eternalsinners

by Nightshroud of Alleria

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. Frequently Asked Questions
III. Stats
IV. Talent Specs
V. Discipline Talents
VI. Holy Talents
VII. Shadow Talents
VIII. Racials
IX. How to Heal
X. User Interface
XI. Macros
XII. Links


I. Introduction

Armed with words of pain and prayers of healing, the Priests of Azeroth stand alone as pure casters capable of portioning out both life and death. These acolytes of the primal gods support their nations during crisis. And these are dire times.

Priests are famously recognized as masters of healing, especially group healing. Other classes can rival Priests in focused areas, but Priests thrive on variety of tools to meet the situation. Priests may also fill a primarily damage-dealing role. The side effects of a Shadow focused role include group healing, group mana regen, and whole raid magic amplification on the Priest's target.

Beyond these basics, a Priest can strip enemies of magic buffs or remove harmful magical and disease effects from allies. Humanoid foes can be soothed into not noticing a passing Priest or even bodily possessed to carry out the will of the Priest. Most foes can be instantly Feared. Shadow focused Priests can immediately Silence spellcasting. Increased Stamina, Shadow resistance, and often increased Spirit further benefit a Priest's allies.


II. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I'm interested in healing. Would a Priest be the best class for me?

A: No doubt it would be a good class for you, but since there are several other very viable healing classes -- when properly spec'd and geared -- it's worthwhile to read a Paladin/Shaman/Druid guide or two and discuss this with experienced healers of those classes. Often the best fit for you won't be determined by the healing itself, but by which class 'extras' you prefer.

Q: I'm interested in dealing damage. Would a Priest be the best class for me?

A: Maybe. PvP-wise, my personal advice is that if you can stand to play a class without healing, most people are better off doing so. That said, there certainly are some impressive face melting and smiting videos out there. Just be prepared to put up with a lot of complaining from your own faction for not sticking to healing. PvE-wise, a good Shadow spec Priest is often the very best use of a damage-class slot. Your raw damage can rival 'pure DPS' classes while providing benefit from Vampiric Embrance, Vampiric Touch, Misery, and Shadow Weaving. Some social pressure against PvE Shadow Priests still exists, but only because of the general healer shortage and it's easier to bully a class that can respec healing than one that would have to reroll.

Q: Which race should I be?

A: All races have unique value, but the differences are large enough it's like having 11 talent points permanently spec'd a certain way in a fourth tree. Our blessing and curse is that we're the only class with both normal "base racials" but also two "class racial" spells per race. Short version is that Undead and Dwarf are usually considered the best PvP races; Blood Elf and Draenei the same for PvE. This is oversimplified, so read about the racials yourself later in this guide and make your own choice. (Note: several racials changed with the 2.3 patch. The previous recommendations by role may be outdated.)

Q: How should I spec to level up?

A: Basics are to get Wand Specialization, Spirit Tap, and Imp. SW:Pain in that order. Check the Auction House or an Enchanter friend to keep your wand up to date. Fill in whatever other talents you want. At level 40, respec to get Shadowform. While it's possible to level with another tree, it will just slow you down (but it is very doable, unlike some other MMOs). Healing on the way to the level cap is not significantly hurt by being Shadow spec. For more information, see Covello's sticky on this forum.

Q: Can I spec Shadow and still heal well?

A: For most of the game, talent spec won't make or break you in the healing department. Gear, consumables, and sheer player ability are more significant. But particularly after the expansion talents arrived, minoring or majoring in Holy will make you a noticeably better healer than without.

Q: How much Spell Hit do I need?

Shadow Priests can use up to 76 Spell Hit Rating (6% Spellhit) against raid bosses assuming the 10% from Shadow Focus is already in place. For Draenei Priests, only 63 Spell Hit Rating is needed for Shadow raiding. PvP cap is 3% total, so two points in Shadow Focus or Focused Power for the applicable spells is sufficient but overkill. 38 Spell Hit Rating and no talents also works for PvP for all spells.

Q: What is this 'Five Second Rule'?

A: In World of Warcraft, health regeneration is turned off in combat and turned back on when out of combat. Mana regen, however, doesn't care whether you're in combat or not. Mana regen turns off for five seconds every time you spend mana.

For instant spells and channeled spells your mana will stop regenerating for five seconds as soon as you cast. Spells with a "wind-up" cast time -- such as Greater Heal -- don't interrupt regeneration until the end because that's when mana is spent. For this reason, it saves mana to cast a Greater Heal then immediately Renew instead of the other way around. The interruption times will almost entirely overlap. Another trick is to start casting a spell like Greater Heal then keep canceling until it is needed. No regen interruption until you let it finish.

One exception: channeled spells longer than five seconds won't let your mana resume until you stop channeling. Also notice I will sometimes use the term "casting" to mean "inside the FSR" and "resting" to mean "outside the FSR." These terms aren't as accurate, but they are easier to grasp while talking about other things.

Q: How does [some talent] work?

A: Check the talent tree sections of this guide. I'll cover the three most commonly asked about here...

Q: How does Improved Shadow Word: Pain work?

A: Pain usually has six damage ticks. The talent adds two more 'free' damage ticks the same strength as untalented ticks. There is absolutely no downside.

Q: I have Improved Power Word: Fortitude, but when I mouseover the buff it still shows the lower value. Is it working?

A: Anyone you buff gets the extra Stamina, but talent-improved buffs don't update their tooltips for several classes. This is a long standing display error.

Q: How does Spirit Tap work?

A: After personally landing the killing blow on a non-gray mob or player, your Spirit stat will double and you will retain an extra 50% Spirit regen while in the Five Second Rule. So Priests with Meditation will have Spirit regen continue at 80%. Priests with Spiritual Guidance will gain twice the usual damage bonus from Spirit.

Q: Should I finish off mobs with my wand to get full benefit from Spirit Tap?

No real need in order to reap the benefits of Spirit Tap itself. The key is realizing Spirit Tap's own benefit is total regen with Spirit Tap active minus what your regen would have been without the talent. You will of course have more total regen if you wand instead of cast spells, but this is always true.

Q: How do gear and talents affect my spells, in general?

A: "Damage and healing", "healing", and "shadow damage" from gear -- as applicable -- is multiplied by the coefficient for the particular spell. The result is added to the maximum and minimum healing (or damage) done by the spell. Personal amplification talents like Spiritual Healing or Darkness are then applied. Finally, the target-debuff talents of Misery and Shadow Weaving are applied. See 'Spellpower' in the Stats section for more detail.

Q: What are the Spellpower coefficients?

A: Here you go. Keep in mind that lower rank spells may be subject to one or both coefficient penalties as described under 'Spellpower' in the Stats section of this guide.

42.9% Binding Heal (per target)
21.4% Circle of Healing (per target)
42.9% Flash Heal
85.7% Greater Heal
16.0% Holy Nova healing (per target)
42.9% Prayer of Healing (per target)
42.9% Prayer of Mending (per charge)
30.0% PW:Shield
100% Renew
100% Lightwell (per charge)

75.0% Holy Fire direct damage
25.0% Holy Fire dot
0.00% Mana Burn
42.9% Mind Blast
57.2% Mind Flay
65.0% Shadowfiend
42.9% Shadow Word: Death
110% Shadow Word: Pain
71.4% Smite
100% Vampiric Touch

42.9% Desperate Prayer
100% Devouring Plague
14.3% Chastise
0.00% Feedback
100% Shadowguard
84% Starshards
10.0% Touch of Weakness

Q: The healing or damage range on my spellbook spells don't match up with the numbers on database websites. What's going on?

A: Certain talents like Spiritual Healing, Force of Will, and Darkness that are "always-on" can affect spell tooltips. This can be misleading because accurate theorycrafting requires factoring out those talents from the base descriptions, applying the Spellpower bonus, then factoring such talents back in. (Mana reduction talents generally show up in the spellbook and can be taken at face value.) Also, many damage and healing spells actually scale up slightly as you level until the next rank is trainable.

For reference, here is the list of non-racial spells which do not train a final rank at level 70 and scale up naturally:

1053-1350 Binding Heal
1116-1295 Flash Heal
2414-2803 Greater Heal
1251-1322 Prayer of Healing

528 Mind Flay
711-752 Mind Blast
549-616 Smite
426-537 and 165 Holy Fire
244-283 and 386-448 Holy Nova

[Frequently Asked Questions continued]

Q: I'm having trouble with Mind Control. Why does it keep breaking?

A: Mind Control will break very quickly if your true self is hit by any damage. Try to stand off to the side from any kind of AoE or cleaves. It will also break if you move your target very far away from yourself. Don't move around for a second or two at the start of a Mind Control because sometimes lag will cause the movement to be applied to your Priest which breaks the spell. Finally, wear Spellhit gear (or spec Shadow Focus) or Spellpen gear as applicable to minimize spell resists from your target. See the Stats section for more information.

Q: How am I able to cast PW:Shield in Shadowform? I thought Holy spells were off limit.

A: Only spells on the Holy tab of your spellbook are blocked by Shadowform. The Discipline tab (or tree) is home to a mix of Holy and Shadow school spells which can all be cast in Shadowform. When a mage Counterspells you, it knocks out a whole spell school. This is why Flash Heal and PW:Shield are both unavailable during the CS but Shield is normally available under Shadowform.

Everything on the Holy tab is Holy school. Everything on the Shadow tab is Shadow school, except Prayer of Shadow Protection which is Holy. Here's the breakdown by school for the Discipline tab:

Holy School -- Fortitude (and group), Divine Spirit (and group), Shield, Inner Fire, Dispel Magic (and Mass), Shackle Undead, Levitate, Power Infusion, Pain Suppression, Elune's Grace, Symbol of Hope.

Shadow School -- Mana Burn & Feedback

Arcane School -- Starshards & Consume Magic

Physical (unaffected by spell restrictions) -- Inner Focus

The Draenei racial "Gift of the Naaru" is Holy school, on the General tab, but can't be cast in Shadowform.

