It is interesting that you don't enjoy holy. I run my priest as disc/holy and prefer holy where i can get away with it. I can heal in disc and appreaciate it's uses, though just feel more comfortable in holy.
It is really interesting how everyone likes differnt aspects of the same class
I am a long time Priest (Hamacus/Sen'jin) and I healed as a Holy Priest for quite a while. I have also played the other two specs extensively. I would love triple specs if Blizzard offered them but currently I play Disc/Shadow for a couple of reasons.
First being that the gear initially matches up better if you are sharing gear between the two specs. At this stage however I have run ICC enough to have 3 complete sets of gear optimized for each spec.
Secondly I primarily run 10 mans in ICC and Disc is absolutely OP. You can tank and raid heal/bubble with ease and mitigate a ton of damage and rarely have to concern yourself with lack of mana issues. Plus it's a fun play style concerned with preventing damage as opposed to the firehouse controlled chaos drill that is Holy.
That said I still prefer Holy in 5-man's (not sure why just seems to flow better) and in 25 man raids. You have heals for every situation and your ability to heal up the raid as opposed to bubble spam in a 25 man raid setting is a big plus and speaks to the versatility of Priest.
As far as DPS I love Shadow and even though the WoW RNG hates me and continues to deny me 25 man ICC upgrades I am constantly in the top few spots for DPS/Damage done.
It takes a bit of practice as well as patience but Shadow is awesome once you get it down and you have the added benefit of very high survivability. I'd stick with advice from Shadowpriest.com and make sure you have a good spell timer mod as well as Quartz to keep your dot uptime high. Good luck!
visit shadowpriest dot com it up my dps by 500 or so after i respeced and change my rotation a bit
I like both Disc and Holy but I groan when I need to swap to Holy because my gear is chosen and gemmed for Disc, and I drop several places on the meter list when I make the swap.
And the fact of it is that unless you are tank healing, there are some fights where Disc is much more useful and some fights where Holy is much more useful.
I find renew spec Holy a lot of fun. I haven't been in a guild where I could score a second set of sanctified gear (and gem it for Holy) -- but if I could I would be a very happy Priest.
I've always loved Disc for PVP and since the gear between Shadow and Disc is more easily shared (although... is that still really the case I'm not sure) I chose a strange part PVP part PVE Disc spec for my 2nd spec.
I agree with Anonymous up there. The best thing about Shadow Priesting is that it's almost impossible to go wrong because everything is layed out at shadowpriest.com. There doesn't really need to be any uncertainty to your gear or gemming like there is with healing (which can differ greatly depending on how you heal, your raid group and how much regen you need).
For the Haste question I would say 800 is the minimum and then try and then you can be more balanced because 1 spellpower = 1 haste (under 800 haste means 1 haste > all other stats). I would try and avoid gear with Spirit.
A Shadow Priest with 800 Haste could outperform a Shadow Priest with 1200 Haste if
(a) they have more spell power
(b) they have better DPS trinkets (makes such a huge difference!)
(c) they have buffs from other classes - like a Mage's Focus Magic
(d) casts well and minimises movement
I've been wearing my healing set quite a bit lately (mostly in 10 mans) and keep forgetting to change it out with the new raid week. The only differences between the two are my trinkets. And doing Festergut with healing trinkets instead of DPS trinkets is about a 2k DPS loss or something ridiculous.
Trinkets are crazy!
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