Priest Dicipline Guide pvp RMP 80
Table of Contents
Gear
Spec
Glyphs
Macros
Spell Usage General
Dispelling Offensive and Defensive
Damaging
Healing
Positioning
Cloak and Block usage
Fearing
Situational Drinking
Comp Specific Strats
Final words
About the author
I've been playing priest since season 6 retail, multi glad through seasons 7-8-9-10. Started playing seriously on AT a few months ago and reached 2.6 mmr 2s PR and 2.600 mmr with 2610 team as RMP facing many high rated teams and strong comps along the way. From this I feel I have sufficient confidence in RMP season 8 to build a guide based on priest play within this comp, even though i'd like to state here that I still have much to learn about rmp but this guide aims to be a general coverage of the main aspects of the setup that I understand at the moment. I dont see that many good RMPS on ladder most likely due to difficulties with certain comps, hopefully this guide will encourage new RMPs with knowledge of comp and strat specifics and revitalize the ladder pool.
This guide aims to be a semi comprehensive guide on playing Priest in RMP, beginning with the general spec/gear/glyphs guide and then moving into the fun stuff such as positioning and defensive CD management. Enjoy.
Gear
Below is a screen shot of my current stats for RMP
Your main aims for stats are:
4% Hit
122 Spen (built using offhand/wand spen)
400-500 Haste
700+ Mp5 ooc
1100-1200 Resilience
Note here the importance of weapon swap use, it essentially gives you +100 to whatever stat you need for that match up with 1 gcd. Be careful however when going without spen, a safe rule would be to always use spen vs priests, mages and druids.
Specs
Here is a link to a super solid standard spec for 3s rmp and also 2s RP, note the mana talents such as Absolution and Mental Agility that are required to avoid mana problems.
Alternatives to this build include going 3/5 Holy Specialization instead of 3/5 Improved Renew
http://wow335.gamestool.net/priestt.php?5033003133320512331013211251230051030000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Other more offensive specs are viable also, however I feel this spec fits the role of a standard ladder spec pretty well.
Glyphs
Straight forward enough, the three main glyphs I use in 3s are
Pain Suppression (standard)
Pennance (standard)
PWShield (not so standard, the extra healing from shield can be useful low hp, preforms better than smite or inner fire glyph in many situations for overall throughput.
Macros
Below are a list of macros I use most commonly in arena, firstly targeting and dispel macros, for many players these are a given however I will go over them regardless.
Note the use of party1 and part2, if you use party frames or an addon like grid, top to bottom sort by group will always place party member 1 at the top and party member 2 below. Target player targets yourself, very useful.
Fear wards self
Spammable MD
Desperate Prayer + Inner macro (discussed later in guide)
Power Infusion self (change player to mages name to Power Infusion mage)
Fiend macro that makes Sfiend actually work
Shackle Garg/Any Use Macro
Target anything reflect macro, can be used as focus macro also for warrior aoe reflect / standard reflect. (/target@focus)
Weapon swap macro (replace names with ones of your choosing)
Enough numbers, time for some real shit
Spell Usage General
Flash heal or greater heal?
Generally flash heal is burst heal and in most cases you really want to avoid using it at all costs, the main reason priests have mana problems ever in 3s is due to using flash heal unnecessarily. In many situations 1 or 2 greater heals would do the same and cost less mana than 5+ flash heals.
Shield PoM or Penance?
If you’re coming out of cc and your rogue is low shield>pom>renew>cast is the best use of your spells especially with shield glyph, the main reason you don’t want to cast straight out of cc is mostly situational, vs casters with cs up you don’t want to be locked instantly on your first cast, so use instants instead and it will give you time to fake the cs as you rogue will at least have received some healing. Basic stuff just thought to cover it here.
MS effects
Healing vs MS as a priest involves more focus, optimally you want to allow your rogue to kite/evasion MS until it falls and then heal with penance, spamming FH into ms rogue vs prot/ele/ arms/ele hunt/dk isn’t what you want to be doing and you should not be doing. When in rmp your focus is around creating and avoiding pressure, this aspect if play is important as you have to be constantly aware of excess pressure on your rogue and for your rogue to know this and to reactivly kite/los/evasion correctly.
Defensive CDs
First Pain Suppression, biggest rule I'd give priests about Pain Suppression is that you really don’t ever want to use it on teammates unless they will die without it, most of the time teammates will live with their own cds if you call for them on time and are not in some cc chain/css up etc. Being able to save PS for yourself is very important vs comps such as TSG, SCleave, and most WizardCleaves, additionally dbl war you never ever want to use PS on anyone but yourself, you’re dead in one stun swap when they pop offensive cds if you do without a doubt unless some sick peels come in, but even then you’ll trade so many defensive cds for their offensive if they use them correctly they’ll have the advantage. However sometimes using PS on a mage so they can maintain pressure (stay offensive) is fine because most of the time you are able to land a kill because of it.
Bauble
Sick trinket but mostly used incorrectly or in panic, first any use of bauble over MS is a clear waste of the 2min cd, the best time to use bauble is when you are silenced/locked out or when your rogue for example has no ms/has just cloaked. Another side note on both ps and bauble is that neither should be used on a mage who still has a block.