Q: My guild is having me Shackle Undead in Karazhan. What Spellhit/Spellpen do I need?

A: Shackle Undead is a Holy spell. Since there is not a Holy Resist stat, Spell Penetration gear will not help you. The level 71 Undead require 4% Spellhit on your gear to minimize breaks. This is equal to 50.4 Spellhit Rating. Moroes' level 70 adds only require 3% Spellhit (37.8 rating) for maximum effectiveness. For more information on how resists work in general, see the Stats section in this guide.

Not everyone agrees with me here, but I don't recommend casting Shackle "every few seconds." Each periodic check is the same as the initial resistance check. Instead, start casting and cancel repeatedly if you want to improve average response time to a break. Better yet have a Mage or Hunter stand ready to freeze the mob as you reapply Shackle. Also, lower Rank Shackle is no more likely to break than top Rank...but with proper Spellhit your Shackle will often outlast Rank 1's 30 second limit.

Q: Does my wand benefit from damage gear?

A: No. Wands deal magical damage, but they're not considered your personal spells. Damage gear and most talents add to your personal spells and so don't help the wand. Target debuffs like Shadow Weaving and Misery, however, CAN increase wand damage. Shadowform now does too. Wand Specialization obviously helps too.

Q: What can Mass Dispel remove that normal Dispel cannot?

A: Divine Shield, Ice Block, and Hurricane. Mass Dispel now will remove either of these kinds of immunity effects first, where previously it tried random ones. It can help against AoE effects like Frost Nova but might not select it on any particular target if there are other magical debuffs to remove.

Q: How does Shadowfiend work?

A: Shadowfiend appears at your target and attempts to attack 10 times during its 15 second lifespan. You will receive 2.5 times the mana of whatever damage it causes. The attacks are physical style, meaning they are subject to dodge, parry, glancing blows, etc. However, they are Shadow school meaning the Fiend benefits from any magic-amplifying debuffs such as Misery and Shadow Weaving. The Shadow attacks do not count as coming from yourself for Blackout, VE, and VT purposes. However, a killing blow will count as your own for Spirit Tap.

Talents amplifying your personal damage (Darkness, Shadowform, Force of Will) do not help the Fiend, but your total Spellpower will make it hit harder. Base damage is 100 to 123 per hit and Spellpower coefficient over the entire ten hits is 65%. Heroism/Bloodlust gives it extra attacks. The Fiend can be buffed with Power Infusion or Shield to make it hit harder or live longer.

When summoned, a pet bar will appear with three stances. Shadowfiend starts in Defensive stance which can make it run away from the intended target to 'defend' you from another attacker. Most Priests prefer to use a macro that summons the Fiend on the first press, then changes stance to Aggressive or Passive and tells it to attack on the second press. Depends on what you want it to do if its current target dies. Aggressive Fiends will automatically find something nearby that isn't crowd-controlled to attack. Passive Fiends will run back to you and wait for you to target something and tap the macro again to make it attack. Replace your normal Shadowfiend button or keybind with this and double tap:

/cast [nopet] Shadowfiend
/petaggressive (or substitute '/petpassive')
/petattack

Q: How does Prayer of Mending work?

A: Prayer of Mending is really a buff placed on a party or raid member that procs a heal the next time that person (or pet/minion) takes damage. The buff itself generates little to no threat, and the heal generates threat for the recipient of the heal. This means you won't receive credit for it on healing meters, but it can help tanks with initial aggro. After it goes off, the buff then jumps to a new target within 20 yards based on lowest health percentage. Ten second cooldown casting the buff but no 'cooldown' on the subsequent jumps, so multiple friendlies taking rapid damage can sometimes use up all five charges in a second or two.

Particularly with the Mental Agility and Healing Prayers talents, Prayer of Mending can be an very efficient spell. It gains the same Spellpower bonus as Flash Heal does on each charge. If it jumps back to you and you're not taking much damage, casting Shadow Word: Death is a fun and efficient way to move it back to those in need. Unfortunately Warlocks can't proc it with Lifetap.

Q: How does Fade work?

Fading grants you a 10 second buff which modifies your total threat by -1500 at top rank. This means the threat reduction is temporary; when Fade expires it is as if you never Faded. Nor does Fade modify your threat production like Blessing of Salvation does; casting a spell while Faded generates normal threat.

However, since the Fade buff actively modifies your threat it is possible to "pre-Fade." Suppose you haven't cast any spells yet and start off by Fading, then cast a heal or a Mind Blast. If that spell generates less than 1500 threat, you will still be treated as if you are at 0 threat until the Fade buff expires. If your Mind Blast generates 2000 threat, you will be treated as if you are at 500 threat until Fade expires.

One odd behavior: a mob will not target you even if it should until you do something -- anything -- that generates new threat after Fade expires.

Q: Is it good or bad to Shield tanks before pulling? I heard it hurts their threat production.

A: Warriors and Druids gain Rage from two sources: dealing damage and taking damage. Protection Warriors tend to be more reliant on the 'taking damage' source than Feral Druids, so let's use them as a worst case scenario. At level 70, PW: Shield will absorb about 12 Rage points worth of incoming damage. One Sunder Armor costs 15 Rage. So yes threat production is delayed a little bit by Shielding. You will run into tanks and healers both who take this information and insist on always Shielding or never Shielding. My advice is not to be fanatical either way about the tradeoff. Oh and Paladins start with 'full Rage' so Shielding only slightly hurts their mid-fight threat production, not the pull.

Q: Does Reflective Shield give Warriors (and bears) Rage?

A: Yes, they receive normal Rage from taking damage.

Q: What professions are good for Priests?

A: Tailoring is very important especially for PvE healing or Shadow Priests starting out at 70. The three piece specialty sets will last you at least until the Tier Five range and longer for certain pieces. You can change your Tailoring specialty later on for a fee.

Jewelcrafters can make a 'unique' 14mp5 trinket with a 900 mana on 'Use' every five minutes. Enchanters have exclusive access to +20 healing or +12 general spellpower ring enchants. Engineering has its weird perqs, including a decent epic hat in healing or harm versions.

Gathering professions -- Mining, Herbalism, and Skinning -- are always good for making money, especially the first two.

Q: Should I wear the Spellstrike or Battlecast tailored set for damage?

Spellstrike is far superior for PvE except in terms of Stamina. Battlecast is decent for PvP, but PvP gear is better.

Q: Should I be a Scryer or an Aldor?

http://www.wowwiki.com/Comparison_of_Al ... er_rewards

Equipment rewards will all become obsolete in the long term. Scryers do have access to a nice +hit trinket Shadow Priests will find useful in early raiding. Recipes produce Bind on Equip gear. Both factions offer damage and healing shoulder enchants, with slightly different stat allocations:

Scryer: (22 heal 6 mp5) and (12 spellpower 15 crit rating)
Aldor: (33 heal 4 mp5) and (18 spellpower 10 crit rating)

III. Stats

A solid understanding of character stats is vital to make smart gear, talent, and enchantment choices. Stats affect survivability, casting endurance and casting power.


SURVIVABILITY STATS

Sufficient survivability is priority one for all classes. The leading cause of DPS, healing, and mana regeneration loss is death. While more survivability stats are always good in themselves, keep in mind that -- in most encounters -- player actions have a far greater impact on survival than a Priest's personal stats (see Crowd Control and Threat below). Don't gimp other stats unnecessarily.

Stamina is the primary survivability stat. Its major advantage is that stamina handles all damage types: physical, environmental, and all schools of magic. Each point of Stamina is worth 10 more hitpoints.

Magical Resistances are secondary survivability stats. Resistances are useful when the whole party or raid is taking large amounts of unavoidable magical damage. In most encounters, resistances can be ignored entirely. For some, stacking the proper resist type is essential.

For those interested in mechanics details, two separate rolls are involved when a spell is cast at a target and both rolls again for any periodic checks.

<Level>
The first roll is based on relative level between caster and target. There is small chance of lower level targets resisting on this roll; a high chance of higher level targets resisting. The attacking caster can wear spellhit gear to reduce her chance of being resisted on this roll (see Spellhit below). Any resist on the level-based roll will result in total spell failure. Resistance stats are not involved in the first roll.

<Resistance>
The second roll is based on the attacking caster's level and the target's resistance stat in the appropriate school of magic. The maximum effect of resistance gear is to reduce incoming damage by an average of 75%. This requires 5x[attacker's level] resistance. (350 resistance against level 70 casters; 365 against level 73 casters which includes many raid bosses.)

Average percent resisted = 0.75 * ResistStat / ([attacker's level]*5)

This average percent can be anything from 0% to 75%, but most spells will either fully hit or completely fail. For these spells, the average percent resisted is the chance per cast of complete failure. Some spells -- direct damage spells -- can also hit for partial damage, but only at the 25%, 50% or 75% marks. Each of the five possible damage percentages is weighted in such a way that after many casts, the average percent resisted comes out right. For instance, if average percent reduction were 57%, then 50% would happen most often...followed by 75%. 25% and 100% would happen fairly often, but 0% would be rare. Direct damage spells are those which deal only damage, and do so all at once. Mind Blast is direct damage, but Mind Flay is not (snare component).

Note on Holy spells: There's no such thing as a Holy Resist stat, so for the most part Holy spells are not subject to the resistance-stat roll. However, there appears to be a kind of school-agnostic resistance for higher level mobs that can't be reduced by Spellpen gear. Supposedly it is the equivalent of 5 resistance per level higher.

Resilience

Resilience is a PvP-oriented crit mitigation stat with two effects: it reduces your chance of being crit and it reduces the damage done when you are crit. At level 70, for every 39.4 Resilience your assailants' crit chance drops by 1% and the damage done to you by crits drops by 2%.

It may seem like Resilience will lower the effectiveness of things like Blessed Recovery which rely on being crit. However, you gain an increasing chance of these effects independently triggering when you take normal hits based on your chance to avoid being crit.


