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Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

In this section, you will find some advices and basics to start quietly ingame. Question like " I'm lvl 1, what shall i do?", "What class shall i pick?", will find some answers in this place.
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betozg
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Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#21 » Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:26 am

Thank you so much for this guide, I was looking for something like this!. People complaining about WP shield spec are annoying (not too many fortunately) but thats the spec I want to build 8-)

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gsewhiteout
Posts: 1

Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#22 » Fri Mar 13, 2020 6:57 am

great guide. new to the game, started playing with some old daoc guildies, found this guide. level 40 rr45 in 5 days and loving it! still debating between the secondary spec line been using both. did my first city siege today and had people all over me for being a melee spec.. out dps and out healed 3/4 of the warband. did so well im pretty surr i murdered altdorf :roll:

courtsdad1
Posts: 118

Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#23 » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:17 am

Thank you for this. I just broke me WP back out after teaming up with one farming ruin gear and coming away impressed. I played one back in the day and know the shortcomings in RvR but I play a lot of scenarios and it's good for taking on almost anything in PvE.

What the naysayers who point to "top" everything without noticing the subtlety of an engagement is how classes like a grace wp fill in the holes and can make a team stronger. Good dps and good healing can take pressure off of other people and help the team succeed. It may not be flashy but it works.

Great write up.

DirkDaring
Posts: 425

Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#24 » Sun Mar 22, 2020 4:25 am

Xergon wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2019 2:29 pm
Rydiak wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2019 3:38 am
Spoiler:
Introduction
This guide is intended to be a comprehensive break-down over the Grace Warrior Priest spec. As a result, it will be very in-depth and often very wordy. Feel free to jump around to the different sections that interest you, and if there is anything else you have questions about feel free to let me know here, on Discord (@Rydiak), or in-game (Rydiak).
Additionally, while this guide is built specifically for the Grace Warrior Priest, much of the advice here will also be applicable to the Sacrifice Disciple of Khaine due to the large number of mirrored abilities.

Grace is a highly involved spec, with a lot of moving parts and buffs to keep track of, but I find it can often help carry battles more than Salvation could hope to. Grace is especially adept at small-scale fighting, such as scenarios or group vs group engagements when roaming, in that is has so much more to offer than a simple "heal bot". However, for Grace to be effective in its role it first requires a minimum level of survivability. You are no good to your team if you are dead, but when you are tanky enough to survive two groups of damage dealers attacking you then you become the anvil on which your team can strike its hammers. To me, Grace is the most rewarding of the three Warrior Priest specs to play, and I hope that with my guide you can find enjoyment in it as I have.


Spec
There are currently three basic Grace builds that I would recognize as being effective in their own ways. In any build, I would recommend putting as many points in the Grace tree as possible (Renown Rank dependent) in order to maximize the levels of the Grace abilities.

The first is the Grace/Wrath build, which uses Wrath as the secondary tree in order to take Fanaticism as a tactic or Absence of Faith as a heal debuff, or both (depending on the number of Mastery point available to you). This is my current spec path, and I consider it to be the "default Grace spec". An example RR40 build would be: https://officialrorbuilder.herokuapp.co ... ,4184,4189
For reference, here is my build at RR70+: https://officialrorbuilder.herokuapp.co ... ,4184,4182

The second is the Grace/Salvation build, which uses Salvation as the secondary tree in order to take Divine Light as an emergency group-wide shield. I used to run this build, but switched to the Grace/Wrath build not long ago due to finding Absence of Faith a more impactful ability during small-scale fights. This build would be better when the heal debuff is already being covered by another class. An example RR40 build would be: https://officialrorbuilder.herokuapp.co ... ,4160,4154

The third is a Grace/Salvation build that also uses Salvation as the secondary tree, but specifically runs 12 points in the tree in order to take Cleansing Power. This is a very useful build for diungeons. An example RR40 build would be: https://officialrorbuilder.herokuapp.co ... ,4184,4173
You can also play this third build similar to the old "hybrid Grace" build, where you'd wear Salvation gear with a 2hander, only this time you have a 1hander and shield. The only difference is you'd change Divine Fury for Exalted Defenses and lean heavily on your casted heals. I haven't tried this build since the shield change was put into RoR, so I cannot comment on its effectiveness.


