PRIEST in Burning Crusade Classic: Is It Any Better Now?

[Music] hello ladies and gentlemen willie here with tbc confirmed it's about time we did a little bit of a class update let's take a look back at each class in the burning crusade the performance overall and hopefully help you make your choice moving forwards we will be looking at what's new in terms of talents and abilities leveling pve who's the new king of the meter pvp has much changed and tier sets which actually exist for every specialization now and through this i hope to answer is your class any better now the final healer to go on the list and the go-to healer throughout the whole of classic versatile powerful and a staple of any raid but as i'm sure you know they are much more than just a heel bop the dps counterpart spec providing excellent raid wide utility which only improved considerably in tbc today we take a look at the priest despite having two identities between heal and dps you often had a real tough choice trying to forge your path as a damage dealer and were pushed to heal through perceived viability raid performance and especially through tier sets majority of which only catered to making your heels better and as we've seen so far with many other classes that supported a hybrid playstyle blizzard brought in many a change to assure you that a rage spot would have your name on it and for a raid in tbc not to have a shadow priest is really unthinkable so then let's make a start on this shall we what's new let's start with the priest racial abilities because they still exist in tbc and some of them do change as well as having new additions for both of the new races which both support the priests class first of all the big news is now all press will have b award up until a later patch it was only draenei and dwarves that had it however now it's on a three minute cooldown instead of 30 seconds in place of fear award draenei and dwarves get chastised a two second instant cast immobilized effect on a 30 second cooldown and it's pretty good in pvp actually both racials change for night elves elune's grace is no longer dodge instead it's just a chance for hit against melee ranged attacks 20 of that not bad and star charge is no longer completely useless it's now instant cast instead of channeled still doesn't benefit from vampiric touch or embrace unfortunately it doesn't do shadow damage blood elves got touch of weakness the same as what undead have at the moment and a new ability called consumer magic which dispels one magic effect off you for around 500 or so mana and it can only dispel pre-stabilities in pve it sounds like you're probably just to snipe off your divine spirit or power word fortitude for some manner could be decent in pvp a little downrank renew or touch of weakness for free mana games really and draenei on top of chastise have symbol of hope which is instant cast around 1 000 mana over 15 seconds for your entire party which is actually pretty amazing should be castable in shadow form sort of like how power word shield is because it's a disciplined tree ability making draenei look like the ultimate mana battery nowhere of the existing ratios change from vanilla new ability wise we have mass dispel famous for its use in pvp to remove divine shield and ice block other than that it tends to have niche use removing up to 10 negative effects from friendlies and 10 positives from enemies binding heel which is kind of rarely used it's like a flash shield that affects you as well as a target without a bit of a mana discount on it prayer of mending i've always really liked this spell i think it's something about the sound when it just bounces all over the place a heel that jumps between targets when they take damage up to five times superman are efficient if the heel will proc all five times or even twice for that matter it's great in pvp and pve shadow word death again a pvp play-making ability instant cast hits pretty hard and if the target lives you take the same damage back that you dealt whilst it sounds like a pure negative priest and pve are already self-healing a lot through vampiric embrace and in pvp this damage backfaring can be used to break cc's if it's predicted such as polymorph or blind last of all we have shadowfiend if the mana bar does run low pop this little guy to restore it back up again it has really high avoidance and spell resist baseline so isn't likely to be picked off by some random aoe does shadow damage too and just restores a whole lot of mana leveling wise priests were already extremely strong in classic due to their mana efficiency but they really had to lean on their wanding for well pretty much the whole of classic really it wasn't exactly the most thrilling level experience but the whole feel of never needing to stop was such a carry now in tbc they get a little spell at the bottom of their shadow tree called vampiric touch which we will be talking about in a lot more detail for pve but suffice to say this puts more than just a bit more punch into your damage and mana efficiency whilst the wand will still be your best friend at lower levels or with less gear it'll fall out of fashion over time as you naturally just get used to keeping that mana bar healthy through spirit tap whilst whittling opponents down with dots it's worth a mention that one third of your boneless healing is converted into spell damage in tbc so even if you are holy at the moment the shadow's play style will still be there for you also all that bonus spirit will go a long way to making sure you never really go home unless you're extra keen and you want to pick up some of those tier 2.5 tokens that could be a good idea at the moment as well or just go the dungeon route and stick to wholly or discipline both those specs will work as well as ever for leveling as part of a group not too much of it to say than that i do like to keep this part quite short experiment with the class a bit during this time see what works for you right then pve i'd like to start with where i think the majority of the priest player base will be at the moment i sound like i'm doing the paladin video again here don't i and that is on the healing side so holy and discipline were both amazing in classic you really can't go wrong picking a priest if you want to heal do they keep that power level in tbc then yes yes they do however they aren't so far and away in power level anymore what