Priest PvE guide
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Contents |
Things Priests want Non-Priests to know
In a party environment, especially in an instance, each person contributes to the welfare of the group and its advancement towards success; however, no character is as critical to preventing a wipe than the primary healer. If the priest can no longer heal in mid-fight, this can often lead to the wipe of an entire party, and for this reason, the priest needs to be protected at all costs. If the priest survives, other characters can be resurrected, and the instance continued fairly painlessly.
Below is an edited version of the good post about this subject: A Beginner's Guide to Healing
- Nothing annoys a mob as much as someone healing the player they are attacking. For this reason, mobs will often turn away from the tank and head straight to the healer when a healing spell is cast. When a priest draws aggro from healing the group, the closest person to the priest should stop whatever they are doing and prevent the mob from getting to the priest ASAP.
This may sound detrimental to your success as an individual combatant within the group, but the truth is that if you do not adhere to this rule, it will more than likely be the group's downfall. If a priest must defend and heal himself, he is not healing members of his party.
Note: Fade can be used to take advantage of this if you have some skill in kiting. The priest heals as usual, but if the mob(s) break off the tank, let it run towards the priest. When it's near enough, the priest can Fade and send the mob running back to the tank if threat has been properly managed. Don't try this if your threat management is poor though. It is highly recommended to do this with some form of threat meter. Also remember that threat caused by healing affects ALL mobs that the group is engaged with; focusing all attacks and all threat on one mob means that there are mobs that won't have any threat on them until someone heals.
- Give your priest time to refill his mana pool after a rough battle.
If you go running ahead before you do this, you run the risk of getting the group killed. The priest may not have enough mana remaining to handle any hairy situations that may arise from the next battle. Some priests will announce that they are refilling mana, but learn to glance at their mana bar and look to see if they are sitting (required when replenishing mana). And since the priest is replenishing mana while you collect your loot or talk to the quest giver, make sure you wait for the priest to do the same.
- Give any mana potions and such to the priest as you gather them while in the group.
Unless you need them more at that time for some reason, the priest will more than likely need them a lot more than anyone else in the group.
- Do not split up and go in different directions or behind walls/pillars if you can avoid it.
This is a major bane for the priest. Priests must maintain line-of-sight contact in order to heal. They cannot heal you if you are not with the rest of the group. The only exception to this is when you are a designated scout, such as a hunter, with the assumption that you will be resurrected by the priest should you die while scouting. Also be careful in tiered rooms or stairs, occasionally (depending on the instance) the top of stairs can be out of LOS from the bottom and vice versa. Just because you can see the healer, doesn't always mean you are in LOS.
- Give your priest the benefit of the doubt.
Do not be demanding of them to heal you when you think you need it.
The whole role of the priest is to heal you and the rest of the group. Trust me, they usually know exactly what they are doing. If you are running low, and they have not healed you yet, there may be some reason as to why. Look at the obvious before becoming demanding, thinking that they are not healing you on purpose for some reason. A healer who knows what to do is carefully gauging everyone's health bars, calculating heal times, heal types, and available mana.
If the priest isn't performing well, then by all means stay on him/her about it. But insisting on being healed when the priest has a higher priority (such as keeping the mage alive during an AoE flurry) is a good way to ensure that the priest may purposefully not heal you until you are at the brink of death.
- Try to play the role that your character is supposed to play within the group.
In other words, make sure the tanks are tanking, and everyone else that is drawing aggro knows how to control it by giving it back to the tanks.
Obviously, this is an ideal situation that will not always occur. However, once party roles are decided, try to stick with them. This makes everyone's job that much easier, helping your party succeed. If you wish to be something else, go kill mobs on your own. Parties and instances are all about teamwork.
- Do not blame group wipes on the priest.
It is rarely due to the priest not doing his job. More than likely the reason everyone got wiped was due to something already mentioned in this page, and had nothing to with the priest's ability to perform their duties. Please look at yourself and the actual things that led up to the wipe, rather than just blindly blaming the priest for the wipe every time. This also applies to any other classes that are main healer.