Desperate prayer
Pretty straight forward, best used before bauble/ps to avoid wasting it, good in conjunction with inner focus, pretty useless without this. (priest never crit hihi)
I'd recommend using a macro such as the one previously mentioned. As time delayed between pressing two buttons can result in getting killed when it can be easily avoided.
At the end of Defnesive cds I want to say that posisioning is the main reason for the use of defensive cds, with good posisitioning the majority of the time they are not needed and teammates can be picked up with a few heals.
Dispelling, offensive and defensive
Defensive
Priest dispelling is important as positioning in many cases, your rogue needs close to 100% uptime on targets that are able to snare/slow such as locks/shamans mages and dks, the logic behind this is, the longer in the root/snare the rogue is, the greater distance the opponent has to kite and the longer it takes the rogue to return to the target to deal damage. Pre dispelling vs certain classes is important to counter this, most instant cc can be avoided in this way and all casted cc can be seen and dispelled instantly with practice, as the majority of the time your position means the cc will not be on you and therefore it is either on your mage or rogue.
Offensive dispelling
Offensive dispelling is important also vs such classes as druids, paladins priests and mages. At the start of the game rmp wants to sap one target, cc another and open on one with cheap gouge, this gouge window allows for the priest to clean all buffs off the selected target along with the mage. Doing this creates great pressure as follow up buffs such as freedom, shield and sacred can be dispelled instantly without having to filter through trash debuffs. A note vs druids is that dispelling rejuv (spam dispelling) on a target you’re on is extremely important, denying/delaying swiftmend creates great pressure and can force the druid into using bauble or NS simply because you are dispelling, a great trade.
Dispelling freedom from paladins is important for your rogue as in many cases the paladin will be with a warrior in 3s, therefore the rogue is slowed, and going back to the explanation earlier on dispelling, the rogue will lose time on the pala which is bad, If healers get distance, especially healers that can remove rogue poision a pala resetting to full hp is very bad. Freedom dispelling should be your number one priority
Dispelling other types of buffs from apponents is important also, such as fingers and icey viens from mages, bloodlust, feral instant and nether protection.
As a priest vs mage you should always be watching for fingers buff on mage in your focus frame, and to try and call for dispels from mage or try and md the buff yourself or jump dispel the buff from the mage to avoid getting deeped, if you can keep the fingers buff off the mage he has very few ways to cc you if you position well, this creates a lot of pressure for the rmp and can deny almost all the pressure from wizard teams as they lack MS effects and reley only on cc chains on priest.
Damaging as Priest
Priest damage plays an important role in rmp, in many situations the mage is not free to damage and is better off controlling/ccing enemy players while the rogue and the priest are free to damage. Priest damage can mean the difference from getting a trinket or getting nothing at all.
The best way to damage as a priest in most situations is double dot swp dp during the gouge on kill target (cheap->gouge) and then hfire, mind blast penance into smite spam. Ususally smite will not be needed, if cds are forced stop damage instantly to save mana, extra damage now will not gain anything for the rmp.
I just want to make clear how important priest damage is in situations such as killing pets, in swaps and in openers is for the rmp to get kills and maintain/create pressure, the main reason why rmp is so strong and has so few hard counters is because of this insane controlled burst (+wound) and if used correctly can make rmp seem insanely good. jk
Side note on damage, make sure that your rogue is dancing correctly, differnt dance rotations are required for differnt classes/situations, for example a stunless dance for pets/shamans or a stun garrote kidney dance for priests to avoid shield window.
Healing
One word, mana. Once again going back to not using flash heal and relying on instants, you cant get locked out on instants and you cant go oom from casting them, instants and penance are your best healing tools for all healing besides burst.
A huge note on healing is predicting damage, if you’re not watching enemy cast bars to see incoming damage you’re simply not playing to your full potential, in almost all wizard comps the damage is visual in the sense if seeing cast bars eg lighnight bolt/chaos bolt/incinerate/frostboltshatter realising this information and prehealing accordingly avoids your teammaes dropping low and creating a sense of pressure on your team and giving the other team momentum. Aim to quickly pick up low heath teammates to allow for them to position offensively again.
Further notes prior to positioning explanations, posisitoning when healing is important as you want to be able to free cast while not having to move to avoid cc, so effectively losing the opponents damaging classes while being in los of your teammate/s. this isn’t always down to the priest, the priest needs to set up the basic poisiton it is up to teammates to maintain this poisistion and move into the position required if opponents move / priest forced to move. High level awareness is required for all three members of rmp at the same time to reinforce this healing poisistion.
Poisitioning
The single most important aspect of priest play in RMP 3s is positioning by far, it sets up so many aspects of the rmp playstyle such as pressure by avoiding cc, setting up cc, keeping a teammate dispelled when chasing a target, avoiding swaps onto you, allowing your teammates to cc enemy players, forcing movement of enemy to cc you making them vulnerable to cc. in essence every comp you face as rmp will require different positioning by priest, it isn’t always pillar mode although this is very common and can be used in all matchups, some positioning specifics outclass this style in some cases.
I will cover positioning for a few matchups to give the general idea and reasoning behind why you should position in such a way and why positioning in certain ways can lose games basically.
