How is Priest doing in 5.1?

[Deleted]

Hey there,

Mop is out for a while now and the first charakter I leveled was my priest. I leveled as shadow and for instances I used holy for faster invites. Hitting 90 i felt extremly underpowered as healer and in battlegrounds I was getting raped mostly by warriors. And I was disappointed with the lvl 90 talents which all were shiny but more or less useless in most situations.
Now that was a while ago and I leveled my monk to 90 and did some LFR and random battleground.
I must say I enjoy the easy playstyle of monk A LOT when questing is so ridiculously fast that I get the feeling of flying through stuff, pulling 5+ mobs and press 2 buttons and be fine. So I enjoy the playstyle, but that weaponless combat and no cool transmogs (my opinion leather sets dont look good except some rogue sets) + beeing a fat panda starts pissing me off. So I thought about giving my priest a second shot. After reading disc got some buffs in 5.1 I wonder if disc is now viable again. I play mostly random battlegrounds after work or doing LFR. Can't really decide which spec to go for PVE and PVP because I played all 3 a lot over the last years an want to go pvp wise with the most viable option.
So what do u think about Priest overall? Is it worth it or sould I stick to my monk and hope for cooler sets coming in the future and maybe racechange? I got also a mage(89) and a rogue(86) in the pipe but can't stand that lvl zones anymore. To clarify the priest is 7 years old and for a long time my main and with mop I just had enough being crap at the start of every xpack waiting months for buffs and see all the other classes get the cool stuff. just wondering maybe I'm to long in azeroth but I singned a packt with the devil (that 1 year subscription to geht D3 for free) maybe I'm just tired of WoW. Please write what you think but don't flame me pls.

[Markle]

As i understand it (don't quote me i don't pvp) right now priests are quiet weak in pvp with the exception of maybe shadow. For PVE priests of all varieties holy/disc/shadow are quite strong. Disc was never not viable this expansion and have a lot of raid utility. If you can manage you mana well Holy is also very strong and shadow puts out some very competitive dps numbers especially in multi-dot fights.

However if you are just doing random battle grounds and LFR, just play whatever you are having fun with as skill and throughput numbers are not really put to the test there.

As for the level 90 talents i could see that they wouldn't be groundbreaking in pvp but they are all very strong in PVE. I find my self utilizing them frequently in raids.

[arleni1988]

Hi there.
I realy dont PVP much, so cant say much there.
But for PVE, disc is good, nice healing and mana effective. Holy is good but youre mana dissapear faster then the flash runns^^
Shadow(witch is my main specc) is viable, but a bit low on single target dps. Where pretty fine on multi target fights atm tho. A small to medium buff to our single target dips would be amazing and put us up too parr with other classes.

[Dorfie]

PvP: Shadow is over powered, Disc is probably tied with monks for the weakest healer at the moment

PvE: Disc is probably the strongest healer at the moment, Holy is a bit underwhelming but definitely viable if you really enjoy it and aren't pushing progression. I don't PvE as shadow but I've heard some SPriests expressing disappointment in their DPS, although they bring valuable raid utility.

[Danner]

I'm in full agreement with Markle here.

In PVP, healing priests are pretty bad. There has been some twitter comments on buffing disc priests for PVP, but as always Holy PVP is all but a lost cause, if you are targetted, you are pretty dead; I've been burned from 100% to 0% in the duration of one stunlock while wearing PVP gear more than once last week. Survivability and mana seems to be the major issue for both specs, holy more so than disc. All PVP healers suffer from the problem of not being a resto shaman though. With the exception of resto shammies.

Shadowpriests do okay in PVP, but suffer from the perpetual issue of being a somewhat squishy clothie in world of meleecraft.

In PVE, a long long long long long long LONG sequence of dramatic buffs has made healing priests great. Disc is widely regarded as OP, showing the best throughput, doing a lot of that throughput as shields which always are useful for countering mechanics, and has a borderline infinite mana situation right now. It is a question of time before the nerfbat swings. Holy is extremely strong in its active chakra role, be that aoe healing, single target healing or even DPS. A correctly glyphed holypriest in chastise chakra often out-dpses a bad shadowpriest. The downside is that the holypriest is the bottom of the barrely by a longshot in the off-chakra role, making it a very inflexible spec if you want to stay efficient. Main problem with holy is as always that it is too easy to draw yourself oom unless you hold back a lot AND play efficient, so chakra is a very large objection right now. Dev's solution to the issue by buffing chakra just enhanced the issue IMO... Don't get me wrong though; holy is strong. Disc just happens to be better.

