I’ve switched from the role of a Holy priest in ICC-10 to Discipline priest in ICC-25. I’ve also finally had the pleasure, in a rather short span, of seeing all the ICC bosses – heroic Putricide included. Crazy! I intend to continue looking into Holy and Smite specs, but my recent shift in guilds may put those on the wayside until the release of Cataclysm. Or, at the very least, it will put my practice of them on the wayside.

For all you Holy and PvP lovers though, I am keeping my alternate spec Holy PvP, and expect some Holy PvP videos from me in the near future. I’m just dealing with some touch-ups to my PvP gear. I tried Smite spec in PvP the other night, but my druid boyfriend quickly lamented about the lack of healers and I switched back to classic (and yet still not oft used) Holy PvP.

Do not expect Discipline PvP articles on this blog because, quite frankly, it’s not my playstyle – although feel free to discuss it as much as you’d like!

I’m looking forward to the potentiality of Serendipity-like benefits to Smite in Cataclysm and hope this drives my non-raid-healing spec into a Smite direction. I’ll be leveling a Worgen rogue with my boyfriend and his buddy in Cataclysm, and if I understand rogue PvP fun factor right, that will make me abandon priest PvP pretty much altogether. Anyone out there crazy enough to level priest twice just to have a priest Worgen (before race changes include Worgen, of course)?

Update: For kind readers and Kalecgos stalkers, we are currently guildless due to things not working out on a social level in Pirate. (I thought they talked way too little and were way too serious, then they picked a fight with one of the people that joined with me. I didn’t wait for strike three.)

I’m sure they’re a great guild and it just didn’t work out for us. We’re just too far into WotLK, which I’m not a huge fan of, and too close for Cataclysm, for me to waste any mental energy in it.

I’m in Vegas at the moment, but I’ll be doing an update soon on some of the predicted changes on see for Smite in Cataclysm due to its current alpha! (I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting into the beta and then this blog will primarily change to that focus versus WotLK, as an FYI.)

Note that these items are friendly to smite priests and, as such, will come along with hit. Not that grand for healers! Check back tomorrow for the same list, healing priest style. (Shadow priests will also benefit from these items, but due to the nature of itemization between smite and Shadow, they might not be as ideal.)

In no particular order (I’m doing a circle around the WoW Armory doll)…

1. Chest. Ancient Polar Bear Hide. Ick, Pit of Saron. I’m a big fan of the spirit and haste on this (although you’ll want to make sure you have an ample crit rating before getting too much haste; see the Lvl 80 Smite Priest Raiding Guide for more on itemization.) What I like the most though is the fact that druids seem to take offense to the item’s name; lots of laughs. Alternatively, the Mord’rethar Robes will give you the precious spirit you need for mana regen if you’re already hit capped.
2. Bracers. Bracers of Worn Molars. Falric, Halls of Reflection. Crit and hit rating; totally designed for the smite priest save the lack of spirit! When you’re trying to pick which slots are going spiritless (since smite priests really need spirit on at least half their gear, if not two thirds), bracers should definitely be on the list. It’s hard to pass these up.
3. Off-hand Frill. The Shriveled Heart. The Captain’s Chest, Halls of Reflection. Off-hands are hard to come by, and this one comes packed with haste and crit rating. Of course, you’ll have to deal with one of the ugliest, level-30 graphics in WotLK.
4. Wand. Soulsplinter. Falric, Halls of Reflection. Get your hit and crit in one item with this wand. Wands don’t rain from the sky like some other slots, so it’s always a plus to find a nice one.
5. Gloves. Suspiciously Soft Gloves. Marwyn, Halls of Reflection. Crit rating, spirit, and a hilarious name? These are the best smite priest dungeon gloves around. Of course, with the lack of hit rating, it might not work if you’re still putting your first set together.

Looks like a lot of Halls of Reflection! Make sure to grab a good tank.

