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| Exade's Arena My Way Priest Guide |
by Exade @ 22 Oct 2007, 11:18 PM
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Welcome to my Priest PvP/Arena guide!
 First off let me introduce myself: I'm Exade, a level 70 Undead Priest from the Magtheridon server, EU. My professions are Jewelcrafting and Tailoring, and for quite a while now PvP has been my main interest in World of Warcraft. I'm hoping that through this read you will get a little more insight on what a priest does and should do in Arena, and learn more about priests as a whole in PvP. Since Battlegrounds are close to useless right now in TBC, I will be spending most of the time talking about Arenas in all three brackets (2v2, 3v3, and 5v5), as well as my experience in them.
Note: When I give examples or make scenarios of two teams competing, I will be talking about maximum-geared players, so the outcome might not be the same for everyone.
 I never found 2v2 Arena very exciting. As a matter of fact, I always thought of it as the boring arena that nobody really cared about and which didn't matter anyways, as you'd be getting points from a higher bracket.
Although it's not very exciting, it's easy to get going because all you need are two keen players. You never have any trouble finding a friend to play 10 games with to scrape a few hundred arena points. My first and only serious attempt at 2v2 was during Season 1 with a Demonology Warlock called Eulogie (you may know him from his videos). We did very well, getting approximately 2350 rating before calling it quits out of sheer boredom.
Once geared, a priest is a very nice healer to have in 2v2 because of his ability to do offensive dispels as well as defensive ones.
At the very start of Season 1, when nobody really knew what resilience was and nobody bothered getting it, it's safe to say that priests where the weakest of all healers. Warriors and Rogues would run around with their newly acquired high damage blues, or even epics, and would just tear a priest in half in no time. Shamans, Pallies, and Druids didn't have this problem as they all had high armour or the ability to escape danger without too many problems. Sure, no cooldown on Prayer of Mending was great, and yes it was spammable, but it still wasn’t enough to keep you alive until you had a fair bit of resilience. Once priests acquired some good resilience/stamina gear through BGs, or a couple pieces of Gladiator, they became a much more viable option. They were nevertheless still no match for Paladins, who just simply could not run out of mana, and Druids who could do a single player CC for 20+ seconds.
As explained, back then a Priest was not a great class to be playing for PvP; today things are different. All priests now sit around 300 resilience minimum, but can even surpass 500! This gives them the ability to live much longer and do what other healers can't do: AoE fear, Mana Burn, and 10 second Mind Control. Mana Burning is key in 2v2 as whoever runs out of mana first dies and loses the match. I once tried playing 2v2 with a hunter for maximum mana burning and everything worked great while they were attacking me, but as soon as they got a rogue or a warrior on the hunter, our DPS fell to 0 and so did my mana from spamming heals on him.
The most common priest included combo in 2v2 today is probably Rogue-Priest. This combo works great from what I've tried, seen, and heard of it. With wound poison the rogue is forcing the other team's healer (if they have one) to spam large heals on its partner, thereby draining a lot of mana. The ability to stun and snare also makes the target the rogue is attacking lose 50% of its DPS or healing capacity, without taking into account the long CCs like Blind and Sap.
On the other hand, having a rogue on you as a priest is a nightmare, and all you can really try to do is time a CC on the rogue with your partner when crippling is about to run out in order to get a good kite going, or get a great PvP trinket “use” to get away. Keeping the rogue under control the whole time is very hard to do. High resilience rogues are also very hard to take down, making the option of focusing on the rogue a bad one in most situations.
Before the DoT nerf which came with the recent patch, UA locks were (maybe still are? Haven’t tested this yet) one of the biggest problems for anyone in any bracket. The constant damage done on multiple players is insane, and they also have a great ability to CC and Silence. For priests, Curse of Tongues is a huge pain when trying to mana burn or throw out a greater heals, and when UA comes up it’s very risky to dispel even the fear. When I play UA warlocks I ignore the UA and keep spam dispelling their dots, hoping the UA won’t crit me for too much damage. I'd rather be silenced than watch my partner die from too much Damage over Time.
