You can get the double 2 pc of spirit and crit PvP gear. Even if you prefer one stat or the other, the slight reduction in weakened soul duration isn't worth the extra 100 resi in my opinion. At 1300 resi I very rarely get stomped on by rogues and love duelling them, since they often get overjoyed at a clothy target only to faceplant. Keep in mind that I'm a low rated 2v2er and occasional dueller/BGer when reading my various musings.

Interrupts and silences are a major concern so preemptively PoMing, renewing and shielding will counteract some of that. Against enemy disc priest you'll most likely be offensively dispelling, offensively fearing and offensively mana burning. I always feel a pang of guilt mana burning an enemy priest though - usually they'd do just the same to me, but its a pain and there's very little you can do to counteract it. Try to get power infusion up and pop your haste trinket before spamming mana burn. If your opponent has used a haste trinket and yours is down, its not always a good idea to try mana burning back, so just kite behind a pillar. Strip enemy priests of fear ward and try using yours as one approaches. Bind a macro where you cancel spell casting to either shadow word: death or fear ward to prevent abrupt fears or polymorphs.

Feared or sapped enemies are perfect candidates for dispelling. Try keeping enemy healers in line of sight if they're Holy Palas or Resto Druids - you don't necessarily need to mana burn, but you really need to get innervate or divine plea down as soon as possible - they'll probably also try to cyclone or stun your shadowfiend to win the mana war. Binding mass dispel to inner focus/stop casting/power infusion has worked out for me as well, as with those buffs its a 0.3 second cast time which can make a huge amount of difference against a pala or mage. Against enemy shaman use a mouseover sw:d macro, get close to them, wait for them to drop tremor and sw:d/fear. Always keep an eye out for mana tide totem.

Using /stopcasting with flash heal or penance in order to waste an enemy kick is something a lot of priests recommend, though I feel that with rogue kicks and DK mind freezes I can usually live with an interrupted flash heal and just use the penance in 5 seconds time knowing that it will have its full affect.

Martyrdom is almost worth it for counterspell alone, but only almost. No holy spells (including shield, penance etc.) for 8 seconds is more than enough time for 2 enemies to kill a priest. If under 80% hp without buffs due to spellsteal a good mage will also be able to kill a priest. In fact, killing a PvP healer is almost always reliant on interrupts (or stuns), healing reductions or mana drains. Its very rare that burst alone will kill a well geared PvP healer.

Mind control can be used liberally as an interrupt, in order to peel dps for you, in order to waste an interrupt for full healing effect, or as CC - for example, in 2v2 I'm confident my partner can lock down a PvE geared dps, so I will fear the healer, mind control, then whether or not they've blown their trinket, my partner will usually blind them. Then I assist with dps on my partner's target. Just be mindful that if they're DoTed and mind controlled, PoM can heal them, HoTs will still affect them and mind control can be broken by damaging or interrupting the priest or dispelling the effect. It wont be very effective if there's a free dps nearby or you're attempting to MC one of 2 dps on you, whether or not they have interrupts. It also has a very short range, so if you plan on fear -> DoT -> MC, you may have to chase down your target. Another random tip: if you're up against a mage with nibelung, you can shackle undead the Valkyrie that pops out.

Also, I made my disc spec at some point in 3.2 where not as many priests went for silent resolve and most went for crit gear, though there's been a major swing where top tier arena priests are using it and switching to haste gear. Perhaps its due to a preponderance of range cleave with spellsteal/counterspell or purge/wind shear?

Finally: skilled dps of any class will be a problem for a priest (Well, at my awful skill level at any rate). I mentioned I enjoy duelling rogues, but there's a rogue on my server who is in the top 2v2 team that I've never beaten. Likewise, I'm fairly confident against ret paladins, shaman and warriors, but I've been beaten by PvP geared fury warriors, arms warriors, enh shaman and ret paladins. I've been unable to nuke down a resto druid who stayed in bear who then cycloned my shadowfiend when I was oom and proceeded to bash my hymn of hope. That said, I haven't lost to a boomkin since level 80. Class imbalance can somewhat be overcome by skill and gear. But the 3 classes I tend to hate in a 1v1 scenario are affliction locks, arms warriors and shadow priests. Its almost impossible to dispel a shadow priests fear ward due to stacks of shadow weaving (so can rarely peel against them) they do too much damage within range to mana burn and can interrupt or dispel any of my offensive or defensive spells, not to mention having more interrupts and more mana cooldowns. On top of that, in shadow priest/dps vs. healer/dps if the healer gets killed and the dps on the shadow priest is out of cooldowns and low on health, the shadowpriest can break shadow form and heal with an efficiency topping any hybrid bar, perhaps, boomkin.

Afflic locks the problem is somewhat simpler: in a 1v1 scenario, I can't outdps health funnel or life drain, nor outlast mana drains when coupled with their dps. They'll also have me ping ponging all over the place with their various fears and their fel hunter will eat my shield, power infusion and various buffs. Sometimes I manage to kill their pet behind a pillar only for them to pop fel domination and summon it again. Oh, not to mention I could be behind a pillar 50% of a fight and not be able to drink due to a pet being on me. Though that's a problem with unholy DKs and hunters as well.

Warriors have berserker rage (1 peel down), furious attacks or mortal strike and can interrupt mind control, as well as keeping me highly immobile most of the game with the undispellable hamstring. Some arms warriors with low dps I can DoT, fear, mind control when they berserker rage. With good gear (high ArP usually) I'm forced to use defensive cooldowns the whole battle and by the time bladestorm's popped I'm as good as finished. Fury warriors with furious attacks take a little longer to down me, but eventually do as enraged regeneration and bloodthirst outheal my DoTs and reflective shield.

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