Stick around for other THE BEST entries in January from Johannah the Smite Priest.

I do these painful, exciting things outside of WoW too; such as participating in rigorously demanding writing events like National Blog Posting Month. Johannah the Smite Priest was part of the event in November, and my now-retired fiction blog had partaken in it in the past in the well, to the point where I thought I was secure to move on from that torturous endeavor. Then they sent me an email.

January’s theme is THE BEST.

And don’t WoW players like to know THE BEST of everything? The best spec, the best piece of gear, the best thing to scream when you run into a clump of whelps to intentionally wipe your raid. Well, Johannah the Smite Priest is here to deliver! For the month of January, I’ll be exploring the best of every aspect of the priest raiding world. There’ll be some PvP spice in there too, for sure.

Before I embark on this dangerous journey that will tear out yet another sliver of my insanity, I am curious: what would you like to see the best of? Answer the poll or, better yet, leave a comment with a suggestion! THE BEST will begin on New Years!

Fuyuko brought up an excellent point in the last post about how difficult it can be for priests to make the switch over to smite spec. (Oh, but we’ll convert you all yet…) For priests that are stumbling upon one or more of our blogs in search of the how’s and what’s of Holy DPS, here are three recommendations I can make:

1. Don’t just respec and jump into a group! There’s a reason I call the Lvl 80 Smite Priest Raiding Guide a raiding guide, not an instance guide. Trust me, it works dandy for instances (there’s no way I’m paying respec fees between 5-mans, 10-mans, and 25-mans on top of the respecs I do anyway to randomly dabble in Discipline and Shadow), but you should be ready and equipped for raids before you even think about smiting. Fuyuko and my hit post make it clear on how difficult it is to put this gear together. I highly recommend either a) healing and collecting emblems [assuming Shadow makes your skin crawl like me] or b) doing what Fuyuko mentioned and just specing Shadow until you get your gear together. Easier to roll on hit gear when you’re the well-known priest DPS tree.
2. Try it out in the security of your own guild first. The new dungeon randomizer makes it so easy for you to just leap into the fray of a bunch of people you don’t know, but people are going to criticize/mock you. It’s best to at least learn the ropes of smite in the comfort of people that you know won’t “WTF” you for it before going out into the harsh and judgment land of random queue. That said, the randomizer is amazing for getting all the hit gear you need really fast.
3. Have dual spec. There are going to be times when you just can’t smite, especially if you’re currently doing ICC. It has it’s moments, and I’m a big fan for it (*looks around at the blog*), but you should always have a healing spec–or, if you simply have to DPS, a Shadow spec–to fall back on when smite’s weaknesses (like Saurfang’s enrage timer + a learning raid) are bringing you down.

Welcome, Fuyuko, to the… smite priest blogging… land… place. Make sure to go visit Fuyuko’s blog to read more about WotLK smite priesting!

Back in May 2008, WoW Insider featured an article in 15 Minutes of Fame about how “Arena team Smites its way to the top.” The team ranked 7th in the Ruin battle group back in the day.

In order to achieve this success, the 5’s team claims they rolled with four healer-type classes: Ental the elemental shaman; Iashu the holy paladin; Vorgestellt the frost mage; Molimo the balance druid; and Grackel the smite priest. They named their team MLH, after “Moonkins Love Heroism.”

Grackel mentions that as a shadow priest, he was always the first kill on the arena teams; the switch made all the difference. If you’re a shadow priest that is pewed into nothingness in arenas, smite spec may just be the thing for you!

“But this team was back in the Burning Crusade days!” you say; that’s why Johannah the Smite Priest is here to provide some PvP arena advice for Wrath of the Lich King.

What smite spec do you use in PvPing in arenas?

When I take the time to spec switch, I use one that is much more holy-based than the PvE spec I suggest for raiding. By moving deeper into the holy tree, I can acquire Blessed Resilience, which I find infinitely useful in my survival.

