I have been leveling a Priest, am currently in the mid 30's, but seem to struggle 1v1 against most classes. Having to stand still to cast the heal generally leaves me vulnerable to be hit for way more than I can heal. I know I am only low level, and I know I don't have all the tools, but I am just curious if it gets better, especially since at 60 in PvP I will likely end up as the focus target.

I know the role in group is to heal your allies, and keep yourself up....but for the smaller scale battles....1v1...2v2...how does it pan out? I know our damage is lacking, but it doesn't quite yet feel that I am making up for the lack of damage with survivability. I don't know...just curious on community perspective of the class from people who have experienced it. Tips? Thoughts? Pointers? Insight? Leave it here. Thanks!

Don't worry about trying to kill anyone, that's not your job. Learn to kite with Fiery Escape and Backstep (Fiery Escape first to slow them by 70%) and try not to kite straight backwards since it makes it easier for them to just continue to go straight forwards and catch up. Kite in circles or at an angle (this depends on if you have allies with you or not obviously where you'll kite). You should be able to get far enough away that you can stop mid kiting to heal once and then continue to kite. Don't try to stay still for too long though.

You can also throw down a Restorative Burst and then run into it and use Heal Thyself as you jump in for more healing. But generally trying to dps a target will put you at risk of getting hit which in some situations is fine but to start out I'd just practice doing the above first.

Priest 1v1 or really in most situations should be able to stay alive through quite a lot. It does get easier at later levels though since some of our best survivability skills come later. But if you can learn to kite and heal in your 30s with the skills you have now, you will be a lot better and probably find it easier once you hit 60 and have all the other skills.

I can't speak to the class' utility as a whole, but until Reflect gets nerfed priests are capable of being unbeatable 1v1. If you're unfamiliar with Reflect, enigmatic chest slot armor can have a stat that reflects 15% of damage back to the attacker, and can be stacked twice, once on the main body of stats and once on the 3,6,9 enchant levels. That means it's possible to reflect 30% of the damage done to you, back to your attacker, which in combination with priests self heals makes them virtually unkillable 1v1.

There has been a lot of complaints over the stat though and it wouldn't surprise me if it was nerfed sometime soon. On the other hand, many classes (including priests) are also getting improved pvp defense soon, so that might help address your vulnerability.

Quote: ninjaworm on 07/17/2012, 05:11 PM - view

Newflash. Priest's don't need reflect to be hard to kill 1v1. Priest's were already hard to kill 1v1.

I said unbeatable, not hard to kill. The difference is pretty obvious to anyone who has experienced fighting a priest with 30% reflect, and I'm sure you would have picked up on it if you weren't looking for any reason to be antagonistic.

A priest without reflect is hard to kill in that they can easily out heal most damage done to them, but they won't be able to do much damage or risk leaving themselves vulnerable. That means the fight could go on for a pretty long time, allowing for more chances for a lucky crit, stun, knockdown, etc to finish them off.

With reflect all the priest has to do is chain heal, they don't need to risk trying to cast offensive spells, they can focus purely on defense. The more aggressive their opponent is, the quicker they will kill themselves on reflected damage, meaning fewer opportunities for that lucky crit to change the outcome of the fight.

I'm not being antagonistic I'm stating the truth. He's asking for advice on how to survive as a Priest in PvP. Telling him to rely on a broken stat that will be inevitably be fixed because you want to QQ moar is not good advice to a new player.

Heya Techau. I can tell you from experience you'll have no problems at later levels. It's rather easy to do 1v1 and 2v1, maybe 3v1 if your opponents are clueless and you got some luck. Priest has damage but you just have to know when to use it and what to use at the right time. Hard to explain, however I do have a few videos of me doing some 1v1, 2v1, 3v1 and some other group pvp. It should give you some insight on what to expect. Here is my youtube channel, feel free to ask anymore questions if needed. (channel : http://tinyurl.com/6oz6335)

Thanks for posting Harmonyx. Techau - here take a look at this video Harmony has posted of group PvP and you'll see what I mean in terms of kiting, especially that last fight that starts at around the 7 minute mark and he's got both the Slayer and Lancer on him. Your team will probably take more damage than his does in this video but other than that there's some good stuff in there you can learn even beyond just kiting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09diQzfJgus&feature=plcp