Questions for Priest healers of Vanilla.

[shifu]

I played a Human Paladin for Vanilla and absolutely fell in love with healing. I healed MC, BWL, AQ20, AQ40, and up to 4H in Naxx. I loved everything about Paladins. But in the back of my head I always wanted to play Priest. Over the last 13 years I've never actually played a Priest. And with Classic announced. I'm throwing the idea around of leveling a priest with the intention of healing in raiding.

My question for you Priest that played in Vanilla and hopefully raided. What were the things that made Priest fun for healing? Or was it a very boring class to heal with? Was your healing similar to Paladin in the regard of having to mix multiple spell ranks on your bars and having to determine on the fly how big of heals needed to passed out. Or was it just spam two heals for the entirety of the raid? What things did you hate about your priest? What was the lvling experience like? Was it difficult finding raid positions? At max lvl could you still grind very well with a holy spec or no?

Thank you very much for your time. And I appreciate anyone taking the time to speak on the matter <3

[Caliph]

I played a Human Paladin for Vanilla and absolutely fell in love with healing. I healed MC, BWL, AQ20, AQ40, and up to 4H in Naxx. I loved everything about Paladins. But in the back of my head I always wanted to play Priest. Over the last 13 years I've never actually played a Priest. And with Classic announced. I'm throwing the idea around of leveling a priest with the intention of healing in raiding.

My question for you Priest that played in Vanilla and hopefully raided. What were the things that made Priest fun for healing? Or was it a very boring class to heal with? Was your healing similar to Paladin in the regard of having to mix multiple spell ranks on your bars and having to determine on the fly how big of heals needed to passed out. Or was it just spam two heals for the entirety of the raid? What things did you hate about your priest? What was the lvling experience like? Was it difficult finding raid positions? At max lvl could you still grind very well with a holy spec or no?

Thank you very much for your time. And I appreciate anyone taking the time to speak on the matter <3

In raids you'll downrank your spells, use shield, and renew. there's no using prayer of healing as it was very expensive. Unless of course that's part of the healing design for your raid.

As a MT healer you'll be paired with a pally or be asked to just use renew, shield, fear ward if applicable, and flash heal if warranted. I used to downrank to Greater Heal rank 2 and just continually spam it without ever having to worry about mana or the 5 sec rule.

When we learned how to play in MC and raiding going forward max rank heals were out of the question because of mana. When we overpowered and out geared the instance then it didn't matter. So lower ranked healing it was.

As for grinding as holy i used to use shadow word pain, wand, shield and renew. when they nerfed wand/dagger i switched to shadow for grinding and that was expensive constantly switching. You can always be a smiter of course but it was a one at a time proposition. 1 mob at a time. if 3 came you had to fear, shield, renew, kill one fast and out last them. Higher gear levels made this easy. but in greens and a mixture of blues (MC starter level) it was difficult and dangerous.

All in all it was fun but got boring as gear came rolling in from MC/BWL/AQ/ZG farming.

it was far better in dungeons and instances levelling up and gearing up before raiding because there you had to go all out. And threat was bad. Fade is a good friend.

hope that helps.

[Shadowsgrace]

Oh, and if you're Allied... Dwarf Priest or don't bother. Unless Blizzard decides to get Fear Ward to all priests as a concession.

[Caliph]

Oh, and if you're Allied... Dwarf Priest or don't bother. Unless Blizzard decides to get Fear Ward to all priests as a concession.

i was human priest and we had no dwarf priests in our raid until we absorbed a smaller guild. We had no problems with no dwarf priest presence. This is not true.

