Wotlk. Shami vs Priests boxing in PvP

[Jakkre]

I recently made 7 priests and 3 resto druides on Blackrock to check how well priests perform in pvp compared to ele shamis.
So far my experience is limited to 10 and 15 man bgs. (40 man bgs dont pop up on blackrock)

First of all its worth to mention that priests die noticeable faster than ele shamis, I guess because of the low armor rating.
I would get at least 1420 resilience because otherwise u get globaled before ur healer has even time to heal.

When it comes to the spec I find two specs viable: Either shadow with http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#bxIbu0hZZ0xfwRfkfcofkAo or disc with http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#bxI0uhhiRIosbotZ0xfmof.
Both specs have it pro and cons.

Shadow:
The shadow spec is better to kill single targets. The fastests way to kill a single target with 7 spriests is mind blast followed by shadow word: death and Devouring Plague spam (if shadow word: death is on cd). With 7 spriests its possible to kill a player in 1,2 - 2,6 seconds when using this combination. Its also quite good to combine the burst with http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=64044 on round robin so the enemy dies during the 3 second stun.
If mind blast and shadow word: death is on cd then I just spam Devouring Plague like mad. Downside is here that it makes ur mana drop quite fast but the initial dmg of Devouring Plague is still better than of mind flay. I dont use mind flay at all because the dmg is pretty low and it doesnt pull enough burst to land kills if the enemys have a healer.
Also, killing players over time with dots works only if there is no enemy healer because a healer can easily out heal ur sustain dmg. So runing around and spreading dots on multiple targets is less efficient than killing a target in a quick burst.

Disc:
The downside of going disc is that ur single target dmg is pretty low. U dont have http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=63627 so DP spam is no option.
To land kills with a 51/00/20 spec u need to use mind blast, shadow word: death, penance and mind flay.
On the other hand mind sear does some incredible dmg with a 51/00/20 spec:
The spec is missing shadowform and http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=33193 but gets http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=33190, http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=34910, http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=10060 and http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=52800 in return.
When u use http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=10060 followed by power word shield with http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=52800 then u gonna have 45% more haste and the next http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=53023 gonna tick like every 0,5 sec.
When I play as disc I keep shielding the whole team whenever power word shield is rdy because the shield is not only awesome against aoe dmg, it also reflects 45% of the absorbed dmg back to the attacker http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=33202 , grants a 25% haste buff http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=52800 and also grants mana with http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=47537.

How to deal with fear:
When It comes to fear bombs I found a pretty good method to counter them with mass dispell:
I made a mapped key that executes the following:
On press: sync cursor, cast mass dispell and use http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=59752 on round robin
On release: send mouse1 (the left mouse button)

On every press and release one of my priests breaks the fear and cast mass dispell to remove the fear from the rest of the team.
Having http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=33190 helps a lot to reduce the mass dispel casting time.
I noticed that sending the mouse1 hotkey works much better than a "broadcast next click action". It makes u able to use aoe abilitys much faster because u dont even have to click with ur mouse to cast them.


Shami vs Priest boxing:
Cons:
- priests are more squishy, more vulnerable and definitely harder to play than ele shamis.
The low amount of armor is really a problem. Even when using http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=14771 and http://wotlk.openwow.com/item=42402 the priests take much dmg.
- low mana regeneration. Especially spriest run much faster oom than ele shami.
- low single target burst dmg compared to ele shami. The size of ur team might matter here: with 7 spriests i need to use death plague 3 times to kill a player with the initial dmg. With 20 priests it might be possible to one shot a player with one death plague.
- weaker fear protection. Spamming mass dispell works decent but nothing beats tremor totem.

