How to counter Priests as Holy Paladin

[burzum]

I'm newish to PVP and don't have a Priest alt. Whenever I face a Priest in Arena, first thing they do is to Mana Burn me. If my partner is under pressure and I have to cast big heals, I'll go OOM quick. It is not possible to always LoS enemy without LoSing your partner.

What tactic should I use to counter Mana Burns in that situation?

[burzum]

Practice definitly helps. I can feel that I'm much better than 2 months ago. I read in another thread to try LoS and out distance the cast. I will try harder but I can tell you, 500ms latency doesn't help at all.

[Maldread]

you have kick on a 10 second cd. kick him. dont try to los their healer, youre wearing plate, hes wearing cloth. also, if youre in range your melee attacks give you mana back. if hes running away from you hes not casting mana burn. if hes standing still stand near him.

[asharia]

tbh if they're allowed to free cast mana burn on you, you've already lost.

you have to stop it one way or another.

either: have your partner focus them, and interrupt. or, force them to heal, by having good pressure, not allowing them time to mana burn. or, the easiest one, los them.

[burzum]

you have kick on a 10 second cd. kick him. dont try to los their healer, youre wearing plate, hes wearing cloth. also, if youre in range your melee attacks give you mana back. if hes running away from you hes not casting mana burn. if hes standing still stand near him.

And be feared?

I sometimes run to them to stun or interrupt if I can see the attempt in time. As said I play with 500ms latency so there is 1 second lost between when he actually starts the cast and when my reaction reaches the server.

[asharia]

dont run at him, thats what he wants

just stay away, keep something to break los nearby. if he starts to cast, step behind it, cast fails. then you can step out again. do that a couple of times, and if you're partner is good, he will now be behind on healing, and will forget about mana burning for a while. i wouldnt advise kicking him, unless its a last resort, or youre a rogue with 10 billion other interrupts. because now he can freecast heals without worrying about interrupts.

if hes shadow, then hes no doing any dmg and not putting out and pressure. your healing is light, and you're on your way to winning the mana war.

[DiscoGhost]

learn to love the pillar. if hes running towards you, hes trying to fear you.

[Hand Banana]

Alot of this really depends on your partner. Im assuming your running with a melee, they need to stop those mana burns if you get feared into the open or something. Call it (assuming you use skype/vent), if you see that your going to be feared call to your partner so they call peel off and stop them casts. If your not feared or cc'd in some way you should not get hit by any mana burns because you can hump the pillar.

Go for interrupts only when his fear is on CD. Get an addon like interruptbar or something that shows the priests fear cd. If the cds up or about to be get away from him. From the sound of your latency your kinda out of luck interrupting, any decent priest will stopcast you.

I played hpally/dk at a pretty good rating and alot of it comes from my dk gripping/focus-interrupting/stranging casts, as well as chains'ing the priest when I call he wants to fear me. Priests are still a bitch though, espcially feral/priest. God thats a nightmare.

[balatro]

Agreed - priest will probably be the most frustrating class your encounter starting out. If they're at a distance, los -- if they're running to you they want to fear and then probably MB.

2s is all about spamming HS to keep up 3 HP for a WoG and if you have to hard cast, ONLY use FoL.

If your partner is getting hit hard, Sacrifice to take some of the bite out. If needed, hit Guardian to get some extra heals in there or even BoP them if the enemy is melee so they can get away. Use HoF where it's needed and unless you're going against a lock, you can probably afford to spam cleanse (to some degree, naturally).

As a hpal, pillar hugging is really the name of the game.

I also presume your partner is melee but should it be ranged and you're going up against melee, one thing I always tell my ranged partner is to attract attention quick, I'll BoP them and spam heals, then for them to blow CDs and nuke someone down. In lower brackets (1.5k'ish) it works like a charm.

[burzum]

Tnx for the insight guys. I played few matches last night and it was much better. Didn't get close to priest (35 yard) and hugged the pillars like a cuddly teddy bear!

[Deleted]

Do yourself and don't play 2s. If you do insist on playing it then make sure you play with an unholy dk, it's the only thing that can really kill priests atm. The rest need some very bad play by the priest to score a kill.

[Yvaelle]

Do yourself and don't play 2s. If you do insist on playing it then make sure you play with an unholy dk, it's the only thing that can really kill priests atm. The rest need some very bad play by the priest to score a kill.

Two things:

1) I do myself all the time. <shades>

2) UH DK's the only thing that can kill a priest? Wut.

[Taiknee]

The best thing to do is communicate with your partner so that he stays in LoS of you while you're still able to LoS the priest who is mana burning you. Try to stay near objects that you can LoS behind while making sure your dps partner stays in LoS of you.

[Deleted]

Yes that's the only way you can do it. Instead of you making sure your in LoS of your Partner he has to make sure he is in LoS of you. However this you will be at a dis-advantage if your partner is a Melee class and the opponent is a ranged.

[Yvaelle]

What is your partner killing that is not a priest? Priests are good targets for most classes to punch - if your fighting priest+melee, your melee should be on the priest cleaving into their melee, the priest wants you to punch their partner so they can freecast - why are you doing what they want you to? Sure you can think "if our melees are fighting each other, both of us healers are free to cast" - but priests are far better than hpals at being offensive, a freecasting priest is far more dangerous than a freecasting pally.

The way you want the fight to go is - you want both DPS attacking the enemy healers, you tank far better than priests do, you take less damage, have more trinket effects, rely less on casts, and are more mana efficient. Priest+X teams want you to fight DPS vs. DPS so the priest can leverage their more offensive, dps-y abilities to turn the tide in their favour: offensive dispels, mana burns, fears, mind controls, and holy fire / smites.