Hey guys,
I thought i'd give my opinion on Warrior-Priests, because I learn something everyday about other careers and thought i'd share some insights for all you people who are yet to explore the world of Melee healing
Obviously we're in the Priest family, although we really should be sitting on the fence between the Warrior and the Priest families...
One of things I find most people don't understand about Warrior-Priests is how different we are to both the AM and RP.
For both the AM and RP, they use Action-points (AP) for their healing spells, and since AP's refill in time (very quickly!), they are able to continue spamming these without needing to do anything else . (I appreciate AM has a weird mechanic thats discussed elsewhere if you're interested!)
However the WP uses their AP for Melee abilities and our own resource named "Righteous Fury" for our healing/utility abilities.
The general mechanic is quite simple, you donk someone over the head and you generate X Righteous fury. The main attack ability is "Bludgeon" and will generate 30 Fury, with a maximum of 250 Fury to be collected. Fury DOES regenerate over time, but you need to be OOC and its very slow!
So for an example.. I've just started TA in Tier-3, I start with 250 Fury, I'm charging towards the enemy and I start firing off my healing spells .. Very quickly I'll be down to low Fury and i'll be unable to cast another spell.. I now have 2 options.. I either hit someone or I use an ability called "Supplication" which will convert AP->Fury over 3-5 seconds (generates about 150 fury)
Now i'm not a fan of Supplication, so I prefer to get up close and personal and donk some heads...
Doing even a little DPS can quickly regenerate your fury bar back...
This is not common knowledge I feel, as I constantly have people jumping in front of me wondering why i'm not healing them... its normally because i've just had to spam 3-4 heals together and I'm now running on empty... Warrior Priests are designed to top-up peoples health with our HoTs... We're not designed to rescue you from 5% health.
Now the WORST thing for a WP is a Retreat.. because it involves lots of healing and no DPSing (unless your suicidal), So you shouldnt expect a lot from us during this time.. Unless we can find a "safe" area and use supplication.
But on the counter of that... the BEST situation for a WP is ATTACKING!.. Let us be up the front with the Tanks, hitting things and we'll have more than enough Fury to keep these Group heals/Shields and HoT's flowing..
So now a quick look at what a Warrior-Priest can bring to a fight..
I can only give comments on the Salvation (healing) tree, but based on forums, it would appear that the majority of us have gone this way..
Group Healing - We have a fantastic Group heal, 150 foot range, 1sec cast and 2sec CD.. It consumes a fair amount of Fury but its the core of my healing at the moment. To complement this, we have a Group HoT (via Talents) that is instant-cast with 10sec CD. Both of these combined results in 90% of my healing.
Direct Healing - Unfortunately we dont have one! I don't have a single large heal, I only have a single-target HoT and a castable HOT with a small front-loaded heal (nothing impressive!)
Melee-based healing - This is where we shine.. Divine Assault, an amazing ability where you hit the Enemy 4 times, each time doing 250% of the damage as healing to your defensive target. I love this ability, it can easily do 1200 healing at 26 and has saved numerous lives.
Utility - We bring a number of Prayers to the group, these ranged from +Armor, 25% chance for Heal on dmg, 25% chance for extra dmg when dpsing.
Shield - Our shield is quite impressive, its a group-cast, so every single team-member benefits from it.
So that's about it..
We're very capable melee fighters, with fantastic survival from our heals..
Point us towards the enemy, charge and we'll throw out some impressive heals while continuing the face-smashing-pain!..
However if we're retreating or there is a stalemate (2 sides doing ranged DPS over no-mans-land), then please give us some sympathy as we're probably running dry and can't really help you!
It should be noted that due to our lack of direct-heals, if you run at us with 5% health, even if we do have full fury, then its very unlikely we're going to save your life because our HoTs won't soak up any burst damage thats going to end your life... We prefer to Top-up peoples health, than to rescue you
Also this is my opinion and might not be shared with all WP's, but were not Raid-friendly healers. Our heals are group-based which mean its very easy to simply focus on your group and ignore everything else. I will throw my instant HoT on anyone I see when running into battle, but mid-combat the only people who will benefit from my heals are my group as i'll be using my Group Heal/HoT in the vast majority of cases, although Battleground objective people are an exception, so are our Tanks who are nearby.
Cheers,
Invicta (Rank 26 Warrior Priest - and LOVING it!)