Defensive Posisitoning General TSG/Caster
There is a difference between offensive and defensive positioning and some that allow for both aspects of play to be used.
Lets begin with basic defensive positioning plays vs TSG.
Pillars are you friend, your best friend. Avoiding getting swaped to vs tsg is the most important thing to keep in mind, this means being near a pillar and also being max range of grip/charge. When getting trained by TSG or any melee cleave variants for that matter including beast cleave your main goal is to escape to los, this requires your teammates to immobilize/peel the tsg for 2-3 secs to allow you to get distance to reach pillar, going back to the requirement for awareness again you have to be able to see instantly when the dk or war cannot damage you so there is no need to heal, simply run, walking slightly away and healing is not as effective as walking to los and healing in this position as you keep widening the gap at which they can reach you by denying them such gap closers as grip and charge, this is so important vs tsg and if used correctly standard tsg is such a free win comp it’s a joke.
Vs Wizards (dbl caster)
Firstly you never ever want to be out in the open (only in a few situations explained later) vs dbl caster teams you want to be at the adjacent pillar to where your teammates are. If you imagine nagrand arena, through the gates there are two pillars, open space, then two move, think of these two pillars at both ends as linked, in the best situation you’re on one pillar and your teammates are on the other but do not chase los unless they have defensive cds to make it worth it to chase that far. Really it’s a very bad idea to chase your teammates to that kind of los, in many cases it is better to sit pillar and wait for them to get back or Hymn to heal while still remaining safe from cc.
IF feared into the open/coiled/moving to open space
(please note here that before moving into the open when you know you must cross to cc/dispel/whatever make sure your mage and rogue know that your moving as the other team will try and cc at this time on you, if you know your mage has cs, your rogue has kick etc you can safely move, if not wait until they do then move. Really going back to the point on pressure if you get into cc rmp loses so much pressure its insane, you want to avoid this at all costs and never give the other team free cc. (At least force a deep from the mage so that he cannot use it for damage.)
When you become caught by casters basically moving back to pillar is always the safest option and avoid standing still and casting instead run a just dispel instants such as flame shock, once you get los you’re basically 100% hp again only use defensives such as desperate prayer if you know that you cannot reach the los in time to avoid the damage, please note that on at even if you are los you can still be hit by some abilities that were casted just as you were moving los, imagine that the pillars on at have no edges, you are not 100% safe until you are somewhat inside the pillar los.
Vs healer/melee/caster (notes on rmp mirror)
Pillar mostly, if chasing healer for dispels be right up ontop of them always, as they will most likely be on los, if they kite to open simply pillar up and swap while ccing them, in the case of druids pressure them to kite range then swap to a target and blanket cs after the druids rejuv global, dispel rejuiv and you’ve forced 6sec cc on the druid blanket of cs+ 2 globals for rejuv and swiftmend.
Most healer melee casters contain a warrior, getting peels from swaps by warrior is very important, for such comps as lock/war/pala a swap to priest that cannot escape is almost always fatal, keep near pillars when the warrior has cds to use and your mage or rogue cannot stop lock damage. Dancing the warrior in these situations is fine simply to peel but however as I will mention later dancing is best saved for forcing cds rather than it being defensive.
Essentially a position to dispel and still be able to move to avoid damage is pefect posisitoning vs healer/melee/caster. However a note on the rmp mirror matchup which cannot really be explained in a how to guide is best to position very defensivly, save fears for priests attempting to fear you and avoid being cced while still having clear los on your rogue but being able to los their mage is the most important. Never chase to fear a priest / dispel fear ward almost always a waste of time and globals when you can just fear it off and have a free fear after cooldown. Rng luck with fear ward dispel is shit so don’t bet your games on it. Leanring how to play rmp mirror matchup is mainly done through practice as it is essentially 3 meta games played at once, vs mage priest and rogue. Fear battles vs priest, deep/csnova/sheep battles vs mage and blind/sap vs rogue. While still maintaining healing and damaging when needed.
Posisitoning vs LSP variants aka god comps
Max range to avoid aoe fear from lock+priest. The best posisiton for you to be in since a hard swap from priest/lock is almost impossible without a full silence on you into coil, however most of this damage is avoidable and very obvious due to pre dotting. Vs the ele/lock variant the same logic applies, max range to avoid priest and lock fear and dispel dots for a possible swap/ if swapped to as mentioned before kite max range los and heal. IF they chase cc priest/shaman and swap hard onto lock/shaman as they will be in a very dangerous posisiton defensivly (middle map)
Cloak and Block
I'd like to make a quick reference to the use of rmps main defensives Cloak of Shadows and Ice Block.
Use of cloak
Cloaking correctly as a general note is extremely important vs caster cleaves, the best time to cloak is always when cc lands on priest and before stuns(deep/sfury/soil) land on rogue, the perfect cloak time is just before those stuns to possibly cloak them but to mainly get pressure on their team even while your priest is in cc to keep up that constant pressure that RMP needs to win games. As a note for priests in regards to cloak, never trinket when your rogue has cloak up, only when your rogue cannot vanish / cloak damage/clean vanish you need to trinket cc, the rogue can use cloak to stop follow up cc (fears/sheeps/clones) if the cloak is used well.