Renown Points
Renown Rank points allow you to customize your character's stats as you level up in Renown Rank, maxing out at 80 points at RR 80. This will be one of the best ways for you to make your Grace Warrior Priest tanky, and thus more effective in combat.
The most powerful defensive Renown Rank skills, and the ones you will be focusing on, are Defender, Deft Defender, Reflexes, and Futile Strikes.
Defender, when maxed, provides 10% Block. You can think of this as "10% Parry, 10% Dodge, and 10% Disrupt", or effectively 30% worth of Avoidance stats. This is an incredibly efficient way to spend your Renown points.
Deft Defender, when maxed, provides 18% Dodge and Disrupt, or effectively 36% (!!) worth of Avoidance stats. This does not provide any avoidance towards melee attacks, though.
Reflexes, when maxed, provides 18% Parry, and is thus a less efficient (but still an important) way to spend Renown points, and will help your survival in the melee deathball.
Futile Strikes has the very important job of reducing your base Chance to be Crit. This value is added onto the Critical Hit Chance of anyone attacking you, and when left alone can result in you being critically hit constantly for big damage. MINIMALLY you want 2 ranks in Futile Strikes as soon as possible, with rank 3 being optional but highly recommended. Rank 4 is tied with rank 1 in terms of efficiency per Renown point spent, but I generally don't recommend 4 ranks in Futile Strikes due to the high cost of buying 4 ranks in that tree.
Strong "filler" Renown skills are Vigor for Wounds, Impetus for Initiative, and Fortitude for Toughness. As a rule I won't spend Renown points in offensive skills as Grace, since a dead Grace Warrior Priest outputs no healing.
My recommendation is to max Defender and Deft Defender to obtain the maximum amount of avoidance versus ranged characters, which will be the most deadly to you since you have to cross distances to reach them and cannot lifetap while doing so. I would put at least 2 ranks into Reflexes (ideally 3 ranks), to help bolster your defenses versus the melee deathball, though with all of your block and parry from your self-buffs you should generally be tanky enough.
Example RR 40 build: http://waronlinebuilder.org/#renown;000 ... 3000000000
Example RR 80 build: http://waronlinebuilder.org/#renown;000 ... 4000000000


Frequently Used Abilities
Divine Assault
Divine Assault is a channeled melee ability that costs 25 Righteous Fury a second, and hits your targeted enemy 4 times over 3 seconds. It will heal your defensive target for 350% of the damage it deals (lifetap). It deals Spirit damage, and as a result will not benefit from Weapon Skill.
Divine Assault can be considered to be your "big heal", especially for friendlies that are not in your party. Due to the nature of its design, as long as you can defensive target a friendly you can heal them. This gives Divine Assault an incredible range, and it will ignore all forms of Line of Sight. It will also ignore healing debuffs, and even heals for the damage that is transfered away from your targeted enemy due to Guard.
My recommendation is to cast Divine Assault as soon as it is off cooldown on whatever friendly is hurt the most.

Divine Strike
Divine Strike is an instant-cast melee ability that deals damage to your targeted enemy and heals your defensive target and all friendlies within 10 feet of your defensive target for 100% of the damage dealt (lifetap). It deals Spirit damage, and as a result will not benefit from Weapon Skill.
Divine Strike is an interesting ability that has several key differences from Sigmar's Radiance. First, Divine Strike deals less base damage than Sigmar's Radiance, but it deals Spirit damage instead of physical damage. Second, it heals for a larger percentage of damage dealt but does not have a base heal amount. Third, Divine Strike can be used to heal friendlies outside of party whereas Sigmar's Radiance cannot. In terms of healing your party, Sigmar's Radiance beats Divine Strike hands-down because even if Divine Strike deals more damage to a heavily armored tank (from its Spirit damage) compared to Sigmar's Radiance, it virtually cannot overcome the base healing of Sigmar's Radiance. Where Divine Strike comes into usefulness is healing friendlies outside of your party, which Sigmar's Radiance simply cannot do. Divine Strike can also be often used to push more damage on a focus target compared to Sigmar's Radiance due to being Spirit damage, which can help your group kill a target that needs to die.
My recommendation is to only use Divine Strike while healing out of party, or when you intend to focus more on dealing damage than healing at the moment.

