World of Warcraft

[DinoDoc]

That becomes less of a problem when you get your voidwalker.

[Hot Mustard]

Priests do appear to be hard to keep alive - not only are you weak, but it seems your threat radius is larger too. I'd be running around with my buddy and I'd run right by/between mobs with no problem, and he tries to do the same and Adds everytime. (same level paladin and priest)

We work as a duo all the time - minimizes the BS of PvP and we can usually do Group quests just the two of us. I can't recall a time when he had to rez me - but I've rezzed him a small number of times. When he pulls out his big guns, he can crit for 1500+, and if any of his threat reducer, salvation, or my threat booster have lapsed, he pulls aggro immediately with those shots.

[lightblue]

Originally posted by Dis
messing around with the priest. Has to be the hardest class to play. If not impossible . At least for me. The funny thing is I had a dwarf priest who I managed to get through these levels. Playing a priest solo is painful to say the least. I suppose I'm doing it for the challenge. I spend most of my time running away from mobs because I'm out of mana. It takes 3/4 of my mana to kill something. I'm level 15 right now, and struggling thru all those defias guys in Westfall.

Priests are just weak, weak, weak. I keep hearing how powerful shadowpriests are, but I'm not seeing it. I'm specced shadow btw. Granted, I'm not far enough in the tree to make a difference yet.

Is there a strategy to playing a priest I'm missing?

I was impressed with my ability to clear the gnoll camps near the border with elwynn forest. Basically I just kill one and run. . Then I go after the remaining 2 around the fire. I was a couple levels higher, so I could take on 2 at one time. I usually cast shield on myself, open with either smite or the 1.5 sec shadow spell (can't remember name), then shadow word: pain or whatever it's called. Then smite 1 or 2 more times, then finish beating them down with my staff (don't have a wand yet).

Maybe they get good later on, I used to think rogues were tough, now I realize they are the easiest class to play.

When I get to 20, I'm going to try to avoid solo grinding, and just run dungeons over and over . I'm going to start running Deadmines. And run that 20 or 30 times . Then move on to the next dungeon if I'm high enough level. Playing a priest in a party is nice, solo is not.

Get a wand off the AH. This massively increases your dps at no extra mana cost.

[Blake]

Yeah wands are good. You can also get some neat quest wands quite easily.

Shadow priests can really keep killing for a long, long time.

You can take on multiple mobs...

Like you pain everything then get wanding.
Once your health is bad, you shield and heal.
Keep pain up, keep wanding, use psychic scream sparingly if you have to buy time to heal, if your mana builds up you can easily burn it on mind blast.
The trick is mainly to stack your spell casting - like shield, heal, mind blast, pain, then wand to let mana regen.

With proper conservation of mana you can fight multiple mobs (like adds keep popping up) nearly indefinitely. As a shadow priest you should rarely have to drink (while grinding).

Also spirit can be a nice stat, it's basically your mana regeneration rate which determines your kill speed and priests have a tremendous ability to turn mana into health so you don't need a large hp pool. Spirit gear can be pretty easy to acquire sometimes.

[Dis]

I'm enchanter, so I'm using a greater magic wand now. Just took a little while to get the mats for it (I don't pay for enchanting mats, all disenchanted greens).

With the wand, things are going quite a bit more smoothly. I'm killing stuff real fast. Though a lot of it is stuff 3 levels below me. Which helps. Just took a while for my level to exceed the quests. Although one thing that helped was going to dranei lands of bloodmyst isle. Both those and the blood elf lands are ideal for massive power levelling. i did 7 levels today. Though only 4 were in bloodmyst (18 to 22). I can level so fast in those areas. I did die a couple times. One time due to lag, I still have weird connection problems occasionally. A couple other times I got raped by 3 mobs.

And I know it's kind of pathetic, but sometimes I get turned on by characters in video games. I just love the way this dragonslaying robe looks on her. This is from the dragon off bloodmyst isle. I took it out when I was 21, the dragon is 20 elite. It's a fairly easy elite. One of the easier elites in the game.

