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• href="#solo">Solo Play
• href="#disc">Discipline
• href="#holy">Holy
• href="#shadow">Shadow
• href="#spells">Other
  Spells
  
• href="#aggro">Managing Aggro

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Now that you have completed the
arduous task of picking a spec for your Priest, it’s time to
move on to even more important matters. Now you must learn how to play
your Priest. Be aware that most of your skill will come from experience
and much trial and error, but we here at Ten Ton Hammer can at least
point you in the right direction.

Priest Solo Play

Soloing as a Priest can be a
tricky, yet rewarding
experience. Priests are notoriously squishier than some of the other
classes available in World of Warcraft therefore they can easily find
themselves in sticky situations. Thankfully a Priest (no matter the
spec) is well equipped with a variety of spells to prevent certain
doom.

Be sure all possible self buffs
are active, you are fully healed and make the pull. Defeat the mob
using pretty much any spell rotation you want, in solo play which
spells you use matters very little. However, solo play is a prime place
to experiment and familiarize yourself with your spells which can be a
great help when you finally make the move into group play.

Discipline Priest Healing

Discipline Priests as mentioned
in the Basics section of this guide, focus more on mitigating damage
than really healing it. If you take a quick glance over the Discipline
tree you will find that many of the talents found there mirror this
sentiment. Because of this Discipline Priests are excellent choices as
tank healers, however they can also heal multiple targets if needed.

For single target healing Disc
Priests will want to either use Strength of Soul and Heal to ultimately
reduce the duration of Weakened Soul which in turn will allow for more
Power Word: Shields, or using Smite to reduce the cool down of Penance.
If you are asked to raid heal, the Disc Priest should use Atonement to
heal the melee and use Borrowed Time to quicken Prayer of Healing to
take care of the ranged groups. On top of this be sure to keep Prayer
of Mending up at all times.

Familiarize yourself with your
spells, know what they are, how to use them and how much mana each
consumes. Also don’t be afraid to experiment. While the
suggestions above are useful, they are not the be all end all of
healing, so play around and find out what feels right to you. Not to
mention that healing in World of Warcraft is constantly changing, so
finding new a better strategies is never
a bad thing.

Check out our href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/general/ultimate-healing-guide"
target="_blank">Ultimate Healing
Guide
for even more healing goodness.

Holy Priest
Healing

Holy Priests like Discipline
Priests, can fulfill any healing role in raid, however currently they
really shine in the role of the raid healer. And the Holy Priest is
well equipped with a variety of tools to help them not only fill, but
excel in this role. However, despite their plethora of tools, healing
as Holy is still a difficult task especially with the removal of
Blanket-Healing (the steady application of HoTs to counter consistent
raid-wide damage) and the increase in overall health pools.

In Cataclysm bosses typically
deal out large amounts of burst damage, which unlike the bosses of the
past usually allows players plenty of time to heal their raid members
back to full health. However, if a players health does drop drastically
try not to panic. Instead continue healing everyone up to full health
as quickly and efficiently as possible. The best Holy Priest (or any
healer for that matter) is one who knows how to conserve mana while
still managing to keep their targets alive.

In Cataclysm bosses typically
deal out large amounts of burst damage, which unlike the bosses of the
past usually allows players plenty of time to heal their raid members
back to full health. However, if a players health does drop drastically
try not to panic. Instead continue healing everyone up to full health
as quickly and efficiently as possible. The best Holy Priest (or any
healer for that matter) is one who knows how to conserve mana while
still managing to keep their targets alive.

One of the most important (and
sometimes confusing) Priest spells to date is Chakra. Chakra is
automatically activated it affects the next compatible spell that the
Priest casts and will stay active until one is used. Chakra can be used
with Heal, Prayer of Mending, Smite, or Prayer of Healing. What spell
you choose to activate Chakra with, will determine with spells gain a
buff from it. On top of this buff, the Priest has taken the Revelations
talent, Holy Word: Chastise will also transform into either Holy Word:
Serenity or Holy Word Sanctuary. Chakra is a powerful tool, use it
wisely and well.

While Chakra is a staple spell,
the Holy Priest can effectively make use of almost every spell in their
arsenal, so be sure to go over your healing spells and familiarize
yourself with how they work, how much mana they use, and how much
healing output they provide. From this you should be able to garner
when and how to use the spells and which should only be used in
emergency situations (those that cost a ton of mana especially). From
here you need to get out there and heal, start out small in 5 man
instances and then work your way to the top, trial and error is the
ultimate teacher.

Check out our href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/general/ultimate-healing-guide"
target="_blank">Ultimate Healing
Guide for even more healing
goodness.

Shadow Priest Damage

The Shadow Priest is like
freakish combination of a Mage and a Warlock all rolled into one class.
Shadow Priests can do incredible single target DPS, like the mage,
however, a portion of their damage comes from the use of DoT
(damage-over-time) spells. Currently Shadow Priests are some of the
hardest hitters in the damage department and can easily top the meters
when played correctly.

Shadow Priests will also obtain
Shadow Orbs, a buff that procs from using Shadow Word: Pain and Mind
Flay. Shadow Orbs can stack up to three times. Shadow Orbs increase the
Shadow Priest’s Mind Blast or Mind Spike depending on the
Priest’s mastery rating. When Mind Blast is used with the
Orbs up the Priest receives a buff called Empowered Shadows. This buff
is essential to Shadow Priest DPS and should be kept active at all
times.

Other Important Priest
Spells

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Fade Available at a rather
low level, Fade causes the Priest to temporaruky
"fade out" of exsitence. This reduces all threat for 10 seconds,
however, once Fade ends all threat will be returned to the Priest. Inner
Fire Available at level 7,
Inner Fire is a 30 minute self-cast buff that is available to all
Priests. Increasing both armor and spell power Inner Fire is especially
useful in a solo setting, but can also provide great benefit during
group play. Shadowfiend The Shadowfiend is a
very valuable tool for both healing and DPS. When cast a Shadowfiend
spawns that will fight for the Priest for 15 seconds Each time the
Shadowfiend lands and attack the Priest who cast the spell gains a
portion of mana back based on the Shadowfiend's damage.

Managing Priest Aggro (Threat)

One of the most important
things that every Priest should know, regardless of spec, is how to
manage their aggro. Remember, a dead Priest is a useless Priest. To
begin
let's go over a simple definition of aggro and how it works.

Aggro is the rated aggression
or threat that a mob has towards a certain player. Each mob has a table
that tracks the threat points for all targets that it is currently
aware of. Ingoring abilities that generate extra threat, each point of
damage generates one point of threat. The mob will attack (aggro) the
target it has the most threat points against.

Threat gain can become very
complicated and confusing, especially when large groups of mobs are
pulled. Almost any action a player takes (heals, shields, damage) will
gain aggro on one or more mobs. Learning what to cast, when to cast,
and when to stop casting will only really come after much trial and
error. However, for an easy way to guage your threat gain consider
downling one of many great threat meters (such as Omen) available. Or
if you don't like to download addons simply make use of the simple one
provided by Blizzard in game.

Priests are especially lucky in
that they have a special spell called Fade (mentioned in the above
section) that reduces their aggro. Use this whenever you find yourself
in a sticky situation.

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