Anticipating October 14th
Posted by Jay | Filed under PvP, World of Warcraft
As many of you know, season 4 ends on October 14th. In addition that is the release date for patch 3.02. This is significant because that is when Discipline priests will start to own the arena and general pvp again.
One of the many issues affecting discipline in both casual and and high end pvp play is mana efficiency. DPs are very effective at mana burn, heals, dispels for about 3 minutes. Chain healing isn’t our foretay.
What 3.02 brings to the table is mana return. Not mana regen, but mana return. Percentages of mana that are returned on damage absorbed from PW:S and healing spells casts. I hope you’re as excited as I am about the coming changes. More thorough reports will follow after the patch and into the expansion.
What do you think of the proposed changes?
Priest Survival Series - Mages
Posted by Jay | Filed under Priest Survival Series, PvP, World of Warcraft
Short survival post. Mages aren’t the biggest challenge if you are consistent. Surviving against a mage is dependent on your ability to survive through their burst. Having renew and shield up as often as possible is your saving grace. As always, against a caster, you will win by casting mana burn. Here are the main points to beating a mage.
Everything on a mage can be dispelled
Icy Veins, PoM, Combustion all come to mind as buffs I’ve dispelled in the past. Does the mage go all lightning? Dispel. Does the mage Ice Block? Mass Dispel. Does the mage have a buff other than an armor buff? Dispel.
Mages have trouble regaining mana
Mages have two sources of mana: Evocation and Mana Gems. Once their out, you can wand away.
Mana burn like your life depended on it
Do it!
Summary List
- Dispel everything
- Keep shield and renew casted at all times
- Mana burn
- Fear the elemental if you can
- Dispel fire and ice debuffs on yourself
A final note on mages. ! on 1, as discipline you will live. I’ve lived through PoM Pyros, ice elementals, counterspells, you name it! Where mages gain their strength is as a line backer offensive caster. In a group situation, if you leave the mage alone, you WILL die. Period. Mages stack very well with every other DPS in the game. Keep your wits, control their mana and have fun! Mage fights will be challenging, and they usually end with you wanding them to death.
What do you think?
Priest Survival Series - Shaman
Posted by Jay | Filed under Arena, Priest Survival Series, PvP, World of Warcraft
Welcome to another addition of the priest survival series! With the expansion around the corner, I figured it would be better to wrap up this series as soon as possible to make room for Priest Survival Series 2.0 ala WotLK.
First things first, let’s examine the differences in Shaman specs. Unlike Paladins, shaman can either be a handful in 1 on 1(enhancement) or a cakewalk(resto, but annoying!). This isn’t to say that any 1 on 1 battle against another opponent will be more or less, it largely depends on their skill and your awareness. Let’s jump right in!
Enhancement
You’ll be able to spot these guys easily, they sport two weapons! Most important to watch is that they have below 8k mana. This is an important area to watch for one simple reason! MANA BURNZ! That’s right folks, you’ll be juggling three tasks to bring down these dual wielding punks:
- Mana Burn
- Totem Killing
- Fearing
You’re best defenses don’t work against a good shaman. Don’t bother putting up shield or renew (unless rank 1, be mindful of global cooldown) it’ll just get purged. Juggle AE fear and mana burn. Drop the AE bomb after killing their tremor totem if any. Juggle mana burn and healing as you need to. The trick will be fighting on your territory… that’s at range against enhancement.
Summary:
- Kill grounding and tremor totems. You should have a fast melee weapon, right click it.
- Constantly move, Shamans are really good once they get their totems up, if you can kyte em, you’ll win.
- Drain their mana. Enhancement shamans have low mana reservers. It’s to your benefit to take this resource from them.
- Do not let your health drop below 50%. Those windfury crits will burst you down before you can say OMG I JUST GOT BURST DOWN REALLY QUICK BY AN ENHANCEMENT SHAMAN 3 times fast.
Elemental/Resto
These guys are very similar. In 1 on 1, you’ll do the same routine as above! Burn burn burn!
Resto will have access to Tide and Ele will be constantly lightning bolt spamming you. You don’t want to wait for either. The great aspect of fighting Ele and Resto shaman is that you CAN use you’re regular defense. Shield up, drop a renew and cast through the first lightning bolt or two. Get in both of their faces in 1 on 1. Keep them on their toes and they’ll make a mistake. Again you’ll fear bomb, burn their mana, top off your life and finish them off.
