Games - Priest

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	Games - Priest

The Priest is a class in Blizzard Entertainment's MMORPG World of Warcraft.

Overview

The priest possesses the most powerful healing spells of any character class in World of Warcraft. The priest can also resurrect dead players, saving them a trip from the graveyard back to their corpse. Priests may also cast powerful buff spells to temporarily enhance a character's abilities. While a priest's primary role is to act as a healer for a party, the priest also has access to powerful damage-dealing shadow spells, making it a much easier task to solo-play. The majority of priests choose to either specialize in Holy (healing) or Shadow talents. A priest who has been configured with talent points mostly in Shadow talents is known as a Shadow Priest. The downside of this configuration is that the priest is now a less effective healer. However, the Shadow priest is a highly formidable opponent, more than capable at holding his or her own in combat. A about the viability of Shadow priests in player vs. player combat coined the term "melting faces." This thread spawned an endless series of jokes on the Blizzard forums about melting faces, the etymology of which is likely derived from a bug where sometimes the use of the Mind Flay ability on other player characters would cause the face skin of a model to be replaced with another face skin, giving the model a "melted face" look. The look would come since face skins are specifically made for certain features, such as the large nose of dwarves, so the face would no longer match up with what it should. This was especially prevalent when the model was changed to a Night Elf and Troll face skin due to the hues of the races skin.

It is common for a priest to initially start out as a shadow priest due to the far larger amount of damage a shadow priest can do. Once the priest achieves shadow form, he or she will be better equipped to gain experience alone. Once he or she reaches 60, it is common to respec their points and become a holy priest for end-game instances, which most people consider the real end goal of the game. If a priest decides to go down the holy road, it will probably be with a combination of Discipline talents, this is because most of the talents at the end of the Holy Tree are more or less useless - especially so for end-game raiding where you will be limited to your Flash Heal because the bossmobs deal huge damage, and fast.

Priests may only wear Cloth armor, the weakest type of armor in World of Warcraft. Priests' weapons are limited to one-handed maces, daggers, staves, and wands. Swords and axes cannot be used.

Races

The Priest Class is available to the Human, Dwarf, and Night Elf races on the Alliance side and to the Undead and Troll races on the Horde side. When the expansion The Burning Crusade arrives, Blood Elves will be able to become Priests as well. Each race of priest has its own Race Specific Spells. It was said that Blizzard intended this for all class/race combinations but never got around to it.

Party dynamics

When partied with other players, the priest's primary role is as the party's main healer. A designated tank, usually a Warrior,Shaman, Paladin, or a Druid in bear form, holds the attention of enemies, while protecting the less heavily armored classes in the party. The priest(s) concentrates on healing and keeping the main tank alive. The skill of a party's priest is often the difference between a successful fight and the death of all party members. Priests are also responsible for resurrecting dead party members after a fight.

Spells

Note: Priest spells and talents in the upcoming 1.10 patch. The focus will mainly be on the Holy and Discipline talent trees. The majority of the announced changes will focus on modifications to existing talents and spells rather than adding a slew of new spells.

Holy spells

Lesser Heal - Restores HP to a friendly target. A low level spell eventually replaced by Heal.
Smite - Blasts an enemy with Holy damage.
Renew - A spell that heals a target over time.
Resurrection - Brings a dead player back to life.
Cure Disease - Cures one disease on a friendly target.
Holy Fire - Blasts an enemy with Fire damage, then deals extra fire damage over the next 10 seconds, akin to warlock spell Immolate. (Available only through Holy Talent tree.)
Heal - Restores HP to a friendly target. More powerful than Lesser Heal, but greater cast time. Eventually replaced by Greater Heal and Flash Heal.
Flash Heal - Restores HP to a friendly target. Not as powerful as Heal or Greater Heal, but takes less time to cast.
Prayer of Healing - Restores HP to all friendly targets close to the priest.
Abolish Disease - Attempts to cure a disease on the target every few seconds.
Greater Heal - Restores HP to a friendly target. More powerful than Heal, with the same cast time.
Holy Nova - Restores HP to all friendly targets close to the priest and also deals Holy damage to all enemies in the same radius. Costs less than Prayer of Healing and is an instant cast spell. (Available only through Holy talent tree.)

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