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Energizer™ Smite Spec: A guide to faster priest leveling!
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Post by
437763
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
symon
Thanks for the compliment. :)
Just one word about the "no one does instances" part. If you love instancing as much as I do... then don't be lazy :) If you are going for ZF, for example, doing a /who 42-48 will do wonders unless your server is extremely low. Just whisper to some people, and be more elaborate with it than "tank ZF?" :) Nice wording will get you a long long way in this game, where people actually
get surprised
by someone who bothered to type a full sentence with punctuation. :)
OMG is this ever true. I turn down instances because either on my Druid or Shaman or whatnot the laziness of people asking me to run an instance. I'm not looking for flowery prose but a "Hey, we need a tank for ZF, would you mind?" works wonders.
Post by
235419
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Post by
Sibling2
First of all I have to say thanks for the awesome guide, it's done great work so far!
Now I know next to nothing about priests. I've leveled one to 70, but that was my first char and there's 4 level 80s between then and now.
So I started a new priest! She's level 35 now and still going strong, following the guide to the letter. Anyhow I kind of like the idea of going shadow at 53, and I'll probably give it a shot. The more likely option is to stay on the disc/holy path.
- Improve your shielding and overall efficiency through going into the Discipline tree;
This is what I plan to do, so I messed around with the talent calculator a bit last night.
Since there really is no way to improve smiting in the Holy tree, I figured I would go and spam the Discipline tree so that my spec finally at 80 would look like this:
40/28/3
. It's weird I admit, but is it any good?
This is assuming I don't do many instances on the way to 80 and if I do, I'd likely either dual-spec healer or just dps.
TL;DR: Do you like
my spec
?
Post by
cloudp
Your spec seems nice for a smiter. However good for soloing, it really is inadequate for anything else. Pure dps, you can't find better than shadow. Pure heals, you can't find better than holy or disc full.
And since we're here for soloing builds, i suggest leaving Imp.Mana Burn out, and using Reflective Shield instead. I also suggest glyphs of holy nova and hymn of hope, as well as shadowfiend, fortitude and levlitate in minor slots.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuhhiRIocZfxt0bbqbZh:uVpMzV
as a final build. I guess you could get to Body and Soul, but the +speed on shield would mean you lose Rapture for efficiency.
Post by
Nivrax
If you really plan on keeping this build on 80 for soloing (going Shadow to have possibility to dps in hc/raids it's better imo) then Hymn of Hope is big nono. PW:S or perhaps Inner Fire, but smiter doesn't have mana problems, especially in Northrend.
From my experience, the worse area to level was Outlands and starting of Northrend, and there I had most (not many, but most) mana problems. Thats why, in Outlands, I spend most of my time exping as healer with full Disc offspec, and managed to get 58-68 doing only Hellfire Peninsula and 1/4 of Terokkar Forest quests.
First 2 levels in Northrend were a little slower too, but then when gear start to catch up (blues from all quests from UK and Nexus) it changes dramaticly. Atm with lvl72 my mana regen in combat is faster than I can actually spend with Smites (since my crit went up, there are lots of free smites from my spells and Reflective Shield crits).
I have tested, for a while, shadow spec at level 40, 50 and 60, and all tries were... bad. Shadow seems to me like a very gimped lock Affliction spec. Not enough instant dots to just dot-and-forget on the move, not enough nukes to kill something very quickly. Tomorrow I plan on testing Shadow once again, but I doubt it can match killing speed of the smiter (all mobs are currently dropping in 6-8 seconds, Holy Fire at 1,5k damage and Smites at 2k).
Post by
Braevia
This got me from 20-40 as a happy camper, then I went Shadow. I miss Holy Fire though...mana efficient, better damage than Smite, and it looks so cool! So I tried going back, to see if I could pull off this Holy nova thing. No dice. I still have the spec, but I tend to fail at using it well, running low on mana and often dying. :(
Here's a link to my armory, in case any feels like trying to help out:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Bloodhoof&cn=Terribad&gn=Mutiny
Post by
Nivrax
Personally, I never tried aoeing with priest, unless I made mistake when pulling. If that happens, I kill one mob asap, then try to nova rest. I do not end oom on this mostly because I have 2 spellpower heirloom trinkets (total +4% max mana each kill). Smiter is spec made for nuking single target.
Your spec isn't bad, tho I would go into same one as cloudp posted above (except Glyph of Hymn of Hope). And do not ever drop Smite glyph in Smite build.
As for my final test on Shadow - it's terrible! It is simply too complicated for me to grind. Don't take me wrong, I love complicated rotations in raids (Affliction pre-nerf was great), but when I'm killing thousands of mobs I want to do it fast and without much thinking. Shadow have 5 offensive abilities you need to use to down mob and 2 backup that you need to keep up at all times (VE + Inner Fire or PW:S).
