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Well with the release of BC, and pretty blonde elves, it's time for my wife to start an alt, since our Tauren & Orc shamans neer got off the ground (I think due to shaman more than racial choices).

So anyway, looks like Blood Elves are the go. We'll no doubt be duoing through 90% of the levelling content from 1-70, so while group utility is nice, I couldn't give a rats ass about raid viability.

So anyway, she's decided on either a Warlock or a Pally, since I told her there was no point in playing a mage since she already has a 60 (gnome) mage. I'd probably rather play a Lock myself, but having 2 different classes would probably make us much more attractive for instances and groups once we level up than 2 locks.

So, if she plays a Pally, I'll play a Lock. I figure Soulstone on a Pally will be a nice combo. If she can hold aggro, I can make things deaded.

If she plays a Lock though, well, that kida cuts me out of a Lock for the reasons outlined above, so I was thinking maybe a Shadow spec priest. - So, I know Shadow Spec priests are awesome in PVP, but we'll just be questing and grouping for the odd instance quests etc for the most part.
Are Shadow Priests any good at healing in a group situation? It's kind of a damned position since I have no desire to be stuck as a healer but it could be alright if I can still heal ok in shadow spec in a group situation.

Anyone have any thoughts?

I'm not that experienced, but I'll say lock/pally.  If everything goes right, two of any class can cut it.  And if everything goes to shit, having someone who can heal/rez/bubble all while wearing plate can mean the difference between "Ok honey, I'll rez!" and the two of you running halfway across a zone as ghosts.  I got up into the thirties one time with a pally/mage duo and it worked really well.

Both are great.

My girlfriend and I did Shadow Priest/Lock, and PvP wasn't even a challenge.

We're actually playing Lock/Pally right now, but we're only in our early 30s, and really aren't playing WoW much at all anymore. So I couldn't comment on it.

Shadow Priests can heal just fine in lower instances, especially since your grinding gear (heavy Spirit) is quite good for healing. Also, the fact that later on your debuffs like Shadow Vulnerability and Misery feed right into her damage should makes things dead pretty damn quick.

Also, Fear + Mind Flay = dead Melee :P.

Shadow Priests Melt Faces in PvP.

SP/Lock would be my suggestion. That combo is just nasty in PVP and you can have all kinds of fun pulling off hard pve and making it harder by accidently fearing up some new enemies before you finish with the first lot, kiting, etc. It's the much more fun combo to my mind, and they compliment eachother so well.

The wife and I diddled around with Lock/ Pally on Alliance side to get a feel for it so we could do the same as you and your wife are.  Early on it felt like a good combo, but once I hit 35-40ish on the pally I could feel I was holding the group back and providing nothing but buffs and healing.  She was doing all the killing and I was really just there to pull crap off of her unless we were taking on elites. 

So, my suggestion is do the priest/ lock duo.

This the current levelling that the wife and I are doing.  I'm 52 and she's 50.  The synergy (sorry) between these classes are amazing.  You will BURN through everything you find with unholy might.

And you will never, ever die.

SP/Lock.

Don't level a paladin. 


Ever.

You know, I had to come back and post again.

If I ever see any of you horde people go ahead and level a paladin after BC and then come here to complain about it, my flames shall be felt.

I can't warn you enough.

Don't do it.

I actually had a Palladin alt going before I switched to Horde so I plan on getting a Blood Elf Pally up as soon things settle down. That said, I give the same exact advice to my friends who've only been Horde... Paladins are, an acquired taste to say the least.

Lock/shadow priest. The priest Shadow Weaving talent increases the damage of the lock. You can also alternate fearing.

Both of you should level Pally's. In fact, everyone Horde side should level one - solo. And then I'd like to see how many of them still come back and cry, cry, cry that a 12 second bubble on a 5 minute timer is the most overpowered, game-breaking, I WIN button in the history of WoW for all time and that Pally's are the most overpowered cheese class in the game. Because half the threads on the official forum are still people saying that. It's fucking sickening.

While the Pally bubble is annoying in PvP, I have never understood WHY people say that about Pallies and I've been Horde my entire WoW Career.

Dude I'll totally smash your face with a hammer that does 200 dmg like every 10 seconds.

Owned.

We always gave one bit of advice to our Fixed group in PvP  :  Ignore the pallies.

They can't damage you and you can't hurt them.  Just act like they're not there.

It was good advice.

