So I'm rolling a Priest...

[Seraphic]

lol i believe sobolanul was bringing some light humour to the field
((at least i hope he was joking))

[Bigslick]

lol dont have to be disc to do this. would actually work better as ur shadow spells hit for more...

"Work better" depends on your definition.

You can follow the same method as shadow and your actively damaging dps will be a little higher, but... your shield will not hold out as long, so you will begin taking damage / spell interruption earlier before your weakened soul debuf is gone. If you're grinding larger packs this can mean substantially more damage taken, forcing you to shift out to heal mid-fight, costing a truckload of mana and another GCD to shift back, and diminishing your active DPS time. You can kill larger packs of harder hitting mobs with disc without dying than with shadow at very little if any real lost time. Smaller groups and single targets are of course a little faster with shadow.

[Seraphic]

yeah i'd agree. but I was implying that with the shadow tree dmg of sear etc, you wouldn't need a strong shield cause peeps would die faster.

[309blank]

ok STOP everyone

i powerlvled a priest to 80 just now. i have my lvl 20 achievement on the first of may and dinged 80 on monday, that is 24 days of lvl time.
i thought shadow was best, but actually it is the fastest to lvl as holy till lvl 58 and then switch to shadow. the build you want to use is putting the first three points in spirit tap, after that go down in holy using the dmg talents (+5 % crit, cast time, 10 % more dmg) until you get to surge of light. after that go down disc. i outdpsed other classes in scarlet monastery and other low lvl instances by a large margin. you HAVE to take glyph of smit though, otherwise it is useless.

going shadow before ~55 is a waste of time. you are constantl oom, your spells cost more mana than the holy spells but do less dmg. we did zul farrak with two holy priests as DD and we had amazing dps, because for the glyph it doesn't matter who put up the holy fire debuff.

if you want to two or threeshot mobs, do holy lvling. it is the absolute best, most efficient and most fun way to lvl.

everyone who tells you to lvl shadow didn't try holy after lvl 20 ( thats when you get holy fire) or lvled some time ago before spells changed to base mana costs.

disc may or may not be viable because of rupture and reflecting shield, but you have to take into account that the first few tiers of disc do little to improve your dps, whereas holy points increase your dps from the start.


when in outland you can definitely go shadow which is faster after that, but please try out holy for a lvl with the smit glyph and you will definitely be pleased!

edit: with spiritual guidance your spirit tap will be like a mini trinket, the extra amount of spellpower is another aspect which makes lvling holy so awesome.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bZ0xhZh:u at lvl 20
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bZctt0obZh:u at lvl 30
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bzZcgt0bbVbZh:u at lvl 40
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVzrzZcgt0bbVbZh:u at lvl 50 (take which disc talents you like in tier 2)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVzruhhoZcgt0bbVbZh:u at lvl 60 if you like holy so much you want to keep at it

i only switched to shadow because i really wanted to power through the lvls, but holy is more fun i think

[Seraphic]

i have my lvl 20 achievement on the first of may and dinged 80 on monday, that is 24 days of lvl time.

ummm thats a long fonging time to lvl .. lol

[blee732]

I agree with whoever said 1-45 ish is disc and 46-80 is shadow. I leveled 1-80 as pure shadow and i distinctly recall it being somewhat slow even when I got shadowform. But once you hit 45-50 there's really no question.

I think people are mixing up "best leveling build" with "highest dps build." There's no question whatsoever that shadow his the highest dps. Disc has lower damage output, but it's more sustainable and you have greater survivability.

To be honest, you probably can't go wrong either way. Just try out both and see what you like. Personally, I prefer shadow. There's something satisfying about pulling 4-5 mobs, dotting them all up and watching them all die while you flay/blast.

[309blank]

ummm thats a long fonging time to lvl .. lol

totally long considering i have exams coming up and going from 70-80 you can do about a lvl a day without going crazy. you clearly don't know what you are talking about. i also have other 80s to play, do arena and raid with so kindly stfu. there hasn't been one useful contribution made by you except for lol shadow roxx rofl.

and what is fonging supposed to mean?

[Seraphic]

totally long considering i have exams coming up and going from 70-80 you can do about a lvl a day without going crazy. you clearly don't know what you are talking about. i also have other 80s to play, do arena and raid with so kindly stfu.

and what is fonging supposed to mean?

Well should use better words my friend, you implied that u were leveling for 24 days of "power leveling" oh well

and with fonging watch the movie "A Knight's Tale" funny stuff

[Uuker]

I think he spoke about just days, not total played time to get to 80.

Actually that sounds interesting. Right now I level my priest (he's 22) and thought that shadow is the best levelling spec. But I dislike it for DoTs because they're expensive and often mob dies before they run out.
Maybe Holy is really better? :P
like follow this spec http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...0&version=9901
and then switch spec to shadow for shadow form?

[jb226]

People have covered most things, and the bottom line is just play what you think you'll enjoy playing.

The only thing I want to add, though, is to say that you can reliably heal instances well up to level 60 (and probably further) as a shadow priest. I did so up until 61 or 62 with my priest, and only stopped because people got snobby and started saying they wanted a "real healer" around that level--not because I wasn't performing perfectly fine in the role.

