Healing-Capable Hybrids Are actually The Best choice For Damage Roles – How A Shadow Priest Improves Every Group
October 11th, 2010 at 2:40
The shadow priests of WoW have a good thing going on for them. For one thing, out of all the game’s healers, shadow priest is the easiest spec to level bar none. But the real kicker is how awesome they are in groups. Now with a priest leveling guide, it’s easy enough to get to 80 without ever having to group up, I know that. If you’re really looking to see what your shadow priest can do, you want to start hitting up some instances in Outland or Northrend.
The biggest strength of the shadow priest in groups is the level of versatility that they offer. Even before considering dual spec, a shadow priest can easily drop form and start acting as a backup healer. Depending on gear, they may even be able to take over the role of main healer.
Priests are the only healing class that is able to maintain this degree of versatility while utilizing their DPS talents. Since discipline and holy use the same stats as shadow, priests aren’t forced into keeping a second gear set on hand if they want to switch to healing. The more melee-oriented hybrids lack this inherent versatility since their primary sets will be focused on stats which are the polar opposite of what they would need for healing. Furthermore, most players will not take the time or effort to even compile a healing set, and quite often if they do, it will end up left in the bank when it’s needed most. I can’t really figure out why people would play a healer when they have no intention of healing, particularly when you consider that a 5 minute trip to the wow auction house and a few gold are all you really need to get yourself prepared. I suppose some players just don’t consider it all that important to make full use of their classes abilities.
Utility is another area in which priests surpass other DPSers. Because of talents like Vampiric Embrace and Vampiric Touch, priests heal and restore their group’s mana even when they are DPSing in shadow form. Unfortunately for the other DPS classes, priests are the only class that offers that kind of utility without sacrificing any damage in the process. They won’t be the number one class on the damage meter usually, but they allow the other players a much wider margin of error than they would usually have. If you’re ever wondering what class to level and you want to solo well without giving up your group viability, give shadow priest a try.
