Disc or Shadow for leveling?

[PopVanish]

Disc or Shadow for leveling? Wanting to roll a priest for healing in M+ and some raiding. Mostly M+.

I know that druid is the top M+ healer but really, I likely will never be above like +15 or so.

[Very rare pepe]

Play the spec you enjoy more for leveling imo but you will find dungeons faster as disc and if you do decent as disc in terms of pushing your dps then you will make the dungeons go even faster. As a problem I notice when leveling is(well not a problem, just a pet hate) is healers in dungeons doing nothing when there isn't any healing to be done when healers can actually do very good dps.

[Kyphael]

I tried both. Both kind of suck as far questing goes. Priest is easily the most annoying class to quest with I found out, but they work just fine in dungeons. That instant healer queue.

[PopVanish]

I tried both. Both kind of suck as far questing goes. Priest is easily the most annoying class to quest with I found out, but they work just fine in dungeons. That instant healer queue.

Just need reflective shield again, right?

[Kyphael]

Just need reflective shield again, right?

Anything that makes questing with a priest not so painful. Dots do nothing to big groups beating on your head. I can heal myself until the cows come home and kill them slowly, slowly being key word when most other classes are much more efficient at questing.

[cbaname]

"leveling" in which context? being bad/undergeared/unexperienced?
even with average gear if you do mediocre/normal with your disci/shadow appropiate spec build you will semizerg through every zone

[Yunzi]

Shadow is such a terrible spec for world content because of it's ramp-up - I suspect it's the worst of all 24 dps specs for that. Rather than go through that I level and do WQs in Discipline. But being a DPS spec, Shadow is still faster for levelling than Disc, having access to Mind Sear (and Shadow Crash) being a much better AoE than Holy Nova, and two DoTs instead of Discipline's one.

If you're poorly geared though, then Discipline's healing will more than compensate for it's lower raw DPS.

[Scorned]

Shadow is such a terrible spec for world content because of it's ramp-up - I suspect it's the worst of all 24 dps specs for that. Rather than go through that I level and do WQs in Discipline. But being a DPS spec, Shadow is still faster for levelling than Disc, having access to Mind Sear being a much better AoE than Holy Nova, and two DoTs instead of Discipline's one.

If you're poorly geared though, then Discipline's healing will more than compensate for it's lower raw DPS.

Like all DoT specs, Shadow's ramp-up is countered by the ability to kill multiple spread mobs simultaneously. If you follow the standard tactic of dismounting at the midpoint between several mobs, dotting them all up while doing a bit of kiting, then popping Voidform and/or other timers once all the mobs cluster up in melee range of you, your overall kill speed should be very good. This is somewhat gear reliant and might prove difficult before you gain access to key talents, so YMMV.

Edit: Also, some of the War Mode talents for Shadow are excellent and will seriously improve your PVE effectiveness. Whether or not you play with WM on should thus be a consideration.

[Yunzi]

Like all DoT specs, Shadow's ramp-up is countered by the ability to kill multiple spread mobs simultaneously. If you follow the standard tactic of dismounting at the midpoint between several mobs, dotting them all up while doing a bit of kiting, then popping Voidform and/or other timers once all the mobs cluster up in melee range of you, your overall kill speed should be very good. This is somewhat gear reliant and might prove difficult before you gain access to key talents, so YMMV.

This argument is frequently offered, and it's a great one if you're grinding mobs for XP while leveling, but if you're questing or killing a specific mob, it applies much less. Most quests aren't "kill 10 spread mobs in a small area".

Fire Mages, for example, don't need to use any special tactics to be very good at AoE, don't need to manage DoTs, and unlike Shadow Priests don't suffer a ramp-up penalty when they need to be flexible in their use of DPS, in addition to having much more defensive capability if the pull goes bad.

If Shadow Priest was, instead, Shadow Mage, being a 4th mage spec, it would be relegated to raids and dungeons, given it's weakness in world content.

It's only because Shadow Priest shares a class with no other DPS spec that it's *ever* considered viable for leveling and questing.

