Useful Info, Links, etc. for priests

Hi. I'm Johnny, though you may know me as Chivalry, Oremora, or not at all. I've taken it upon myself to post some info here that I found useful while learning the priest class as well as providing links to the sources of that info, and offering up my own two cents where I deem it appropriate. I'll try not to be too terribly long-winded, but I do tend to ramble a bit so be forewarned.

So, you decided to roll a priest and you toughed out the grind to 70. Now what? Well, you have a decision to make, that's what. You've come to a veritable fork in the road, and you won't find any delicious spaghetti at the end of this fork, my friend; no, you'll only find a decision that determines what you'll be primarily focusing on until you either a.) build a good enough off-set to do the other thing reliably or b.) decide that you'd much rather find a healer 2v2 partner, spam Mortal Strike, and collect arena weapons and shoulders and subsequently re-roll a warrior.
The choices before you are essentially 1. Heal or 2. DPS. There are some pretty major differences between doing either of these in pve and pvp, but that's really beyond the scope of my simple write-up, so I'll leave you to explore those differences on your own. Instead, I'll focus on providing you with the most helpful information and tools I've found to assist me in these endeavors and leave you to do your homework.

Spec, spec, what's in a spec? Well, everything really. If you leveled as shadow and main healed instance runs, I'm sure you can attest to the inherent difficulties in trying to do something you really aren't specced for. I'll refrain from discussing every talent at length here, as other people have done it ( likely with greater care, precision, and patience than I would have demonstrated) and done it very well. So, if you haven't already done so I'd suggest checking out the excellent stickied post on the WoW priest forums at
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=86706393&sid=1
Bear in mind that this post is geared toward pve and as such it will not contain any spec info those of you wanting to rush off to the arenas and melt some face will find overwhelmingly useful. Nonetheless, it's a wonderful place to begin and we all have to start somewhere.
I'll speak directly to the healers among you now, as my heart lies with you. Sure, I leveled as shadow, but I always knew I'd go holy at 70 and wtf heal some mofos. If you like complicated math, and lots of it, then this class is right up your alley. If not, then don't fear. The world is full of math nerds, and some of them play priests in WoW. Thanks to one such pocket-protector donning, bespectacled champion of Azeroth, we have a lovely guide that covers everything you never wanted to know about why you keep going oom in excrutiating detail (now with even more charts and tables!! huzzah!) Whether or not you can make it through the whole post with your sanity and/or wakeful state intact it's worth a shot. Check out the priest mana regen model here.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11893046&sid=1
So, what's up with all these crazy mods? Look, if you want to have a mod that teals you when you're mounted, you can go download it right now. No lie. Personally, I like the Blizz UI, and I like playing manually. That doesn't mean I'm any better than anyone else, it just means I can always do my job the same, even if a new patch just went live. That said, there are a few mods I have found to be indispensable while playing my priest and I'll list them, along with brief descriptions, below.
Decursive-- As much as I love playing manually, trying to dispel a nasty debuff from several raid members in a short period of time is an exercise in futility without this mod. It puts a simple display of squares on your screen that light up when a dispellable debuff is present and allows you to remove said nastiness with a click. Easy, breezy, beautiful (cover girl?)
Ratingsbuster- so, is that lovely item that just dropped really an upgrade, or is losing X spirit for Y mp5 really hurting you in the long run? This simple add on takes all those stats blizz loves to throw at us and turns them into simple, hard numbers that display in your tooltip. Once again, simple and effective. Note that it works for all classes, adjusting itself to display only the information pertinent to the class you're currently playing. How great is that, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. It's better than finding a $100 bill in an uneaten bag of jelly doughnuts. Mmm, doughnuts.
TitanPanel- With so much information squeezed into such a small space, it's hard for me not to recommend titanpanel to anyone who doesn't use it. Endlessly customizable with plug-ins for things you didn't even know you cared about, and with an impressive set of options right out of the box, titanpanel is like my one-stop shop for all the pesky details I'd have to open sub-menus for, coordinates to help me blaze through tedious quests I've already done but just can't quite remember, and great info on my performance I can't get from the blizz UI. How much gold did I earn per hour since I logged on? Titanpanel. Do I need to repair before I go on this 5-man pug? Titanpanel. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Titanpanel (ok, maybe even the great Titanpanel doesn't have all the answers, but some things in life are best left a mystery.)
There's a whole world of other add-ons out there, so feel free to check them out on your own. Be wary, though, as keyloggers love to try to sneak their malicious code into our lives. To avoid this I tend to stick to content downloaded from www.curse.com and am always wary of any link posted in forums or on websites unknown to me or the greater WoW community.
I hope I've been of some assistance without drolling on or missing anything too major. Feel free to add your own two cents and I look forward to seeing you in game! For the Horde!!