But most priests seem to be married to this idea of using Pain Suppression, so I’ll go with describing that one first.

THE PAIN SUPPRESSION APPROACH.

Most non-shadow priests that PvP do it with Discipline because of Pain Suppression. If this is your play style, you could roll with a discipline-heavy spec for Pain Suppression while still keeping the Surge of Light for Smite, kind of like this one (44/27/0):

With this spec, you’ll want to have the following glyphs:

• Glyph of Pain Suppression
• Glyph of Power Word: Shield
• Glyph of Smite

But then, Pain Suppression has a cooldown and is just another facet to add to your “stay alive” routine. If you’re like me and it’s just not working out for you, consider the Blessed Resilience smite spec below instead.

BLESSED RESILIENCE APPROACH.

I personally find that Blessed Resilience gives me more survivability than Pain Suppression. You can find Blessed Resilience incorporated into smite spec with a setup similar to this one:

With this spec, use the following glyphs:

• Glyph of Renew
• Glyph of Power Word: Shield
• Glyph of Smite

So why am I so in love with Blessed Resilience?

In addition to the obvious–3% more healing done–a holy priest can proc Blessed Resilience when they’re not crit. They’re going to need a substantial amount of resilience though before they start seeing this effect. The way it works: resilience is taken into account last, so that if your resilience prevents a critical hit, it will still be registered as a critial hit for purposes of Blessed Resilience, but your holy priest will not take the extra critial damage. Again,

1. Rogue crits you hard.
2. You proc Blessed Resilience. Now you can’t be crit again for 6 seconds.
3. Your resilience prevents the crit, so you actually just got the Blessed Resilience proc for free.

Blessed Resilience receives it’s maximum effects when it is stacked with Martyrdom and Blessed Recovery, for obvious reasons.

What does a smite priest cast in arenas?

Just like in raids, your viability does not come from being the max DPS’er or the max healer, but the fact that you can switch off instantly and perform better in both than other hybrids. You will want to keep up Prayer of Mending up and Power Word: Shield, and you will want to do your best to keep Holy Fire on your primary target you are Smiting.

Thanks to your investment in the Discipline tree (with either aforementioned spec), you will also be in charge of Mana Burn and Mass Dispel. Don’t let those pallies get away with bubbles!

Lastly, remember that holy damage currently has no resistance (although Resilience does affect it)–so the more pews you can get off without anyone dying, the better! And if your Surge of Light procs, that could be that extra damage or heals that you need in order to push someone over/away from the edge.

Any additional advice?

Taken straight from Grackel’s interview in 2008:

Ok, lots of readers want to hear it straight from a successful team: can keyboard turners survive in Arena?
Vorgestellt: NO.
Ental: No, LOL.
Iashu: NO.
Molimo: No, LOL.
Grackel: Wuts a keyboard turn?

Ages ago, I used to use the arrow keys. Stop.

Enjoy your smite arenas!

Further Reading:

• Resilience affects Holy damage
• Smite priest PvP spec
• Holy priest PvP spec

For this entry, it’s time to correct your smiting. Taken from Borkweb, this macro will have you cast Smite on a harmful target or cast Smite on your target’s target if you have them selected for healing/buffing purposes.

/cast [harm] Smite; [target=targettarget, harm] Smite

I tried this macro out and found it was rather useful. The benefit to this really shines when you’re healing in Smite spec and want to synchronize a Surge of Light with a tank that you have targeted. I personally have my Smite macro’d into Flash Heal for mouse-over heals with Grid, which looks like this:

/cast [harm] Smite; [target=mouseover,exists,nodead,help][] Flash Heal

…but to each their own! Now you have two different perspectives on how to cast an effective Smite. The first macro works dandy if you heal with Healbot or a different method. I used it for awhile before switching over to Grid/mouseovers. Admittedly, I am still trying to figure out a way to improve upon this still because mouseover keeps hitting bear ass when I’m trying to Smite a target.

