Priest Guide Index

• Priest Guide Main Page
• Priest Guide Chapter 1 - Basics - Credits
• Priest Guide Chapter 2 - Quests
• Priest Guide Chapter 3 - Trainers - NPCs
• Priest Guide Chapter 4 - Equipment
• Priest Guide Chapter 5 - Spells - Talents
• Priest Guide Chapter 6 - Roles - Tactics - Techniques
• Priest Guide Appendix - Where to Hunt

5.3.4 - Old 1.9 Talent Builds

The following builds were based on the 1.9 and earlier Priest talent trees. If you like how they are described most are easy to convert to 1.10 and use. They are included as a historical referance on how the Priest calss was played previously

Rounded tri-spec Build
Submitted by: Shar

This build was submitted through the Blizzard forums by Shar. She points out that past about the first 10 points in Holy your healing does not increase a great deal. She uses this build to heal in her guilds Molten Core (MC) runs and has included enough other talents (shadow) that it can be played outside of MC as well.

Discipline Talents - 21 points

Unbreakable Will rank 5/5
Improved Power Word: Shield rank 3/3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude rank 2/2
Mental Agility rank 5/5
Mental Strength rank 5/5
Inner Focus rank 1/1

Holy Talents - 9 points

Improved Renew rank 5/5
Spiritual Healing rank 4/5

Shadow Talents - 21 points

Blackout rank 5/5
Shadow Affinity rank 3/5
Improved Shadow Word: Pain rank 2/2
Shadow Focus rank 3/5
Improved Psychic Scream rank 2/2
Mind Flay rank 1/1
Improved Fade rank 2/2
Shadow Reach rank 3/3

Shar had the following to say about this build:

Blackout and silence, admittedly, do very little in MC for end game content, but are extremely useful outside of it. So they are worth keeping. Shadow reach, however, means that if your guild lets you, you can at least have a chance of sticking your dot on mobs from a distance, and with shadow affinity it will probably stick. With the new 1.7 patch having doubled the debuff limit, I doubt many guilds will complain about a priest using a single debuff slot to do over 1k damage.

The points in discipline are a huge boon to your healing in MC, since mana is very easy to drain. Inner focus especially can be a lifesaver if you are out of mana to hit off a last ditch greater heal on a tank. Not much explanation is needed here, and you're really only giving up 15% regeneration while casting which is actually very little mana regen, and doesn't help any of your +mana/5 sec items at all.

After those first 10 points in holy, your actual healing power doesn't increase any more. Greater heal becomes a bit more mana efficient and casts a little faster, which is nice, but you'll be using flash heal a lot more in MC than greater heal. Spirit of redemption is nice, especially with the huge amount of deaths in MC, but your group isn't always that close and it only heals 5/40 people, which is not that big a deal. It's a big heal, to be sure, but most of it is wasted. I just dont feel it is worth getting some rather useless talents to get far enough into the talent tree to get it.

A disc/holy build is great for the MT healer, but for spot healing (which most extra priests will be doing in raids) it's really not that effective.

Uber Mana Regen Priest Build
Submitted by: Teleios

I found this build that is aimed at the priests that run very level instances with long battles. This build focuses heavily on healing and mana regeneration/conservation rather than the total amount of healing power. In these long fights like Onyxia, Molten Core and Blackwing Lair bosses you really require mana endurance. This type of build make a solid long term healer for a parties main tank in long fights.

This build should be well complemented by Mana Regen gear. With high mana regen gear and this build, it should be rare to ever run out of mana in a fight. You should aim for +100 mana/5 secs as a goal.

Discipline Talents - 26 points

Unbreakable Will rank 5/5
Improved Power Word: Shield rank 3/3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude rank 2/2
Mental Agility rank 5/5
Mental Strength rank 5/5
Meditation rank 5/5
Inner Focus rank 1/1

Holy Talents - 25 points

Improved Renew rank 5/5
Holy Specialization rank 5/5
Spiritual Healing rank 5/5
Improved Healing rank 5/5
Improved Flash Heal rank 2/2
Improved Prayer of Healing rank 2/2
Spirit of Redemption rank 1/1

Holy Build
Created by: Zealex of Kil'Jaeden

Build by Dazhiznit of Perenolde with explanation (From the official boards)

Holy

5/5 Improved Renew
5/5 Holy Specialization
5/5 Spiritual Healer
5/5 Improved Healing
2/2 Improved Flash Heal
2/2 Improved Prayer of Healing
1/1 Spirit of Redemption
5/5 Master Healer
1/1 Holy Nova

