• Calantus

I'd max out Absolution personally. I suggest taking the points out of imp fort.

 

crimsonsentinel

Recently I've been having problems with my 3v3 against a really bizzare lineup but one that we've seen on more than one occasion.

We run: disc priest, resto druid, sl/sl warlock. The team we have problems with (we are literally 0-6 against them) are double warrior + healer. We've run against the resto shaman variety as well as a resto druid team. The warriors just output so much damage, especially with 3 relatively weak to melee classes that we can't keep up even with two healers and eventually run out of mana. Our druid and warlock try to CC the warriors, but with intercept stun its retardedly easy for them to be back on us again. It's even worse when they get multiple mace stun procs.

I'm hoping that it's just a low-bracket counter comp, but the fact that we've seen 3 different teams with that makeup makes me worry.

 

SensenmanN

do you try mana burning and draining?

My R/P/M 3v3 has trouble vs the warrior, drain priest, pally/any healer really...

They just mana burn our nuts off.

 

• Calantus

How does the priest get off mana burns against RMP? I can't remember the last time I got off mana burn against RMP other than right at the end to take away the last sliver of mana as we knock down their first player.

 

Duncan

With the rogue sticking on the priest they shouldn't get any manaburns off, really. It might happen ocassionaly when a kick/stun misses, though. But that's maybe 1-2 burns coming through over a match.

 

SensenmanN

duuno, maybe I only end up fighting shitty teams?

 

Thorongil

The 2 Warri-combo counters your setup quite good, that´s all. I know it from my own experience, since we run Priest/Priest/Rogue in 3v3. Both priests are deep-disc, which is quite an exotic setup I guess (don´t know anybody else who plays it) but it´s quite fun and if played correctly not a weak combo at all (2 priests makes psychic scream a quite reliable healer-CC, the manadrain-potential is very high; we finished at around 1980 rating last season, but just played with deep-disc for 2 weeks, so we have to see how it works out in S3). But we also get like smacked the hell out of our asses by a dual-warrior + Healer. It´s just a counter-combination if you have a priest as healer, but the 2 warris will get killed quite easily by a team that has good kiting abilities (hunter + pally for example).

 

Abakus

@crimsonsentinel

Being another 1/3rd of the above mentioned Priest/Priest/Rogue and not teaming with locks very often, my experience with your setup is limited, but in my opinion you just have to rely on your druid.
The warriors have two squishy targets to choose, so i don't think they will focus on the druid.

Those classes don't over that much defense against CC (no dispell/freedom), so your druid should be free to cyclone/root them over and over again, while your lock can dish out enogh damage to draw out the healer to burn.

Again, this is just theory, but seems to me like the only real chance you have.

 

Cahrin

Does anyone have some insights on Silent Resolve vs. Reflective Shield? Apparently I left one point out of Imp. PW:S by mistake, so I plan on respecing to fix it anyway, and I've seen a lot of people using it recently. To me, it seems like a trade off between 20% dispel resist and doing 900 damage to a war/rog every 13 seconds (and eating a grounding totem, I suppose). I guess there's some merit to using a shield against a lock with dots on me if we're trying to push him down (could maybe reflect an extra 500 or so damage during the push, depending how long the push lasts), but that's a relatively contrived situation.

I play 2's more than anything else, but I still play 3's and 5's as well.

 

Cob-

With the amount of priest spells and talents that are dispellable; I don't see how anyone can argue against 5/5 Silent Resolve.

 

Abakus

Well, Silent Resolve is usefull only against certain classes.
It works good against hunters and mages, as they dispell only one buff a time.
Against shamans and priests, it just means one additional GCD used to purge.
Felhunters do have a CD on their purge and only eat one buff with it, but it is persistent enough to eat everything.

The major impact of Silent Resolve is the added bonus to Pain Surpression, which gives your "oh shit"-Button higher reliability.

Reflective Shield has some use against classes (Locks and SPs mostly, because their own DoTs interrupt their channeling and cast times).
The added damage is nice, but only usefull against combos without a healer, while having some drawbacks against some opponents.
Most noticeable examples for this might be warriors gainig enrage and rage from your shield, making it beneficial for the opposing team.

