Thread: [Priest] Solo Leveling Guide

Priest Solo Leveling Guide

NOTICE: I have retired from WoW; this guide reflects pre-Cata WoW and should not be used after Cataclysm's combat/class updates. Hopefully it will continue to serve well until that point. Thanks for reading.

Updates:
BOA portion updated! Now with more OP exp bonuses.
Shadow spec progression updated, filler talents reassessed.
Disclaimer added to Smite section.

This guide is intended to give new Priests a better idea of how a Priest should level. Priests have two options while leveling; Shadow and Smite. Shadow is the most popular choice because it has a small amount of filler points as well as several built in bonuses to survivability and mana regeneration. Smite builds are mildly popular and often favored by players who also wish to heal instances while leveling. Smite builds are competitive due to the weakness of damage over time abilities while leveling, which greatly reduces the efficiency of Shadow.

This guide is not intended for Priests who are leveling with a partner. The builds I'm going to outline can be used, but I would strongly recommend building towards a Discipline healing spec which includes Divine Fury if you prefer the Smite play style. I would suggest going Discipline only if you're planning on healing instances a great deal, or are going to level with a Warrior, or Paladin. Warrior is the only class with enough downtime to warrant having a healer at all times. Paladin will provide replenishment for you, making the build work slightly better. For any other group Shadow will tend to do better by providing Replenishment consistently and slowing with Mind Flay.


Shadow Guide: Click Here
Smite Guide: Click Here

For the general guide read on.

Starting Out

All Priests when starting out will want a wand as soon as possible. Enchanting wands are extremely good and usually very inexpensive. Particularly under level 20 your wand will be your primary attack. The only spell worth casting before this is Mind Blast. Smite and Shadow Word: Pain produce less DPS than simply using a wand. This changes at 20 with the introduction of Holy Fire for all Priests and Mind Flay for Shadow. The wands you want to aim for are the Lesser Magic Wand at level 5 and the Greater Magic Wand at 13. It should cost less than a gold for both, but they may be more expensive on some servers.

Your goal when leveling should always be to minimize downtime. This means finding a good balance of casting and using your wand. The balance starts with mostly wanding, but shifts towards casting as you get more gear. Until you get your first wand you'll have to rely on casting and using whatever weapon you happen to have. After that you'll pull with Mind Blast, then wand. Later you can Holy Fire, then Mind Blast, then wand. You will need to experiment for yourself to find the proper balance.

Look for gear with spellpower, spirit and intellect. Green items marked 'of Healing' are an old holdover item which has been converted to raw spellpower. These along with 'of Shadow Wrath' are typically the best items to look for. Keep in mind that all solo builds use Spirit Tap which grants a large amount of regen whenever you get a killing blow.

Entering Outland

Entering Outland is a huge boon for all casters as spellpower becomes very common on gear. You should ignore stamina and mana per 5 in favor of the same stats as before. Spellpower is your most important statistic, followed by spirit and then intellect. Crit rating is good, but you should focus almost entirely on gaining more spellpower along with intellect and spirit to increase regeneration. Shadow will have Dispersion at 60 and should have no mana problems from this point on. Smite builds may still run into problems with mana, but at this point your spells should be strong enough that wanding ceases to be a viable option.

Keep in mind that in Outland grinding mobs is heavily discouraged. Quests are typically very direct and easy to perform while giving very good gear and high experience. This means that it's typically best to avoid killing more mobs than are required for your quests. Also keep in mind that regardless of your spec choice you should be willing to accept a role as healing for group quests. If you're Shadow it is unwise to offer to heal, but if a tank is competent it is completely possible. The same can be said of Smite builds. While leveling solo is good and competitive you will not be able to keep up with decent DPS in an instance.

Entering Northrend

When you enter Northrend you should put some thought into repeccing to a build that can heal instances efficiently, as Smite specs can. The reason is that as you get closer to 80 you will have many more opportunities to run instances and most classes do not have a solo leveling build which can heal well. This means healers are in somewhat of a short supply unless you run into people with Dual Specialization. You should still be willing to heal any group quest regardless of spec, but as with Outland you should avoid trying to heal as Shadow unless you find a good tank, or trying to DPS as Smite. It's all right to offer, but make it clear to your group what you'll be doing.