If the party wipes, the priest either kept aggro or ran out of mana because they had to heal non-tankers. Both are issues that should be addressed by the tanks in the group. In addition, if the party does wipe and has to release, be considerate and run back with the rest of the group. While this may seem like the ideal time to go to the restroom or grab a beverage, realize that the priest ability to resurrect is not meant for full wipes. Waiting for a priest to run back and resurrect you is commonly considered rude and should be avoided.
- When you are out running around leveling solo out there, and see a priest running around alone, invite them to join with you to help them level. They are secretly hoping you will.
I only say this because I do not think most people realize just how hard it is to level a priest solo compared to other classes.
We actually need to group with as many people as possible, as often as possible. This is because we not only need to practice doing our job in group environments on the way up, but we also most definitely need the help to level ourselves as well.
I promise you that when you bring a priest along with you, you will not only make them very happy, but you will be able to level twice as fast just having one with you.
- Pay attention to your pets, and do not always expect the priest to be able to watch them for you.
Your pets can inadvertently draw a lot of unwanted aggro if you do not pay close attention to them within group environments.
A priest will always give higher priority to the "Players" in the group, before even looking at pets. This is most likely because a pet dying is only a loss of one party member that the group doesn't need as much; if a pet's owner dies, the pet is out as well.
It is not a bad idea to let the priest know that your pet needs a heal from time to time, if you notice that the priest is neglecting your pet. Just try to be polite whenever you ask. You should also be aware that the default Blizzard UI as well as most custom UIs have lower visibility for pets' healthbars. Finally on this, priests who use hotkeys to select party members can mistarget you or your pet since the hotkey that corresponds to you actually alternates between you and your pet.
Better yet, learn what Health Funnel and Mend Pet are for! There's a reason Hunters and Warlocks have spells made to heal their pets; the main healer shouldn't have to waste his/her mana on a pet when you can just use your pet-healing skills.
- A priest does not have enough mana to heal everyone in the party. Well-geared priests should be able to keep the main tank and one off-tank alive without running out of mana. But if multiple other players are drawing aggro, priests will run out of mana much more quickly and everyone may die. Not only that, all the healing will probably cause some of the mobs to aggro us, and you definitely don't want that.
- If a Shackle pops up on an undead mob you just started fighting, leave it alone. Chances are the priest will try to shackle it again to make the fight easier for everyone unless someone has put a DoT on it or some melee class/pet is determined to show it love.
- For the sake of a holy-specced priest, learn what a Lightwell is and how to use it! Don't keep clicking on it to see what the pretty, floating bowl does - you are wasting precious charges that might be used to save a wipe.
- If you see Shadow Word: Pain on your target it is because the priest does not want it to run very far when its health is low and possibly bring adds.
- A shadow priest can take more damage than other cloth wearers. As such, these casters should take first priority over us. However, even shadow priests still wear cloth; they do not have the survivability that mail or even leather offers.
- Healers and non-healers are of two minds on bandaging out of combat. Some priests hold themselves responsible for the health of the party and heal everyone after the battle, but some would rather conserve drink and mana. Some players prefer bandaging to waiting for the priest. It's unimportant, but settle it with your party to prevent discord.
- If a priest is going to use Mind Control, do not immediately aggro the mobs attacking the MCed one. Either let it die and then attack the rest, or (in order to be able to loot it) wait until the MCed mob is almost dead. Mind Control produces too much threat to lose by fade and trinkets, even when specced for full shadow threat reduction.
- Paladins, Priests generally do not need Blessing of Salvation, depending on the priests gear and mob encounters, generally Blessing of Kings or Blessing of Wisdom is what they will prefer. Making an assumption of either is fine, both are excellent buffs, but especially with semi-decent geared priests, BoK can actually give a priest more MP5 than BoW, and only way to know which they would prefer is asking them.
- Touch of Weakness and Inner Fire are self-buffs only! Don't ask a priest for them, they can only cast them on themselves.
- Another nightmare for priests when grouped with warlocks is the warlock using Life Tap right before a fight. A priest may feel that it is his/her duty to heal the other players out of combat, but it becomes a pain when a warlock needs 3 Greater Heals just to get it back to full health. All classes that use mana should be drinking in between fights. Don't use Life Tap outside of combat, you won't hold up the group drinking, chances are the priest will be drinking as well. By all means use it in combat, let make sure the priest knows that you are so he/she can cast Renew on you. NOTE: Warlocks should discuss this situation with the priest during the initial set up of the group or instance. Some group leaders actually WANT the Warlock to Life Tap and have the priest through a Renew or Greater Heal at the end of combat. Do not make the assumption either way - discuss the situation before hand to avoid confusion.
