Suppressing the Pain – A look at levelling a Priest through PvP (Part 3)

Same disclaimer as the previous two parts (which can be found here and here).

What this isn’t.

This isn’t a guide to PvPing at 85 although some of it may be useful to Priests at 85. In fact it isn’t really a guide at all, more of a practical look at making levelling through PvP less painful.

UI/Raid frames/Key binds

Whilst I’m not going to tell anyone else what to use, as it’s a very personal thing, I will say this: take the time to mentally (or on paper) map out where you are going to put each important spell right from the start. Also try and keep key binds similar from character to character. For example all my dispel type spells, (dispel magic, purge, spellsteal etc) live on the “R” key. Another example would be my expensive fast heals, which all live on “G”. That way, it’s easier to remember your bindings in the heat of the moment.

Glyphs

We now get our first set of glyphs at lv 25, then again at 50 and finally at 75.

Prime

Available at 25, we have the following:

• Penance: Reduces the cooldown of Penance by 2 seconds.
• Power Word: Shield: Your PW: Shield also heals the target for 2o percent of the absorption amount. (Shields are currently “bugged” in that shielding people doesn’t put you in combat, allowing you to take advantage of your out of combat regen whilst saving lives).
• Flash Heal: Increases the critical effect chance of your flash heal on targets below 25 percent health by 10 percent.
• Renew: Increases the amount healed by your Renew by 10 percent.

As Disc, it’s a fairly easy choice. Penance is your bread and butter spell, used for everything from interrupting people trying to ninja flags to healing others, so being able to cast it more frequently is a good thing. As Holy it’s bit a more lacklustre. Personally I would take a flat 10 percent bigger renew over a chance that my flash heal will crit if I’m healing someone below 25 percent health.

At 50,

As Disc, my second Prime glyph would be Power Word: Shield. However the following have also become available:

• Lightwell: Increases the total number of charges by 5.
• Prayer of Healing: Your prayer of healing spell also heals an additional 20 percent of it’s initial heal over 6 seconds.

Again as Holy it’s a slightly harder choice to make as  Power Word: Shield and Prayer of Healing are valid options, albeit somewhat lacklustre. If you intend taking Body and Soul and I imagine everyone levelling as Holy through PvP does, then the shield glyph gives you a bit more bang for your buck (as Mr Harpy’s Canadian relatives would say). If like me, you love Alterac Valley, then Prayer of Healing is useful, especially in games which end up coming down to resources, which happens quite often in the levelling brackets. Bottom line, if you’re combining dungeons with your PvP, I’d go for Prayer of Healing but if I was just running battleground after battleground, I would consider the shield one, however I think it’s one of the situations where 99 percent of the time, you’ll wish you had the other one.

By the time you reach 75, these two are added into the mix.

• Guardian Spirit: Reduces the cooldown of your Guardian Spirit by 30 seconds
• Power Word: Barrier: Increases the healing received whilst under the barrier by 10 percent

Finally, we have an obvious choice for Holy. Guardian Spirit is literally a life saver, being able to cast it more frequently is awesome. Because it’s not dispel-able, in mass PvP, dps often back off allowing you to take advantage of the healing buff Guardian Spirit provides so whether it procs or not, it’s a great spell to use in PvP. For Disc, my third Prime glyph choice would be one of the following, either Renew

Major

• Inner Fire: Increases the armor gained from Inner Fire by 50 percent.
• Smite: Your smite spell inflicts an additional 20 percent damage against targets afflicted by Holy Fire.
• Divine Accuracy: Increases your chance to hit with Smite and Holy Fire by 18 percent.
• Psychic Scream: Targets of your Psychic Scream spell now tremble in place instead of fleeing in fear, but the cooldown of Psychic Scream is increased by 3 seconds.
• Reduces the cooldown of Fade by 9 seconds

For both specs, I’d take Inner Fire here. The biggest issue, particularly at low levels are physicals, hunters/rogues/warriors so more armour is always welcome.

At lv 50, our choices include the above plus

• Desperation: Allows Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit to be cast whilst stunned.
• Dispel Magic: Your dispel magic spells also heals the target for 3 percent of it’s maximum health when you successfully dispel something.

For Disc, I’d go for Desperation every time. It’s saved my life more times than I care to count.

As Holy things are slightly more complex, whereas Disc gets access to Pain Suppression at lv 49, Holy can’t reach Guardian Spirit until lv 69, so there is no point taking Desperation at lv 50. So personally, I’d go for Dispel Magic at this point. Yes, it’s not hugely exciting  but it’s another instant and instants in PvP against opponents with half a brain are king.

