Can We Talk About Priest Threat?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Okay, so I am a threat magnet, and I honestly do not get it.

I use fade pretty much on cooldown (after heal crits, after any mind blast cast, after mind flay on an adjacent target…etc. If it’s up and I just cast something, I fade).

I wait for bleeds or sunders to show up before I apply so much as a dot to the target.

It doesn’t matter. Threat comes to me almost immediately every time. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, so I tried a few things:

1.) I tried waiting for two global cooldowns between damage casts. No wanding, no heals…just standing there for two whole GCD’s before I cast another spell. Still pulled threat about every other pull.

2.) I stopped casting ANY spells except for SW:Pain and wanding for an entire dungeon. I peeled threat on practically every pull.

3.) I once pulled threat by doing literally nothing. I hadn’t put out a renew. I hadn’t dotted anything. I hadn’t wanded. I hadn’t even put a shield on anyone. I was literally standing there doing NOTHING, and a mob peeled off, ran across the encounter space, and smacked me in the face.

What…am I doing wrong?

My tank and I are the same level, and he doesn’t lose threat to anyone else.

My lock and my hunter do the same damage I have been doing or more. When I limit myself to prevent pulling threat, I have literally been at 50% of their damage–both of them–with the healer going ham in the corner…but I get aggro.

I don’t understand.

Is this a priest thing? What the heck, over? I don’t get it. I’m missing something fundamental, I think.

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People like you…

…and dangit, you’re OK.

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Is fade a temporary threat reduction? The tooltip for mind blast probably states that it causes large amount of threat…

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Priests generate a ton of threat. Mind Blast is pretty much a taunt on a mob that the tank hasnt built a ton of aggro on if it crits, as is gheal (at low levels anyway)

Max range increases the amount of threat you need to pull aggro (it wont reduce the threat you generate, but youll need like 130% of the tanks threat to pull or something) so you could stand far away

Buffs, bubbles, etc. all generate threat too. Threat is v touchy

But you shouldnt be pulling aggro with what youre describing. Ill chalk this one up to bad tank, bad

Ill bet you had tanks that werent shouting and were trying to hold aggro via tab sundering

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You have been grouping with warrior tanks haven’t you?

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You just gotta push fade harder

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I am curious about this as well. I’m not very far, lvl 23 so far. But I’ve noticed this in RFC and WC. We can all approach a group of enemies and unless the tank runs forward to intercept, they ALL seem to just target me, even if I’m doing nothing. It’s bizzare. Is this just chance?

In combat I don’t notice too much but that’s because I mostly rely on DoT’s and wanding this early to conserve mana for healing. With how much mobs tend to get pulled by the dps I never know when I’m going to suddenly need to use almost all of my mana to save us from a wipe.

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A few notes about Priests and threat:

  1. Mind Blast deals double threat. It’s an almost guaranteed way to get immediate threat.
  2. Healing does 0.5 threat per 1 healing, split evenly to ALL targets you’re in combat with.
  3. Fade is only temporary in its reduction. You gain that threat back after it wears off. Spamming it on cooldown isn’t a good idea, only use it when something is hitting you.
  4. If you pulled threat by doing nothing, it’s likely a Hunter used Feign Death. Short of the target that had threat immediately dropping to 0, you should have to do something that generates threat.

That all said you should be fine with SW:P and wanding or Mind Flay. Just make sure to attack the target the tank is building threat on, since Warriors don’t have good AoE threat.

It’s also possible you just got bad tanks,

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Renew is your friend.

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Probably has been grouping with warrior tanks. Druid tanks produce more single target threat and if threat is the problem, then I imagine it is with a warrior. Or maybe paladin if playing alliance idk

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Use down ranked spells, especially during the beginning of flights. I think that will help you a lot.

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I have done dungeons on a few characters now…

Druids and Pallys tanks go WAAAYYYY smoother in 5-mans… Even the shaman tank I had

IDK if it’s coincidence or what, but it’s been true for every dungeon I’ve done.
And all the warrior tanks i’ve had issues.

I think there are just a lot of dps warriors walking around that just get invited to tank for an easy group… when they actually don’t know how to do anything…

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Yeah, and I’m starting to see that one of the baseline issues with priest “balance” is that priest DPS just isn’t allowed. I mean, I can out-dps my lock and my hunter right now because I out-level them by 2. I am not allowed to actually use my kit…because nobody can hold threat off of me.

