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Priest

Welcome to the Priest Class page.

The Priest is a very unique class as you always have the option of playing either the Holy Priest, or the Discipline (Disc) Priest. Holy and Disc are two very different healing specializations (specs), both with their pros and cons. Hopefully you’ve already had a read through the Healing Class Summaries page, so you can just go ahead and navigate to each spec’s designated page, or read through the summaries again below if you’ve forgotten…

Discipline Priest:

The Discipline(Disc) Priest a very unique style of gameplay. You will need to be both proactive and reactive as a Disc Priest, as you will be using shields (often called bubbles) as well as direct heals and some strong utilities/cooldowns. Due to the use of shields and damage reducing spells, a Disc Priest is all about mitigating damage more so than cast-time healing through it. Spells that you will use include such spells as Pain Suppression and Power Word: Barrier, strong damage mitigation spells with cool downs.

Due to the Disc Priest’s range of spells and abilities granted to them, they are sometimes regarded as a single target healer, but they can still output a reasonable amount of Healing in multi-target situations.

Not only are you a strong healer using traditional means, but you have the option to heal yourself/party/raid members while at the same time damaging your enemies through Atonement. This uses your damaging spells Smite and Holy Fire to heal allies that are close to the target you’re damaging. For example, using Smite on a boss while the tank is near, will 1) damage the boss for a small amount and at the same time 2) heal the tank for a small amount. It can be quite fun! If this sounds like the kind of play style you’re after, head on over to the Disc Priest Page.

Holy Priest:

The other Priest Healing spec is Holy. This is a spec that focuses on healing throughput rather than mitigation or damage reduction. This is a heavily reactive healing spec, meaning you and your allies will take damage, and you will need to react to that damage by casting your spells and abilities. Your arsenal includes a vast array of instant and cast-time healing spells, as well as the typical Priest spells, such as your shields (bubbles), though your bubbles in this spec aren’t as strong as they are in disc spec.

Holy Priest also has access to a couple of Heals over Time (HoTs) spells that enhance your versatility as a healer: with Renew, Lightwell and your Mastery:Echo of Light, which compliment your cast-time and instant heals very well. The Holy Priest can be viewed as a mixture of all other healing specs. You also have access to Chakra, which changes your healing “stance” depending on your situation, which is much like swinging from one spec to another while in combat.

All in all, the Priest, both Holy and Discipline, is a strong healer with many unique abilities and some very beneficial buffs. The true beauty of being a Priest is that you can pick and choose between two different Healing specs each with very different play styles.

Interested in becoming a Holy Priest? Head on over to the Holy Priest Page to find out more.

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Originally published on December 4th, 2012 by on HealingWoW.com, Last modified: .

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