How GOOD Is PRIEST In HARDCORE Classic WoW? | Tips & Tricks | Classic WoW

the priest is a class that channels the light to heal allies and Shadow to harm enemies so in classic priests were often seen as primarily healers during the end game the much more leveling focused hardcore allows you to flex into the DPS role as Shadow priests also have a number of unique class mechanics to them through race specific spells A system that was eventually done away with by wrath with tons to cover let's check out the priest in hardcore wow though this may come somewhat as a surprise but I think priest is genuinely one of if not the most new player friendly class in the game when it comes to approaching the hardcore Challenge and seeing how they wear cloth and have limited Mobility that doesn't really make sense but I'm gonna back it up with some numbers so there's an add-on for classic error Called Death log which Aggregates deaths in hardcore to put out numbers such as heat maps for difficult Terriers most dangerous mobs and to compare average chance of success between different classes this is a snapshot I took on June 1st comparing some 78 000 results you can see priest is very low on the percentage of total deaths only being beaten out by a faction specific class in Shaman in fact a disregarding faction-specific classes which by the nature will always have less players pre-star the most consistent class in the game at level 20 and Beyond and by a pretty huge margin whereas warlock for example which you would expect to be one of the best classes in the game struggle a ton more than priest players a priest is an early seven times more likely to hit Level 50 than a warlock which is just kind of crazy to me and say what you want about how classes should play and what should be the easiest but the numbers don't lie the priest is for sure an absolute Beast of a class for the hardcore challenge we will get more into why priests have a much better chance of getting further during talking about their survivability but suffice to say if you're starting off the hardcore challenge priest I think is a pretty good pick when it comes to playing solo the priest is probably one of the most efficient classes in the game that has a Mana bar when I leveled my priest originally on classic I probably only used a couple of stacks of food and water between levels 1 and 60 because simply perhaps you just rarely need to stop and drink if you aren't over polling and you're making good use of your wand speaking of Wands I hope you like wondering because you're going to be spending a whole lot of time gradually wearing down enemies with your dots and wand in fact priest in hardcore is kind of like a wand that was given a few extra abilities only joking I think at least getting hold of a good one and trying to keep it upgraded is essential on the priest more so than on any other class by an absolute Mile and we'll definitely be talking weapon progression later the Reliance on your wand however is what makes priests so efficient your average combat is gonna go power word Shield mind blast Shadow word pain wand repeat and that time wanding is enough time to regenerate pretty much all the Mana you've just spent on on that particular combat passively if played slow and steady priests do literally not have down time and you only ever need to drink after taking on several mobs at once or after something goes wrong against Elite mobs priests are also highly capable which again doesn't make a ton of sense for a cloth wearer with limited CC that's face tanking damage but it just works the combo of consistent outgoing damage self-heels Shields and psychic scream when needed make for a class which is surprisingly efficient at taking on Elite enemies and of course once you get Shadow form priest ability to solo things absolutely shoots through the roof if anything priests do have two notable weaknesses in Solo content they have no ability to break physical routes such as Nets and enemies that possess mortal strike effects make yourself healing way less effective all the same I definitely rate priests very highly in Solo content I also want to quickly cover the racial spells as a priest as they can certainly influence which race you decide to roll on The Horde troll has hex of weakness which reduces an enemy's damaged by a small amount as well as healing received they also get Shadow guard this is kind of like a lightning Shield type effect which deals damage when you're attacked importantly this can proc your talent blackout making it a very effective solo play Tool Undead get touch of weakness which reduces an enemy's damage after they attack you by a small amount and devouring plague this dot would eventually become standard to all priests but in classic it's a long cooldown ability that deals heavy damage and heals the priests for the same amount over on the alliance Knight elves have a loon's Grace which is a bit of a strange ability reducing range damage taken and increasing Dodge Chance by 10 for 15 seconds they also get star shards this channeled ability can be used in place of wanding unfortunately Mana regeneration does not kick in whilst channeling so it has a direct effect on priest's renowned efficiency humans get desperate prayer a 10 minute cooldown instant Caster zero Mana big heel this ability is so good for getting you out of a bad spot and the early ranks of it might as well be a lie on hands they also get feedback which