anyways, while letting my other priest build rest (and to take a break
from the lower levels), i logged into kim and just planned on messing
around a lil bit before going back to the blood elf. the initial plan
was scrapped very quickly, however.

upon logging in, i had no intentions of wanting to heal or instance
grind. i just wanted to solo quest/mass murder the poor mobs in outland.
i decided to go ahead and respec from my holy build...and quickly put
all 51 points into shadow.

i through on my *cough*crappy*cough* damage gear, which added up to 379
shadow damage, and proceeded to go to outlands. i fell in love with a
higher level shadow priest yet again, the ease of killing mobs, and
handling of multiple mobs. felt really good. however, friends and guild
mates kept asking me to go to instances. i told them i'd go, but not as
the primary healer...but would help if/when needed.

so i went and did a couple instance runs, in damage gear, out of shadow
form. this still put me at 650'ish +heal, so i wasnt useless when it
came to heals mind you. the further we got into the instance, however,
the more i had to stop dps'ing and start healing until eventually i just
through back on my +heal gear, and went back to healing full time.

i knew this wasnt going to work, and i knew i couldnt respec every few
mins like i could in beta. so i went to the boards to try and find
*some* help and stumbled upon the smite build yet again. i thought why
not...i took a look, and re-worked a couple points until i wound up with:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=diMMzhxzZfxx0fbsbZb

...with the intentions that the points from the next couple levels would
fill out spirit tap (which i did at lvl61) and then finish out spiritual
  guidance. the remaining 5 points that i'll have as of lvl70 im
thinking of 2/5 spiritual healing, then re-getting 3/3 blessed
resilience. this would give me back a nearly identical build to the
pvp/pve holy healing build that i was so fond of (thanks again babe).

so i went out to test this build, after getting my hopes up, but wasnt
expecting much. my first couple mobs i was less than impressed, but then
realized...that like beta when i didnt give it a real shot...that i was
still wearing my *healing* gear. i just mentally assumed that damage
gear meant shadow, so i didnt think to put it on for holy damage. i
quickly put it on...and instantly my smites grew by a margin of 200.
they were hitting non-crit 730+, and critting for 1100.

i was literally laughing as i couldnt believe it. smite...hitting for
4-digits. i thought this was some sort of sick joke. but then...i
realized that i was critting very very often. like...1 out of 3 or 1 out
of 4 smites, and almost all of those kicked surge of light for instant
cast smite follow ups.

however, surge of light has a wonderful bug right now. its not supposed
to crit, but it does...which means it can kick off another. i've
managed, due to the bug, to chain 3 or 4 instant cast 1100ish smites
together followed by a 2s cast 750 smite. i managed a screenshot of one
of the chains:

http://www.thezengarden.net/kim/smite_dps.jpg

what happened is i cast smite, and it crit (but did not proc surge of
light), so 2 seconds later another 1k smite followed which did proc
surge of light, so i was able to instant cast another 1k smite...which
also proced surge of light in which another 750 smite was let go. so all
in all this was about 4k worth of damage in about 5 seconds.

...this was with only 309 +dmg by the way:

http://www.thezengarden.net/kim/smite_gear.jpg

and that is why im so impressed. by the end of the night i managed to
grab a couple more piece of damage gear, and got it up to 369. smites
were then hitting for 800ish and critting for 1200's.

suffice to say...as stated earlier, my initial plans were to switch off
kim after a lil bit and get back to the blood elf. i stayed on kim until
2am this morning leaving only 4hrs of sleep before work! lol.

also, my main thing about this smite build...after trying shadow
immediately before...i was able to compare the damage a bit. while i
could predict the damage of shadow more, and its pretty easy to sustain
a set dps...it feels limited at the time time. the only thing it really
excelled at was multiple mobs, as i could vt/sw:pain them all...fear,
then nuking them down one at a time eventually being able to wand the
last 1 or two as they'd be so low on health from the dots.

however...over a period of time, it felt like i actually did *more*
damage...and certainly more burst damage with the smite build. i got to
a point where everytime i'd see surge of light, i'd throw mind blast in
before the instant smites.

so imagine: sw:pain ticks for 240, smite hits for 1200, swp ticks again
for 240, mind blast follows for 740, swp ticks again for 240, smite
follows for 800.