Discipline

5/5 Unbreakable Will
3/3 Improved Power Word: Shield
2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude
3/5 Mental Agility, I plan on going 5/5

Divine Spirit Build
Created by: Quutar from http://www.quutar.com/

This is possibly the best overall priest build. It is not as focused on healing as the pure healing build, but it gets a valuble buff called "Divine Spirit". Loseing the 5 points in the increased spell critical, a preist can spend those to get "Divine Spirit". The priest also looses the ability to consider "Improved Prayer of Healing", but instead puts all 5 points into "Sublety". The problem is that 4 of the 5 points gained from this is "wasted" as far as pure healing goes. In this build "Martyrdom", "Focused Casting", and "Improved Inner Fire" are throw away, and can be swapped with other talents in the Discipline line.

Discipline Talents (31 points):

- Unbreakable Will - 5/5 points
- Improved Power Word: Shield - 3/3 points
- Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 2/2 points
- Martyrdom - 2/2 points
- Mental Agility - 5/5 points
- Focused Casting - 1/1 point
- Mental Strength - 5/5 points
- Improved Inner Fire - 1/3 point
- Meditation - 5/5 points
- Inner Focus - 1/1 point
- Divine Spirit - 1/1 point

Holy Talents (20 points):

- Improved Renew - 5/5 points
- Spiritual Healing - 5/5 points
- Subtlety - 5/5 points
- Improved Healing - 5/5 points

Shadow Talents (0 points)

- None

PvE Shadow build

This is the build I use on my PvE Shadow priest. As the in-game slang goes "It melts faces". This build specializes in all the evil aspects of the shadow spec, but gives up a ton of healing power, taking nothing that improves your healing ability at all. In PvE for grinding and the occasional PvP this build is deadly.

When playing this build try to equip yourself with as much +xx damage to shadow gear as you can as all your damage will be shadow based. The other high priorities for equipement are as always +Int, +Stam and +Spirit. I tend to focus on +spirit over +Stamina for this build though as you gain back a fair amount of health through your Vampiric Embrace. The focus on Spirit allows you to regen your mana quickly between fights, to grind and level faster.

Your battle plan should be the following:
- Make sure PW: Fortitude is up
- Hit enemy at longest possible distance with Mind blast
- Then PW: Pain and Devouring Plague (if you are undead)
- Then Mind flay
- At this point they are at you, PW: Shield.
- Fight and cast mind blast, then when low on health
- Fear
- Heal while they run
- Repeat above process until dead!

While there are strategies around other than mine, I have had very good luck with it and stick to the basic strategy. The only change is on casters I cast a silence right after the initial mind blast, and then recast as often as possible. Timing is important, especially against healers. On Paladins I allow them to get down on health and then cast it when they are about 20% health. This is about the time they usually "bubble". They then can not cast and you can usually finish them off.

Shadow skills: 36

Blackout rank 5/5
Improved Shadow Word: Pain rank 2/2
Shadow Focus rank 5/5
Improved Psychic Scream rank 2/2
Improved Mind Blast rank 5/5
Mind Flay rank 1/1
Shadow Reach rank 3/3
Silence rank 1/1
Shadow Weaving rank 5/5
Vampiric Embrace rank 1/1
Darkness rank 5/5
Shadowform rank 1/1

Discipline skills: 15

Unbreakable Will rank 5/5
Improved Power Word: Shield rank 3/3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude rank 2/2
Mental Agility rank 5/5

PVP Shadow build
Built by: Borrus, from Guild: Fallen Heroes on Realm: Eonar

I have seen this build several times on multiple servers. It is a build made mainly for PVP in battlegrounds, where healing is not that big of a deal. By the time you can be healed you are normally dead. So many priests focus on damage, and it works pretty well.

Discipline Talents - 19 points:

Unbreakable Will rank 5/5
Martyrdom rank 2/2
Improved Power Word: Shield rank 3/3
Improved Power Word: Fortitude rank 2/2
Focused Casting rank 1/1
Mental Agility rank 2/5
Mental Strength rank 4/5

Holy Talents - 0 points:

None

Shadow Talents - 32 points:

Blackout rank 5/5
Improved Shadow Word: Pain rank 2/2
Shadow Focus rank 3/5
Improved Psychic Scream rank 2/2
Improved Mind Blast rank 4/5
Mind Flay rank 1/1
Shadow Reach rank 3/3
Silence rank 1/1
Shadow Weaving rank 5/5
Darkness rank 5/5
Shadowform rank 1/1

Have comments or suggestions? Thought of something that has been missed? Found an error? I would love to hear from you! Please post in our Priest Class guide forum or email me at [email protected]