New Shadow Priest Question

[Khellendros]

Hello all!

I am a player returning from vanilla WoW because of cataclysm. (total lore buff) Anyhoo, I suppose because it's been quite some time since I have played, I can use some help to the many changes that have occured.

My first question would be, why would a returning player want to play a shadow priest over a Warlock? I come from the days from when a Shadow Priest was revered and exalted in any raid group due to being a mana and health battery. Because this has changed and WoW has made the Shadow Priest into an Affliction Lock/Shadow Mage hybrid class, what would be the over all benefit of playing a Shadow Priest.

Also, as a returning shadow priest, is there a way to make leveling go faster? Any gear tips or things in that effect? Right now, I'm level 15 and I find myself drained after two mobs. My rotation is PW:Shield, Mind blast, SW: Pain, Mind Blast, Wand to death. I get the spirit tap benefit, but it only restores up to a quarter of my mana bar. Any tips would be greatly appricated.

Thanks all!

[Brusalk]

I leveled Disc/Holy up until shadowform at level 40. It was usually more mana efficient for me, but that was back pre-3.0



Anyways, as of now, the only real reason to play a shadow-priest as opposed to a lock is the ability to heal, and do pretty good damage if you enjoy the priority system
Personally, I love the challenge and the variability hasted-dots gives to the rotation, for a lack of a better word.

[Backreaper]

your better off healing dungeons untill you get shadowform, if you insist on lvling i'd suggest spamming more holy fire and smite

[Direshadow]

These days we aren't as popular from a utility standpoint. We can still do certain things, like return health from Vampiric Embrace, but mainly we're a pure dps class spec.

Our survivability in dungeons and in pvp is somewhat off the charts... we're very independent being able to often skip boss mechanics that other people have to deal with, simply because we can survive through them. When you start to get decent gear, it becomes stupidly fun to be a Shadow Priest... you feel invincible.

[Dreamtail]

our pve survivability rocks yes but as for our pvp well that could use some tweaking still imo

[Kaiu]

I'd say shadow priest is an awesome setup to run and one I would recommend over a Warlock.

The rotation (although made easier from the 4 set t10) is one of the more difficult rotations but not too difficult where you feel constantly pressured. But you do notice huge differences in your dps on if you have a good or bad fight.

The healing effect from your vampiric embrace is a quality that is overlooked by alot of raiders. In my 10man runs on some healing intensive boss fights that vampiric embrace can be hitting ~1.5-1.7k Healing per second over the boss fight which makes healers jobs significantly easier. And as what stated, our survability in PvE is awesome.

As for the leveling, I remember leveling as a priest pre 40 was prob the most dull/draining experience in wow. Its most certainly the worst class at lower levels to grind mobs efficently. Just hang in there and it will get alot better once you move further up the talent tree. If you can, eliminate PW:S from your rotation cause it is mana costly if you use every pull. Depends on if you can drop targets before they deal too much damage though. (mind flay will help with slowing melee getting to you)

[Brittany]

Hi, I levelled as holy and it's pretty much the same until 40. You will run out of mana a lot. It is more efficient to level up using swain, smite and wand.

[Doctus]

#1: Never have to be bothered putting up a portal every time someone hearths.
#2: Orbs at 85
#3: You want to be able to occasionally heal

I would say if you never have any intention of healing, you should at least give the Warlock a shot and see how you like it. Priests have two of their three specs dedicated to healing. If you ignore that, you are ignoring a large portion of what the class is about.

Doc

[metalgemini]

Leveling a priest is painful mana-wise. I've done it twice and want to bash my head into a wall until 40 or so. Duel spec makes priests much more diverse than warlocks. In PvE, you can skip the 30min dps queue for random dungeons and use a healing spec when your guild might not be available. Same for pvp if you wanna mix it up and be a pain to the other side with a Disc spec.

[Silanty]

Lock vs SP - if you wondering about benefits for raid, Vampiric Embrace is great spell, in encounter with a lot of raid dmg you make healers job much more easier. PW:S + Dispersion - you wont need much of a healing from healers you are kinda "solo" dps in raid which is good and fun, rest was mentioned above or you already know. But keep in mind, priest has only one dps spec, lock 3, if you are 100% sure about not going to be a healer, lock seems to be a better choice.

Leveling - healing in random dungeons and over the weekends BG (if it happens AB/WSG has holiday - a huge amount of xp.)

[beefeetr]

Geared spriests will be running 10khps in heroic bq25 with haste pots and heroism during the last phase. And that's not overheals.

Disc is pro for healing vanilla dungeons. Shadow is best for 40+ questing. Shadow is amazing for questing. The world first 70 was a shadow priest apparently.