Use of Block
Block high, nuff said, predict damage and block, if silence shot and rooted vs hunt dk both hitting you as mage just block save not only priest mana but allow you to maintain pressure with high hp.
Fearing
How and when to to fear healer/melee/caster
Fearing is important in many matchups as rmp, more important in some rather than others. Mostly in healer/caster/melee your fear is very important in setting up swaps/kills. For example take thundercleave, an arms warrior ele shaman and hpala this comp is 100% free win for rmp if played correctly. Fearing shaman while warrior is sheeped and pala is gouged is your perfect setup, killing cleansing is also super important, use penance to one shot it and swd to kill tremors or use weapon (sometimes unreliable due to swing) another example of healer/caster/melee is lock/warrior/x a fear on lock and pet acts in a similar manner to thundercleave on the shaman, most of the time you can dot warlock + mage debuffs and fear to avoid devour/dispell while sheeping warrior gouge pala -> dance. Really standard stuff for these comps.
Fearing vs dblcaster/healer
Really you’re not going to want to be moving into a position to fear unless its safe to do so, or doing it could setup a kill without any risk. But going back to positioning again mage and rogue have enough cc/control without fear to win games vs dbl caster teams, your fear in this situation is merely a buffer that allows for a near perfect kill swap to become a kill.
Fearing vs dbl melee/healer
Once again returning to positioning, you’re not going to want to move to a position to fear the paladin/priest/x so use it on dk/ret/rogue for swaps to pala/ warrior. Stay pillar, stay safe, yolo.
Situational Drinking importance
Vs certain comps such as triple healer aka druid/priest/shaman (feral variant almost impossible as dance rmp, kill on druid required I think, tough matchup, go muti if spam queing) variants
You will be burning druid/shaman to oom to win the game (make it 2/3 healers essentially) during this you mana will quickly drop due to buring/dispelling healing so around 40-30% mana on your next cc swap setup (fear sham/x sheep priest/x) go drink 30-40% mana up.
This will allow you to get far ahead of the druid and win with ease
This is the only real comp where you will need to drink, vs skilled players of healer/melee/caster is the only other situation where you will need to drink, everything else is a 3min race against time game.
There are many other concepts of rmp play that id like to discuss but this guide is already long enough, to conclude I want to list and explain some standard strats vs common teams on ladder that may cause problems for RMP teams (afghan nd co.)
Comp Specific Strats
PHP
Essentially a counter, hunter or priest is kill target, opening priest is optional to force trinket/ps to make killing hunter easier. Priest needs to play well in this matchup to avoid fears/long cc chains and get fears on ret while mage instants priest into sheep while hunter is gouged (gouge on hunter even though it will dodge most of the time will make this strat work and win games) then dance hunter with all 3 dpsing, follow up sheeps on priest with mc on ret are optional, but situational at best. Aim to avoid their pressure and maintain pressure of your own by burning ret to make him freak out nd cry behind pillar but mostly keep on hunter to avoid damage. Swaps to priest can be made via blinding hunter and a sheep/fear on ret while priest gouged into dance ( without ps is best)
Furthermore a final swap to ret can be viable when he is oom/15-20% mana with burns/damage to force more cds or even kill.
PHD
Opener makes or breaks this matchup if you get some shit map like blades you have a uphill battle and will have to play well to win back the game. A sap on hunter or pala is best with a fear on dk into sheep on pala/fear if sappd. Opening hunter in opener without dance if pala is sappd is perfect, cheap disarm no kidney is best damage rotation as dk will most likely grip rogue after litching fear/sheep at opener. From queing vs many top PHDs I want to say that hunter is the only real kill target, however both pala and dk can die later in the game if hunter is in full blind-> sap and the dk/pala have no defensives left.
LSP
Refer to posisitoning, open priest hard force ps/trink, swap lock/back priest for kill. You’re on 2-3 minute timer vs this comp make hard swaps and use blind early on to get trinkets. Avoid fearing unless 2/3 trinkets have been forced to save yourself from getting ccd and forcing cloak defensive. An early aggressive cloak that can fiorce something is best in this matchup. (spam dispel UA, fuck the popo you need to do this to be able to instant dispel cc that lands on rogue otherwise you lose pressure and lose the game, dispelling UA is very important)
MLS/LSD/MLP
Refer to pillar distance positioning, once again you’re on a timer try and dispel uas and use cloak well, this matchup is hard and requires strong play from all 3 players on the rmp, kill targets are mostly lock priests and as always druids. Abuse druid playstyle by using out of range into blanket cs swaps on lock or mage.
Final Words
Main point of rmp is this, Vs all comps, you have cs and dance, in these windows if timed correclty all 3 players of rmp can burst into one target in a vanish cheap / dance cheap and 30k+ dmg forcing cds, use this as a basis for your play along with mage cc and you'll do excellently on ladder.