...or roughly 3500 dmg...consistantly in a matter of 6 seconds.

again...compared to mage/warlocks this isnt much...but the frequency it
happens...about once or twice *per* fight, is what actually makes me
think im out dps'ing myself when i was shadow...and shadow had the +69
boost to dmg from anathema which i dont have while holy.

oh...and the best part about this...

i still remain an excellent healer for pve, and get both imp fort and
divine spirit...maybe even forego the blessed resilience points for imp
ds and put the left over point into spiritual healing for 3/5 there.

decisions, decisions... :D

btw, the respecs cost me 35g and 40g...but thanks to tbc, that 75g was
very very quickly remade. i think i ended the night down only 10 gold
from whan i initially logged on...and this was even after all repairs,
reagent costs, and lvl61 training. very very nice. :D

kim <3

-----------
Kimbelyn / Priestess of The Exiles of Lordaeron / Stormrage
http://www.eolguild.org | http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?216812

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=dxzGzhxzbZrxt0crqb0hZx

It's kinda difficult to build it through the levelling part until level
65, for in the end you have to spend the remaining points in improved
prayers (before 68 and prayer of mending) then in blessed resilience
(until 70).

The result on the other hand is awesome, truly. Nothing can rival its
burst damage in the priest's arsenal... and the burst healing is really
not something to frown at. The mana regen is highly controllable with
well placed SWD, holy fires, holy novae and surges of light in
instances, and I believe nobody would frown at ~1000 spirit with 65%
regen inside the 5 seconds rule and its assorted +350 damage and
healing after every killing blow. Add some trinket clicking and
switching and you can reach above 1000damage and healing for 15sec
every 30 seconds, ideal for soloing ;)

Add a few of the best survivability talents in the game to that build
(martyrdom, healing focus, blessed resilience) and you get a
powerhouse.

I've always favoured the holy priest's playing style anyway, so yeah
I've tried hard to make it as good as it can be.

Nice work, Kim.  Let's face it, priests rock.

At present I am rotating between a priest, sneaky rogue and easy hunter on
the Alliance side, and a priest, squishy warlock and lumbering warrior on
the Horde side.  My favorite characters remain my awesome priests.  My
Alliance priest is currently using a shadow build.  No character I play can
come close to the speed at which my shadow priest can take out a mob, but he
does burn the mana!

I am in pretty much the same situation. I had planned to keep my
disc/holy build for levelling, but temptation got the better of me,
and I ended up respeccing 51 points in Shadow, "just to try it out".

And I'm loving it for soloing, especially now I've got Shadow Word:
Death (which, incidentally, is fabulous for insta-tagging mobs, even
if it does hurt a little).

But I've been into instances as the primary healer, and I'm really
noticing the difference - no Spirit buff, mana doesn't last as long,
my healing isn't so efficient, and the heal cast times are too long.

It's enough to get by in instances (so far), but I'm using more mana
pots than usual, and sometimes the boss fights are a close call -
there's one in the Slave Pens (I think) where the tank gets a debuff
that can only be removed by healing him to full health - try as I
might, I couldn't get him to full health, but we killed the boss just
as I ran OOM.

So perhaps I should invesigate a holy nuker build.

Or maybe I'll do one more level as Shadow. Just one more. I can quit
any time I want. Honestly!

--
Zil, Level 63 NE Priest, Aman Shan're, Stormrage Europe

Nick

Moonrunner: Ellenfeiss (Human Warlock, 60)    Aynrand (Night Elf Rogue, 65)
            Maryprankstr (Human Priest, 63)   Jackiebrown (Dwarf Warrior, 60)

--
#include<stdio.h>    /* sigmask (sig.c) 20041028 PUBLIC DOMAIN */
int main(c,v)char *v;{return !c?putchar(*   /* cc -o sig sig.c */
v-1)&&main(0,v+1):main(0,"Ojdl!Wbshjti!=ojdlAwbshjti/psh?\v\1");}

I love the priest. Haven't gotten past 20, dinged it with my Draenei
before falling completely in love with the Undead, and now have a lvl
11 priest (among 2 other Forsaken alts: rogue and lock).

Looking forward to advancing my priest.