The same trends from Outland continue. Questing is heavily superior to grinding and most quests require even less killing than in Outland. You will also start running into quite a bit of Haste on gear. It is an acceptable statistic when leveling, but it is not something you should try to gear for specifically. Spellpower, intellect and spirit will be common enough now that you can start gearing specifically for crit, which will allow more bursts to finish mobs off quickly.

Crafted gear becomes very nice; However, most items will lack intellect at first, so quested items are generally better. The Duskweave set is very nice however and should be picked up if you get a chance. The Frostsavage set is also very nice, but is expensive.

Bind on Account Gear

Bind on Account gear is only accessible to those who already have a level 80 to supply their alt characters with gear. There are quite a few options, but selecting the right gear can greatly improve your leveling time. Keep in mind that BOA items are not epics. They are in fact worse than a normal blue item of equal item level. So if you get a good Blue item you may wish to use that instead of the BOA item until you're high enough level for the BOA to pass the Blue. The exception to this is the Robe and Shoulders, which should never be removed. Here are the best BOA items for leveling a Priest:

Dignified Headmaster's Charge
Staff – Stamina, Intellect, Crit Rating and Spellpower
65 Emblem of Heroism / 95 Champion's Seal

Discerning Eye of the Beast
Trinket – Spellpower, restores mana on killing blow
50 Emblem of Heroism / 75 Champion's Seal

Tattered Dreamist Mantle
Shoulders – Stamina, Intellect, Spirit, Spellpower, +10% exp from killing mobs and quests
40 Emblem of Heroism / 60 Champion's Seal

Tattered Dreadmist Robe
Chest – Stamina, Intellect, Spirit, Spellpower, +10% exp from killing mobs and quests
40 Emblem of Heroism / 60 Champion's Seal

You will want to pick up the items in the following order: Shoulders > Chest > Staff > Trinket

As mentioned above the most important stat on the BOA gear is the +!0% exp bonuses on the chest and shoulders. These bonuses used to only apply to gains from kills, but they now apply to quests as well. Very highly recommended. At that point you can mix up this order depending on what level your Priest is at. If you're under level 50 then the trinket may be superior to the staff, because while there are good staffs while at this level there are very few trinkets. If you're in Outland already then you should ignore the trinket entirely. There are easy quest rewards that provide superior trinkets to the BOA one. If you're in Northrend already then you can also ignore the staff as there are several very easy to obtain staffs as well as good trinkets. In either case you should still pick up the shoulders and chest first as the +10% exp bonus is not available on any other items.

Builds at 80

Upon reaching 80 you'll have to decide if you want to DPS, or heal. If you decide to heal you'll then need to decide if Holy, or Discipline is best for you. Regardless of your decision none of the builds presented in this guide are good builds for level 80. They assume that you want to level as quickly and efficiently as possible, which is no longer of any concern once you're done leveling.

Shadow: If you want to DPS as a Priest you will be going Shadow, you can find a lot of information on how to effectively play Shadow from the following sources:
ShadowPriest.com: Lots of information dedicated purely to Shadow Priests.
Elitist Jerks: Very math heavy information, but generally the best source of factual data.
Worshaka's Guide: Most information is from the two previous sources, but is available here at MMO champion and will give you a good start.
Standard Build: 13/0/58
Glyphs: Shadow (required), Mind Flay (required), Dispersion, Shadow Word: Pain

Discipline: Discipline is a very efficient single target healer, which can efficiently group heal by predicting damage and shielding the group. Discipline provides a good deal of raid support as well as being easier to start with in five mans due to high mana efficiency. For further information I recommend the Priest forums at Elitist Jerks (here).
Standard Build: 57/14/0
Glyphs: Penance, Power Word: Shield, Flash Heal, Prayer of Healing

Holy: Holy is good at raid healing, but suffers from very poor single target healing. There is a great deal of flexibility in the tree so there is no true standard spec. You will need to do research and find your own style before determining a final build, though even that may change as you progress. Again I recommend the Priest forums at Elitist Jerks (here). Here are a few builds to show you how different builds can be:
Renew Build: 13/58/0
Flash Heal Build: 13/58/0
MA Build: 18/53/0
Glyphs: Circle of Healing, Guardian Spirit, Prayer of Healing, Renew, Flash Heal

Your smite guide is off.

