HOLY PRIEST ADVANCED TIPS

GUARDIAN SPIRIT

In this next segment of our course, we're going to be meticulously dissecting each of your key healing cooldowns, giving you a comprehensive breakdown on how they work and the rules behind using them. And to start things off, we're going to be looking at the most iconic Holy Priest cooldown, Guardian Spirit.

So Guardian is, without a doubt, one of the most misunderstood and misused cooldowns in our toolkit. Now, just to cover some basics, GS has three unique properties.

Number one, it increases all healing taken by the target by 60%, which even includes healing besides your own. Number two, if the target drops to 0 HP while Guardian is active, it will automatically bring them to 40% HP.

And number three, it's one of the few external CDs that can be used while stunned. Pretty useful for PvP.

Now, the mistake many players make is only focusing on the cheat death effect of Guardian Spirit, treating it only as a life-saving cooldown. The reason this is such a huge mistake is because of Guardian Angel, which reduces the cooldown of GS to 60 seconds only if it doesn't proc.

And this then becomes our goal when using Guardian, to make sure it does not proc. Now, because of this, you want to be using Guardian Spirit as more of a tempo cooldown, aiming to press it to quickly stabilize someone who's at risk of dropping low to prevent them from needing to use their own personal defensive.

Players these days are so very prone to using their own personal defensive, the moment they drop very low on HP. And so in order to prevent an overlap here, we want to use Guardian on high HP to deal with heavy burst damage, which aims to make sure it does not proc.

Now, in order to make that happen, we're always going to look to line it up with our biggest, burstiest heals, which means Serenity and Power Word Life.

Here we can see Zen make sure he pairs his Guardian with a Serenity, which not only stabilizes HP in that moment, but also leaves a huge map of the game, and a massive mastery hot to keep HP up for a few seconds after.

Now, in moments where Serenity isn't available, the Oracle Hero tree now makes it possible to use Power Word Life on targets below 50%, which is what Zen does here, pairing Guardian with a Power Word Life, which is going to heal slightly less than Serenity, but will still leave a massive mastery hot.

The mistake we then want to avoid is pressing Guardian without having strong instant cast healing.

Now, this is bound to happen from time to time, since you're going to find yourself in a situation where you're going to have to use your power word life, and you're going to have to use your power word life to get yourself in situations where you need to use Guardian for its cheat death effect.

The only other time you might want to press Guardian without any immediate healing available, is if there's a potentially game losing CC chain that you absolutely cannot avoid.

Here, Zen shoves his Guardian right before the Arcane Mage lands a Polymorph, which gives him a chance to sit the CC and let his teammate cheat death if needed. You should also note that Guardian increases all healing taken, not just your own.

This makes it exceptionally powerful when used on any specs with lots of self-healing, or when there is Hybrid on your team who can provide strong off-heals. So, to recap, you should avoid thinking of Guardian as a cheat death effect.

Absolutely avoid it. And think of it more like a tempo cooldown.

This single change in mindset is absolutely crucial for playing Holy Priest effectively.

SPIRIT OF REDEMPTION

Our next major cooldown is Spirit of Redemption, which becomes an active ability with the Spirit of the Redeemer PvP talent. During your Angel form, you are immune to all damage, CC, and interrupts, and can cast longer-range heals on any friendly target besides yourself.

But during this time, you can't move at all, and you're going to be unable to use any offensive ability.

What's crucial to understand about this is just like Guardian Spirit, Angel form is a tempo cooldown, not necessarily designed to save someone from the brink of death, but instead to stay ahead and prevent yourself from falling behind.

Specifically in the early game and the late game, not in the middle, where damage is really going to be at its highest and when you're very vulnerable to CC.

Every time Spirit of Redemption is used, you're going to want to pair it with Divine Hymn, since when playing with the Seraphic Crescendo talent, these two spells will always line up.

