Thanks for this series, I've enjoyed all of the different "fighting class X" articles. My main is a priest and I have a lot of (I'll try to be constructive) criticism on this one.

In case you've missed it, Shadow is currently one of the strongest specs of any class in BGs, if played correctly, ever since the advent of hasted DOTs. The key is that my enemy typically does not notice when I Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague, and Shadow Word: Pain them. Or at most they notice that they received "some DOT from somewhere" and have no idea how hard all three of those are about to tick. By the time they have identified me, I'm guaranteed to be out of charge range but still within shadow spell range and landing an Improved Mind Blast on them for half of their remaining health (the DOTs having removed about a third already). Now they have a 50% healing debuff so their pocket druid can't keep up, and between Mind Flay and SW:Death they are toast.

That's my perspective from being the shadow priest; and on another note, I also play mid-level (39s, 49s, etc.) hunters and warlocks, and one of the few classes/specs they cannot be fairly sure of destroying one-on-one is the shadow priest. Especially a Draenei shadow priest with their racial heal, that's a tough one to crack. Seems to me one of the main problems is they can dispel one of my DOTs and I can dispel zero of theirs.

You didn't mention anything about a Disc priest's ability to pop Power Infusion followed by Holy Nova spam, which can take out nearly any opponent who allows themselves to get below 10% health in close quarters. Perhaps a rare case, but a good number of my Killing Blows on my Disc spec (again in BGs, I don't arena) are indeed from Holy Nova spam. It's not as powerful as a good arcane mage's Arcane Explosion, but the self heal makes it pretty successful.

When you said Inner Fire is probably worth dispelling, you may have forgotten the major Spell Power buff it contributes. Inner Fire is absolutely worth dispelling IMHO... maybe only in BGs, again, that's my only PvP experience. Likewise, Inner Fire is absolutely worth recasting in-combat for any priest above roughly 50% health, otherwise the loss of spell power means more certain defeat.

The idea that a priest would *ever* cast Greater Heal in a PvP scenario is pretty crazy to me (such a long cast, and definitely not worth the points to speed its casting) and I'm not sure if I can find anywhere that you even mentioned Penance or the necessity of interrupting it or the benefits of doing so.

When you say not to worry too much about Mind Blast -- any BG priest I know will cast it every time they get enough distance and if they're a well geared 80 they will likely crit with it for over 6K. That's a pretty big hit to not worry too much about. Not that their victim can really do anything about that since the only reason the priest has that much distance at the moment is the victim is Feared with trinket on CD.

I've never heard of a Shadow Priest glyphing Dispel Magic -- must be an arena trick? In BGs you need primarily maximum damage glyphs plus reduced Dispersion CD for more escapes and less downtime. AFAIK glyphing Dispel Magic is a favorite of the Disc priest who makes herself the pocket healer for a flag carrier in EOTS and WSG. They are almost sure to be Dispelling that FC dozens of times in a good flag run (especially in Warsong Gulch) and might as well have some of those dispels add a heal.

Mana Burn: I used to spec my Disc guy for fast Mana Burn, and specialized it enemy Paladin takedowns (in coordination with a melee assistant to keep them occupied). Lately, though, I found that even when talented for reduced casting time, you can't top the fact that Mana Burn still has a cast time, Dispel Magic is instant, *plus* Dispel magic removes a buff while Mana Burn only saps mana. When faced with that choice, I'll choose the Dispel every time, especially against Paladins and Druids, and since I've been working this way I've killed and assisted in killing many more of them than when I used to Mana Burn. Try Mana Burning a really well geared and played Druid or Shaman right now... and watch them stop everything and just laugh at you out of pure pity.

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