MANA CAPACITY STATS

Intellect increases maximum mana by 15 mana every 1 more Intellect. High Intellect is the best source of mana in short fights.

You'll also gain 1% Spellcrit about every additional 55 Intellect at level 70.


MANA REGENERATION STATS

Longer battles require much more mana than high mana capacity by itself can provide. This is where mana regen starts to shine.

MP5 -- "restores X mana per 5 sec" -- is a steady source of mana regeneration. It doesn't matter if you are casting lots of spells or no spells at all. MP5 gives the same benefit. The only odd thing is the mana is actually delivered in two second intervals, which is nice when waiting for just a bit more to cast a spell.

Spirit usually provides much faster regeneration, but Spirit regeneration turns off for five seconds every time you complete a spell cast. This is known as the "Five Second Rule" or "FSR." If you mouse over the "Mana Regen" stat on your character sheet, you'll see regen broken down into two categories:

"mana regenerated every 5 seconds while not casting"
"mana regenerated every 5 seconds while casting"

The first category represents Spirit regeneration plus MP5. It's a little misleading because Spirit regen does continue while casting a spell, just not for the five seconds after. You can even cancel a cast and keep regenerating at full speed. This is called being "outside the Five Second Rule." The second category represents MP5 alone without the Spirit regen. The talent Meditation will actually allow 30% of Spirit Regen to show up here "inside the Five Second Rule."

Every two seconds you will receive 2/5ths the mana showing up in one of the two categories. Here are the formulas the character sheet uses. The second "while casting" is when Meditation is spec'd:

"while not casting" = MP5 + {[TotalSpirit/4 + 12.5] * 5/2}

"while casting" = MP5
"while casting" = MP5 + {[TotalSpirit/4 + 12.5] * 5/2} * 0.30

"Spirit or MP5?" is a common question. The answer is to take whatever grants you the most total regen. This can be tricky to answer definitively, but start out by putting the Spirit in terms of how much it gives you over 5 seconds. Let's compare 25 Spirit against 10 MP5 on gear.

25/4 * 5/2 = 15.625 over 5 seconds from the Spirit gear while not casting
15.625 * 0.30 = 4.688 over 5 seconds from the Spirit gear while casting (with Meditation)

So comparing that against 10 MP5 all the time will depend on what percentage of a fight you spend inside vs. outside the FSR. Another thing to consider is that anyone with Blessing of Kings gets a 10% Spirit bonus and Humans get a second 10% Spirit bonus. MP5 is improved by neither. Let's say one bonus is in play and figure out what percent of the time you would have to spend outside the FSR (not casting) to get the same total mana regen from the Spirit item as you would from the 10 MP5 item:

15.625 * 1.1 = 17.19 every 5 sec while not casting
4.688 * 1.1 = 5.16 every 5 sec while casting

10 = 17.19(x) + 5.16(1-x)
10 = 17.19x + 5.16 - 5.16x
4.84 = 12.03x
x = 40.23% of the time spent not casting to match the 10 MP5 item

Which is an unrealistic amount of rest time in many fights, but not all. There are two more benefits to Spirit over MP5 to consider. Innervate & Spirit Tap work off of Spirit only. Spiritual Guidance and Improved Divine Spirit grant a bit of Spellpower for Spirit.


THROUGHPUT AND EFFICIENCY STATS

Spellpower -- "increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to X" less accurately known as "+damage" -- is a commonly misunderstood stat. The trouble comes from the phrase "by up to". It does NOT mean that each cast of the same spell gets a random Spellpower bonus within that range. For a particular spell, the bonus is identical every single cast. In general:

Increase per cast = Spellpower * Coefficient

Each spell has a "coefficient" percent which is how much of your Spellpower is used for that spell. For instance, Flash Heal has a 42.9% coefficient. If you have 100 Spellpower, it will heal for an additional 43 hitpoints.

Take a look at the end of the first post in this guide for a list of Spellpower coefficients.

Why such variety? The first reason is cast time. A 3.0 sec spell usually gets twice the bonus from Spellpower that a 1.5 sec spell does. Otherwise, shorter spells would get a much greater DPS boost from the same Spellpower gear. 3.5 sec spells get 100% and instant spells are considered the same as 1.5 sec. That's where Flash Heal's 42.9% comes from: 1.5 / 3.5.

The second reason is type of spell. AoE and group heals usualy get 1/3 the coefficient you would expect from the cast time. HoTs and DoTs will often go over 100% to account for how spread out in time their effects are. Some spells are just given a particular coefficient because the designers decided to set it that way.

Spellpower is also an efficiency stat. When mana cost stays fixed but damage/healing done goes up, efficiency naturally rises. Early on, casters realized that if you're getting a +170 bonus on a spell that bonus would be much more significant on a lower rank that hits for 200 than a top rank that hits for 1500. This is called downranking. Healers would routinely and severely downrank to take a moderate hit to HPS but a huge increase to HPM. Today there are two penalties in effect which still allow for efficiency gains by downranking, but these gains are much less severe than they once were.

* Pre-20 penalty. Spells learned before level 20 have their bonus mutiplied by this penalty: (1 - (20 - LevelLearned) * 0.0375)

* Scaling penalty. (NextRankLevelLearned + 5) / PlayerLevel
For example, Flash Heal Rank 5 is learned at level 44 and Rank 6 is learned at level 50. So Rank 5 doesn't start to be penalized until the player levels past 55. At level 60, the normal bonus would have to be multiplied by... (50+5)/60 = 91.6%.

[Stats continued]

Restricted Spellpower -- So what about +heal and +shadow gear? This is really just Spellpower, restricted to certain kinds of spells. When items are created, restricted Spellpower is a "cheaper" stat than general Spellpower. That's why similar level-and-quality items will have significantly more +heal or +shadow than the all-purpose variety. Unfortunately for Smiting Priests, you will find almost no +holydamage gear and must rely on general Spellpower. For any particular spell:

SpellpowerUsed = GeneralSpellpower + RestrictedSpellpower


Spellcrit -- "Improves your chance to get a critical strike with spells by X% -- causes Priest spells which can crit to hit for an extra 50% randomly. It is additive, meaning that going from 10 to 11 Spellcrit will make an average of 11 spells instead of 10 spells crit per 100. At level 70, it takes 22.1 Spell Critical Strike Rating to get 1% Spellcrit.

Crit works for most healing spells and will proc Inspiration if spec'd for it. Downside is that crit is 'expensive' during item creation so most of the time you're better off overall wearing healing gear without crit. Crit works for Smite, Holy Fire, Mind Blast, and SW:Death (but not for Mind Flay, Pain, or Vampiric Touch). This makes crit a more desired gear stat for Smite-style damage compared to Shadow style damage.


Spellhit -- "Improves your chance to hit with spells by X%" -- indirectly improves efficiency by reducing offensive spell failures. At level 70, it takes 12.6 "spell hit rating" to grant 1% Spellhit.

Review the "Magical Resistances" stat explanation above. Spellhit is only involved in that first roll and overcomes a level difference against your target. It doesn't help you against any resistance stat your target may have. There will always be at least a 1% chance of failing on the first roll, and to minimize the chance of failure down to that 1% you need:

3% Spellhit against same level
4% Spellhit against +1
5% Spellhit against +2
12% Spellhit against +3 players; 16% against mobs

Raid bosses are considered +3 mobs and Shadow Focus stands in for 10% Spellhit. So, Shadow Priests will need 76 Spell Hit Rating (6% more) to cap out against raid bosses. Draenei Priests only need 63 Spell Hit Rating thanks to their aura. For every 25 Spell Hit Rating past the cap, you can drop a point of Shadow Focus to free up those talent points.

PvP cap is 3% total, so two points in Shadow Focus or Focused Power for the applicable spells is sufficient but overkill. 38 Spell Hit Rating (or 26 for Draenei) and no talents also works for PvP for all spells.

This stat has utility outside of damage spells. Mind Control, Mind Soothe, Shackle Undead, Psychic Scream and Dispel Magic (used offensively) all benefit. Consider swapping in some Spellhit gear before fights where this is a concern.


Spell Penetration -- "Decreases the magical resistances of your spell target by X" -- is similar to Spellhit but helps in the second resistance roll instead of the first (see the Magical Resistances section above).

If your target has 100 Shadow Resistance but you're wearing 30 Spellpen, it's as if the target were only wearing 70 Shadow Resistance. With the main exception of Warlock curses, this resistance lowering effect only helps one person...not everyone hitting that target. Resistances cannot fall below zero. This stat does not help Holy school spells in the slightest.

Almost completely irrelevant in PvE.


Spell Haste reduces cast time for normal spells and channeling time for spells like Mind Flay and Starshards. Channeled spells will still do full damage in this compressed time. Haste has no effect on DoTs.

At level 70, divide total "spell haste rating" from gear and buffs by 15.7 to find Haste from stats. This is considered a single source of Haste. Sources are multiplied together before being applied to actual cast times. If you had 15% Haste from the stat and 30% from Bloodlust/Heroism, your Haste modifier would be:

1.15 * 1.30 = 1.495

If this were being applied to a 2.0 sec spell, it would end up as:

2.0 / 1.495 = 1.34 sec cast time

Note: most sources of Haste do not decrease the 1.5 sec global cooldown between all spells. Bloodlust/Heroism being the exception. This severely reduces the value of Haste for Shadow Priests because Mind Flay is the only offensive Shadow spell which naturally takes longer.


IV. Talent Specs

Ideally you should be familiar enough with Priest talents to fully plan your own spec. Still, it doesn't hurt to get a sense of popular layouts. Just keep in mind these are samples only. Some choices are much more vital than others. You don't need permission to make changes, nor am I interested in changing these samples to fit every decent spec possible.

