Chirality

Thing is...most people would be very wise to go with the +Hit Cloak, Ring and Neck to get to 6% hit.

 

Rej

I don't disagree, as 4% is the base amount required, and racials/talents/buffs usually mean the additional 2% is very useful. The spell penetration offhand and wand are also very helpful for certain levels of expected resistance in PvP. But if you've aquired your hit rating from elsewhere (PvE weapons, trinkets, PvE rings) and want to stack regen, then I don't see why anyone would take Spirit over mp5.

It all depends on what you need, I don't necessarily agree that Spirit > Crit for all teams. All my offset pieces (cloak and ring have +hit) actually stack crit, since I run with a feral druid. The Innervate is usually sufficient to last me through our matches, and throughput to counter burst is often a bigger problem.

 

Zaq

Most of this discussion has dealt with 2's lately, but I was wondering how do people go about shifting their specs for 5's? Basically I went much more defense oriented in my build, dropped most of the offensive talents that are essential in 2's for things like even more mana off dispels. I've got a decent team of experienced pvpers and we're doing pretty well, but this whole 5's thing is very new to me and I'm wondering if I'm missing anything obvious.

Edit: Also, what about spell pen?

"I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions. I'm just, like, inviting you to join me on the bandwagon of my own uncertainty." -Taylor Mali

 

moowalk

Spell pen is important. You're not going to get shadow protection off every member of the opposing team before you try to fear. The offhand + wand + cloak enchant gives you >130 which is enough for shadow aura or shadow protection.

Spell warding ahead of divine fury is a sensible trade off. I'd also max out divine aegis.

 

Azezal

Hi, I have a question about 2s - I'm with a Frost Mage and we're having huge issues with resto druids. We try nuking the druids and they just LOS us bad, we try dropping their partner and they seem to just heal through us easily.

As a disc priest I try to mana burn / fear the druid when I can, but I'm not sure if I should be dispelling. I've been trying to dispell or not dispell and druids seem to heal their partner / themselves the same regardless of what I do. My partner is going to try and watch to spellsteal innervate and Counter spell nourish / regrowth but.. other than that what can we do?

I have 512 resil and he has like 290 so.. we're not very geared, but skill wise we're getting the hang of it.

 

Mearis

Fully dispell the druid. Wait for the druid to get in a bad position, make him burn his trinket, then drop him in a finger of frost deep freeze/imp cs/fear rotation.

If he is with a warlock leave the arena early to save yourself the pain.

 

The Sackman

Alright, so, my post not have much weight considering it is my first, however I have been browsing EJ for some time now and enjoying the mountains of already crafted information. Consider my introductory post an offering of my own information.

I have read many of your posts and reasonings for certain spec choices, and after much honing and fixing, I have decided upon a spec that will work well for 2v2 based on your ideas. Of course I cannot test it yet because my Priest is not 80. I've been searching for my ideal class since before TBC and whenever I think I have found it, some change occurs that makes the class less attractive (and I am not talking the so deemed "Flavour of the Month" classes).

My Class background - no information relevant to Disc PVP discussion, just trying to add weight to my post
I have a 80 Death Knight, Tank, which I made just to play with some Alliance friends for a while. A 60 Mage, that I stopped because leveling a mage was not as fun as playing at the highest level as a mage. A 70 Druid in full season 2 arena gear, restoration, which I enjoyed playing but the class got altered from its very "Hybrid" healing feel. An 80 Shaman (which is linked to this forum account as my main), my most recent 80, dinged, went into the arena with a 70 geared Rogue, got Challenger title, realised that the Shaman was not for me because finding an arena partner in a server with a low population was going to be difficult - and that the Shaman was (in my opinion) still a bit of a PVP gimp in anything other than tri-dps 3's or resto. During the times of TBC, a Warrior in half S1, that I got bored because of the flavour of the month attitude they were getting, and because I hate how slow Taurens seem to be moving. I expect to play a warrior when Cataclysm is released. A 70 warlock, that I deleted because the class is disgustingly easy to play and be good at, and because its disgustingly boring to play. (My opinion, I played it around the time of SL/SL so things may have changed, but I certainly do not have a Warlock to see if they have). A 70 Paladin, I made it at around the time of it's retri-FOTM because I had never played a Paladin before, I leveled with some friends, and got bored of the facerolling at 70, so didn't continue. A 70/80 Rogue, through every season, 2050 highest rating in s1 playing with a terrible, terrible Mage who could not polymorph. This is the rogue that I used to get the challenger title with my Shaman (made my brother come back from the Navy to play it in 70pve/pvp gear). Subtley specced forever. My priest is around 40, it normally takes me 2 weeks to get to the max level. I enjoy being the leader of the group with my favourite role being the tank, unfortunately, tanks are still not really viable in PVP so I have to take the healing role (I favour support classes - anyone can rotate skills as told by EJ posts, tanking and healing engages you slightly more).