Do you have a Smite macro? What does it look like? Feel free to comment and discuss / share!

Interested in other smite priest tricks? Check out the previous entries:

• Smite priest trick #1: Prayer of Mending
• Smite priest trick #2: Divine Hymn
• Smite priest trick #3: Free Flash Heal

Fortunately, you are not only equipped to deal with those out-of-hand mobs with zero aggro, you can heal the suicide cases that are being swarmed by impending doom. Your magic trick is called Holy Nova.

When it comes to smite priest glyphs, I like the Glyph of Holy Nova strictly on the basis that you’re going to play the AoE/heal savior in such an abundance of situations, you’ll wonder where your mana’s gone. Which is why I am about to impart this trick; totally compatible with the other smite priest tricks too, which means I’m not going to tell you to blow your Power Infusion! (That’s for Divine Hymn. )

Make the following macro for your Flash Heal:

#showtooltip [target=focus,help] [] Flash Heal
/stopcasting
/clearfocus [modifier:shift][target=focus,dead][target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/cast [target=focus] Flash Heal

This works identical to the mage’s sheep macro on WoWWiki in that it gives you a single button to focus and Flash Heal your suicidal target until you clear it or they die (in which case, you can switch to another suicidal heal target.)

When you click it, if you have no focus, you target will become your focus. Then all clicks thereafter will automatically Flash Heal that target, regardless of if you’re pewing the hell out of another target or not. If you need to change your Flash Heal target before your suicidal friend dies, simply hold Shift before clicking the new target.

But how’s this relate to Holy Nova?

If you’re novaing a lot of adds, you’re going to proc Surge of Light constantly. Holy Nova might heal the person being beaten to death, but it’s heals aren’t as strong as Flash Heal; every time you see Surge of Light go off, Flash Heal your crazy AoE’er instead! Not only will you increase their chances of survival, but you’ll save yourself a lot of mana from an otherwise sinking Holy Nova spam. Surge of Light procs are free and will occupy your GCD.

This trick works great for Holy priest healers as well, although my question to them is: why are you Holy Novaing those whelps again?

Interested in other smite priest tricks? Try out these last two posts:

• Smite priest trick #1: Prayer of Mending
• Smite priest trick #2: Divine Hymn

Loot for priests in Icecrown 5-mans!

With 3.3 looming just around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea to put together a list of item upgrades for priests. I do this from a smite priest perspective, but this certainly doesn’t mean that Shadow priests are invited to check out the list. Healing priests will want to veer away from the hit gear I include.

Please note that these items are always subject to change; this content is only in development! All of the items listed here are farmable in the 5-man dungeons and can be viewed at the MMO Champion 5-man Icecrown Loot thread.

Heroic mode: i232 items

WEAPON: Hammer of Purified Flame, awarded by the new 5-man Quel’Delar questline. It has mp5 instead of Spirit, but the spellpower is undeniable.

FRILL: Shriveled Heart will compliment the new hammer nicely.

WAND: Soulsplinter. Great wand if you’re still not hit capped, although it lacks Spirit.

CHEST: If you’re hit capped, Mord’rethar Robes is the only way to go; Spirit and critical strike is amazing. Otherwise, Ancient Polar Bear Hide is another good hit item, and haste is not necessarily undesirable.

HANDS: Suspiciously Soft Gloves is just wow. No hit though if you’re still struggling with the hit cap!

HEAD: Sightless Crown of Ulmaas is a great upgrade over the ToC-5 helm for heroic players. It’s also missing Spirit.

NECK: Arcane Loops of Anger is great minus its lack of Spirit.

SHOULDERS: Very Fashionable Shoulders has gobs of hit and possibly the best item name in WotLK (although my shadow priest friend tells me it’s a placeholder). Missing Spirit.

WAIST: Strip of Remorse is a beautiful non-hit, critical strike and Spirit item. Braid of Salt and Fire isn’t bad either, but I’d take the critical strike over haste first for smite spec.

