What role does a Shadow Priest have in PvP?

[TECK 0]

Title

[thiella 1]

TIP: Ask yourself what role does a feral druid has in pvp?

With my shadow priest I am mostly dps but I will dispel polymorph and fear and sometimes I will shield someone if I think it is useful (like flag carrier or a healer that takes too much damage etc). But I will not take the role of healer as shadow priest (there are exceptions ofc but only situational). I mainly focus on dps, mana burn the enemy healers and  dispel polymorph and fear.

If you want to heal at pvp don't be shadow priest. Take a healing build, put on your healing gear and be a pocket healer if you wish. You will be by far more efficient as healer with healing gear and healing spec. If you roll a shadow priest most likely you don't want to heal others so don't heal them.

With my shadow priest at the start of almost every bg there are some players that ask me to be a healer (most of them are usually low geared). I simply ignore them. I choose how to play. If I wanted to be a healer I would have a healer spec. Although I will help with dispels as I said (and after combat I will also dispel dots) I am not healer unless I choose to be. Shadow priest have problem with mana but they are killing machines.

Bgs are full of dps warriors (maybe the worst class to solo pvp) and they usually need a pocket healer to be efficient. I don't  take this role with my shadow priest. If they tell me how to play my shadow priest, I advice them to roll a healer or some class more capable at pvp.

At the end you choose what spec you enjoy to play and how to play it.

[Strahl 2]

offensive and defensive dispels, also dmg and offhealing

[Ursh 2]

On 1/7/2017 at 9:48 PM, thiella said:

TIP: Ask yourself what role does a feral druid has in pvp?

With my shadow priest I am mostly dps but I will dispel polymorph and fear and sometimes I will shield someone if I think it is useful (like flag carrier or a healer that takes too much damage etc). But I will not take the role of healer as shadow priest (there are exceptions ofc but only situational). I mainly focus on dps, mana burn the enemy healers and  dispel polymorph and fear.

If you want to heal at pvp don't be shadow priest. Take a healing build, put on your healing gear and be a pocket healer if you wish. You will be by far more efficient as healer with healing gear and healing spec. If you roll a shadow priest most likely you don't want to heal others so don't heal them.

With my shadow priest at the start of almost every bg there are some players that ask me to be a healer (most of them are usually low geared). I simply ignore them. I choose how to play. If I wanted to be a healer I would have a healer spec. Although I will help with dispels as I said (and after combat I will also dispel dots) I am not healer unless I choose to be. Shadow priest have problem with mana but they are killing machines.

Bgs are full of dps warriors (maybe the worst class to solo pvp) and they usually need a pocket healer to be efficient. I don't  take this role with my shadow priest. If they tell me how to play my shadow priest, I advice them to roll a healer or some class more capable at pvp.

At the end you choose what spec you enjoy to play and how to play it.

QFT:  Many of the people that want you to heal them absolutely will not support you if you do.  The arms warrior won't hamstring melees that are on you, the mage won't sheep the hunter that's blowing you up, etc.  

Dispels, bubbles if it's helpful, but mostly you're job is to melt people, fear bomb, mana burn healers, and other offensive stuff.  If there is a healer on your team, you can rack up kills by melting rogues and warriors who overextend themselves trying to kill them.  Your healer will live, your team will win, everyone wins. 

[thiella 1]

3 minutes ago, Ursh said:

QFT:  Many of the people that want you to heal them absolutely will not support you if you do.  The arms warrior won't hamstring melees that are on you, the mage won't sheep the hunter that's blowing you up, etc.  

Dispels, bubbles if it's helpful, but mostly you're job is to melt people, fear bomb, mana burn healers, and other offensive stuff.  If there is a healer on your team, you can rack up kills by melting rogues and warriors who overextend themselves trying to kill them.  Your healer will live, your team will win, everyone wins. 

The luck of support is mostly why I don't bother to play a healing spec at bgs. And yes, as shadow you melt people....

[Alyndra 3]

Shadow Priests are pretty worthless in organized Group PVP and is a Beast in Solo Play. When you run around the World or BG with PUGs you can melt shit. But in groups versus other premades it is a really bad build. When I got to Rank 11 i respecced Disc/Holy for the last two ranks. Shadow Burst is terrible, Mind Blast every 8 seconds is nothing compared to Warrior or Rogue damage. You won't kill anything that is getting healed and if you leave shadowform your heals are to slow and mana expensive to make a difference.

The really good things you can do as any Priest: Dispell, Shield, DoT Stealthers, etc. There is no need for Shadow, get Blackout, too, if you wish.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Alyndra

[TECK 0]

I see, Im asking this because there were many comments Shadow Priests being good in Vanilla. But I was looking for something that blows фекал up, not as a support like thiella points out to be. Yes in Solo Play AND in Group. Although Mind Control looks like a loads of fun.

