It went pretty smooth, only one wipe for the evening, due to a Hunter pulling Prince.
Obviously, Kara is not bleeding edge material as far as PvE goes, however, I thought it would make a good topic for discussion, since Smite Priests are so underrepresented in PvE, and since the few there are mostly think they can only perform in 5 mans, let alone heroics, or Karazhan.
My usual Smite spec is:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMrzIMzbZfmxhcbqi0h which is clearly not optimized for PvE, and is a PvP hybrid damage/heal spec. The bulk of my damage from the spec comes from searing light, surge of light, and the spirit synergy between spiritual attunement and improved DS. If you wanted to make a Smite build that was optimized for PvE DPS, I'd probably suggest:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxgMzhxzrxZfxt0bbqb or something similar.
The damage was quite competitive, even with the rough spec. On many of the opening encounters, was coming in 2nd and 3rd place, damage wise. The damage I was outputting was enough to hit the threat cap (no silent resolve, though blessing of salvation was available). Particularly good fights were Moroes, Curator, and Shade, while Illhoof kind of sucked due to the fact they started the encounter while I was AFK (and AOE rules that fight, meters wiseby a Smiter and were trying a little harder). Netherspite was a decent fight, and Nightbane (we did him before Curator) was decent, though I spent a lot of my resources healing people during the flying phase. If anyone's interested, reply and I'll upload the screenshots of the numbers for the individual fights.
One low point of the spec is the mana inefficiency, however, this is greatly alleviated by the presence of a Shadow Priest (we had one). While most people would argue this as being a big weakness, it is pretty standard to have a Shadow Priest around in a raid. Pretty much every raid we do has at least one, and they've been finding themselves placed in the Mage groups, so it's a simple matter to put the Smiter in that group. Coming properly prepared with consumables also helps a lot.
The nice thing about the Smite Priest is how open it is to modification from other classes. Paladins in particular can really buff a Smiter out with judgement of the Crusader, and if you can find a Ret Paladin, you could really make a case for having a Smiter available. Misery helps, as does any misc. damage effect such as ferocious inspiration, and they even benefit somewhat from Shadow Weaving and Curse of Shadows, since SW:P is going to be a part of the Smiter's DPS as well.
The raid utility is still a little shaky. Improved Divine Spirit is decent, and it provides the possibility of skipping a Priest as a healer for the raid since you have that buff. The real utility is actually in Prayer of Mending and Renews for the tank. You can easily add these spells to your rotation, and they provide quite a bit. The flexibility in being able to provide additional support healing can be useful, and your healing is quite decent, unlike an enhancement shaman or a feral druid.
One thing that Smite Priests definitely bring to a raid: embarassment. By the end of this Kara run, people were really starting to pop consumables and play a more alert game to avoid being "that guy who got out DPSed by a Smite Priest".
The fix to surge of light will help a lot next patch, alleviating some of the mana problems by making the Smites free. It's nice that we can chaingun crit Smites at the moment, but to be honest, a properly working Surge of Light would provide a free Smite EVERY time it procced, whereas the bugged one only provides a CHANCE at another crit. It's also nice to be able to proc free Smites off of Holy Fires, when mana is lean. In many cases, I had to ignore my surge proc and continue to cast Holy Fire, simply due to the fact that taking the Surge would cost me mana.
I think that if you provide the right support, you could expect a really good performance out of the motivated Smite Priest who is willing to gear and spec for the role. It certainly seemed capable for Karazhan, and most of the DPS gear I was using was Karazhan quality or lower. It'd be interesting to see the profiles of any Priests who do this on new content who are synergized with beneficial classes in raids.
EDIT: Numbers -
Attumen, N/A
Moroes, #2 damage -
http://members.shaw.ca/jshosted/kara_moroes.jpg
Maiden, #3 damage -
http://members.shaw.ca/jshosted/kara_maiden.jpg
Opera Event (Oz), #3 damage -
http://members.shaw.ca/jshosted/kara_opera_oz.jpg
Nightbane, #5 damage (I spent a significant amount of resources healing this one) -
http://members.shaw.ca/jshosted/kara_nightbane.jpg
Curator, #2 damage -
http://members.shaw.ca/jshosted/kara_curator.jpg
Shade, #3 damage -
http://members.shaw.ca/jshosted/kara_shade.jpg
Illhoof, #5 damage (they started this event while I was AFK) -
http://members.shaw.ca/jshosted/kara_illhoof.jpg
Netherspite, #3 damage (I stood in no beams, also did a good deal of healing) -
http://members.shaw.ca/jshosted/kara_netherspite.jpg
Prince, #5 damage -
http://members.shaw.ca/jshosted/kara_prince.jpg