- A full mana bar does NOT always mean the priest is ready to go. It's nice having full health bars and being able to blast straight through pull after pull, but make sure you LOOK behind you to see what the priest is doing before pressing on. They need to loot bodies too, and pick up quest items, or skin, or mine, or pick herbs, or whatever. While people doing damage can do this in mid combat. the priest is often too busy keeping everyone alive to do so. If all you do is check their mana bar to see if they are ready for the next pull, you might catch them in mid-loot and thus not as quick on the heals because of that.
- Look out in chat for MB. Priest's and other mana classes get annoyed when a tank or DPS ignores the request for a mana break! This can cause a full wipe because of the lack of mana a priest has, therefore the amount of healing they can do decreases also.
- Go easy on a new Priest. You may find yourself in one of the early instances (Ragefire Chasm, Deadmines, Wailing Caverns, The Stockade, etc) and find yourself with a priest who isn't doing too well on the healing front - please avoid the temptation of yelling at the priest that he doesn't know how to do his job. The early instances are where you learn, and healing is an important job that if done incorrectly can lead to repeated wipes - but a priest has to learn sometime. You may be frustrated, but repairs costs and drops at this level are not such a big deal as later on in the game. Suggest (because yelling doesn't train people), that the priest keep everyone topped off with renew, and on boss fights always have a heal coming on the tank.
Things Non-Priests want Priests to know
- When you draw aggro, and the group is right there with you, DO NOT MOVE AROUND!
Moving makes it that much more difficult to get the aggro off of you. DO NOT MOVE and the tank will be able to regain aggro much more quickly. Every time you take even one step, the aggro will follow you first, then hit you, then have a chance to be taken off you by another group member.
The only reason to move when you do draw aggro is to run towards the tank to signal that you have a mob attacking you. - When you're supposed to be healer, playing with shadow talents makes people nervous. Stay out of Shadowform.
- Stay kinda close to the group, but not so close that you draw the aggro before the tanks and people who should be.
This way nothing can come from behind and surprise you, therefore causing you to have to run into the group to get it off of you.
Remember that you will aggro mobs with 20% less threat if you are in melee range. [1] - If there is a warlock in the group, have them soulstone you, so you can resurrect yourself after a wipe.
This way you can still resurrect everyone in the group if everyone dies, or better yet, tell him to Soulstone a Pally/Shaman. They have a good chance of surviving if a respawn or patrol catches them before they can resurrect the group, while a priest specced on healing will definitely have a harder time bringing down the same mob. Also, ask your warlock how they like to use life tap. Most will tell you not to worry about their health unless it's below sixty percent or you can actually see what is damaging them. Warlocks like to fire off a few life taps and then bandage to quickly bring themselves back to full health. If a priest heals them instead of allowing them to bandage themselves, it just moves the mana deficiency away from the one character best equipped to deal with being OOM. - Many warlocks prefer Renew over a straight heal because of the dynamics of Life tap. With Renew, a warlock has the chance to have near-full life and mana.
- Forsaken warlocks will occasionally use cannibalize to recover health after performing a Life Tap. If the instance or area contains humanoids, the warlock will most likely perform a combination of Life Taps, cannibalize, and bandaging to recover mana and health. To prevent them from wasting bandages and their ability (it has a 2 minute cooldown), wait a few seconds to see what they are doing before throwing a heal their direction. Better yet, discuss it before hand to avoid the confusion. This combination is very common among Forsaken Warlocks when they solo and they carry this practice over to groups to take the strain off of the healer's mana.
- Some priests seem to think that the shield is not worth using, since it has lower mana efficiency than a heal, and creates extra threat. The rest of us, however, think of your shield almost the same as a free healing potion - and being shielded gives us a huge confidence boost in the priest's ability to get a heal off in time. Also, PW:S keeps mages from being interrupted if they pull aggro while casting a channeled AoE.
