Should I level a priest?

[Akos1896]

Hey!

I was thinking about leveling one. Specifically for healing, I am less interested in shadow.
Having a high-raid resto shaman main and I was curious about the other alternatives. TWOW is the first place I met WOW, having very few personal experiences with most of the classes. To compensate for this, watched many tutorials etc, but lacking first hand experience.

I enjoy healing. As a resto shaman I love the added utility of the totems but sometimes I feel that my heals are boring. I can wide heal, quick heal and big heal; and all of the iterations via downgrades. I like keeping things complex, with downgrades I use 10 heals as a shaman but to be real it's three heals on different talent levels. Looked up the priests and I admire the sheer amount of heal and damage prevention they can use. I'm thinking about 'giving up' the utility part my totems are giving for the stamina buff, the shackle, the MC and for the extra heals -> My ideal scenario is when I play a healer with many different heals with downgrades and learning to optimize that huge variety. Several action bars just for heals and the challenge to use them properly is what I want. But this leads to my questions.

1. How much of the healing and damage prevention is actually being used by priests at raiding? I heard that shields are very situational on tanks because they prevent rage generation. Unsure how good HoTs are or how many heals are actually being used. If priest raiding gameplay is buffing up the team then pressing 1-2 heals then I'd skip leveling one. Currently with shaman I use 3 heals on 10 buttons with downgrades -> my dream would be something which makes healing even more interesting. For example 4-5 healing or damage prevention being frequently used at raids with possible downgrades.

2. Wide heal. That's something I enjoy a lot with my shammie. Heard that priests have a party heal but with big CD. Do the priests have something which is - while not equivalent to chain heal - can be used to heal many targets at the same time in a raiding environment and can be spammed if necessary? I dont look for an OP ability, it can be mana-inefficient or weak, I just want an additional tool to use under certain scenarios.

3. Oh no button - shammie's have nature's swiftness which can be used alongside with a healing spell if a heal is needed very fast. Do the priests have a way to very quickly react to an oh no situation?

4. Raiding niche - I heard that in non-cross faction servers paladins are the spot healers of the alliance and shamans are the raid healers of the horde, while priests take up the other role since both factions can play them. My question is: in a cross-faction environment do the priests have a specific healing role they excel at or they are just behind at palas at tank-healing and behind shamans at wide-healing? I don't have a problem with not leading heal charts but feeling as expendable would stop me from leveling this char. I just have to feel that priests as healers have a specific thing they really excel at in raiding environments to feel a justification to work my dwarfie up to level 60.

[Majestik51]

come to Tel'Abim and level one priest pls, they became rare species....

[Bigsmerf]

1 - Renew is a pretty good HoT, but other than that, yes, I believe shields aren't commonly used in raiding. There's not a lot of damage prevention for the class but still, shield does come in handy often for clutches, at least in my experience healing dungeons.

2 - Actually, they have TWO party wide heals. Neither of them have a CD and one even does damage. I'm not sure how viable either are but I think fairly so.

3 - I don't -think- they have something like that? But like I said, shield can work like a sort of OH SHIT button if you get heals off quickly enough after using it.

4 - I literally have no idea what the niche is. All I know is priest is great at healing.

Somethin' extra because I'm feeling generous - Don't listen to Majestik. That server's dead and you going there isn't going to satiate his need to advertise it like it's worth anyone's time.

[Slashignore]

asking priest playing people if you should ask a priest
is asking milk drinking people if they like milk.

what answer do you expect to get?

[Bigsmerf]

asking priest playing people if you should ask a priest
is asking milk drinking people if they like milk.

what answer do you expect to get?

People like to play what they like to play. If they tell you why and you think "Hey, I think I'd like that too!" maybe that's the result the OP is looking for?

Also, milk fuckin rocks >:)

[Akos1896]

I mean, I wanna ask people who are experienced with the class and know the spells/rotations.
While it's important if a player enjoys the game as a priest, my criteria of leveling a priest is objective. If I can push a lot of different heal buttons at raids, have at least a bit of wide heal and there is a role for me as a priest even in crossfaction where I'm excel, I'm totally sold for the idea.

[Bigsmerf]

I mean, I wanna ask people who are experienced with the class and know the spells/rotations.
While it's important if a player enjoys the game as a priest, may criteria of leveling a priest is objective. If I can push a lot of different heal buttons at raids, have at least a bit of wide heal and there is a role for me as a priest even in crossfaction where I'm excel, I'm totally sold for the idea.

Downranking isn't something specific to shaman. Pretty much all healers can and will do it to fulfill their role efficiently. Like I mentioned, you have 2 aoe heals. It'd be better to ask someone else about their use but they exist. I'm not entirely sure what "niche" priest fills but I think their strength lies in their healing versatility. Hots, party heals, a bit of dmg, multiple buffs, shield. There's a lot to bring to the table.

[Akos1896]

Thank you for the feedback and the good intention!
But I'd really need someone with priest raiding experience from TWOW to answer this. I really love to go into details, which spell when, which downrank when etc. If I see the full picture and 'the system itself' I estimate if I'd enjoy it more than a shammie or not.

[Thexdylldolan]

I raid as a priest in my guild, and I have raided as a holy pally on this server, and priest is a very fun healer, but it's a bit more difficult than other healers IMO, for a couple of reasons
1. Healing spells are pretty expensive by and large, so until you start popping off with spirit and meditation, mana is a bit intense especially if you're trying to maximize output.
2. You don't have an "oh shit" button like most other heal classes do, power word shield is close, but its not going to save anyone other than a DPS who draws aggro for a second
The priest kit is very wide, meaning you have to consider all of your spells, and thier applications to get the most from your spells.

Power word shield is a very good spell, it provides over 2k+ effective hp, but yes, rage bar users prefer not to have it. This does not mean it is bad! Its still very good, especially if you have a prot pally, they love that shit.

Priests party heals (prayer of healing and holy nova) have very niche use in raiding, as it is very slow and very expensive, and hopy nova is a meme. Still sees a small amount of use though.

Overall, priest doesn't really have their own special unique role as a healer, but instead they have a wide toolkit to use. Dwarf brings fear ward, which is a big benefit to raids for some content.

From your post it seems you may enjoy priest in raids. Enjoy leveling brother :D

[Akos1896]

Thanks man! Might give it a try!