[syar]

Well I probably can't remember right, but i was an aq40/nax holy priest back then. What I recall that it was fun but it wasn't spammy , you had to be out of cast for 5 sec if you could sometimes ( to regain mana from spirit or something along those lines) , also downrankig was a thing yes, pretty much its what you described but you had a group heal . Spamming was out of question , since if you spammed flash heal you failed horribly and went OOM. What I can tell you that I enjoyed it a lot and never really regretted rolling a priest, and also never been a healer since vanilla because of the spammy playstyle thats exist nowadays. ( its more fun as a dps for me)

I leveled on holy spec ( without want spec, full raid spec ) ,because I'm a masochist I guess. It was fine for me, did a lot of instanced content to practice healing. I started as a hunter and rerolled immediately after hitting 60 because I felt like dead weight as a hunter. ( everybody was a hunter or a rogue) So after power leveling my priest to 60 , i loved how I was always in demand. Seriously that feeling of being like an asset and a treasure for a team was so liberating after playing as a hunter.

So in summary I loved being a priest in vanilla , leveling isn't to hard even if you do it holy you just need to party a little more. ( bonus: you make more friends that way), and you will be a respected and valued part of the community. That was the last time wow gave me this feeling of being a respected contributor to an online society. Oh and one more thing , gearing will be so much easier , in raids you will have to fight with less people and raid leaders will actually want to gear you and shower you with loot.

- - - Updated - - -

I was a night elf priest ( worst race to be a one ) and still became a nax raider. Raid leaders were happy to have healers, being dwarf was just bonus.

[Shadowsgrace]

i was human priest and we had no dwarf priests in our raid until we absorbed a smaller guild. We had no problems with no dwarf priest presence. This is not true.

No, my point is, if you want Fear ward, you had to go Dwarf Priest. back in Vanilla. Unless they make a QoL change for this.

[Storfan]

i was human priest and we had no dwarf priests in our raid until we absorbed a smaller guild. We had no problems with no dwarf priest presence. This is not true.

If your tanks are skilled in stance-dancing then yea, lack of fearward wont be a problem. It's a big peace of mind having fearward on Onyxia, Nefarian and probably Gluth. You remove 1 potential freak accident from the equation. Horde tanks have it harder in that regard since Tremor totem is on a rolling tick and stance dancing is always risky.

[Noggster]

In raids you'll downrank your spells, use shield, and renew. there's no using prayer of healing as it was very expensive. Unless of course that's part of the healing design for your raid.

As a MT healer you'll be paired with a pally or be asked to just use renew, shield, fear ward if applicable, and flash heal if warranted. I used to downrank to Greater Heal rank 2 and just continually spam it without ever having to worry about mana or the 5 sec rule.

When we learned how to play in MC and raiding going forward max rank heals were out of the question because of mana. When we overpowered and out geared the instance then it didn't matter. So lower ranked healing it was.

As for grinding as holy i used to use shadow word pain, wand, shield and renew. when they nerfed wand/dagger i switched to shadow for grinding and that was expensive constantly switching. You can always be a smiter of course but it was a one at a time proposition. 1 mob at a time. if 3 came you had to fear, shield, renew, kill one fast and out last them. Higher gear levels made this easy. but in greens and a mixture of blues (MC starter level) it was difficult and dangerous.

All in all it was fun but got boring as gear came rolling in from MC/BWL/AQ/ZG farming.

it was far better in dungeons and instances levelling up and gearing up before raiding because there you had to go all out. And threat was bad. Fade is a good friend.

hope that helps.

For you priest healers, please dont shield the MT unless they take a crushing/crit, we need that rage to hold aggro. FYI - when warriors took dmg through a PWS we didn't get rage for that.

[Deleted]

No, my point is, if you want Fear ward, you had to go Dwarf Priest. back in Vanilla. Unless they make a QoL change for this.

Hopefully they will not change an inch.

People have to get into their brains that raid difficulty is a direct proportion between raid mechanics and class abilities. Raid mechanics were rudimentary in Vanilla (compared to today), but so were the tools available to players.

What made Vanilla raids difficult are exactly things like the unavailability of fear ward to 60% of the player base (Horde + Alliance raids without Dwarfs) - forcing tanks to stance-dance or shamans to use tremor totem. Both were risky propositions.

[Deleted]

In Vanilla healing per mana is the most important thing. If you enjoy that mechanic (5 sec rule etc.) then priest is just fine for you. Obviously much less skills than on retail. Priest healing output is great and you are wanted in raids and dungs.