At lv 75, we now have access to:

• Circle of Healing: Your circle of healing spell now heals one additional target
• Fearward: Reduces the cooldown and duration of Fearward by 60 seconds
• Holy Nova: Reduces the global cooldown of your Holy Nova by 0.5 seconds
• Mass Dispel: Reduces the cast time of your Mass Dispel by 1 second
• Prayer of Mending: The first charge of your Prayer of Mending spell heals for an additional 60 percent

Yet again, an easy choice for Disc, Mass Dispel is a key ability at later level PvP. Being able to swiftly remove those bubbles and iceblocks can make all the difference as to whether you get a quick kill or not. As Holy, I would swap Prayer of Mending with Dispel Magic (at lv 68) and then pick up Mass Dispel as my final Major glyph.

Minor

The choice at lv 25 is far from stellar. Personally I would take Fortitude until lv 34, when I would switch it with Levitate. Being able to leap happily off the LM or down to the GM without the fear of suddenly realising you’re out of light feathers seconds before you go splat in front of a crowd of Horde/Alliance is priceless.

At 50, I’d take back Fortitude, although with the grace period after every death in a battleground where buffs are free, it’s more for the quality of life aspect outside battlegrounds, especially if you’re running dungeons.

At 75, I’d pick up glyph of shadowfiend (recieve 5 percent of your maximum mana if your shadowfiend dies from damage).

Dispels

First set up your unit frames to show Unstable Affliction as a debuff in it’s own right. That way, it will always be the top debuff to show and then you can make informed decisions as to whether it’s worth risking the silence + damage to yourself to dispel.

Things you really want to dispel!

• Paladins with wings. Whenever you encounter a Paladin past the Avenging Wrath level it’s worth doing a bit of pre-emptive dispelling to make sure it doesn’t take too many spell rotates to get rid of those wings. The burst is just too high to want to heal through. Keep yourself pre-shielded as well.
• Shamans in ghostwolf. If they are running away, particularly if they have a flag clamped in their sticky paws. Plus half of them don’t seem to realise it’s dispel-able so watching them pop up, stand still for a second and then recast repeatedly is good for some amusement.
• Poor unfortunates encased in ice.
• CC from people helping you.
• Your vehicles in SotA. Get those snares off a.s.a.p. That’s an example of one situation where I would say it’s better to eat a silence from Unstable Affliction rather than let a vehicle crawl to it’s death slowed by one Mage.

Targetting

Switch on enemy nameplates. This lets you see enemies even when you don’t have a line of sight on them. Crucial for spotting people hiding behind houses trying to tag nodes and other such sneaky behaviour. To find it, go to Options (hit ESC) -> Keybinding and then scroll down the list until you come across this:

Add a keybinding if there isn’t one already there and get used to switching it on.

I also recommend Tidy Plates, an addon which allows you to show CC with timers on the name plates, as well as turning them class coloured for easy identification. For example, if I’m PvPing with a rogue, I’d be able to see his kidney shot ticking down so I could time my fear to land just before or just after his stun finishes, rather than wasting or overlapping cc.

Final Points

Don’t be one of those Priests I keep running into who insist on using heal/greater heal when fighting people with kicks. Prioritise instants and then your faster casts in those situations, particularly if you’ve got melee/mages or shamans beating up on you.

If you put a talent point in something, looking at Lightwell here, use it. My heart breaks a little bit every time I’m defending a flag carrier along side a Holy Priest and I have to ask them if they took Lightwell because 100 percent of the time so far, they did but they haven’t bothered putting one down.

Accept that especially at low levels, you will die a LOT.

Above all, remember PvP should be fun and when all else fails, throw someone off the Lumber Mill cliff. It’s guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Low level PvP and Priests – Suppressing the Pain (part 2)

Same disclaimer as part 1.

What this isn’t.

This isn’t a guide to PvPing at 85 although some of it may be useful to Priests at 85. In fact it isn’t really a guide at all, more of a practical look at making levelling through PvP less painful.

Drinks and other methods of regenerating mana.

Low level drinks really haven’t scaled well so your best option for AB and WSG (once you hit lv 25) are the rations you buy from their respective quartermasters. From lv 55 onwards, you can do the same for Alterac Valley.

Alliance gets their WSG water from Illiyana Moonblaze and their AB water from Samuel Hawke. The Horde should visit Kelm Hargunth and the awesomely named Rutherford Twing respectively.

