Owned by Shadow priest

[Kiori]

Hello everyone I'm new to The Den. I generally own in PvP so far. I'm full affliction spec for grinding, but i still tend to do really good in pvp. Hunters i only win about 40%. The other day though i was challenged to a duel by a priest. I figured wtih my fel puppy out i could win.. Except i actually got owned badly repeatedly. My duel went like so:

Put FelHunter on Stay and run towards the priest putting up dots. Priest would fear me, and i would try to time a spell lock for when he starts to cast Mind Blast. My fear would wear out, and i would fear the priest back, reapplying corruption. i'd launch a shadowbolt at him and it would hit. (if the priest managed to shield before the fear i would try to eat his shield with puppy). okay but now it gets tricky. i'd try to keep shadow bolting him and fearing him if i needed i'd bandage. the thing is. he just did so much damage that i couldn't keep up with his damage. even though i'd try to like fear him during his heals or dispell his buffs, and spell lock him when he is trying to heal if shield is down, or mind blast. he just out paced me. i had him down to about 1/3 hp and mp. i still have HEAPS of mana.. but was dead. i cept my dots on, but i'm sure that he dispelled some. i did do my nightfall when i came. maybe afflicition just isn't suited for shadow priest.

I've owned warriors 7 levels higher then me without much sweat. I couldn't beat this even matched priest though. I even tried my engineering with bombs and still lost. lol... it was a slap in the face i guess so i'm open to any help that you wonderful people would be greatly appriciated! I'm level 41 atm, i realize deathcoil will help next level, but i thought maybe there is more i can do. Thanks in Advance!!

-Kiori

[Shriek]

For starters, I would sick the dog on him, instead of telling him to stay. Fear is one of the shadow priests most powerful tools and if he uses it on the dog, that is a good thing. Try to keep your distance so he can't fear you and the dog at the same time. Granted, while the dog is feared, he can't eat the priest's DOT off of you, but that is the breaks. The dog's attacks also add useful dps (not much, but frequently critical) and interrupt his casting too.

The priest can dispel corruption for practically zero mana, so that probably will not be a big part of your damage output. He can't dispell a curse so you have the choice of Curse of Agony or Curse of Tongues. If he is in shadowform, I would go with Curse of Agony because his only damage spells will be Mind Blast, which has a long cool down, and his DOT which is an instant anyway. If he is out of shadowform you can switch to CoT, as he can now start casting heals, Smite (which has a long cast time), and Mind Blast, so you will get more utilization out of your CoT.

Fear is obviously your best friend here. He might have a trinket to get out of one, and Will of the Forsaken if he is undead for two.

BTW, are you using a healthstone? That is part of our class and not cheating in a duel IMO.

Shriek

[Haps]

Originally Posted by Shriek

BTW, are you using a healthstone? That is part of our class and not cheating in a duel IMO.

Shriek

I dueled a priest once that freaked out after the duel:

Priest: No fair you healed during the fight.

Me: So did you

Priest: Duh of course I did I'm a priest.

Me: I'm a warlock healthstones are part of my class.

[Kiori]

Thanks shriek for your input! Never realized that my corruption was useless... and that i should use CoT most of the time unless shadow form.

I did actually use a healthstone.. although it only heals for 500 ( out of 2400 ) at my level. my reasoning to keeping felhunter on stay was that if i ran away from my felhunter and the priest fears me, i could counter his mind blast after the fear. of course i lost alot so i dunno lol... i just got 42 and got a new shadow ward.. which should help a bit more. the part that i found really hard is after the opening when i get feared. i fear him, he uses trinket and shields up. now i'm playing catchup. he's sheilded so i'll try to eat it with felpuppy, if he eats it its good. if he doesn't meh.. now i gotta go through 2 shadow bolts to get his shield down. by this point his fear timer is half up. i'll try to fear him and then blast him while he runs away from my awsomeness. when i get to about 40% hp i pop my healthstone.. although 500hp isn't alot it helps. his shadow word hurts so much, and between eatting his shield and debuffs i don't always get it off me.Â

It just seems like between his fear, shield and heals i can't make a solid dent. My fear gets negated by his trinket or shield. what is a priests "weakness". i know ours is low defence and suscepitble to interupts (ie. hunter's pet or rogue). maybe if i knew their weakness i could exploit that. lol.. i know that priests can be a difficut fight for a lot of classes. i don't expect an i win button. i just am hoping to find a pattern so i can beat them like 50/50 lol..

Thanks again guys )

-Kiori

[cryptana]

Shadow Priests are tough, no doubt. Remember though that they only have a single fear, on a 30 sec cooldown, and it's AoE, so if you stay away from the priest, they can't cast on you (although they can cast on your pet). You don't say what race you are - I'm undead, so I've got at least 60 secs of effective fear immunity between Will of the Forsaken and the PvP trinket, but your mileage may vary. If your opponent isn't undead, you can just fear-kite them into oblivion.

A good priest will dispell your buffs and DoTs and also cast Silence on you, so the advice above was valid (stick to Amped-Curse of Agony and direct damage, try to spell lock their shadow spells when they cast Mind Flay, and save your second Spell Lock and/or Death Coil for late in the fight when they are trying to heal). I also agree with siccing the Fel on him - both to slow down/interrupt his casting, and as a nice 40+DPS dot. Corruption is not necessarily useless (if they are dispelling it constantly, you can spam the rank 1 version to trick them into wasting mana/cooldowns on unnecessary dispells), but you can't really depend on it as a source of damage. In your case, it sounds like the priest wasn't even dispelling your Corruption, in which case you should feel free to load him up with DoTs. Does anyone know if a priest can dispell Drain Life? If not, then drain tanking seems like a reasonable action too.