Remember that tanks don't necessarily want shields unless they're in trouble, though, as it interferes with rage generation. - Paladins, shamans, and druids in bear/cat form really need to know when you're /oom ("out of mana"). They need to stop what they are doing to cast a healing spell on you. Otherwise, they will be concentrating on fighting mob.
- Paladins, Shamans, and Druids can heal themselves as well, if they're fighting mobs, healing themselves can sometimes draw aggro to them, but it also takes a little bit more mana than your healing spells do (especially because priests have some of the largest mana pools), please look if they are healing themselves first, and if they are, don't heal them right there, but if they are stunned or are swarmed by mobs, just go ahead and heal them.
Things Priests want new Priests to know
- There is no possible way that you will be able to keep everyone alive all the time. Just remember that healing priority is: 1) Main Tank, 2) yourself (you are the healer, you keep the group from dying), 3) crowd controllers, 4) everyone else.
- Do NOT use Psychic Scream in an Instance! Fear is probably one of the most common causes of player-caused wipes in the game.
- If you draw aggro of a mob, you don't have to fade straight away. If you have pulled the aggro of one mob, let the tank take care of it. If you use your fade too liberally, you can get caught by several mobs and with your cooldown still recharging. The exception to this is when you have pulled aggro of a boss; they will most likely kill you in less than three hits.
- Get yourself a wand and use it. This supplementary damage can add up to decent numbers by the end of the instance, considering wands are available up to almost 200 DPS. Watch your threat and don't pull aggro. Be wary that each cast resets your global cooldown - so if you need to heal a party member, that's 1.5 seconds longer you have to wait. Don't do it in boss fights - the 1.5 second cooldown will get you. Once you hit 70 go do some Arena/BGs and get an epic wand (the resilience is useless but the DPS is high).
General tips
Rogue
Most of the time when a Rogue gains aggro, a single PW:S and a Renew will give him/her time to Feint and let the Warrior regain aggro. If the rogue maintains aggro, be ready to throw in a couple of Flash Heals. A good rogue will usually vanish if they are unable to lose aggro, thereby clearing their aggro completely and allowing them to get in another opening move.
Some rogues draw aggro anywhere. After healing them a few times, mobs will eventually jump to you. Your best bet is let this rogue die a few times and give them some instructions.
Warrior
When grouped with a Warrior, it's usually considered unwise to PW:S the warrior before a pull. Because the shield absorbs damage, it hampers the warrior's rage generation (which is highly dependant on taking damage), meaning that the warrior generates less threat on the mobs and therefore your heals are more likely to pull aggro. A better alternative is to cast Prayer of Mending on the warrior before they pull as not only will this heal them the first time they take damage, but the healing threat generated by the PoM will add to their threat, not yours, reducing the chances of you pulling aggro with a subsequent heal. You can then immediately follow up with a Renew, wait until the warrior has taken some damage, and then cast a larger heal. This allows time for the warrior to build sufficient threat to hold aggro against incoming heals. Time a Heal or Greater Heal to hit the warrior when at 25 - 40% health. If they are getting a lucky string of dodges/parries/blocks and not taking much damage, cancel the spell. The Five Second Rule only applies after a cast is complete. If you are fighting something with burst damage, such as Mortal Strikes, Flash Heals may be necessary.
The warrior has no way to ditch aggro, self-heal or otherwise escape damage while in combat, so it is up to the healers to keep the warrior healthy. Doing this successfully will result in happy warriors, the converse will unsurprisingly result in players who are less than pleased with their choice of travelling companions.
If you are in a group, the tanking warrior is the most important person in the group after the priest. Do not let them die. If you start running low on mana, then focus on the tank even if it means sacrificing another group member.
Priest
When grouped with another Priest decide who will be the primary healer and who will Mind Control enemies. In hard battles it can be useful to have one Priest heal half of the group and the other heal the rest.
Warlock
When you group with a Warlock the tactics are very similar to grouping with a mage. Power Word: Shield and Flash Heals are the most used spells. Make sure to get a soulstone from the Warlock in case you wipe. This is very useful in instances. If your soulstone fades, or is getting low on its timer before a boss fight, alert the raid. If there is a second warlock, they will most likely throw up a second stone, or stone another resurrecter. Don't expect to get the soulstone if there is a competent paladin who is not off-tanking. They're hardier and are less likely to die outside of a wipe. Never ever ever combat resurrect when you are soulstoned. [The exception to this rule would be in end-game raids where your raid leader might ask you use your soulstone if you die.]