It looks like, aslong as the Priest is not altered to greatly in the near future, that I have found a main to play. That big wall of text aside, please criticize my talent spec, and try it out.

Holy down to searing light, because in 2v2 you have to provide some DPS also, sitting in a shell is only good if your opponent is prone to making mistakes. No IMP PW:S, as I hear from you that it is bugged, just an extra 4 points to spend. Two points in Rapture, the third point has the least weight and it allows the acquisition of DP in the Holy Tree. MA as opposed to Absolution, 10% reduced mana cost to all instant casts rather than just dispels, better overall than 15% just on dispels in my opinion. No TD, 5% is just not worth 5 points in PVP. No IMP FH, again, it does not have the weight for PVP, no Enlightenment, Spirit is just not good enough in today's WoW and the haste is marginally beneficial for 3 points. No Grace, grace to me implies constant healing, in a short game this will happen, but in a long game - especially against another healer, it will often be heal + cc + lots of running around after your target, with not much damage coming onto your partner. IF for the IF hymn, PI for dispel/heal spam. Everything else is obvious.

Please criticise and tell me if I am wrong, I'm not at 80 so I cannot even begin to suggest that my idea is right, but it seems correct after looking at most peoples post's in the thread.

I ran some numbers on CharDev, in full furious approx 2.2k sp, 920 resi, 25k buffed hp, 280 while casting regen. Tailoring/Chanting.

Spec: click

 

Iluminati

You didnt link a spec but based on what you typed out it sounds like:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

or something. It's terrible. Improved power word shield and soul warding are two of your best talents. 3/3 rapture is MUST for regen. Grace is incredible for increased healing. There are builds that include searing light for twos, but that is not a good one.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft would be a better choice.

For 5s - the spec stays very similar. In my experience (2200+) priests are not often the targets in 5s. That means you should still be dispelling A TON. You could probably give up divine fury but there are many times where I find myself smiting for a kill still.

130 spell pen is the cookie cutter goal to get through mage armor, shadow aura, shadow protection, motw, etc. I find it's true usefulness doesn't really match up to the the hype, but it is nice to have a "guaranteed" hit on your fear.

 

The Sackman

Oops, I have appended the post with the spec.

It sounds nice to stack Spen, but after stacking Hit aswell the core stats (SP, mana regen/pool, HP) will be under appreciated, considering PS can miss aswell as be resisted.

Grace is good for 9% healing after a penance, but this really does mean you have to be healing all the time. During 2's double dps Shammy/Rogue I found us focusing the healer down more than the DPS with healer/dps opponents. Priests fell very easily, compared to a rogue (the common Priest ally), who could easily CC one of us if we left him running around. Focusing the priest, allowed us to prevent heals on any target, and to make so that we were not CC'd ourselves. In roll reversal, if I was the priest, I would find myself in a position where Grace's only benefit is another item for the enemy to dispel. 9% healing is great over time, but in a situation during burst (where perhaps, 35k damage is burst upon you or your ally) 9% of that is just approx 3150hp extra healed. 3150hp, is unlikely going to be the difference between life and death. And over the course of a short fight (90k healing) and a long fight (200k healing), its 8100 and 18000 respectively. A considerable benefit perhaps, but when weighted against Blessed Recovery, which is 15% less damage taken by yourself from melee/ranged criticals (essentially), it seems to lack in appeal.

While I agree, rapture is certainly important, the 0.5% given by the last talent point seems lacluster where that talent point could be used to acquire, in my example, Desperate Prayer, an instant, powerful heal with the effectiveness (during burst) greater than Grace (explained above).

Spell Warding is certainly unarguable, it's just personal choice that separates it, in early versions of my own build I included it, but weighted against Blessed Recovery it, again, falls short (in my opinion). Blessed Recovery providing 15% less damage from crits (again I say, essentially) from melee/ranged. Spell casters are less of an issue considering most can be avoided by LoS, where as Melee (especially warriors/rogues), can not be avoided by simply moving, and Hunters will often still get many hits, and will chase you (most likely trying to drain). Only Spriests and Warlocks could I see actually being able to give chase, and make benefit from chasing. Mage's and Druids, and certainly any hybrid healer, would find themselves being easily outplayed if they tried to prevent LoS by following a pillar dancer.

