Priest leveling - Few questions if you dont mind

[Beckers]

Hey there.

As an altoholic i've just started leveling my own priest (46 atm). I've tried Disc which is a total faceroll with Atonement, Evangelism, Reflective sheild and Archangle, basicly just spamming Smite and regenerating my mana every 3-4 mobs or so.
While this might be efficient and helps me healing through instances with faster queues, its not realy fun...

My question is. what is the matching shadow build to level with, with a good mana regeneration?
Ive tried using Shadow Word: Death above 25% health (even though the damage is laughable) with the talent Masochism, but i never seem to take any damage from Shadow Word: Death therefore dont gain the mana regeneration. Am i doing something wrong here?

Also i would like to know what are the recommended abilities for me to use while in insances and general grinding/questing as shadow. At the moment i dont seem to be up to par with damage. I'm just spamming Mind Flay all over the place (derp?)

[thedocproc]

With the glyph you gain mana with Shadow Word: Death when the mob is BELOW 25%, not above.

I'm currently leveling a priest alt as well. At level 49 when on a mob I start with my dots, mind flay until below 25%, and then SW: Death. I use Mind Flay rather than Mind Blast but that when I use MB I occasionally kill the mob and thus am unable to use SW: Death for the mana regen. Play around with you rotation and find what kills mobs the quickest while giving the least downtime.

[dekadron]

I couldn't tell you why you don't gain your mana from Masochism. Could be a bug? I honestly haven't noticed whether it works on my character or not.

Don't judge your shadowpriest's potential dps on heroic dungeons these days, except possibly for boss fights. Trash just dies too fast for you really reach the shadowpriest's true potential.

I ran h-Gundrak with some friends last night and there were generally packs of 3 mobs. I would generally immediately place sw: pain on each mob while running around them or strafing back and forth, in order to generate shadowy apparitions, and on the third putting DP as well, then mindflaying the mob with the most health, and mindblasting when i got 3 orbs, and using shadow word: death on mobs < 25% when possible. Mind you, this was just for trash, which dies really fast and who cares.

On the bosses, I did shadowfiend - SW: P - VT - DP - MB - MF while also strafing on the instant-cast spells, and using SW: death in the < 25% area. (If you are running out of mana, use dispersion as you run from pack to pack, and if that's not enough then work in some SW: D into your rotation earlier for the masochism effect)

Using this technique on Moorabi with a heroism and popping my +sp trinket beforehand I got nearly 15,000 dps for the fight, in ilevel 267 healer gear (no shadowpriest tier gear). I did get 2 executes off, 1 of them crit. And again, remember, the fight is very short so the numbers are messed up by the fact that your cd's are up for 100% of the fight and also crits will skew the numbers greatly when the fight duration is so short.

Interesting to note, on my skada recount it showed that shadowfiend was the #1 damage deal, iirc it was 36k, then SW: D was #2 with 33k, then mindflay was #3 with 32k.

Final comment on mana regen, remember that using mindblast on a target with VT will trigger a replenishment, so if you are short on mana then you should cast VT - MB at the start of the pull.

---------- Post added 2010-10-19 at 07:03 AM ----------

I'm sorry, looking over your post I see you said LEVELING and that you're level 46, so you don't even have shadowy apparitions or VT.

It's been so long, I don't really have personal experience advice to give you. I looked at the talent calculator to see what you would have at your level. For grinding/questing I would probably do SW: P, DP, then mindflay or mindblast. Once you get VT you can take advantage of its replenishment mechanic.

I recall people saying that you'll run yourself out of mana if you are applying lots of dots. Can you get the glyph of spirit tap? This recharges your mana when your shadow word: death lands a KILLING blow.

[Beckers]

@thedocproc: Im sorry but i was talking about the mana gain from the talent. if i get the glyph will i get mana regen either way? if they are above or below 25%?

@dekadron: thanks for the advice! but usualy i never use my dots... seems like a horrible waste of mana.
im running with the best gear i possibly can. enchanted heirlooms and such. mobs seem to die from just 3-4 mindflays with minimal cost of mana. i was just wondering what can i do to increase mana regeneration since masochism wont work because im not getting any damage from my Shadow Word: Death inflicted to myself

---------- Post added 2010-10-19 at 03:29 PM ----------

Anyone familier with this bug? am i doing something wrong?