Thread: Levelling Tips

  1. #1

    Levelling Tips

    Hey there, I used to play priest back in BC, he was my main, and I levelled him in shadow, which i now hate...


    Now my priest is stuck at level 71, shadow specced for levelling again, and i REALLY cant find the motivation, but really want him to level 80...

    are any other spec viable to level with now?

    and can anyone suggest a way to motivate myself to level... Ill be alright once i get started, but i just cant get started!!

  2. #2

    Re: Levelling Tips

    I leveled from 70-80 as Holy with no problems at all. Sure, I didn't have the DPS of Shadow, but I could heal myself through some of the harder quests and never had a problem finding a group for any instance I needed to run. The change to Spell Power from Spell Damage and Spell Healing helped in this process a lot. Now that there's dual specialization, it should be even easier since you can go Shadow for solo and have a Holy or Discipline spec for healing dungeons. And, if you're sick of Shadow, then that must mean you want to heal; now is a great time to get into it as a Priest because there's a lot of variety in healing between Holy and Discipline.

  3. #3

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Lvl as disc. You should be more then able to do all quests that way

    Yes it's slower then shadow, but if you hate it... no point in doing it.

  4. #4

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Probably you have a lot of rested bonus. So just simply take a look at wowhead for quests into Nexus and UK and go there as healer. It is possible to get to 80 just by doing dungeons. And as a healer its really easy to find group.


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  5. #5

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Honestly any spec is viable for levelling from 70->80 so long as you have spirit tap 3/3.

    I levelled holy but in retrospect Disc would probably be better for the larger mana pool and the extra dps from penance & Borrowed Time.

    It's really not much slower than shadow, in fact it can be faster in places. Spriests have to multidot mobs to do decent damage while levelling and there are many quests where that doesn't really help you.


  6. #6

    Re: Levelling Tips

    see my blog (located on sig), guide 70-80 smite spec. it's faster than discipline and you can heal very well

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  7. #7

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Quote Originally Posted by Azyoulike
    It's really not much slower than shadow, in fact it can be faster in places. Spriests have to multidot mobs to do decent damage while levelling and there are many quests where that doesn't really help you.
    Should probably tweak how you solo as Shadow then. The only DoT you should be using is VT while leveling. SW:P and DP are wastes of mana. VT>MB>MF should kill most mobs. But no, Holy/Disc (if done right) isn't much slower. HF>Smitex3 will be dropping mobs takes a shade longer, but it's not bad.

  8. #8

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Shadow when your spec it for leveling is twice as fast and uses half the mana per mob kill. If you want to level another way then I would say go disc or holy and spend that time in instances. I dont see how spending another 10-15 seconds per mob is "more fun". Unless you like grinding then your wierd :-P
    When people say "pls" just because its shorter then "please", I feel totally justified to say "No" just because its shorter then "Yes".

  9. #9

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Quote Originally Posted by harky
    Should probably tweak how you solo as Shadow then. The only DoT you should be using is VT while leveling. SW:P and DP are wastes of mana. VT>MB>MF should kill most mobs. But no, Holy/Disc (if done right) isn't much slower. HF>Smitex3 will be dropping mobs takes a shade longer, but it's not bad.
    Quote Originally Posted by TwistedPower
    Shadow when your spec it for leveling is twice as fast and uses half the mana per mob kill.

    I plugged some numbers into a spreadsheet and I just couldn't see this.

    with 600 Spell power and Level 70 spells you get something like:

    VT = 2600 over 15 seconds
    MB = 1418
    MF = 1365

    HF = 1256 + 270 over 7 seconds
    Smite = 1190
    Penance = 1490

    An average mob in Borean Tundra has about 9k HP so you'd need VT>MB>MF>MF>MB>MF taking about 13.5 seconds (of casting) to do 9.8k. Disc would take about 13.5 seconds to do 9.9k.

    This is pretty sketchy, but you see my point. Taking mobs one at a time there's no measurable difference in kill speeds, however if you let the spriest dot up 3-4 mobs and mind sear instead of mind flay as filler then it's a different story. Then shadow is going to win out but not everybody likes that playstyle, and the mana efficiency is far from good.

    TL/DR : While shadow is the grown up DPS spec, levelling there is little difference to how fast the different viable levelling specs kill quest mobs - it's purely down to whichever you enjoy more.

  10. #10

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Uh... starting out in Northrend mobs only have 6-8k health, not 9k. Those numbers are also low, both on realistic gear and the values given the low-ball quality gear. 9k is the high end of health on the high end level of monsters available in the starting zones. Assuming you go in at 68, you'll be 72 (not 70) by the time you're finishing out the areas. If you do both you'll be around 74 by the time you finish them. By 70 assuming you're either an oldschool character, or didn't NPC your quest gear, you should have 1k SP by the time you're done with one of the starting zones. Higher if you do any instances.

    I think sketchy is the perfect word for that... for comparison when first hitting Northrend I was averaging over 400 DPS higher than your numbers imply is 'normal.' That means that yes, starting mobs easily dropped to VT>MB>MF. They'd usually die on the second, or third tick of VT if I didn't crit. Considering you'll be hitting much harder by 75 and mob health doesn't raise dramatically, I wonder about the numbers even more... Even the Disc/Holy ones... HF>Smitex3 is around 8k damage, not the 5k you're showing.

