I'm playing 5 priests and speccing shadow...they're 31 now. I'll let you know how it goes when I get a little bigger. Right now I'm owning anything within 10 levels of me with pain, plauge, and mind blast. A 5xpain will generally kill any non-healing class thats around my level and not a warrior.

In regards to sw:death, throw embraces on before you pop it and you heal any damage you would have taken on the guys who didnt get the killing blow (plus another 25% from the fifth priest).

In regards to shadowform (not there yet, but these are my thoughts), I'm willing to sacrifice the chance to throw out an instant heal and use embrace and shields as my primary heal until I absolutely cant. At that point I'll pop out ONE priest and flash heal with him. Popping out all 5 to do holy nova's and removing melee damage mitigation and spell damage doesn't sound too smart to me.

In regards to priests kill slow because of dots: mind blast, mind flay will end someone pretty quickly too (go check the thread in the movie forums where the Ugh 4 boxes priests and talks about some pvp). If I were wanting something down fast, mind blast, sw:death and take the health hit and VE,SW:P the next guy I see and let it tick on him (I'm thinking BG's here....open world pvp should typically be a slaughter for a multiboxer).

In regards to comparing the 5 priests to 5 mages: it's just a different playstyle. If you're going for max burst dps I agree the mages got it. There are situations though where priests would play differently and both have some wild strengths and weaknesses. I look forward to 5 individual fear bombs on GY flags, doing fire and forget dots on each ally I see runniny by me that I'd normally have to stop and engage (I love drive by's), and various other fun scenarios. It's apples and oranges...no sense in comparing them because they're not equal in much of any area.