1. #1

    Holy priest DPS spec

    I know this topic sounds odd, but my Naxx group is just starting out as a group and they want a third healer on bosses. But they really don't need a third healer on trash. We're all sitting around watching health and spamming over each others heals. So they've asked me to dps while we're not on bosses. I've begun creating a lot of hit rating gear since you need a ton of it as a caster to become hit capped. And have slightly modified my spec to include talents like surge of light, and searing light. Once dual spec's come out I'll probably be swapping out between a shadow spec and holy. But for now I don't want to gimp my Healing but to give myself a little extra oompf in the dps department. Oh and the other priest in the group has divine spirit and imp divine spirit so I don't need to go that far into disc. tree. If anyone has any spec suggestions that would be great or any advice.

    Thanks,
    Jerry

  2. #2

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    Good question

    First of all; know that a non-shadow priest simply is not capable of dishing out a lot of DPS. At best you will reach around 1600 DPS with a smite specc.

    However, how close you get to that will largely depend on how much you gimp yourself on the healing.

    First of all, you will need meditation. There is no way around that; your worst enemy will as always be the lack of manaregen. might as well pick Inner Focus while you are there. So the first 14 points in discipline is always mandatory.

    Then it depends.

    You will most likely want to go for Searing Light and Surge of Light. The former will increase your DPS on Smite, which is your only staple dps spell available. The latter will significantly increase your mana efficiency, which will be your major problem.

    You can go down and get mind flay. The mind flay won't be particularly deadly without Darkness, Shadow Power, Shadowform and Misery though. And if you are going that deep in the shadow tree, you lose much of your healing capabilities right off the bat, not to mention sticking you in the shadowform anyway. Still, depends on how much you are planning to heal. Don't write it off easily at least; real DPS lies in the shadow specc.

    In the holy tree, you can easily go all the way down to CoH while picking the holy talents as you go. This will make you heal almost as good as a holy priest. Key healing talents to get along the way is improved Healing, Spirit of Redemption, Spiritual Guidance and Spiritual Healing. This will get you most of the sheer power of the Holy spec. Not everything, but most of it. Also make sure you get Serendipity for mana regen purposes.

    In the discipline tree, you can also go all the way down to Focused Power if you need more DPS. If you're already that deep, pick up a few ranks in Enlightenment as well. That extra spirit will help your regen, as well as your damage if you got Spiritual Guidance.

    Something like this; or variations. There is no true answer here
    http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=000000000000

    If you chose to forego Circle of Healing, you can drop a whole lot of talent points in Holy. In fact, everything below Spiritual healing and Surge of Light is easily droppable. This will cost you in healing ability, but you can go deeper into discipline, earning you up to three points in rapture. Rapture is way better than the anything in the holy tree in terms of healing.

    Something like this. Again, try it out.
    http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=000000000000

    You may also try to pick a few talents in Spirit Tap and improved Spirit tap. Again, that extra spirit will come in real handy if you have Spiritual Guidance, and it may alleviate your mana issues.

    http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...h=000000000000

    The most important thing you can do however is to swap around your gear to suit the fight. On fights like sapphiron, you will likely heal at all times. Make sure you have no hit, it's perfectly useless. On fights like the dancing boss however, you should never need to cast a single heal, and should be hit capped. There are multiple in-betweens.

    Either way, 3.1 will get you dual specc, making this a lot easier
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  3. #3

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    I'd say it's safe to assume they aren't relying on your DPS to down trash mobs (and if they are, have fun on Patchwork). This being the case I really wouldn't change your spec or gear at all. Remember the big picture here is downing the bosses, not the trash, so you really want to spec and gear for that specifically. Putting talent points into damage abilities means you had to take them out of healing abilities, generally, which will gimp your Healing Per Second on a boss fight. Likewise, gear that has +hit on it is missing out on other stats... generally spirit, crit, or spell power which will benefit you infinitely more than +hit .

    Like you said though once duel specs come out going shadow would probably be a good idea if you wanted to boost your damage, but even so, if you're in a healing raid spot then they shouldn't be relying on your dps, and therefore any damage you put out should be an afterthought and not worth gearing for.

  4. #4

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    i think a disc smite spec might be better for dps, if you're trying this out.

    your rotation in this spec is

    shadow word pain--holy fire--smite spam (till either dot runs out)

    a spec i've been playing around with and in my shadow gear on the test dummies i did about 1500-1800 dps with about 2250 spell power. in raid it would be considerably more due to spirit tap proccing. the 2 points in inspiration are floating points that can be put anywhere in the holy tree first 2-3 levels. and one point in surge of light for spirit of redemption can be taken out.

    http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVIbz...0boZcxtMbbVbZh

    as far as gearing for this spec main focus should be hit rating the hit cap may be like 446 =( due to their being no hit cap reduction. then grab spell power and and stack a ton of crit to proc surge of light. spirit gives a nice amount of bonuses to this spec too. haste in this spec becomes a detriment. with the cast times/mana you'll run out of mana very fast if you have haste.