Warlocks have an incredibly efficient small radius AOE spell called Hellfire. At final rank this does around 215 damage per second to anything within 8 yards or so for 15 seconds. The catch is that it also does that damage to the warlock. Shield your lock and drop a Flash Heal once the shield runs out and that should take care of the critters.
Warlocks are the most mana-efficient DPS for a priest in a group. Warlocks get a spell called Lifetap that converts health into mana. If you notice a warlock getting low on mana, toss a Renew on them so they can Lifetap a few times then continue their nuking. To speed things up between pulls, tell the warlock to Lifetap to full mana then cast a Greater Heal on them. Around 1k mana to you is almost a full mana bar to many warlocks.
In large raids you can make a group with 1 shadow priest and 4 warlocks. The combination of Vampiric Embrace with Lifetap grants almost infinite mana to the warlocks.
Shadow Vulnerability adds up to 10% damage to any warlock in the raid. Misery will cause your target to take up to 5% more magical damage. The warlock's Curse of Elements (note: patch 2.4.3 consolidated the former Curse of Shadow into this curse) will cause your shadow spells to be increased in damage and have a lesser chance of being resisted. All in all, warlocks and shadow priests work -excellent- together.
At a boss (i.e. a long fight in one place) you will find Warlocks are very appreciative of a Lightwell. It allows them to life tap whenever they please and the large range makes it very easy to drop at their feet.
Mage
When grouped with a Mage Power Word: Shield is critical. When a Mage gets attacked, cast it on them and they can cast without interruption. A Flash Heal is very useful as well because they don't have much health. Make sure to get them the heals quickly or they will die.
If your group is about to make a pull that requires the mage to cast AoE spells, give them a PW:S and PoM before the pull, then chain cast Flash Heal. A mage usually needs constant healing in an AoE situation as they are effectively taking several mobs at a time, which is a bad thing when you wear cloth!
Druid
Before grouping, determine who will take which role. A restoration druid should be allowed to main heal if you are a shadow priest. If you are a holy priest, then a resto druid may very well like the chance to dps and off-heal. A feral druid will wish to tank and/or dps. They will be able to off-heal in a pinch, but do not have the mana to do so for long. A balance druid will wish to dps, and may make an effective off-healer.
Most bear tank druids will wish to start the battle either by having a hunter pull or by pulling with faerie fire. Feel free to give the bear a renew before the battle, but do not PW:S him. He needs to take damage in order to generate rage.
When you are with a druid who is tanking in bear form, a very effective way to start a fight is to PW:S them and have them start the fight with their Hurricane ability. This generates excellent threat on all of the mobs they are fighting, and does a considerable amount of initial damage. Make sure you ask the bear about this, though. Most bears don't start a fight with Hurricane due to the inherent vulnerability of being in caster form. Many have never thought of or considered this tactic and will probably be hesitant to utilize it.
After they switch to bear form, you should Renew as needed and Greater Heal if HP drops below about 30% if you are lower level. At higher levels, a bear druid will likely have a great deal more hit points than any other class (many level 70 feral druids have 14-15K+ hp in bear form), so you will need to cast larger heals earlier. Know how much your spells will heal for and time your heals accordingly. A high level druid bear tank may take three or more greater heals to bring his hit points from 50% to full if he is taking damage at the same time.
If you are getting low on mana and would like an Innervate, don't forget to save enough to PW:S them before they shift to caster form. This prevents them from losing a ton of health before they can get back to Bear Form.
With a feral druid in cat form, work with as you would a rogue. For a balance druid, work with as you would a mage or warlock, but note that they have more armor and can take a bit more punishment (especially in Moonkin form, less true in caster form). For a restoration druid, work with as you would another priest. For a bear tank druid, work with as you would a warrior except as noted above.