Last but not least, I'd like to talk about Druids in 2v2. As mentioned above, Druids have the ability to CC a single player for a long time if left alone; this is why you always have to keep an eye out for a Resto druid who's giving your healer an evil stare. The druid will start off with a feral charge while you're casting, silencing you. Then he'll bash you, followed by a cyclone 3 times, and finally he might come in for a warstomp. Now if the druid is paired up with a UA lock, for example, it’s clear that your partner will be dead by the time the CC is over. There are two possibilities to dodge this long CC without luck (dodge, miss, resist): as soon as the druid starts the chain, tell your partner to play defensively (eg: warrior puts on shield goes defensive, or simply run away from the other player). Use your trinket to get out of the bash or the first cyclone, and LoS the druid so he can't cast it on you again. Then heal your partner back to full. Another method is to get your partner to come and focus on the druid; this way his cyclones will not go off. Although you may lose some DPS, at least you'll stay alive.
So there's some stuff about 2v2: overall, I think Druids are the best healers in this bracket and UA locks the best DPS, but obviously there's a counter for everything. So don't take this literally, as you never know who you might come up against. Any good player can make any class an enemy to fear.
 3v3 has always been in my eyes the most skilled based bracket. In 5v5, as a healer, if you mess something up, you always have your heal partner to back you up, but in 3v3 you don't.
Priest-Mage-Rogue has proved to be a very successful setup and became very popular after WSVG. I can't say I've played very much with this setup but I've heard lots of good things from it. The frost Mage has to have a more offensive play style than in 5v5, where he spends most of his time polymorphing and placing the silence. With this combo, the Mage has to be polymorphing, silencing, doing some stable damage, and be ready at all times to pop his pet and throw some burst on the low health target when the rogue is ready. This is another proof of why 3v3 requires more skill: you need to be more attentive (in this case, as a frost mage, in this particular combo).
Another lethal combo that also includes a priest, this time shadow-specced, is a UA lock, Shadow Priest, and a Resto/Ele Shaman. This combo is not one you want to come up against, because as soon as the lock gets his UA up, it’s risky to dispel the Priest’s dots, though you obviously still have to. Next, if the Shaman is elemental-specced and pops his burst CDs, you'll have a very hard time surviving.
As a priest, when I see this, I will initially want to fully dispel all targets with the main target, in this case the UA lock as priority. The reason for fully dispelling all targets is so that as soon as they pop bloodlust, if they're bunched up, I can Mass Dispel them all at once, or just individually dispel them with only 1 dispel used per player. If they get Bloodlust off and it isn't dispelled, there's no point being on the lock because he'll get UA off no matter what. The hard part is dispelling bloodlust and keeping your players up at the same time. The best thing to do is try and keep them separated: at the start, if the SP runs at you to throw some dots on your warrior, let him do it. Meanwhile, you fully dispel him and then dispel your warrior and drink up. If they all run at you, run away or LoS kite. While they're trying to get dots up on your plate wearers (usually a priority for them), fully dispel all of them and throw a fear, and start the fight. After this, keep dispelling your warrior from all SP DoTs; as soon as they blow BL, get some quick dispels off while your other two partners CC them as best they can.
My most recent 3v3 "adventure" was with a Warrior (Kungen) and a resto specced Druid (Marilyn). Playing with 2 healers is not a very popular choice, but at the start we were aiming to outlast the opposite team. After taking a good look at this setup you will notice that we have the ability to dispel everything (Curse, Magic, Disease, Poison), as well as offensive dispelling. A warrior never runs out of mana, and if a healer does, one can drink while the other heals. On top of all of this, we had some great CC with 2 fears, MC, and all the druid stuff. We came off to a great start going 40-3 our first night and then had to take it easy because some of us had some RL stuff to take care of. It was a good experience to see that a two healer combo had its charms, and I would recommend this setup without a doubt if you have friends from these classes. Timing is the key: the better you know your team-mates, the better you will perform.
Although Pallies were undoubtedly the best/most popular healers at the start of arena, I would say it isn't the case anymore, at least not in the lower brackets (you still need a pally for 5v5). Freedom is good, but most teams have an offensive dispeller to take it away. HoJ is dispelable, Sacrifice is nice against Polimorphs, but also dispelable. BoP is dispelable, and useless if you get a quick CC on the pally right after he's used it. Finally, bubble is good but once again dispelable by some, and once a pally has used his bubble he'll die fast if you focus him. Sure, a pally is hard to kill if you're a melee because they have a lot of armour, but once they've blown their bubble, unless they have someone else healing them, they will die faster than you think.
