HOW THE HELL DO YOU DO IT WITHOUT WANTING TO STAB YOURSELF IN THE EYE AND THEN EAT GLASS CUS HOLY CRAP I GOT BORED AND WANTED TO CUT MYSELF.

i was on my priest Kwaichankane and i couldn't even get him to 10. the others i managed to get to 10 but then i died a little. what's the trick? HOW DO U DO IT?!

1 - leveling a priest sucks.

2 - go shadow and select your talent points to get Mind Flay ASAP. (around level 20) then put points in the Mind Blast cooldown.

3 - get leveling buddies. you don't have to be a healbot at that level!!!!!!

4 - Once you get about level 25 you'll start feeling the power of a shadow priest with mind flay and mind blast and SW:P, and it won't be so dull and boring.

5 - once you get around level 40 you can have someone with talioring create a shadowweave outfit which has +shadow damage on it. very sexy.

6 - at some point you'll have the power to solo stuff. Don't be afraid to dot and fear so you can heal while the dot ticks, but watch your fears that it doesn't aggro more stuff than you can handle. General rule of thumb is watch what you fear, esp in instances cause you can aggro too much for the group to handle.

7 - don't expect to always be able to kill stuff around your level or multiple mobs. My mage and now my warlock have been so much easier to level cause i can kill stuff a couple of levels above me and i have some crowd control.

8 - FADE is your friend in groups and instances. Get improved fade.

9 - get vampric embrace!!

10 - points in blackout. a chance to stun someone gives you a moment to heal up if you need it or get the hell out of somewhere.

11 - Rest XP is your friend, especially since you might need to rely on grouping alot.

I can't emphasize enough about getting a leveling buddy.

I pretty much grouped until 20 but then I grouped once for ZF and once for ST all the way to 60. I can't tell you why you can't get past 10, but once you get mind flay it just keeps on getting better all the way to 60.

My suggestions
-- Leveling a shadow priest kicks ass, but at first you're just some jive sukka with no DPS. It doesn't start getting good until mid 20s.

-- Get spirit tap. By 30-35 spirit will become your most imporatant stat, then sta, then int. My leveling set at around 55 gave me a mana regen of just under 200mana/tick while on spirit tap. I sat to drink about once an hour.

-- Vampiric embrace sucks ass (sorry pookie). Everyone goes on about how great it is because you don't have to heal yourself, but you waste a ton of mana on interrupted mindflay. I used the rank1 fear, or a rank2-3 shield instead. Mana was never an issue.

-- Groups suck and other people suck. They're all after your gold so give them the finger.

-- Avoid caster mobs. God I hate those guys.

-- Don't be afraid to take things over your level, but avoid multiple mobs. Two things beating on me makes me sad. Chain pulling mobs that "run in fear" is great though.

Here's a typical fight:
PW:S -> MindBlast -> SW:P (run away during cooldown) -> MindFlay -> MindFlay -> MindFlay -> Wand.

If the mob is a "run in fear", you'll hit him with the wand once or twice before he runs. Let him go. Improved SW:P still have about 2-3 ticks left when he runs, it will easily finish him for you. Pick your next target and pull. If the mob is running back into the pack, pull the one he's running for. This way you've always got 2 mobs going at once and you'll get insane XP/hour. Rested, I got 65k/hour all the way through 40.

Vampiric embrace is pretty and the group gets all these sparklies while it's ticking.

it doesn't do a lot of healing but a little is better than nothing.

I haven't tried shadow in with the new talent trees but i hear that Vampiric embrace has been beefed up.

I forgot spirit tap.... like Int and i said get mind flay first. that will make your life so much easier. Put points in to reduce your mindblast cooldown.

later on, put more points in spirit tap. You might want some points in that initally just to get you the 10 talent points to get mind flay.

LOL!! i can't believe you don't like groups ,int. I used groups just to get all my quests and instances done, and then find a good spot to grind.

What's better is finding a guildie to level with you, and be your leveling buddy

Yeah Dread the hardest part is waiting to get to Shadow spec, once you do that grinding becomes easy mode. Here's my tips which will overlap in places with what others have said.

