PVP TIps & Tricks - Priest

Today I’m continuing the mini-series of PVP from the viewpoint of the Marksman Hunter. I’ll cover each class and what you should look for each of them to do. We continue today with Paladins(er, Priests. Yeah Priest. Thanks K!).

Priest
I generally don’t have many problems with priests. If they’re holy, they die fairly quickly and if they’re shadow, I die fairly quickly. Most often when I’m PVPing with my hunter I take it as my personal goal to interrupt the healers. While the healers are often paladins, priests fill this role quite often as well. Be aware that you’re not necessarily going to be able to differentiate between holy and discipline priests until you see particular spellcasts.

Things to watch for:

• Priests have potentially a lot of buffs. Arcane shot them all.
• If you are facing the hard to detect discipline priest you’ll be able to see Pain Suppression. This, along with Silent Resolve, gives a huge boost to resisting dispel attempts. Expect buffs to not disappear when facing a discipline priest.
• Channeled spells (like Mind Flay) can be interrupted with Silencing Shot or Scatter Shot.
• Priests who close distance with you are going to fear. Be ready. If you see a priest running into melee distance you know what to do. Scatter, Concussive, Frost Trap to keep them away from you.
• A priest will almost always have a shield up. This too is a buff ready to be arcane shotted.
• A Shadow Fiend that is freezing trapped returns no mana to its caster. And since Shadow Fiend has a short lifespan, one trap will take care of it.
• The most effective sting for a priest is Viper Sting.
• Save Silencing Shot to interrupt Greater Heals (if holy)
• A priest can sometimes fade out of a pet attack. Be ready to send your pet back onto the priest.
• Your Hunter’s Mark is dispel-able by a priest.
• For holy priests, the best trap is a snake trap (especially with points in Survival) for the interrupts.
• You cannot dispel the Shadowform buff with Arcane Shot.
• Beware of being kited. A priest with shields, presence of mind, and renew can generally keep themselves upright for a while. If you’re kited far away from the battle, it’s not a forgone conclusion that you’ll return without a trip to the graveyard.
• Since I’m writing as a Marksman hunter, I don’t have access to Bestial Wrath making my pet immune to fear. A priest getting beat on by a pet will generally fear them off if he can get them away.
• My mana pool is about 80% of the size of my health pool. I find that quite often (non-shadow) priests will use mana burn on me. Watch out for this. It hurts and if you survive you’ll either need to drink if possible or run the less damage efficient