Posted On Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 By Jay
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?
Posted On Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 By Jay
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, Continue Reading
Posted On Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 By Jay
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 Continue Reading
Posted On Friday, August 22nd, 2008 By Jay
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, Continue Reading
Posted On Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 By Jay
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.
53/18/0 – Remember S4?
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 Continue Reading
