Newbie Priest here, based on the PTR, is it possible to have a DPS priest without the shadow themes? I was talking about this on another forum and apparently there was a cata build similar to this.
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no
10 chars.
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It’s going to be a question of how effective a dps. Holy Priest can deal dps similar to an undergeared dps class that doesn’t have a single cooldown available if that’s the kind of dps you’re looking for.
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Yes disc priest in cata.
Double healer / DPS play in 3s and it did same damage as a DPS 
good times.
The damage wasnt bursty though but good sustain.
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You’ll be pleased to know the new talent changes have produced an amazing Holy Priest DPS build now. It will by no means top the meters, but it now deals substantial damage.
It’s a very loose build template, but taking all of the dps talents and using Divine Word with Chastise allows you to pump out 13-14.5k damage smites every minute and throwing out 60k damage in Holy Fires every 30 seconds. If you don’t need to heal anyone, you’re a formidable dps.
It can potentially be minmaxxed further by taking Words of the Pious if you care to maintain PW: Shield on yourself for the 10% bonus, but you’ll likely get more mileage out of optimum Divine Star usage instead.
Did more testing. At Ilvl 354, the combo I was using was Holy Fire, Divine Word, Chastise, Mind Games, Empyrean Blaze, Holy Fire x4, Smite x2. All of this is without Twist of Fate.
- Your Holy Fire hit Training Dummy 17,113 Holy.
- Your Holy Word: Chastise hit Training Dummy 18,449 Holy.
- Your Mindgames hit Training Dummy 39,323 Shadow.
- Your Holy Fire hit Training Dummy 24,564 Holy.
- Your Holy Fire hit Training Dummy 24,562 Holy.
- Your Holy Fire hit Training Dummy 49,728 Holy (Critical).
- Your Smite hit Training Dummy 14,227 Holy.
- Your Holy Fire hit Training Dummy 25,348 Holy.
- Your Smite hit Training Dummy 28,059 Holy (Critical).
That’s all the damage I could fit in the Divine Word: Chastise buff window. It’s quite considerable.
Final Edit: Decided to full spec Mindgames and Shattered Perception in the class tree. With Divine Word: Chastise, Mindgames regularly hits for 48k. Doesn’t bode well for pvp.
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That’s interesting. I just returned after nearly a 1.5 year hiatus and was wondering what holy dps would look like in a PvP setting. I don’t have access to the beta so I can’t test anything.
If you get locked out of holy, you can always cast mind control, mindgames, and a few other shadow dps spells.
You almost tempted me to go back to my priest, but I promised myself I’d level a subtlety rogue this expansion pack and stick with it. I’m tired of playing classes with no mobility that are easy to focus.
If you queue for a battleground or a rated solo shuffle as “holy” who wants to dps, will the system automatically place you as a healer? Or do you personally get to choose if you are dps or healer when entering the queue?
There’s really no point to playing holy dps if you the game automatically places you in a rated pvp environment as a healer. Then again, it would be interesting to see the faces on people who are forced into your solo shuffle only to find out you are a dps holy priest LOL!!!
Holy is primarily a healing spec. Part of the skill floor of the spec is knowing when to heal and dps in pvp. If in skirmish you can time a CC or parse CD’s, you can potentially blow someone up. Or, you and your teammates can apply tremendous pressure with a split target call which you can further capitalize on with a Mind Control, root, fear, or burning apotheosis for another stun.
The big thing is you can do a Holy Fire 3 GCD burst every 3 seconds, and go for a full blow up every minute.
I understand that, but what I want to know is if I queue for a rated solo shuffle with the intention on playing a holy dps priest, will the queue automatically place me as a healer or will I be able to choose my role as dps?
I just returned after 1.5 years so I’m not knowledgeable on solo shuffle queues.
No, it will force your spec to shadow if you queue as DPS while specced as Holy on live atm. Vice versa as well.
I guess it makes sense.
Otherwise you might end up with 3 healer specs of which two are trying to dps. Doesn’t sound like a winning combo once dampening quickly kicks in.
Oh well, there goes my one hope of trying holy dps.
Back to leveling my subtlety rogue…
I wish there was a 4th spec, where it’s a Light themed DPS spec.
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As long as they keep the “Holy has big burst DPS for solo/group”, I’m pretty OK with not having dedicated Holy DPS.
One more reason why the new class should have been “Cultist” and shifted Shadow onto that class and given Priest a HolyRDPS spec but noooo. Blizzard wanted to make sure you knew there are dragons in this expansion.
That would of pissed off a lot of people. My self included. Think about how angry people were when Metamorphosis got removed from demo lock only to be given to demon hunters. And they should do that with an entire spec?
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I know it’s not gonna happen. I would also like them to deep dive into religious symbology to make the priest class feel like, well, a priest but seeing as the game is developed by Cali/SiliconV people who tend to dislike anything even slightly religious, I’m not gonna be holding my breath.
Blizzard doesn’t treat the in-game peoples as if they were real cultures with their own beliefs and symbolism, and they put the final nail in the coffin of developing cultural/religious beliefs by releasing Shadowlands and removing any room for a people’s belief in what happens after they die. Just fuel for the death mechanisms now.
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Being a priest means very different things to different races and cultures.
A priest of the Naaru might see glowing white lights and talking floating wall decor as Holy.
While a Priest of Hakkar sees a swimming pool full of blood and piles of dead bodies to their god as Holy.
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Pretty sure thats what Discipline Priest is.
Its the Light and the Shadow a balance of primordial forces. The light is there to heal and repair and the shadow takes away, breaks down and strips away life. Its the same power your tapping into, it just warps with your intentions of how you use it.
Its no different then the Jedi / Sith / Grey dynamic.
The just need to scale the damage up from where it is SL, even in Shadow it feels like im trying to kill mobs solo as if im waiting ina deli for my sandwich as they die so slowly. dot dot dot shield drain, wait till it dies.
Its not a terribly exciting dynamic questing atm.
This is what Im working with for Discipline.
Eschewing shadow for maximized upkeep on Atonement while using Purge, Nova, and Star for AoE and Wrath, Penance, and Light for ST, weaving base SWP, SWD, Shadowfiend, and MB for the Equilibrium buff. Looks fun, no idea about tuning.
This is a pretty standard build, except I’d play Aegis of Wrath instead of weal and woe