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Are five priests a good and fun combination when doing quests and some BGs while leveling? Will any dungeons be possible during leveling or is it impossible due to lack of a real tank? (At end content I have a pally or a DK to replace one of them with if I want to try out lvl 80 dungeons).
I can't help out much but leveled a team of priests to around level 30. I gave up after a while due to horrible mana issues. Gear for mana munchers seem to suck at lower levels. I hear you can do some instances but will take a lot of work. Kiting bosses, etc.
Priests have horrible horrible mana regen. You can probably level to 70 as 5 priests via dungeons. I don't see you doing WOTLK dungeons as 5 priests unless you totally out gear them. There was another guy running around with 4 priests in a bg and it seemed to work for pvp. If you want to do pure pvp then hell why not knock yourself out, but if you are looking to do PVE/PVP. I'd suggest something like 4 priests + <Insert Random Tank here>. Then just run 4 priests in BGs or 5 box em if you feel so inclined.
As far as questing and battlegrounds, five priests should be very decent.
I leveled 5x Disc, with a little Shadow (to Mind Flay) during RAF. And have since leveled them to 68th, for five additional Transmutes. The team will get to at least 75th, for Cataclysm Transmutes.
They're different from a lot of other compositions, which can be a good thing.
With Fear Ward, on round-robin, and the very large area of Mass Dispel, they have quite a bit of Fear protection. Not to mention you'll have five AoE fears of your own.
For the most part, spamming Holy Nova is sufficient healing for just about anything, even if it is mana intensive. As disc, I use Renew, PW: Shield, Flash Heal, Penance and Holy Nova as my heals. I suppose you could PW: Shield and Prayer of Healing (the non-talented group heal) on round-robin, for much more mana efficient AoE healing.
Five x Smite was able to kill things consistently, that 5x Lightning Bolt did not. With the shammy team, I needed to add a second cast of anything, but the priests dropped most random mobs of similar level on a single 5x volley of Smite. So while a single priest might be horrible on mana, a team of five were slightly better then 5x shaman in that regard.
DPS probably won't be that high, but you don't need all of them to go Disc either. My tools were: SW: Pain, Devouring Plague, Mind Blast, Mind Flay as the primary, and Smite as the backup although the Holy whatever (DD + Dot) is an option too. Against casters, 5x Mana Burn will be fun too.
I don't see you doing any WotLK instances (normal or heroic), without a tank. But aside from that, pretty much all content is doable, be it questing or battlegrounds.
Depending on work (RL) I will be running my priest team in Cata. I created a couple videos of the team at level 75 (search YouTube for Owltoid to see the 2 videos) and they were doing well. With the Cata changes, I envision 5x shadow priests who use holy nova to heal (stay out of shadowform when the pressure is on). The ability to spam SW: Death at a target below 25% is probably the best execute in the game. Plus it will generate all that mana you lost, and a wave of holy novas heals all your toons just fine.
Thanks for all advices!
Priest is one of my favourite classes so I will probably go ahead and try this.
Now I just have to decide which race. Thinking about human. Anyone who knows if these models will be improved in Cataclysm? Always wanted to make a human group but think the current models are a bit stiff/angular, especially compared to my horde favourites, belf. :)
Edit:
Or maybe I should wait and create a worgen/human mixed team (or worgen only) instead...
I play 5x 60 twinked priests and yes, it is very hard on the mana. But i glyphed dispersion so i can spam it every 1.25 mins for mana regen (yea, i use dispersion for the mana rather than the dmg escape lol). I use holy nova for healing and self bubbling.
Go human team. I'm 5x nelfs and I recommend humans for the trinket racial. It's very nice and i miss it greatly. That and the spirit racial increases your dps.
If I could stomach night elves, then I would choose them. The abilty to shadowmeld when defending a BG node is huge. It allows you to set up your offense and pick the time to ambush.
WTB WoW where you can choose your racial talents and not have to play that race.... flame on :)
If they dont nerf the crap out of priests in cata, that are gonna melt faces with that shadow orb stuff.....
Agreed, I will be bringing up my SP team for Cata. I have played a SP for a few levels and the speed of dps they seem to have gotten will make them very fun. Seems a lot more bursty now.