Divine Hymn will do some amazing HPS, while the Spirit of the Redeemer being uninterruptible in Angel form, and will even stack a healing increase buff on all friendly targets, which allows you to do more powerful heals towards the end of your Angel.

In Solo Shuffle, you want to use your first Angel form during the initial clash of each round, when the enemy team starts popping CDs. Here we can see the fight has started, and the enemy team starts using their offensives.

Now as a result, Zen trades out Angel form, and casts a Divine Hymn, before spamming uninterruptible heals on his partner, which allows him to stay ahead on tempo.

Now because you can't move while Angel is active, you want to not only see where your teammates are currently positioned, but also consider where they might reposition in the next few seconds.

Using this combined data, your goal is to position yourself in a way where you're going to be able to freely cast for the entire duration of the cooldown, which means avoiding areas with lots of line of sight.

Now keep in mind that during Angel form, the right side of the screen will be the same as the left side of the screen, and you can see that the range of all of your spells is increased to 69 yards, allowing you to safely heal from extreme distances on larger open maps, and you can even use other spells like Life Grip while it's active.

Since one of our goals while in Angel form is to channel Divine Hymn, you might be wondering if it's better to do at the start, or at the end.

Now there's no perfect time to cast Divine Hymn, and there are good arguments to be made whether it should be used at the very beginning, or towards the end of Angel form, but the most important thing to consider is that the cast is used during every Angel.

If no one is at immediate risk of dying, then you can Divine Hymn at the start of your Angel, but if someone has dropped critically low, you might need to spot heal him first.

Also note that Divine Hymn can be used to heal players who are out of LoS, which even includes Smoke Bomb, and remember that you can even use Sanctify to heal players in Smoke Bomb too.

Outside of Divine Hymn, your spot healing priority really isn't going to change much when you're in Angel form, so you might want to use the Divine Hymn to heal your opponent.

But since you're completely immune to CC and interrupts, you're more incentivized to hard cast Flash heals to help reset the cooldown on Serenity. Another goal when using Spirit of Redemption is to dispel Dots, especially against Affliction Warlocks and Elemental Shamans.

While in Angel form, you don't suffer the backlash effect from dispelling UA or Flameshock, and since all your spells are free, it's the perfect time to cast MD on as many players as possible while also single out the damage you're dispelling to clear multiple rows of Dots.

Your final goal when using Angel form is to press it very early into each round in Solo Shuffle. As with most 2 minute healing cooldowns, this enables you to survive the initial clash where damage is really at its peak, while also having a stronger late game when Dampening starts to really ramp high.

So by using it early, you have a high chance of being able to use the ability a second time, especially during a crucial moment where it might be needed for the healing and the mana.

For now, I think the most important thing is to stay in your Dome until you have finished your Dome and the time of your final game before heading to the next trade. In case you're still waiting for a trade to begin, be prepared to play Dota 2 on the side of the wall if it seems like you need to.

In case you have not played Dota 2 so far, you can set your own trade on the side of the wall. If you want to trade on the side of the wall, use different trades on your Dome.

APOTHEOSIS

So the next major cooldown we're going to cover is Apotheosis, which will instantly reset one charge of each of your Holy Words, while also increasing the effectiveness of the cooldown reduction that your other spells have on each of your Holy Words.

For example, Flash Heal normally reduces the cooldown of Serenity by 6 seconds, but during Apotheosis it gets increased to 18 seconds, allowing you to reset your Holy Words faster.

Apotheosis will now also grant you increased healing and will even make your next 3 heal cast instant, allowing you to reduce the cooldown of Serenity without needing to cast.

And if that wasn't enough, every Holy Word spell becomes zero mana cost during Apoth, which not only encourages you to use your Holy Words, but also reset them as many times as you can to get even more value.

When it comes to actually using Apotheosis in Arena though, it's best to once again think of it as a tempo cooldown, not necessarily designed to save someone's life, but instead to keep your team stable to regain tempo. Now to do this effectively, we need to follow a few key rules.

