PVP from a PVE Priest

My friends have all been more interested in PVP than I have been. Lets face it. After levelling a holy priest to level 60, the last thing you know how to do is do damage. And it's always seemed that damage was king in PVP. But with the recent advent of Arena, a new beast was born - the PVP healer.

Sure I healed in battlegrounds before this. Before Burning Crusade, I was a Disc priest with Pain Suppression. I prided myself on my survivability with my amazing 5K HP (think that's what it was). Now I do a good bit of PVP and I feel that I have some decent gear for it as well.

The only thing about being a priest in PVP though, is that if you aren't specced for damage, you are nothing but a healbot with stamina and resilience. Currently I spec for PVE. No imp mana burn, no reflective shield, no pain suppression. But I do reasonably well in 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5....as long as my DPSers stay alive.

In 2v2, once a DPSer goes down, unless the other guys are almost dead, it's over for me. Sure I can toss around a Mind Blast or Shadow Word: Death, but with the amount of stamina and resilience, I can't pray to kill anyone. This is why I run with a rogue or a hunter. We are hyper specialized...kill one of us, and it's over most likely.

However, until that happens, we priests have some decent abilities in PVP. Mass Dispel is one, for those who hate the mage/paladin "stop touching me". Another is Prayer of Mending, which is awesome for fighting those DOT locks. It just keeps bouncing. The fact that we have 3 instant heals is huge. I can usually bait a counterspell just by continuing to cast a lot of stuff...they assume I HAVE to start casting something at some point soon.

Hunters and rogues are good in 2v2 as well because they have a way of mitigating melee damage (Evasion/Deterrance) which is my biggest weakness, as well as multiple CC methods (sap and blind, scatter shot and freezing trap). This usually allows us to keep total control of the fight. If it starts to get confusing or out of hand, I know we're often in trouble. Fortunately, with the Insignia and Desperate Prayer, there are many things I can get out of. Unfortunately, blind isn't one of them (curse you dwarves, curse you!)

Anyway, to any priests aspiring to PVP, I must say this: Stack stamina and resilience. It's the only way you'll survive at all if you're focus fired. I hated arena at first, because I wouldn't survive an initial stunlock with 2 DPSers. Now I've learned how to avoid that initial stunlock a lot of the time, as well as heal through it.

Guess this is all for now. I close mentioning that I did indeed solo a frost mage near Auchendoun today. It was a long fight, and I was just about dead, but I got him first. Never mind that he rezzed immediately, and we killed each other at the same time, and then he was able to kill me easily again (stupid food/water.) Oh well, I know I'm getting better.