Divine Warden
Divine Warden is an instant-cast melee ability that deals damage to your targeted enemy and places a Blessing on you that buffs your Block by 10% for 10 seconds. Divine Warden requires a Shield equipped to be used.
Divine Warden will often be the very first ability you use when you enter combat, and the ability you will want to use the most next to Sigmar's Radiance. This ability essentially makes shields worth using for the Grace Warrior Priest because of the power of Block. Block affects all forms of incoming attacks, be it melee, ranged, or magic. Think of 10% Block as giving you 10% Parry, 10% Dodge, and 10% Disrupt. One thing to keep in mind is that you can only Block attacks that originate in front of you, so you will want to pay attention to your facing and make sure you turn to face your enemies as much as possible. Lastly, Block is not mitigated by any offensive stat (Strength, Ballistic Skill, or Intelligence) like Parry, Dodge, and Disrupt are. The only thing that reduces Block is Block Strikethrough.
My recommendation is to simply use Divine Warden on cooldown. It provides an incredible amount of survival, and should be prioritized in your rotation over every other ability except for healing.

Prayer of Devotion
Prayer of a Devotion is a passive aura ability that is activated once and stays active until it is deactivated or you switch to a different Prayer. While active, Prayer of Devotion provides you and your group-mates within 100 feet of you a 20% chance to regain 300 health upon attacking an enemy.
This can be considered the default Prayer for Grace Warrior Priests, because with 15 points in the Grace tree it heals for 300 health every time it procs. Thus, it is an excellent tool for helping keep both you and your group-mates alive.
My recommendation is to use Prayer of Devotion when specced as Grace.

Purify
Purify is an instant-cast ability with a 150 foot range that removes one Curse or Hex from your defensive target. It costs 25 Righteous Fury to cast, and has a 5 second cooldown.
Purify can be an incredibly powerful tool depending on the Curse or Hex that you manage to remove.
My recommendation is to use Purify whenever you get the "opportunity" to, e.g. when you have a spare global cooldown, such as when moving in between enemies or when you don't need to heal someone's health (the removal of the Curse/Hex would be more beneficial).

Repent
Repent is an instant-cast ability with a 100 foot range that "detaunts" the targeted enemy, causing them to deal only 50% damage to you for 15 seconds. It has a 15 second cooldown, for an effective uptime of 100%. The detaunt effect is removed from the enemy if you attack them.
Repent, and all other detaunts, are incredibly powerful abilities that give you a massive boost to survival. It should be noted that detaunts do not stack with Guard from tanks, so you do not get double benefit.
My recommendation is to use Repent smartly, and detaunt the most dangerous enemy that is attacking you while you attack the least tanky target near you (that isn't the same enemy as the one you cast Repent on). This will maximize your survivability and your healing output at the same time.

Sacrifice
Sacrifice is a channeled ability that costs 25 Righteous Fury and an amount of damage to you per second, but heals your group for 175% of the damage dealt (effectively a lifetap that targets you instead of your enemy). It has a maximum channel time of 10 seconds and a cooldown of 30 seconds. It can be used while on the move, and you can "jump" to cancel its channel prematurely. Sacrifice requires a shield equipped to be used.
Sacrifice is an absolutely incredible heal, but you have to be smart with it due to its dangerous nature. It is best used when your whole group is low on life (less than 50%) and you are high on life (75% or more). Think of Sacrifice as a health pool equalizer, because it heals your group while it damages you. Due to its design it ignores healing debuffs. It also functions like all other group heals in that it works through walls/floors out of Line of Sight. Sacrifice can even be used just to heal a single group-mate semi-effectively because it heals for more than it damages you, but to best maximize its effeciency I would save it as a sort of "emergency heal" where your group is low on life but you are still sitting healthy. Another great use of Sacrifice is when you are away from the enemy but need to heal a group-mate, such as after you get punted or simply don't have a nearby enemy to hit.
My recommendation for usage is to only use Sacrifice in short bursts of 3-5 seconds, as the longer it channels the lower your health will be, making you a juicy target for quick-switches by the enemy. If you are surrounded by enemies consider using Repent for extra protection before you cast Sacrifice.

Shielding Grace
Shielding Grace is a channeled ability that breaks roots/snares on you, and also buffs the Parry, Dodge, and Disrupt of you and your group-mates (within 100 feet) by 10% during its channel. It has a maximum channel time of 10 seconds and a cooldown of 60 seconds, and costs 25 Righteous Fury per second while channeled. It can be used while on the move, and you can "jump" to cancel its channel prematurely. Shielding Grace requires a shield equipped to be used.
Shielding Grace is best used as an instant snare/root break, but is also amazing when pushing into melee combat or holding a certain location because of its avoidance buffs. You can even use it when trying to disengage from combat!
My recommendation is to use Shielding Grace sparingly and smartly. It has a long cooldown, and you don't want to get caught with it on cooldown when you find yourself in a situation where you really need it.