Pros:
- http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=64044 on round robin in combination with death plague spam is a pretty good method to kill players while moving. Shamis can only use shock while moving and shocks have a cd.
- holy nova is nice for aoe heal. Chain heal heals more but has a terrible long casting time while holy nova is instant and can be used while moving.
- Pain suppression or dispersion as life saver. Shamis have non.
- http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=49821 for Aoe dmg. Sadly I wasnt able to enter a 40 man bg yet so I dont know how mind sear behaves when many players are stacked at one location. The problem is that mind sear is very visible and enemys are running out of the damaging area or use their defensive CDs when they notice it. Mind sear does aoe sustain dmg while chain lightning does aoe burst dmg. I guess it depends on the situation if chain lightning or mind sear is better. Chain lightning is easier to control though.

Conclusion:
Priests are a lot of fun to play.
A completely new challenge and some nice variation to the boring ele shami gameplay.
Nevertheless ill stick to my ele shami because they are like a fighting tower in Wotlk and I find them more solid for multiboxing.
Priests are squishy and I dont like the fact that they take so much dmg in pvp.
In PvE its a different story: Spriests does in pve more single and aoe dmg than ele shamis so I would take them over ele shamis for PvE.

[Aleastraszabcde]

Thanks for testing that out for us! Great review 10/10

[Jakkre]

Thanks for testing that out for us! Great review 10/10

Ty :-)
Would also love to hear kalvindeane opinion.
Even though his focus is on pve.

[kalvindeane]

Awesome post Jakkre! I'll try to split it up a bit and offer my thoughts too.

I recently made 7 priests and 3 resto druides on Lordaeron to check how well priests perform in pvp compared to ele shamis.
So far my experience is limited to 10 and 15 man bgs. (40 man bgs dont pop up on blackrock)

Normally I run either ten Spriests or 7-8 Spriests and 2-3 Holy so mine is a bit different to yours. Definitely they shine better in large scale battles if you can get their AoE to work well so it's unfortunate that Blackrock won't pop IoC AV. :(

The shadow spec is better to kill single targets. The fastests way to kill a single target with 7 spriests is mind blast followed by shadow word: death and Devouring Plague spam (if shadow word: death is on cd). With 7 spriests its possible to kill a player in 1,2 - 2,6 seconds when using this combination. Its also quite good to combine the burst with Psychic Horror on round robin so the enemy dies during the 3 second stun.

My single target is a bit differnt. I take the points in Mind Flay to stop people running out of range. So I use DP then one mind flay and that's enough typically, or two DP. I never use SW:D for some reason, I keep forgetting to bind it even though it's so mana efficient. >.< When it comes to CC I like to reserve Psychic Horror as much as possible for when I'm fighting multiple enemies. I prefer to use Silence if it is of any use, or avoid CC altogether. That way if I come across another boxer, I can CC his team twice in a row.

Also, killing players over time with dots works only if there is no enemy healer because a healer can easily out heal ur sustain dmg. So runing around and spreading dots on multiple targets is less efficient than killing a target in a quick burst.

Yeah that is quite true unfortunately. If I am fighting against a bunch of players who have a healer or two, I normally cast Vampiric Touch and SW P on the healers and then spam mind flay on the rest or holy nova to AoE them down. Sometimes I'll instead spam DP / Mind Flay and throw out a bunch of Fears/Silence/Psychic Horror. A combination of ten Vampiric Touch and ten SW P is essentially a death sentence to anybody other than a Paladin or Death Knight since the DoTs can't be dispelled without dealing a lot of damage to the target.

Disc:
The downside of going disc is that ur single target dmg is pretty low. On the other hand mind sear does some incredible dmg

Yep. I only ever go full Disc if I'm doing 5v5 against other multiboxers so that I can rack up the AoE, but even then I prefer to go Shadow for the extra CC tools.

How to deal with fear:

Just as you mentioned in the other thread I use the pvp trinket/racial with Fear Ward which is normally enough for me. It's quite rare for enemies to get more than two fears off on me but if they do I use Dispersion if necessary. Typically I try to kill them off before that happens though. :D Also using Psychic Scream to fear any Warriors/Priests that get too close can help mitigate it somewhat.

I noticed that sending the mouse1 hotkey works much better than a "broadcast next click action". It makes u able to use aoe abilitys much faster because u dont even have to click with ur mouse to cast them.