  5. #5

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    Just dps with your pure healing spec..

    It's ok as long as you put on some hit gear.

  6. #6

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec


    Keep your healing build and spam mind sear, that's all you need for trash.


  7. #7

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcMk...oZ0gthbbVbZG0b

    that spec might be fun to try, but i'd never actually pay the 100g to do it (respec then spec back to a SANE spec)

    i dont even think smite or holy fire have glyphs

  8. #8

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    I hold with the "use your healing spec" theme on some posts.

    Without talents to improve hit you need about 400+ hit rating (/lol)

    As someone said if you need your dps to get through trash, no way you are getting past some boss fights.

  9. #9

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    Quote Originally Posted by Nimladris
    I hold with the "use your healing spec" theme on some posts.

    Without talents to improve hit you need about 400+ hit rating (/lol)

    As someone said if you need your dps to get through trash, no way you are getting past some boss fights.
    They don't need more then 2 healers to do thrash, and speed up thrash by letting him/her dps.

    Therefore, he/she only needs 5-6% hit.

  10. #10

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    Quote Originally Posted by Silai
    Keep your healing build and spam mind sear, that's all you need for trash.


  11. #11

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    Quote Originally Posted by Raptorg
    They don't need more then 2 healers to do thrash, and speed up thrash by letting him/her dps.

    Therefore, he/she only needs 5-6% hit.
    I am agreeing with the person doing dps on trash, just not the need to have a special spec that gimps his/her healing to do so.

    /agreed hit is less for trash than boss, my bad

  12. #12

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    Thank you all for all of your input. I plan on tweaking my build with a few points but keeping my healing build in-tact for now. And for all trash switch out any pieces I can for hit rating/ crit items. And yes spam mind sear on the aoe packs.

    And its not so much needing the extra dps to handle trash. Its more why have a third healer and bore the heck out of them if the extra one can throw some dps around. We've cleared spider wing, military wing, and Plague wing. We've done some bosses in the other wings but I can't think of them atm. Not even nearly a full clear yet but we've only been running it together twice now I think.

  13. #13
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    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    what classes are the other 2 healers in your raid? maybe it is wise to let 1 of them dps and you raidheal on trash

  14. #14

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    Quote Originally Posted by iktankniet
    what classes are the other 2 healers in your raid? maybe it is wise to let 1 of them dps and you raidheal on trash
    Out of all healers the priest is the most capable dps.

    So it honestly doesn't matter, he's already playing the best healerclass for dps.

    One could ocourse, argue that the disc priest(if there is one) is better, which is true, but the disc priest is also a more capable single target healer.
    And talents don't affect Mind Sear that much for either spec. So in the end, it doesn't matter.

  15. #15

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    IMO stick with your regular healing build as others have said but for large amounts of trash... either spam Mind Sear or get in there and just spam Holy Nova.

    My Holy Nova hits for about 900 non-crit, which isn't awesome, but it's not totally worthless either (helps out on Gluth skeles for sure).

    http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ubashi&n=Synge

  16. #16

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    just stay same spec, your tanks will do aoe pulls and go holy nova spammeage ftw, do spec surge of light though, it's not just instant smites, it is also instant flash heal which cost no mana (greater heal + instant flash heal VERY nice to top a tank off.

    Seeing as all pulls are AoE them down pulls, I'd say simply dance in your group and spam holy nova, and you can use the instant smite (or FH) procs you get from these to do additional damage or fast heals

  17. #17

    Re: Holy priest DPS spec

    Quote Originally Posted by andiamo
    I know this topic sounds odd, but my Naxx group is just starting out as a group and they want a third healer on bosses. But they really don't need a third healer on trash. We're all sitting around watching health and spamming over each others heals. So they've asked me to dps while we're not on bosses. I've begun creating a lot of hit rating gear since you need a ton of it as a caster to become hit capped. And have slightly modified my spec to include talents like surge of light, and searing light. Once dual spec's come out I'll probably be swapping out between a shadow spec and holy. But for now I don't want to gimp my Healing but to give myself a little extra oompf in the dps department. Oh and the other priest in the group has divine spirit and imp divine spirit so I don't need to go that far into disc. tree. If anyone has any spec suggestions that would be great or any advice.

    Thanks,
    Jerry
    Lolsmite ftw!

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