Sigmar's Fist
Sigmar's Fist is an instant-cast melee ability that deals damage to your targeted enemy and places a Blessing on your defensive target that buffs Strength for 20 seconds. With 15 points in the Grace tree, Sigmar's Fist will buff Strength by 120 points. Grace's lifetap heals (Sigmar's Radiance, Divine Strike, and Divine Assault) scale with the amount of damage they do, and as a result Sigmar's Fist becomes an important buff to keep up on yourself. Additionally, keeping your Strength self-buffed with Sigmar's Fist means you can potion instead for Toughness to increase your survivability.
My recommendation is to buff yourself with Sigmar's Fist as soon as possible when you enter combat, and refresh its duration when it has 5 or less seconds left.

Sigmar's Grace
Sigmar's Grace has a cast time of 2 seconds and a cooldown of 10 seconds, and places a Blessing on you and your group for 1 hour that buffs Wounds. With 15 points in the Grace tree, Sigmar's Grace buffs Wounds by 80 (800 hit points). It can even be used as a somewhat emergency group heal, because players will be healed for the amount that their Wounds are buffed by, though its long cast and cooldown will limit the availability of its usage. Sigmar's Grace has a range of 80 feet, and also ignores LoS and heal debuffs.
My recommendation is to use Sigmar's Grace at the start of Scenarios/groups or whenever it is purged off of you or your group-mates. It is also useful when you are out of Righteous Fury and need to cast a heal, but beware of its cast time.

Sigmar's Radiance
Sigmar's Radiance is an instant-cast melee ability that deals damage to your targeted enemy and heals for a fixed based amount plus 50% of the damage you dealt (lifetap). Sigmar's Radiance requires a shield equipped to be used.
Sigmar's Radiance will be your "bread and butter" group heal, and will be the ability you use the most during your time specced as Grace. The ability is highly reliable when it comes to outputting healing due to its base heal amount, but the ability also benefits decently from any increases in damage output you can find because of its lifetap.
My recommendation is to use Sigmar's Radiance the vast majority of the time when you are in combat, but don't forget about the rest of your abilities and their uses.

Sigmar's Shield
Sigmar's Shield is an instant-cast melee ability that deals damage to your targeted enemy and places a Blessing on your defensive target that lasts for 10 second and heals the defensive target every time they are hit. It drains 10 Righteous Fury from you when this healing occurs.
This is a very powerful passive heal, which can put out big healing in a very short period of time depending on the number of incoming hits to your defensive target. Sigmar's Shield also deals a large amount of damage.
Keep Sigmar's Shield up on friendly targets that are taking a lot of incoming hits. Usually best placed on melee DPS, or yourself if focused. It is especially good when being hit by many small hits (less average incoming damage than the healing amount of Sigmar's Shield), so the defensive target will actually heal up to full very quickly. Otherwise, you can think of Sigmar's Shield as subtracting the healing amount from any incoming damage hit.
The benefit of Sigmar's Shield being a passive healing effect is you can continue using Sigmar's Radiance/Divine Strike to heal your defensive target (and also generating Righteous Fury at the same time to fuel Sigmar's Shield) while Sigmar's Shield continues to heal.
My recommendation is to cast Sigmar's Shield as soon as it is off cooldown on whatever friendly is being focused on.

Sigmar's Vision
Sigmar's Vision is an instant-cast melee ability that deals damage to your targeted enemy and places a Blessing on your defensive target that buffs Parry by 10% for 15 seconds. Sigmar's Vision will be your most damaging attack (tied with Sigmar's Shield), and one of the best ways of buffing the survival of you and friendlies engaged in melee combat.
My recommendation is to buff yourself or a friendly with Sigmar's Vision as soon as you find yourself/them targeted by melee enemies, and refresh its duration when it has 5 or less seconds left.

