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I started my main 5man group as a warrior and 4 spriests back before 3.0 and i noticed the warrior was a little hard to keep agro with on groups, but the VE return was great for healing.
3.0 hit just as my RaF was ending and I grabbed myself a DK tank and popped him up front and that was very good for me - plus it was new and interesting, but he was nearly impossible to keep up in same level instances with 4 shadow-only priests in junky gear so I just quested my way through to 68.
At 68/69 I caught up with my main who was a sometimes-raiding pally healer with a nearly full set of decent kara-level purples, so i dropped out one of the spriests and slotted him in. I still was having a hard time when I got to the new northrend instances, but now it wasn't for lack of healing power, just lack of mitigation on the tank really.
Currently at about 77 for the group, the tank has 505 defense and i am finally able to go back an start plowing out the old quests for nexus, UK, Drak, etc. that i'd passed by - plus i figure i'm learning the easy mode versions of some fights for later heroic use.
I do kinda feel like i'm carrying the pally tough, since he rarely has to do too much healing out in the world, and spec'd as healer he's no dps star. So I may go back and bring up one of my druids or shaman to replace him, but not likely really soon - it's no short haul from 60->80 and the pally healer isn't that hard to use.
From a pure DPS standpoint, the 3 remaining spreists don't feel like they are slowing me down. I primarily use a 3.5 button main attack set. The first button unmodified just lands icy touch, with shift it does d&d, and then with ctrl it does a cast sequence on the priests and pally to land VE,VT,SW: P, and the judgment of choice. Then I nail button 3 for mind blast and a big DK attack. and shift it or ctrl-shift it to start big/small heals. And mainly fill with button 2 for mind flay and such.
After I hit 80 and get the dual talent tree ability, I may swap around the DK to DPS and the pally up front as tank just to see how that feels, but I suspect that to run instances I'd need some dedicated healing power and having the DK tagging along in melee would be annoying from a movement perspective.
Benefits of the spriests:
I have a round-robin shield that doesn't reduce agro on the tank in cases where popping ice fortitude or lichbourne doesn't look like enough.
I have a 1 button all-renew the tank button that really heals a lot - and the next 2 hits on the mind flay button get them back in shadowform
Holy Nova is good for panic dps AND panic healing - esp. since it also consecrates on the pally(in my setup) - so the plate guy attracts the loose agro until the tank can help.
I also have prayer of healing on round robin - and another button for all 3 to do it (really panic, everyone is dying, but the boss is almost dead, just, need, one, more, minute, of life...)
The VE healing is kinda like the shaman having the healing streams up - it's good for keeping members other than the tank topped off from normal splash damage or the occasional intentional (but hopefully short lived) targeting
Drawbacks:
Really squishy - make sure you know where your fade and self-shield buttons are at all times
Need to stay in shadowform as much as possible for dps not to sufffer a lot, so quick panic heals and holy novas will drag out the fight, if they saved you (and it's not a low mana ability)
No skill based/free/charity mounts like some other classes (my DK came with a free epic mount, and the pally didn't have a very hard time getting his since i'm a packrat and have plenty of items just lying around in my 5 guilld banks)
PS- this is all from my PvE perspective, I have never really done PvP.
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Thank you very much aboron for very detailed and insightful post, it just what I needed to know :thumbsup:
