Leveling Disc > Shadow

[MisterSheep]

Is it just me or leveling as shadow is painfully slow? At lvl 108 i pull around 45k dps while questing, while i reach 55k as Disc while also having better sustain. The only thing Disc lacks is constant AoE

[bonewax]

They're both viable. I just finished leveling 1 of my priests the other day and with a body guard it goes pretty fast.

[Deleted]

Void Form is awkward when leveling, so that hampers a lot of the shadow priest damage potential.

[Eace]

Void Form is awkward when leveling, so that hampers a lot of the shadow priest damage potential.

Only just started leveling my Shadow from 100 up, but I find Voidform to be a good way to burn several adds down simultaneously after a couple mobs. Things might change when I get to higher levels though.

[Kyr]

if you can chain pull to make use of voidform and the resulting haste stacks then shadow can be good for questing, but in general the initial rampup time needed for shadow makes it annoying for questing. i leveled as disc and still do world quests in most cases as disc

[Kooja]

Leveling as shadow was definitely viable the whole time, and only became somewhat of a chore around level 108. The shock of hitting 110 and turning into a target dummy for world mobs sucked, but using Sol as a bodyguard and getting just a few pieces of gear solved it right away. Now at around 830 it's back to being a DoT fest when doing world quests, pulling 3-4 mobs at a time. Just make sure to consistently use your cooldowns and the full toolkit and you'll do just fine!

[warlockiii]

Disc's tankiness is great--but its lack of AOE can be quite annoying. Given the recent boosts to Mind Spike and Mind Sear, I think Shadow might be the clear winner again (as it should be IMO as a damage spec). I think I'm going to try Mind Spike with Fortress of the Mind and Void Ray tonight.

[Djriff]

It'll move even further ahead in 7.1 if those 10% damage increase and damage taken reduction while in shadowform sticks around.

[Scrysis]

Leveling as shadow was definitely viable the whole time, and only became somewhat of a chore around level 108. The shock of hitting 110 and turning into a target dummy for world mobs sucked, but using Sol as a bodyguard and getting just a few pieces of gear solved it right away. Now at around 830 it's back to being a DoT fest when doing world quests, pulling 3-4 mobs at a time. Just make sure to consistently use your cooldowns and the full toolkit and you'll do just fine!

I just hit 110, and I feel like everyone's punching bag. . . . just less of a punching bag while disc. It's pretty sad when I hope that a warrior, demonhunter, or rogue comes along to attack the same things I'm attacking so that I can finish my quest. I really shouldn't have to depend on random strangers coming by to finish stuff.

[tiptopmemer]

Shadow is one of the fastest and safest levelers, please end this misinformation.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure what you're doing, but up to 109 I just put VT + SW:P on 6+ monsters and waited a few seconds before they died. Unfortunately this changes to 'oh shit I added another mob' the second you hit 110.

[anon5123]

Shadow has ramp-up on its DPS, and yes, voidform is not suited for leveling.

Disc has direct damage instead of DoTs, so it meshes better with leveling.

Disc seems faster because it has higher burst DPS. Shadow has higher DPS on longer fights.

[MisterSheep]

I'm not sure what you're doing, but up to 109 I just put VT + SW:P on 6+ monsters and waited a few seconds before they died. Unfortunately this changes to 'oh shit I added another mob' the second you hit 110.

I don't see how that's remotely possible. VT + SW:P cuts about half a mob's health for me. Although with Shadow Crash and a few seconds of Mind Sear i can kill a DoTed pack.

[Deleted]

Leveling or questing with Disc (Schism+PI+PotW) is super easy and quite fast. You can basically kill everything you want. Also, people tend to finish the mobs for you instead of just tag them, because they think you will kill the mob super slow and they don't want to be in combat. The dudes from the enemy faction don't attack you almost never, because you are a healer.

[Djriff]

Which kinda makes me stockpile artefact power, because I seriously consider just advancing my holy artefact, which seems to be all it needs to do WQs and I have an easy time queueing for 5 mans

The difference in DPS is pretty noticeable if you go disc/holy though. On Saturday I did some WQ's while sitting in an abnormally long queue for my daily heroic and while I was able to survive pulling 5 of the heavy hitting high health mobs in suramar city, it took forever to kill them. I went back and did it as shadow, not only did they die faster, but I had very little trouble surviving it. My holy and Shadow sets are about even (Holy artifact actually has high ilvl due to RNG relic drops), so not too sure if it's worth it at 110.

[Djriff]

Yeah, I guess that makes sense, not least because my Holy artefact doesn't increase dps

Well it does, by 0.5% an artifact level. I do only have 13 traits in it so I can be a pseudo healer when needed, so that play a factor as well. However for me just trying to DPS and not healing at all I seem to cap out at 100k at 856 ilvl.

[tehmark]

I had to spam shield while leveling shadow until I got Sol as a combat ally. Now things don't suck. I wish Sol had a smaller model though. That fatass takes up too much screen real estate. If you have Sol, try it out. Really made things better for me.

[ryklin]

I ran twist of fate>body and soul (masochism is probably better but god I hate being slow)>psychic voice (along with some dominant mind for messing around)>RoS>AS>mindbender>LotV

with the mind sear/flay buffs void ray might also work instead of mindbender, but even fully stacked void ray mind sear feels pretty weak

I just ran up to mobs with the shield speed boost, dotted 4+ mobs up and hit mindbender (do this early, you want to go void asap and it'll mean earlier ToF bonus cause 1 mob gets focused), then would go void form for 18-30% haste, and then you hit psy scream(part of why I didn't take shadow crash and makes a lot of these mobs you're aoeing down not hit you), VE, or spam heals while dots tick if you end up in over your head

but yeah packs of 4-7 mobs seem like the ideal way to solo as shadow as far as I can tell

disc cant aoe like that which is why I'd avoid it unless you're planning to solo the DANGER world quests while soloing (I'd rather just pull a bunch of shit as holy and spam nova)

[Deleted]

Its pretty hard to die as a shadow actually if you spam your shields, dot and use masochism as a talent. It removes the damage penalty of shadow mend and even adds a small hot. Really who gives a shit about movement speed while leveling, you have a mount to manage aggro.

[FrothyMug]

I spec into shadow crash for WQs. I just dot up 4-5 targets with VT and SWP, Mindbomb them when they are all near me, and toss a Shadow Crash. They're pretty much all dead as soon as it hits. Wash, rinse, repeat. I generally only use voidform for tougher mobs where high ST damage is needed.

Just my $0.02