WRIST: Bracers of Worn Molars. Perfectly itemized hit gear for a smite priest save the lack of Spirit.

There are some mp5 items I did not list as well that could be used, but I wouldn’t ever recommend for a Spirit-based class.

Normal mode: i219 items

WEAPONS: Chilled Heart of the Glacial, hit dagger; Blood Boil Lancet, Spirit/crit staff with awesome graphic; Unspeakable Secret, haste/crit staff with so-so graphic

WAND: Coffin Nail, Spirit wand for hit-capped and healing priests

CHEST: Palebone Robes, haste/crit robe (no Spirit or hit >.< )

HANDS: Cold Sweat Grips, hit gloves; Marwyn’s Macabre Fingertips, Spirit/crit gloves

HEAD: Tattered Glacial Woven Hood, haste/Spirit helm

FEET: Ice-Steeped Sandals, haste/Spirit boots

LEGS: Rimewoven Silks, haste/crit pants (no Spirit or hit again)

NECK: Coil of Missing Gems, hit/crit neck

SHOULDERS: Mantle of Tattered Feathers, Spirit/crit shoulders; Frayed Abomination Stitching Shoulders, haste/crit shoulders (yet another no Spirit or hit item)

WRIST: Wristguards of Subterranean Moss, haste/Spirit wrists

Of course, the real item I’m looking forward to in 3.3 is the Portable Hole. That just gives me the Dungeons and Dragons giggles right there. Totally worth the 3k gold!

Thanks to ~TheSeeker2 on Deviant Art for the modified screenshot of Icecrown’s gates.

I drop into the Elitist Jerks Holy DPS thread from time-to-time to read about how the, well, elitists are arguing a spec that does not belong in any shape, way, or form in an elite setting. Back when I did my research for “The history of smite” in the middle of October, the thread was still actually active with over two years of posts.

But on October 29, 2009, 283 posts later, the thread finally closed.

I’d like to make mention about a post done by Casey the Retard there:

Shadow: SW:P, DP, VT, MB, MF.
Holy: SW:P, DP, HF, MB, Smite.

They differ only in the name of the filler and one of the dot/cooldown abilities – ignoring the fact that Shadow has much better DPS scaling talents. The playstyles are actually quite similar. Holy can switch back and forth between DPS and healing more easily, Shadow provides raid utility, 25-30% more DPS, and can sustain that DPS indefinitely.

There’s really not much theorycrafting to do. SimulationCraft will tell you how to optimize Holy DPS just as it does for Shadow. Dual-spec has eliminated the need for “hybrid” specs almost entirely. There’s no point discussing how Blizzard could make Holy DPS viable, when it is obviously their intent that the ability to put out adequate DPS be mutually exclusive with the ability to heal effectively.

What’s left to discuss?

I liked the point he made about how these specs are startling similar, with slightly different rotations; and yet Shadow does 30% more DPS.

But then, I found it interesting that he included Mind Blast in the rotation, considering it won’t proc Surge of Light and isn’t benefiting from Shadow talents the way the Holy tree supports Smite. On top of that, he mentions that dual-spec has basically eliminated the need to hybrid spec like this, and yet there’s obvious advantages to being able to switch roles mid-fight, which dual-spec doesn’t do. There are some bosses where–in 10-man version, where every head counts a little more–being able to heal one phase and DPS another has its obvious perks.

Again, in an elitist guild that’s pwnzoring anything, this isn’t as much the case. But then, in an elitist guild, wouldn’t you take a mage anyway and let the Discipline or Holy priest handle the buffs? /shrugs. (I realize this statement infuriates Shadow priests, and I don’t agree with it, but I have heard it spoken by elitists before!)

For readers interested in continuing to learn about smite spec on Elitist Jerks, they claim that the discussion continues in their PvP section, where smite spec really shines.