Gear
Spec
Glyphs
Macros
Spell Usage General
Dispelling Offensive and Defensive
Damaging
Healing
Positioning
Cloak and Block usage
Fearing
Situational Drinking
Comp Specific Strats
Final words
About the author
I've been playing priest since season 6 retail, multi glad through seasons 7-8-9-10. Started playing seriously on AT a few months ago and reached 2.6 mmr 2s PR and 2.600 mmr with 2610 team as RMP facing many high rated teams and strong comps along the way. From this I feel I have sufficient confidence in RMP season 8 to build a guide based on priest play within this comp, even though i'd like to state here that I still have much to learn about rmp but this guide aims to be a general coverage of the main aspects of the setup that I understand at the moment. I dont see that many good RMPS on ladder most likely due to difficulties with certain comps, hopefully this guide will encourage new RMPs with knowledge of comp and strat specifics and revitalize the ladder pool.
This guide aims to be a semi comprehensive guide on playing Priest in RMP, beginning with the general spec/gear/glyphs guide and then moving into the fun stuff such as positioning and defensive CD management. Enjoy.
Gear
Below is a screen shot of my current stats for RMP
Your main aims for stats are:
4% Hit
122 Spen (built using offhand/wand spen)
400-500 Haste
700+ Mp5 ooc
1100-1200 Resilience
Note here the importance of weapon swap use, it essentially gives you +100 to whatever stat you need for that match up with 1 gcd. Be careful however when going without spen, a safe rule would be to always use spen vs priests, mages and druids.
Specs
Here is a link to a super solid standard spec for 3s rmp and also 2s RP, note the mana talents such as Absolution and Mental Agility that are required to avoid mana problems.
Alternatives to this build include going 3/5 Holy Specialization instead of 3/5 Improved Renew
http://wow335.gamestool.net/priestt.php?5033003133320512331013211251230051030000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Other more offensive specs are viable also, however I feel this spec fits the role of a standard ladder spec pretty well.
Glyphs
Straight forward enough, the three main glyphs I use in 3s are
Pain Suppression (standard)
Pennance (standard)
PWShield (not so standard, the extra healing from shield can be useful low hp, preforms better than smite or inner fire glyph in many situations for overall throughput.
Macros
Below are a list of macros I use most commonly in arena, firstly targeting and dispel macros, for many players these are a given however I will go over them regardless.
/target party1
/target party2
/target player
Note the use of party1 and part2, if you use party frames or an addon like grid, top to bottom sort by group will always place party member 1 at the top and party member 2 below. Target player targets yourself, very useful.
/cast [target=player] Fear Ward
Fear wards self
/cast !Mass Dispel
Spammable MD
/use Inner focus
/use Desperate Prayer
Desperate Prayer + Inner macro (discussed later in guide)
/cast [target=player] Power Infusion
Power Infusion self (change player to mages name to Power Infusion mage)
/cast !Shadowfiend
/petaggressive
/petattack
Fiend macro that makes Sfiend actually work
#showtooltip Shackle Undead
/target Ebon Gargoyle
/cast Shackle Undead
/targetlasttarget
Shackle Garg/Any Use Macro
/stopcasting
/targetenemy [nohelp, noharm]
/cast Mind Soothe
Target anything reflect macro, can be used as focus macro also for warrior aoe reflect / standard reflect. (/target@focus)
/stopcasting
/equipslot 16 Jaded Crystal Dagger
/equipslot 18 Wrathful Gladiator's Wand of Alacrity
/equipslot 17 Wrathful Gladiator's Compendium
Weapon swap macro (replace names with ones of your choosing)
Enough numbers, time for some real shit
Spell Usage General
Flash heal or greater heal?
Generally flash heal is burst heal and in most cases you really want to avoid using it at all costs, the main reason priests have mana problems ever in 3s is due to using flash heal unnecessarily. In many situations 1 or 2 greater heals would do the same and cost less mana than 5+ flash heals.
Shield PoM or Penance?
If you’re coming out of cc and your rogue is low shield>pom>renew>cast is the best use of your spells especially with shield glyph, the main reason you don’t want to cast straight out of cc is mostly situational, vs casters with cs up you don’t want to be locked instantly on your first cast, so use instants instead and it will give you time to fake the cs as you rogue will at least have received some healing. Basic stuff just thought to cover it here.
MS effects
Healing vs MS as a priest involves more focus, optimally you want to allow your rogue to kite/evasion MS until it falls and then heal with penance, spamming FH into ms rogue vs prot/ele/ arms/ele hunt/dk isn’t what you want to be doing and you should not be doing. When in rmp your focus is around creating and avoiding pressure, this aspect if play is important as you have to be constantly aware of excess pressure on your rogue and for your rogue to know this and to reactivly kite/los/evasion correctly.
Defensive CDs
First Pain Suppression, biggest rule I'd give priests about Pain Suppression is that you really don’t ever want to use it on teammates unless they will die without it, most of the time teammates will live with their own cds if you call for them on time and are not in some cc chain/css up etc. Being able to save PS for yourself is very important vs comps such as TSG, SCleave, and most WizardCleaves, additionally dbl war you never ever want to use PS on anyone but yourself, you’re dead in one stun swap when they pop offensive cds if you do without a doubt unless some sick peels come in, but even then you’ll trade so many defensive cds for their offensive if they use them correctly they’ll have the advantage. However sometimes using PS on a mage so they can maintain pressure (stay offensive) is fine because most of the time you are able to land a kill because of it.