I have a 60 Paladin. He was my first 60.

I keep him in a box these days. I didn't throw away the key, I think I lost it...


To be fair, playing the indestructable Pally was great fun compared to the Hunter which was my first toon (stopped at 35 or something). I started the Pally after playing EQ1 and assuming that a Pally was, you know, a plate tank. (this was in the early days of WoW). When I realised that he was never going to be anything besides a 3rd-rate healer and cleansebot I stopped playing. Later I bumped him up to 60 just because he was close enough.


As for the new alts, looks like Priest/Lock is the go.

Same.

I still am amazed I still played after that first character.  Well, actually, every class after that was so much better I was probably in a false state of euphoria due to my less than perfect start in the game.

Unless you're a Priest, Mana Burn all the way!

That said, it's not about ignoring them, since it's not their damage that hurts (well at least before the patch, the amount of damage they can do while Invuln is still retarded), but stuff like Blessing of Freedom and you know... Cleansing Unstable Affliction while bubbled. Yeah, I'm not angry or anything. That's only in WSG though that I find them annoying, in AB and AV, they're no where near as powerful.

Still though, I liked my Paladin when I played Alliance. I guess that makes me strange(r).

Bad advice if the pally knows what he is doing. A Pally healing in PVP is a MAJOR pain in the ass. In an evenly match group you need to CC the pally, or drop one person on him so he doesnt keep healing and clensing your target.

I was going to say, a good Pally make other players godlike.

Hens Teeth.

You might bring your pallys back into the light of day in light of the recent changes to their talents. They're quite the pain in the ass in PvP. Of course, I quit leveling mine around level 19. (I seem to have a problem with the 20s....).

SO Shadow Priest aren't good anymore, or Warlocks so good, its dumb not to make one?

actually, shadow priests are freaking kick-ass now.

Warlocks are still very good, even though they got a nerf in this patch. Shadow Priests are very nasty. The two compliment each other nicely since they both do shadow damage.

I think the general consensus is that with the recent lock nerf, Hunters are the most overpowered class right now.

We're not overpowered.  Y'all just don't run fast enough.  :-D

Whenever I get smacked down by a warrior or stunlocked by a rogue, I think about how OP I am and just laugh as I lie crumpled in a heap waiting to res.

That doesn't tell us much.  Being overpower doesn't mean you can't be killed.  If you couldn't be killed, that would be "broken".

You can't level up in PvP anymore, right?  I am really trying to stay away from WoW. 

You never really could... but now there really is no repeatable experience gain from PvP.

Pets just got normalized. The .7 attack speed broken tooth thing is of the past. That leaves only the insane mulit-shot crit rates, which aren't going to change until gear does.

And Warlocks still own my ass.

I have a 55 Dwarf Shadow Priest, and a 47 Human Lock (why the hell those 2 toons are Alliance, I can't say).

My 2 coppers:  No matter what your spec as a priest, you're still fairly squishy.  Locks, too, but the situations where you end up toeing it with mobs are much less frequent due to the pet.  Shadow Priests don't really start to develop as "powerful" until level 40ish, then more noticeably (to me anyway) after 50.  My Lock was painful as a little guy, but got steadily more powerful with each level.

I agree that the synergy of shadow debuffs + shadow damage is potent, however I think the tried and true DIKU formula of having a healer paired with a melee'er is still the "optimal" setup up for most PvE content.  Locks are hideously strong is PvE and PvP, but with Pally's getting some luv post 2.x  I'd still give Pally/Lock some consideration.  I dunno, as any flavor of finger-waggler I always appreciated having an axe wielding armored can as a wingman.  That being said my Priest at 55 can devour most any PVE content I choose to tackle with appalling ease.

I'm sure any combo you listed would work, but I still vote for some variety of melee + some variety of casting healer.  *shrug*     

I get your point, but the facts are that if she can't play a class she likes the appeal of, she won't play at all, and while I have a level 35 lock (I levelled up early on in WoW, when fear on mobs broke really bloody fast before giving up on it and retiring the character to do nothing but make mooncloth).

She's also not a gamer, and as you'd likely know, the difference between a good healer and a bad healer is huge, so I would never recommend her to play a priest, despite the "wife as priest/cleric" thing that I've seen since EQ1, the fact is she'll suck as a high level healer. She's competent as a mage, and occasionally our duo-mage combo pulls off some amazing stuff, but she's not one of those people you'll say "wow that <class> was an amazing <class>".