Some extra news: Jessika the Tank has a PvP priest that’s been inspired to smite thanks to the blog. Hurray for another smite priest in our shady community!–wait–the whole point is NOT to be shady… >.>

Elowyn, Momentum's guild master

I introduced Johannah’s server, Kalecgos, last Friday; this Friday I’ll be diving into a bit more background by taking a look at Johannah’s guild and how a smite priest fits in with a group of endgame raiders.

About Momentum

Momentum is a smaller, casual player guild that has gone through all of the WotLK raids, including Naxxramas, Sartharion, Eye of Eternity, Ulduar, and Trial of the Crusader. While Momentum has done 25-man raids in the past in conjunction with other smaller guilds, raiding has focused mainly on the 10-man setup, with one or two 10-man groups per week depending on attendance. We’re really pushing to increase the 25-man experience more. Most Momentum members are either full-time students or full-time workers–and some, like myself, are both!–so raiding is generally kept to one to three nights a week. Consistent raids are rotated every other Friday and Saturday.

Momentum’s history

The founders of Momentum originally came from the guild N E M E S I S. We broke off into our own guild way back in the days of early Karahzan runs and, for a very long time, had a friends-only recruiting policy (which has since evolved into a “friendly” policy that we uphold during recruitment and throughout the member’s [hopefully long-term] stay.) We based our foundation off of fair leadership and main-before-alternate mentality and continue to uphold this idea. We handled our loot for over a year with a unique Loot List concept developed by the guild master, but as time progressed and Momentum became larger, we inevitably switched over to NRP (Naked Raid Points, which is basically DKP.) Our DKP system honors fair leadership (officers do not get any advantages over other members for loot) and main-before-alternate (alts do not get NRP.)

Momentum raiders having fun.

Why does Momentum have a smite priest?

Because our player base changes drastically week-to-week, it’s common for us to have an overflow of heals for two groups one week and not enough heals for even one raiding group the next. Johannah’s role as a smite priest in Momentum is to fill the vacancy for the fights that could be done with 2 healers, but are more comfortable with 3; smite priests give the 2.5 role that is more advantageous in fights with drastically different healing requirements depending on the fight’s phase. In weeks where there is healer overflow, the smite priest spec grants additional DPS to the raid, and in weeks where healers are sparse, a deeper holy spec is used for full-time healing.

I’ve developed a personal belief that while smite priests cannot do nearly as much DPS as Shadow priests–and never should–they can provide a continuous amount of healing and DPSing that is much more difficult when dropping and taking on Shadowform, such as Prayer of Mending and occasional Renews, that can help casual endgame guilds push through things like Faction Champions chaos. (And oh boy, were they something else the first week they came out!) Having that extra Pain Suppression during Hard Mode Beasts of Northrend or Mimiron might not be as much of an advantage to “big guilds” that bring the beefy players out of many, many 25-mans, but the hybrid smite priest role has worked for Momentum and has continued to act as a refreshing “half heals” alternative since Burning Crusade and Mount Hyjal.

Momentum raiding nekked.

Does Momentum have other priests?

We have Discipline priests, Shadow priests, and Holy priests. I am currently the only smite spec priest (and I am actually “officially” Holy heals; see healing-overabundance issue above to explain this giant smite blog/experience.) We’re all hearts with each other.

I’m a level 80 Alliance on the Kalecgos server. Can I join Momentum?

Johannah is/I am an officer in Momentum. Feel free to whisper at any time to discuss recruitment. There is no application process; instead, we typically recruit based off of PuG performance in a raid or a 5-man. We’re a very friendly and slightly demented bunch of people that like to make sure we don’t recruit anyone too immature or too stand-offish. We’ve been around for a long time and plan to continue being around well through Cataclysm, so if you’re a casual player that’s interested in seeing if you mesh well, feel free to contact me or another officer!

I understand that there are many guilds that are not accepting of smite priests. That’s cool. Thankfully, Momentum is not one of them.