Your build lacks Focused Power, and Reflective Shield, considering Focused Power is 2 points for 4% extra damage/healing and 1 second less cast time on Mass Dispel I would consider it a paramount talent, over any reactive abilities. Reflective Shield is certainly more of a preferrence choice, but considering your 2's ally as a priest, is likely a well armoured target (a paladin/warrior/rogue) who can look after themselves, I can see Priests being the main target for double dps/ dpsheal. Perhaps this changes in 3's but, 2's most certainly, I would have these as important.

The reason for lacking IMP PW:S is earlier posts suggesting the +15% is added BEFORE every affect. Thus providing marginal benefit. The reduced mana cost, certianly beneficial, but not worth 4 points.

My talent spec chooses DA over Grace, because I can see battles being less about heals spammed, and more about well timed LoS + heals. This is the talent points that I could see being switched with Grace, I was going to explore that choice when I tested the build, unfortunately not at that point yet.

 

Gourd

The 15% from imp PW:S is not applied only to the base absorption; it never was. There was a post from Belarin on arenajunkies long ago indicating this that received a great deal of attention, but when my own testing did not match up with his I messaged him, and he ended up redoing his data and retracting this original statement. He was basing his assumption of the absorption of PW:S on the glyph heal, which did used to be wonky, and is the entire reason people ever believed this myth. Also, I can't imagine why you'd skip out of Soul Warding.

To contribute to the spec discussion... I don't play disc anymore, but this is what I'd spec for 3s/5s: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

 

The Sackman

I hate to be lazy, or indicating that you have faulty data/sources. But could you provide me with the sources of these (mainly the ones that prove it works?).

If what you say is true then that certainly means I have to rework the spec significantly, I've been working on the basis of that "faulty" talent that now turns out to be a faulty assumption. Faulty faulty faulty.

If it does apply the 15% afterwards, my spec is certainly overhauled to mana burn/turtle. Something like this for 2's. I can't say for 3's yet because I haven't done 3's at 80 yet and I expect a lot to have changed since 70.

 

Rej

Flesh out Rapture, as it is very important for any longevity matches. Not so much for the extra 0.5% energy upon removal of the shield, but for the additional 34% chance to restore mana upon application.
Blessed Recovery is nice, but it's also not as good as other talents you could be getting.

 

Gourd

All the screenshots I had were lost when my laptop died, I'll go through and re-test it again and show the different absorption values when I have a couple hours and a few hundred gold unless I can find the post in which Belarin manually re-tested it himself.

I'm also a strong supporter of the "Blessed Recovery sucks" movement. It's useless as anything other than dispel fodder, and even then I don't necessarily think it's worth putting a talent point in over the alternatives. Also you skipped some talents in your 2s spec that I feel are very crucial for 2s (Divine Fury, Rapture, Absolution).

 

Rikeni

My disc priest/rogue 2s team just slopped its way to 1200, so I'm wondering about which stats I should be considering on the belts/boots/bracers. Though I've picked up the Mooncloth set pieces, I'm hesitant to get even more spirit on my gear, mainly because fights seem so short---we've either won, or we're dead. In this sense, I almost feel like haste would be more helpful (smite feels like it takes 5 years to cast) or even crit. Then again, my understanding is that further up the bracket, fights get longer, and that's where spirit gains a lot of its viability.

On the other hand, I'm not shooting for 2000+ rating---it's beyond highly unlikely that we'll get anywhere near that---so I'm tempted to get haste/crit gear so I can deal with the extremely fast fights that are happening in our matchups now, as opposed to later in the bracket. Presently I'm leaning a little further toward haste, just because there have been crucial moments where I needed to get that smite off, and I didn't. Of course, user-error could be to blame, not gear.

I'm wondering, as someone brand new to the arena scene: at what point in the bracket does it seem like fights shift from burst to outlast? Is burst vs outlast a necessarily consideration when looking at the offset pieces, or am I missing something obvious? Hearing from a priest who runs 2s with a rogue would be especially helpful.

 

Brotherbear

Short Version:
1) Outlast started at 1200 or so for us
2) Dispells are going to win you more matches than Smite ever will (get 3/3 Absolution)
3) Spirit means manaburns are no longer an autoloss (admitedly 1000 resilience helps) and also that you can OOM the other healer by pressuring the dps in long matches.
4) Playstyle will decide what works best for you. My priest rarely pressures with Smite/Fire but we prefer to burn the dps and CC the healer whenever possible.