As these are counted as food, you can still and should drink your ordinary water for an extra boost at the same time. Holidays and other such festivals are also good for drinks, think bobbing apples from Hallows End and Festival Dumplings. Unfortunately these tend to be limited to the duration of the festival but are usable in any battleground.

You also want to keep an eye out for the chests with the green leaf on top as shown below. These restore 10 percent of your health and mana every second for 10 seconds but attacking or being attacked will cancel the buff so in order to make sure you get the most out of it, be aware of your surroundings. Fear plus line of sight can be really useful.

In WSG, they always spawn in the houses below the graveyards (handy for camping the opposing faction) and are on a relatively swift timer. In EoTS and AB, they have a chance to spawn at any of the bases (along with the movement speed buff and the berserker buff). In EoTS, they appear inside the towers and in AB most are fairly obvious apart from the one at the Farm which spawns inside the house.

Buffs

Rumsey Rum Black Label, (provides 15 stamina for 15 minutes, doesn’t last after death) the preferred tipple of twinks everywhere is worth picking up if you have a high enough level character to enter the Old Hillsbrad instance (I think it requires lv 67). You shouldn’t need to kill anything, just ride straight out of the entrance to Southshore and go into the Pub, where you can buy the rum from Barkeep Kelly for 2 silver each. The only limit to how much you can pick up is your bag space and they stack in 10s.

Gear

Basic overview of Stats

Stamina is king, especially at lower levels since certain classes (glares at rogues and hunters) seem to spend their whole lives looking for people they can oneshot, the higher your health pool, the less appealing target you make.

Resilience. Damage prevention is always good, however below lv 70 there aren’t that many options. The PvP shoulder heirlooms provide some, as does the BoA PvP trinket. Once you hit Outlands though and socketed gear, your options do increase dramatically.

Next up, the bigger your heals, the better. More intellect gives you more spell power and works well alongside the Discipline specialisations, Enlightenment in particular. Regen is less important because you can and should drink out of combat as well as pick up the green buffs whenever you see one. Plus, given the bursty nature of low level PvP, combat periods do tend to be fairly short.

Spell hit/penetration. As healing Priests, you will be doing a fair bit of offensive work, dispelling, fearing and mindcontrolling in particular, so try and pick up some hit/penetration as soon as possible. Hit is a lot easier than spell pen to obtain at low levels (below 60) but from 20 onwards you can use the WSG trinket (rune of perfection) for a bit of spell penetration. Once you get dispel magic, remember to remove buffs like mark of the wild/blessing of Kings as soon as possible.

Gear

There are some really nice blue dungeon quest items hidden away and since Blizzard have made things so much simpler by popping all the quests in the dungeon entrance, it’s little effort for the rewards. I tend to focus more on dungeons when I’m in the bottom level of the bracket but it adds a change of pace, especially if you hit a losing streak.

Purchasable with Honor.

If you aren’t Human, your first honor purchase (unless you have an inherited BoA one) should be an Insignia of the Alliance/Horde. Bought from Sergeant Major Clate (Alliance) and First Sergeant Hola’mahi (Horde) in Stormwind and Orgrimmar respectively (It’s on page 3 of their wares). Costing only 55 honor, it should only take you a couple of games to earn the honor for it.  The 5 minute cooldown is a pain, but it’s the best you can get at until level 70. At level 70 you should immediately update it for a 2 minute one.

Alliance

At lv 18 you want to visit Illiyana Moonblaze (she’s hiding at my cursor), the Silverwing Supply Officer in Ashenvale. She offers a range of goodies which include a blue ring, staff and cloak. These can be upgraded (for more honor) every 10 levels until you hit lv 60. You might even want to consider the agi/stam necklace, especially when lv 28 because of it’s high stamina. There are also epic bracers which become available at lv 40.

Unfortunately you have to go back at lv 20 for the trinket, but since trinkets at these levels are hard to come by, it’s worth making the trek even if you aren’t questing in Kalimdor.

At lv 28, check out the goods offered by the Arathi Basin quartermaster. It’s the same deal as with WSG, every 10 levels you can upgrade the items. The quartermaster can be found at the Refuge Pointe in Arathi Basin, near the flight master. These include boots (with movement speed) and a belt, plus another trinket.

Horde

The Horde equilivent for WSG is Kelm Hargunth, the Warsong Offensive Supply Officer who can be found just south of the Morshan Rampants in the Barrens. For AB, you need to visit Rutherford Twing, who lives out the back of Hammerfall in the Arathi Highlands.