Number one, because Apotheosis resets all of your Holy Words, your goal is to try and use Apoth when they're ready on CD, especially Serenity and especially Chastise.

Look here how Zin has used all of his Holy Words on CD right before Apotheosis is used, which will then reset them all instantly, giving him not only increased healing, but allowing him to land a Chastise Sphere on the Resto Druid.

Number two, every time Apotheosis is pressed, your goal is to get as many resets on your Holy Words as you can, using Flash Heal more liberally to reset Serenity. Look at how Zin positions himself far away from the fight to avoid getting interrupted on Flash Heals, giving him multiple Serenity resets.

He maintains this conservative positioning for the rest of his Apotheosis, with the goal of avoiding as much CC and as much as possible. So, if you're going to use Apotheosis on CD, you need to be careful not to get as many interrupts as possible to get the maximum amount of resets.

Now, just as some added nuance here, if we're playing Archon, we'll ideally want to press Halo before we use Apotheosis, since it's guaranteed to give us multiple Surge of Light procs, which we can use to CDR Serenity.

What we really want to stress here in this course is that Apoth is not really a standard healing cooldown, and now while it certainly can increase your healing output, its sole purpose is, once again, to keep momentum, and equally as important, to preserve your mana, since it makes your more costly spells completely free.

You should think of Apotheosis as more of a bridge that fills a gap when you have already burned your Holy Words. Now, generally speaking, it will be either the third or fourth cooldown you press each and every game.

In the opener, you'll almost want to always press Spirit of Redemption and Divine Word. Then, within one minute, you can expect to press Guardian or Apotheosis.

Or even both, in order to stay ahead while you wait for Angel Form to come back up. Now, while it might seem smart to hold onto Apotheosis for a long time, it's definitely not advised, and that's for one key reason.

The second use of Apoth is super important, because not only will damage be a lot harder to heal, but typically at this point of the game, you're going to definitely have most, if not all, of your Holy Words on CD, and you're really going to be starving on mana.

If you can manage to hit your second Apoth in each solo shuffle, it gives you a much stronger chance to survive the endgame.

VOID SHIFT

Alright, to shake things up a little bit here, we have a spell that can finally be categorized outside of the tempo CD box we've been building, and that is Void Shift. This is your longest CD defensive and typically used just once per game, swapping HP with your target.

Now, unlike every other cooldown we've covered in this course so far, Void Shift is definitely a last resort cooldown, make no mistake about it.

Meant for moments where you have absolutely no other way to top your teammate in the next global without him dying, or to save yourself in a pinch if you're the one under pressure.

Now, as with many last resort CDs, your goal when using Void Shift is to save it for the exact moment where you need to save someone before they die and no other option is available. It should be, by definition, the last cooldown you press in your rotation.

You'll get the most value from Void Shift when using it on extremes. It's a great tool for those extremely low HP targets with the goal of using it as close to 0 HP as possible.

This ability shines when you just cannot top your target, acting as a last second life saver. Now, in most situations, there's almost no reason to swap with a target above 25% HP, so timing is everything.

Now, because of the nature of being a last resort cooldown, Life Swap is best paired with your PvP trinket, which you typically want to preserve for a guaranteed save on the target.

Now, there are certainly times where you're going to need to swap without using your trinket, but as a general rule, you should try and save your trinket specifically to swap if needed, which means you shouldn't really be pressing Mind Control or Mind Games in any situation where a swap might be needed.

You should also know that Void Shift can't be used while in Spirit of Redemption, which is why we highly recommend adding a slash, cancel or align to a macro to make sure it always goes off.

RAY OF HOPE

Next up, we have our only optional cooldown, Ray of Hope, which is a PvP talent that, on its surface, might seem similar to Guardian Spirit, but what lurks below this is an even more complicated ability. Now, when it's used, Ray of Hope will freeze the health bar of that target and increase their healing taken by 50%.