Blessed Recover = Useless
Spell Warding = Useless

Instead take Improved Renew and Healing Focus. PW:Shield + Glyph, occasional Renew (instant) plus Flash Heal from SoL proc should be more than enough. Also, you shouldn't cast Flash Heal to top yourself off unless it's free from SoL. FH's not that efficient. Why boost up Renew? Because it's instant, you can use it on the run, and it will not be interrupted.

Also, you should take Spirit of Redemption over 1 point in Enlightenment. You won't be able to stack enough haste before 80 to do 4 smite per holy fire dot duration, so 5% spirit wins over 2% spirit / haste. You don't need to stack haste for leveling, and certainly not at the price of spirit (mana reg)

Xel, while you can use Renew "on the run", it doesn't keep up with Flash Heal as far as thoroughput or efficiency goes. You're either shielded, or you're not. If you're shielded, you take no damage and no heals need to be cast. If you're not shielded, that Renew is not going to outheal things beating on you. While yes, it is Instant, you're still spending the same time as you would've spent CASTING Flash Heal.

Personally, I would put first glyph as smite, second glyph as Holy Nova just because I think it's funneh, and has come in handy. If you're going down the utility glyph slot, might I suggest that Flash Heal outweighs Power Word: Shield (though not by much), until Improved Shield is taken? Renew should never be on that list, and other than 5 man dungeon healing, there are few opportunities I would waste casting that unless I'm running away from somethings beating on me. So while casting Flash Heal to top yourself off may not be efficient, casting a Renew to do the same is just as innefficient, moreso infact because it can't proc a Surge of Light.

Xel, while it's true you won't get "enough" haste to make the 4 rotation, it's not about that. While levelling, getting your casts out faster means they're hitting you less before they die. Spirit of Redemption, you've seen yourself, isn't that big of a gain on the other spectrum. 2% haste beats 3% spirit in this case.

Originally Posted by harky

@Kelesti: I recommend the PW:S glyph because of the builds focus on using PW:S anyway. Since you'll be casting it for sake of Reflective Shield taking the glyph amount to free healing for something you'd be doing anyway.

Oh I agree whole heartedly that you're already using shield. And at the point of Reflective shield, it is made of awesome. But you get your second glyph slot, what was it, at 30 if I recall correctly? I could be completely wrong on that one though. You spend 24 more levels before you put even a single point into Improved Power Word: Shield, let alone getting Reflective Shield.

That's why I'd recommend Flash over Shield. The 10% reduction is something you're using. You should be precasting your shield, the instant heal is wasted half the time and until you start soaking in the shield talents, doesn't amount to much. The jury's out on a Glyphed Holy Nova, though. I enjoy it, but that doesn't mean it's effective.

And I'd have to agree, you're spot on about Blessed Recovery. The reason I never got around to writing my own guide was because I'd wanted to test out the lower tiers for myself, a little. As you and a couple others pointed out just how much it's changed since I leveled my priesty up, with wanding changes, etc. But I did come to the conclusion that it is an awesome talent to have, considering all mobs are going to be beating on you and there's not a chance in hell you won't be crit (because def gear is on cloth, amirite? : )

I think the guide is good. Great job.

Originally Posted by Kelesti

Xel, while you can use Renew "on the run", it doesn't keep up with Flash Heal as far as thoroughput or efficiency goes. You're either shielded, or you're not. If you're shielded, you take no damage and no heals need to be cast. If you're not shielded, that Renew is not going to outheal things beating on you. While yes, it is Instant, you're still spending the same time as you would've spent CASTING Flash Heal.

as you stated, you are "either shielded or not" or "incoming damage or no incoming damage". If you are shielded, Renew will do the same job as Flash Heal (since you are in no danger of dying from "slower" healing) if you are not shielded, Flash Heal WILL have a chance to get interrupted, which makes its cast time slower than Renew.

Originally Posted by harky

Please also note that when leveling you should not be concerned with how haste applies to a rotation. The point of these builds is to take quality DPS talents for leveling while working to goals. Spirit of Redemption could be taken at 77 for a minor SP gain (about 2-4 SP when leveling), but you're comparing that to the equivalent of 31.5 haste rating when it's picked up. While SP point per point is much better than haste it is not 8-15 times better, it's closer to twice as good. Taking SoR earlier would also mean a delay in reaching Power Infusion, which is already taken quite late.

