Anyone have experience of 1xPally 4x Shadow Priests?

[raylion]

I want to add a new team to level on rested XP (currently have 5xShammies as main team and 1xPriest 4xLock levelling rested XP) and am drawn to the Pally/Shadow Priest combo for a bit of variety and would be interested in hearing of anyones experiences with this type of team?

Edit: I PVE mostly so wouldn't plan to use this team in PVP.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I don't have any experience 5-boxing them but a pally buddy runs with my 4-SP team for instances when we're both on. Did you have anything in particular you wanted to know?

If I can remember, I'll post up some vids of us doing some bosses in Outlands stuff. I did not quite have what it took with just the 4 priests to kill stuff like Ruul the Darkener, the Zuluhed quest and those ones in the Path of Conquest. With him along, it completely trivializes the content. Movement is a bit of a problem (as is normal with multiboxing) but no big deal. We've done Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Underbog and some of Steamvault. It gets rougher trying to not pull aggro with all the VE/renew spam but as long as he keeps aggro, fights are fairly easy. The hardest fight we had to date is Swamplord Musel'lek in Underbog. His AoE traps were rough.

The hardest thing in playing with the pally is getting the full duration of Vampiric Touch so you make back in mana what you used to cast it.

[hapiguy314]

It gets rougher trying to not pull aggro with all the VE/renew spam but as long as he keeps aggro, fights are fairly easy.

Hmm - so you're playing in non - shadow form so you can cast renew also?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Yep. VE just isn't enough on stuff like bog lords that hit him for 3k tramples. It should be noted that even out of shadowform, I rarely run out of mana unless it's one of those chain fights like the last boss in Blood Furnace. It should also be noted that his pally is only in outlands quest/instance blues and greens, so there is very obviously room for improvement there.

[hapiguy314]

OIC. Would you think it's more DPS to have 3 SPs in shadowform (w/o having to cast renew) and have a 4th priest as Holy/Disk? Not to mention it'll greatly improve the survivability of your group?

I'm greatly tempted to start 3 SPs to replace my 3 Warlocks for fun

Then again, it strays away from your 4 SP crew :cry:

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Well, I've run instances with another buddy that plays a warlock. Problem there is that we run out of mana a LOT more without that 4th VT/weaving/etc. going. For me, it's just easier keeping 4 in sync with a bit of a loss in DPS than trying to micromanage two different priest configs at the same time. We're rarely ever hurting for DPS, and things that wipe us with our current setup would not be any different if I changed one to holy spec. The increase in survivability is not as dramatic as you might think.

If I were to go spend the time getting +1500 healing gear and respec straight holy I'm sure it would help but it wouldn't dramatically alter the outcome of our dungeon runs. Too many other factors make that change a rather small part of the whole picture.

[raylion]

Yep. VE just isn't enough on stuff like bog lords that hit him for 3k tramples.

I think that's the key thing I really wanted to know is how long you can stay in shadowform before you have to drop out to start healing/renews. If you exclude the undead crowd control the pally would be getting hit by mobs constantly so I wasn't sure whether VE would be enough to keep him up.

From what you say then it sounds a good combination, I guess for the tougher fights staying out of shadowform might be preferable just to keep healing options open plus it might help a little with reducing aggro. I think I'll give this a go, I had thought about 5xDruids but the 30min cooldown on Rebirth is a bit limiting.

Many thanks for the feedback :-)

[HPAVC]

Potentially have the PI for boosting the paladin on hard pulls, plus the spirit damage/heal bonus for all the toons, including the paladin. Might only be a few points per damage unit. But this combination is all about the micro damage. Also opens up cheap dispelling for that priest as well.

[Morganti]

Well, I've run instances with another buddy that plays a warlock. Problem there is that we run out of mana a LOT more without that 4th VT/weaving/etc. going. For me, it's just easier keeping 4 in sync with a bit of a loss in DPS than trying to micromanage two different priest configs at the same time. We're rarely ever hurting for DPS, and things that wipe us with our current setup would not be any different if I changed one to holy spec. The increase in survivability is not as dramatic as you might think.

If I were to go spend the time getting +1500 healing gear and respec straight holy I'm sure it would help but it wouldn't dramatically alter the outcome of our dungeon runs. Too many other factors make that change a rather small part of the whole picture.

I was wondering this exact thing last night. My "main" priest tends to throw out renews and shields right now (level 12 on all 5 priests) and I was debating on the holy/disc or shadow/disc specs for him. I think I'll stick with shadow on all 5 unless I start to see I would obviously benefit from some direct healing. Obviously this won't matter until higher levels (or not as much anyway), but it's things that I'm still thinking about now.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'd really not worry about being anything but full shadow until you hit 65+. Before then, you can just outlevel the dungeons if things are difficult. We tend to be bipolar when it comes to capabilities on elite encounters (either we wipe the floor with the mobs or they wipe the floor with us).

When we're doing bosses or tougher elites, what I'll usually do is let him go in and pull aggro with frisbee of doom, then I'll drop the following order of spells:

renew the MT
VT
VE
SW:P
flay
renew the MT again
VT
VE
flay
flay
VT
renew the MT again
VE
SW:P
flay
flay
etc...

That usually gets us through most anything. If things get ugly, I'll usually add a flash heal x4 on the MT right before refreshing renew. I'll try and remember to upload some of our boss vids this weekend.