Leveling Builds

Newbie. Start with Wand Specialization, then put the next seven points into Shadow. Keep up on Wands from the AH. Your primary damage is Pain+Wand until somewhere in the 20s. There are times you would actually lose DPS by spending mana on Smite.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVZZxM

20ish to 40ish. At some point Smite+Pain becomes your best damage. Mind Flay is not worthwhile until Shadowform, so I actually recommend switching to Holy to boost Smite damage.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bZfxx0cbVZx

Shadow to Outlands. Consider holding off until level 44 for a new Mind Flay rank before switching to full Shadow. (Surge of Light is a good pick meanwhile).
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bZZxMgzMxohp - at 40
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bZZxMgzMtohtio - at 50
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bZZEMgzMtRhtEo - at 60

Shadow in Outlands. At level 63 full Meditation becomes possible while keeping Vampiric Touch. Follow this up with Inner Focus, then anything you like the rest of the way.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bV0GzhZZxMgzMtohtio

Sticking with Smite. For a long time, Smite builds don't gain much offensively and aren't recommended for efficient leveling. Things get interesting in the low 60s, however, when three-tree Spirit synergy kicks in:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVzGzhxzbZfxx0dbVbZx

Raiding Builds

Shadow. Maximum damage means maximum mana return. Second tier Disc can go different ways. With enough Spell Hit Rating, Shadow Focus can eventually be reduced. See the Stats section for details.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMhzhZZxGxuMxohtEo

Full Holy. Circle of Healing is very useful in certain raid encounters, and generally when folks are sufficiently clustered. Second tier Disc and Absolution can go different ways. And it may be worthwhile to scrounge for Healing Prayers points.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxT0zhxZfhxcf0qVhVo

Divine Spirit. At least one Priest should consider dropping Circle of Healing to provide Spirit and Spelldamage buffs to the raid. Same flexible areas as Full Holy above.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxT0zhxzbZfxxcc0qVhc

V. Discipline Talents

Tier One

Unbreakable Will - "Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by [3%, 6%, 9%, 12%, 15%]."

Excellent for PvP. Sometimes useful in PvE, but can also get you killed. Certain mobs stun/fear AoE and go after unaffected players.

Wand Specialization - "Increases your damage with Wands by [5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%]."

A top notch soloing talent. The best place to spend your first points at level 10. By keeping your wand up to date, it is possible to literally out DPS spellcasting at low levels.

Tier Two

Silent Resolve - "Reduces the threat generated by your Holy and Discipline spells by [4%, 8%, 12%, 16%, 20%] and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by [4%, 8%, 12%, 16%, 20%]."

A dual-use PvE (threat reduction) and PvP (dispel resistance) talent. Stacks multiplicatively with other reductions to threat generation, which means combining this with a 30% threat reduction -- Blessing of Salvation -- results in a total 44% reduction not 50%. Works for both healing and damage spells, but no longer effective for Shadow damage or Vampirics.

Improved Power Word: Fortitude - "Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude by [15%, 30%]."

Effectively adds 240 hitpoints at level 70. Vital talent for at least one Priest in the raid to have and place on tanks where any additional buffer is helpful.

Improved Power Word: Shield - "Increase the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield by [5%, 10%, 15%]."

Decent but not huge considering how quickly Shield tends to be blown away anyway.

Martyrdom - "Gives you a [50%, 100%] chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 sec after being the victim of a melee or ranged critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents you from losing casting time when taking damage and increases resistance to Interrupt effects by [10%, 20%]."

Useful in PvP, considering how often melee and ranged attackers will crit you. Interruption is not prevented on the crit that first procs Martyrdom, but it will proc when Shield is up which in itself would avoid interuption. The lack of control over activation time can be somewhat frustrating. Crit avoidance grants a corresponding chance for Martyrdom to proc on normal hits.

Tier Three

Absolution - "Reduces the mana cost of your DIspel Magic, Cure Disease, Abolish Disease, and Mass Dispel spells by [5%, 10%, 15%]."

Cheaper curing which stacks -- except for Mass Dispel -- with Mental Agility's discount.

Inner Focus - "When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect."

Inner Focus itself is free, instant, and has a three minute cooldown. It does not trip the global cooldown, so it will work in a macro with another spell. Nor does Inner Focus OR the next spell count towards the Five Second Rule. Amazing talent with a use in any situation.

Meditation - "Allows [10%, 20%, 30%] of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting."

Partial operation of Spirit regeneration while in the Five Second Rule is very good. This is the closest thing raiding Priests have to a 'required talent.' See 'Mana Regeneration' in the Stats section of this guide for more detail. Required for Divine Spirit.

Tier Four

Improved Inner Fire - "Increases the beneficial effects of your Inner Fire spell by [10%, 20%, 30%]."

Untalented Inner Fire is a 1580 armor buff at level 70. Three points here will raise that by 474 armor to 2054 total. This is the only "beneficial effect" of Inner Fire; the plural description is outdated. Not something of interest to PvE, but helps a little more against physical attackers in PvP.

Mental Agility - "Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by [2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%]."

Expensive at 5 talent points, but helps so many spells: buffs, Dispel Magic, Cure Disease, Holy Nova, Renew, Prayer of Mending, Fade, Psychic Scream, Pain, Silence, etc. A subtle bonus is that Mental Agility is useful in both short and long fights. Short because it allows an extra spell or three before going OOM; Long because it grants more bang per regen.

Improved Mana Burn - "Reduces the casting time of your Mana Burn spell by [0.5, 1.0] sec."

Mana Burn is usually a 3.0 sec spell and drains an average of 1050 mana at level 70 (and does not go up with stats). The talent raises mana-burned-per-sec from 350 to 525, a 50% increase.

Tier Five

Mental Strength - "Increases your maximum Mana by [2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%]."

Higher mana capacity is great for short fights and PvP featuring frequent deaths. Think of it as a couple of extra Flash Heals, a few extra Mind Flays, or half of a Fortitude. Required for Power Infusion.

Divine Spirit - "Holy power infuses the target, increasing their Spirit by 50 for 30 min."

Comes with a group version and can be cast on any same-faction players. Folks love more Spirit, particularly Priests who didn't spec it themselves.

Improved Divine Spirit - "Your Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit spells also increase the target's spell damage and healing by an amount equal to [5%, 10%] of their total Spirit."

Nice little damage boost for every spell user in the raid.

Tier Six

Focused Will - "After taking a critical hit you gain the Focused Will effect, reducing all damage taken by [1%, 3%, 5%] and increasing healing effects on you by [4%, 7%, 10%]. Stacks up to 3. Lasts 8 sec."

As with other on-being-crit talents, having crit avoidance will grant a scaling chance for Focused Will to trigger when you take normal hits as well. Heals from other players and sources are increased.

Force of Will - "Increases your spell damage by [1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%] and the critical strike chance of your offensive spells by [1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%]."

An essential component to the "Smite Crit" build. Force of Will combined with Holy Specialization grants 10% crit to Holy Fire and Smite from talents alone. Keep in mind that the Force of Will bonuses themselves benefit all offensive spells, not just Holy. Does not benefit healing.

Tier Seven

Power Infusion - "Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell damage and healing by 20%. Lasts 15 sec."

This 3 minute cooldown buff makes for excellent burst damage, and you can hand it off to friends for 20% harder-hitting Shadowbolts, Fireballs, etc. Useful healing-wise to step it up when bosses are about to enrage or otherwise go nuts. Great for PvP, soloing elites, and generally being popular with other casters. Does not trip global cooldown.

Reflective Shield - "Causes [10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%] of the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield to reflect back at the attacker. This damage causes no threat."

An outstanding passive bonus to a spell all Priests use anyway. Easily an extra 700 damage per Shield at level 70. Makes Shield a mana efficient spell, all things considered.

Tier Eight

Enlightenment - "Increases your total Stamina, Intellect, and Spirit by [1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%]."

Like Mental Agility, this is an expensive talent but one that helps a bit in all the right places. Nice for any situation.

Tier Nine

Pain Suppression - "Instantly reduces a friendly target's threat by 5%, reduces all damage taken by 40% and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 65% for 8 sec."

Two minute cooldown with a forty yard range. Utility in many situations.

VI. Holy Talents

Tier One

Healing Focus - "Gives you a [35%, 70%] chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting any healing spell."

This is the sort of delay caused by being autoattacked, not full interruption from stun specials. Stacks additively with even non-talented Concentration Aura from a Paladin for immunity to damage delays for healing spells. Even most Shadow/Disc builds spare two points for Healing Focus.

Improved Renew - "Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by [5%, 10%, 15%]."

Now works completely as advertised: your Renews will heal a full 15% more with this talent than without. Combined with Spiritual Healing, Renews will heal for 26.5% more total.

Holy Specialization - "Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by [1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%]."

Applies to both healing and damage spells. A must-have for those with Force of Will to really crit those Smites and Holy Fires. Synergizes with the Inspiration talent.

Tier Two

Spell Warding - "Reduces all spell damage taken by [2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%]."

Will save a Priest from a good deal of damage in PvP and raids, but for five points opposite Divine Fury it is not often a convenient choice.

Divine Fury - "Reduces the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Greater Heal spells by [0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5] sec."

Divine Fury makes top rank Smite 2.0 sec, Holy Fire 3.0 sec, and Greater Heal 2.5 sec. The Spellpower coefficients remain the same as before, so there's no downside. A huge improvement in the usability and DPS (or HPS) of these spells. Required for Searing Light.

Tier Three

Holy Nova - "Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing 244-283 Holy damage to all enemy targets within 10 yards and healing all party members within 10 yards for 386-448. These effects cause no threat."

Costs 875 mana at top rank and is instant cast with no cooldown. Holy Nova can crit independently on each damage and healing target in a single cast. Very mana hungry, but is worth the tradeoff for the sheer utility of an AoE to a class otherwise missing one. Great for Rank 1 spam to detect stealthed PvP units or interrupt flag captures.

Blessed Recovery - "After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit, heal [8%, 16%, 25%] of the damage taken over 6 sec."

A PvP oriented talent with questionable utility. Only crits themselves are mitigated, and still do more damage than non-crits even if you're alive in 6 more seconds to finish the heal. Nor can there be multiple HoTs for clustered crits which are so common in PvP.

