Spriesty RAAAAAAGE!

[Rooflesstoofless]

I usually level my toons through Battlegrounds. I can't stand questing and doing a quest vs mindlessly smacking mobs in a given zone are about equal in my book. My priest is the first caster class I've attempted to level through BGs and I am running into some issues that leave me more than a little frustrated.

Problems I've run into have been and hope to get insight on how to overcome are:
1. Fear doesn't seem to work very well at times. I know a lot of people, including myself, have the BoA trinket to break cc...but even those that don't or just don't use it at that time seem to take about three steps before turning right around and beating on me once again.

2. Ability lockout after stun. This is new to me. A paladin or similar class stuns me and I survive the initial assault and my abilities are able to be used once again...but fear or shield are still not usable for several seconds after the initial stun is over.

3. Rogues...nuff said...lol.

If I can stay outside the meat wall I can do really well. Just as well I can help a melee own the battlefield if they

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I've tried going disc but it can be frustrating in a different sense. You end up with teammates running off by themselves and out of my casting distance into a crowd of 3+ of the other team and then rage about not being healed. I also run into the issue that the opposing team is usually smart enough to zero in on me while I rarely get any melee/caster dps to help me out. I also run into the same shield/fear issue (see above) which makes survivability an issue atm.

I'm level 74 atm and getting roflstomped at every corner is starting to wear on me...I look at other caster classes being able to cc more effectively all the while nuking other classes and it makes me think that I am wasting my time with a priest.

[Mazi]

Every second (or something, general usage here) CC does a check for Hit, thus it can break right after you use it (mind control says hi!)

[Sartecho]

I'm not sure about the ability lockout issues you're describing but I wonder if the fear issue is rated to the levels of your opponents? I'd wager that you're not spell hit capped for enemies that are above your level. Is it possible that there are some partial resists or something along those lines happening? I'm not up on the current mechanics for that spell, but I know that there used to be spells in the game where your chance to resist was calculated multiple times during the duration of the spell.

And, yeah, being a healer in a PUG can be really frustrating at any level. >.< You're able to have an enormous impact on the outcome of the game but only if the people that you're healing aren't fools. You're at their mercy.

[icedwarrior]

1.) Fear can break upon damage, especially if you're using certain abilities, such as Mana Burn. Sucks, but that's how it works. =/
2.) The only case I can think of when this occurs is when a Paladin uses Hammer of Justice against you when you're casting a certain school of magic. Pretend you're in the middle of casting Vampiric Touch, and he successfully lands Hammer of Justice. Your shadow school will be locked out for a certain amount of time, even if you trinket out of the stun. (At least, this is how it used to work, might have changed since I last played.)
3.) Rogues...rogues dominate pretty much any bracket, up until 85. And even then, they're stupidly effective. Not much you can do about that other than reroll Rogue.

In terms of rolling Disc, that's just part of being a healer. It's not for everyone. It's very frustrating not getting peels / getting raged at because they can't properly play, but when you're getting helped / peeled, I find that it's the most enjoyable thing in all of WoW. But that's just my personal opinion.

Just keep at it, and have a competent friend/guildie/whatever roll with you that you know will assist you when that rogue is stunning/killing you and it'll go much, much smoother.

[Rugdoctor]

I didn't PvP at low levels, hell aside from a few instances of world PvP before I server transferred I never seen a lick of PvP until I was 85 and had a full set of the 359 craftable... However with my limited experience I can tell you that SPriest PvP probably doesn't get very reliable until you have all your tools at your disposal. Hit caps for fear, Mind Blast rooting targets on crit, Dispersion is an ability that will almost always be on cooldown, our Disarm talent, increase bubble absorption from Disc talents... All our survival tools don't become available for quite some time, until you have all of those things I suspect it's just a game of trying to kill something before you inevitably get annihilated.

[Sakamae]

Problems I've run into have been and hope to get insight on how to overcome are:
1. Fear doesn't seem to work very well at times. I know a lot of people, including myself, have the BoA trinket to break cc...but even those that don't or just don't use it at that time seem to take about three steps before turning right around and beating on me once again.

2. Ability lockout after stun. This is new to me. A paladin or similar class stuns me and I survive the initial assault and my abilities are able to be used once again...but fear or shield are still not usable for several seconds after the initial stun is over.

3. Rogues...nuff said...lol.

1.) If you have DoTs on any of the targets, the damage from them will sometimes break them out of fear. The tooltip for Psychic Scream tells you this. Also, some classes have abilities that can get them out of fear without popping a trinket, warriors for sure.

2.) I'm not sure if you are also getting interrupted at the same time as a stun. Rebuke, Wind Shear, and Counterspell among others will lock you out, and it could be a combination of things from certain classes that is causing this (Hammer was already mentioned).

3.) At 85, not so much anymore. You have a lot more tools to deal with them that will make it much better.

You have to learn how to kite, and kite well, as a shadow priest (or any caster for that matter). This will get you a long way on survivability in BGs. The lower levels of PvP are extremely unbalanced. Blizzard knows this, but hasn't come up with a way to fix the issue without it snowballing into PvE. Stick with it, it will get much better as you get some more tools.

[Deleted]

I find DoT classes in low level BGs to be quite depressing sometimes. The DoTs take forever to kill your opponents while they just burst you down in 3-5 seconds. However, if you're good at not getting focused on, its lots of fun DoTting everything in sight and see your damage done soar through the roof. I think lower level BGs experience will get better once you get Mind Spike.

[AetherMcLoud]

FYI, the Paladin Hammer = Interrupt functionality was removed in the patch that gave them a true interrupt in Rebuke. So Hammer no longer interrupts, it's a normal stun. Dunno what Lockout the OP is experiencing after stuns, maybe lags?

[DrasticSapTactics]

1. Fear doesn't seem to work very well at times. I know a lot of people, including myself, have the BoA trinket to break cc...but even those that don't or just don't use it at that time seem to take about three steps before turning right around and beating on me once again.

2. Ability lockout after stun. This is new to me. A paladin or similar class stuns me and I survive the initial assault and my abilities are able to be used once again...but fear or shield are still not usable for several seconds after the initial stun is over.

3. Rogues...nuff said...lol.

1) Undead can racial out of fear. Warriors can zerk out of fear. All players can trinket out of fear. And lastly, fear breaks on some damage.

2) There is no way you're being locked out of both Fear and Divine Shield, unless you somehow got interupted during both a Mind Blast/Mind Flay and then a Heal. These abilities are from different schools of magic. It sounds like you're just being silenced from a lock, a mage, a dk, a hunter, or another priest.

3) Fear rogues immediately and dot them so they have to cloak or remain out of stealth. Then enjoy your rez timer.

Shadow is a difficult class to level through BG's - I'm in the midst of leveling another one (I went Tauren for the stun) and recently switched over to Disc. Here's why - shadow has the worst mobility of any caster. We need to take the healing 4-pc pvp bonus at max level and if you're serious about shadowing in the BG's, you need to take 2/2 Veiled Shadows, 2/2 Phantasm, and Glyph of Fade, so you can do something about getting out of those snares.

Lastly, you have an amazing CC that is usually underused by new priests - Mind Control. Put it somewhere on your bars and use it often. At your level, you can single-handedly keep a trinketless healer CC'd by chaining together Mind Control -> Mind Control (walk them towards you) -> Fear -> Silence -> Psychic Horror -> Mind Control.