new to lvling a priest

[Abolishment]

This list works for every class. Assuming you are leveling all classes with roughly equal gear, some classes have abilities and mechanics that make them markedly easier to level than others. The priest is not one of them.

Hunter gets harder with gear, as your pet can no longer tank for you. Priest is still nice, as it's one of the few casters that gets pushback immunity thanks to Power Word: Shield being such a low-level ability. With other casters (maybe not mage, but definitely Balance Druid, Elemental Shaman, some specs of Warlock), getting an add means your damage gets cut in half thanks to pushback.

Levelling isn't hard, not by any stretch. However, I'd have to say that after taking every class to 80, Warlock and Priest were the only ones that have a complete paradigm shift when it comes to gear. You go from being able to single-target a few things down and then drinking, into tab-dotting the world and laughing maniacally. While other classes are carried by talents, Priest is one of those that just needs gear in order to function at a desirable level.

My first 60 was a Mage in Vanilla, and his gear was -terrible- (Honored with WSG for rings? Exalted with Defilers for boots?), yet he was able to AoE grind undead and pirates just fine, and every single-target fight was just Frostbolt x3-6, pending crits. My next Vanilla 60 was a Druid, and just having greens of the tiger or bear or monkey was good enough to hit 60 with ease. I tried Balance. It failed miserably.

Spellpower was, and is still ridiculously rare sub-60. I can safely say that casters got the short stick when it came to gearing through quests . My Mage had less than 50 spellpower when he hit 60. Now, I'm not surprised to see a level 30 with 200 spellpower. The change to intellect for casters is long overdue.

[Krypt]

Due to racism and paedophilia by main account was permabanned, im currently leveling a new disc priest just by healing with the dungeon finder. 40 hours played and lvl 36, that's with a lot of AHing and leveling professions

[Lbertuss]

I've been holy since day (lvl 50 now) and have not done a single quest. I have leveled strictly thru the dungeon finder, and I find it to be fast and enjoyable. I also feel like it's taught me a lot about the class. I also dual spec'd disc to try that out.

I suggest trying it that way. During prime time the que times are virtually non existant, and I find myself able to heal the dungeons in red just fine.