Now time for deadmines. I'm already getting random whispers from all the way accross the world asking to do VC. That's the life of a priest.

[Dis]

oh btw I decided not to go shadow. Doesn't fit her style. I know it will be harder to level grind, but I don't care.

I do have 6 points in shadow though... I don't have the money to respec. This is alliance, so I don't have a 70 toon to finance her. The 5 points that double spirit after every kill is a good investment. It really keeps my downtime low. And I have one point in that talent to stun targets with shadow spells, that's a waste. no bid deal, i'll respec if I ever get this char to 70.

Everything else has gone into holy.

[Dis]

k ran dead mines and got my staff.

The party was pretty good. I was surprised how easy it was going till near the end. Some kind of bad pull, or a mob aggro'd others tank and I went down. Tank first, I had 3 mobs beating on me. The rest of the party wasn't engaged I guess, somehow they lived and the mobs reset.

Second full wipe happened after killing the boss. We got the boss easy enough, but then he summoned some dudes. The tanks was getting pounded fast. Flash heal, next thing I have 2 mobs on me. Tank dies, I die, rest of party died.

Very frustrating wiping. The tank was only level 18, so maybe that's one reason. But he was doing a decent job other than that. Using thunderclap and taunt and all that. the rest of the party was pretty good about keeping the mobs off me except for those 2 occasions. Maybe we lacked dps, but we had a 25 rogue (who pulled aggro alot), and a 19 shammy, and 18 druid. And I do run out of mana still. I didn't think I'd have that problem as a priest. Frustrating. And I feel bad because the tank died before I died, even though it wasn't necessarily my fault. But I feel I should die before the tank. And fade just doesn't work as often as I'd like.

I'd like to run VC a few more times, but I'll level in the meantime.

[Space05us]

Should have had the rogue tank.

[Blake]

Sounds like a bad (or at least less skilled) party. The Shaman and/or Druid should have been keeping an eye on you and pulling the adds off of you, or started healing. The offtank role can be pretty important...

For instance, if I was using a druid in that situation I'd probably have stuck to cat form until things got pear-shaped, then shifted out and thrown around some regrowths (so the priest can stop healing until the agro shifts to me) and go bear and taunt the mobs.

BTW as a priest, you may want to get Wand Specialization. I mean, you probably really want to get it. There are a lot of bargins in the lower priest trees:
Disc: Wand Spec
Shadow: Spirit Tap, Imp.Pain
Holy: Healing Focus

Unfortunately holy is BAD, it doesn't really improve your healing (that happens at what? like lvl35?), and low other trees improve you betterer. I'd recommend, start with the balanced investment then for healing, head up disc (to improve mana endurance and such), for damage, head up shadow. Respec later.

[Sparrowhawk]

The last time I went into Deadmines (okay, only the 2nd time in total, and the first time I didn't make it to the instance itself), the player that organized the group kept saying, "Remember, the hammer is mine".

I had no idea what he was referring to, but everytime a "need" "greed" choice came up I just closed the window without choosing (Passed). This may seem dumb, but I wasn't doing the run for the equipment but rather to understand what an instance was and how to work as part of a larger group (having never teamed in a group larger then 3 before).

What was I missing out on? Dis's comment above about "I got my staff" leads me to believe that there are specific items that people go into the instance for (and the warrior wanting the hammer adds to this).

I still don't like the need/greed options of gear and don't quite get the logic (my logic says that need is the better choice, in that way the player that needs the item gets the item, greed just seems wrong to me, I don't want a greedy player in my party). But it is obvious that my logic is wrong as I have been told that I will not get invited back to a party if I select "need".

Anyway, I will end this post here, as I need to go back through the thread to quote Dis's earlier comments

/me

[Blake]

NEED means that "I WILL use the item"

GREED means that "I will sell the item, pass it to an alt, give it away or disenchant it"

PASS means "I don't want to waste precious bag space on that"

When players choose NEED, those who choose NEED roll for the item.

If no-one chooses NEED, then those who choose GREED roll for the item.