Both

At 60 I would recommend the full Grand Marshal PvP set. I was still wearing some pieces of mine when I hit 70, it’s definitely worth it, if like me, you are unlucky with dungeon drops or lacking on heirlooms.

At 70, again I would recommend buying the full PvP set plus accessories if you can afford it. Not only does it come with a lot of sockets for stat customisation but it gives resilience which is crucial in these brackets, especially as burst dps increases.

As soon as you hit lv 70 or so, you want to start checking the AH for Cataclysm greens and BoE blues. The lowest level you can equip this stuff is lv 77 but the more you have by then, the better. You can also enter Black Rock Caverns at lv 77 even though it doesn’t appear in the dungeon finder until lv 80 so if you have friends or guildmates who can run you through, great.

Random items which are worth buying with spare honor.

The Alliance Battle standard/Horde Battle standard. These are basically totems which increase you and your party’s health by 15 percent as long as they stay within a 45 yard radius of the standard. They cost 500 honor and should be one of your first purchases as soon as you’ve bought your PvP trinket plus any lv 18 blues than are upgrades. Whilst they are killable with AoE, they have 1500 health which in the low level brackets is about as much as most of the players. At higher levels you just need to get more creative with your placement if you want it to survive.

Pugnacious Priest has a great guide to hiding your battle standard but the basic rule of thumb is try and put it off to one side. Don’t stand next to it unless you want whoever is attacking you to kill it without having to think.

The Stormpike/Frostwolf Battle Standard. Same principle as above only this one increases damage not health by 10 percent. This one is less useful as it’s only usable in AV but if you’re alone and the other battle standard is on cooldown, it’s a nice 2 minute trinket.

Part 3 coming later this week.

Suppressing the Pain – A look at levelling a Healing Priest through PvP (part 1)

What this isn’t.

This isn’t a guide to PvPing at 85 although some of it may be useful to Priests at 85. In fact it isn’t really a guide at all, more of a practical look at making levelling through PvP less painful.

Inspired by conversations had with levelling Priests and my own experiences of levelling almost entirely through battlegrounds, here is my thoughts on healing your way to 85 through PvP.

The Basics

• You can queue to two named battlegrounds at once OR random. So before random becomes available always queue to two.
• Shift M brings up a cute little map which you can place wherever you want on your screen. Now that Blizzard have given us an amazing animation when we’re looking at the map, you don’t want to be doing it in battlegrounds. It tells the enemy exactly what you’re doing and where your focus is, potentially allowing them to ninja flags or kill you before you can react.
• Carry lots of water and don’t sit drinking whilst looking at the map unless you want a rogue to ambush you.
• Should you happen to be defending the Farm in Arathi Basin (which is technically bad planning on your part since the LM is far more fun), dispel chickens to keep yourself in combat so pesky rogues can’t sap -> tag. This also goes for any nodes with critters running about.

Talents/Spec

Both Holy and Disc are viable, however personally I prefer Discipline because of a few key talents. That said Chastise is awesome and exceedingly annoying if you are on the receiving end of it. However Chakra itself is a Benediction mark 2, a giant neon glittery sign yelling “Over here I’m a Holy Priest, come kill me”.

Discipline

Things I consider essential in a Discipline Build for levelling through PvP.

I was tempted towards Atonement but since I had a pet rogue in my pocket, I focused more on healing/damage mitigation rather than my dps. I also found that for a good chunk of the game, up to 81 plus in fact, that reflective shield plus the two dots kept up was enough to beat most classes one v one. However without a pet dpser, I would definitely try it, especially in the levels before mindspike.

2/2 Improved Power word: Shield. You want your shields to be as big as possible, especially since the game is currently bugged so that shielding people doesn’t put you in combat.

2/2 Soul Warding.

1/1 Inner Focus, especially when taken with 2/2 Strength of Soul. Not only can you annoy your teammates with what has to be one of the most irritating noises in game (up there with spellsteal and mindspike) but you can annoy the opposing team also by being temporarily immune to silences/interrupts and dispels.

2/2 Reflective Shield. I love this and it’s responsible for the vast majority of my 1 v 1 victories over melee dpsers en route to 85. You will be shielding yourself regardless and since you are likely to be the target of any half decent players, hurting them in a semi afk fashion is not to be sneezed at. Besides, watching some melee (it’s usually a deathknight) run at you on 5 percent health, hit your shield and go splat is priceless.

Pain Suppression. For obvious reasons.