I'm demonology spec'd, so I don't tend to have too much problem with casters of any stripe (with the Felhunter out, I have a minimum 1 in 6 chance to outright resist any spell, plus a good chance to partially resist any damage even if the spell lands). Plus with Soul Link I have an effective 4000 HP (more if you count Shadow Ward and my improved Healthstone). This isn't to brag, but just to say that some builds aren't as effective against shadow priests, and I'd say that a DoT-reliant build like your typical Affliction spec is going to have problems with a class that can dispell and out-heal your DOTs.

[Shriek]

The shadowpriest has probably put the two talent points into psychic scream, so his cooldown would actually be 24 seconds. Keep in mind that his powershield costs a pretty good bit of mana as does his DOT, so it costs him pretty good to keep casting those if the pet keeps eating them off. Cryptana is right, if he is not dispelling DOTs on himself, then keep loading him up. Immolate is better than corruption here because you at least get the initial damage across.

I forgot about the spell Mind Flay, that is a standard shadow priest cast after fearing you. There is little that you can do about it if feared, so having him burn fear on the pet helps.Â

The shadow priests weakness is that he only has 4 damage spells plus either a wand or a weapon while he is in shadowform. The first is the DOT and you know all about those. The priest's happens to be dispellable and cost a pretty good bit of mana (more than our Curse of Agony at a comparable level). The second is Mind Blast (1.5 second cast and 5.5 second cooldown) which does good damage. Expect to be hit with that one as often as the priest can cast it. Third is Mind Flay. It is channeled and includes a snare. Expect to be flayed every time you are feared. As this is a fairly low mana spell, this can also be cast even when the channel will be interrupted because it increases his your shadow vulnerability every time he casts a shadow spell. The fourth is Mana Burn. This spell will take a chunk of your mana and do half that amount in damage. It is far superior to our drain mana. The downside is that this is a 3 second cast. Slow it down just like you slow the MB.

The DOT needs to be eaten, MB needs to be slowed down either through CoT, pet attacks, your attacks, etc. You will eat a few of them anyway and they will hurt. Mind Flay is really at it's best after you have been feared. Step one is don't get feared by the priest which means making it hard for him to close on you. Second is to get the trinket so you can at least get out of one of his fears.

Shriek

[Kiori]

I think i confused you guys a bit. I'm a human warlock btw so no Will of the Forsaken for me..lol idea with putting felhunter on stay is to do so far away from his fear radius is so that although i can't spell lock his fear, i can spell lock his mind flay/blast, basicially meaning he wasted his fear.. that part worked out good in trial. The ideas about immolate and corruption are really good, and i havn't thought about that. i am used to my dots really being killer. i have (at my level) +100 shadow damage so my dots really hurt and nightfall is nasty. but i couldn't get my damage to really penetrate and hurt him. Any damage i caused he would heal up once he got shield or fear off... mean while although i could mitigate some of his shadow ward and spell lock. I guess i was just outpaced. I realize that a SM/Ruin or DM/ruin or Full destro would probably really negate the shield because you can take it down in a matter of seconds, and then start poudning him into the dirt.

I'm thinking of respeccing to SM/Ruin or 9/31/11 once i get closer to 60 so that'll help i guess. I like to pvp still and do okay even with my affliction build.. i guess that shadow priest just isn't dot friendly ;)

Thanks everyone for your ideas! any more ideas would be welcome of course

-Kiori

[Saints]

When I was aff spec I didn't have much of a problem with priests, non-shadow form priests gave me the biggest problem. Anyway, what I would do is cast my DOTS, all of them, start with CoT (slowing down casting time is always good) then siphen life, then immolate, and lastly rank 1 corr. I use rank 1 cause that still procs NF. After this time I drain life. --Not that if its a shadowpriest, I will drain mana until about 70% on life. Shadowpriests burn mana like no other class. They are truly a 1 trick pony. Meaning, their mana will only last one person deep. I find if I get a fear off, I will start my drains (life/mana).

Now I can use felhunter or the succy, either one works, however with all the DOTs on him, it's best to use the felhunter. I keep "Ctrl+6" hotkeyed on my mouse, so thats either seduce OR spell lock, depending on which pet is out.

I will spell lock the priest the sec the fight starts. I don't want him casting anything, and the sooner I spell lock, the sooner the cool down will take.

All and all, shadow priests aren't that hard. Their biggest down side is not being able to heal, and the insane amount of mana there spells take to cast.

Sorry if this is hard to read, its really early in the morning, and I am still sleeping in my mind.

Cheers

-On another note, one you spec demon SL, you won't die to a priest ever again. If you spec destro to conflag with a succy, you wont die to a priest either.

[Shriek]

Good post Saints, but I might quibble that a mage actually has worse mana efficiency than a priest does. The shadow priest actually can be fairly efficient if he can keep using the DOT and Mind Flay. Mind Blast is the inefficient one.

If you think fighting a priest with SL is cake, you should try fighting a disc/holy priest in epic gear. Your pet gets feared, your mana gets burned away, and with an 8,000 pt mana pool he can heal and shield himself all day long.

Shriek

[PeePeeBritches]

Another point to remember is Shadow Priests have silence. If you find an inexperienced Priest you can usually make him silence the first spell you cast, Hearthstone is a personal favorite of mine :-p. This trick also works on Shamans with Earth Shock. Just remember they can silence.