When active, the target will then have one or two buffs, representing what will happen once the Ray of Hope ends. In this case, if the target is taking more healing per second than damage per second, they're going to have a yellow buff, which means Ray of Hope will heal at the end of its duration.

But if the buff turns blue, it means the target is taking more damage, resulting in what's called a negative Ray, and dealing damage when Ray of Hope ends, potentially killing the target. Now, what that means is that Ray of Hope turns the game into an HPS vs.

DPS battle, where it becomes your job to keep the Ray positive by using the 50% increase. Now, in order to make this trick work, our goal is to only press Ray of Hope if the target is below 50%.

Doing so is going to allow your increased Ray of Hope healing to double-dip with Desperate Times for the entire duration of Ray, since the target's HP is locked in place.

And even better, using it below 50% is even better, since it means you can also Power Word Life the target along with a Serenity or two, which practically guarantees you're still alive. So, if you're doing this, you're going to have to use the 50% increase, which is going to give your Ray a higher chance to be positive.

Now, even though it might seem Ray is basically the same as Guardian, it's not really in the same boat as our other tempo cooldowns. Ray of Hope is more or less kind of a save, meant to delay big burst damage instantly, sort of like a blessing of protection.

It's even completely fine to overlap with your teammates' defensive cooldowns if the enemy team is doing a lot of damage, since your teammates' defensives combined with Ray's increased healing give it a higher chance to be positive.

RESONANT WORDS

Welcome to our mini-guide on Resonant Words. If you played Holy Priest during Shadowlands, you might remember this buff, but if not, or if you need a refresher, we're here to break it down for you.

Resonant Words is a buff that is activated by casting any of your Holy Word spells, which means Serenity, Sanctify, and Chastise. The buff, which unfortunately does not stack, will increase the healing done by your next Flash heal, heal, or Power Word life by 40%.

Now what this means is that whenever you use a Holy Word, your next global should be either Flash heal, heal, or Power Word life. For instance, if you were to Serenity, you now have Resonant Words, and before you press any of your other Holy Words, you should attempt to weave in one of these heals.

Resonant Words gives your healing globals a repeatable pattern. You alternate in between casting a Holy Word into a heal, into another Holy Word, into another heal, aiming to dip into the 40% healing bonus as often as you can.

Now we should note that this healing modifier even stacks with other mods, including From Darkness Comes Light, the Surge of Light modifier on the Archon Tree, and everything else, which can all make Flash heal do a lot of healing.

Anyway, if you really want to min-max your healing, make sure to dip into the power of Resonant Words by alternating your healing globals.

OUTPLAY WITH LIFEGRIP

If only there were an ability like Death Grip. But for your teammates, maybe we could call it Life Grip.

Well guess what? We already have it.

Leap of Faith. With an ability this powerful, surely there's a few clever ways to outplay the enemy, right?

And you'd be absolutely right here. You'll rarely hear anyone call Leap of Faith by its actual name.

Instead, most people know it as Life Grip, and honestly, it's a little easy to see why. Let's explore some tips and tricks to make the most out of Life Grip.

First off, Life Grip no longer interrupts cast. This means that when you grip a caster, their spell will now finish mid-grip instead of being cancelled the moment you use it.

This change is an absolute game changer, allowing you to pull a teammate out of range of melee kicks or crowd control. Another great way to use Life Grip too, though, is to shut down an enemy's go before it even begins.

If you see your teammate getting stunned? Oh well.

The long-timed Life Grip can pull them back to safety, completely disrupting the enemy's kill attempt. This is especially effective against rogues, as you can often grip your teammate right before they drop a smoke bomb.

Rogues tend to use smoke bomb when they know your teammate doesn't have a trinket available, which makes it a perfect moment to grip them to safety. Life Grip isn't just a defensive cooldown, though.

It can be a powerful offensive tool as well. When an enemy is kiting in your position closer to the kill target, you can use Life Grip to pull your teammate right back into the game.

