What does it mean to be a Priest?

[[-Spiritus-]]

As a more heady, philosophical question, what does it mean for you to play as a Priest?

There are many ways to take this question.

(1) Long time healing priest
(2) Long time healing/shadow priest
(4) Long(ish) time only Disc
(5) Long time only Holy
(6) Long time only Shadow
(7) Recently (Cata forward) any of the above.
(8) New (MOP) any of the above

As a retired vanilla thru mid cata player who has experienced nearly all "dedication" levels (ingame and metagame), I would be interested to hear your responses.

*note: Im not looking for a stat discussion, X is better than Y, or Z is OP or UP, but why you play a Priest from an asthetic and/or playstyle perspective.

[Holy]

What is a priest? A miserable little pile of healing!

[Deleted]

I dont know sure if this also is what you asked for but......

Why do i play priest? and although lvling/playing all other classes always come back to my priest?

Short answhere: It fits my personality

Longer: Cause Priest fits with my personality.
I am a good person who likes to help and takes care for others.. but i also have my dark side.
(no im not an emo or gothic. just a normal person who is wearing black casual clothes and occasionally do stuff that cant see the light)
I find this back in Priest, good side *healing* and its Dark *shadow* side

Also what i like very much about priest is its community.
Till now all people that ive met that play priest as main where nice, helpfull, relaxt, patient etc. etc.
*not talking about the fotm rerollers*

to my opinion. priest takes something personally

[Deleted]

It's sort of a weird question to answer...

My priest was my second char back in vanilla. My first char (and first 60) was a feral-resto druid (pvp spec). I really enjoyed my druid but had allways thought priests looked awesome and decided to roll one myself. I loved PW: Shield
I went a survival-holy dps (ish) route with increased smite dmg and whatnot, also designed for pvp (which there were a lot of on my server btw, could barely walk into stranglethorn or WPL without getting jumped...).
I enjoyed the hell out of my priest and roamed azeroth with two friends of mine who also played back then (warrior and mage).

When BGs were released i thought they destroyed pvp in wow and went on to try some raiding instead but got bored and quit before i even got through molten core. I then went on to play other games, mainly Dark age of Camelot that i had played before, which has very good pvp with no instances and crap like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfJ09Ptg8LY (that's us running our 8v8/roaming group back in early 08)

I came back to WoW with a friend when cata was released. Much had changed in the game and with my class. I knew i wanted to heal so I went holy and once we had geared through 5man heroics we started looking for a guild. My friend quit again but i went on and found a guild that i'm still with. I became very close with a lot of the people in the guild, especially the previous GM that I have now met IRL a couple of times and still speak with almost daily.
She quit the game a couple of weeks into Dragonsoul.


So what has this got to do with the topic, why do i play my priest?

I'm not sure honestly. I've been disc ever since we tried some combined raids with another guild to go 25man halfway through t11, where my role would be tank healing. Never looked back.
I've always enjoyed playing aggressive support classes in all kinds of games (mmo, moba, fps etc) and the priest class not only has a lot of versatility and is a ton of fun to play but also suits me on a more personal level. It's hard to explain really, it just feels right. It's just who I am, my identity...

Sorry about the wall of text

[Soranis]

Priest isnt just some class you select to play, you are a priest in your heart and soul!
I have tried rerolling several classes to help out my guild (prot warrior for example) but overtime i always had a feeling i was missing something while playing. Like a burger without the meat, going outside without pants and showering in cold water! It's oke the first several times but you start to feel empty and cold.

Priests are just a special breed of people, nice as a person open for criticism and always there to help out others even if it hurts themself.

Ps: sorry for the english unfortuntly not all priests are awesome at the written word of english!

[Stir]

What it means to be a Priest?
Dedication, willingness to help, and an affinity for tough choices. Triage is the life of the priest, and you're going to have to be willing to break a few eggs to make that omelet.
Shadow is the odd ball out; it is a DPS spec, mandatory but not really Priestly in my opinion. I personally see it as a class in its own right. Vindictive, spiteful. Dedication, true, but Shadow reminds me too much of LaVeyan Satanism. Spiritual, humanist, but egotistical, vain and bitter.

A Priest is friendly and openminded, but also harsh when needed.

[Shadowheals]

I've played many classes and all through Wrath and Cata I loved playing my priest. He was always rough around the edges. I liked the fact that I could heal if needed and could bring the pain and be competitive in PvP or progression raiding. He has been battered, torn, bathed in fire, and come through it all.

But now he is a little tarnished, and not as shiny as he once was. I would say "grizzled veteran" is now an apt description. I know he will always be there for the times when there is a need, but I feel it is time for a new champion for me to raise up.

So, not farewell my Shadow friend, but enjoy your time to rest. There may yet be need of you, and when that time comes, I am sure you will arise and wreak shadowy destruction to you enemies, and be the staunch protector of your friends as you have always done in the past.

[Demetrion]

What it means to be a priest?

