[THEORYCRAFTING] 5x Holy Priest

[Basilikos]

So I get these weird thoughts from time to time (no, not like that...) and I got one a couple of days ago. While playing my 4x locks and a holy priest, I notice that the priest's holy smite is not actually that bad of a spell. I thought to myself, what with the increased healing , or round-robin healing (depending on your playstyle), "What would stop this from working out?" I don't really have a goal yet, since this is still just a theorycraft, but I would think that (with good + dmg and decent +healing) this might just work in PvP as well as PvE since there is no such thing as holy resist.

Anyone ever try this?

[Drizzit]

wow i would have never thought of this. Would also like to know. I know that 3 holly pally cannot be killed ;( . Had that at a ab once. 3 holly pally guarding a flag and 6 of us couldn't kill them they kept "lol" us.

[Vyndree]

Anyone ever try this?

I have 5 lowbie priests and was going to try something along the lines of 5 holy / 4 holysmite + retadin / 5 shadow / etc but never got around to leveling them (they're all under level 20).

I've also entertained the idea of 5 healer classes (druid / priest / pally / shaman / ??) but I think these ideas are typically just a "oh, that could be fun to have 1x the dps with 5x the healing, but it wouldn't be really practical.

In other words: sound like it might be fun to try, but not-so-fun long term.

[Morganti]

I was playing with the idea of changing my 5 shadow priests to hybrid specs at one point with a major focus on holy, but the end all be all is the armor and mana issues are your weak point. I went disc/holy on all 5 before and REALLY missed mind flay for melee on top of me (autoface for the win) and ended up taking the idea of going as deep as mind flay in shadow, going all the way in holy (for coh lovin) and the rest disc. This basically makes you a nice healing mage with close up CC and rez capabilities. Smite is nice in PVP (AV in particular), but the lack of distance crowd control, viable AoE, and your armor means going smite priest is still iffy. In PVE (from what I've read) smite can't keep up, and you lose shadow utility. In PVP you'll have to heal through damage because of the lack of armor/PS, and good luck there.

I dont regret rolling FOTM shamans...they are FOTM for a reason.

[yarr]

if you put a retadin (at least 23 points in ret, rest can go in prot if you want) in there, you would get a +12% damage aura (10% holy damage and 2% all damage), Judgement of the Crusader (which adds a flat +holy damage based on level), and a viable aoe tank for dungeons. WIth multimob pulls the pally can hold aggro with consecrate, while the priests spam smite, and pewpew everything down. It would be wicked cool to say the least.

[Groovy]

if you put a retadin (at least 23 points in ret, rest can go in prot if you want) in there, you would get a +12% damage aura (10% holy damage and 2% all damage), Judgement of the Crusader (which adds a flat +holy damage based on level), and a viable aoe tank for dungeons. WIth multimob pulls the pally can hold aggro with consecrate, while the priests spam smite, and pewpew everything down. It would be wicked cool to say the least.

Could be nice PVE wise, wont work at all in PVP mind you.

[Basilikos]

if you put a retadin (at least 23 points in ret, rest can go in prot if you want) in there, you would get a +12% damage aura (10% holy damage and 2% all damage), Judgement of the Crusader (which adds a flat +holy damage based on level), and a viable aoe tank for dungeons. WIth multimob pulls the pally can hold aggro with consecrate, while the priests spam smite, and pewpew everything down. It would be wicked cool to say the least.

I hadn't thought of that. I might just give this a go after my hardware transition. I don't want to try anything new right now, but I'm keeping that in mind. It's been a while since the pally I played has been Ret and I almost totally forgot about that.

[Coltimar]

Instead of deep holy go 30/31/0 or 31/30/0. Discipline is, obviously, great for PvP but it would be cool to try it out for PvE. I played a Disc priest in 25 mans for a bit, and it was fun. Power Infusion (though badly nerfed) would be interesting to try in a rotation of 5. Be sure to post if anyone does this, I'm curious.

[Tdog]

I was considering doing a 1 prot pally 3 holy nuke priest 1 shockadin for a farming team for awhile. 2 conscreations + 3 Holy Novas for AOE thru Strat. With the 2nd shockadin you could add in the sanctity aura, add in another round of blessings and give a 2nd judgement. A very Holy dmg heavy, very durable team. Also considered 1 prot pally 4 holy nuke priests as well, little less longevity but a bit more dps. In the end I ultimately decided on going for 1 prot pally 3 mages 1 priest.

I quickly discovered with my priest that Holy Nova is just waaaayyy to mana costly which was a big deal as that is one of the main spells I was going to use to aoe farm strat and potentially other zones with. Also with mages you get sheep, water , ports, and just more flexibility.

[HPB]

Yeah, but just think: 5 shackles, 5 Psychic screams, 5 sw, 5 renews , 5 shadow fiends, 5 POMs, If the crap is hitting the fan, 5 prayers of healing. For pvp: 5 instant cast dispel magics (oops, where'd your buffs go little gnome?), 5 drain mana's, 5 easy self-casting pw:s/innerfire/touch of weakness, ect..