3/3 Grace. The bigger your heals the less healing you need to do. Not only does this help your mana, it means you can ride out silences and interrupts better.

2/2 Focused Will. 10 percent less damage taken, yes please.

Power Word: Barrier. So you can have bubbles inside your bubbles.

So at 69, my levelling Disc build would look like this. As for the Holy points to complement those, I went for these. Desperate Prayer in it’s current state is a must for PvP.

Holy

If I were Holy, I would pick the following up as soon as possible.

1/1 Desperate Prayer. In it’s current incarnation it’s awesome and works really well as a lifesaver when combined with Healthstone.

2/2 Inspiration. Anything which reduces damage taken is a good thing, especially in low level battlegrounds.

1/1 Lightwell. The fact that you can use it whilst stunned and otherwise cc’ed makes it an amazing PvP tool. Add into that, the fact that they either have to kill the Lightwell, time when they aren’t hitting you or accept you healing from it, means that it can be very useful.

1/1 Chakra. Although you want to get into the habit of dropping the chakra state for the extra cc of chastise as soon as you pick up this talent point.

1/1 Revelations.

2/2 Blessed Resilience. You will be hit for more than 10 percent of your health on a regular basis, thus in any type of PvP where people are actively trying to kill you, this will be up most of the time.

3/3 Test of Faith. Given the burst damage of certain low level classes, feral druids, hunters and rogues spring to mind, people will be below 50 percent health quite a lot whilst levelling, thus more healing is a good thing.

Key Abilities in PvP

Mind Vision. Your team can’t find the enemy flag carrier, mind vision them. You want to know what the enemy team looks like before the game starts, mind vision them. You see a rogue riding up to a node that you’re defending, mindvision them. It won’t break even when they drop into stealth, in fact as far as I can tell only vanish and cloak of shadows break it right now (shadowmeld might as well). You can either send your team-mates in to kill them or if solo, wait until they are close enough and then break them out of stealth with holy nova/dots/fear. Invisibility might but haven’t found a mage to test it on yet.

Mind Control. Chucking people off cliffs never gets old, especially when they are elemental shamans themselves. Running flag carriers away from their healers and/or the flag capping position is another great use of this spell. It can also be used as a general cc. Imagine that there are two of you trying to cap a node in AB with one of their team defending. Perhaps all three of you are healers and you know that support is coming to help the defender. Mind control him, run him away from the flag whilst the other person caps. I particularly like it in AV, throwing people out of bunkers/towers is a great way of defending them. When defending the Alliance bunkers, try and throw them out the side away from the door though.

Mana Burn. The Bane of Healers. If we have multiple healers, especially if the others aren’t Priests, I tend to leave the healing to them and focus on manaburning the enemy healers down.

Macros

Priest Specific

Shadowfiends

/cast Shadowfiend

/petattack

/use 10

As it says on the tin, casts shadowfiend, sets him to aggressive and casts shadow crawl. You have to be looking at an enemy target for this to work but since I heal either through Vudho (other people) or alt + keybinds (myself), I tend to be.

Another version would be

#showtooltip
/cast [nopet] Shadowfiend
/petattack
/cast Shadowcrawl

Desperate Prayer

/cast Desperate Prayer
/use Healthstone

Uses both Desperate Prayer and a Healthstone if you have one.

Mouseover Mind Control

#showtooltip Mind Control
/cast [target=mouseover, harm, nodead] Mind Control; Mind Control

What I love about this is the element of surprise. Because you are looking at someone else, the victim of the mind control can often be half way to the cliff before they realise what is going on. If you don’t have a mouseover target, it will cast it on whoever you are looking at, assuming that they are an enemy.

Mouseover Mana Burn

For the same reasons as above, it’s hard to dodge or avoid if you think it’s being cast on someone else.

#showtooltip Mana Burn
/cast [target=mouseover, harm, nodead] Mana Burn; Mana Burn

General

This is my “OMG HELP ME PLX” macro. Basically it takes my location from the map and pops it into chat with an “incoming at” message. So instead of trying to fend off two bloodelf rogues and a goblin shaman whilst running around typing, now I can focus on survival after hitting the macro once or twice. Unfortunately it doesn’t make people come and rescue you, but at least you can die knowing you told them of your impending doom.

/script SendChatMessage(format(">>>>>>INCOMING at %s<<<<<<",
GetMinimapZoneText()),"Battleground");

You need to take out the return between  the comma and GetMinimapZoneText however because I couldn’t get it to display right any other way.

Part 2 will look at gear, glyphs and anything else which occurs to me in the meantime.