If the heal effect is already active, a bigger crit than the previous one will remove the HoT effect and start a new one; a smaller crit will not trigger additional healing at all. Can proc when Shield is up, but since the damage actually taken is zero the amount healed will also be zero.

Inspiration - "Increases your target's armor by [8%, 16%, 25%] for 15 sec after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing spell."

Underrated talent for those who spend a lot of time direct-healing tanks. Contrary to popular belief, the value of armor actually scales linearly and even heavily magic bosses usually dish out physical damage to tanks. On yourself (or other Priests), the bonus from Inner Fire is not increased.

Tier Four

Holy Reach - "Increases the range of your Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of your Prayer of Healing, Holy Nova, and Cirlce of Healing spells by [10%, 20%]"

Most of the time Prayer of Healing will still be long-range enough and Holy Nova still all too short-range to make Holy Reach worthwhile primarily as a healing talent. The range increase of Smite and Holy Fire are extremely nice in PvP -- raising both from 30 yards to 36 yards -- with the healing spell increases being something of a bonus to that.

Improved Healing - "Reduces the Mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal spells by [5%, 10%, 15%]."

Priests who make heavy use of Greater Heal will find this talent a godsend. What was already efficient becomes very efficient.

Searing Light - "Increases the damage of your Smite and Holy Fire spells by [5%, 10%]".

Ten percent damage total (post gear/buffs) increase for two points in a tree position even the most healing-focused Priests can pick up with ease? Skipping is only worth consideration if you never cast damage spells.

Tier Five

Healing Prayers - "Reduces the Mana cost of your Prayer of Healing and Prayer of Mending spells by [10%, 20%]."

The unique strength of Priests among other healing classes is our strong group healing. This talent significantly mitigates the major downside to this strength: high mana cost. Goes very well with Mental Agility for Prayer of Mending.

Spirit of Redemption - "Increases total Spirit by 5% and upon death, the priest becomes the Spirit of Redemption for 15 sec. The Spirit of Redemption cannot move, attack, be attacked or targeted by any spells or effects. While in this form, the priest can cast any healing spell free of cost. When the effect ends, the priest dies."

For any raiding Priest, the 5% Spirit increase alone is well worth the point. The on-death effect can be very helpful in some situations or be so bad as to cause game disconnects for certain players. Your mileage may vary, so it's best to give it a personal spin. Required for Lightwell.

Spiritual Guidance - "Increases spell damage and healing by up to [5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%] of your total Spirit."

Bonus Spellpower without making any gear tradeoffs. A solid boost for both healing and DPS modes.

Tier Six

Surge of Light - "Your spell criticals have a [25%, 50%] chance to cause your next Smite spell to be instant cast, cost no mana, but be incapable of a critical hit. This effect lasts 10 sec."

Both damage and healing criticals (including group heals) count for procing this effect. Great for guilt-free Smites while raid healing and extra burst damage in PvP. Like Inner Focus, spells which cost no mana do not trip the Five Second Rule.

Spiritual Healing - "Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by [2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%]."

Now works as advertised: your healing spells will heal for a full 10% more than they would without this talent. Lightwell and PW: Shield are not affected.

Tier Seven

Holy Concentration - "Gives you a [2%, 4%, 6%] chance to enter a Clearcasting state after casting any Flash Heal or Greater Heal spell. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next Flash Heal or Greater Heal by 100%."

Free heals -- particularly ones which do not trip the Five Second Rule -- are nice. Keep in mind that top rank Greater Heal can be used even if the procing spell was Flash Heal or a downranked Greater Heal.

Lightwell - "Creates a holy Lightwell. Members of your raid or party can click the Lightwell to restore 2360 health over 6 sec. Any damage taken will cancel the effect. Lightwell lasts for 3 min or 5 charges."

445 mana; 40 yard placement range; 1.5 sec cast; 6 min cooldown. Under ideal conditions, Lightwell has over a 26 hitpoints healed to mana cost ratio. Unfortunately, these conditions largely rely on other players not wasting it. For this reason, some Priests hate Lightwell while others work with their guilds to get decent use out of it. Has some tactical value in PvP, but again requires some cooperation from teammates.

Blessed Resilience - "Critical hits made against you have a [20%, 40%, 60%] chance to reduce the chance you'll be critically hit by 100% for 6 sec."

A great passive defense against the crit-bursts of PvP from both casters and melee. Obviously not something to rely on, but will tend to spare you more damage over time than Pain Suppression. Keep in mind that some classes gain certain procs when they crit which this talent nullifies beyond the extra damage.

Tier Eight

Empowered Healing - "Your Greater Heal spell gains an additional [4%, 8%, 12%, 16%, 20%] and your Flash Heal and Binding Heal gain an additional [2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%] of your bonus healing effects."

Let's say you have 1000 +heal. The Spellpower coefficient for Flash Heal is normally 42.9% and for Greater Heal it's 85.7%. So without Empowered Healing your Flash Heal would heal an extra 429 hitpoints; your Greater Heal an extra 857 hitpoints.

Empowered Healing adds percentage points to the coefficient. With full points, Flash Heal (or Binding Heal) gets a 52.9% coefficient while Greater Heal gets bumped up to 105.7%. Meaning your Flash Heals will now heal an extra 529 hitpoints; your Greater Heals for an extra 1057 hitpoints. A welcome gain for our direct healing arsenal. The Empowered Healing bonus is applied before -- and therefore reduced by -- the downranking penalty.

Tier Nine

Circle of Healing - "Heals target party member and other party members within 15 yards of the target for 499 to 551."

450 mana; 40 yard range; instant cast. Despite the description, it can be cast on raid members not in your own party. That raid member's party would be the ones healed...if within 15 yards of the first. A highly efficient heal _if_ most of the target party is in one location.

VII. Shadow Talents

Tier One

Spirit Tap - "Gives you a [20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%] chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target that yields experience. For the duration, your mana will regenerate at a 50% rate while casting. Lasts 15 sec."

Spirit Tap is activated by personally getting the killing blow on a "green" (or higher) mob or player. Spell, wand, etc. Any method will do. The idea is you get an extra helping of full Spirit regeneration whether you're in the Five Second Rule or not. Meditation's benefit stacks with Spirit Tap so neither is diminished. There's no need to try to be outside the FSR when Spirit Tap procs to get "full benefit."

Very helpful when solo farming and when using SW:Death to grab killing blows in group PvP.

Blackout - "Gives your Shadow damage spells a [2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%] chance to stun the target for 3 sec."

For Mindflay, Pain, and Vampiric Touch the stun will happen immediately when the DoT is applied...the actual ticks don't have a chance to proc Blackout. Mana Burn does not count as a Shadow spell. Fabulous for PvP and decent for PvE. Can cause some threat issues for tanks who rely on taking damage (or needing to be healed).

Tier Two

Shadow Affinity - "Reduces the threat generated by your Shadow spells by [8%, 16%, 25%]."

Stacks multiplicatively with any other threat reduction factors. For example, Shadow Affinity with Blessing of Salvation is a total 47.5% reduction (which is the same as 52.5% of normal threat.) A great talent for PvE Shadow Priests, practically useless for anyone else. No longer stacks with Silent Resolve.

Improved Shadow Word: Pain - "Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by [3, 6] sec."

Pain without talents is a six tick DoT. This talent adds two more ticks, each just as strong as individual ticks without the talent. It does not "spread" Spellpower from gear and dilute Pain's DPS as the common misconception goes. Great for efficiency in PvE and for killing Rogues/runners in PvP.

Shadow Focus - "Reduces your target's chance to resist your Shadow spells by [2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%]."

Increases Spellhit (see Stats section above) for Shadow spells. Since 3% Spellhit is all that's needed to max that stat vs. even level players, two points in Shadow Focus is all a PvP oriented Priest should allocate.

Raid bosses on the other hand require five points in Shadow Focus plus another 6% from gear to max out Spellhit, making this a required talent for any raiding Shadow Priests.

Tier Three

Improved Psychic Scream - "Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream spell by [2, 4] sec."

Standard Scream has a 30 second cooldown. This lowers it to 26 seconds. Handy for mass-mob encounters and of course good for PvP. Required for Silence.

Improved Mind Blast - "Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by [0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5] sec."

Standard Mind Blast has an 8 second cooldown. Considering the short cast time and the 50% noninterruption for Mind Blast on PvP gloves, this is a good way to raise damage while under fire. PvE is more about efficiency, so no points or only a couple points is enough to fit Mind Blast into a nice rotation with Mind Flay.

Mind Flay - "Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 528 damage over 3 sec and slowing the target to 50% of their movement speed."

Good damage, high efficiency...and snares on top of that. The beloved spammable Shadow spell.

Tier Four

Improved Fade - "Decreases the cooldown of your Fade ability by [3, 6] sec."

Standard Fade has a 30 second cooldown. This lowers it to 24 sec. Since Fade's threat reduction is only temporary, very few Priests take this talent.

Shadow Reach - "Increases the range of your Shadow damage spells by [10%, 20%]."

More range is nice in any situation.

Shadow Weaving - "Your Shadow damage spells have a [20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%] chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Shadow damage. This vulnerability increases the Shadow damage delt to your target by 2% and lasts 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times."

As with Blackout, Shadow Weaving places a debuff on your target the moment a spell starts to hit, i.e. individual Mindflay or Pain ticks don't count. Multiple Priests will share the same debuff slot, causing it to stack faster. So long as one Shadow spell from a Weaving-spec'd Priest hits the target 15 seconds after the last one, the debuff will stay up and not lose its stacking level...otherwise it will drop completely. At 5 stackings, Shadow damage delt is raised by 10%.

This 10% increase is calculated last and works for anyone and any source of Shadow damage: Warlocks, wands, anything. This means any Spellpower gear or damage buffs are themselves buffed by Shadow Weaving.

Tier Five

Silence - "Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 sec."

Straightforward "you can't cast jack" ability. Most useful in PvP, but sure comes in handy making caster mobs run to the group in small instances. Doesn't tend to work on bosses.