We managed to pretty much duo up to 60 with a pair of mages (hers ice, mine fire) and despie lacking healing or tanking, we managed to level up with no problem, based basically on overwhelming firepower (which should also get those characters to 70)

It's all good.  Like I keep telling people (and myself) it's a game and however you play should be fun to you so.   :wink: 

Any class combo in WoW works for 80% of the content you will see.  I was lucky enough for about 20 levels to have a old fashioned sword and board warrior as my partner and then after he quit WoW I had a buddy that was a Mage.  (On my old main the Priest).  I can't stay away from playing my Hunter because it's just fun for me to play, and lately I've been running with another Hunter - and we waltz thru most quests.  I actually think it's fun to find ways to "beat" certain areas or levels without the again quote "optimal" setup.

Overall I'd say you're lucky that you have a wife that enjoys one of the hobbies you do, no matter what y'al pick!

Oh definately. I just really wanted to know if a shad priest was any good outside of levelling up and pvp. Mostly to see if they're any good at all in instances, and how well they fit with the Lock

I'd actually consider Lock/Feral Druid.

Then you have your tank/healer and in some situations, additional AOE.  I particularly like playing a druid as opposed to a priest, but that's just taste.  Druids are a lot more flexible and have interesting powers/talents to play around with.  Their travel powers are only outdone by the mages' portals.

Just another option that could be quite powerful.

Interestingly enough, I can say from experience that Shadowpriests are very usefull in High end raids also.  Yesterday We did Naxx Plague wing with 3, or maybe 4, shadowpriests in the raid.  They were somewhat of a mixxed bag on patchwerk (lack of faster gheals hurts with our strat) but they rocked house on the other 3 bosses.  I had one in my party for Grobb, Gluth and Thaddeus, and the combination of Vamp Embrace an Vamp Touch (the one that restores mana) meant my mage got topped up to full pretty fast after a decimate or chain lightning, and had loads of mana to work with over thaddeus (i usually burn through 2 or 3 pots, all my gems, and evocation on thaddeus, with the shadowpriest, 1 gem and Evo were enough)

I just respecc'd my priest last night in preparation for leveling (spec (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=rVGZZxGrzMtRhtVo)). I went in the battlegrounds to give it a go. Holy crap. they are super strong now. do VT+SW:P and half their life is gone. It's terrific for harassing. VT->SW:P->MB->VE->flay->flay = love.

Wow. I am seriously strong. VT makes all the difference in the world, that VT+SW:P is an awesome harasser. Getting trickle mana+life is just an added bonus.

I told you.  The wife MELTS FACES.  (As her Shadow Priest.)

Of course, she didn't pussy out like you and put talents in the other trees.

:)

I guess I should learn2play, because my 59 priest has been roundly owned by quite a few 60s in Silithus lately.  They just seem to dump so much damage on me in a second that I don't have time to actually respond.

Maybe I just need more stam gear.


However, on topic, I do think that priest/lock would be a killer combo.  Friends don't let friends level pallies.

Twin hunters is pretty sweet too.  Nearly everything gets burned down before it reaches you.  If not, hunters have such good aggro-control mechanisms that they can typically get by even when something gets through.

Not sure of current combos, but something like VT->SW:P->flay-flay-flay doesn't kill them? VT->SW:P->MB->flay->scream->flay->flay->flay? Also, the 60s in slith are harder than most 60s elsewhere... If they are casters, put a silence in there...

Maybe I should clarify... this is PvP.  PvE, I agree... as a shadow priest I never really die unless I really stick my neck out.

The times I was owned recently was by a 'lock (duh) - even fear ward only gets you so far there - and a druid.. but now that I think of it, I think the druid popped me when I was engaged with a mob and low on health/mana.

You guys that are so discouraging him from leveling a paladin, i wonder if we are playing the same game?

The days of hte paladin not being able to break an egg are gone.  My shaman is by no means near the pinnacle of gear in wow, but she has 4120 hp, which isn't horrible.  HoJ followed by crusader/autoattack + judge (plz no SoC proc >_<) fucking hurts.  i have been dropped to less then 20% hp during the HoJ in a 1v1.  That is quickly followed with a repentance (so that i can't NS and the paladin can let his autoattack refresh and crusader strike cooldown finish) then im dead.

BTW, the paladin in question was using a welfare mace, he hadn't gotten his GM claymore yet.