is uh difficult to use I think when hit by a spell it burns some of the enemy's mana and does damage per Mana burned it also costs a lot of Mana to cast for what it does it's only viable versus casters and you tend really not to care about NPC's Mana bar all that much so it's not the most useful I think finally dwarves they also get desperate prayer which is amazing of course and they also get fear Ward this spell is very overpowered in classic it's a 30 second cooldown 10 minute duration making the target immune to the next fear effector they receive to put in perspective how good this spell is in classic when blizzard gave this ability to all priests in TBC they had to put it up to a three minute cooldown and a three minute duration overall on The Horde there's an argument for either race there I'd probably lean towards Undead due to their other ratios and devouring plague making priests even better at soloing stuff than they already are on Alliance dwarf kind of op you even get stone formed to immune blades and poisons which you can't deal with usually as a priest but those are options you pick what fits you best moving on though to group content when Parting Up the priest gets arguably even better than they are Solo bringing a powerful toolkit whether they're healing or dpsing what's really good about grouping up with a priest is everyone gets power word fortitude of course every buff adds up in a group but on Hardcore the one that gives you a lot of extra Health it's really nice to have and though priests are often seen as a Healer class Shadow feels a lot better in smaller scale content than it does in raids it doesn't run into issues anymore with having to worry about debuff caps on enemies or being considered not viable due to their damage output in fact a shadow priest in the dungeon will do just fine the main issue is still regarding their Mana when they aren't consistently able to land killing blows to park Spirit tap so you will still be dotting and wanding a lot in dungeons too the other side of the priest and the one I think you may see a little more often will be the healer in group content and whilst you may not have a full-on Healer Talent setup if you've been buying ranks of spells and have some practice using them priests can still make for a very capable addition to a group I even remember doing all demand during Classic on my priest where on most bosses I would power word Shield the tank before they went in and then our DPS in Shadow form with vampiric Embrace active if they needed healing beyond that and drop out of Shadow form and actually heal them directly perhaps it's a bit more risky doing that when you're playing a hardcore but hey if your tank over levels the content and they're well geared it should work just fine also the other good thing about healing group content is in classic spell damage and healing are split into two different stats so if a healing item drops you never have any competition from someone else in the group on it right then on to survivability why are priest players making it so much further than the average class in the hardcore challenge I reckon it comes down to a mix of a lot of different factors working together first of all Buffs I've already mentioned it but Power word for altitude is a nice extra chunk of stamina that will have saved you before if you're playing a priest and you won't even have noticed it inner fire also gives you a lot of extra armor to ensure that you're somewhat protected against physical attackers speaking of physical attacks unlike any other Caster in general you're actually trading hits on a priest on a regular basis this means your defense skill is being actively trained as you level up which means you aren't going to be consistently weak to crushing blows as certain other classes such as the hunter or Mage who aren't taking direct hits a lot will be next is the fact that Priests get their whole leveling rotation given to them pretty early game if I'm honest now you might take some time to get a wand from a quest but once you do the good old trusty pre-shield mind blast Dot and one rotation will take you from your starter Zone pretty much to level cap it's simple and it's really effective there's no Reliance on a pet to do work for you or potential danger if one of your major spells such as Frost and over gets resisted you just face tanks off and gradually wear them down power word Shield is also kind of overpowered being a disciplined spell it can be cast in Shadow form and absorbs a large amount of damage it also places a debuff on the player for 15 seconds meaning they can't benefit from a power wedge Shield again this 15 second downtime is kind of the window where your character is Mortal our word Shield does two very more important things too first of all while it holds you suffer zero spell knockback meaning you can heal or DPS as needed secondly with a shield on you cannot be dazed enemies have to deal damage to you in order to Daze you though whilst other classes have to do all this strafe jumping when running away to ensure no dazes if you have a shield up you just press the button and then do a 180 and run away I mean you still do want to practice strafe jumping for what it's worth but if you don't bother then power word Shield will probably carry you anyways there is utility in the priest kit too psychic scream is unpredictable but can send several mobs running away from you giving you time to