I rolled a priest because I wanted to be useful for my guild. But throughout that journey I've come to conclusion that they are not worth helping. So I left... I've allowed void to consume my soul

Today, being a priest for me is being a highly sadistic person. Inflicting pain and suffering wherever I roam. Manipulating minds of the weak, blasting their heads off... oh the joy...


Sorry, I've might wandered to far

Being a priest means melting faces. The end.

[Deleted]

Was my 3rd char, 2nd to try raiding with after prot War. Was so angry with bad healers my guild had that I lvled up priest to show them (or to prove myself wrong, i was open to that alternative either, calmer mind when tanking was acceptable too. And even after that while trying to get many other classes going, I realized priest suits me best.
Rly hard to master, 2 specs to choose from when healing (1 of them always at least ok, never both broken at the same time, which prevents frustration).
Wide variety of spells (no "3 spell healadin" as it was). I need my class to be "possibly complicated", deep, only you choose how deep you delve.
Lot of ways to make yourself irreplacable.
Speed bubble and Leap of Faith (starting CATA) - I reeeealy love those.

[espoire]

Let me answer with an anecdote. I recently left the game for about 50 days. When I returned, I couldn't even find all the spells on my bars on my Mistweaver, Afflock, or Holy Pally. I could, however, immediately play with my eyes closed on my Shadow/Disc priest. I play my priest because it feels like a natural extension of myself.

TL;DR I play a priest because it feels natural.

[Danner]

For me it is all about mind magic.

A mage conjures fireballs and pyrotechnics, tapping into the arcane energies and reshaping the laws of physics. But at the end of the day, he's a blaster that throws magic at problems until they go away. A warlock borrows his magic from demons, gaining virtually unlimited powers, for a price. But at the end of the day, he's a conjurer that throws magic at problems until they go away.

A priest is not that. Far from it actually. A priest's magic is far more subtle. A priest magic is all about the conviction, convincing, mental illusions and the power of suggestion. You could stick a priest in a magic-proof box and he could probably still do his magic. Conversely, you could stick a priest in a sealed box that would only be broken by casting a spell, and the priest would be stuck there forever. The priest doesn't really use magic. It's mental. We convince you to fight on. We convince you your wounds aren't that bad. We convince you to wince in pain. We convince you you are dead. And then you are.

This skill set is for me why I find the priest so thematically awesome. We're mentalists.

Of course, that's not all what priests do. We also employ real magic, and akin to warlocks, it is generally not our own. We borrow the powers of the holy light or the forgotten shadow. We tap into the powers of Elune, we wield chemical plagues or even demonic powers at times. But that's not really what a priest is all about. That's just tools, like a warrior wields a sword. We would still be priests even if these powers disappeared. A warlock would just be a crazy old hermit without his magic. We're not warlocks. For us, magic is a tool we can do without. It's not a defining presence.

So what makes a priest? For me, it is Mind magic. It's a thematical thing, and doesn't actually mean a lot while playing; because' we're frankly just throwing spells at problems like everyone else. But the thematic distinction I think it's what makes a priest a priest.

[Sy]

to me, as healing priest: to be dedicated to helping your group, through many different heals and other tools
sometimes through sacrificing yourself

[Volitar]

Being a priest means free loot! Only Spirit Cloth wearing class? Heck Yeah!

[Deleted]

Was the first character I rolled. I liked the idea of helping / healing people. Always liked the idea of the support role and from the limited descriptions available I figured priest was the best fit.
Since wow I've come to like the priest role in most games. It 'feels' different to mage / warlock / other caster - maybe it's a roleplay thing :P

[Deleted]

Like some others, it started with a need in my current guild for more healers. having started as a badass Prot/Retri Paladin I wasn't sure.
but once I saw "her" in her nifty dress I knew we where destine to go places.

Unlike other class its not simply a question of using rotation a+b+a+a+a+b+b and waiting for that damaging ability to proc.
Healing is about the ability to predict, prepare and react to events happening and its almost something new every run.
Your not only at the mercy of the Boss your fighting, but you also have to take into account that sometime people simply fail to move fast enough out of fire.

I also like the challenge that if you fail as a healer your raid is likely to fail as well , with dps its more forgiving if you miss that one spell.

[Komic]

Being a priest means loving little boys..

On a more serious note: To me a priest has always been the true healer in the game. A hear priest and you automatically think healer.

[Crummy]

Started out with my Shadow Priest because I liked how dark they felt. They're evil and their purpose is anything but to help others.
You put yourself first and that's all that matters.
Some choose to go with the Light, be good towards others and help someone in need. I'm not interested in making friends on my priest. I'm there to mess with their minds and hopefully hurt them in the end. Not only their healthpool, but their mentality and trust in Priests overall.
I guess it fits my personality. I'm a hardcore Shadow Priest and I only have a disc off-specc to mock others who think I'll might heal someday.

[Deleted]

I like kids so i rolled a priest...



jk

i love healing and i like it the most on me priest.
The versatility of the class is the most appealing to me.

[Deleted]

I like kids so i rolled a priest...

Rotfl XD

To be a priest you must love surprises, you can never know what the next crappy nerf/mechanic will be.