With nothing but direct heals and one school of magic, all it takes is a well placed kick or silence and it’s over. If a Priest gets his holy school kicked, he can still fear and perhaps MC if there’s only 1 target on him.
A team with a resto Shammy as their healer is very hard to beat if you don't have an offensive dispeller. Earthen Shield always needs to be dispelled, otherwise the shammy will be much harder to take down. If you don't have an offensive dispeller and you're planning on taking the sham down with a rogue, for instance, he'll have a lot of trouble doing it on his own. Then comes Bloodlust. Sure, you can try to spellsteal it, but if you miss it will be very mana inefficient, and if you succeed the Shaman will insta-purge you. Having an extra 30% melee and casting speed is a huge buff and gives the Sham the opportunity to keep his players up while doing some damage on the side. This is the main reason why I always have all of my enemies fully dispelled at the start of fights. If they have a Sham, you just can't afford to let them have BL. Dispelling Earthen shield is also good because it’s quite costly for them to put it back up, and some actually do bother putting it back up, wasting quite a bit of mana.
It's hard to call a best healing class for 3v3 since there are so many different successful combinations. If I had to choose, I would go with Priest for classic lasting setups, and Shammy for burst teams. For the best DPS, it's really hard to say. You know what? UA lock is up there somewhere ;)
 Out of all three brackets 5v5 is definitely the least luck based. A big crit will not suffice to win a game, you'll need to place some good silences and CCs, and you will need to exploit everyone in your team's abilities to really win a tough game. To me, 5v5 is definitely the most exciting of all three arenas and is where I've had my most memorable moments since the release of TBC.
At the start of Season 1, many teams preferred Shamans to Priests in 5v5 simply because Shamans were harder to take down, and everybody had an expected hard-on for Bloodlust and Windfury. Since then, warriors and windfury have been nerfed, priests have gotten tougher, and teams have gotten smarter. Today I can't think of many teams who would take a resto Shammy over a holy Priest in arena, simply because priests have so much more to offer.
The Pally is the main healer in 5v5 and there's no doubt about it, but to backup the Pally you need a strong healing class that can make sure the pally will not be CCd, and which can help if needed on healing. As you know, Paladins are extremely vulnerable to fear, and when teamed up with a Shammy the fear will not be dispelled. Alright, there's tremor totem, but a good warlock/priest/warrior will make sure the tremor is down before he launches a fear. Then what? The Pally has a trinket that may have already been used on a polymorph, and bubble, which he feels is necessary to keep for later when he's being attacked (or is also already used). At this point the Shammy has to spam his ass off to keep his focused team mate alive, and all it takes is a silence, HoJ, or fear and that team will have lost one of its players.
This is what makes the priest so strong as a backup healer in 5v5: not only can he dispel the pally when he is CCd, but he can also dispel everyone else in the team who is being CCd while the pally does all the healing. On top of that, Priests can also fear the other team’s pally and mana-burn. Sure, the Shammy is probably a more effective raw healer in arena, but the shammy doesn't have all the other side-abilities that make the priest a better overall choice. The Sham has totems, Bloodlust, earthshock, and warstomp (for some) to interrupt heals. Everything else a Sham can do, a priest can do too. When focused, a Shammy may live longer than a priest because of his high armour, but he cannot kite and heal himself at the same time. He relies fully on the Pally, and if the Pally is CCd the Sham will die. Priests have shields, renew, and prayer of mending ,which are all castable while he's kiting the other teams melee dps around. One of my team’s Pallies and I once agreed that when a Priest is being focused, the pally gives him 70% of the healing he needs, but the priest is still giving himself the other 30% with his instant casts. Finally, it is worth mentioning that priests have decent armour nowadays (I have 5.2k with Inner Fire: more than many leather wearers).
Throughout Season 1 and 2 I spent most of my time playing with the team that I created: Domina. We ran a relatively popular setup at the time, being Warrior, Hunter, Frost Mage, Pally, and Priest. It worked well for us during season 1, where we had a great start, climbing to the top of the battlegroup very fast and holding no.1 for a while. We then fell down and stuck inside the top 5, which is where we were for the end of the season, behind teams that we had beaten countless times. We started off real strong for season 2. Myself, our warrior, and a couple others were the first to have a full merciless set on Magtheridon. After that we folded because of the Summer.