Smite
Smite is an instant-cast ability that deals damage across an arc (currently bugged to only attack in a line) in front of your character to all enemies within 50 feet, building 15 Righteous Fury per enemy hit, with a 5 second cooldown.
Smite is a fantastic way to regenerate your spent Righteous Fury, such as when fueling Sigmar's Shield. It is also useful for dismounting multiple enemies or disrupting Battle Objective flag captures, and is the only Area of Effect attack that Grace Warrior Priests possess.
My recommendation is to use Smite when it is most effective, such as when trying to generate Righteous Fury or when assisting in AoE bombing, and save your global cooldowns for your more impactful abilities.

Supplication
Supplication is a channeled ability that will convert 30 Action Points to 30 Righteous Fury every second for 5 seconds (plus 1 conversion at the very start of the cast), for a maximum of 180 AP converted to 180 RF, with a 10 second cooldown. It requires you to be stationary to keep channeling, but does not require you to be stationary to cast. This allows you to cast the ability on the move, and you will get 1 instant tick upon cast and 1 additional tick before it ends the channel, for a total of 60 AP converted into 60 RF.
My recommendation is to use Supplication often, depending on your need to refill your Righteous Fury pool, but keep in mind it is much more effective if you have time to stand still and channel it for its full duration.


Frequently Used Tactics (with usefulness rating)
Charged Fury **
Useful if you find yourself constantly out of Righteous Fury, and thus unable to power your Sigmar's Shield, Sacrifice, or Shielding Grace. Frankly, I would rather take a different tactic instead.

Cleansing Power ***
Situational in its usage, Cleansing Power converts Purify from a single-target cleanse into a group cleanse. Virtually requiring a hybrid build to use, Cleansing Power is rarely taken by Grace and best left for Salvation, but can be specced for if necessary for some boss encounters. You will not normally spec for this tactic as you will have to sacrifice maxing your Grace tree, but be aware of its existence.

Discipline/Divine Warding/Exalted Defenses/Refreshing Radiance/Restorative Burst *
I mention these tactics here only for helping players avoid them when playing Grace. These tactics DO NOT WORK WITH GRACE LIFETAPS, since lifetaps are not considered "heals" in the normal sense. The only time you would consider any of these tactics is with a hybrid build, which forgoes Divine Fury/Fanaticism for full-strength casted heals.

Divine Fury *****
A must-use tactic, Divine Fury increases the damage you deal by 25% which increases the amount your lifetap abilities heal by 25%. Because lifetap healing abilities are not positively affected by healing buffs (Focused Mending) nor negatively affected by healing debuffs, the -20% healing debuff on Divine Fury can be ignored for all Grace heals. Keep in mind the -20% healing debuff WILL affect any casted Salvation heals you may want to use.

Emperor's Ward ***
Potentially useful, especially when dueling in a 1v1 or other small-scale battle. Backed by the mitigation and avoidance levels that Grace can obtain this isn't a bad choice, but you will be hard pressed to choose this over another more impactful tactic.

Fanaticism ****
A tactic that boosts your offenses (and thus healing) while simultaneously boosting your defenses is a powerful thing to use. Depending on your gear and renown point build, Fanaticism gives roughly a 5% boost to your effective healing output due to its critical chance increase. The 10% Parry that Fanaticm also gives, when combined with all of your other avoidance buffs, can make you incredibly hard to hit in melee combat. Similar to Divine Fury, the -20% healing debuff can largely be ignored due to the nature of lifetaps, but be aware of its existence if you need to rely on a casted heal to stay alive or save a friendly.

Fueled Fury **
Similar to Charged Fury, this tactic is only useful if you find yourself constantly out of Righteous Fury. Pass.

Grace of Sigmar *****
Another must-have tactic, Grace of Sigmar buffs the base heal of Sigmar's Radiance while also boosting the effectiveness of your lifetaps by 25%. It should be noted that Divine Strike's lifetap becomes 125%, Divine Assault's lifetap becomes 437.5%, while Sigmar's Radiance's lifetap becomes 75%. This means that Divine Strike and Divine Assault receive multiplicative buffs while Sigmar's Radiance receives an additive buff. This is the tactic that makes Grace lifetaps have the edge they need.

Greave of Sigmar ***
A decent tactic that is overshadowed by several others, Greave of Sigmar makes Sigmar's Fist much more effective in that it causes the ability to not only buff your Toughness by the same amount it buffs your Strength, but also debuff your enemy target's Strength and Toughness by the same amount. This tactic can actually be very useful for turning Sigmar's Fist into a defensive ability that can be used to buff yourself or allies, while also reducing the offense and defense of the enemy. Especially powerful for lowbie Grace Warrior Priests due to its position in the Grace tree, this tactic is sadly sidelined due to 4-tactic limit.