It's telling that "Shadow versus Discipline" is even a *debate* - "Resto Shaman versus Elemental Shaman" or "Resto Druid versus Balance Druid" aren't leveling or questing debates outside of under-geared situations because these specs don't have penalties that lead their players to consider leveling in a healing spec.

[Mamut]

I tried both. Both kind of suck as far questing goes. Priest is easily the most annoying class to quest with I found out, but they work just fine in dungeons. That instant healer queue.

I dont get why so many people complain about priest leveling. I leveled one fom 20 to 120 for Zandallari armor and I had heirlooms only till lvl 90. I leveled as shadow (tried also discipline but I found multidotting much faster) and it was smooth and fun. I did not had any twink items and as already said not even heirlooms past lvl 90.

I mostly was doing quests and only few dungeons there and there. Multidot everything you see and just use CDs everytime when they are available, dont save them. Instant cast Voidform from PvP talents, Vampiric Embrace, Disspersion with healing talent, shadowfiend + fade to drop aggro, and I had basically 0 downtime chainpuling mobs and doing quest objectives. Even hard mobs were doable with shadowfiend, psyfiend and fade.
Overall I had really fun and smooth leveling while using just questgear.

[Kyphael]

I dont get why so many people complain about priest leveling. I leveled one fom 20 to 120 for Zandallari armor and I had heirlooms only till lvl 90. I leveled as shadow (tried also discipline but I found multidotting much faster) and it was smooth and fun. I did not had any twink items and as already said not even heirlooms past lvl 90.

I mostly was doing quests and only few dungeons there and there. Multidot everything you see and just use CDs everytime when they are available, dont save them. Instant cast Voidform from PvP talents, Vampiric Embrace, Disspersion with healing talent, shadowfiend + fade to drop aggro, and I had basically 0 downtime chainpuling mobs and doing quest objectives. Even hard mobs were doable with shadowfiend, psyfiend and fade.
Overall I had really fun and smooth leveling while using just questgear.

It's not so much that it's not doable or even difficult, but of the caster classes, and other classes considered easy to level, it is the least efficient. Locks and mages can just pull a huge pile of mobs and blow them all up in a second. Priest, not quite as easy. I had fun leveling my priest, but I did it as a healer for that instant dungeon queue. Wasn't particularly painful, but as an alt-holic who likes to go through the leveling experience quickly, it's not one of the most fun classes to level with.

[Mamut]

I think it depends because I had more fun leveling priest than my mage. And to blow everything in seconds you need CDs while as Sp I just cast VT on everything and move on to next groups. Its just different playstyle but I would not call SP leveling slow.

[The Butt Witch]

Shadow is shit at leveling. Even more shit that the mage's fire spec, and I thought this one was the worst.

[Lolites]

level as the spec you plan to play at max lvl, so you get more familiar with it

[Yunaqt]

As a Disc priest myself I started as Shadow and realized it was not a good idea, stayed disc for leveling - you're basically invincible and damage is fine just lack aoe.

Doesn't matter leveling as a different spec, wont learn much leveling anyway. Can do dungeons as your preferred spec if you like but can pick stuff up very easily very quickly at max level.

[Adam Jensen]

I leveled Disco until Draenor. I healed dungeons and did quests while waiting for queue. At and after Draenor I quested in Shadow because that was the point I felt disc damage fell away and shadow handled quest mobs better. I continued to heal as disc in dungeons though.

[Minaah]

I prefer disc

[Puupi]

Shadow or holy. Disc damage has been so nerfed nowadays.

[Tente]

I would suggest:
- Questing > Shadow: I found multidotting and eruption faster for killing npcs, just need to find how many can you pull without dieing.
- Dungeons > Disco: I try to be first dps of the dungeon, sometimes I get it and almost insta queues are great.
- BG's > Holy: feathers, renews, pushbacks, I discovered Holy pvp pretty late and I'm having a really fun time in not ranked BG's while leveling.

[ReleaseDay]

i'm leveling a priest as holy atm, its more fun than i would've imagined. Compared to the other classes i've lvld past days (90-120 cap with the quarantine 100%xp) which was arms warrior, and frost dk, holy priest are by far the most enjoyable.