Having a Hunter in 5v5 is great when you're a healer. Frost trap kiting is awesome, and you get to Viper Sting the other team’s healers, which makes them go OOM very fast (especially if you are mana-burning too). Our mage’s job was pure Polymorphing and Silencing, plus throwing in a little bit of damage left and right to help out. I would spend most of my time dispelling, mana-burning, and MCing off the bridge in Blade’s Edge arena, since our pally usually had the healing under control.
Before coming to this setup we tried many variables, such as having a UA/SL lock instead of the mage and hunter, but in the end the previous combination was clearly the best.
A very common setup these days is the Warrior, Frost Mage, Ele Sham, Pally, and Priest. This combo is great: bringing the Sham’s strengths to a 5v5 team really helps. Ele Shams are known to have the most damage in arenas IF left alone, so with this setup you can put money on the fact that the Sham will be main target 80% of the time. Thanks to this, you can spend your time mana-burning and getting your dispels off, unless the Sham really is taking too much damage, in which case you have to assist with healing. If you get the upper hand and have one of their players low enough for both their healers to be spamming him, then blow Bloodlust. At this point their Pally is obliged to BoP their guy because their offensive dispeller has to start dispelling bloodlust, followed by your ele sham insta purging BoP, followed by their player dying. Having a Sham means that as a priest you don't have to focus on Main Target dispelling, and you can spend most of your time keeping your players out of polly or fear and dispelling their other players. In addition to all this, even if their player gets BoPd, all it takes is a crit from the Sham and he'll most likely be dead.
I would definitely recommend this combo as it isn't very hard to use and it's very nice to have 2 offensive dispellers and 2 defensive dispellers. It goes without saying that Paladins are the best healers in 5v5 with their big chunky heals, and after this explanation I hope you'll agree that Priests are the best backup healers. Whereas for DPS there are way too many options to elect one better DPSer, all I can say is that all teams should have a Rogue or a Warrior (preffered) for Wound Poison and Mortal Strike, respectively.
 The most common pvp priest spec right now is definitely 28/33/0. Obviously this many points are put in the holy tree for access to Blessed Resilience, which is really key in arena, especially if you’re low on Resilience from gear. Although loads of people choose this spec, most have different ways of spending their points in the Discipline tree, varying with their style of play.
I went with 3/3 in Inner Fire, which is not that common, but I always make sure it’s up and the armour boost really helps. I’m sitting on 5216 armour with my normal PvP gear.
I’ve also heard Priests argue that putting points in Improved Healing in the Holy tree is a waste, but that’s clearly a load of crap. Why? You’re going to want to be spamming Greater Heal as much as you can, because Flash Heal is useless when your target has MS on him. If you’re spamming greater heal, get as close to their mage as possible and let him know you’re doing it so that he wastes his Counterspell on your holy school. Your Pally can keep healing and you can start using your shadow school (Manaburn, Fear, MC). If the Mage is smart, he’ll save his CS for the Pally; that way you’re casting your greater heals (which are weak on an MS’d target meaning they need to be spammed) for 15% less mana.
Holy Nova is the last thing I can think of which some people don’t take. I enjoy having Holy Nova to spam against stealth teams in all three brackets, and because in some random situations it can be quite helpful.
Apart from these certain exceptions, people tend to follow each other with the other points in both trees. I am planning on speccing mainly Disc if Pain Suppression ever gets buffed, but until then I’ll be sticking to this Spec for PvP.
While a lot more can be said about the PvP Priest and arena, it will be kept for another time. I hope you enjoyed the read, and if you have anything you disagree with or want to discuss, feel free to contact me on Exade.
I’d like to throw out a big thank you to Kungen, Awake, and Nihilum for allowing me to put my thoughts on paper; and some Shout-Outs to: Domina (Hoofman, Gittan, Sihraz/Doomhoof, Quindris, Crenshaw, Eulogie), my main man Kookai, and all of Sold Out and oldschool MTD Raid 1 back on Mal’Ganis.US.
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{i am a rouge btw}we had in 1 moment 2.1k raiting in 2vs2 season 2 now i play whit a pala from our guild and now its 1.9k
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