Thanks for the input, but I don't feel the need to rewrite the filler points in Holy, or to include a DPS loss.

Spirit of Redemption is taken at level 40 the latest. The earliest time you can get power infusion is level 70. Given the choice, would you rather have 5% spirit + minor spellpower for 30 levels (lvl 40 ~ 70) or power infusion 1 level early? By the way Enlightenment is eventually filled to 3/3 with the SoR spec, just a little later than what your spec suggest. The earliest time you can start filling 2% haste 2% spirit is at lvl 65, don't assume you have that haste advantage from the beginning, Enlightenment requires you go pretty deep in to the discipline tree as well.

Kelesti, this answers your reply as well. You have to note that this is a "leveling" spec, not a dps spec. I could care less about the spellpower, but 5% more spirit for 30 levels? It means better mana reg, so of course it's essential.

Originally Posted by Xel

as you stated, you are "either shielded or not" or "incoming damage or no incoming damage". If you are shielded, Renew will do the same job as Flash Heal (since you are in no danger of dying from "slower" healing) if you are not shielded, Flash Heal WILL have a chance to get interrupted, which makes its cast time slower than Renew.

If you are shielded, you're probably full health. If you are not shielded, Flash Heal heals you in 1.5 seconds. Even if you're getting beat on, even without Holy Focus (which should be taken with BR as fillers) at most Flash Heal is 2.5 seconds (unlikely to be more than 2). Renew heals you in three.

Unless you're going against something that likes to shield bash you in the face, or knock you down. In these such circumstances, you already have to change your strategies as getting locked out of Smite can screw you over in the first place, and so after it happens the first time you tend to figure out which ones are going to be a pain. If you're shielded, it's wasted mana that you didn't need to cast at that point, and should've spent it finishing a target off. If you're not shielded, it won't outheal the incoming damage, won't crit, and you're spending the same amount of mana for the same effective output, that doesn't benefit you.

Originally Posted by Xel

Kelesti, this answers your reply as well. You have to note that this is a "leveling" spec, not a dps spec. I could care less about the spellpower, but 5% more spirit for 30 levels? It means better mana reg, so of course it's essential.

I've found that better management of my spells, my pulls, and balancing out when it's best to heal (not in combat) is better for mana management. With Spirit Tap and the above techniques, there is no reason to be pushing more, outside of Meditation.

That's why Improved ST isn't taken, and there's no real reason to be getting SoR outside of healing 5 mans, and even then it's questionable when the healer goes down.

Originally Posted by harky

Xel, the point is that if you are in no danger of dying, you do not need to heal at all. Healing in combat should only be done if there is a danger of dying. When there is a danger of dying Renew will not help as even when fully pushed back Flash Heal will execute in about 2 seconds, this is the same time it would take renew to tick a once. As such Renew doesn't help. You would be spending 3 points on a talent with no practical use when leveling.

Suggest a more "useful" filler talent then: let me guess, Blessed Recover? or Spellwarding? When are those useful? You are shielded 75% of the time, what's the chance for a mob to melee you let alone crit hit you? And even if they did, how much healing are you going to receive? It's not going to save you from dying. As for Spellwarding, I honestly don't want to get into that as it's pure stupidity.

Originally Posted by Kelesti

That's why Improved ST isn't taken

Not sure where this came from

Originally Posted by Xel

Suggest a more "useful" filler talent then: let me guess, Blessed Recover? or Spellwarding? When are those useful? You are shielded 75% of the time, what's the chance for a mob to melee you let alone crit hit you? And even if they did, how much healing are you going to receive? It's not going to save you from dying. As for Spellwarding, I honestly don't want to get into that as it's pure stupidity.

Decent heal, for zero mana, that doesn't even cost you a Global Cooldown. And it lets you focus on killing your target when the shield's down. Less mana spent on healing yourself, means less downtime regen'ing, means faster overall killing. It's better. Not going to save you, but it beats Renew.

Originally Posted by Xel

Not sure where this came from

IST would provide as much regen as SoR, maybe even more! But we can get it as early as level 13! Does that make it better than available alternatives at the time? No. Finish the whole sentence.