disc: first stepping into arena

[phatpat]

so ive been leveling up my priest, ecstatic to get to 85 and start pvping. i first plan on bg'ing and getting some decent start up gear, but cant wait to start arena.
as of now, ill prob be doing some 2's with either a rogue or mage friend, and hopefully some 3's as well. ive looked through the stickies, but what i really couldnt find were some great strategic disc pvp tips.
for example...pillar humping. whats are the basics? juking interrupts, etc.
i wanna know the basic things that disc priests need to know to get to a decent rating. i know it wont come quickly, but obviously having some of that knowledge will help and allow me to begin practicing early on
thanks

[Rollie]

InterruptBar is a great way to track if your fake cast was successful.

Look through the top Arena Disc Priest players to understand their talents (aka, copy their talents) and see if you like their gems and enchants.

Priests are lucky and they don't need that many macros but make sure everything is keybinded, including damage spells such as Mind Spike, Mind Blast, SW: P, SW: D.
In 2s and 3s, I almost never bother using Inner Will over Inner Fire because you lose too much armor and if you're caught by a melee without Inner Fire on, you will die fast.
In 2s, especially, if you're with a class that has a lot of burst potential, consider even using your Shadow Fiend to help with the DPS because right now it can crit up to 10k on a single hit.

One problem early people see in arenas is the lack of communication between players on Vent, especially the healers. Call out if you need a peel, if you're going to use your Psychic Scream and how long until the cooldown is up, if you're gonna manaburn someone or you're getting manaburnt, if your mind controlling someone away, etc. It helps a great deal.

[Aleysia]

Learn to hide behind pillars and step out to throw a quick heal. You don't want to be caught out in the open unless you have a huge advantage (e.g. against another healer/dps team, you have a lot more mana) or your partner can peel/cc, or you need to prevent the other healer from drinking or something.

If you see a hex or sheep coming for example, you can just run back behind your pillar to avoid it.

Shadowfiend does a lot of damage now, so sync that with your partner's CDs to get a kill.

The 4-piece mooncloth set is mandatory, and do not bubble yourself pre-emptively for that reason.

You'll learn mostly through experience, but pillar humping is definitely something to know right off the bat. =p

[DiscoGhost]

you've gota have 2 mind sets in 2s and 3s as disc.

in 2s most of the time you can be pretty offensive, eg- mana burns, offensive dispels.
in 3s you've got be pretty defensive cuz theres always 2 dps hitting your team.

watching videos to study what people do and how they react can be very useful.
i recently came up with the idea to start frapsing my matches so i can rewatch them and study what i do wrong and how i can improve.
havnt started yet but im sure when i do, ill improve.

[phatpat]

awesome, thanks for the replies. gems/stats/glyphs/talents ive already looked into/are easily accessed, but the strategic tips are a real help!

[Deleo]

I can recommend watching videos and analyzing them. It really helps. If you can't find a dpriest any healer will do as well, just so you can get the idea. See where they stand, what type of spells they cast. When they play defensive/offensive, .....

[Thunderfall]

Well first, if you are looking for some quick rating and points, your comp is very important in 2's. I would suggest taking a mage over a rogue. Simply because a mage can peel you better. Yes a rogue can peel but generally need those cds for trying to kill something. As far as strategy, 2 must have macros I always use are for casting penance on myself, (nothing is worse than trying to heal yourself and instead doing crap dmg to a mellee) and mana burn on my focus target. Basically your main strat is to avoid damage as much as possible, stay out of los of casters, ranged etc, only popping out to bubble/penance your partner. If your partner is putting heavy pressure on somebody, you should either be offensively dispelling his target,(depends on target) or mana burning the other healer if he has to spam heals to keep his buddy alive. If you have a mellee with good interupts on you, and you need heals and no peels are available, first use your instant stuff of course, but if you are new to juking interupts you can cast mana burn. Generally a mellee wants to protect his healers mana so he will interupt that locking you out of your shadow school, wasting his interupt allowing you to cast your heal. Also in longer fights, dont be afraid to use your cd's like shadowfiend early, if you get down to 1/3 mana use it, it will be available that much quicker. if u wait till 5% they will ff you or cc your fiend. if you get the opportunity to mana burn several times, pop your power infusion and spam the burn. If you are helping your dps finish off your target, mind spike is infinitely better than smite (you shouldnt take and smite talents as disc pvp) for several reasons, one dmg and cast time is better, second if if mind spike gets interupted you can still heal unlike smite (the reason smite sucks in pvp). this post is a little disorganized but should be helpful.

[Kawakazi]

Penance - It is the greatest ability in the world to fish for an interrupt. Low CD, low mana cost, let one or two bolts shoot out and stop it and try to laugh but can't because that Mage dry silenced. Get it? Cause laughing makes noise and you can't...laugh...while...

Anyways, overall in most of your games, you are going to want an offensive playstyle, unless you are doing 5s. Reason being is that even though it is pretty hard to kill a Priest at the moment, they still are not going to outlast any other healer, so either jump on every kill opportunity with your burst, or mana burn a lot...pref the first one though.

Pillar hump like it is a tree and you are Archimonde.

Drink bug the living crap out of everything. To drink bug, be out of combat, start up a Greater Heal, and spam PW:S on your partner, and while spamming PW:S, spam w/e your water is. If done correctly you will get both of them off and sit down and drink.

This one is insanely situational, but equally fun. If you have a Mage on your team, you can Mind Control someone and cast PW:S on them, then have your Mage Polymorph them. If your opponents are dumb enough to not right click off the shield, you can get like 7 Mana Burns off if not interrupted. GL doing this one tho.

Just a few tips

Edit: Oh and as of 11:24 EST, Hydra is streaming on Hydramist.net, might wanna watch that and worship him while you are at it.