Priest Leveling Guide
General Information
Priests have mainly two different paths you can choose to play efficiently, unless you have really good gear. You can either specialize in holy/disc for instance and main healer in groups or you can specialize in shadow for single target DPS and even group healing with Vampiric Embrace, but not enough to be the main healer usually. A Shadowpriest is typicially feared in PvP by a lot of classes. You will notice if you can play a Shadowpriest semi-efficiently that you won’t have to worry about getting killed on a PvP server by anyone around your level. Shadow is definitely the best way to go if you’re going to be soloing.
Discipline
There are some good talents inside this tree that you could grab while you are soloing, but this is very a very ineffective way to level by yourself. You’d want to try to group if possible.
10: Wand Specialization 1/5
11: Wand Specialization 2/5
12: Wand Specialization 3/5
13: Wand Specialization 4/5
14: Wand Specialization 5/5
15: Improved Power Word: Fortitude 1/2
16: Improved Power Word: Fortitude 2/2
17: Improved Power World: Shield 1/3
18: Improved Power World: Shield 2/3
19: Improved Power World: Shield 3/3
20: Inner Focus 1/1
21: Meditation 1/3
22: Meditation 2/3
23: Meditation 3/3
24: Martyrdom 1/2
25: Mental Agility 1/5
26: Mental Agility 2/5
27: Mental Agility 3/5
28: Mental Agility 4/5
29: Mental Agility 5/5
30: Divine Spirit 1/1
31: Improved Divine Spirit 1/2
32: Improved Divine Spirit 2/2
33: Make sure you get Force of Will. I don’t know if I’d go passed Force of will. You may want to consider building up another talent tree.
Holy
There are a few priest spells that cause some damage, such as, Smite and Holy fire, but you will still be slow to level. It is possible to get by with a Holy Spec but usually you want a friend to help you quest and level when you’re not in instance groups.
10: Holy Specialization 1/5
11: Holy Specialization 2/5
12: Holy Specialization 3/5
13: Holy Specialization 4/5
14: Holy Specialization 5/5
15: Divine Fury 1/5
16: Divine Fury 2/5
17: Divine Fury 3/5
18: Divine Fury 4/5
19: Divine Fury 5/5
20: Holy Nova 1/1
21: Healing Focus 1/2
22: Healing Focus 2/2
23: Blessed Recovery 1/3
24: Blessed Recovery 2/3
25: Searing Light 1/2
26: Searing Light 2/2
27: Holy Reach 1/2
28: Holy Reach 2/2
Basically your damage spells are Smite, Holy Fire, and Holy Nova. When mobs are low on health or you wish to preserve mana use your wand.
Shadow
Shadow is by far considered the greatest for PvP and for PvE. You can solo mobs with little or no downtime very effectively with this build using it’s various taps and DoT’s while fearing and wanding mobs down to nothing. Spirit tap provides excellent mana regen by doubling your spirit after exp yielding kills, making it harder for you to run low on mana.
10: Spirit Tap 1/5
11: Spirit Tap 2/5
12: Spirit Tap 3/5
13: Spirit Tap 4/5
14: Spirit Tap 5/5
15: Improved Shadow Word: Pain 1/2
16: Improved Shadow Word: Pain 2/2
17: Blackout 1/5
18: Blackout 2/5
19: Blackout 3/5
20: Mind Flay 1/1
21: Improved Mind Blast 1/5
22: Improved Mind Blast 2/5
23: Improved Mind Blast 3/5
24: Improved Mind Blast 4/5
25: Shadow Reach 1/2
26: Shadow Reach 2/2
27: Improved Mind Blast 5/5
28: Shadow Weaving 1/5
29: Shadow Weaving 2/5
30: Vampiric Embrace 1/1
31: Improved Vampric Embrace 1/2
32: Improved Vampiric Embrace 2/2
33: Focused Mind 1/3
34: Focused Mind 2/3
35: Darkness 1/5
Continue filling out Darkness, Shadow Weaving, Focused Mind. Get Shadowform when available, then work your way toward Vampiric Touch which is well worth it. Simple strategy is: Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Blast, Wand or Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Blast, Fear, Mind Flay, Mind Blast, Mind Flay
Summary
You can either be the greatest healer in the game or one of the best PvP classes. It depends what you want to do in the end game. As far as leveling, you won’t have any problems going Shadowpriest. It’s not as fast as a hunter, but definitely is up there among some of the fastest classes.