Bauble
Sick trinket but mostly used incorrectly or in panic, first any use of bauble over MS is a clear waste of the 2min cd, the best time to use bauble is when you are silenced/locked out or when your rogue for example has no ms/has just cloaked. Another side note on both ps and bauble is that neither should be used on a mage who still has a block.
Desperate prayer
Pretty straight forward, best used before bauble/ps to avoid wasting it, good in conjunction with inner focus, pretty useless without this. (priest never crit hihi)
I'd recommend using a macro such as the one previously mentioned. As time delayed between pressing two buttons can result in getting killed when it can be easily avoided.
At the end of Defnesive cds I want to say that posisioning is the main reason for the use of defensive cds, with good posisitioning the majority of the time they are not needed and teammates can be picked up with a few heals.
Dispelling, offensive and defensive
Defensive
Priest dispelling is important as positioning in many cases, your rogue needs close to 100% uptime on targets that are able to snare/slow such as locks/shamans mages and dks, the logic behind this is, the longer in the root/snare the rogue is, the greater distance the opponent has to kite and the longer it takes the rogue to return to the target to deal damage. Pre dispelling vs certain classes is important to counter this, most instant cc can be avoided in this way and all casted cc can be seen and dispelled instantly with practice, as the majority of the time your position means the cc will not be on you and therefore it is either on your mage or rogue.
Offensive dispelling
Offensive dispelling is important also vs such classes as druids, paladins priests and mages. At the start of the game rmp wants to sap one target, cc another and open on one with cheap gouge, this gouge window allows for the priest to clean all buffs off the selected target along with the mage. Doing this creates great pressure as follow up buffs such as freedom, shield and sacred can be dispelled instantly without having to filter through trash debuffs. A note vs druids is that dispelling rejuv (spam dispelling) on a target you’re on is extremely important, denying/delaying swiftmend creates great pressure and can force the druid into using bauble or NS simply because you are dispelling, a great trade.
Dispelling freedom from paladins is important for your rogue as in many cases the paladin will be with a warrior in 3s, therefore the rogue is slowed, and going back to the explanation earlier on dispelling, the rogue will lose time on the pala which is bad, If healers get distance, especially healers that can remove rogue poision a pala resetting to full hp is very bad. Freedom dispelling should be your number one priority
Dispelling other types of buffs from apponents is important also, such as fingers and icey viens from mages, bloodlust, feral instant and nether protection.
As a priest vs mage you should always be watching for fingers buff on mage in your focus frame, and to try and call for dispels from mage or try and md the buff yourself or jump dispel the buff from the mage to avoid getting deeped, if you can keep the fingers buff off the mage he has very few ways to cc you if you position well, this creates a lot of pressure for the rmp and can deny almost all the pressure from wizard teams as they lack MS effects and reley only on cc chains on priest.
Damaging as Priest
Priest damage plays an important role in rmp, in many situations the mage is not free to damage and is better off controlling/ccing enemy players while the rogue and the priest are free to damage. Priest damage can mean the difference from getting a trinket or getting nothing at all.
The best way to damage as a priest in most situations is double dot swp dp during the gouge on kill target (cheap->gouge) and then hfire, mind blast penance into smite spam. Ususally smite will not be needed, if cds are forced stop damage instantly to save mana, extra damage now will not gain anything for the rmp.
I just want to make clear how important priest damage is in situations such as killing pets, in swaps and in openers is for the rmp to get kills and maintain/create pressure, the main reason why rmp is so strong and has so few hard counters is because of this insane controlled burst (+wound) and if used correctly can make rmp seem insanely good. jk
Side note on damage, make sure that your rogue is dancing correctly, differnt dance rotations are required for differnt classes/situations, for example a stunless dance for pets/shamans or a stun garrote kidney dance for priests to avoid shield window.
Healing
One word, mana. Once again going back to not using flash heal and relying on instants, you cant get locked out on instants and you cant go oom from casting them, instants and penance are your best healing tools for all healing besides burst.
A huge note on healing is predicting damage, if you’re not watching enemy cast bars to see incoming damage you’re simply not playing to your full potential, in almost all wizard comps the damage is visual in the sense if seeing cast bars eg lighnight bolt/chaos bolt/incinerate/frostboltshatter realising this information and prehealing accordingly avoids your teammaes dropping low and creating a sense of pressure on your team and giving the other team momentum. Aim to quickly pick up low heath teammates to allow for them to position offensively again.
Further notes prior to positioning explanations, posisitoning when healing is important as you want to be able to free cast while not having to move to avoid cc, so effectively losing the opponents damaging classes while being in los of your teammate/s. this isn’t always down to the priest, the priest needs to set up the basic poisiton it is up to teammates to maintain this poisistion and move into the position required if opponents move / priest forced to move. High level awareness is required for all three members of rmp at the same time to reinforce this healing poisistion.
Poisitioning
The single most important aspect of priest play in RMP 3s is positioning by far, it sets up so many aspects of the rmp playstyle such as pressure by avoiding cc, setting up cc, keeping a teammate dispelled when chasing a target, avoiding swaps onto you, allowing your teammates to cc enemy players, forcing movement of enemy to cc you making them vulnerable to cc. in essence every comp you face as rmp will require different positioning by priest, it isn’t always pillar mode although this is very common and can be used in all matchups, some positioning specifics outclass this style in some cases.
