Priest Spec?

[Tebonas]

Its a simple problem of supply and need, not of absolute numbers.

There are not as many warriors as there are possible groups. And since every group needs a warrior to tank (talking high level instances here, up to the midfourties my druid had no problem whatsoever tanking with a Shaman as mainhealer). Its the old EQ-Enchanter problem. 4 people without a warrior are screwed, 4 people without a priest can manage with a druid/shm combo, 4 people without a warlock shrug their shoulders and take a hunter, rogue or mage instead (if there are no special warlock mez abilites needed). At least it seems to me this way, but thats Horde side on one server, mileage may vary.

[Sogrinaugh]

You draw more hate with better  heals, ping-pong aggro is important skill

I've never had to ping-pong aggro in strath (either side), scholo, dm, l/ubrs, or brd.  Nor MC/BWL/Ony/Kaz/Azur.  I did uld a very long time ago (around january) and can't recall many details about the place other then some really cool/complex lore at the end.  My most noteworthy memory of Uld is the warrior i met thier, who is on my friends list to this day.  I added him percisely because he held aggro so well, i don't recall any of this aggro-bouncing you mention as being a necessity, the run where we actually killed the last boss went like clockwork, again mostly in my view due to the skill of the warrior.  And my guild had/has a very "do it yourself" mentality, so my pug had noone to power us threw it.  I believe the final boss was orange or red to me.

Only time i bounced aggro as a priest is when duo'ing with a rogue questing/grinding, in which mind blast is better since it has some obsurd hate-multiplier attached to it and gives the rogue lots of free backstabs.

Finally i will (again) reply to your statement about needing to manage more-powerful heals and the threat they generate as a trivial shift in gameplay.  You are healing for 10% more... thats a meager 10% more threat, assuming you dont take subtlty.  The biggest boost a disc/holy priest gets in his ability to heal comes from meditation, and a change in focus from +int/sta/shadow damage gear to int/spirit and +healing, which the prophecy has tons of.  At lower levels it marginally increases your capacity in groups, while significantly hindering your ability to solo quest.

[Jobu]

Shadow Priests make more damage than my druid. So lets them, I'm main healer, they nuke, and in a tight spot they assistheal. And they can rezz more often than once every half hour. Granted, thats not because I heal better, but because my damage output is worse.

I hate how that happens, it makes sense for the priest to DPS because they do way more damage than a druid, but they have to use mana in the process and so are less able to backup heal in emergencies. Blizz really does need to boost catform DPS.

One of the best duos for questing I've ever done was with a guildmate who was a restoration druid and my shadow priest. He would heal, I would nuke, shit would die. When the horde jumped us they foolishly assumed I was the one keeping us alive, and quickly died as I just sat there being healed. His Regrowth spell was just amazing compared to my Renew. All his other talents really boosted him to be completely efficient at replacing me as a healer. I wouldn't trust it in an instance, but out in the wild, it was sublime.

[MrHat]

One of the best duos for questing I've ever done was with a guildmate who was a restoration druid and my shadow priest. He would heal, I would nuke, shit would die. When the horde jumped us they foolishly assumed I was the one keeping us alive, and quickly died as I just sat there being healed. His Regrowth spell was just amazing compared to my Renew. All his other talents really boosted him to be completely efficient at replacing me as a healer. I wouldn't trust it in an instance, but out in the wild, it was sublime.

Warrior/Shaman ftw.

[jpark]

You draw more hate with better  heals, ping-pong aggro is important skill

I've never had to ping-pong aggro in strath (either side), scholo, dm, l/ubrs, or brd.  Nor MC/BWL/Ony/Kaz/Azur.  I did uld a very long time ago (around january) and can't recall many details about the place other then some really cool/complex lore at the end.  My most noteworthy memory of Uld is the warrior i met thier, who is on my friends list to this day.  I added him percisely because he held aggro so well, i don't recall any of this aggro-bouncing you mention as being a necessity, the run where we actually killed the last boss went like clockwork, again mostly in my view due to the skill of the warrior.  And my guild had/has a very "do it yourself" mentality, so my pug had noone to power us threw it.  I believe the final boss was orange or red to me.

Only time i bounced aggro as a priest is when duo'ing with a rogue questing/grinding, in which mind blast is better since it has some obsurd hate-multiplier attached to it and gives the rogue lots of free backstabs.

Finally i will (again) reply to your statement about needing to manage more-powerful heals and the threat they generate as a trivial shift in gameplay.  You are healing for 10% more... thats a meager 10% more threat, assuming you dont take subtlty.  The biggest boost a disc/holy priest gets in his ability to heal comes from meditation, and a change in focus from +int/sta/shadow damage gear to int/spirit and +healing, which the prophecy has tons of.  At lower levels it marginally increases your capacity in groups, while significantly hindering your ability to solo quest.

We just "pinged aggro" last night in lbrs - first time I was there.  Frankly, we did not even need the warrior until the boss fight(s).  It's a different style of fighting (2 mages + priest).  Still early to say if it can be applied to other runs at the high end for 5 mans I admit.

The possible difference in our fighting styles may explain differences in healing.  I heal mages more often than I do the tank.  That in turn gets me a lot of aggro since I am doing a lot more healing than if the aggro were neatly focused on the tank.

We know the paradigm - all aggro on tank (if you can).  But if you can ping the aggro - you can use AoE and cut through battles in no time.  To make this possible you need more than just increased healing - the Protection Tree uninterruptable cast can be critical as well as the interrupt reduction in the holy tree for flash heals.