[Ursh 2]

On 1/14/2017 at 10:24 PM, TECK said:

I see, Im asking this because there were many comments Shadow Priests being good in Vanilla. But I was looking for something that blows фекал up, not as a support like thiella points out to be. Yes in Solo Play AND in Group. Although Mind Control looks like a loads of fun.

yeah, about that.  Uhm, the non-healing specs for shaman/druid/priest get really good in TBC.  Elemental shaman can blow people up sometimes in pvp, but it's a bit RNG dependent.  

Even as a pure dps though, you've got CC abilities that you'll need to be using if you want to contribute the most to a win.  If you're a hunter, you should be freeze trapping people and doing silencing shot and other stuff hunters do, as a mage you should be sheeping people, as a warlock you should be fearing people, etc. 

For Vanilla, you may want to pick a non-healing capable dps class if you want to wreck some people.  

Edited January 16, 2017 by Ursh
edited to add info

[TECK 0]

On 16-1-2017 at 9:36 AM, Ursh said:

yeah, about that.  Uhm, the non-healing specs for shaman/druid/priest get really good in TBC.  Elemental shaman can blow people up sometimes in pvp, but it's a bit RNG dependent.  

Even as a pure dps though, you've got CC abilities that you'll need to be using if you want to contribute the most to a win.  If you're a hunter, you should be freeze trapping people and doing silencing shot and other stuff hunters do, as a mage you should be sheeping people, as a warlock you should be fearing people, etc. 

For Vanilla, you may want to pick a non-healing capable dps class if you want to wreck some people.

I dont mind using CC abilities and such, but the thing that attracted me to Shadow Priests is that their damage in PvP is very good (Ive heard) and they are almost unkillable. As there are many rogues playing, I prefer a class that can fight back against them. 

Also how are SPriests in premade BG groups?

Edited January 17, 2017 by TECK

[Ursh 2]

On 1/17/2017 at 10:07 PM, TECK said:

I dont mind using CC abilities and such, but the thing that attracted me to Shadow Priests is that their damage in PvP is very good (Ive heard) and they are almost unkillable. As there are many rogues playing, I prefer a class that can fight back against them. 

Also how are SPriests in premade BG groups?

There are definitely people here who can give you a much better outlook on this, as I only made it up to blood guard in vanilla and did organized pvp with my guild for fun on nights when we weren't raiding.  We were not dedicated pvpers. 

It's been a long time since I've done premade vanilla pvp groups, but as a shadow priest you're pretty effective at killing the other team's healers, or harassing them enough that they're only focusing on their own survival instead of healing their team.  Having said that, I usually preferred to protect my team's healers.  If I melt their damage guys trying to go after my healer, their healer has to either move forward to get in healing range or let their warrior die.  Either way, now their healer is in range of both our melee and ranged damage dealers so everyone focuses him, I silence him, and he dies.  In theory that's how it works, but when playing against other organized teams it can be something of a damage race, and being able to drop a lot of burst damage becomes really key.  Shadow priests aren't good at burst damage.  

Mages are going to outdamage you, so will warlocks most likely.  Mages have better survivability because they have more escape tools.  Other than psychic scream, priests have no way of getting melees off of them.  Even with the 15% damage reduction from shadowform, your health is going to disappear pretty quick if a decently equipped rogue or warrior gets on you.  

[thiella 1]

On 1/19/2017 at 2:33 PM, Ursh said:

There are definitely people here who can give you a much better outlook on this, as I only made it up to blood guard in vanilla and did organized pvp with my guild for fun on nights when we weren't raiding.  We were not dedicated pvpers. 

It's been a long time since I've done premade vanilla pvp groups, but as a shadow priest you're pretty effective at killing the other team's healers, or harassing them enough that they're only focusing on their own survival instead of healing their team.  Having said that, I usually preferred to protect my team's healers.  If I melt their damage guys trying to go after my healer, their healer has to either move forward to get in healing range or let their warrior die.  Either way, now their healer is in range of both our melee and ranged damage dealers so everyone focuses him, I silence him, and he dies.  In theory that's how it works, but when playing against other organized teams it can be something of a damage race, and being able to drop a lot of burst damage becomes really key.  Shadow priests aren't good at burst damage.  

Mages are going to outdamage you, so will warlocks most likely.  Mages have better survivability because they have more escape tools.  Other than psychic scream, priests have no way of getting melees off of them.  Even with the 15% damage reduction from shadowform, your health is going to disappear pretty quick if a decently equipped rogue or warrior gets on you.  

Warriors and rogues are a joke for a sh-priest with descent geared at 1vs1. Shield yourself, put Vampiric Embrace and dot. Mages can kill you only if they know how and have their CD up (but mosts mages are bad and almost always I kill them).

Edited January 22, 2017 by thiella