Shadowpriests do okayish in PVE too, generally staying in the middle of the field in terms of DPS. AOE-damage relies on multidotting, which is no longer super strong. Since the spec can offheal somewhat, it's a popular healer for challenge modes and raids needing "just a little bit more healing in phase transition X". Especially if given tranquility though symbiosis.

As a returning priest, I think you will love the lvl 90 talents though. They are SO sparkly. Priests really won the lottery of best-looking lvl 90 talents. The new lvl 87 talent is ... interesting (especially in PVP), and the new survival talent which allows you to fade is fun due to the mindgames of vanishing. It's what fade should have been.

[Deleted]

Thank you for your feedback!

Sounds like PvP spec is going to be shadow! Can't wait to melt some faces. Tell me can spriest kill DKs now? If yes it seems some serious revenge is on the way
For PvE I consider Disc and maybe switch to Holy later on.

[arleni1988]

The middle of the pac statement for shadow is generally not true in single target boss fights. We can get a little bit over the middle of the pac if we have good proccs, but with normal proccs where closer to the bottom than too the top. Somthing like making MB cd scale with haste would probbably fix that tho. When that is said, we do bring a lot of usefull tools to a raid, but then again, so do many other speccs aswell..

[Alanar]

Thank you for your feedback!

Sounds like PvP spec is going to be shadow! Can't wait to melt some faces. Tell me can spriest kill DKs now? If yes it seems some serious revenge is on the way
For PvE I consider Disc and maybe switch to Holy later on.

Okey gotta touch on it a bit, yea shadow pvp is fine, there are quite some good guides on youtube, for using the right talents. Psyfiend is nerfed quite a bit so that leaves it to not the best option, pick void tendrils. devine star is buffed so the self healing is around 40 k every 15 sec, quite good.

I wouldn't call shadow OP thats a bit overrated but we are in a fine spot for BG's and 3's.

I dont do Pve, but Aoe still sucks. But it's better.

And yes we can nuke Dk's now. The spectral guise nef is also quite annoying so that leaves it to ur own choice, want a dispellable bubble, a stealth that breaks on anything or a 30% heal on 2 min choice lol (sorry had to)

Anyway shadow is quite okey for pvp dont worry. stacked Resil/pvp power.

[Deleted]

I leveld my Priest to 90 and I remember so much that frustrated me.

I was like:
Cool finally Priest got some CC and Stuff.
Then I went into the battlegrounds just to find out that all abilitys that sounded realy cool and promising turned out bad.
Spectral Guise broke imediately or all pets just ignored the stealth completely and I didn't even get them off for a second.
Then I respecced to angelic bulwark. Doing some duels and a mage stole it from me! Or it got dispelled. So completely useless against certain classes. Didn' took long that most players figured out that Psyfiend can be feared, stunned, nuked etc...
Everything that sounded great turned out shit, the one or the other way. Void shift was pretty cool as you could use it on your shadowfiend but that got fixed later i heared. So i was completely disappointed and rolled monk.

Happy to hear that spriest is doing good. Divine Star sounds very good for self healing. Tryed it out in 5.0 but it didn' do much dmg nor healing. Im just wondering I read so much about other classes from blizzard but priest is mostly left out in any discussion.

[Deleted]

Happy to hear that spriest is doing good. Divine Star sounds very good for self healing. Tryed it out in 5.0 but it didn' do much dmg nor healing. Im just wondering I read so much about other classes from blizzard but priest is mostly left out in any discussion.

DS recently got a huge buff which makes it worth speccing now. I'm getting about 60k per cast self healing (non-crit) and ~25k per hit damage, as shadow.

[Alanar]

I leveld my Priest to 90 and I remember so much that frustrated me.

I was like:
Cool finally Priest got some CC and Stuff.
Then I went into the battlegrounds just to find out that all abilitys that sounded realy cool and promising turned out bad.
Spectral Guise broke imediately or all pets just ignored the stealth completely and I didn't even get them off for a second.
Then I respecced to angelic bulwark. Doing some duels and a mage stole it from me! Or it got dispelled. So completely useless against certain classes. Didn' took long that most players figured out that Psyfiend can be feared, stunned, nuked etc...
Everything that sounded great turned out shit, the one or the other way. Void shift was pretty cool as you could use it on your shadowfiend but that got fixed later i heared. So i was completely disappointed and rolled monk.

Happy to hear that spriest is doing good. Divine Star sounds very good for self healing. Tryed it out in 5.0 but it didn' do much dmg nor healing. Im just wondering I read so much about other classes from blizzard but priest is mostly left out in any discussion.