Dps is quite high indeed, but it needs a lot of GCDs and mana to put all this dots in place, and then to waste most of their damage due to mob dying faster than their duration. Therefore it's not faster at all, much less mana efficient and requiring lot of attention.
I'm keeping leveling as smiter to the end (fast, no mana problems, and needs only 3 abilities when grinding).
Post by
Korpimieli
At the moment I am Holy/Shadow. I´m considering changing the Shadowspec into this.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbhhGiRhoZ0Et0bbqbZhx:ubVzVM
With holy I will heal others. My other spec is only for my own interests and having fun. There´s a lot of survivability to that Smite-spec. :)
Post by
Braevia
Personally, I never tried aoeing with priest, unless I made mistake when pulling. If that happens, I kill one mob asap, then try to nova rest. I do not end oom on this mostly because I have 2 spellpower heirloom trinkets (total +4% max mana each kill). Smiter is spec made for nuking single target.
Your spec isn't bad, tho I would go into same one as cloudp posted above (except Glyph of Hymn of Hope). And do not ever drop Smite glyph in Smite build.
As for my final test on Shadow - it's terrible! It is simply too complicated for me to grind. Don't take me wrong, I love complicated rotations in raids (Affliction pre-nerf was great), but when I'm killing thousands of mobs I want to do it fast and without much thinking. Shadow have 5 offensive abilities you need to use to down mob and 2 backup that you need to keep up at all times (VE + Inner Fire or PW:S).
Dps is quite high indeed, but it needs a lot of GCDs and mana to put all this dots in place, and then to waste most of their damage due to mob dying faster than their duration. Therefore it's not faster at all, much less mana efficient and requiring lot of attention.
I'm keeping leveling as smiter to the end (fast, no mana problems, and needs only 3 abilities when grinding).
Shadow 'rotation' while grinding isn't hard at all. I can chain pull mobs in Shadow spec with ease, and hardly put a dent in my mana. It's simple. For the first mob I do this:
Vampiric Touch
SW: Pain
Vampiric Embrace
Devouring Plague
Then for the second one:
PW: Shield myself (if I remember...you get so much health regen it's not really necessary, other than to prevent pushback while casting)
Vampiric Touch
SW: Pain
Vampiric Embrace
Mind Blast
Mind Flay
Then I shield up if I can, and move on to the next one, repeating the second rotation until the first one dies, then I can drop Devouring Plague on someone. Few things can survive the amassed damage of DP, VT, and SWP. This is especially true if you have the talent that makes Mind Flay refresh SWP (refreshing it is actually part of what kills things suffering the second rotation).
It's arguably more time/mana efficient than the AOE pulling with Divine/Holy, which is what I've been testing lately. My conclusion is that it definitely has less downtime, but if you're fighitng like 6-8 things at once, Holy Nova + SWP + instant cast smites are the way to go.
Post by
Silmarien
I'm currently Lv39 and so far I've fallen head-over-heels for this HolyFire/Smite build. Never have to drink, great survivability, and i can kill mobs at my level in 3 to 5 spell casts. Now my plans are to go into the Discipline tree.
This is what my talents will look like at Lv80:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuhhiRIoc0oZfxt0bbqoZh
Can you guys give me your opinions?
My Glyphs currently:
Glyph of Power Word: Shield
Glyph of Smite
Glyph of Levitate
Post by
Nivrax
I wouldn't sacrifice 2/2 Surge of Light (which is really amazing) for rather situational (for soloing) Pain Suppression that you will gain on lvl80.
Post by
Silmarien
Perhaps if I removed one point from Spiritual Guidance and put it into Pain Suppression? 'Cause I want to have Pain Suppression; seems like a useful skill to have once I hit Lv80.
Post by
Nivrax
Mhm.. you could, but this isn't a build you want to use at 80. It won't do for dpsing in hc, it wont work as healing build either. You could only grind with that, or make quests/dailies, all of which won't require Pain Suppression (I can't really see it being useful unless you will do pseudo-aoe once per 3 minutes).
Post by
PureGold
I would like to thank you for creating this post. It has helped me QUITE a lot.
I was leveling my priest as shadow and getting very angry after having to drink every couple of pulls. Now however I can chain pull and only have to drink after things get hairy.
TL:DR,
Thanks for the awesome guide. Mad Props.
Post by
335153
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Post by
Korpimieli
Now I have tried it. Holy DPS spec seems to be very efficient at soloing! I kill with it faster than with a Shadow spec. You can pull many mobs and Holy Nova them to death. Wonderful!
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbhhriMhoZfxt0bbqbZhxb:ubVzVM
Post by
432494
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355968
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243884
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