Healing is pretty bad threat, as well, but it seems to be much worse when I’m asked to dps instead of healing.

Once shadow weaving got added, it was just done. I get aggro nearly every pull, now, no matter how long I wait or how low I let myself sit on the damage meter.

The warlock can go balls-out HAM and not pull threat. The hunter can go full cat nuke multi-shot crack rage and not pull threat. I cast a pain and wand the target for 30% of what the other two DPS are doing…mob peels off the warrior with a bleed and two sunders on it and heads straight at me.

It’s driving me NUTS.

Yes. We have a paladin tank. I’ll try grouping with him at some point and see if it’s different. We don’t have anyone tanking bear right now.

I think you’re right, sir.

I’m about to cry right now from receiving this validation, my sister in the priesthood. /sniff . Ha ha. j/k, but seriously…I’m so glad I’m not the only one.

That’s generally what I’m finding, but then I have to ask: are shadow priests seriously not allowed to DPS in dungeons? Because every other DPS class is allowed to damage things in the dungeon. I can’t DPS without pulling aggro.

If this is just a legitimately broken spec and totally unviable in Classic, I will accept that and stop investing time with shadow.

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What level are you to be out dpsing a lock?

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I’m a 40. He’s a 38.

We’ve been leveling pretty consistently together with 1.5 levels difference between us.

I was 39, he was 37 and 38…etc. All the way up, this has been the case. He occasionally out-dps’s me when we’re both working the rotations hard, but I almost always out-DPS him when I’m actually using my kit instead of gimping myself on purpose to avoid pulling threat.

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Maybe the lock is bad or under-geared. I saw one last night. The warlock would dot and wand down mobs and literally had less damage done than the priest healer lol. Maybe the healer was a god, but it was really embarrassing to see a lock in 5th place (we were all between levels of 29-31 btw)

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There is a stigma against healing classes doing things other than healing, but it’s not because of threat. Shadow Priests also get Shadow Weaving, which they’re actively sought out for in raids(at least 1 SPriest per raid anyway).

If wanding and SW:P is pulling threat, then something is wrong that isn’t class based. Either you’re hitting a secondary target that the tank isn’t building full threat on, or the tank is really bad at building threat.

I’ve not had a problem with being about 50/50 on being a healer/DPS in dungeons. Even as a healer, I sneak in a few wands to proc Spirit Tap for the mana regen.

The only reason I really get threat is if I use Mind Blast, which I don’t normally do.

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Are you healing or dpsing? Pick one. At least for the first half of the fight. If you’re healing, the minimal dps you add is not worth the chance of you gaining agro or going oom unless the fight is a pushover anyway.

Remember that if Renew is up on the tank before they pull you can be building threat faster than the tank is.

Wait for the tank to either get sunders up, or failing that, the tank’s hp can be a good indicator - I know that the warrior I usually group with will have sufficient threat on most mobs by the time he’s at 70-80% hp.
Start with (and continue using) smaller heals like renew and lesser heal as much as you can.

Only time I need to use fade is in emergencies.

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Lmao that’s why I had to ask. Even just spamming hellfire should be enough. That is kinda embarrassing but like you said maybe he was undergeared. Could also be learning thing or he didn’t buy rank ups in spells. Who knows

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He’s not. Not to be a jerk about it, but we’re decent players. All of us. We’re not hard mythic for life, but we’re very decent. He’s lower level by 2 and I’m wearing tailoring blues. He’s in greens.

AoE pulls he edges me out. Single target, I generally out-dps him or stay pretty equal. 70dps is about average for both of us, and I generally edge him out when we’re going full-bore.

Depends on the dungeon. Sometimes, I’m asked to heal. In those instances, I put on my + heals items and heal.

Sometimes, we have another healer who wants to join. I don’t mind DPSing, so I let them heal, put on my int gear, and DPS.

I do “pick one,” but we’re leveling, and my class is capable of both at this stage.

I will make sure I don’t do this. Excellent advice. Thank you. :slight_smile: . I am pretty sure I’ve done this many times.

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