If no-one NEEDS or GREEDS, then it's left lying on the ground to be picked up as vendor trash (pretty much).


The tradition is, if someone "Needs" an item, but aren't going to use it themselves, they have to greed for it, and if they don't win it, they need to buy it. However as long as you're honest many players will be pretty generous and may just let you have the item - feel free to indicate a "Degree of need" - like if there's an item which is a lot better than the current one you have you really need it, while another person might need it on the basis that is 1 stat point higher, indicate that you really need it and they may let you have it - but they are not obliged to under need/greed rules - the only measure of need is that you'll use the item, best bet is to equip it immediately (some players will definitely check) unless you carry multiple sets, like a druid, then you can claim you need it for your feral gear and if you're doing the healing they'll probably be a little annoyed but let you get away with it anyway.

Always feel free to Need any item that you'll equip, that's the rule. However if you do end up Need'ing a lot of stuff (especially if you also win it), it'd be polite to NOT Greed the stuff you don't Need, that's the best way to avoid people getting annoyed with you for being too greedy.

[vee4473]

Originally posted by Sparrowhawk
The last time I went into Deadmines (okay, only the 2nd time in total, and the first time I didn't make it to the instance itself), the player that organized the group kept saying, "Remember, the hammer is mine".

I had no idea what he was referring to, but everytime a "need" "greed" choice came up I just closed the window without choosing (Passed). This may seem dumb, but I wasn't doing the run for the equipment but rather to understand what an instance was and how to work as part of a larger group (having never teamed in a group larger then 3 before).

What was I missing out on? Dis's comment above about "I got my staff" leads me to believe that there are specific items that people go into the instance for (and the warrior wanting the hammer adds to this).

I still don't like the need/greed options of gear and don't quite get the logic (my logic says that need is the better choice, in that way the player that needs the item gets the item, greed just seems wrong to me, I don't want a greedy player in my party). But it is obvious that my logic is wrong as I have been told that I will not get invited back to a party if I select "need".

Anyway, I will end this post here, as I need to go back through the thread to quote Dis's earlier comments

* Sparrowhawk

One phrase: If you need it, then roll need.

Mostly on the later dungeons the need/greed becomes more apparent. Certain bosses in certain dungeons drop weapons and armor for specific classes. A hunter that "needs" a great 2 handed sword over a warrior in the group may get a bit of a foul reaction from the warrior. Even though a hunter could certainly use it, but it's the warriors main source of damage so would benefit him more...etc..

Hence the "I got my staff" or "The hammer is mine".

If I was in that group and I was a class that could use it, I would have dropped out or talked to him about it.

Need/Greed...eh.. If it's a PUG and it's an improvement for me without an obvious hurt to someone else, I need it.

Just need to agree to the rules ahead of time I guess.

If the item is an upgrade, need it. The main problem comes about because people have different ideas of what certain classes need...


I mean, i quit

[Sparrowhawk]

Took a while to find the post I was looking for but while reading about Dis doing a the same task again and again in recent posts I was reminded of some earlier posts. Here is the first I found (and though I enjoyed the reread now that I understand the game better, I am not going to look for any more, I was mainly after the laugh ).

Originally posted by Dis
Interesting. I just can't play like that.

I never could play Diablo 2 like that either. It's why I could never compete with the top players. I refuse to put that much effort doing something over and over. I need variety (as I noted above, I can't play the same character every day).

Thanks for the tips on Need/Greed, though I still don't like the wording, and don't really care at this point what equipment I have, so I will probably go for Greed most of the time when given the option. It makes me laugh the by Blake's advice, the best way to avoid people accusing me of being greedy is by not selecting need but instead selecting greed.

Seems somewhat counter-intuitive to me somehow But at least I get the concept now

/me

[vee4473]

ha, it really is funny. selecting "need" gets you a better chance at an item, over greed. A bit odd.

If you are truly a greedy person, selecting need seems to be the best bet.

[DrSpike]

Another good use of need is annoying people who have acted like total jerks all throughout the instance.