I noticed that people who are way higher level/rank than I seem to value having a priest in their team, but I want to know what they’re so good for?
My Tayla has been sitting on the benches with several level-1 pieces of the Holy set that I’ve picked up, I’m wondering if later I’m gonna want to put her to use for real. (Rose is now keeping her company on the bench, because I got bored of having three mages and got a warlock to spice things up.)
I embraced a team with 2 mages, a priest, and a warrior from the start.
The reasons:
In hindsight, I think that was fairly optimal. The priest does a great job keeping everyone alive, by both shielding incoming damage to my 2 most wounded heroes and also healing both of them (by using a healing glyph).
In the arena, I’m now alone in League S. It will be at least a few seasons before someone else joins me, more than likely. It was and still is my intention to swap out the priest for a 3rd mage in the arena.
My Myna is level 264 now and increases by 3 levels per day (to satisfy the level a hero 3 times daily quest). She is ready to go when it comes to gear. All the best stuff. She only has one problem. I have not increased any of her skills yet. I’ve been concentrating instead on my current team.
I think my priest with really good skills is still much better than a 3rd mage with no skills. My priest’s main problem now is the equipment. It needs work. Myna should be a better choice once she’s got the skills. Right now, she talks a good game but it’s mostly bark and no bite. She’s on the bench singing:
Put me in coach, I’m ready to play today 
Put me in coach, I’m ready to play today
Look at me, I can be, centerfield
I keep telling her this isn’t baseball. She’s gonna get slaughtered out there. 
The real question over the long-term becomes, how good is the priest once all the priest’s gear is 7-stars? Myna may get benched yet again someday. I might find that I prefer a fully skilled and equipped priest over a fully skilled and equipped 3rd mage for the arena. That’s a long, long way off though. 
When the priest shines, it really shines. It’s satisfying to see both mages unleash all they’ve got, get shielded by the priest, incoming damage severely wounds the priest but does not kill it, the priest resets the cooldowns on those mages, and then the two mostly shielded mages unleash a 2nd wave of all they’ve got. That’s 4 mages worth of damage out of 2 heavily shielded mages? Oh, yeah. 
When the priest flops, it really flops though. It’s very unsatisfying to see the priest reset the cooldowns on mages just before the mages were going to unleash all they’ve got anyway. What a waste. Should have shielded instead because things are about to get real. Nobody’s shielded, the priest is nearly dead, and the priest also wasted the skill cooldown reset? Uh, oh. Time to chisel the gravestones. 
And lastly, the team that scares me most long-term actually has 2 priests on it. I’m not (@Trisen) going to (@Trisen) mention (@Trisen) names or tell you who (@Trisen) is dominating (@Trisen) League D right now, like a sleeping giant (@Trisen). Camping out there in relative obscurity and winning battles endlessly going forward? Oh, the humanity!
Ok, I think I’ve been mentioned enough that I’m required to throw my 2 cents into the ring.
@Rhandar I agree with completely that the fastest way to clear the PvE side of the game is:
2 Arch-Mages
1 Priest
1 Warrior or Knight
For the Arena side, a Priest loses a lot of use due to the auto function being enabled. Priests will shield the lowest HP ally and however, this might not be the best choice. If you can control where the majority of damage will go then Priests can be useful again.
A Priest can actually make a decent frontline tank or backline tank. They will start becoming viable with 5-star equipment and come into their own with 3 pieces of each 6-star sets(+80% HP & +80% Magic Attack). They will shield themselves since you are controlling where the damage is going and if your Priest is using Evocation. They will reset your damage dealers Special Attacks before going down.
I run 2 Priests because I’m crazy and I don’t recommend it to anyone unless you have the patience to wait until they come into their own. I don’t even have their 6-star weapons yet.
I also run 3 pieces of Celestial(3-star) equipment that I have evolved to 6-star and will eventually have 3 pieces of Devotion(6-star) to round out the setup.
This allows me to cast 2 shields on separate Heroes(the lowest HP, and 2nd Lowest HP Hero) and get around the auto feature.
At the moment, most of my fights end with my Heroes at full HP and I have a 100% win rate. The key to beating me at the moment is to destroy my 1 dps before she gets a shield. Once, I get some 6-star weapons my priests will be able to put out some decent damage and this weakness should be addressed.
I must say that it is frustrating to see the shield get placed on the warrior after Last Stand has been activated. What a waste that is!
Things have taken a turn for the better once I started to get the warrior’s dodge up though, at least vs. League S guards.
Sometimes, the warrior now gets shielded before Last Stand kicks in, which is much better.
Sometimes, the warrior doesn’t need the shielding at all because the dodge is working great.
Should get a nice boost in a few days. I plan to take one warrior’s dodge ring to 7 stars. At that time, I may also add a 5-star dodge ring. I also want to add the Dodge-II passive skill at some point. I have S-Dodge. I just got the legendary dodge glyph. By my math, it looks like you get an additional 1% dodge for about every 320 dodge rating. Looks linear, which surprised me.
In any event, the plan is still to eventually ditch the priest in the arena and replace with another mage.
For what it is worth, I have only won 83% of my battles vs. the guards in League S. I’m up to 90% this season so far, thanks to targeting the easier ones, being slightly more powerful, and perhaps being a bit luckier. 
Need better pets, pet mutations, and so on. Never ends. 
It would be interesting to see your setup fight someone with the same setup.
I lost a battle recently that was a stalemate. The only heroes left alive were my priest and the guard’s priest. Neither priest could kill the other. Thankfully, there was a timeout after quite a few rounds like there is in events (but to a lesser extent), or the battle may have gone on forever.
I can only imagine what it would look like if 2 priests were left fighting 2 priests. 
Do you happen to know what this glyph actually does? Guardian Soul Rare WISDOM +0.5%
I don’t see a wisdom attribute, is it a skill on priest?
Guardian Soul is a skill for the Cleric path of a priest. WISDOM is its skill effect. It adds magic attack to the priest when at least one of your other heroes has died.
Of course, once your other heroes have died things may be going very badly and an “angry” priest might not do all that much good.
It’s not a skill I have used, so maybe it can be more effective than it appears. Then again, maybe not.
Thank you and thanks for the reminder about discord. I had read that the cleric was not an optimal choice so perhaps it does not matter. 
will keep reading before I get to class change!