Basic disc pvp pointers.

[Gerbill]

Hey there,

I've not played WoW in about a year and a half and now I'm back.

A friend of mine stopped playing his priest so I figured I'd give it a go..
Nice as it is to get a level 80 with full epic gear all at once.. I must admit I don't have much priest experience..

And I found out it's quite hard to learn a class at once if you haven't played it from level 1 onwards... so I'm here for some pointers.
I'm not stupid in the sense that I dont know which skill does what and such.. But I've healed in pvp before with a druid and a paladin and I must say I'm having a much harder time doing so as a priest.

So I'm looking for some basic disc priest pvp pointers.
Such as..

- How to survive properly.. I mean there's plenty of defensive skills at my disposal.. I'm just not sure when to use which yet... And well getting thrown into it like this doesn't help.. when a rogue is on me I'm not sure as to what to do other than shield, renew, try and fake heal or fear.. it's hard to get them off me or do I always need someone to do that for me?

- Which heals to use.. obviously I won't be getting greater heals of if I'm being focussed, fake healing can go a long way.. but Priests have lots of different heals.. do you really use all of them in pvp or are there some which I can pretty much forget about?

- When to dps and how to dps? I've read that in arenas, I'll be teaming up with a frost mage, that priests will need to do their share of damage aswel for this comp to work... same question as the heals really.. which damaging spells are priority to use and which not so much. for example.. I don't see Mind Sear being good in the 2v2 arenas when I'm with a mage, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Just really.. I lack experience and that will come in time... but some general pointers would really help me out here.

[Nem2k]

- How to survive properly.. I mean there's plenty of defensive skills at my disposal.. I'm just not sure when to use which yet... And well getting thrown into it like this doesn't help.. when a rogue is on me I'm not sure as to what to do other than shield, renew, try and fake heal or fear.. it's hard to get them off me or do I always need someone to do that for me?

- Which heals to use.. obviously I won't be getting greater heals of if I'm being focussed, fake healing can go a long way.. but Priests have lots of different heals.. do you really use all of them in pvp or are there some which I can pretty much forget about?

- When to dps and how to dps? I've read that in arenas, I'll be teaming up with a frost mage, that priests will need to do their share of damage aswel for this comp to work... same question as the heals really.. which damaging spells are priority to use and which not so much. for example.. I don't see Mind Sear being good in the 2v2 arenas when I'm with a mage, please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. yes you will always need someone to peel for you, you have no way to escape crippling poison unless youre dwarf or shadow (both of which is tetchy anyway because cripp will get reapplied so fast). as far as heals, keep your shield on CD, pom on CD. Renew only if you can spare the global. otherwise try to fake a flash heal and get a full penance in, this way you dont waste a penance CD if trying to use it to fake. if you do manage to fake a kick, make sure that as youre casting your next full heal you continually turn to keep your back to the rogue so you can avoid the gouge
your main defensive cooldown, pain suppression, should be glyphed until you get good enough to be able to predict when theyre about to swap to you. when you use it depends alot on what class the other guy is. its important not to save it until youre 20% hp or something because youre going to either die anyway, or be so far behind on healing that you cant catch up again. I tend to use it early to keep control of the situation

2. main heals are penance, shield, pom, flash heal. secondary heals are renew and greater heal. if youre being focused then follow what I said in point 1. if youre healing someone else up then penance on CD, shield on CD, PoM if youre close to your partner (this way when it bounces to you, you can SW to bounce it back to him). if your partner isnt going to die RIGHT NOW, then I like shield, penance, then greater heal (this will be hasted through your own haste and borrowed time down to like 1.6 seconds or so, assuming you have divine fury). renew is a nice thing to have on your partner when youre running to get a fear on someone. also if you see CC incoming on you, then I try to shield my partner before the CC hits, if he has weakened soul then I try to throw a renew/pom on him instead depending on how much hp he has at the time

3. playing mage/priest it is true that the priest is required to do an equal amount of WORK as the mage, but not really the same amount of DAMAGE. this means that as a priest you need to pick and choose your time to throw your burst out. youre not throwing out constant damage, youre throwing it out when you have a healer in a CC chain, your mage has a CS ready, your target has no defensive cooldowns to use etc. obviously you should throw out damage to help force some of those cooldowns but youll be doing burst dps, not consistent dps.
your main burst spells are holy fire and smite. For mage/priest I tend to spec into divine fury + searing light and glyph smite. you can also keep SW:P and Dev Plague on your target too if their team has no dispeller for those dots
your question about mindsear: I dont see alot of priests using it, but I find it great against rogue teams. say youve nuked a rogue quite hard and he blows his vanish and retreats. mind sear his healer to try to pop the rogue out of stealth again. This is really nice if their healer is a druid or a priest who are more mobile when they heal, because as they run around it increases the area of your aoe. Its also nice in openers to try to pop a rogue/druid out of stealth