This can create opportunities to secure a kill, or even set up a devastating crowd control chain. And finally, Life Grip can be a lifesaver when it comes to helping your teammates kite.

Against enemy casters, you can grip your teammate to a pillar, giving them the opportunity to line of sight incoming damage. This is great when you're out of defensive cooldowns or about to be crowd controlled yourself.

When facing melee, Life Grip can create valuable distance, giving your teammate the breathing room they need. This is particularly effective against the enemy's back.

It's particularly effective if you're playing with a caster, as the extra space allows them to squeeze in a few more casts.

SELECTING THE BEST PI TARGETS

Power Infusion, or PI, might seem simple at first. I mean, you just give it to the class that benefits the most from haste, right?

Well, here's the catch with that. Mages, Warlocks, Death Knights, Balanced Druids, Elemental Shamans, Shadow Priests, Beastmastery Hunters, I mean, all of them and more all stack haste.

You see the problem with this? Figuring out the best PI target really isn't as straightforward as it seems.

Now, luckily, our PvE friends have already crunched the numbers for us here, providing valuable insight into who benefits the most from this. Now, when it comes to choosing the best PI target, you have two strategies here.

The first approach is probably the easiest, though not necessarily the most optimal. You simply give Power Infusion to whoever pops their cooldowns first.

This method takes the guesswork out of the equation, and instead of analyzing who benefits the most from haste, you're focusing on timing, making it a straightforward and reactive way to use PI. Now, a more effective way to choose, the best PI target is to take a closer look at your team's composition.

While Blood Mallet, a popular PvE website, focuses on raid and dungeon scenarios, it does provide a useful tool that shows how much each class benefits from Power Infusion. Now, although the numbers might be slightly skewed in PvP, they do still offer a solid guideline for making informed decisions.

For instance, if you're playing with a Feral Druid and a Frost Mage, the data shows that the Feral Druid gains more value from PI during their cooldowns. Now, on the other hand, if you have an Arms Warrior and an Unholy Death Knight, the choice is clear there as well.

The Death Knight should get PI due to the significant difference in how much each class benefits from haste. Now, of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule.

If Power Infusion is off cooldown and your teammate is going for a kill, you should absolutely use it to help secure that kill. These strategies work best in the opener, but as some classes don't have two-minute cooldowns, it can be tricky to perfectly align everything up.

In those cases, you're going to need to rely on your game sense and adjust accordingly to make the most out of your PI usage.

DON’T WASTE SHADOWFIEND

Who doesn't love our little blob of Shadow? Shadow Fiend has been by our side for the past 15 years and it's hard not to get attached to it.

We know you're eager to summon him into battle, but hold on a second here, this little guy is one of our best cooldowns for mana regeneration and wasting him is not going to be an option. Shadow Fiend restores about 5.5% of your mana if it lands every single hit, which makes it a great cooldown for mana management.

If you summon Shadow Fiend right at the start of the game, you won't get the full benefit since your mana is still going to be full. However, using it early is still important to ensure you can fit in at least two uses throughout the match.

A good rule of thumb is to spend around 10% of your mana first before calling in your Shadow Fiend. Shadow Fiend scales with haste, which means pairing it with Power Infusion during a burst window, will make it a good way to get the most out of Shadow Fiend.

Shadow Fiend scales with haste, which means pairing it with Power Infusion during a burst window, can be incredibly effective. With higher haste, Shadow Fiend lands more hits, which translates to even more mana return.

This effect becomes even stronger when combined with other haste buffs like Bloodlust. So if you're playing twos with a Shaman, you can squeeze out some extra value by timing Shadow Fiend with their Bloodlust.

Now it's important to remember that Shadow Fiend isn't invincible, it can be killed, crowd controlled, or even kited just like any other pet. To get the most value out of it, it's best to summon Shadow Fiend during a go rather than sending it out randomly.

When the kill target is locked down with stuns or other crowd control, Shadow Fiend can land more of its hits, maximizing both its damage and mana return.