Hastened Divinity **
Normally a must-have tactic for Wrath Warrior Priests, this tactic is vastly forgettable on Grace Warrior Priests due to it providing only a very small benefit to DPS output. Considering a Grace Warrior Priest's job is to survive first, heal second, and output damage third, there are much better choices than this.

Intimidating Repent ****1/2
This turns Repent from a single-target ability to an AoE ability, effectively negating your need for a tank to babysit you with Guard. Using Repent (with Intimidating Repent) on a caster line is a great way to stay alive longer, since casters tend to clump together and are thus very likely to all be detaunted at the same time. Even if you only manage to cast Repent on a Magus's pet, you will detaunt the Magus standing next to pet. Likewise, casting Repent on the melee train trying to murder you will help ensure your survival. Just make sure you don't start attacking the Witch Elf you just detaunted when a 2Hand Chosen is standing right next to her that you can cast your lifetaps on.

Leading the Prayer ****
Surprisingly powerful, but very often overlooked, Leading the Prayer received an indirect buff when the effective mitigation of Grace went up due to all the defensive buffs it received. Contrary to popular belief, Leading the Prayer is also useful when solo. How Leading the Prayer works is whenever you or someone from your party procs Prayer of Devotion, Prayer of Devotion will also immediately proc for you. That means that when you attack a target and proc Prayer of Devotion, Prayer of Devotion will instantly proc a second time for you and heal you twice. It also means that when the two DPS and the two tanks in your party each proc Prayer of Devotion, Prayer of Devotion will also immediately proc for you. This can lead to a constant stream of Prayer of Devotion procs for your Warrior Priest, and is one of the most effective ways of staying alive in a giant brawl. The downside to Leading the Prayer is if no one is receiving any Prayer of Devotion procs, either due to RNG or an inability to hit an enemy, then you will have a wasted tactic. That said, I HIGHLY recommend this tactic.

Shield of Faith ***
Similar to Fanaticism, but providing a Disrupt bonus instead of a Parry bonus, Shield of Faith isn't that bad of a tactic. Often times the most dangerous enemies to a Grace Warrior Priest are casters that can't be reached, and thus can't be lifetapped off of, and this helps in survival against that. For the tactic slot though, I would just rather take Intimidating Repent and detaunt the caster(s) instead.


Gear
Gear will be the most important part of what makes you a Grace Warrior Priest, and will be the hardest part about playing Grace instead of Salvation. Where Salvation can simply join an open Warband in ORvR and obtain Conqueror/Vanquisher by merely healing the zerg, Grace has to queue relentlessly for hours and hours in Scenarios, grinding out piece by piece. Fortunately, recent changes to Scenario quests (which now reward Conqueror Emblems upon turn-in) and an overall reduction Scenario item costs mean you will be faster able to obtain Dominator and Mercenary gear. Don't disregard ORvR, however, since it is the only way to obtain the powerful Combat Hammer of the Subjugator (our 1hander) and Buckler of the Subjugator, in addition to the coveted Genesis items. Remember too that if you get a piece of Subjugator that you don't want, you can exchange it at the Smuggler for Smuggler items that have the same stats as Subjugator. Buckler of the Subjugator is particularly powerful, being the only purple-quality Warrior Priest shield in the game, in that it provides an 8% bonus to Strikethrough (applies to all Strikethrough, e.g. Parry, Dodge, Disrupt, and Block). Strikethrough is incredibly powerful for Grace, as it is necessary to break-through the strong avoidance rates that front-line classes will usually have. You can't heal if you can't hit.
With the release of Fortresses, Invader is actually a set designed specifically for the Grace Warrior Priest, and is also highly recommended if you enjoy ORvR. Additionally recommended is the Sentinel set, which can be obtained through the Sigmar's Crypts and Warpblade Tunnels dungeons. These dungeons first require the "ward" from Gunbad, which means you need to run Gunbad until you obtain all 6 pieces of Redeye gear (only useful for Salvation).
No matter what gear you end up wearing, remember first that you need to survive before you can output any healing. That means if you end up wearing a set of gear that is highly built for damage (e.g. a Wrath set), you will want to slot talismans that are defensive (armor/toughness) and wear similarly defensive jewelry/cloaks. One of the most powerful defensive jewelry sets is The Winds Impervious, and a guide for obtaining it can be found here (viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13566). Similarly, the Genesis Garb of the Undying jewelry set is also highly defensive, but is often very difficult/frustrating to obtain for new players. I would also highly recommend the Rough Gunbad Diamond, which can be obtained from Gunbad side-bosses or from the Auction House (beware of overpaying).
Conversely, if you wear a gear set that is overly defensive and lacks Strength (such as the Sentinel set), you will want to slot Strength talismans and wear offensive jewelry/cloaks. As a goal, I'd aim for at least 500 Strength, with more being better so long as you aren't sacrificing defensive stats.