[Wafflesahhh]

At lvl 20 (or 22?) you get Holy Fire. You should look up the smite levelling spec (try the official WoW forums and the stickied priest levelling guide posted there). You want glyph of smite. Rotation is holy fire-smite repeat-wand.

I also recommend doing LFD healing as the smite spec or disc. You get fast queues as a healer. Go shadow at around 46 (when you get improved shadowform to prevent interrupted mindflay channels which means better downtime questing)

I'm lvl 62 at the moment

[Superspammer]

Don't focus too much on direct damage spells.. you should be able to handle 2-3 mobs if you simply start throwing SW:Pain, then again on another target and an optional third or fourth, then use Psychic Scream and then direct dmg them. Make sure one target dies before Psychic Scream breaks, then use the mana from that to throw a PW:Shield and a renew and tank them while killing them off. If everything works out nicely though you shouldn't need to tank for very long. Go for Spell Power, Stamina and Spirit.

[Yvaelle]

Actually the t10 4 piece bonus made the pve shadow priority system harder, because it puts more emphasis on clipping MF after the second tick, and more emphasis on precasting the next MF in a 150% faster cast time, requiring 150% faster reaction.

If you have 4p t10 and are truly serious about upping your dps as shadow, proper clipping of a <2s MF requires a reaction time that should be under a 10th of a second, and watching that - through one of the hardest priority systems in the game, for the entire duration of a 3-12 minute fight, while also tracking the fight mechanics, and adjusting your priorities based on number of enemies, their individual health, and prepositioning to take advantage of that (which isn't to say its insanely difficult, but definitely a head above all but feral cats who do it right: the slim minority even amongst top guilds). What's more, being priests, we are often tracking other effects in the raid as well - dispel magic, cure disease, mass dispels, overall raid hp (to pick the right time to divine hymn, or drop form and bomb fheals into people, or just to toss shields if you aren't with a disc priest).

Cat dps is the hardest rotation in the game, that's no question - but playing a top end shadowpriest (and your lucky if you have one of this calibre on your server) is the hardest raid spec to play in the game.

[Mem]

If you want to dps, roll a warlock. The priority system is easier, you won't be asked to heal, and as a pure you will be priority for gear EVERYTIME. Now, if you have any interest in healing whatsoever, then play a priest and be happy playing a subpar spec.

[Biernot]

At lvl 20 (or 22?) you get Holy Fire. You should look up the smite levelling spec (try the official WoW forums and the stickied priest levelling guide posted there). You want glyph of smite. Rotation is holy fire-smite repeat-wand.

I also recommend doing LFD healing as the smite spec or disc. You get fast queues as a healer. Go shadow at around 46 (when you get improved shadowform to prevent interrupted mindflay channels which means better downtime questing)

I'm lvl 62 at the moment

This.

A basic Smite leveling spec would be something like http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...DcF,Uffq,12213
(Second major glyph could be: Shield, Flash Heal or Holy Nova)
You could also chose to go down deeper in holy instead of disc, but as you are going to heal in dungeons, Meditation is too good to skip.

After this you have 3 Options:
- Go Shadow at level 46
- Stay Smiter
- Buy dual spec and go Shadow / Disc

Disc is the superior leveling healing spec at lower levels because of Meditation and at higher levels also because of mana efficiency and shields.

[finnalblow]

not super fast but what i did back when i was lvling was dot dot wand and u would never run out of mana it would equel out in time because u have no down time inbetween kills and once u get mind flay i was just bubbling so i wouldnt get push back and just spam flay on things to death that was pretty fast and good on mana


i leveled durring BC so some things are differnt now

[Liliathan]

Play shadowpriest cause it's great fun. Also I like when I

a) dont quite require much raid healing (vampric embrace <3)
b) dispersion is quite nice OHcrap-button
c) Fade ftw.
d) possibility to play a healer when bored
e) class where skill>gear starts to show quite quick.

[Gussi]

priest cause it's amazing plus cata. looks promising.

[Direshadow]

the PVP spriest these days are pretty amazing actually. Even as someone who has just enough gear to get by in the wild can defeat 90% of the classes thrown at me.

I have trouble with DKs and Rogues are almost always hopeless.

Everyone else though, I have a counter to. I can silence casters, dispell their buffs and debuffs, I can avoid a warlocks fear, and dispell their immunities to my spells. Paladins are easy to kill because most of them rely to much on their bubble, which I just dispell.

Glyph of Dispell is nuts for PVP as well... almost to the point where when i'm up against a frost mage, and I see I have 3 magic debuffs on me, I almost am happy.