Vampiric Embrace - "Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 15% of any Shadow damage you deal for 1 min."

Helps self-preservation when soloing elites or other players. In small dungeons, is often all the healing needed between bosses. In raids, can function as another stacked HoT on the MT or fuel for the Warlocks and Paladins. Both highly efficient and high threat. The only way to increase VE heals is to increase Shadow damage. It is not considered a heal directly from you. VE can no longer crit. Required for Shadowform.

Improved Vampiric Embrace - "Increases the percentage healed by Vampiric Embrace by an additional [5%, 10%]."

Causes Vampiric Embrace to heal each party member for 25% of all Shadow damage done instead of 15%.

Focused Mind - "Reduces the mana cost of your Mind Blast, Mind Control, and Mind Flay spells by [5%, 10%, 15%]."

No one ever worried about Mind Control cost, but more efficient Flays and Blasts are always welcome. Must-have for raid nukers and solo farming.

Tier Six

Shadow Resilience - "Reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by all spells by [2%, 4%]."

Not the most attractive talent due to placement and limitation to spell crits.

Darkness - "Increases your Shadow spell damage by [2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%]."

Applies to both base spell descriptions and to Spellpower from gear and buffs. Staple Shadow damage amplifier.

Tier Seven

Shadowform - "Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15% and reducing Physical damage done to you by 15%. However, you may not cast Holy spells while in this form."

Mmmm. More damage amplification. The physical damage reduction is helpful soloing and PvPing. This reduction is seperate from armor reduction. E.G. 20% from armor with the 15% from Shadow Form, total reduction becomes 32% rather than 35%. While being unable to cast Holy spells is a major disadvantage, Shadowform can be cancelled at any time for zero mana cost. Required for Vampiric Touch.

If you do not want to automatically leave Shadowform when attempting to cast a forbidden spell, type the following command: /console autoUnshift 0

Shadow Power - "Increases the critical strike chance of your Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death spells by [3%, 6%, 9%, 12%, 15%]."

Unusually high percents for a crit rate increasing talent. This is to offset the fact that Priest crits grant only a 50% bonus and that Mind Blast/Death are not as spammable as Frostbolt and such. That said, Mind Blast and SW:Death are our best sources of burst damage. These spells can be chained in a pair and 15% higher chance of crit on each adds up to a much better chance of at least one critting.

Tier Eight

Misery - "Your Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay, and Vampiric Touch spells also cause the target to take an additional [1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%] spell damage."

Similar to Shadow Weaving. Any time one of those three DoT spells are on a target, the Misery debuff also appears at a max of 5% total. Spell damage of any school from any source gets an extra 5% bonus. Misery does not stack with itself if multiple Priests are applying it.

Tier Nine

Vampiric Touch - "Causes 685-690 Shadow damage over 15 sec to your target and causes all party members to gain mana equal to 5% of any Shadow spell damage you deal."

425 mana; 30 yd range; 1.5 sec cast. Similar to Vampiric Embrace, but with a group mana return instead. Unlike VE, VT is meant to double as a powerful DoT. If the DoT damage is not your focus, it's possible to downrank and keep the full 5% mana return effect. While you personally won't actually gain much mana by casting VT, you can at least think of it as a free DoT or as a discount for subsequent spells. Party members, however, will love the free mana.

VIII. Racials

One of the most important decisions in a Priests life starts before setting foot in a newbie zone. In addition to the usual racial differences, each Priest race has two class-specific racials. These are listed first. Spell descriptions are at level 70.


Blood Elf

Consume Magic
Dispels one beneficial Magic effect from the caster and gives them 660-694 mana. The dispelled effect must be a Priest spell. <0>

The Priest buff consumed is randomly selected.

Touch of Weakness
The next melee attack on the caster will cause 80 Shadow damage and reduce the damage caused by the attacker by 35 for 2 min. <235>

Similar to Shadowguard, but with only one charge and bad mana efficiency. The Curse debuff can be useful against dual wielders and Hunter pets. The discharge can cause Shadow Weaving and Blackout. Reportedly has a 10% Spellpower coefficient and can crit for 150% damage.

Mana Tap
Reduces target's mana by 120 and charges you with Arcane energy for 10 min. This effect stacks up to 3 times. <0>

To be used in combination with Arcane Torrent. The 10 minute cooldown refreshes with each new Tap.

Arcane Torrent
Silence all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec. In addition, you gain 161 Mana for each Mana Tap charge currently affecting you. <0>

Can be used any time for the Silence effect without needing any Mana Tap charges. The Silence debuff is a Magical effect.

Arcane Affinity/Magic Resistance
Enchanting skill increased by 10 and all resistances increased by 5. <passives>


Troll

Shadowguard
The caster is surrounded by shadows. When a spell, melee or ranged attack hits the caster, the attacker will be struck for 130 Shadow damage. Attackers can only be damaged once every few seconds. This damage causes no threat. 3 charges. Lasts 10 min. <270>

Receives 100% Spellpower coefficient spread across the three charges. Enhanced by Shadow damage talents including the ability to proc Shadow Weaving and Blackout with each charge. It is a Magical buff which enemy Priests and Shaman can remove.

Hex of Weakness
Weakens the target enemy, reducing damage caused by 35 and reducing the effectiveness of any healing by 20%. Lasts 2 min. <295>

Does not stack with Mortal Strike or Wound Poison. The debuff is actually a Curse.

Berserking
Increases your attack speed by 10% to 30%. At full health the speed increase is 10% with a greater effect up to 30% if you are badly hurt when you activate Berserking. Lasts 10 sec. <157>

Does not trip the global cooldown. Works with spells too.

Regeneration
Health regeneration rate increased by 10%. 10% of total Health regeneration may continue during combat. <passive>

Only helps with natural regen, not healing spells.

Beast Slaying
Damage dealt versus Beasts increased by 5%. <passive>


Undead

Devouring Plague
Afflicts the target with a disease that causes 1216 Shadow damage over 24 sec. Damage caused by Devouring Plague heals the caster. <1145>

Receives 100% Spellpower coefficient over the course of the DoT and makes use of Shadow damage talents. Often macro'd with Inner Focus. Disease effect.

Touch of Weakness
The next melee attack on the caster will cause 80 Shadow damage and reduce the damage caused by the attacker by 35 for 2 min. <235>

(see comments for Blood Elves)

Will of the Forsaken
Provides immunity to Charm, Fear and Sleep while active. May also be used while already afflicted by Charm, Fear or Sleep. Lasts 5 sec. <0>

One of the best loved (and hated) racial abilities in PvP.

Cannibalize
When activated, regenerates 7% of total health every 2 sec for 10 sec. Only works on Humanoid or Undead corpses within 5 yds. Any movement, action, or damage taken while Cannibalizing will cancel the effect. <0>

Total of 35% of your health bar regenerated from Cannibalize, aside from any normal out of combat health regeneration. Can be used in combat and works in Shadowform.

Underwater Breathing/Shadow Resistance
Can breathe three times longer than usual underwater and 10 Shadow Resistance. <passives>


Draenei

Symbol of Hope
Greatly increase the morale of party members, giving them 333 mana every 5 sec. Effect lasts 15 sec. <15>

Mana regen buff is a Magic effect.

Chastise
Chastise the target, causing 370 to 430 Holy damage and Incapacitates them for up to 2 sec. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Only works against Humanoids. This spell causes very low threat. <300>

The incapacitate is a Magical effect. Does not invoke a global cooldown, so you can begin casting again as soon as Chastise completes. 14.3% coefficient.

Gift of the Naaru
Heals the target of 1085 damage over 15 sec. <0>

Spellpower coefficient of 100% and is affected by healing talents. Cannot be cast in Shadowform.

Inspiring Presence
Increases chance to hit with spells by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards. <passive>

Gemcutting/Shadow Resistance
Jewelcrafting skill increased by 5 and Shadow Resistance increased by 10. <passives>


Human

Feedback
The priest becomes surrounded with anti-magic energy. Any successful spell cast against the priest will burn 165 of the attacker's Mana, causing 1 Shadow damage for each point of Mana burned. Lasts 15 sec. <705>

Not usually considered worth casting, given the high mana cost.

Desperate Prayer
Instantly heals the caster for 1637-1924 at level 70. <0>

Spellpower coefficient of 42.9%. Affected by Spiritual Healing and can crit. Reportedly will take advantage of Inner Focus's crit bonus without using up the Inner Focus.

Perception
Dramatically increases stealth detection for 20 sec. <0>

The stealth detection buff is 10 effective levels. A level 60 Rogue will become as detectable as a level 50 Rogue, all else being equal. This increase is not as "dramatic" as it sounds, but activation is free.

The Human Spirit
Increase Spirit by 10%. <passive>

Helps with Spirit gear, buffs, etc. A full 10% increase over not having it.

Diplomacy
10% bonus to faction point gain. <passive>


Dwarf

Chastise
Chastise the target, causing 370 to 430 Holy damage and Incapacitates them for up to 2 sec. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Only works against Humanoids. This spell causes very low threat. <300>

(see comments for Draenei)

Desperate Prayer
Instantly heals the caster for 1601 to 1887. <0>

(see comments for Humans)

Stoneform
While active, grants immunity to Bleed, Poison, and Disease effects. In addition, Armor increases by 10%. Lasts 8 sec. <0>

Most often used by Priests to remove Poison, Stoneform is handy versus Rogues and Hunters.

Frost Resistance
+10 Frost Resistance. <passive>

Find Treasure
Activate to see treasure chests on mini map. <0>


Night Elf

Starshards
Rains starshards down on the enemy target's head, causing 785 Arcane damage over 15 sec. <0>

Does not start the Five Second Rule when cast. 84%ish coefficient which may be a bug.

Elune's Grace
Reduces the chance you'll be hit by melee and ranged attacks by 20% for 15 sec. <mana>

Magic effect. Adds to the Miss chance of your attacker[s]. Applies only to physical ranged attacks, i.e. Hunters.