Many druids will wish to roll on many of the same items as you. Even if they are not healing while grouped with you, most druids have a set of healing gear as they are often called on to function as main healer. In this, they benefit from the same stats you do, primarily intellect and +healing, though they have a lower priority on spirit. Balance druids also benefit from spell damage items. While druids primarily wear leather, most will not hesitate to add a cloth piece to their set of healing gear. Druids will also benefit from exactly the same caster weapons you will, with the exception of wands. However, with that said, druids do have a wider selection of items available to them, particularly in the higher levels, and priests should have priority on an item unless it is a very large upgrade for the druid and a small upgrade for the priest.
Hunter
When with a Hunter, you need to give him Flash Heals and Renews when necessary. It is also a good idea to Renew the pet. However, hunters have Feign Death so you don't have to worry too much about them in parties. The only difficulty is that they can Feign Death aggro back to a priest after you have faded. You are then at the mercy of your group to pull the mob off of you.
Hunters have several abilities that make them good at protecting a priest. Ask a hunter to drop a Freezing Trap before a fight for you to stand on in case an unattended mob aggros on you. Distracting Shot and the pet's Growl ability are both helpful tools in keeping aggro off you. Multishot can get the attention of up to 3 mobs if you have not already angered them too much. Keep in mind that both priests and hunters tend to fight from range and often end up standing side by side. If you pull aggro, smart hunters will immediately put down a Freezing Trap near you. So look for the trap and make sure you stand on or behind the trap so that the mob will run over it.
Paladin
Paladins can help you if you are in trouble (bubble, taunt, stun, lay on hands) but only if they know about it-- ask for help. If you know the party will wipe and you don't have a soul-stone on you, ask the paladin to cast Divine Intervention on you. Position yourself before they try so you don't re-aggro after the wipe and waste their sacrifice and 1hr cooldown. Only one Aura, Blessing and Judgement can be active on you per paladin.
Aura-- Paladins have several auras which may be of benefit to priests in the same group but it should be noted that the priest needs to stay within range of the paladin to keep the aura buff. Devotion Aura adds considerably to a priest's armor. Concentration Aura gives a 35% chance (up to 50% chance with talents) of ignoring spell interruption when damaged, which can be useful in fights where the priest is often taking damage and experiencing spell pushback while casting (You can still be interrupted by Shield Bash, Kick etc.). Fire Resistance Aura and Frost Resistance Aura can both be useful in reducing the amount of fire/frost damage that players may take, taking pressure off the priest. Shadow Resistance Aura does not stack with a priest's Shadow Protection buff, so in fights where players may take significant shadow damage, it is best for the priest to buff the group with Shadow Protection, leaving the paladin to utilize a different aura. Sanctity Aura, from the Retribution tree, increases the amount of holy damage dealt by party members by 10-12%.
Blessing-- Ask for a Blessing per paladin. They can give mana regen or threat reduction, and some can do +10% stats (it's a talent). They may also grant you their second bubble (Blessing of Protection), it protects you from all physical damage and temporarily aggro, but you can still cast.
Judgement-- If you expect to be mana short, ask for them to judge healing to take some pressure off you. When you want to regain mana, ask for wisdom to be judged so that you can receive mana while you wand. If you simply want to holy dps, ask for them to judge crusader. Don't expect anything to be judged you find helpful if the target isn't going to be alive very long.
Tanking-- A properly geared/spec'd paladin makes a good tank. They generate more threat than a warrior (especially on multiple targets) but have fewer options if they lose threat. Position yourself so that Crowd Controlled mobs have to walk by the paladin before they can attack you.
Paladins can heal themselves but prefer not to because your healing gives them health AND mana. Getting mana from your heals is also why they prefer healing over PW:S. Paladins are casters. Expect to share non-cloth items (healing and spell damage), but not value spirit like you. Of weapons, you share maces. Caster daggers and staffs are more plentiful and they can't use those.
Shaman
Shamans can self-heal. Most Shamans will heal themselves so the Priest won't get extra aggro. Coordinate with the Shaman/s in your group to see if they will be a secondary healer or if they want to be pure DPS.
If you're working with a caster shaman (especially), consider shielding them if they get attacked. That way they can either heal themselves better or continue casting unhindered until the tank gets aggro again or simply nuke the mob with lightning bolts to take it down much faster. Ask your shaman if they would prefer a heal or a shield.
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