[Vofka]

I played a Human Paladin for Vanilla and absolutely fell in love with healing. I healed MC, BWL, AQ20, AQ40, and up to 4H in Naxx. I loved everything about Paladins. But in the back of my head I always wanted to play Priest. Over the last 13 years I've never actually played a Priest. And with Classic announced. I'm throwing the idea around of leveling a priest with the intention of healing in raiding.

My question for you Priest that played in Vanilla and hopefully raided. What were the things that made Priest fun for healing? Or was it a very boring class to heal with? Was your healing similar to Paladin in the regard of having to mix multiple spell ranks on your bars and having to determine on the fly how big of heals needed to passed out. Or was it just spam two heals for the entirety of the raid? What things did you hate about your priest? What was the lvling experience like? Was it difficult finding raid positions? At max lvl could you still grind very well with a holy spec or no?

Thank you very much for your time. And I appreciate anyone taking the time to speak on the matter <3

I have been playing priest since the past year on the private servers, cleared MC/BWL/ZG now preparing for AQ here is my input:

My question for you Priest that played in Vanilla and hopefully raided. What were the things that made Priest fun for healing? Or was it a very boring class to heal with?

You do everything that every other healer class can do but better your spells are simply superior and scale better you are THE healer + you have an instant heal in form of PW:shield.
In terms of actual gameplay it's pretty similar to other healers you derank your spells, get your assignment, manage your mana by using different heals to match the incoming damage. The core difference is that you tool is much bigger than other classes have. Also since you are a spirit based healer you have to also watch your 5 second rule.

Was your healing similar to Paladin in the regard of having to mix multiple spell ranks on your bars and having to determine on the fly how big of heals needed to passed out.

This. I'm a t2/bwl geared and i personally use heal 1 rank, max rank renew, GH rank 1 and max, flash heal rank 3 and max, PW:shield max rank, PoH max rank.

What things did you hate about your priest?

I actually want to roll a paladin when Blizzard release Classic because priest lacks almost any form of utility he is just pure healer no totems/blessings no saves like BoP and LoH no wipe recovery either.

What was the lvling experience like?

Not bad actually. Since you have spirit tap you almost don't need to drink and you can heal yourself too so food isn't required either. But you kill things a little bit slower than a mage and can't solo kite elites and you need a good wand before you hit level 40 and respec into shadowform. i rate leveling 7/10 with 10/10 being warlock/hunter leveling and 1/10 being warrior leveling. And you can also heal all the 5 man dungeons as a shadow no problem.

Was it difficult finding raid positions?

There are 5 spots for priests in my guild most guilds roll with the same amount. I saw a guild recruiting so i filled an application and got in and now i'm core raider nothing special really.

At max lvl could you still grind very well with a holy spec or no?

No. Shadow is obviously more effective at grinding than holy and it's a real struggle to kill anything past level 55 as a holy but good thing is - you really don't need to. The only thing you have to farm are the demonic runes but it drops from level 50-52 satyrs and they are easy to kill even in healing gear and if you get some pre raid +spell damage gear it will become much more bearable. For gold your primary farming method will be DM:E plants farm since you can aoe lashers with holy nova and it will get you about ~25g/hour.

Some things that you should consider:
Tailoring is a must at the beginning - Truefaith Robes are glorious and simply too good to pass.
There is no /mousover or /focus and raidframes don't show range and incoming heals. Addons do help but they don't work flawlessly.
BENEDICTION!!!

[ifrah]

Multiple ranks of (greater) heal and flash heal, max rank renew, dispel, abolish disease, PoH for few rare occasions (vael, huhuran and umm..). PwS was not used too much, mainly a panic button or in big damage/burst situations. Healing was fun in my opinion, liked it a lot more than playing dps.
Dwarf priest was autoinvite to raids, but other races were welcome as well, priest was good healer throughout the raids.
The big downside was the grinding/soloing capability, which was utter garbage with holy spec. Most of your gear was pretty much +healing only, so it was just a big wand festival. How fun that is/was, you can try playing a meleeclass with only autoattack bound and using grey-white weapons.
Leveling as holy, don't know how many actually did that in vanilla days, wouldn't recommend though, unless running with friend/group all the way. Even then, not really enough benefits on the healing side to make up the massive deficit in damage output. Shadow was competent enough healing thru the 5mans easily unless the group was tools. Back in days many people, including healers and tanks, played with dps/solo/pvp specs happily through MC and above.