I will cover positioning for a few matchups to give the general idea and reasoning behind why you should position in such a way and why positioning in certain ways can lose games basically.
Defensive Posisitoning General TSG/Caster
There is a difference between offensive and defensive positioning and some that allow for both aspects of play to be used.
Lets begin with basic defensive positioning plays vs TSG.
Pillars are you friend, your best friend. Avoiding getting swaped to vs tsg is the most important thing to keep in mind, this means being near a pillar and also being max range of grip/charge. When getting trained by TSG or any melee cleave variants for that matter including beast cleave your main goal is to escape to los, this requires your teammates to immobilize/peel the tsg for 2-3 secs to allow you to get distance to reach pillar, going back to the requirement for awareness again you have to be able to see instantly when the dk or war cannot damage you so there is no need to heal, simply run, walking slightly away and healing is not as effective as walking to los and healing in this position as you keep widening the gap at which they can reach you by denying them such gap closers as grip and charge, this is so important vs tsg and if used correctly standard tsg is such a free win comp it’s a joke.
Vs Wizards (dbl caster)
Firstly you never ever want to be out in the open (only in a few situations explained later) vs dbl caster teams you want to be at the adjacent pillar to where your teammates are. If you imagine nagrand arena, through the gates there are two pillars, open space, then two move, think of these two pillars at both ends as linked, in the best situation you’re on one pillar and your teammates are on the other but do not chase los unless they have defensive cds to make it worth it to chase that far. Really it’s a very bad idea to chase your teammates to that kind of los, in many cases it is better to sit pillar and wait for them to get back or Hymn to heal while still remaining safe from cc.
IF feared into the open/coiled/moving to open space
(please note here that before moving into the open when you know you must cross to cc/dispel/whatever make sure your mage and rogue know that your moving as the other team will try and cc at this time on you, if you know your mage has cs, your rogue has kick etc you can safely move, if not wait until they do then move. Really going back to the point on pressure if you get into cc rmp loses so much pressure its insane, you want to avoid this at all costs and never give the other team free cc. (At least force a deep from the mage so that he cannot use it for damage.)
When you become caught by casters basically moving back to pillar is always the safest option and avoid standing still and casting instead run a just dispel instants such as flame shock, once you get los you’re basically 100% hp again only use defensives such as desperate prayer if you know that you cannot reach the los in time to avoid the damage, please note that on at even if you are los you can still be hit by some abilities that were casted just as you were moving los, imagine that the pillars on at have no edges, you are not 100% safe until you are somewhat inside the pillar los.
Vs healer/melee/caster (notes on rmp mirror)
Pillar mostly, if chasing healer for dispels be right up ontop of them always, as they will most likely be on los, if they kite to open simply pillar up and swap while ccing them, in the case of druids pressure them to kite range then swap to a target and blanket cs after the druids rejuv global, dispel rejuiv and you’ve forced 6sec cc on the druid blanket of cs+ 2 globals for rejuv and swiftmend.
Most healer melee casters contain a warrior, getting peels from swaps by warrior is very important, for such comps as lock/war/pala a swap to priest that cannot escape is almost always fatal, keep near pillars when the warrior has cds to use and your mage or rogue cannot stop lock damage. Dancing the warrior in these situations is fine simply to peel but however as I will mention later dancing is best saved for forcing cds rather than it being defensive.
Essentially a position to dispel and still be able to move to avoid damage is pefect posisitoning vs healer/melee/caster. However a note on the rmp mirror matchup which cannot really be explained in a how to guide is best to position very defensivly, save fears for priests attempting to fear you and avoid being cced while still having clear los on your rogue but being able to los their mage is the most important. Never chase to fear a priest / dispel fear ward almost always a waste of time and globals when you can just fear it off and have a free fear after cooldown. Rng luck with fear ward dispel is shit so don’t bet your games on it. Leanring how to play rmp mirror matchup is mainly done through practice as it is essentially 3 meta games played at once, vs mage priest and rogue. Fear battles vs priest, deep/csnova/sheep battles vs mage and blind/sap vs rogue. While still maintaining healing and damaging when needed.
Posisitoning vs LSP variants aka god comps
Max range to avoid aoe fear from lock+priest. The best posisiton for you to be in since a hard swap from priest/lock is almost impossible without a full silence on you into coil, however most of this damage is avoidable and very obvious due to pre dotting. Vs the ele/lock variant the same logic applies, max range to avoid priest and lock fear and dispel dots for a possible swap/ if swapped to as mentioned before kite max range los and heal. IF they chase cc priest/shaman and swap hard onto lock/shaman as they will be in a very dangerous posisiton defensivly (middle map)
Cloak and Block
I'd like to make a quick reference to the use of rmps main defensives Cloak of Shadows and Ice Block.
Use of cloak
Cloaking correctly as a general note is extremely important vs caster cleaves, the best time to cloak is always when cc lands on priest and before stuns(deep/sfury/soil) land on rogue, the perfect cloak time is just before those stuns to possibly cloak them but to mainly get pressure on their team even while your priest is in cc to keep up that constant pressure that RMP needs to win games. As a note for priests in regards to cloak, never trinket when your rogue has cloak up, only when your rogue cannot vanish / cloak damage/clean vanish you need to trinket cc, the rogue can use cloak to stop follow up cc (fears/sheeps/clones) if the cloak is used well.