It might also result in some problems in 5vs5, breaking CC on classes capable of applying DoTs.
(for example, a warrior charges you -> you shield yourself -> warrior crits, thus applying a bleed effect -> mage polys, reflected bleed dispells poly)
This is also bad, because the damage is not visible on the warrior.

So, in my opinion, take Silent Resolve out of those two.

 

SensenmanN

I don't know how great of an idea this is but I put 1 pt into reflective shield just mainly for the occasional pushback you get vs casters when your sheild hits them.

 

Cahrin

Good points on Reflective Shield, there are a lot of negatives there that I hadn't considered.

What about Enlightenment vs. Silent Resolve?

 

Nitz

Is Imp. Fortitude that useful of a talent in arena ? I'd prefer put 1 more in Imp PW:S and 1 in Blessed Recovery (dispell layer).

 

Abakus

Well, i really like Enlightenment, so i have 5 pts in it .
Its just that this talent is usefull against every setup and in almost every situation, also not reliant on proccs.

Silent Resolve might save you some seconds of still having buffs, but again it is only usefull against certain teams (as not everyone is able to dispell your buffs.

I guess it's down to personal flavour, but i'd recommend Enlightenment.

Well, i got both (2 pts. imp. Fort, 1 pt blessed Recovery).

Imp. Fort is more of an insta-gib protection and more usefull in larger teams, when your shield has not such a major impact on your healing (and you are not the only healer).

I guess you can do okay without it, its not a necessity for pvp.
For 2 vs 2 and 3 vs 3, imp. PW:Shield is better, but in 5vs5, imp. Fort can make a difference.

 

Rej

Current team is:

Warrior / Warlock / Shad. Priest / Elem. Shaman / Resto Druid

They always burn me down first, and it's always fast. There have been very few games where I've lived to see the end. Even if I hang back and run around trying to keep away, warriors intercept me, Hamstring me, and before I know it I'm dead.

There has got to be a better way. This is supposedly a strong combination to work with. Somehow, I'm just not outputting any damage, usually due to a premature death. I might get off a DoT and perhaps one Fear and Silence before I'm crushed quickly. The Druid is doing his best to root attackers and I'm trying to abuse LOS to stay out of caster fire, but when I'm Crippled or Hamstrung, the run speed is too slow to make a difference.

Ideas? I have almost no experience as a Shadow priest (all my previous years were spent as Holy). What can I do differently?

 

crimsonsentinel

One of the warriors was on me, the other on our druid. Our druid is partially in blues and has cloth shoulders so I don't expect to do exeptionally well against a double warrior lineup, but it was amazing that even with our druid getting off plenty of cyclones and roots, we ran out of mana by healing ourselves before our warlock could fully drain their healer. With two mortal strikes, its amazing how much mana it takes to keep us up. I think I'm just going to accept the fact that 2 melee 1 healer combos are our counter and just hope there are enough RMP teams to keep them at low ratings =P.


And for reflective shield, I should point out that as a dwarf/draenei reflective shield has an annoying way of always breaking your chastises, which is easy enough to break as it is. It's not gamebreaking but does hurt if you're trying to get distance from a warrior and his deep wounds breaks chastise. Obviously this has no effect on other priests.

I personally take silent resolve against enlightenment but that's only because I feel that it helps in 5v5's where there is almost guaranteed to be an offensive dispeller. If you only do 2v2 or even 3v3, you probably won't need silent resolve.

 

Thorongil

As SP it´s really hard I suppose. We also normally burn down SPs first and it´s quite easy in most cases (we run with 3 physical-DDs in 5v5). The only way I survive longer than half a minute in 5v5 (as disc/holy) is with BoP, PainSuppression and good timing with fears and well used insignia (use it the time you´re off your fear-CD and the warri/rogue attacking you isn´t warded against your fear, then you normall have time to get away quite a good deal). Also, focusedWill is really a nice thing to have, the deep-disc gives so much survivability, just awesome. But I really can´t imagine what to do as SP rather than bursting one of the other team down faster than you die. I´d say Pally (due to BoP/BoF) is a must-have for you.