recover mindsu reduce his enemy's aggro radius by a large amount which is far more useful than people give it credit for especially in dungeons Jackal and Dad should also not be forgotten about it's a good single Target CC against Undead and there's plenty of Undead in classic there's mind control too so if you're having difficulty on a tough Elite Quest just mind control one of them and have them fight it out it works really well grease also have a ton of self-heals as well very efficient ones too such as renewal downranking heel once you get vampiric Embrace in the shadow tree it gives really powerful self-healing when you do damage and eventually you'll get Shadow form as both another offensive and defensive tool race may not look it but they really are up there with some of the most durable and safe classes in the game so is the priest faster level I think the best way I can put this is that they are faster than they feel and that's purely down to the standard rotation against each marble being more or less the same every time even versus casters you kind of still just Shield Dot and wand I mean it works well but that's how it is the big thing in terms of speed that priests are going for them is very low down time if played slow and steady between each pull for me speed wise priests are a middle upper middle of the pack kind of class certainly good but that's faster right then on to talents where are we going to be investing our points the first thing I want to bring up is a possibility of not leveling as Shadow now to be honest I'm not sure I'm entirely sold on it I know for a fact that shadow can hear leveling dungeons just fine and when you're not in a dungeon you are way more effective when fully specced into Shadow either way you might want to try something different such as smiting instead it is a lot less manner efficient but I reckon something along this line might work out the idea here would be to go into wanting early and then go straight into Shadow for Spirit tap spell hit and increase duration on Shadow wear pain after that we go back into holy to improve your heels and offensive capability with holy spells then we go into discipline and get some important talents to age your Buffs and heels all the way down to Divine Spirit finally finishing out with more talents in the Holy tree to improve the capability of your heels and holy spells a little bit more this build is definitely a bit more out there but Priestess are very flexible when it comes to talents and at the end of the day hardcore is a leveling challenge so see what works for you and whether you can find something unique but for most people they will be specking into Shadow this is one of those specializations where you'll be doing a respect at some point in time but starting off and up to level 40 it's going to look something like this the important part here is to go straight into one specialization even if you don't have a wand yet for real wondering is going to be a lot of your damage and this Talent is just too good to miss out on from then on it's into the shadow tree and it's pretty standard stuff Spirit tap into improve Shadow wear pain and three points in the spell hit chance Talent then we get mind play bonus spell range and Shadow weaving in Classic Shadow weaving is a debuff on anime is not a buff on you so even though you won't have it stacked most of the time it can add up to 15 more damage total which is just too much to pass up on even if it only gets to three out of five stacks on average I've missed off a few talents here and I'll explain why improve my unblast's five Talent points for not that big of an effect the big benefit of specking into this is when you can mind play twice back to back into a mind blast on cooldown this does great damage but it's terrible for your Mana bar and your Mana bar is kind of more important when you're questing I've also gone Five Points into blackout instead of improved psychic scream and silence ten percent chance to stun for three seconds which can proc off of every ticker shadow where pain or mind play that sounds pretty good to me and in case you're wondering yes this stun does have a diminishing return with itself silence whilst useful feels like more of a PVP Talent pastors when you're leveling just aren't as threatening as melee the vast majority of the time the fact that they can't quit or crush with spells and you can easily line of sight them means that a lot of counter players already available at level 40 it is respect time why Shadow form of course now some people may argue you want to stay with this one spec until Level 42 or something but I say shadow form as soon as possible because Shadow form looks cool this back in of itself is pretty similar to the other one however with more Talent points to spend you can pick up the remainder of the CC related effects in the shadow tree and then go into discipline to improve your Buffs and Mana efficiency of course whatever you're doing at 60 be it heal or DPS you should expect your talent points to change around once again but for the leveling portion of the game this should work just fine ability wise pretty much everything you can get is useful at something though it will depend on your play style and to what extent you want to group and flex between DPS or healing as per usual greeners upgrade where possible yellow optional or I wouldn't Max it immediately and red is a void this list shows all the racial