Yea this happend to me, but instead to reroll i tried figuring ways to beat those weaknesses.

STacked resil to 61% and pvp power is up to 50% atm, i am doing quite olright there. Using devine star right now realy helps to keep urself up. Like i said earlier it does 23+23 K = roughly 46 k healing to myself, the damage aint so great but the cool thing is that it doesn't require huge amount of mana and has a 15 sec cooldown, it's a nice fun abillity. I still use spectral guise cus it's nice for a good opener in some ways and when ur not stunned it can still stop casts+using Phantasme =saving my life so many times.

U have to find ur own twist to it realy, for example melee is training us most of the time, so i specced to it it wont happen.

i am using (void tendrils, inner fire glyph, renew glyph, Devine star, glyph of binding) This is great for ur own surv.

Just try some stuff out and see what works the best for ur own playstyle.

Some people might like cascade or Halo better, sure but it's just preferance IMO.

PS These are rough pvp numbers/ways for shadow btw i dont play disc/holy.

[Vargur]

PvP: Shadow is over powered, Disc is probably tied with monks for the weakest healer at the moment

PvE: Disc is probably the strongest healer at the moment, Holy is a bit underwhelming but definitely viable if you really enjoy it and aren't pushing progression. I don't PvE as shadow but I've heard some SPriests expressing disappointment in their DPS, although they bring valuable raid utility.

Yeah, it's OK-ish in multitarget situations, 2-3 targets kind of low, 3++ mind sear owns. 1 target... well, we get shafted.
Overall it feels low, probably due to the overpoweredness of other specs.

[Irielle]

Shadow priests really aren't about high dps. They do however bring a ton of utility to a raid and as long as their dps isn't terrible they are worth having. Disc is in a great place with the buffs and is really competitive if played correctly. Holy is in a decent place, with regen being a bit of an issue (imo).

[snaxattax]

disc is phenomenal in pve, shadow is considered to be fairly strong in pvp in the right comps.

shadow pve is mediocre - we're pretty much middle of the road dps except on fights requiring mass dispel (so the disc priests can keep spamming POH), or involve a constant trickle of adds (twist of fate talent is insanely strong in this scenario, like on elegon and to a lesser extent the spirit kings (moreso on heroic)).

our stack and spam aoe (mindsear) got significantly buffed, and is up there with surv hunters now, but our multidotting is relatively weak compared to warlocks. shadow needs a cooldown, or extremely strong set bonuses or it will be a dustbin jokespec next raid tier.

[Deleted]

Pvp: Shadow is solid. Disc is a joke at best (I've never been this frustrated playing a spec in pvp before, I can't think of a single comp where I'd want a disc over a shammy). Holy is pmuch in the same boat as disc or even worse.

Pve: Disc is really strong, the best (burst) raidhealer which is what most fights are about. Kinda poor when it comes to tankhealing but overall the best healer in-game atm. Healing holy is inferior to disc on everything but a few selected fights (tsulong, garalon). Shadow is one of the worst specs when it comes to pure dps, provides a fair bit of utility though. Dps holy has a few issues (mobility, very limited gear that's viable) but provides about the same damage as shadow with the best utility of any dps in the game.

[Outofmana]

Holy priest is in a dire state right now because of the chakra-bull. It was never good design to begin with but indeed with the recent buffs to Chakra it has worsened the situation as Danner pointed out a few posts above. If only they would remove chakra and give us both passive buffs, only then I can see the hpriest being on bar with the rest of the healing bunch.

[marathal]

Overall in my rep valor/crafted, no Tier pieces, well below haste level, 6100 ish, iLvL 477 I feel like I do a decent amount of damage. I am not crushing the top of the chart, nor am I at the bottom. Middle to bottom, middle to top depending on the fights and who else may be in group. I do not swap around spells based on fights so I know that could probably improve my numbers some. I have limited time to play so prefer to excel with a set build. Currently using Divine Star over Halo since the addition of Divine Star to the Halo pro add on, it makes getting a double hit very easy to manage.

Someone always has to be at the bottom. I am happy to play my priest and do the best I can. There are times I feel over powered, just like there are time I feel I am the weakest, so Balanced Achieved?

[notdryad]

Discipline - Overpowered due to Spirit Shell and nearly infinite mana. Discipline destroys every spec on HPS while bringing great CDs.
Shadow - Middle of the road DPS with strong utility.
Holy - Near bottom HPS for 10m and 25m; Guardian Spirit and Divine Hymn are still good CDs, but they don't make up for subpar HPS. The spec is in a pretty pitiful state right now.

It's good if you don't play Holy.