Shadowmeld
Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. <0>

Starting about any action cancels Shadowmeld. It is possible to start drinking/eating then click Shadowmeld. Merely standing up (e.g. "/stand") does not break Shadowmeld. Weaker than Rogue stealth, Shadowmeld is still quite effective against mob patrols and long-to-medium range players.

Wisp Spirit
Transform into a wisp upon death, increasing speed by 50%. <passive>

Quickness/Nature Resistance
1% Dodge chance and +10 Nature Resistance. <passives>

IX. How to Heal

Balancing threat, with mana conservation, with keeping people alive is what the healing game is all about.

Threat Management

"I dunnae get it, Padre. Ev'rytime ya do a group heal, all tha monsters on tha map jump on ya and try to kill ya." - Flintlocke, to his Priest

Threat is the primary game mechanic for determining which player a particular mob will attack. Oversimplified: the player who has done the most damage. Healing a player will generate threat to all the mobs in combat with the heal's recipient as if you had damaged each of them. Only the hitpoints you actually restore count, even if you use a bigger heal than necessary.

There are many special abilities, talents, and even some items that manipulate threat. The value in understanding threat is that you will understand why a mob turned to attack and kill a certain player, and how to keep mobs attacking the right players in the future. I highly recommend studying:

Kenco's "A Guide to Threat" http://evilempireguild.org/guides/kenco2.php

If all the monsters on the map do jump on you, first make sure as many as possible are either being tanked or crowd controlled (e.g. Polymorphed). If not, your party needs to get its act together and it's not your fault. It is your responsibility, however, to be careful right at the start of a fight to give tanks time to build initial threat. Some tactics:

* Don't heal immediately, when possible. If a tank can be beat on for eight seconds without dying, there's no need to start a heal for the first couple seconds.

* Renew. Renew generates a small amount of threat on each tick, which makes it unlikely to spike healing threat past what the tank is doing. A low rank direct heal after a few seconds works similarly.

* Shield. Very important to understand how Shield works. It immediately generates threat equivalent to half as many hitpoints healed. So a 1000 point Shield is like healing 500 hitpoints. Cast it on a tank before combat starts and mobs won't even know about it. (However it does slightly slow threat generation. See the Frequently Asked Questions section in this guide.)

* Fade. Fade removes a certain amount of your threat toward all mobs, then dumps that threat back on you when Fade expires. Fade is best used reactively: hit it when mobs turn toward you then lay off healing as long as you can. For extremely touchy encounters when even a second of a raid boss' attention can cause a wipe, consider "pre-Fading." You go in to what behaves like negative threat, allowing one small to medium heal at very low risk. Just remember to stop casting after doing so, otherwise the return of Fade's threat may spike you right over the tank.

* Use Prayer of Mending. Prayer of Mending generates threat toward the player healed. Especially helpful on tricky pulls to give the tank an initial boost.

* Use Binding Heal. Binding Heal generates unusually low threat for the amount of hitpoints healed.

* Use multiple healers. Splitting healing aggro among more than one healer can keep all of you at low threat.

Mana Conservation

A beginner's healing style often consists of frantically chain-casting Flash Heal on hurt allies until running out of mana. This works fine in very short fights. Flash Heal is a fine tool for quickly getting a medium-sized heal where needed, but the amount of healing per mana spent is low. How to get the most out of your blue bar:

* Greater Heal. Cast time is longer but both hitpoints per second (HPS) and hitpoints per mana (HPM) are higher than Flash Heal. If you can land one, do so.

* Renew. Renew has high HPM and heals for a ton. It just does so slowly. For anyone taking constant damage, tossing a Renew is like tossing an instant cast Greater Heal.

* Prayer of Mending. If you can get it to bounce a few times, Prayer of Mending can reach very high HPM levels, especially with one or both of the cost reduction talents.

* Learn Burst-and-Break style. Try to maximize your time outside the Five Second Rule to pick up as many big mana regen ticks as possible. For instance, cast a Renew right as a Greater Heal lands then wait until the next Greater Heal is needed. It is better to patch up everyone then take a longer break than to cast a spell every three or four seconds.

* Downrank Heals. Experiment or use a healing calculator to find which lower ranks give a higher hitpoints per mana ratio. Usually one or two ranks down will be more efficient with smaller gain beyond that.

* Cancel heals. Watch your target's health while casting heals. If someone else heals your target to full, interrupt your own cast. Not only do you save the cost of the spell but starting a spell doesn't trigger (or maintain) the Five Second Rule. Some like to hit ESC, some like to move, some like to jump. Find what works best for you.

* Rotate with a partner. One healer is responsible for the tank while the other one stops casting to regenerate. The healer in waiting can be on the lookout for a damage spike and intervene when needed. Set up a macro or two for quick coordination.

* Gear switching. Weapons (including offhands) and wands can be swapped out during combat. Many Priests like to start with a high-int set and swap after the first couple of casts, or at least swap to a high-spirit set when resting in a partner rotation.

Safety

Threat management is about keeping yourself safe. Mana conservation is about keeping yourself useful. Safety is about doing whatever it takes -- even going against the first two aspects of healing -- to keep group members alive.

* Shield. Our instant "heal" is mana inefficient but well worth the cost. Nothing like throwing out a Shield to give the other healers that last second to land a big heal. Learn what Mortal Strike looks like and immediately Shield any tank hit by one; it still takes full effect unlike actual heals. Shield also acts like a Sta buff when a tank is already at full. Shield when you know massive burst damage is about to land, then start your next heal.

* Prayer of Mending. If your target can survive one more hit, Prayer of Mending also functions like an instant heal.

* Flash Heal. When you suddenly realize a heal needs to go right there Flash Heal delivers. It's bad to use Flash Heal all the time, but smart to use it at the right time.

* Binding Heal. Any time you're uncomfortable with your own low health but can't let the healing slack on a tank, Binding Heal is the best tool for the job.

* Use the Force. At least, it will seem like you can sense the immediate future when you start Greater Heals when they're not needed and repeatedly interrupt before it lands. Then, when a tank gets hit hard in the middle of your cast just let it complete. This synergizes well with other healers stabilizing tank health with Steady style direct heals.

* Stack HoTs. More stabilization. Every tank should have every available HoT active at all times. Multiple Priests can even maintain their own Renew on the same tank. Many small heals going off constantly give direct heals time to land and thus save tanks from sudden death.

* Casting Bar. Now a standard UI option. It can pay to target enemies to know ahead of time what hell they're about to loose upon your party.

* Target's target. Now a standard UI option. This allows you to select an enemy and keep track of which ally it is currently attacking. Great for making sure you're healing the correct tank of the moment.

* Learn to run. Too many healers pay little to no attention to their environment. If a tank goes out of Line of Sight are you going to stop healing and complain? Far better to keep track of your tank's location and take responsibility for positioning yourself within LoS. It's even possible to kite mobs who target you, preferably towards a tank who can pick them up. PvP is a good way to train yourself to heal and pay attention to the 3d world behind the health bars.

X. User Interface

Personalizing your UI for maximum appeal and ease-of-use can go a long way toward making your play comfortable and dexterous. By their nature, personalization tips I share here won't necessarily reflect what's best for you.


Built-in Options

Before downloading any Addons or writing macros, here are some particularly useful Interface Options to adjust:

* Mouse Sensitivity changes how quickly your mouse moves around the 2d interface. It should be easy to move all the way across the screen without being hypersensitive. Mouse Look Speed changes how quickly your character rotates when holding down the right mouse button to steer. Since I also play a Hunter, I set this so it's easy to do a 360 turn without twirling around three extra times. I also set Camera Following Style to 'Never' to stop the camera from doing strange things on its own. Sliding Max Camera Distance to 'High' allows farther zoom out.

* A good way to reduce screen clutter is to turn off Player Names. If you leave one or both of the suboptions checked, that information will still show up when selecting a player. I prefer to leave Buff Durations off, since mousing over them works to check time left. And don't install a buff mod that takes up 1/5 the screen showing the names of every active buff.

* Useful clutter to add includes Floating Combat Text. Seeing numbers scroll on top of your character when taking damage is a great alert when you're watching everything but your own health bar. (Or use the mod Scrolling Combat Text which lets you also see how hard your heals are hitting.) Turn on Show Target of Target and Show Enemy Cast Bar for more situational awareness.

* I find it very useful to set up my mouse's scroll button to Toggle Autorun when clicked (in Key Bindings). This lets me move around with just the mouse. If you do any PvP healing, bind some key to Show Friendly Nameplates.

* Keybindings in general will increase the speed of your spellcasting. Bind your most frequently used spells to the easiest keys to hit around the movement keys. If you want to get extreme, use Shift (or alt or ctrl) versions and create macros to make some keys cast a different spell depending on whether a friend or foe is targeted. More on this in the Macros section of this guide below.


Interface Addons

Standard options are meant to make the game playable, but Blizzard gave players access to a very rich programming interface to allow much deeper customization. Addons are really just glorified macros with thousands of lines of text instruction instead of a few lines. Legitimate Addons are just a Folder with a bunch of text (and maybe image) files that you place here:

C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns

and the WoW program itself reads in to handle how it likes. In other words, you never 'run' Addon files yourself. If a supposed Addon comes as a .EXE file, don't run it because it could literally do anything to your computer...including stealing your WoW password (or worse). Having to open a .ZIP file and just copying the folder to your Interface\Addons folder is the standard way of installing Addons. Start or restart WoW and click the AddOns button on the character selection screen. Here, make sure the mods you want running are checked and not showing any problems. If there dependency errors, mouse over the affected mods to find out what other mods must be present. Then search Addon websites or Google to download and install them.

Some of the main AddOn websites:

http://ui.worldofwar.net
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads
http://wowace.com/wiki/Category:Addons
http://wow-en.curse-gaming.com/files/addons

(Don't post to this thread if you had a bad experience at any of these sites, because it's your own darn fault for not following the advice above. Downloading .ZIP files and moving folders in place yourself is safe no matter where you get them from.)