As an example, here are the main gear pieces I am currently wearing:
Dominator Helm (Helm)
Oppressor Mantle (Shoulders)
Oppressor Cassock (Body)
Oppressor Fists (Gloves)
Dominator Bookstrap (Belt)
Oppressor Spatterguards (Boots)

This set combination provides 251 Strength, 149 Wounds, 54 Melee Power, 34 Weapon Skill, 30 Initiative, and 18 Toughness. It also provides bonuses of 2% Reduced Chance to be Blocked, 2% Reduced Chance to be Parried, 3% Parry, 3 AP Per Second, and 2% Melee Critical Chance. Finally, it provides one of my most favorite set bonuses in the game, Endure, which on being hit has a 15% chance to reduce the attacker's Strength, Ballistic Skill, and Intelligence by 110 while increasing your Initiative by 110 for 10 seconds. This provides a massive amount of stats (effectively 220) that directly contribute to your survivability.

Whatever gear pieces you are able to obtain or decide to wear, just keep in mind that being defensive is your first requirement. Have fun experimenting with different gear combinations!


Playstyle
A typical Scenario for me begins with chugging an armor potion and a toughness potion if they are not already applied to me. I would then cast Sigmar's Grace in order to buff my and my party's Wounds. When charging towards the enemy, just before making contact, I will cast Repent on the incoming melee train or on the caster line (if they are more threatening). I will also often cast Shielding Grace, which will allow me to avoid many opening attacks due to my increased avoidance rates.

Once in combat, the very first ability I will use is Divine Warden in order to buff my Block chance, followed immediately by Sigmar's Fist (to buff my Strength). If it appears I am the focus target by the melee train I will then buff myself with Sigmar's Vision. Otherwise, I will start spam casting Sigmar's Radiance on the nearest non-shield-carrying enemy (e.g. not sword-and-board tanks). If I see myself continue to get focused, or if the enemy switches to a friendly, I will cast Sigmar's Shield on that person and continue using Sigmar's Radiance. As mentioned above, if I need to heal out of group I will use Divine Strike instead of Sigmar's Radiance, and I will use Divine Assault on cooldown for big healing. Don't forget to resurrect dead friendlies!

If I am not the focused target and my team around me starts dropping low in life due to AoE damage, I will use Sacrifice to heal up my group quickly, canceling the channel prematurely if I find myself in danger or my group fully healed.

Positioning is incredibly important when playing Grace, and the best I can describe it is "front-line and a half", in that you are best positioned when you are at the front line, next to your tanks, but a half-step behind them. This allows you more flexibility in movement, such as target changing or disengaging, than if you were directly at the front of the pack. However, I will often times find myself immediately at the front, either due to the change in battle flow or by my own choice, and that is when you need to lean on all of your defensive abilities to stay alive.

TLDR: Divine Warden > Sigmar's Shield > Sigmar's Fist=Sigmar's Vision > Divine Assault > Sigmar's Radiance > Divine Strike

ORvR is another matter, and this is where I would certainly give the nod to Salvation as being the more effective spec. That is not to say that Grace is incapable of participating in ORvR, but you will have to be even more careful with your positioning and need to play more timidly when faced with warband vs warband sizes. You will often find yourself leaning harder on Sacrifice during ORvR than you normally would during Scenarios, and this is the one area that I think the class could use a buff in. Sacrifice's cooldown is simply a little too high compared to Grace's need to use it here, and I would recommend a decrease in cooldown of 5 to 10 seconds to better make it more usable.

