Wanding my ass off.

[Kelesti]

Hell, the reality is, you can get to level 60 without spending a single talent point, and you can do it with your eyes closed.

Hell, the reality is a program can do it on its own too.

[Xelaeno]

Hell, the reality is, you can get to level 60 without spending a single talent point, and you can do it with your eyes closed.

I'll do it if I can get an achievement title for it. Something along the line of "The Talentless" or "The Naked". ;D

[Myzou]

Before Holy Fire, priest leveling sucks... after that, just throw out holy fire, and wand it to death, that's what I did, while keeping shield up :P

After reflective shield in DIsc, got so much easier...

I dont bother with SW:P costs way too much mana with our new regen

[309blank]

First of all I'd just like to point out again, that I indeed did start my leveling as discipline, not shadow. Discipline was a very effective tree for the first 40-50 levels or so, with Reflective Shields and tougher PW:S, and obviously the mana regeneration. Mind you, I've always had Spirit Tap, though, regardless of my leveling spec.

I disagree slightly here. Low downtime means absolutely nothing if your kill and exp gain ratio is low as well. Sure, it may be a more engaging way to plow through one mob at a time without ever having to drink, seeing as how you're constantly doing something, but if it means you'll take 3-4 times longer to get things done, it's not very smart in the long run.

Fun gaming experience aside - and I do love leveling my plethora of alts without any hurry, the absolute most important thing in leveling is speed. If your entire goal - again putting the fun aside - is to gain a level, and gain several levels, then the best possible way is the fastest possible way, and let's face it, killing several mobs is always better than killing one mob.

Take the frost magi as an example. They're the most mana-efficient caster class and spec out there as far as single target leveling goes, or at least they have been in the past. However, if you compare a frost mage killing 1 mob at a time, to a frost mage AoE farming mobs 10 at a time, the fact that the mage has to drink after one AoE pack means little, when he's so much ahead in the XP ratio.

No, I don't think farming mobs is better than doing quests; quests have been proven time and again as being the absolute best way of leveling. However, there are times when killing several mobs at a time while doing a quest is an option, and a good one at that.

Leveling to ~50-60 these days shouldn't take any time at all, unless you're spending time staring at the scenery, and at those levels shadow simply blows smite spamming and discipline out of the water, no question.

Hell, the reality is, you can get to level 60 without spending a single talent point, and you can do it with your eyes closed.

i know that kill speed plays an important role as well. i have a frost mage in his late fifties as well and he is a pure aoe frost spec which is FUN and insanely fast. i would go so far as to say that a good mix of a couple of quests and randomly killing packs of 20 mobs is the fastest way to lvl a mage. but this is a priest we're talking about here. and only in later lvls does the priest get powerful.

oh and regarding killspeed. im now 38, and with my brand new rank of smite and 160 sp, 200 if spirit tap is up, i two shot mobs and spirit tap is never down.

im gonna try a disc "aoe" spec soon with reflective shields+ holy nova spamm, just for the fun of it.

its just important to know for a lvling priest that shadow >>>>all is just not true anymore for fun and entertaining lvling!

[axxey]

Search through quest rewards and wands by dps and level requirement before you level up. There's quite a few as you level up that you can get quite early, example enchanting crafted ones early on and the blackfathom quest one.
They also improved wanding taking the global cooldown/swingtimer off stopping wanding.

3 Points spirit tap, first talents spent leveling any priest.

10 points holy for crit and cast time off smite/holy fire.

After that it's descision time, 17 points holy is nice for the 10% damage but holy tree is filled with healer talents you're forced to take to get to the regen talents and surge of light(when you dont have decent crit to make surge very useful).
Discipline is a more evenly spread tree with obvious useful leveling talents the entire way down, reflective shield with the talents in the tree alongside is nice instead of holy renew as you go.

I recomend a mod such as DrDamage as you level, damage per mana can be good for new ranks of spells such as mind blast as you get them before the next smite rank.

At 66 i definitely recomend a talent switch to shadow or hybrid shadow. Shadowfiend is best regen you have and 17 points in shadow for veiled shadows reducing the cooldown 2 minutes is more potential regen and downtime elimination than anything else in other trees you can put talents in.

Deep shadow at that point you can also have vamp touch/replenishment, shadow itself is relatively inneficient without the prudent use of replenishment, the main reason why smite leveling is generally better earlier on.
If you wanted to go deep shadow you could when you hit 60 for dispersion but remember in your talent allocation you're going to want veiled shadows for your shadowfiend when you hit 66.