Action Bar Mods

Twelve buttons not enough for all your class abilities? You can either open up 1-3 more bars in the built-in options or replace the whole bottom bar with something like Bongos, TrinityBars, or Bartender. I prefer Bongos. Other Bar Mods tend to have more options, but Bongos may have all you need.

Serenity is a sort of Priest shortcut bar. It has one big, clickable circle surrounded by quite a few little circles. You can customize what left or right clicking the circles do and adjust some informational text in the big circle. It's also useful for tracking water/potions/reagents remaining.

Inventory & Gear Mods

Bagnon is by far the best inventory Addon in my estimation. Install it and create a macro for the command "/bgn bags". Now one icon on your action bars will let you see what's in all your bags. "/bgn bank" keeps track of what's in your bank, if you've viewed the bank after installing it. Play around with the item type buttons along the top because they make finding all the herbs in your inventory, all the vendor junk, etc. quite easy.

Itemrack is likewise the best equipment set Addon I've used. Beyond setting up normal gearsets, you can do things like define Riding Crop as a set by itself and set it to the "Mount" set on the Events tab to automatically ride at full speed and switch back to whatever you were wearing before when you dismount.

Unit Frame Mods

'Unit Frame' refers to those little windows showing player/mob health (and other information) that you can click on to target those 'units.' Healers especially want to be very comfortable with their unit frames because we watch them and switch targets frequently. Popular examples are Archaeologist, X-Perl, Perl Classic, CT_RaidAssist, AG Unit Frames, Grid, and PerfectRaid. Some only do party frames, others only raid, and some both. Most allow the option of 'health deficit' bars where the bars grow bigger as players approach death. This is probably the type of AddOn most worth your time to personally try a variety and find what works for you.

For now I prefer a very stripped down version of X-Perl. If you try it, turn off 'Fading Bars' on the Global tab or be very grumpy next time you heal a party. X-Perl includes a frame for your Focus target. I set a keybind for 'Focus Target' to my '~' key to do things like track a CC assignment or watch a boss' cast bar.

Tracking AddOns

MendWatch and Prayer of Mending Tracker are two newer mods designed to help you know what your Prayer of Mending is up to. Has it run out of charges? Is it wastefully sitting on the Mage way in the back? Now you'll know.

Chronometer or TTSpellTimer watch pretty much any other spell with an effect time and they works for all classes. Especially vital for Shadow PvE.

Raiding AddOns

Deadly Boss Mods, BigWigs, CT_RABossMods all read boss emotes and track time between special events to give you a heads up during scripted fights. It may not be necessary to run one of these yourself if someone else is broadcasting announcements.

KLHThreatMeter watches all threat producing actions by raid members and displays a graph of estimated total threat. Useful for Shadow Priests running Vampiric Embrace. This mod's accuracy grows as more raid members have it installed.

SW_Stats is the most detailed healing and damage meter. It can show who healed a particular player of the course of a raid and for how much. Or it can break down the amount of damage or healing you've been doing by spell, which may help you adjust talents optimally. Accuracy also grows with installs.

Other AddOns

There are about a zillion other AddOns to try out. CT_MailMod which lets you send many stacks of items through the mail at the same time is the one I can't live without. Tooltip Wrangler Continued lets you set tooltips to any spot on the screen. Take some time and cook up the perfect UI for yourself.

XI. Macros

"Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger." - Daft Punk

Under normal circumstances, clicking or keying an action button will cast one particular spell or use one particular item every time. And that's it. Macros introduce a limited amount of spell and target selection, action bundling, and input handling. A bit of programmed intelligence for your buttons.


Action Bundling

Each time you click a macro, at most one global cooldown-causing action can be performed along with any number of things that don't trip the global cooldown. Text messages work well:

/cast Resurrection
/say No napping allowed. Back to work, %t!

The easiest way to include spells in a macro is to open your Spellbook and macro editor at the same time, then Shift click on the desired spell. Spell name and rank will be automatically filled in with proper formatting. Notice that I removed the Resurrection rank above. This makes the macro automatically use your highest trained rank; or the highest rank for which your target is eligible if it's a single target buff. The "%t" signifies the name of your current target.

Undead Priests frequently combine Inner Focus and Devouring Plague since the latter has a high mana cost and both have three minute cooldowns. Inner Focus is one of the few spells which does not trip the global cooldown:

/cast Inner Focus
/stopcasting
/cast Devouring Plague

This is a little weird since both are instant spells and both will take place during the same instant. The "/stopcasting" line is a workaround for WoW not liking two spells cast at the same time. You only need it between any two "/cast" lines, not in other cases like the Resurrection macro above. An advanced use of /stopcasting is to use it in a two line macro with something like Silence in the second line. This way, if you're more than 1.5 seconds into a cast, the Silence macro will cancel that cast and kick off its own immediately.

There is a way to cast multiple global cooldown spells with one macro, but the macro will have to be clicked for each spell and you can't cheat the cooldown. For instance, a Shadow Priest might like to click one button several times to start a grinding sequence:

/castsequence reset=target Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Embrace

The "reset=target" option causes the sequence to start over when you switch targets. "reset=combat" would make it start over when you leave combat. "reset=10" would make it start over after 10 seconds. You can leave out the reset option entirely for reliable full cycling. Spells can be repeated for a long damage rotation sequence.


Spell Selection

Once upon a time, macros could do crazy things for spell selection like choose a healing spell rank based on target hitpoints. Those days are over but there still are a very limited set of things which can be checked. E.G. whether you are already channeling Mind Flay (or maybe Starshards):

/cast [nochanneling] Mind Flay

Brackets are conditionals. Attaching a 'no' before any allowed conditional reverses it. So this works out to, "If not channeling, cast Mind Flay." No need to worry about stepping on your last Mind Flay ever again with this macro.

The last example either cast Mind Flay or did nothing. You can list multiple spells with conditionals and a macro will cast the first one with a true condition:

/cast [harm] Smite; Power Word: Shield

I use this and bind it to my 'E' key so that if I'm targeting a harmful (red or yellow tooltip) unit I will cast Smite, otherwise I'll cast Shield. Note that semi-colons are used to separate such spells. I could have written it:

/cast [help] Power Word: Shield; Smite

Which can be read, "If I'm targeting a friendly unit cast Power Word: Shield, otherwise Smite!" But consider what happens if I'm not targeting anything at all and you'll see why the first version is better. There really aren't many other conditionals available, but Shadowform is considered a type of Stance which allows:

/cancelaura [stance:1] Shadowform
/cast [nostance] Flash Heal

Stances are numbered and Shadowform is '1' for Priests. [nostance] is true whenever we're not in Shadowform. This macro can be read, "If in Shadowform, cancel Shadowform. If not in Shadowform, cast Flash Heal." Clicking this macro twice when in Shadowform will first drop it, then start you healing. The other useful conditional for Priests checks if you are in combat:

/cast [combat] Fade; Shadowmeld


Input Handling

This is really just another type of conditional based on mouse and keyboard state instead of in-game situation. If you want to cut action bar slots that buffs take up in half:

/cast [button:1] Power Word: Fortitude; [button:2] Prayer of Fortitude

Which casts the single target version if you click the macro icon with your left mouse button, or group version with a right mouse click.

/cast [modifier:shift] Mind Blast; Shadow Word: Death

Usually casts SW:Death, unless shift is being held down at the time. This style works well with keybound macros.


Target Selection

A special-case conditional called 'target' isn't really a conditional at all, but a way to tell the macro what to target. Specifying a target in a macro doesn't switch your selected target.

/use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

Read as, "Use a Heavy Netherweave Bandage on myself." 'player' is shorthand for the casting player, yourself. As you can see, the /use command will use consumables and activatable items by name. See links below for information on how to use items by equipment or bag slot.

Since I use macros heavily anyway, I prefer to handle alt self-casting for my heals and buffs like this:

/cast [modifier:alt,target=player] Flash Heal; Flash Heal

Which reads, "If Alt is held down, cast Flash Heal on myself. Otherwise just cast Flash Heal." Now you're ready to see the kind of macros I actually use:

/cast [modifier:alt,target=player] Power Word: Shield; [harm] Smite; Power Word: Shield

These things can be as simple or as complex as you require. Instead of casting a damage spell if you're targeting a hostile, what about casting a healing spell on the hostile's target?

/cast [harm,target=targettarget] Greater Heal; Greater Heal

Which reads, "If my target is harmful, cast Greater Heal on my target's target. Otherwise, just cast Greater Heal."


Advanced Targeting

/cast [target=mouseover] Dispel Magic

Will cast Dispel Magic on any unit your mouse pointer is 'hovering' over even if it's not your target. Combined with a keybinding, very useful for patching up allies while continuing to target the tank.

'Focus' is a special target that you can set and refer to later. I bind a key to "Focus Target" but "/focus" in a macro by itself would also work. Once it's in place, the most simple way to use it is:

/cast [target=focus] Shackle Undead

There are more elaborate versions in the links below. Hope I've helped you see a few small ways to start fiddling with'm.

XII. Links

Lvl 70 Priest Healing Calculator
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key= ... OGwikqgXJQ

To be able to use the Google spreadsheet, click File then Copy Spreadsheet. This will create a copy for yourself. There is also an Export command on that File menu if you want an offline Excel version or whatnot.

Savage: a PvE Hunter Handbook
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... =104502484

Raiding Consumables
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... =442894742


Other Authors

WoW 2.0 Priest Macros: A New Compilation by Anaea
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... d=50955814

Priest Macro Collection by Troodi
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... =106575248

Cogwheel's Complete Macro Guide
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... d=96143900

The List: Heroic Mind Control by Speakeasy
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... d=88359148

Pre-Raid PvE Healing Gear by Sithy
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... d=86702055

Maximizing DPS as a Shadow Priest in Raids by Aliaras
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... d=86707419

Glorbelle's Shadow Priesting Guide
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... =110464738

Shadowpriest.com
http://www.shadowpriest.com