ABUSE THIS HEALING MECHANIC

You watch your teammates' health drop lower and lower and lower. Maybe they're even starting to panic.

But as a holy priest, you've got a powerful trick up your sleeve. Desperate Times.

Mastering this talent of Desperate Times allows you to stay ahead of incoming damage, even if you fall behind at first. Here's how Desperate Times works.

When your target's health drops below 50%, your healing is increased by 20%. With a well-timed Serenity, you can easily bring someone from just below 50% all the way to full health, taking advantage of the bonus healing to apply a massive hot through Echo of Light.

By abusing this mechanic, you can let your hot do the heavy lifting, allowing you to sit back and to focus on doing damage in CC. This talent works exceptionally well with Ray of Hope.

If you cast Ray on a teammate when they're below 50% health, the bonus healing from Ray of Hope stacks with the increased healing from Desperate Times. This effect can be further amplified by Guardian Angel.

If you activate Guardian Angel when your teammate's health drops below 50%, and follow it up with Serenity, the resulting hot from Echo of Light is going to be strong enough to sustain them through most crowd control chains.

PERFECT YOUR LIGHTWELL POSITIONING

Lightwell. You either love it or you hate it, but one thing's for sure, it's here to stay.

Now where did I put that thing, man? It always seems to get lost.

But don't worry, I guess. We've got some tips to help you get the most out of this cooldown.

One of the biggest mistakes holy priests make with Lightwell is placing it, oh man, in the wrong spot. Tucked behind a pillar or way too close to a wall, like the one on Hookpoint.

You might be wondering, what's the best placement for this darn thing? Well generally, right in the open or in the center of the map, where you expect most of the fight to take place.

Lightwell isn't something you can just reposition on the fly, so careful placement is key to making sure it's actually healing when you need it most. Now on maps like Nagrand Arena, Tol Viren, and Ashmane's Fall, placing Lightwell is relatively simple.

Just drop it near the center and you're going to be in range most of the fight. However, maps like Mugambala presents a bigger challenge here, with so many walls and Z-axis, it's easy for Lightwell to be both line of sighted and ranged out if your team moves too far.

In these trickier areas, the best approach is to place Lightwell in the most open area closest to your teammate.

HOLY PRIEST DEFENSIVE PLAY

Welcome to our defensive play course for Holy Priest. We're going to teach you how to flowchart your survivability, starting from what you can do before you get attacked, to what you need to do in order to stay alive while you're under pressure.

But first, we need to answer a question. Who are the biggest threats inside of Arena?

Well, luckily, as a Priest, we are rarely ever the kill target in 3v3 or solo shuffle, and this is all thanks to Focused Will, which gives us 30% damage reduction for free when being attacked by melee.

Now, with that said, we can still be tested by some melee with high mobility and constant pressure, including Assassination Rogues, Windwalker Monks, Feral Druids, and Warriors. Now, though, let's go over part one of our flowchart, which is to use positioning and mobility to avoid threats.

Now, I get it. While this might sound incredibly obvious, the best way to avoid dying is going to be to avoid putting yourself in a vulnerable position in the first place.

There's a reason we've told you not to immediately push in and play aggressive in solo shuffle, since more often than not, trying to play hyper-aggressive is an open invitation to swaps. Instead, we need to really rely first on our positioning and our movement in order to avoid damage in the first place.

Our number one friend against melee will always be Pillars. Just look here, as Zen'Lin is able to completely avoid this Warrior by feathering around a Pillar constantly.

Positioning is the number one most effective tool to stay alive. All right, of course, we can't avoid damage forever, though.

So what do we do when melee have connected or when we're stuck in a stun? First, let's tell you what not to do, and that's to instantly panic and pop Guardian Spirit.

Now, we're going to stress that GS is a last resort save. We can do better.