Anyway, as to the combo's you were talking about:

I had quite a good time duoing with a priest from 54ish to 60 on my lock.  The synergy of shadoweaving/misery/etc isn't really evident in general leveling.  2 characters of any class and any spec will generally kill a normal world mob to fast for crap like shadoweaving to matter much.  It is nice in instances.

If you are looking for the ultimate duo combo you really can't go wrong with a lock and priest, as others have mentioned.  Her fearkiting and dots will be super-fueled by your heals, since as she runs low on mana and life taps, you can effortlessly fill her back up.  Some combination of holy/disc would probably be more powerful then shadow in such a duo (power as expressed in ease and speed with which you make experience/time), but if you dont enjoy it then wats the point, and you have already stated you don't enjoy being a healbot.  However (and i wish this advice had been given me when i was leveling my priest) please, regarless of your spec and inclination, GET HEALING FOCUS.  2 point talent at the base of the holy tree, any spec can squeeze it in and it benefits every single type of gameplay.  70% chane to not have your heals interrupted is house.  This talent should consist of your first 2 talent points, having heals interrupted is extremely annoying, pve or pvp.

If you, in your heart of hearts, really do not wish to heal in terms of the primary thing your character does and its primary strength, i'd recommend retadin.  Simply because the "base" paladin big heal, untalented, is still fairly efficient and powerful.  This means you can be almost all ret and still fill your lock back up after she taps down.  Cleanse is extremely good.  While leveling/question, instances, pvp, etc, cleanse is just fucking hot.  Frost nova?  Fuck you.  Annoying -35 to all stats disease from a mob that last A HALF FUCKING HOUR, fuck you.  Crippling poison, viper sting?  Fuck you.  Sheep?  Fuck you.

Then their is the crowd control a retadin has.  People dont make much of it, but other then iceblock and bubble, i dont think anything gets you out of repentance.  HoJ the only thing i can think of is blink, maybe a few pvp trinkets also.  In instances both moves have value to stop runners and get annoying mobs off your wife or whoever is main healing.  Both of these abilities have only 1 minute cooldowns, which means in a pve 5/10 man situation each should be up almost every pull, and in pvp they should be up almost every battle.

Other advantages to the lock/pally duo are blessing of freedom  on her, means warriors can froth at the mouth when they are unable to hamstring her, rogues crip poison does nothing.

Grinding/questing wise, its debatable if shadowpriest/lock or retadin/lock has more synergy.  I think the basic question is:
Do you enjoy a melee character more, or a caster more?  Retadin fits in for the former, shadow priest for the latter.

PvP wise, i definately think retadin/lock has more power.  Their respective CC's are not on the same deminishing returns, paladins are not easily FF'd as the healer in a pvp senario typically is, they can remove more annoying debuffs, their blessings are sick.

Finally, for your ego, is skill differential.  Their are a fuckton of sorry ass paladins.  People who are either subhuman, retarded, or have cerebal palsy and no place playing this game.  If you are even a decent pally, you will be in demand for groups, simply because people are FUCKING AMAZED you dont have brain damage.

Thanks for the detailed post, though she's the one interested in playing a pally (or lock). I've already got a 60 pally which I have little interest in these days, (and yes, by virtue of simply not being retarded I was always told how great I was as a pally) so my own choices are Lock or Shadow Priest. Thanks for pointing out Healing Focus though, I really haven't looked into the talent trees in any detail yet, so as obvious as it may be later, its certainly handy to know upfront.

I'm sure I'll level the Pally to 70 over time, as regardless of anything else, he can be handy to have around as a ghetto healer when my friends might need help on a quest.

Looks like we'll try out Lock/Sp. If Lock is too complex for her or not fun she can try the pally. Or a hunter. I dunno. She doesn't like "being hit", and my own lazy preference is for non-melee classes since I played a tank for years in EQ1 and have the rogue and Pally in WoW already..

Just a FYI. I did a lot of instances in BC beta with a pally as the only healer and we did fine. Did them with a pally as a main tank too and also did fine there too. Pallies seem to change a lot in the expansion.

Interesting, and good news. When I was playing the pally, I was overall considered useless as a tank, and overall considered not good enough to be a healer. Being able to do either/both (like a leather-wearing druid) will be a nice change.

Just a note. It wasnt the same pally, and we had 1c respec's in beta. So I guess you'll have to pic a role and spec for it to do it. Same as a druid really.