Holy DPS priest viability

This is perhaps really aimed at Cepheus, as he's the only one I'm aware of who's already trodden this path, but if anyone else has any ideas I'm all ears!

I'm having another go with a priest team, exclusively for PvP. I'm going with 3 rather than a full team of 5, so I can fit them in with my wife's shammy twins when we feel like it.

I like to do things a bit off-beat, so I'm really curious about how a holy DPS build stands up against a shadow DPS build.

I had a quick search, and this was touched upon before, but I couldn't find any compelling evidence that holy DPS is actually *better* than shadow. The big gain, perhaps, is Holy Nova which looks rather nice with a group of Priests.

But by not going shadow, I would miss out on VE, improved Psychic Scream, Silence and Shadow Form (-15% physical damage taken, +15% shadow damage dealt) - all very nice talents indeed.

On the face of it, there also seems to be far more damage improvement abilities in the shadow tree compared to the disc / holy trees.

I had a look at the builds Cepheus posted some time ago, and also had a fiddle around with some of my own (such as this one but I don't see anything in a holy build that comes close to replacing what I lose by not having a Shadow build.

The big plusses for me are: no shape-shifting for healing (simplicity is good!), PBAoE damage that I wouldn't otherwise have, lack of holy resist items in the game and... erm... well, novelty value!

The other big down-side I see is gearing them up as holy DPSers. If I go shadow, I can just stick the FSW set on all of them at 70, but there's no easily-accessible equivalent for holy DPSers.

So, much as I love the idea of... a) doing something different, and... b) being able to heal without having to worry about shape-shifting, I've pretty much talked myself out of a holy DPS build.

Does anybody have any thoughts / opinions / experiences to add?

Cheers.

If you primarily geared towards PvP, I think that you are making the mistake of overlooking the priest PvP spec. Disc. ;)

Well, the most recent holy DPS build I had in mind was heavily Disc too - deep enough to get Power Infusion - but even with that I don't see anything to offset the losses I talked about above.

Even if I went all the way down to Pain Suppression, I'd only gain a few more points in survivability that I perhaps wouldn't even need if I had more offensive output.

I'm pretty much making this up as I go along, and thinking out loud, so feel free to set me straight.

DPS aside, I think rolling holy DPS priests is worth it just to be different. I leveled two priests to 60 pre-TBC and there's only so much Mind Blast/Shadow Word: Pain/Mind Flay/Wand you can take. I've considered rolling a holy priest team myself: Male Dwarf Paladin and Four Female Dwarf Priests. I was gonna use the guild name <Nexus of Ugly> :)

The reason I chose not to is that it didn't strike me as a group that could hold its own very well in instances. If your interest is in PVP then I can't see much of a problem; you could always respec them to shadow if it didn't work.

As far as gear is concerned, you can forget FSW. You'll want to get the Satin Battlegear set for PVP.

A few thoughts coming form a Holy Priest/Arcange Mage AOE madness team..

Again, I am NOT the PVP guru, but a couple of thoughts... First, no class has natural holy resistance.. thus hard to resist the love a priest can share in damage. Flip side is holy priest cast time on damage spells is equivalent to the gestation period of an African Elephant (2 years), but.... having said that you do have Holy Nova. My priest is critting 500-800 per cast. It is a MANA sucking beyatch, but... when grouped with my Mage sharing AOE loving with the multitudes.. it serves as a simple heal coupled with additiona damage.

Disc is going to give you longer staying power, but honestly it seems to me the name of the game relative to PVP is burst damage. Fort, holy nova, and the other toys of a priest are quite fun. Nothing like Mind controlling enemies and throwing them off of cliffs like at the lumber mill..

There are my two cents.

BigBearJeff

Hmmm. Thought-provoking stuff.

I've used Holy Nova in my PvE group quite often - as you say, it synergises well with other instants (Consecration on my pally, Arane Explosion on the mages, Hellfire on my locks, and even dumping a snake trap down on my hunter).

Perhaps I'll take the obvious cop-out approach - mix shadow and holy in the group, and see which is most effective!