DPS on Holy/Disc. Talent tree question

[Dr. Doom]

Which path leads to a better smiter priest dps? Force of Will + Power Infusion steroid dmg. Or Spiritual Guidance + Divine Spirit. These seem like the best option to me.

Made these two trees in 1 minute or so (so it's just improvised, not too much thought put into it), prioritising any holy dmg thing around, but adding some healing of course both to get to deeper tiers as well as have some healing capability for groups.

A: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#bVoGsVmoZcxtcbbV
B: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#bVoGsVVqocxtzbb

[Ana]

Depends on gear. First scales (albeit poorly) with stacking spirit, second scales with stacking spell damage.

Unfortunately both are awful because you:
- don't have a curse up
- don't have any class-based debuff giving extra boost (like imp shadowbolt or winter's chill)
- have as atrocious hit chance as ungeared warlocks
- have to fight against big holy resistance on many bosses (which they shouldn't have in the first place)

You can get away with it to an extent if you stack several JotC on the boss. You won't, however, be able to stack several JotC on a boss, ever, unless you join a specialised guild that compromises overall raid dps in favor of making quirky builds viable. Iirc no guild does that on PvP realm atm.

[Dr. Doom]

Depends on gear. First scales (albeit poorly) with stacking spirit, second scales with stacking spell damage.

Unfortunately both are awful because you:
- don't have a curse up
- don't have any class-based debuff giving extra boost (like imp shadowbolt or winter's chill)
- have as atrocious hit chance as ungeared warlocks
- have to fight against big holy resistance on many bosses (which they shouldn't have in the first place)

You can get away with it to an extent if you stack several JotC on the boss. You won't, however, be able to stack several JotC on a boss, ever, unless you join a specialised guild that compromises overall raid dps in favor of making quirky builds viable. Iirc no guild does that on PvP realm atm.

Agreed. Seems unfeasible for raids. What about 5 mans? I am currently levelling a holy paladin, while my friend levels a holy priest. As it stands right now, in lowbie dungeons we can pull off just tank/healing, or sometimes dps/healing if we get a warrior. However for level 40+ dungeons that set-up might start showing really bad flaws, so I wondered if as holy paladin I consistently heal, and always put down JotC, would either of these builds help my friend do an ok (doesn't have to be great) dps, while keeping offhealing capabilities?

[Ana]

Without the matter of poor gear scaling and generally being unfit for raids, Smite does decent dps (I assume the priest would keep SWP up while shooting). The problem with the spell is that it costs INSANE amounts of mana if you spam it. You can kill things reasonably quick but you often have to waste time drinking... it gets tedious after a while.

Holy priest dps is excellent for massively undergeared Strat though. AoE dps with superb survival capability for the undead, MC dps for the living part. Great fun.

[res]

Without the matter of poor gear scaling and generally being unfit for raids, Smite does decent dps (I assume the priest would keep SWP up while shooting). The problem with the spell is that it costs INSANE amounts of mana if you spam it. You can kill things reasonably quick but you often have to waste time drinking... it gets tedious after a while.

Holy priest dps is excellent for massively undergeared Strat though. AoE dps with superb survival capability for the undead, MC dps for the living part. Great fun.

This is true, I've done both living and undead (and Scholomance) as "DPS" as a holy priest, Shackle, Mind Soothe, Mind Control are great utilities that a priest can bring to the table.

Smite is okay, but with a decent wand + shadow word pain you can get 100-150 DPS easily even with low spellpower as a healer priest, while still being able to heal.

For general 5 mans:
You can probably get away as DPS in most instances that have a lot of humanoid mobs as you can mind control them, but that requires 0 talent points spent and you'd do pretty good DPS if you mind control the right mobs as well as CC:ing them, so you might as well have gone shadow or healing.

More on topic:
I dont think Spiritual Guidance would do much, even when gearing for spirit, let's say 400 spirit fully raid buffed, that would only net you 100 spell power and it would be hard to find gear with both good spirit and good spell-damage on it, so you'd be better off just gearing for spelldamage. I'd go with option B.