Instead, our immediate snappy reaction when we're under pressure or when coming out of a stun is to immediately Desperate Prayer. This will act as an instant heal and an HP boost, and if more healing is needed after that, we can even pair it together with Serenity.

DP is off the GCD, which means you can use both of these abilities at the same time. This should always be our first line of defense, and there is no reason to be greedy, as its modest cooldown should line up with most enemy offensives.

But we're not done recovering yet, though, and there's a high chance we're going to still be under pressure, and now is going to be a great time to think once again about positioning.

Our bread and butter combo for getting away quickly, especially from melee, is to use our roots, then press Feather, and use the same freedom effect of Fade at the same time, aiming to run out of line of sight as quickly as possible.

And no matter what, anytime we're under pressure, we want to avoid hard casting if possible, which means cycling through the spot healing priority that we covered earlier in the course. Now, though, we need to talk about some more niche options to survive.

Although this might sound completely unintuitive, one of the best ways to survive getting trained is to enter Angel form. Obviously, there's a problem.

You can't heal yourself in Angel, but that's not really what's important here. By entering Angel while under pressure, we force the enemy team to swap off of us momentarily, which then allows us to reset Serenity using, Flash Heal.

It will also allow our other cooldowns to rotate back up, including our Fade Feather combo. And if you find yourself getting trained and struggling to survive into melee in 2v2, consider playing with Divine Ascension.

This ability works best as a simple cooldown trade into the enemy team's offensive cooldowns. While in the air, you're still going to be able to spam Flash Heal to reset Serenity, and you'll be out of range of most interrupts for a long period of time.

So before we wrap things completely up, let's talk about a bit of min-main. This is a bit of a maxing you can do to bulk up your defensives.

If you're really worried about getting trained, consider playing the Protective Light talent on the Priest Tree. This will give you 10% damage reduction anytime you cast Flash Heal on yourself.

And better yet, this buff will even apply to yourself when you heal friendly teammates, thanks to binding heals. So if you anticipate an incoming swap, use Flash Heal on yourself or a teammate to tap into 10% extra damage reduction.

HOLY PRIEST CROWD CONTROL

Welcome to our course on crowd control for Holy Priests. In this guide, we're going to be focusing on a few different spells, Chastise, Psychic Scream, and then some accessory CCs like Mind Control and Void Tendrils.

First, let's cover some goals that's going to help teach you how and when to CC. Overall, your crowd control needs to accomplish something for your team.

It should never be used randomly or without purpose. And to break this down, we have one main CC goal.

To find a moment where it's safe to cross the map and to use our crowd control to take out an enemy healer for an extended period of time while also potentially cross-CCing DPS. We're going to focus primarily on solo shuffle, but what you'll learn will easily apply to other brackets too.

Let's start off with our bread and butter CC, Chastise. By default, Chastise is an incapacitate on the same DR as Sap, Polymorph, and Freezing Trap.

But when playing with Censor, Chastise becomes a stun. In solo shuffle, you're going to be playing with a stun Chastise in almost every single game.

The only times you would play without it is if you have an abundance of stuns on your team, which is usually the case when playing with a sub-rogu. Chastise has multiple uses, including as a pre-CC for our Psychic Scream, keeping enemy healers in place while we cross the map to fear.

Now with that in mind, some of the time in solo shuffle, your Chastise will be used as lockdown on the kill target, especially when you aren't playing with a rogue.

In solo, you have limited opportunities to cross the map and play aggressive, and if your team is lacking a stun effect, then Chastise can help fill that void. Ideally, we'll be pressing Chastise on cooldown on any target who's not currently on stun DR.

One thing to keep in mind is that even though Chastise is a physical debuff, it is technically a magical spell that can be countered by Grounding Totem, Spell Reflection, and so on. So look out for these before you commit your CC.

Now since it is a magical spell, it's not a good idea to use it on a specific target. But if you're playing with a Chastise, you can use it on a specific target.

So look out for these before you commit your CC. Now since it is a magical spell, it's not a good idea to use it on a specific target.