Indeed! Super useful for any class that needs a click and broadcast combination.

Shami vs Priest boxing:
Cons:
- priests are more squishy, more vulnerable and definitely harder to play than ele shamis.
The low amount of armor is really a problem. Even when using Improved Inner Fire and Glyph of Inner Fire the priests take much dmg.
- low mana regeneration. Especially spriest run much faster oom than ele shami.
- low single target burst dmg compared to ele shami. The size of ur team might matter here: with 7 spriests i need to use death plague 3 times to kill a player with the initial dmg. With 20 priests it might be possible to one shot a player with one death plague.
- weaker fear protection. Spamming mass dispell works decent but nothing beats tremor totem.

-Definitely more squishy and harder to play but that's why I love them :D I think if played correctly they have the potential to be great but they are very gear and skill dependant.
-In terms of mana I find myself managing pretty well between Dispersion, Shadowfiend and Hymn of Hope but it can be an issue on long fights.
-I think compared to Flame Shock the damage on DP is pretty small but with 10 Priests it's normally enough for me. I find that if I cast it and let it tick once they normally die, or at least are in need of a lot of healing. I tend not to go for one hit kills when fighting groups and instead try to whittle everybody down at once.
-Aye. Nothing works quite as well as Tremor Totem here. Trying to avoid being feared / tanking through it is key for an all Priest team. Though ofc introducing a Shaman for each group is an option too if you like to mix classes (which I am aiming to do in PvP eventually).

Pros:
- Psychic Horror on round robin in combination with death plague spam is a pretty good method to kill players while moving. Shamis can only use shock while moving and shocks have a cd.
- holy nova is nice for aoe heal. Chain heal heals more but has a terrible long casting time while holy nova is instant and can be used while moving.
- Pain suppression or dispersion as life saver. Shamis have non.
- Mind Sear for Aoe dmg. Sadly I wasnt able to enter a 40 man bg yet so I dont know how mind sear behaves when many players are stacked at one location. The problem is that mind sear is very visible and enemys are running out of the damaging area or use their defensive CDs when they notice it. Mind sear does aoe sustain dmg while chain lightning does aoe burst dmg. I guess it depends on the situation if chain lightning or mind sear is better. Chain lightning is easier to control though.

-Like I said above I try to reserve Psychich Horror and Silence for enemy boxers/large scale battles so I can instant CC a bunch of people. The ability to spam instant cast damage is quite nice though.
-Aye. I sometimes Glyph for Holy Nova to improve the damage/healing. If a lot of melee are on me I DoT up any healers and then take care of the melee with Holy Nova, which also keeps myself alive.
-Yep.
-Certainly harder to manage Mind Sear efficiently than Chain lightning but it can clear an enemy multiboxer almost instantly or a bunch of melee enemies (unless using Holy Nova instead).

Shadowfiends make nice little cooldowns too. With ten or twenty of them you can kill an enemy player very quickly and they can catch up with anybody due to their ability. It's nice to send them out when outnumbered to cause some chaos. Put them on an enemy healer whilst DoT'ing up the other healers is a nice method. Also makes nameplates almost useless to the enemy if they are all sent to different targets.

One of my favourite things is they don't need to face their enemy to attack, which works wonders if people are trying to turn you around.



I have finally worked out how to get Shadowplay to work with my set up so I'll record some gameplay footage once my new Priest team are properly geared. Maybe some Wintergrasp battles or 5v5 arena.

[Jakkre]

Thanks for ur reply.
First of all I would like to say that my focus in pvp is mainly on boxer vs normal player. I hardly meet other multiboxer in BGs and I think that a boxer vs boxer fight differs a lot from the usual pvp.

Normally I run either ten Spriests or 7-8 Spriests and 2-3 Holy so mine is a bit different to yours. Definitely they shine better in large scale battles if you can get their AoE to work well so it's unfortunate that Blackrock won't pop IoC AV. :(

Yeah, too bad that IoC is disabled on Blackrock and AV hardly pops up. :/
The cross faction BG system is also a problem when queuing with 10 chars but I found a work around for it.
After all Blackrock is pretty unfriendly for multiboxing but I still find it good to test stuff and check how things behave in BiS geared.