Note: Against elemental shaman it is particularly important to be IN THEIR FACE! They will destroy you in a casting contest, don’t let it happen. Force them to use their shocks! It’ll force a gcd and interrupt the lightning spam. Always remember you can win!
Summary:
- Get in their face. Lightning bolt is a longer cast than spec’d mana burn. Use it to your advantage.
- Don’t let them chain spam. You can hide behind your shield for about 2k damage, that’s roughly 2 casts.
- Mana burn until you’re blue in the face. Keep their mana low.
WOTLK Priest PVP Set - First look and thoughs
Posted by Jay | Filed under Arena, PvP, World of Warcraft
I recently happened upon a Spooncraft article regarded the beta pvp armor sets. It was most interesting to view the way the equipment was and will change for the new expansion. I’d like to note that none of this is final, only conjecture. Here is the link to the images of the beta blue healing priest pvp set. What you’ll notice most is the addition of the Spirit stat!
This has many implications. The addition of a traditionally high pve stat to the pvp set means you likely will be able to keep less extra equipment sets on your person. This isn’t to say that new PVP gear will be a suitable substitute for regular PVE gear. Only that as a primarily PVP player, you will be able to pick and choose which pieces you want to wear. That is a huge distinction from previous tiers.
While its true, I don’t raid anything beyond the occasional TK/SSC run. What I do know is that I wear my PVP set all the time and I have a PVE heal set with plenty more MP5 and spirit in my bags. With the addition of spirit to my pvp set, I can at least perform moderately well in guild heroic runs without having to store an extra set of armor on my person. In addition I’d like to point to the extra talent palette each character is likely to have post expansion. Which will make having a PVP talent spec in Disc and a PVE holy talent set possible without much hassle.
Doesn’t this excite you?
WotLK Disc Priest Talents
Posted by Jay | Filed under PvP, World of Warcraft
WotLK offers disc priest some great new talents to look forward to. I won’t go over the entire tree. What I will do is break down a couple builds I think disc priests will find useful come the expansion. Discipline priests are one of the more survivable cloth classes out there next to warlocks.
Reflective Shield boost spec. I really like this spec. As a discipline our main trumps are rogues, warrior, and ranged caster specs. Reflective shield is a potent weapon against each of these classes. While it is difficult for us to prevent damage before it is done. We can make a low life attacker think twice about dropping that 5 pointer, or shatter crit with our shield on, shiny and for all to see.
We keep spell warding from the holy tree against our caster trumps and to mitigate dot damage. We gain an increased bonus to PW:S thanks to the new talent Borrowed Time. This reduces the cooldown on PW:S and increases its absorption by 20% of your “healing”. I am assuming the wording means spell power and that hopefully its an increased bonus in addition to scaling normally with spell power.
The new 51 talent also gives a nice holy damage attack for those clutch moments when a burn down is called for. Remember that holy is largely un resistable. That means this channeled attack right after a mana drain/mind blast + PW:Death can be quite a potent burst damage combo.
Largely you’re still pursuing you’re traditional disc priest play style with this build. Which is nice.
44/27/0 - You use smite in the arena?
This is an experiemental build for Disc Priests. Instead of using mana drains, dispels, PW:S and Renew as your primary attack, you enter the arena as an offensive damage dealer and secondary healer. You’ll maintain all the survivability toys of the current disc builds. You’ll also gain free smites. Since you’ll be relying on critical spells to fuel instant smites, this build is less predictable but more fun. Important note: with WotLK spell power is the governing stat for spells. No more separation of +healing and +spell damage. As such both you’re heals and damaging spells will become more potent with gear.
61/5/0 - Where’s that extra point go?
The final spec I’ll propose today is the full discipline tree. A quick over notes that all deep disc talents are taken advantage of. Mana efficiency, mana return and increased damage reduction are the key to this build. You’re greater heal takes longer and you’ll be using it less in favor of a quicker flash heal. The extra point can go where you like. I opted for enlightenment due to the additional 1% to spell power. You’ll be ultra survivable and have great mana return.
Ultimately, I have no idea how these spec will play out. I imagine that due to itemization discipline priests will gain many more options. Depending on play style and team make up, stacking either of the big 3 (MP5, Spell Pen, Spell Haste) will be useful. Take care! Our role is still one of strong support and cloth tanking. I foresee we’ll still be resilient, standing up to the powerful new spells and abilities of the expansion with ease.