IMO priests are quite an unforgiving class for beginners because 1) theyre squishy, 2) low mana regen, 3) small heals and 4) theyre really offensive healers. all of this, and especially point 4, requires alot of experience to know when you should heal, when you should dps, when you should dispel, how to switch from offensive to defensive and back again. But once you get the hang of it, we have ALOT of utility: off/def dispels, hard range nukes, mass dispel, mana burn. these things make us a versatile class but it requires alot of play to understand how and when to use them

oh and bind dispel magic to like every button on your keyboard, youll be using it, alot

[sealdonut]

1. yes you will always need someone to peel for you, you have no way to escape crippling poison unless youre dwarf or shadow (both of which is tetchy anyway because cripp will get reapplied so fast). as far as heals, keep your shield on CD, pom on CD. Renew only if you can spare the global. otherwise try to fake a flash heal and get a full penance in, this way you dont waste a penance CD if trying to use it to fake. if you do manage to fake a kick, make sure that as youre casting your next full heal you continually turn to keep your back to the rogue so you can avoid the gouge
your main defensive cooldown, pain suppression, should be glyphed until you get good enough to be able to predict when theyre about to swap to you. when you use it depends alot on what class the other guy is. its important not to save it until youre 20% hp or something because youre going to either die anyway, or be so far behind on healing that you cant catch up again. I tend to use it early to keep control of the situation

2. main heals are penance, shield, pom, flash heal. secondary heals are renew and greater heal. if youre being focused then follow what I said in point 1. if youre healing someone else up then penance on CD, shield on CD, PoM if youre close to your partner (this way when it bounces to you, you can SW to bounce it back to him). if your partner isnt going to die RIGHT NOW, then I like shield, penance, then greater heal (this will be hasted through your own haste and borrowed time down to like 1.6 seconds or so, assuming you have divine fury). renew is a nice thing to have on your partner when youre running to get a fear on someone. also if you see CC incoming on you, then I try to shield my partner before the CC hits, if he has weakened soul then I try to throw a renew/pom on him instead depending on how much hp he has at the time

3. playing mage/priest it is true that the priest is required to do an equal amount of WORK as the mage, but not really the same amount of DAMAGE. this means that as a priest you need to pick and choose your time to throw your burst out. youre not throwing out constant damage, youre throwing it out when you have a healer in a CC chain, your mage has a CS ready, your target has no defensive cooldowns to use etc. obviously you should throw out damage to help force some of those cooldowns but youll be doing burst dps, not consistent dps.
your main burst spells are holy fire and smite. For mage/priest I tend to spec into divine fury + searing light and glyph smite. you can also keep SW:P and Dev Plague on your target too if their team has no dispeller for those dots
your question about mindsear: I dont see alot of priests using it, but I find it great against rogue teams. say youve nuked a rogue quite hard and he blows his vanish and retreats. mind sear his healer to try to pop the rogue out of stealth again. This is really nice if their healer is a druid or a priest who are more mobile when they heal, because as they run around it increases the area of your aoe. Its also nice in openers to try to pop a rogue/druid out of stealth

IMO priests are quite an unforgiving class for beginners because 1) theyre squishy, 2) low mana regen, 3) small heals and 4) theyre really offensive healers. all of this, and especially point 4, requires alot of experience to know when you should heal, when you should dps, when you should dispel, how to switch from offensive to defensive and back again. But once you get the hang of it, we have ALOT of utility: off/def dispels, hard range nukes, mass dispel, mana burn. these things make us a versatile class but it requires alot of play to understand how and when to use them

oh and bind dispel magic to like every button on your keyboard, youll be using it, alot

Warriors/rogues are the only classes that can kill you before you go oom.

[Gerbill]

Thanks a lot for the replies.
That's exactly what I wanted to know.

Now I still wonder about something though..
What I noticed compared to other classes when healing.. is that priest has so many different heals..

And from your reply I don't see heals like Prayer of Healing or Binding heal, are these just not used or so situational that you don't end up using them really. One of the main reasons I'm asking is because well..
priests have a lot of different skills to use..and I'm having trouble finding more keybindings than I usually use, so any skills that have a lower priority could just be bound elsewhere.

[Revitalize]

People hardly use greater heal in pvp/arena these days.
Id suggest not ever using it.

[Nem2k]

personally I find that warriors are the only class that can kill me before I go oom. I tend to be able to kill rogues 1v1

as for prayer of healing, ive never used it in arena. binding heal is situational, if you really need to heal yourself then use it, but normally only 1 person is going to be focused at any one time in arena so its better to use flash heal
another heal thats really nice is divine hymn. get behind a pillar, DH and get some big heals in while abusing los

however as for keybinds, I keep all of these things bound, even if I dont use them much. I can show you my keybinds if youre having trouble finding space to bind these things. I havent run out of binding space yet as a priest