Focus on the outskirts of the battle, rather than right in the middle of the murderball, and assist in killing flankers (such as Witch Elves) while using their bodies to lifetap heal your friendlies with. If you find your warband is pushing hard then feel free to join in the charge with your Shielding Grace. Just be aware that often times the tide of battle can surge back against you, so be prepared to retreat when necessary. Otherwise, your ability rotation will be the same as during Scenarios. Worry first about your own survival, and then worry about buffing and healing friendlies.


Conclusion
Grace has a very low skill floor and a very high skill ceiling. That means it is brutal to players who don't understand it, but amazing for those that do. Many players will tell you that you are wasting your time when playing Grace, and that you would be better off playing a Salvation heal bot. I disagree vehemently with these other players, but I understand their concerns intimately. Grace is not for the feint of heart, but there is a certain satisfaction to be earned when you lead a Scenario in healing but also have multiple killing blows. Just remember, when built properly you will be closer to that of a tank than that of a DPS class, and you will ALWAYS be a healer first before you are anything else. Your job is to carry your team to victory, even if it means Sacrificing your own life to do so.

Thank you for reading my Grace guide, and I hope to inspire more Warrior Priests to try Grace!
Nice guide.
Have you thought about Melee Hybrid WP ? STR+Willpower, Grace mostly to boost defenses and ExaltedDefenses proc and heal with that ?
Maybe something like this ?
RoR.builders - Warrior Priest
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#renown;000 ... 4000000000

Since there are sets that provide both STR and Willpower (Beastlord, RedEye and now Invader) it should be decent build.
Actually back on live i had a 96 WP as one of my toons, i used to run hybrid spec a lot , using a mix of str/will sets , sometimes i would use normal heal set, but swap in fanaticism tactic , back then and here until a couple years ago it was a core tactic,

the 10 % crit still today affects both heal crit, and melee crit, while adding 10 % parry, i`d run it with exalted def , due to all the splash damage , the two 20 postive and neg offset each other , that along with willpower and intimidating repent , worked fine .

Ive got most of the sets now , full sent with ring, blood lord stuff, etc no sov or warlord tho , ill have to try some stuff in the next week ior two

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Rydiak
Posts: 770

Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#25 » Sat Apr 04, 2020 10:15 am

Cleaned up/modernized some of the text and links for the current game.
Interested in the Grace playstyle but don't know where to start? Check out my Grace guide!

Check out my Damage Calculator. Also includes extra RoR calculators! -Updated for 01/25/24 patch!

jagar99
Posts: 8

Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#26 » Sun Apr 12, 2020 7:32 pm

Yo, Rydiak,

Any way you can elaborate grace in open big rvr with gear and spec. confused about set up . will and str?

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Rydiak
Posts: 770

Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#27 » Sun Apr 12, 2020 7:38 pm

Grace will not typically run any willpower, and will want to build strength (usually 500+). You can get away with willpower if you play the hybrid spec, but you usually will benefit more from more mastery levels in the Salvation tree than you would from the willpower, and would be better spent with your stats in strength or defenses.

I covered ORvR usage in my guide, but the jist of it is you will want to play more cagey than you would in a Scenario because of how fast the tide can turn in combat. Always be ready to reposition to a more advantageous position, and look for prime targets of opportunity to lifetap off of (such as the enemy melee DPS).
Interested in the Grace playstyle but don't know where to start? Check out my Grace guide!

Check out my Damage Calculator. Also includes extra RoR calculators! -Updated for 01/25/24 patch!

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Shiferbrains
Posts: 2

Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#28 » Wed Apr 15, 2020 4:40 am

How does the Sentinel and Oppressor armor sets compare?

It looks like you could get an additional 2% block with Sentinel (Helm) but you'd be trading the Endure bonus for Arise (stun/knockdown immunity proc).

Which proc would you prefer? Is it worth the additional block?

Edit: How valuable is Weapon Skill to the Grace Spec? I know a number of skills do Spirit damage.
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Dinguskhan
Posts: 23

Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#29 » Wed Apr 15, 2020 4:53 am

What is the best possible gear someone could aim for? or is it just what u have posted?

KoffenStoffen
Posts: 7

Re: Warrior Priest - Grace - The Survival Bible

Post#30 » Wed Apr 15, 2020 4:14 pm

Ive read alot in-game under advice that alot of people seem to give the advice to go for Wounds instead of Toughnes when people ask, something to this or not? If not, what numbers should you aim for in Toughnes or Armour before you can start putting more into str?

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