Holy Priests in 5s (Part 2)

After the first 30-40 seconds, the early game is over and you're into the mid/late game which is all about playing your cards right. Its where controlling the flow of the game is really important and I think this is where we, as priests shine. You have the option of playing offensively or defensively and what you choose to do shouldn't be something you set your mind on before the game starts. Its good to have a general idea of what you want to do beforehand, but switching from that shouldn't be a stretch if things aren't going as expected.

Keeping an eye out on the big picture is really important. The two big things that I usually keep track of are:

1) Who's got the upper hand? Basically, is your life bouncing up and down between 5-30% while their guy is consistently above 50? Or is it the other way with your pally not having very much trouble keeping you close to topped off and their pally falling behind? If you have the upper hand, feel free to play more aggresive, a fear on the pally at the right time will often end the game. If you're the ones in trouble, back off, play as defensively as you can, LoS with your pally (I'll get into this further down) to avoid any and all range damage and call for help, tell your teammates you need it. A scatter on the warrior, poly on a secondary dps and your warrior intercepting to the third caster dps (that's preferably not a mage) can shut down their damage for long enough to stabalize things.

2) General mana pools of most people. Playing with a hunter, one of our biggest strengths is being able to win the long mana fights so once we manage to OOM some of their dps, it really opens up some space for the priest. They're one dps short for the time being so you should be able to push up and play more aggresive with mana burns, offensive dispels and fears.

Being efficient with your use of your CDs and GCDs is also pretty huge. There really shouldn't be any point in the game where you're sitting around doing nothing. If your heals are on CD and nobody around you is CC'd queue up a mana burn, or start purging someone as you reposition yourself for either a fear or to a more defensive position. Having good binds for dispelling makes a huge difference here. Its hard to look in the crowd, click on someone and start dispelling them while you reposition yourself. If you have a good focus set, bind a "/cast [target:focus] dispel magic" macro and hit that while you're on the move and have nothing beter to do.

Dispelling (both offensively and defensively): A lot of the stuff I mentioned about the early game still applies full force. The faster you dispel CC off your team, the more damage or CC they can dish out in return. If your warrior gets poly'd for long enough that MS drops off, you're gonna lose a lot of the pressure you had on their healers. Tell your team to call out when they're sheeped, feared or when a frost nova is preventing them from doing their thing (mainly warriors). I can't stress how important that is, we have a lot to keep an eye out for in the middle of a game and hearing someone's poly'd really does speed the cleanse up a lot of the time. If they can predict it, even better. Hearing "I'm off DR, poly inc soon" should make the next cleanse they recieve almost instant as you'll have enough time to get ready for it.

Faking heals: I usually don't bother in 5v5s. If you're gonna sit there and let it cast for 1s and then cancel it yourself, you might as well just take the extra second and fire up a mana burn on the closest person (if the primary mana drain target is around, pick him of course). Chances are, their warrior will pummel it anyway, leaving your holy tree untouched and ready to go. If they don't, not too bad, -1200 mana for whoever you had targetted. Its nice to do this when you're not in immediate danger and you can afford to risk a few seconds without healing yourself. Another thing I've noticed is that if you're really low (sub 30% I'd say), warriors will often get excited and start spamming their GCDs to finish you off. A lot of those times I can get a flash or two off before I get pummeled.

Using your fear. AE fear is really great, especially playing on a team with no warlock to put it on DR, I find that it's one of the best mid-game CCs. If you can anticipate a pally bubble, mass dispelling it then getting a fear off before their first big heal lands usually screams game over. Their trinket is probably down by then and with no bubble their target is gonna go another 10s without a heal from their primary healer. Otherwise, try to use it as much as you can, on as many people as you can. I usually try to hit the pally + anyone that's around him anytime I get in range.

Mass dispelling. If you can do it within the first 2-3 seconds of a pally's bubble, do it. It opens them up for CS, fear, poly, earthshock, silence... whatever. Having a pally spamming max ranks for 12 seconds hurts. If you have a priest you might as well use our unique ability. Iceblocks should be pretty obvious, take it off ASAP if you're focusing the mage unless you're really low on mana and really can't afford to. Another thing is if you haven't had the time to pre-dispel your team's target, don't run out there and spam dispel to take a BoP off. They'll still have 10 buffs on them and chances are it'll take you at least 3-4 dispels to take it off. Not only does that take much longer, but it costs more mana than just using mass dispel which will prioritize to the BoP.

Fearwarding. When I'm being focused, I usually save this for my primary healer (the pally) and/or the shaman. FW + tremor totem is nice for a big AE fear as it'll break pretty much everyone out instantly. Often times I won't notice when either of their fearwards get dropped off so I try to reapply it after they get feared once. If I cleanse a fear from my pally or I hear him say he got feared and had to trinket I'll reapply, same goes for the shaman. If its on cooldown at the time, try not to forget to do it when it's off.

Taking off freedoms: We have the luxury of playing with a hunter (that we pay for in other ways) so using freedom defensively is something we do very often. Once you get the warrior to burn his intercept, slap a freedom on whoever they're focusing and run around in the frost trap. That's one of the big reasons that dispelling their warrior's freedom is a high priority at all times. Even if you don't have a frost trap, it allows frost novas, hamstrings, piercing howls, etc.. to hit the warrior and coupled with your freedom, you'll be able to build a small gap. The one thing that peeves me about that is that after you work so hard to build that breathing space, the stupidity of intercept being a 15s cooldown and stunning for 4 seconds shines bright.

Last thing I wanted to talk about was something I brought up earlier... the whole staying with your pally thing. This goes for pretty much anyone that's being focused; stay in LoS of your pally when you need them, communicate with them, don't screw yourself out of heals. If you're gonna run somewhere to avoid damage, tell them where you're gonna go so they can meet you there. If/when they get CS'd, have them run with you or vice versa to a nice little nook where you can avoid as much damage as possible during the CS and they can start healing you right when its over. Tell your pally to feel free to yell at you to stop moving if you're gonna LoS a heal of his. Its really one of the most important things I've learned to do well since we started our team. Running out of LoS together will also shield your pally from a lot of CC as you're both avoiding their team but you have to watch for a target switch for the other team. Have your team call if they start seeing lightning bolts and frost bolts coming their way, their healers will probably be out of LoS and any heads-up you can give them on incoming damage should help them react quicker.

This turned out a little longer than I expected... so I'll leave it at that. @_@