There are a lot of intelligent, thoughtful & enlightening things written in this class forum from some obviously accomplished (read: competent) priests however when any discussion turns to PVP I am appalled at what I read.

Anyone who can suggest shadow spec for PVP does not have many kills under their belt and has certainly never rocked a shad into a bg or arena after having done so as disc.

DISC PRIESTS DON'T DIE. We are like cockroaches, we can survive tremendous onslaughts from multiple players and see the other side of situations that we should NEVER have rightfully survived. We are way overbuffed for protection and strategy play, we live and die off 1 sec mass dispell casts, armor buffs, and are beautiful hybrid creatures capable of huge heals and lethal damage.

43/11/7 is the spec I use for bg's which allows me to kill quickly and effectively while retaining the cockroach abilities that 43 disc points grants. Obviously this is reduced to no shad points for arena. The 43/11/7 in full s1 kit (hybrid kit is GREAT for disc, very effective though you can choose to specialise either dps or healing exclusively if you desire and still remain both effective at both damage and healing) will see you pulling decent 6 figures in both damage and healing in any bg and the survivability puts you low on deaths and always at the top of honorable kills.

Having played both shad and holy extensively I can tell you from the heart that a majority discipline spec gives you omnipotency in PVP that allows you to tank, heal, dps and ultimately, wreak mass havoc upon your enemy.

I definitely agree that Discipline is the superior spec for PVP.  What I don't get is why you're putting 7 points into Shadow.  All that will give you is either Spirit Tap, which is pretty much useless in PVP, or Black Out, which is only useful if you're DPSing and using Shadow, which you probably aren't if you don't have a lot more points in Shadow.  So, I'd be interested to see your spec.  Most of the best arena priests I've seen are along the lines of 41/20 or 42/19.

The 7 points is 5 points stun and 2 points extended SWP.

I would never use 43/11/7 for arena only for battlegrounds, where I need to not only be able to live but to kill. I am hybrid kit hybrid spec so have great heals but also nice damage, enough so that with the extension and ability to stun I can not only kite, heal, evade, survive, but I can also turn and kill.

My standard bg numbers are 100-120k damage and 150-200k healing, which is how I'm happiest. Although I spec outright protection and healing for arena, for bg's I need to be able to not only defend but to attack and I prefer to see myself in the top 5 in both damage and healing rather than #1 heals.

I am a new 70 priest.  Dont have any other toons and am still learning.. I was strictly holy, but I was horde bait.  I like healing and when i was lower it was great -fing a good group no problem-I dont take invites to kara afraid i dont have what they need but now im tryin to do bg and havent even tried arena yet lol ...and in those you dont exactly have protection from other alliance members playing.. So I took someones advice and went holy disc. it is some help but now i cant heal others if im under att and i cant do damage..i understand that priests dont do alot of dps but i would like to survive sometimes and heal...can anyone whose a great priest tell me the best talents or which ones maybe im making a mistake in my pickin..or the best weapon i shoud use ...I thank you for your time.

Since you seem to be sticking to PVP, you definitely want to stay with a heavy discipline build.  Yes, you won't be able to heal as long or as big as you would with a holy build, but you'll survive a WHOLE lot longer.  The thing you have to remember is that pvp is geared around survival, wearing the other person out, this is why the gear is littered with extra stamina, intellect, armor, and particularly resilience.  In pvp, your job as a priest is to be able to survive burst damage.  Just like in instances when you target the healer first, that's what happens to priests in pvp.

yea forget holy for arena, if they nuke you, you'l very likely die in bout 10 seconds(and that's in my case with 300 resilience). I always had to be holy for the raiding but now i've decided screw my gold and respecc each time so i can still do some arena with my friends. And i gotta say....disc is frickin awesome! My 2v2 rating(warlock and me) went up with 200. We're having this new tactic that's very succesfull, i'm tanking....:p

I'm going to give you the best piece of advice anyone can possibly give you....

First, you dont have to be a good PvP'er to have S1 gear, any monkey can go do BGs 4 hrs a day and walk out with full gear in about a month so gear selection is not an issue.

READ, WATCH, LISTEN, STUDY, LEARN;

There are million of sites out there with a lot of experienced people who know how to PvP better than you, you can learn from most if you're willing to put the time to research.

KNOWING HOW TO PLAY YOUR DISC PRIEST IN YOUR MIND IS ONLY 50% USEFUL;

I still remember one of my first matches, I thought I knew what to do against every class, I had done my homework, watched films, took notes and BAM!!! - The minute the doors opened the freakin' keys looked like complete strangers to me. I didnt know what was what. My partner asked me to dispell and I pressed the mass dispell, I blew it; I healed for a whopping 850 hps - the only cure.....EXPERIENCE. So don't give up, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

DO CONTROL WHAT YOU'RE CAPABLE OF CONTROLLING;

Find out which mods help your class PvP, Mods like Proximo, Afflicted2, and MSBT 5.0. Learn to make macros, learn how to use /focus.

These are the little differences that can save you a ton of time and heartache. The rest is just pure reaction time and innate skill.

And if all that doesn't help you, ...PVE

Good luck.

Just chased a Disc Priest with 5% mana all the way across WSG, with 3 people beating on him (granted he probably out-geared us greatly)....

...And his health NEVER dropped below 90%.

So could anyone give some tips on how to kill one? (Yes I see the irony in asking you how to kill yourself)

Yes I was in greens....and him in S3.
Okay....well at least now I know Drain Mana works.

By the way does a big part of your survivability come from dispelling?

EDIT: Oh he popped a Shadowfiend...forgot about that.

Devne, i would love to see how exactly is your points distributed

QUOTE: "Because the only way to kill a Disc Priest is by eating his mana.  If you couldn't eat his mana from 5%, either you suck, your gear sucks, or most likely, both."

remember this: A PRIEST WITHOUT MANA IS A DEAD PRIEST.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that you suck but with 5% mana left, I usually start /s cry. Are you in greens at 70? If you are then I compare you to the netherdrake rep grind. You start 44,000 pts into Hated and you have to work your way up to Exalted. But just like the grind, you do 2 or 3 small things and you move up to neutral right away. Also, you could have the best strategy and unmatched skills, but fighting in green gear is only going to lead you to the nut house.

Your job as a Disc Priest is not only the obvious but you have the all important job of debuffing / dispelling. If you leave the opponents fully buffed you are going to make life very difficult for your teammate(s). Bind (assign) those keys, like i said before, use /focus - it took me a while to understand how truly beneficial that is.

One of the biggest differences between good PvP'ers and bad ones is that the good ones use all those buttons you know are there but you never use....they are there for a reason.

Learn the little tricks, like how or when to use fade, or rank 1 spells...(i.e If you know the other priest is dispelling, use Rank 1 SW:P) and watch him waste 14% of his base mana while it's only going to cost you 25 mana (about .2%)

I'm not a big fan of vent because I get bugged at how emotionals some young players get, but in the beginning it's very important that you and your partner get on the same page.

Back to the point as to how to kill a priest, the time I remember getting my ars kicked is when the other team CC'd me to death while they slowly beat my partner up.

If anyone wants to know more about the how to's and tips and all that stuff you can let me know what server you're on and I'll start a toon on it so we can chat.

Elvenstar

PS - ...and I'm still learning to play.

Um, I was actually asking how to kill one, not how to be one.

But thanks anyway.

You're going to have to explain how fade is useful in PVP, because AFAICT, it's only useful against NPCs.