So look out for these before you commit your CC. Now since it is a holy word, Chastise can be reset by both Smite and Holy Fire with increased CDR during Apotheosis.

If you don't need to do any healing, you could actively try and reset Chastise with your damage, once again aiming to use Chastise on any target not on stun DR in solo shuffle.

In constructed 2v2 and 3v3, you should consider using Chastise more carefully, using it as cross CC with your team, 3-2-1-ing your CC to create deadly setups. If you're playing with a Chastise, you can use it on a specific target.

If you're playing with a Chastise, you can use it as cross CC with your team, 3-2-1-ing your CC to create deadly setups. The target you're going to CC depends on a comp by comp basis.

Sometimes it's good to Chastise, Fear a healer. Other times it's going to be good to Chastise, Fear a DPS.

Now unlike Chastise, which has a long range, Fear is far more committal. If we want to Fear a healer, we sometimes need to sacrifice positioning in order to do so.

Now as we mentioned, we can use Chastise as a pre-CC for our Fear, then combining our Feather and Fade in order to quickly and safely cross the map. That brings us to Psychic Scream, our AoE Fear that shares DRs with similar effects.

What's important is that we Fear with purpose. A convenient way to use our Psychic Scream is as a chain off our teammate's CC.

If we're playing with a Hunter or a Mage who have just landed a Poly or Trap on the healer, we should consider pushing in for a Fear if it's safe, extending the CC chain to maximize pressure. We can also use Fear defensively, simply on a nearby DPS who's overextended in order to reduce pressure on our team.

And just like Chastise, we need to be aware of specific counters, including Tremor Totem, Nullifying Shroud, and even Berserker Shout, which Warriors can use to remove Fears off their teammates.

As Archon, there is an additional trick we can do with our Fear, since when we use Psychic Scream it will spawn an image to Fear again. If we want this second Fear to land, we can simply root the target as soon as we Fear, keeping them in place for a follow up.

And speaking of our roots, let's quickly discuss Void Tendrils. Unlike most roots, Void Tendrils is a physical root, spawned by an NPC that can actually be killed by enemy players.

What most Priests don't realize however, is that you can actually heal and shield your Tendrils. It's rare that you're ever going to need to do this, but it's something to keep in mind.

Most of the time you're going to be using it on Melee or even Pets in order to slow down damage. If you want to keep things simple, whenever you see a bunch of nameplates on your screen, it's probably going to be a good time to root.

Now with that in mind, rooting healers is incredibly underrated. Aside from the Fear combo that we covered earlier, some healers have no way of breaking physical roots without committing a major mobility cooldown.

Sometimes, simply rooting a healer behind a pillar can act as an effective CC. So finally, let's wrap things up by talking about Mind Control.

While it's technically a Root, technically on the same DR as fear, it has one key difference. Instead of being defensively dispelled, MC must be purged by an offensive dispel in order to be removed.

This makes it quite effective as cross CC in situations where we weren't able to fear. Now with that said, these days MC is rarely used given the pace of the game, especially in solo shuffle.

With that in mind, unlike disc priests who have limited opportunities to cast MC, we can actually safely MC targets assuming we have recovery heals available. Most of the time we're going to be using MC to an off DPS target while our team has lockdown established on a kill target.

This will essentially act as cross CC without us needing to push in. Now there are of course some fancy uses of MC.

You can borrow the effects of enemy players including anti-magic zone, darkness, power ward barrier, and even ring of frost allowing them to act as your own. Again though, most of the time we're going to be using MC to an off DPS target while our team has lockdown established on a kill target.

Again though, most of the time we're going to be using MC to an off DPS target while our team has lockdown established on a kill target. Again though, most of the time we're going to simply use MC on an off target while our team already has control.

Outside of this, we can use MC as a way to bait kicks, especially in 2v2. Most players will instinctively kick this cast, allowing us to cast holy spells.