they do keep is their versatility there is no environment where your holy priest will not be useful and if we are talking overall utility per healer they don't quite match up to a shaman no one does but they can still be there on throughput most of all when they're specced into focusing on their group-wide healing through spells like prayer of or circle of healing and even prayer of mending while still also being a solid tank killer with greater heel spam down ranking is still a thing in tbc and preschool need to do this to balance their mana pool with stop casting macros because as fights get longer your mana can struggle if you spam too much so here is a town tree for the big heels focus priest now if you play the priest in classic it's a bit like looking in a mirror because there aren't a huge amount of things that are new inspiration is still great with your new aoe spells only reach has taken much for the same reason holy concentration i'm starting to see a trend in these talent names is like clear casting for heels letting you fire off a big greater heel when it procks spirit of redemption is taken because three five percent light well unfortunately still cancels its heel when you take damage empowered heels at the bottom feel some scaling and finally circle of healing which is like a weaker prayer of healing but it's instant cast spammable and really strong on throughput but very mana intensive also note it heals the target and their group you will probably also want an improved divine spirit priest here's what it will look like it's quite similar to the last spec but just going far enough to pick up this talent make sure divine spirit increases your target spell damage and healing by 10 of their spirit their spirit remember not yours as the healer of course not every class healer or dps really cares that much about spirit priests and druid healers are stacking spirit dps wise we've got shadow priests boomies and to a lesser extent mages who have some spirit on their gear so it can be a nice amount of free stats for a few classes it stacks up very well with the human racial as well which is now 10 but the spec that really comes a long way in tbc is shadow now i've always liked shadow priests nothing to do with me raining a lock at all obligatory mentioned that the debuff cap was raised from 16 to 40 so you can actually press all of your buttons and not overly worry about pushing other beneficial effects off the target changes wise the threat modifier on mind blast has gone thankfully shadow vulnerability is nerfed down to 10 to max stacks however shadow priests bring a new talent called misery that makes the target take another five percent bonus spell damage so it's overall unchanged really shadow power is in to make your two spells that can crit quit a bit more often and no unfortunately dots and channel defects still do not quit or benefit from haste focus mind for some mana saves and the big new addition is vampiric touch a new reasonably hard hitting damage over time that converts five percent of all shadow damage you deal into mana for you and your entire party this is shadow's big selling point the reason why shadow priests became known as mana batteries and the reason now i realized why i always got into pugs so easily packed during tbc this ability single-handedly solves your mana issues whilst also providing thousands of mana back to your party members over the course of an encounter it's this spell that will always find shadow priests at place with the healers or arcane mages of your group so yes you won't be in the group with the boomies or the elementals for the free stats but to be honest you gain very little benefit from crit anyway so it's not really a huge loss shadow priests do fine enough early on damage wise as dots are just good at the start of the game but their lack of ability to scale beyond spell damage really hurts them so expect to have more and more people overtake you as the expansion goes on the shadow priest isn't there to top dps meters but they carry the braid in other ways and unlike many other more utility focus classes some raids may even take two shadow priests because they offer that much for free through that really good toolkit if you like shadow priest in classic well now your raid is gonna like you a whole lot more in the burning crusade moving on to pvp then an area of the game where priests in classic have been also very strong shadow particularly in smaller skirmishes where they can take advantage of their dots and self-heals and shields and discipline for more group-oriented pvp supporting their allies with their strong dispels and instant cast toolkit and moving forward through the dark portal to tbc they are still looking in great shape since we were just talking about shadow for pve we'll have a look at discipline first of all for pvp i'd expect priests to be the healer you see the most after druid or perhaps even a similar amount in the early seasons if many players decide to move forwards with the priest as their main character the class spec combo of priest and discipline is just really stacked when it comes to sheer utility and healing power it also gets a huge boost from a resilience as in classic whilst priests can do a lot the chance you get deleted when a geared melee stuns you for even a few seconds is quite high now thanks to resilience taking less damage from crits less chance to be crit amongst other things priests can really start to shine here is our specialization picking up martyrdom for a guaranteed spell not by community after receiving a crit as well as a chance to resist interrupts improved mana burn now reduces the cast time by one second focus power mass dispel is a 1.5 second cast bass line this takes it down to 0.5 as well as giving you a nice amount of hits for when you are on the offense which will be very often on the priest reflective shield does decent damage and focus will really stops the priest from falling over under pressure at max stacks being 12 reduced damage and 30 bonus healing which is pretty amazing power infusion has changed from 20 bonus spell damage to 20 casting speed and mana cost reduction for 15 seconds and at the bottom of the tree we have pain suppression 40 reduced damage and a 65 chance to resist dispels for eight seconds this is your big cooldown to put a stop to all ends with other talents you pick up in your tree you'll be around 75 