Long Version:
I'm the rogue half of a team that just went through that decision and went with more spirit. While we're only a 1400 rating team (as of writing this, haven't played this week) with 2 months of areans between us, we both have done a ton of reading on the theorycraft and decided to go with spirit.

My priest started out in 3 pieces of satin and two pieces of mooncloth. Since 1200 he's been replacing deadly satin with furious mooncloth as well as adding spirit boots/belt/bracers. Also he changed from the 54/17 to an almost entirely crit free 60/11 spec and it's done wonders for his regen after a mana burn as well as for outlast. In our battlegroup the outlast starts at about 1100-1200. We're hitting a ton of paladin/X and resto druid/x teams and the difference has been really noticeable in that we can now outlast the paladin healers (excepting prot paladins in healing gear which are still a PITA) and can even keep up with Resto druids (mostly due to dispells).

Speaking of which, and I apologize for offering unsolicited advice, you should really respec to get to 3/3 absolution. The difference that has made for us against mages and druids has been immense. Not to mention the freedom I have against DKs since the diseases don't stick around. I cannot sing enough praises about dispell magic against mages (and specifically against Frost Nova) and on clearing HoTs off my targets.

There are still a lot of fast matches. Double dps (which has gotten easier and easier to beat) tends to be effectively over in the first 5 minutes. But the real difference has been that an early CC on me and mana burn on him is no longer a game breaker.

Just my 2c. Hope it helps.

 

Rej

I did priest-rogue last season, and priest-feral this season to 1900 (just for kicks, as my focus is on 3v3). You'll find outlast and burst teams at all ratings, and it is a good idea to prioritize Spirit in your offset pieces. (Ignore my gear/talents, it's tailored to my 3v3 team.)

For this comp, the usual focus is on Spirit, efficiency talents, and the ability to output some quick damage when the time is right (via Divine Fury and Searing Light). Fights DO get longer at the higher ratings because you'll end up facing more established/popular comps with players that know how to deal with Rogues. Versus any other healer/DPS comp, mana will become a major factor in deciding the outcome. The basic formula is for the Rogue to lock down and pressure the opposing DPS, while you manaburn/fear a busy healer to gain a lead in the mana war.

 

AbotnamedEhh

How are all of you going about dealing with arms warr/ resto druid combos?

im currently running with an arms warr and we crusied straight up to 1540 and we've stalled out there

Here is a link to armory till i figure out how to post it up through my profile...

The World of Warcraft Armory

At the moment i gemmed up to give my self 26k mana because i keep getting nuked in 3's

But what have you found that works? we've tried pressuring the healer by focusing on the warr but the druid seems to laugh at us while we do it. and when we go on the druid he just roots shape shifts and runs and does this until the warr finally gets me in a bad position and i die. were both expierenced players and know how to play our classes. at the moment im thinking we just are getting bad luck.

Any advice would be great, rather it be spec/gemming/how to deal with those druids >.<

Please ignore any stupidity and feel free to point out anything i may have mistepped on not quite all the way through the posting rules yet

thanks

 

Canadianpimp

Warrior/priest is one of the harder disc priest combos since warriors have little synergy with priests. This is because warriors are a rather defensive, cosntant pressure class while priests are a bursty, hyper-offensive healer. However, the best way I've found to play warrior/priest (only played it to like 2k) is for the priest to go full pressure and damage with a smite spec. Here is my priest, check out my smite spec (54/17/0) and I would use that. I use the other spec for 3s and 5s, and the smite spec for 2v2. Smite spec works just fine for 3v3 if you want to only have one PvP spec.
The World of Warcraft Armory

A couple things I notice is that I have almost 1000 more spell power than you. I know a lot of that is because I'm in much better gear, but stacking spell power really made a difference. Last season, I went full survivability with stamina and resilience, but I really feel the difference with spell power. Notice my gemming:
RED: spell power
YELLOW: spell power/resil
BLUE: spell penetration or spell power/spell penetration

I'd lose the stamina gems. You'll never be able to pick someone up as effectively without more spell power. Also notice my meta gem and enchanting differences.


