Priest Macro Guide

These days playing a priest is rough…in PvE you have to compete with shaman’s spamming chain heal on the raid, paladin’s spamming holy light on the tank, and in PvP you’re constantly running and getting beat down but double melee gib teams.

Needless to say, it’s a rough life for priests. However, a few well placed macros can change all of that and give you an immediate edge on your opponents.

Raid Healing Priest Macros
/stopcasting
/cast Greater Heal

/stopcasting
/cast Renew

/stopcasting
/cast Flash Heal

/stopcasting
/cast Circle of Healing

I think of all the macros, this is probably the most simplistic and effective. It drives me crazy watching healer’s jump or move in order to cancel a heal. This is incredibly inefficient as you lose large amounts of overall healing time throughout the fight. Getting used to a system of stopcasting macros will allow you to turret up and let the heals fly, maximizing your available time to cast heals.

Power Word Shield Macro
/cast [target=player] Power Word: Shield

Pretty simple, just cast a PWS on your self without ever having to drop target. Nice in the heat of an arena match or a raid encounter.

Dispel Macros
/target (name of your teammate)
/cast Dispel Magic

Generic quick target defensive dispel on your teammate.

/assist (name of your teammate)
/cast Dispel Magic

Generic quick target offensive dispel, great for assisting your DPS classes to clear shields, buffs, etc.

Note: The above dispel macros were pulled from the more complete guide here, discipline priest arena strategy.

Mouse Over Healing Macros
/cast [target=mouseover] Flash Heal

/cast [target=mouseover] Greater Heal

/cast [target=mouseover] Renew

/cast [target=mouseover] Circle of Healing

Now, this method of healing may or may not work for you. For my shaman I found it ideal to manage raid healing, by using these macros in combination with a raid unit frame mod called grid (to the left is a screenshot of grid). This basically allowed me to mouse over any frame within the grid unit frame and fire on chain heals on my shaman. You could achieve the same result using the clique mod, but I prefer the macros

Rebuffing Macro
/castsequence Inner Fire, Power Word: Fortitude, Shadow Protection

Requires multiple clicks, but will allow you to put all your buffing spells onto one bar. You can simply add any additional buffs you have based on race / talent spec (divine spirit for example) at the end of the macro, each requiring an additional click.

Trinket + Inner Fire + Devouring Plague Macro
#showtooltip Devouring Plague
/use NameofYourDamageTrinket
/cast Inner Focus
/stopcasting
/cast Devouring Plague

Nice macro that further consolidates clicks and action bar use

Trinket + Healing Macro
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Greater Heal

For reference purposes 13 is top trinket, 14 is bottom trinket. These type of macros are a staple for every class and spec. Now, the trinket may determine weather or not you use this macro. Some trinkets shouldn’t be used until a given point (IE…spirit based regen trinkets shouldn’t be used the moment the fight begins). Conversely you could create a +healing trinket and circle of healing for raid spamming, since you’ll want it up as often as it can be used.

Silence / Arcane Torrent Macro
/castsequence reset=45 Silence, Arcane Torrent

A good friend of mine used this a ton when I played with him season 3. Once again, it won’t make or break you, but it’s certainly a nice way to free up some action bar space.

The DoT Bomb
/cast Inner Fire
/stopcasting
/cast Devouring Plague / Star Shards (if you have it either)
/stopcasting
/cast Shadow Word Pain

Smart Shadowfiend
#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/cast [harm,nodead][target=targettarget,harm,nodead] Shadowfiend

This macro will send your shadowfiend to attack your target if it’s hostile. If you do not have a hostile target currently targeted then it will send it after your target’s target if it is hostile.

If you’re looking for shadow priest specific macros, check out this guide, shadow priest macros.

Shadow Priest / Rogue 2v2 Arena Strategy

Well this weekend I recently started playing with my friend who’s a Shadow priest and I have to say it’s been a blast so far. In this first section I’ll break down this combo, and with time will go into specific combos.

Rogue Arena Talent Spec:
Now in this type of team the rogue will probably want to go with either an AR / Prep build or a Shadowstep build

Personally, I’m more biased towards Shadowstep as the standard assassination talents and Vile Poisons really are just amazing. Others may like the burst ability of Ar/Prep and by all means more power to you.
Priest Arena Talent Spec:
Arena Shadow Priest Specs

Now that you have you’re talents chosen let’s begin with the way most fights work with this team.
In most fights you and your teammate will usually be trying to CC the healer and down the dps in Healer/DPS combos(druids can be an exception to this) while going for the squishier of the two dps targets in Dual Dps situations. The one thing that is going to win you a game is your ability to coordinate CC well. This means rotating fears, blinds, saps as needed and being perfect about calling out trinket pops.

Arena Trinkets
The priest will definitely want a battlemaster’s trinket as people are going to stick to you like white on rice. The rogue can justify using one as well as sometimes it will really pull through for certain combos. Now if you do grab your BM trinket try not to gimp your offensive capabilities too much.

Team Weaknessess
Well your number one problem in this combo is: Undead opponents. Will of the Forsaken can be a real killer sometimes.
Another weakness is that you guys are meant for quick 1-2 minute matches. If you don’t have someone down by the first 30-60 seconds, the chances are that you’re going down.

Hope this first section helped look out for specific combos strategies in the coming days.

2v2 Arena Macros
Shadow Priest Macros
Rogue Macro Guide
Rogue Focus Macro Guide

Shadow Priest / Rogue Arena Matchups:
Priest / Warrior
Priest / Rogue
Rogue / Hunter
Rogue / Warlock
Rogue / Shadow Priest
Rogue / Mage
Druid / Warrior
Druid / Rogue
Shaman / Warrior
Paladin / Warlock