My single target is a bit differnt. I take the points in Mind Flay to stop people running out of range. So I use DP then one mind flay and that's enough typically, or two DP. I never use SW:D for some reason, I keep forgetting to bind it even though it's so mana efficient. >.<

The main reason why i use SW:D is because it does slightly more dmg than the initial dmg of DP.
So when bursting a target I find SW:D quite usefull.

About mind flay: It might be good to cast mindflay with just one priest so the target is slowed while the other priests use Mind blast and DP.
I like to use mind blast as a opener followed by SW:D or DP because both attacks hit the target at the same time so the enemy is instant dead before he can even pop his defensive. Combining this kill combination with Psychic Horror to stun the enemys gives me pretty much a guaranty kill.

When it comes to CC I like to reserve Psychic Horror as much as possible for when I'm fighting multiple enemies. I prefer to use Silence if it is of any use, or avoid CC altogether. That way if I come across another boxer, I can CC his team twice in a row.

How do u manage to CC multiple targets at the same time?
I know that a macro like /cast [@arena1], /cast [@arena2], etc, exist for arena but I couldnt find a macro solution to CC multiple targets outside of arena.
Using the CC ability on round robin and targeting the enemys one by one might by a option but i find it too time consuming to be efficient.

Right now I use the silence to interrupt the healer. If the enemys have a healer then I set him on focus and execute a "/cast [@focus] silence" macro every 5 seconds on round robin.
I have this silence macro integrated in all my dmg mapped keys so I can lock out the healer with out paying much attention to it.
In general I like to automate things because there is so much stuff going on in pvp that I hardly find the time to use CC effects manually.

-Certainly harder to manage Mind Sear efficiently than Chain lightning but it can clear an enemy multiboxer almost instantly or a bunch of melee enemies (unless using Holy Nova instead).

I tried to use holy nova for dmg purpose but the dmg wasnt high enough to kill anything.
Might be because I have just 7 priests or because everybody is well geared on Blackrock.
Right now I use holy nova only for the aoe heal but ill check it again.

Shadowfiends make nice little cooldowns too. With ten or twenty of them you can kill an enemy player very quickly and they can catch up with anybody due to their ability. It's nice to send them out when outnumbered to cause some chaos. Put them on an enemy healer whilst DoT'ing up the other healers is a nice method. Also makes nameplates almost useless to the enemy if they are all sent to different targets.

Yeah, the Shadowfiends are awesome. The hit really hard and the mana regg is also great.

I have finally worked out how to get Shadowplay to work with my set up so I'll record some gameplay footage once my new Priest team are properly geared. Maybe some Wintergrasp battles or 5v5 arena.

Cant wait to watch it.

[kalvindeane]

I have found a nice way to CC multiple targets simultaneously but because it gives me such a big advantage in PvP I don't share it :p

You'll see it in action whenever I record some footage :D

[Deathsmaster]

Fantastic post Jakkre! I just recently started to get my S-Priest team up past the 5k markon Rag, so I'll be very interested to see your footage Kalvin, I didn't consider a burst of SW: Pain, I'm going to see how that goes First and then into a permanent rotation, thanks for that idea. I'll be following this thread very closely.

[Jakkre]

I have found a nice way to CC multiple targets simultaneously but because it gives me such a big advantage in PvP I don't share it :p

I can only think of spamming "/targetenemyplayer " to jump between the closest enemy targets and then spam the macro together with the CC effect on round robin.
The "targetenemyplayer macro" often bugs out though and jumps only between 2 enemys or get stucked.

Fantastic post Jakkre!

Thanks dude.

[Aleastraszabcde]

I have found a nice way to CC multiple targets simultaneously but because it gives me such a big advantage in PvP I don't share it :p

You'll see it in action whenever I record some footage :D

Please do share it. :P I would like to implement it in my shaman/druid setup.