ChahDresh wrote:
Ultimately, though, you have to choose. Either choose what you want to be good at and just "get by" at other things, or be prepared to respec a lot.
That's the key part. You have to choose (or pay through the nose) a particular role.
A deep Discipline build is great for PvP. Survivability goes through the roof, while still being able to heal more than adequately. It's not a particularly viable raid build, due to the lowered efficiency because of the lack of the deep Holy talents that GIVE us that efficiency. Some raids bring a Disc priest a long for Pain Suppression, but that's more a lark, than anything.
A Holy build (healing build, not a Smiter build) is great for healing. It can be used effectively to level and solo, but it's at best only "so-so". The best comes in due to the deep Holy talents adding a boost to the various healing spells (Spiritual Guidance is nice). Some Holy priests skip the deep Holy Talents (like Circle of Healing, Empowered Healing) and go deep enough into Discipline to pick up Divine Spirit and Improved Divine Spirit. This makes them a little more useful for raids. Sadly, each raid only needs one Imp DS Priest.
Smiters can be decent damage dealers. The main problem is the relatively low damage output of Smite alongside the mana cost. It's not terribly mana efficient. :P
If you want to bring some utility and damage dealing to the party (or even have better than average solo capability), Shadow is the way to go. The generally accepted method to level a priest is to level Shadow and respec later for healing/pvp duties. It's a little faster than trying to level Holy.
[Edit - grammar > me today]
Edited, Jun 11th 2008 10:07am by Shamandin