Holy Priest leveling?

[champ3000]

With Cataclysm upon us...

Will you level in your healing spec? Or will you use Shadow?

I think this expac, I will go with shadow to level. Should be faster even with the lower-quality of gear I have on that spec compared to my Holy spec.

Or do you think that it will be easier as Holy with the changes to Smite?

[iLive]

You are ABLE to level as Holy, but it is optimal compared to Shadow? Far from.

It's like comparing Holy and Shadow output with each other. Go to the dummy and DPS for 10 sec (lets say it takes 10 sec to kill a mob) and then calculate which spec made most DPS. Shadow will outperform Holy when it's about killing targets, and if it didn't, then it would be a design flaw from Blizzard's side.

[ramennoodleking]

Not to mention with dual spec being so cheap (I havn't bought it in a while, is it 10 or 100 gold now?), it would be very silly not to just level as shadow with the option to switch specs for dungeon healing.

[Thrayne]

Holy Spec is the way to level for Realm Last 85.

But Seriously with spirit-->hit Shadow will be the fastest way.

[Orapronobis]

Also, my understanding is with the relatively huge life pools and high damage output of the mobs, trying to quest in anything other than shadow right now is asking for lots of deaths and roughly forever to kill each mob.

[tomehere]

Call me crazy but im leveling disc. Its the most enjoyable to me, but theres nothing wrong leveling holy either.

[trihedron]

I've been leveling Holy so far and it's been OK. I might try shadow tonight to see if it truly is faster.

[Jahoota]

I assume you mean 80-85. Shadow would be the way to go, hands down. If you want to level as a healer then I would suggest going Discipline. I don't have hard numbers backing Discipline over Holy but it just feels more offensive.

If you mean starting out as a new Priest, Holy would be fine. Either way, good luck!

[Syeberus]

I am a level 83 Holy Priest and I have been leveling as Holy. And let me tell you, it is slow and frustrating...kinda.

For me it adds a bit of a challenge. Basically from 80-Mind Spike I found that it was a smite spamming bad time with horrid downtime.

After mind spike, it got waaaaaaay easier.

The way that worked for me was Chakra -> Smite -> Mind Spike spam + Interrupt casts with Chastise or PS
If I had more than one mob, I'd Lightwell -> Chakra -> PS -> Mind Spike spam on down and even out the field

I almost died an insane number of times, but Body + Soul and running away works amazing wonders. Good luck if you actually decide to do it...Lol