Leveling as shadow

[Ottopaul]

before i say this, note that this is only advice for solo shadow leveling, it would be a terrible build for raiding/pvp, even bad for 5 man pugs...

what i did was just gear for pure spirit and spell power.... not really worrying about stamina, only barely worrying about int.

if you gear that way, spirit tap will keep your mana full under almost any situation. you can nonstop pull, right after another, and have a hard time even denting your mana pool much

likes i said, this is only for solo shadow leveling/grinding.... in that scenario, you'll have more than enough mana to kill any one or 2 mobs, and will regen so fast that the small size of your mana pool won't matter. and under this set up, you can be really careless with PW:shield, SWain, so you will still be killing very fast.

you'll wanna have spirit in almost every slot, at least to some extent. random greens of the owl/prophet, and even some pure spirit stuff(which you wouldn't really wanna use under any other circumstance for any class, so it should be really cheap to buy on the AH).

and then try to keep enough spell power to keep things dying fast, but like i said, if you have enough spirit, you can be really careless with SW:P and DP, which will up DPS a fair bit(the inefficiency won't matter)

if you gear this way, it should shoot you up to 60 with no problems soloing. and then past 60(maybe past 70), gear should become alot easier to balance

[Lifeanddeath]

Well, I know it's been almost 10 days since you posted, but I leveled Shadow from the beginning. I enjoyed it and only at the beginning had to stop and drink. But when Wrath came out, I hardly ever had to stop and I usually Shielded myself before a mob.

Instead of MB -> VT, start VT -> MB to get replenishment running while you're killing. Also, spec into Focused Mind (reduced mana for spells) which will help as well as Imp. Spirit Tap. All of those will help with the mana issues.

Personally, I don't think Silence is worth it, leveling or at 80. And you don't need Imp. MB right now. Those were some of my last talent points used. I also wouldn't use Imp. Shadowform until you're higher levels and put it into Veiled Shadows. That means you can use Shadowfiend faster (every 3 minutes), which is the best way to get mana back, because you can keep attacking while it's up.

[Tabu34]

I was in the same boat as you just a couple days ago. In all honesty, just follow the sticky. I had some trouble right around where you are, all you can really do is push past it.

Open with MB, then if the mobs you have been killing aren't dying fast enough SW:P, then Mind Flay x2 or x3 depending on how much health they have. Then just wand them to death.

I have always been fond of pre-shielding, and it has served me pretty well. If mobs aren't dying fast enough because you aren't getting enough damage out of your MFs, you might want to try PW:S slightly before the pull.

I also went with Imp. SW:P instead of Imp Shadowform, since I pre-shield, I never lose ticks on anything really, so it was completely worthless for me, and if I ever needed to use SW:P, it would hit that much harder, which is always good.

It really does get easier at 50 with the inclusion of VT into your rotation. That was the point at which I could get rid of SW:P and still kill mobs fast enough.

And lastly, find some music to play or something that can take your mind off of how much time has passed, it helped me a lot. I don't know what you're into, but www.di.fm 's vocal trance "radio" station seems to do it for me.

[afkalmighty]

smite spec?? I must have been doing it wrong all this time ???

[Dedweight]

You don't need imp mindblast unless you are doing a lot of instancing.
I suggest you take imp SWain and silence.

Pull mob from max range with MB, dot with swain and dp, cast pw:shield on you and mind flay.
If it's still alive after that just wand it and let the dots kill it.

Try to take gear with intellect and spirit and ignore stamina so as to take advantage of Spirit Tab when the mob dies.

Things may have changed since I leveled my priest to 80 but I never bothered with SW:P or DP unless I had to kill elite mobs(same deal regarding Power Word: Shield), the mobs always died to quickly to warrant the mana cost of those dots(I used more mana going from mob to mob using the dots then not and generally killed them in the same time span), the only dot I ever bothered casting was VT and that was on the pull just before MB to get replenishment going.

As for leveled as Disc using the basic smite spec until 40 then went shadow, didn't have any problems with it.

[Komati]

I leveled 60 - 75 as shadow, not recommended at ALL! The most boring specc to level with, without a doubt. Unless you count healing and tanking specc. Scrap that, shadow is the most boring specc to level with.

[Worshaka]

Are all players on pvp realms like that? I read it so often, completly ignoring that pve realms exist where pvp is something you agree to explicit. Or deny the fact that a lot of players actually play on pve realms. "lolol only nubs play pve or allience (sic) lolol"...
At least ask what the problem may is and don't expect that you are right with your assumptions by default.

I have no doubt people play on care bear servers... if you read my posts correctly you would have seen that I made the comment that if you did play on a care bear server that silence is still useful for the occasional trash mob as is the lower cooldown on AoE Fear.

Personally I think you have to have rocks in your head to suggest that those 3 points can be spent better elsewhere. Particularly considering that your DPS is next to irrelevant, trying to suggest a 6% damage increase here or there is better is ludicrous. Take all the utility you can while leveling, you never know what situation you might end up in or what you might attempt to solo because it's too difficult to get a group together.

Keep in mind Silence will interrupt NPC casts now, so it's not always useless.