Use of Block
Block high, nuff said, predict damage and block, if silence shot and rooted vs hunt dk both hitting you as mage just block save not only priest mana but allow you to maintain pressure with high hp.
Fearing
How and when to to fear healer/melee/caster
Fearing is important in many matchups as rmp, more important in some rather than others. Mostly in healer/caster/melee your fear is very important in setting up swaps/kills. For example take thundercleave, an arms warrior ele shaman and hpala this comp is 100% free win for rmp if played correctly. Fearing shaman while warrior is sheeped and pala is gouged is your perfect setup, killing cleansing is also super important, use penance to one shot it and swd to kill tremors or use weapon (sometimes unreliable due to swing) another example of healer/caster/melee is lock/warrior/x a fear on lock and pet acts in a similar manner to thundercleave on the shaman, most of the time you can dot warlock + mage debuffs and fear to avoid devour/dispell while sheeping warrior gouge pala -> dance. Really standard stuff for these comps.
Fearing vs dblcaster/healer
Really you’re not going to want to be moving into a position to fear unless its safe to do so, or doing it could setup a kill without any risk. But going back to positioning again mage and rogue have enough cc/control without fear to win games vs dbl caster teams, your fear in this situation is merely a buffer that allows for a near perfect kill swap to become a kill.
Fearing vs dbl melee/healer
Once again returning to positioning, you’re not going to want to move to a position to fear the paladin/priest/x so use it on dk/ret/rogue for swaps to pala/ warrior. Stay pillar, stay safe, yolo.
Situational Drinking importance
Vs certain comps such as triple healer aka druid/priest/shaman (feral variant almost impossible as dance rmp, kill on druid required I think, tough matchup, go muti if spam queing) variants
You will be burning druid/shaman to oom to win the game (make it 2/3 healers essentially) during this you mana will quickly drop due to buring/dispelling healing so around 40-30% mana on your next cc swap setup (fear sham/x sheep priest/x) go drink 30-40% mana up.
This will allow you to get far ahead of the druid and win with ease
This is the only real comp where you will need to drink, vs skilled players of healer/melee/caster is the only other situation where you will need to drink, everything else is a 3min race against time game.
There are many other concepts of rmp play that id like to discuss but this guide is already long enough, to conclude I want to list and explain some standard strats vs common teams on ladder that may cause problems for RMP teams (afghan nd co.)
Comp Specific Strats
PHP
Essentially a counter, hunter or priest is kill target, opening priest is optional to force trinket/ps to make killing hunter easier. Priest needs to play well in this matchup to avoid fears/long cc chains and get fears on ret while mage instants priest into sheep while hunter is gouged (gouge on hunter even though it will dodge most of the time will make this strat work and win games) then dance hunter with all 3 dpsing, follow up sheeps on priest with mc on ret are optional, but situational at best. Aim to avoid their pressure and maintain pressure of your own by burning ret to make him freak out nd cry behind pillar but mostly keep on hunter to avoid damage. Swaps to priest can be made via blinding hunter and a sheep/fear on ret while priest gouged into dance ( without ps is best)
Furthermore a final swap to ret can be viable when he is oom/15-20% mana with burns/damage to force more cds or even kill.
PHD
Opener makes or breaks this matchup if you get some shit map like blades you have a uphill battle and will have to play well to win back the game. A sap on hunter or pala is best with a fear on dk into sheep on pala/fear if sappd. Opening hunter in opener without dance if pala is sappd is perfect, cheap disarm no kidney is best damage rotation as dk will most likely grip rogue after litching fear/sheep at opener. From queing vs many top PHDs I want to say that hunter is the only real kill target, however both pala and dk can die later in the game if hunter is in full blind-> sap and the dk/pala have no defensives left.
LSP
Refer to posisitoning, open priest hard force ps/trink, swap lock/back priest for kill. You’re on 2-3 minute timer vs this comp make hard swaps and use blind early on to get trinkets. Avoid fearing unless 2/3 trinkets have been forced to save yourself from getting ccd and forcing cloak defensive. An early aggressive cloak that can fiorce something is best in this matchup. (spam dispel UA, fuck the popo you need to do this to be able to instant dispel cc that lands on rogue otherwise you lose pressure and lose the game, dispelling UA is very important)
MLS/LSD/MLP
Refer to pillar distance positioning, once again you’re on a timer try and dispel uas and use cloak well, this matchup is hard and requires strong play from all 3 players on the rmp, kill targets are mostly lock priests and as always druids. Abuse druid playstyle by using out of range into blanket cs swaps on lock or mage.
Final Words
Main point of rmp is this, Vs all comps, you have cs and dance, in these windows if timed correclty all 3 players of rmp can burst into one target in a vanish cheap / dance cheap and 30k+ dmg forcing cds, use this as a basis for your play along with mage cc and you'll do excellently on ladder.
Hello, an amazing Information dude. Thanks for sharing this nice information with us. A PVP Crystal
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