[Jeniwyn]

Hi.

I played a priest all through vanilla and I played priest again on Nostalrius. I raided Naxx 40 and killed all but KT back in the day. It is the only class I'd play for healing as Alliance and the only reason I'd consider Shaman as horde is the dynamic change from a 1.12 Chain Heal in a raid setting.

The reason that priest, in my opinion, is far and away the most interesting healing class in vanilla is the vast and powerful toolkit that it has. In an intense healing situation every global cooldown you have matters enormously. From pre-shielding a tank about to take a huge hit or a cloth dps about to AoE and inevitably draw the attention of mobs that pose a very real threat to their survival, to miraculously saving the party with a well timed Prayer of Healing, to efficiently and effectively choosing the correct type and rank from the vast array of single target spell and hots and lower Prayer of Healing ranks at your disposal. The array of commonly used spells literally count in the dozens. And, if you care, well played priest is a beast that spark well deserved awe and revere from peers that other healing classes frankly are unlikely to ever live to experience.

Finding a raid spot as a priest should be easy, the class to avoid from that point of view is far and away druid. While good, smart and team-play oriented druids are important and valuable, the market for 'decent but not exceptional' druids is very small.

Grinding in the world however sucks, badly. I strongly suggest an alt for that. Even with late tier raid gear sub-optimal would be a stretch.

[RNCTX]

I played a priest throughout vanilla and again in WOTLK.

As others stated there was no comparable healing class in vanilla. Initially it was supposed to be the pure healer, as all others were hybrids. Shadow was only viable for pvp.

As for having another class... back then respecs cost 50 gold. Gold wasn't as plentiful as it was later on, but keeping enough gold around to respec wasn't impossible (maybe we'll see the return of Chinese gold farmers...). For the sake of efficiency, it made more sense to just have a frost mage alt for solo farming, though.

[Dergiab]

For you priest healers, please dont shield the MT unless they take a crushing/crit, we need that rage to hold aggro. FYI - when warriors took dmg through a PWS we didn't get rage for that.

This man speaks the truth.

[ThePallyRanger]

This is my ideal priest's talents. Would you guys say I need to spend points in renew, or is it fine?

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#bxMusV0oZbttcc0Vx

[RNCTX]

This is my ideal priest's talents. Would you guys say I need to spend points in renew, or is it fine?

Renew was pretty garbage in vanilla as I remember it. You don't cast a whole lot of instant spells as holy, ditch mental agility and get some of the improved prayer talents and spirit of redemption, it can be a wipe-saver.

You can skip holy nova too.

[Twoddle]

Raid healing was a doddle as Priest back then because there were addons that let you spam one button and it would select the lowest health unit in range and heal with the perfect rank to top them up, was normal for me to top the healing meters by far and never go OOM.

This was perfectly legal because the WoW API allowed it but it was later changed. I even stayed Shadow spec most of the time and still outhealed everyone until the guild leader gave me an ultimatum.

[ThePallyRanger]

Renew was pretty garbage in vanilla as I remember it. You don't cast a whole lot of instant spells as holy, ditch mental agility and get some of the improved prayer talents and spirit of redemption, it can be a wipe-saver.

You can skip holy nova too.

I see. Thanks. Where would you spend the holy nova point?

[Deletedaccount1]

i was human priest and we had no dwarf priests in our raid until we absorbed a smaller guild. We had no problems with no dwarf priest presence. This is not true.

The meta has changed. Race class combos are now more closely understood than in retail vanilla and ally raiding guilds don't want priests without fear ward.