chance to resist dispel effects so whilst not immune you would have to get unlucky which at some point no doubt you will but the actual effect of pain suppression is magic itself so at some point you're gonna roll a dice and lose over in the holy tree we have holy nova because we need to get those rogues and druids out of stealth divine fury to age our offensive capabilities and one point in blessed recovery for another magic trash debuff to cover more important ones and much like the druid which we're seeing a real trend with here on good pvp healers is the vast majority of the priest's kit is instant cast the spell magic prayer of mending renew power shield power infusion pain suppression psychic scream only for them to really do dps do they need to hard cast it's also worth a mention they are the only healer to pack an offensive and defensive dispel that can remove two magical effects either way this ability alone on any healer would push them into being a more competitive choice but it's landed on a class where they're already really good discipline is seen in all brackets at high ratings in twos most often with rogue major hunter and threes forming the final part of the holy trinity of rogue mage priest however there is another pre-spec that you will still be seeing in arena less frequently and no it's not holy that's not really a thing shadow however shadow is straight into a speck then because it's not all too different from pve to be honest we have improved psychic scream and silence which are taken the pvp gloves work nicely alongside these new talents silence is extra good in tbc as for some reason silence effects are both not on diminishing returns and untrinketable hence why you'll see comps like shadow and mage so often which is nine seconds of point-and-click healer can't play the game shadow doesn't pack the durability that discipline does due to its lack of cooldowns but it can put out some huge damage in its own right shadow vulnerability quickly builds up strong dispel protection on your main target when combined with your shallower pain misery and vampiric touch so despite shadow not having any built-in offensive dispel protection it kind of resolves that issue by itself other than that it's kind of like the shadow priest you know at the moment you can't have that assurance that vampiric touch will always be up though so they're still liable to ooming the pretty fast even more so when they have to play defensive though they do have shadow fiend to restore some manner of course pray for blackout procs and go all in that's your shadow priest they are often seen with rogue or mage in twos rogue rogue-made shadow priest in freeze or even with resto sham mage shadow priest in threes amongst other various comps let's finish up checking some tier gear out tier 4 the incarnate regalia shadow a bit more stats and duration on your shadow fiend it shouldn't really be dying anyways but you'll get a bit of extra mana out of it the four set a bit more damage which will scale up alongside vampiric touch so that's something holy two set prayer of healing applies a weak hail over time the four set a stacking cast speed reduction on greater hill from flash hill up 2.5 seconds so not too big of a deal tier 5 the avatar regalia the 2 set is a different way to save some mana so ok the 4 set is up to 100 bonus spell damage on next cast after a shadower pain tick i guess you could use it to snapshot your dots alongside other trinkets healer-wise the two set if greater heel tops off a target you get 100 mana back obviously you don't want every single heel to be overhealing which is how i read it but it's a small benefit if you are down ranking though the forcer is a bit more renew which is decent tier six the absolution regalia two set for shadow more shadower pain and the four set is more mind blast damage pretty good overall at least both tier bonuses are going towards direct damage now and direct damage means more mana from vampiric touch he'll aspect 2 set is reduce cast on prayer of healing which will be good when it's good if that makes too much sense even still it is an expensive spell to be spamming the 4 set is more heal on greater healing now this is actually really good especially when you are on tank heal duty or they're just taking a lot of damage i feel like although there is a lot to the priest i've managed to go through everything i wanted to relatively quickly maybe it's just the priest in tbc still feels quite familiar to me compared to classic aside from the big gameplay changes of course the utility on shadow and how disc has been more focused into just being a pvp spec now i suppose we should try and answer though the priest is it any better now across the board it's almost a full yes i'd say shadow improves the most to becoming fully playable in pve content and still a strong pick in arena i'd expect some strong contenders from priests are vying for the shadow spots and good raids at the moment though healer wise in pve i'd say compared to classic they aren't quite the full-on overall package that they were in terms of utility shaman really knocks them off that top spot not to say they perform poorly at all far from it it's just you have some competition now and that is usually a good thing so then that is the priest of the strong healer you know and love now with a very much in demand dps spec as well anything you feel i've missed out let me know below as always thank you so much for watching and listening in and i'll see you on the next one very soon [Music] you

Channel: WillE

Views: 132,197

Keywords: the burning crusade, tbc, tbc beta, WoW Classic tbc, World of Warcraft, priest

Id: Zv35_2a054Y

Length: 17min 25sec (1045 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Maxvla]

Minor correction: 8:48 "no unfortunately dots and channeled effects still do not crit or benefit from haste"

Channeled spells do benefit from haste.

[u/mstake21]

I always love me some WillE, dude is chill af.

[u/Siddown]

He oversells Imp DS, but overall it's a nicely video. More flexibility, one of the best PvP healers (debatably the best in S1), and nice raid healing.

It'll only suck for those who only care about getting a raid slot.

[u/[deleted]]

Love this guys videos

[u/gizmuo]

WillE is great! With WillE, Madseason and Platinum wow we have 3 amazing content creator to start into tbc

[u/GuardYourPrivates]

Smite video coming.