[309blank]

I think he spoke about just days, not total played time to get to 80.

Actually that sounds interesting. Right now I level my priest (he's 22) and thought that shadow is the best levelling spec. But I dislike it for DoTs because they're expensive and often mob dies before they run out.
Maybe Holy is really better? :P
like follow this spec http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...0&version=9901
and then switch spec to shadow for shadow form?

the dots are really a waste of mana which is shadows biggest problem. i would recommend shadow the earliest at 50 when you get vampiric touch for replenishment. also mindflay hits for nothing at lower lvls. lvls 10-20 were absolutely horrible and i hhoped it would get better with mindflay but nothing changed.

just make the small investment in a glyph of smite and respec to holy. i promise you you will enjoy it

[Deleted]

309Blank

Ive read your post and im deciding to follow your advice, but what rotation should I use? (Im level 28 at the moment)

[Ashurin]

For a spec like that I would assume it would be something along the lines of PW:Shield>Holy Fire>Smite>Smite>(Smite/Wand/Holy Fire all depending on remaining hp) just be sure to keep the Holy Fire DoT debuff up at all times on tougher mobs and PvP.

[[-Spiritus-]]

309Blank

Ive read your post and im deciding to follow your advice, but what rotation should I use? (Im level 28 at the moment)

Above poster is correct. This is the spec i would use at level 28: 0/16/3

I would then put your points into:

2/2 Searing Light
2/2 Holy Reach
1/1 Desperate Prayer
5/5 Spiritual Guidance
2/2 Surge of Light

Then I would start working on Discipline until your level 75 talents looked like: 36/27/3

After this is pretty much up to you on where to spend your last 5 points as you will invariably respec to something useful for level 80.

PW:S, HF, Smite x3, wand till dead works well. After you get SW, sub it in as your finisher.

[309blank]

i wouldnt even bother with pw: shield, because a renew will be more powerfull or later on a SoL fh on yourself. at a certain point i stopped shielding myself completely except for some tougher mobgroups/ elites and just healed up after a couple of mobs.

you should put your focus on spellpower and crit if you can get your hands on it, a little hit is also always good but hard to come by on lvling equip.

my opener was usually just HF> smite>smite >smite>wand if necessary, usually the mob will be down by then. in fact when something crits the third smite will also be unnecessary. dont use swain, dont use devouring plague, dont use mind blast, its a waste of time usually and a waste of mana. when shadow is the warlock way to play a priest holy SoL is the mage way straight up casts

always try to chain pull with spirit tap still running as it will greatly increase your dps once you get the will>spellpower conversion.

what would be absolutely perfect is if you found another priest who was willing to lvl with you as holy fire specc so you can take turns with debuffing with holy fire ( damn you holy fire cd!) and you can just start casting simultaneously, your smite will benefit from his holy fire.

i was fortunate to lvl from lvl 45-52 with another priest and our killspeed was really really insane. when we did an instance run we were usually before anybody else on dps by a wide margin.


unfortunately you cannot see the date of my lvl 20 achievement in the armory even though you can see it ingame. the reason why i stress the lvl 20 achievement is that before lvl 15 i just dabbled around with it and before that it had 5 days played as a bank toon.
my priest

[Deleted]

Few more questions for 309blank

What made you change to shadow at 58?
What shadow spec did you use?
What rotation did you use?
How was the shadow spec you changed to? Oom fast? Mobs die fast? Had to heal urself a lot? etc...


Cheers

PS. Im level 40 now

[309blank]

what made me change to shadow, was that i had all the heirloom stuff, my staff enchanted with +30 sp and two regen trinkets with sp. after vampiric touch shadow becomes viable in terms of efficiency, but i still think that that was only because i had the regen trinkets. what also made me change was the fact that spellpower which is really scarce in lower lvls becomes more abundant in outland which makes dotting and running feasible.

another reason i changed was that i was preparing myself for the roles i would have to play in my guild, which was disc pvp and shadow for pve and i wanted to get some practice with rotations etc... i'm now 11/14 into ulduar 10 and doing about 3,5k dps on a non gimmicky fight, so i guess that helped a bit with it

keep in mind that you have to heal up when you are shadow, not always but sometimes, you have to drink and i really should have waited till lvl 66 to switch. i think with 66 the point is there when shadow becomes superior by a noticable margin because of improved shadowfiend with only a 3 min cd . although the difference is not that big it is noticable.

for my shadow spec i went with dispersion first but found that it doesn't quite cut it with 70 or so i went down to meditation in disc and just put the rest in shadow as you see fit. i skilled imp vampiric embrace and the disarm ( forgot the english expression) for lvling and found it quite handy, i didn't skill devouring plague because it is expensive, doesn't really stay long enough to be viable and has an annoying cd so i never used it while lvling.

the bottom line is:

i STRONGLY advice anyone who asks to go with a smite / SoL build until at least outland, after that i still think its mroe fun and more efficient if you are not decked out in heirlooms because of the will> sp conversion. at 66 i think shadow gains a lot, but again, my view may be slanted because i didn't exactly test it out meticulously, i just switched and kept going.

i cannot comment on disc, i never lvled as disc, the only thing i did was a couple of group qs in outland which were too hard as shadow