  11. #11

    Re: Levelling Tips

    play av... good win gives you up to 10% of your lvl...
    i've lvled 71 - 80 in just few days...
    ppl will hate you for this but dont even fight once you enter av... just go for neutral mobs hidden in caves... if you clear entire cave you get 3% of your lvl
    btw if you're on the bad roll just stop (playing on reinforcements or losing too many times in the row) just take a break... once you're on the winning roll you can get 3-4 lvls in few hours... it depends on your battlegroup

  12. #12

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Azy's napkin math is completely fail. VT/MB gives you back mana regen, reduced CD on Shadowfiend, VI gives you health for free to help in terms of pure efficiency. You forgot that MB, Flay and VT crit for double damage, as well as dot crits.

  13. #13

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Quote Originally Posted by harky
    Uh... starting out in Northrend mobs only have 6-8k health, not 9k. Those numbers are also low, both on realistic gear and the values given the low-ball quality gear. 9k is the high end of health on the high end level of monsters available in the starting zones. Assuming you go in at 68, you'll be 72 (not 70) by the time you're finishing out the areas. If you do both you'll be around 74 by the time you finish them. By 70 assuming you're either an oldschool character, or didn't NPC your quest gear, you should have 1k SP by the time you're done with one of the starting zones. Higher if you do any instances.

    I think sketchy is the perfect word for that... for comparison when first hitting Northrend I was averaging over 400 DPS higher than your numbers imply is 'normal.' That means that yes, starting mobs easily dropped to VT>MB>MF. They'd usually die on the second, or third tick of VT if I didn't crit. Considering you'll be hitting much harder by 75 and mob health doesn't raise dramatically, I wonder about the numbers even more... Even the Disc/Holy ones... HF>Smitex3 is around 8k damage, not the 5k you're showing.
    You're way overestimating the gear that somebody would have get from a zone like BT, I'm guessing your experience was on your main from TBC and you had good L70 epics. Go through wowhead yourself and pick out gear from BT of HF you'll see that you don't get close to 1K SP from a starting zone.

    I had a bug on my sheet (forget the extra 15% coefficient from talents on MF & MB), after fixing that even if I plug in 800 SP which would require gear from instances, and reduce the mob health to 7k it's down to 9 seconds as shadow versus 9.5 seconds as disc unless you leave the mob to be finished off by letting VT run to duration.

    I could plug in L75 spell values if you like, but I don't imagine it's going to make that big a difference. The really big jump is in the L79/L80 ranks and by that time you're basically done.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nømeansnø
    Azy's napkin math is completely fail. VT/MB gives you back mana regen, reduced CD on Shadowfiend, VI gives you health for free to help in terms of pure efficiency. You forgot that MB, Flay and VT crit for double damage, as well as dot crits.
    VI? you mean VE and it is a dps loss - you need to spend an extra GCD in combat to get that free health. If I'd included it then holy/disc would be way ahead since it can heal on the move between mobs more efficiently than shadow. Crit would increase spriest dps somewhat more than holy/disc, but haste increases holy/disc more and disc has a LOT more of it so it's a wash.

    I didn't consider mana efficiency for the simple reason that it's a non-issue. Drinking isn't something that either spec really needs to do much, or wasn't in my experience. Spirit tap, mana fiend, HoH, Arcane torrent if you're belf, heirloom trinkets if you've got a ton of badges ...

    I repeat it comes down to which you prefer, there's no clear cut best levelling spec from 70-80. The biggest difference will come from knowing how to get the best of your spec, not from which one you pick.

  14. #14
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    Re: Levelling Tips

    Run AV, win or lose u get good experience.
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  15. #15

    Re: Levelling Tips

    Quote Originally Posted by Azyoulike
    You're way overestimating the gear that somebody would have get from a zone like BT, I'm guessing your experience was on your main from TBC and you had good L70 epics. Go through wowhead yourself and pick out gear from BT of HF you'll see that you don't get close to 1K SP from a starting zone.
    No, I just went threw again to double check and by level 70, after doing minimal quests in Borean Tundra a Shadow Priest can get 750 SP and a Holy/Disc Priest can get around 820. After doing Howling Fjord you can easily tack on another 200 SP. No instances, no non-soloable group quests, just proper gear choices from quest rewards. The number for level 70 includes a TBC green quest reward trinket as well (Oshu'gun Relic), but after doing both zones you won't need it. Also the point in using 75 isn't just due to higher spell damage from ranks, but in that you can throw on yet another chunk of SP in addition to that.

    Also my Priest was not my main during BC, so while my numbers were higher due to a couple of items, they weren't completely bloated like say my Druid walking around at 1.7k SP.

  16. #16

    Re: Levelling Tips

    By all means, level with whatever spec is most fun for you. I'd definitely pick disc if I weren't addicted to shadow. I must say, though, that some of the posts about shadow leveling here are a bit off the mark. I've leved as both, and shadow is definitely much faster if you know how to play it right (and I'm not talking about mind searing large packs).

    Nothing can shake my believe that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend -- Emil Cioran

  17. #17

    Re: Levelling Tips

    You could always try something like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbu...Zfxt0bbVbZh:uV

    I used a smiting spec to level most of my way to 70 and will probably continue using it to level up to 80. I never really like shadow, it always felt like playing a gimped warlock.

  18. #18

    Re: Levelling Tips

    From my personal experience, using all BoA gear available (two trinkets, shoulders and mace): holy is the way to go until lv51, when you get imp. shadowform and having mindflay being clipped by melee hits stop sucking. Shadow gets even faster once you hit Northrend.

    Contrary to popular belief, holy leveling is not a painful experience. Spamming smite was quite fast and I was pretty resilient, not as much as a paladin but definitely more than a rogue.

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