abilities too which you should level where possible Smite and holy fire will be picked up early game naturally but unless you're going full on Smite mode you wouldn't continue ranking them up mind Vision soothe and fade are all in the utility category good to have points in but you may not need the maxed out similar scenario for some of your healing abilities you just might not need to prioritize maxing them out right away the only spell to avoid is of course resurrect doesn't tend to be too useful when playing hardcore that though you can res hunter pets if that was ever somehow useful to you so maybe you get rank one onto weapon progression then priest is the Caster where having a good weapon is the most important and you're certainly going to be getting a ton of use out of your wand first up don't forget to check up on warned vendors for common quality items at some point they will start to outperform Quest rewards that you're able to find or if you just didn't do the quest that award ones you can always get one from a vendor secondly as Shadow Ones Will scale with Shadow vulnerability and Shadow form as they are a source of Shadow damage however they will not prop blackouts as your wand is not considered a shadow spell itself so Shadow ones are nice but not always a realistic choice so early game for Alliance there's two main choices both are at the end of quest chains depending on which zone you picked over in dark Shore the final part of the quest chain bash all around will award the Elven wand or alternatively in Westfall the spark of the people's militia from the eponymous questline or would have a few options too one of them is here from the Escape rewarding the flowering baton but also have a huge quest line in the Barons beginning with sergra darkthorne and ending in Isha a whack it's the series of quests where you have to collect zebra who's that one everyone's done at least part of it it ends up rewarding The Branding Rod which is a level 27 wand which will last you for a very long time the big mid game one to go after is a dungeon quest in black fathom's deep starting from the quest black travel villainy either in darnassus or Thunder Bluff it has you venture forth into the dungeon to slay one of the bosses and the reward is the gravestone scepter a good upgrade beyond that is again available to both factions in booty Bay from the second part in the quest line starting with singing Blue shards named Venture company mining this will give you the goblin igniter later on in the game there's also a few good options but they split into faction specific again Alliance have the latter part of the quest chain in Northern Fairless which ends in the quest the morrow stone for the kernstone silver or would have a more dangerous Quest the dark vessels from the elite subzone in the Hinterlands ginthara law it is a collect Quest though so shouldn't be too risky and this will give Nature's breath let's finish up on a few macros and add-ons priest is a class that wons a lot so you already know I'm going to be saying cast shoot here this makes it so you can't toggle wand on or off via double clicking it's a preference thing for me really but I find it super useful priest has a ton of spells that can be used on allies this can act as a self-cast or a few Mouse over will cast on an ally replaced with as many abilities as you need such as dispel magic your disease and so on you can also put your Buffs into a single macro which will reset if you wait a few seconds it just saves a bit of bar space and makes it so they're all in one place and you're going to be pressing in a fire a decent amount anyways add-on wise for a priest there's just really two weak auras that I'd use the first one is to show debuff timers on name plates you want to track your dot durations there's many ways to do this this is just how I do it also Nan Shield to track how much power word Shield you have left incredibly useful this one I definitely recommend and for me that is the priest in classic hardcore a class with a lot of flavor having race specific spells and statistically a class which I think will outperform most people's expectations during the end game priest is always a very sought after class of course though definitely leaning towards more of a Healer play style than Shadow but for the leveling portion of the game priests are both a highly efficient and flexible class raced may not be the most obvious first choice but I think they are quite a good starting point for the hardcore challenge kind of depending on how much you like wanding as you better like wanding a lot either way let me know your thoughts below whether you've given priests to go in hardcore what you think about them and whether you would recommend them and as always thank you all so much for watching and listening in and I'll see you on the next one very soon

Channel: WillE

Views: 88,157

Keywords: classic wow, hardcore wow, wow hardcore, wille, classic hardcore, hardcore clips, hardcore death, hardcore wow guide, paladin, warrior, warlock, mage, priest, rogue, druid, hunter, shaman, toc, icc, dragonflight, wow, warcraft, mmorpg, mmo, best mmo, free mmo 2023, best mmorpg, best free mmorpg, best mmo 2023, mmo 2023, eso, gw2, ff14, osrs, ashes of creation, riot mmo, role playing game, rpg, dungeons and dragons, tabletop, gaming, pc, console, ps5

Id: wEzVaVLSrWQ

Length: 19min 41sec (1181 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 27 2023