@crimsonsentinel: Against warries shield and resilience is just everything. You need as much resilience as you can get (if he doesn´t crit, it will be hard for the warri to burn down your shield) and the 4-parts-set-bonus of gladiator-gear is also nice to have. As long as you can hold the warri low on rage, you will be free to act the way you want to, you can even manaburn/mc his healer then (you should cast these spells anyways to catch the pummel). But the moment he gets one or two crits on you without shield it can be over quite soon. Also, don´t be shy to use your CDs, it´s too risky in my opinion to wait with desperatePrayer until you´re nearly in execute-range. One stun-procc at 50 % hp might be enough to give you the rest. I mostly use DP at 60 - 80 % to keep myself topped off (against warris).

 

Abakus

I don't think that the warlock should try to drain the enemy healer.
Both, druid and shaman, offer some protection against drain tactics. With druids its run & drink, while shamans actually profit from a felhunter following them (at least in the long run) while still having the possibility to twist Grounding Totem and WF. So against shaman, the WL should try a Voidwalker to further decrease incoming physical dmg and minimizing Water Shield usage.

If your lock is able to put out enough DPS on both warriors to lure out the shaman, he should be cycloned as soon as possible to increase the pressure on him.

When the shaman has some healing to do, he won't be able to earthshock/purge that much.

Having a druid in blue/cloth gear might be quite a problem, because sooner or later, one warrior is going to intercept the druid to stop the cyclone/root-rotation.

Apart from outgearing them, they will probably still beat yout.

 

Rej

Maybe I should switch to deep Disc. We can't have a pally+priest, because our team's paladin is on my account. It's starting to feel like Pain Suppression > Shadowform, and Power Infusion > Misery + Shadow-weaving. Or maybe I should just switch back to my paladin.

What do people think about deep Disc with +dmg gear? 41/0/20 can get you both Shadow Weaving (I have a warlock in my party), as well as the best parts of the Disc tree for added survivability. This way I can play a more defensive role in my setup (as I'm always the first person to die), while still contributing to a hard burn? Just throwing it out there, as my priest feels pretty useless these days.

 

Elerion

In 2v2s or 3v3s where massive damage doesn't happen, offensive dispellers aren't always present, there's definitely a case for reflective shield. I ran max Imp PWS/RS with my lock in duo and felt it was more useful than Silent Resolve and Enlightenment. I specced out of it in favor of Silent Resolve for 3s with a mage.

Between the three, I'd choose like this:
2v2/3v3 without break-on-damage CC: Reflective Shield
2v2 with break-on-damage CC: Enlightenment
Everywhere else: Silent Resolve

Enlightenment is just bad, but offensive spam dispels are rare enough in 2s for Silent Resolve to be even worse.

 

Abakus

There might be some problems with 41/0/20..

If you play a healer, first of all, you lack Healing Focus (a must have, i think), so you haven't got the ability to heal yourself properly when under fire (and you miss healing gear).
Also Spell Warding is something you ought to have for survivability.

As a damage dealer, you miss the best damage talents in shadow, as well as the utility from silence and the defense from Shadow Resilience, imp. Scream and Shadow Form.

You might be able to survive longer than a shadow priest, but you lack all the things that make a SP desirable (silence most of all). With this specc, you will be forced to play manaburn (which doesn't benefit from +dmg-gear) with lower survivability than disc/holy. Also, when playing a 4 dps team, missing out on the ability to stop out almost any healer for 5 seconds is not the best choice.

So your best choice (without swapping in a paladin for the druid) would be going disc/holy with the priest, providing healing and support with dispell/PI on a focus target while still having a pretty strong defense or just trying to get your teammates to aid you with well placed fears/cyclones/grounding totems as good as possible.

 

• syeren

The fact that a discussion regarding a Priest's PVP spec can even go on is somewhat confusing for a Disc Priest, you have one cookie-cutter spec which has 1 slight difference:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Rank 2 Holy Nova kills Snakes from Snake Traps for 200 mana, useful against Hunter teams who like to use it as the game goes on (admittedly, not so many).

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Is the normal cookie cutter spec now for arena.

Once again, a discussion breaking out about spec is somewhat confusing considering every decent priest who plays in 3s and 5s would have probably picked up on that spec the first day the new talents landed :P My 2s spec would be different, but I don't play in that cess-pit because it's horrible.