The common misconception is that in the World of Warcraft, the highly popular MMORPG from Blizzard-Activision, the priest class is designed as healers.

Such, definitely, is only marginally true.

Priests are healers, yes. But believe it or not, they are called to do damage.

Nihilum, the game’s top guild which proudly operate in the European servers, once delivered the world-changing declaration: “in our guild, our pallies are healers, our shammies are healers and our priests are damage dealers.” If a respected guild like Nihilum asks their priests to be DPSers, then it is guaranteed that the whole World of Warcraft community will follow their lead.

Priests have the choice to be a healer or to do damage. But priests have lost the title of the most potent healers in WoW since the release of the Burning Crusade expansion. Restoration-specced druids have more effective HOTs (heals over time) than priests. Holy paladins are better single target healers than priests. And shamans are better multi-target healers than priests.

In the area of healing, priests can be considered as jacks of all trades and masters of none. They have quick heals, HOTs, and multi-target heals, but they’re simply not as efficient with these as the other healing classes.

Hence, if priests are no longer the main healers in WoW, what should priests be doing for tailend content in 25 man raids? Two purposes actually.

Number one, as we have discussed before, priests are expected to deal out some heavy damage. Focusing on shadow talents is best for this, what with the plethora direct damage spells from the dark arts.

Second, priests serve one critical function: mana batteries. Priests have powers that hasten the mana regen of magic users in the same party. It is for this reason priests are grouped_placed in the same group with magic users – often the healers – in 25 man setups.

Priests are excellent in soloing to the level cap. Before level 40, priests depend heavily on wands as their primary damage dealing instrument. But once they reach level 40, most priests respec to shadow just to get shadow form, the main advantage for the class. Shadow form grants tincredible increase in the shadow damage dealt by priests.

Shadow priests are highly effective killers. It will take a shadow priest approximately 25% of the time it will take a warrior to eliminate a specific monster.

Whether they heal or they do damage, priests are a great class that will be very much worth your time and effort.

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