Since you asked specifically about warrior/priest v warrior/druid...here's a little insight.
Play a high pressure game and have your warrior tunnel the druid if the warrior is on you. Dispel your warrior out of roots immediately and dispel the druid as much as you can when you have free globals. The druid should go down if you can ever catch up to him and throw a fear on him and get him in a good bladestorm. If the warrior is on your warrior, your warrior is forced on the warrior since he won't be able to stick on a druid with a warrior keeping hamstring up on him. As the priest, you have to play as offensively as possible. You need to be spamming holy fires and smites (my holy fires and smties crit for 5-6K, so the damage is significant) when fear is on CD. When you have a fear ready, dispel the hots off the warrior while you're running to the druid. You should have no problems getting in range to fear a druid in the 1500s, they aren't that smart. You'll be able to force CDs during/after these fears and after the second or third fear you land the game should be yours if you are playing offensively enough.

The main thing about warrior/priest is that you have to play like a madman with damage and dispels. Often my warrior would be at 25% and I'd fear the healer. Instead of healing, I'd often just spam damage into the DPS and heal if we didn't get the kill. The thing you have to keep in mind is that warrior/priest is such a shit comp that you are NEVER going to outlast any team (mana burns are really useless I've found with this comp) and your warrior has very limited tools to help peel for you. Playing like an absolute crazy bastard spamming damage and dispels will win so many games. I'll often do about 2/3 of the damage of my warrior throughout the course of a standard 3-4 minute game.

 

AbotnamedEhh

Just this week my 3's team broke 1800

Next week i'll be picking up my weapon, but i am torn on what to do.

From what I have seen a lot of priests go with the spell blade and an off hand. Personally i find the staffs tempting with the extra socket vs the spell blade and off hand.

I'm aware that it could be dependent on your spec but I am just so torn and there are not any great pvp priests on my server that i could ask this so... please let me know what you think is best!

 

Mevros

Asuming I already have all the honor-gear with spirit and I want to buy new honor gear for more dps, which stat should I go for? Haste or Crit? If you check top 100 priests on SK-Gaming you find both priests with haste as you do find priests with crit.

 

Rej

Many priests go with the offhand in order to boost spell penetration without having to gem for it. You're sitting at 60 spell penetration due to gems, and that's still under what most priests desire. The Relentless Gladiator's Grimoire will more than double that amount.

 

Zaq

On a related note, isn't spell pen pretty much only worth getting if you can get enough to nullify the shadowprot/aura resistances?

Edit: Duh forgot about Motw.

"I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions. I'm just, like, inviting you to join me on the bandwagon of my own uncertainty." -Taylor Mali

 

AbotnamedEhh

Ya I am going to replace the spell Pen gems because at this moment in time I am always being forced to play defensively so a 9 spell power 12 stam gem is better fitting

 

ildon

A lot of times a resisted fear due to not having 130 spell pen is going to hurt your defenses more than the equivalent in stam/spellpower. A fear is going to give your cooldowns (PW:S, Penance, etc.) time to reset while wasting your enemies defensive cooldowns and giving you a chance to LoS or get some distance.

 

Chirality

The following might sound like an arrogant ramble, but it's about the best advice I can think of for the current Arena scene: honestly, this isn't TBC. Wrath's playstyle right now (especially in 3v3, but really in any Priest comp in 2s as well) can basically be summed up by the cliche` "the best defense is a good offense".

In every comp I've played recently (Rogue/Priest, Mage/Priest, Rogue/Mage/Priest, Paladin/Hunter/DeathKnight, Elemental/Rogue/Holy), whenever my team starts playing "defensively" we've lost a lot more games (playing "not to lose") than we have we we've been reckless and played very aggresive.

If you can ever get a string of good offensive dispels, (vs Druid teams especially, but also against Paladins --Sacred Shield is so huge for them) throw out a Holy Fire and Smite on a dps target, or even if you just use Shadowfiend during your team's "burn phase" on a dps target, you'll find yourself being targetted less, because you'll be contributing to your team's efforts of forcing your opponents to use cooldowns defensively instead of offensively. The more peeling of your DPS'ers you force your opponent to do, the less they'll be able to train you, basically.

Edit: Looking at your gear, I strongly suggest going 1h +spell pen offhand, not the staff. What you need most right now is not more Resilience (though certainly another hundred would be great), but a TON more spellpower. Also, I strongly suggest moving towards the 4-piece PvP set bonus rather than 2+2. Those 2 seconds off the duration of Weakened Soul are so huge. PW:S is your best spell by a large margin, especially if you use Borrowed Time effectively to chain together additional hasted instants into a casted heal or even Smite/HolyFire.