• Spirit Tap is the best thing ever, get 5/5 immediately because once you get a good grind going you will NEVER need to drink unless you get multiple adds...sometimes not even then.
• I'm not the biggest fan of blackout for PvE, I will however go back and get 5/5 for PvP.
• Mind flay is teh shiznit, but don't waste too many points in Mind Blast cooldown IMO. I only use 1 Mindblast per mob kill because it's a big mana dump and Mind Flay seems to be more efficient to me.
• Silence will be your best friend....caster mobs aren't nearly as bad once you get this, hotkey it quick. (Also great for PvP).
• Vamp Embrace + Imp Vamp Embrace: They're great...for certain situations. Sub-60s I doubt you'll find a group willing to let you Shadow DPS-heal with it, and generally it won't be enough healing to keep a tank up on a boss or in multiple mob fights. And in normal grinding I almost never take more than 1 hit from a mob, everything else is absorbed by the shield. However if I get an extra mob or two, i love to throw SWP, Devouring Plague, and Vamp Embrace on the second mob, then DPS down the first one. Even if my shield drops, that's enough healing to keep me near full.
• Casting Order: for a normal mob kill I cast in this order: Power Word Shield, Mind Blast, SWP, Mind Flay. Generally at this point the mob is around 50%, and I can wand it down pretty quickly conserving mana. However if it's a higher level mob or resisted some I will throw another Mind Flay or 2. I try to avoid having to throw extra Mind flays cause it throws off my regen. Without doing that I can stay at or near full forever, so I never have any down time while grinding, and I kill mobs quite quickly.
• Spirit is your most important stat with this kind of build, right now I'm sitting at 220 spirit which is why I can regen so much mana so quickly.
• Get a good shadow damage wand if you can. The Shadow weaving debuff effects the damage from your wand too, so might as well take advantage of it. I just switched to a nice Nature damage wand and I have to say I regret it. I'm not sure if it's because mobs have higher NR or because it doesn't take advantage of the debuff, but it doesn't do as much damage as my lower DPS shadow wand did.

I almost stabbed my eyes out. Then I got level 20 and mind flay. Now I melt other people's eyes right out of their faces! Thanks, mind flay!

I was always pure healing. I instanced from lvl 20-60.

might be why i hate my fuckin priest though

Hi boys and girls! It's hopefully-useful WALL o' TEXT time!

The low levels are eye-stab-worthy for any class. The game really starts around 20. Maybe low levels aren't so bad for a mage... but comparing levelling anything to levelling a mage is unfair, anyway; there's a reason I levelled 2 mages to 60.

That said, I've levelled 3 priests up to around 20, (my priests are levels 34, 18, and 60, all on different servers), and it's not _that_ bad. I don't think it's particularly worse for a priest than most classes. Especially once you get to around 14-15 and have 4 or 5 points in spirit tap... from that point on, you're golden.

Let me make this clear: Spirit tap is the BEST TALENT IN THE GAME for levelling. Not the best priest talent; the best talent. To make it shine, you want to heavily invest in spirit gear. With a lot of spirit, you can just keep going and going and going. Priests, played well, are actually one of the FASTEST classes in the game to level. They can grind like nobody's business, and they can take out mobs 4 levels above them or nasty elite baddies almost as well as a mage (and that's saying something). The golden trimvriate of fast levelling classes are Mage, Priest, and (I expect) Hunter. People who say priests level slow aren't playing them right. Priests are also the sex at world PvP when you're levelling. Basically, they are awesome.

Quick response to a few things people have said:
- "at some point you'll have the power to solo stuff." - Priests are one of the best soloing classes. Requires some smarts, however.

- "don't expect to always be able to kill stuff around your level or multiple mobs" - Hmm, I didn't have any trouble with this. If it's really a problem, kill one of them off with an opener mind control. Even better than sheeping Just make sure to break mind control before they die and kill them yourself to get kill credit. Also, if it really comes down to it, thanks to heals, shield, psychic scream, etc, priests are one of the best classes at bringing one mob down, running 'til the rest reset, and going back for the kill. I didn't have any trouble with multiple mobs. Also, SPIRIT TAP means you'll get a ton of mana back partyway through the fight.


- "points in blackout. a chance to stun someone gives you a moment to heal up if you need it or get the hell out of somewhere." - Blackout's a great talent, but personally I never took it levelling because there were never points to spare. At 60, if you're still shadow ditch spirit tap for blackout (spirit tap isn't bad at 60, but it's only godly for levelling, and blackout is very nice, so I'd take it over spirit tap then).

- "Vampiric embrace sucks ass (sorry pookie). Everyone goes on about how great it is because you don't have to heal yourself, but you waste a ton of mana on interrupted mindflay. I used the rank1 fear, or a rank2-3 shield instead. Mana was never an issue." - Vamp embrace only costs 1 talent, and is definately worth it at that price. (When I levelled, pre-review, their was no imp. embrace; if I was levelling now, I prolly wouldn't take imp. VE it until endgame). It's not godly, but it's solid. The trick is, you have to use it correctly or, as int said, you'll have mind flay broken early ('cause the mob will get closer while you cast vamp embrace).

HOWTO cast vamp embrace correctly: Don't open with it. Once you've opened, immediately start running away from the mob and cast VE. VE can be cast while not facing the mob, and it can be cast on the run. Contrinue running until the 1sec global cooldown is up, then resume flaying. Because you ran while casting VE, the VE really cost you an completely insignificant amount of distance between you and the mob, so you should be able to get the full flay off with no interruption.

- "Avoid caster mobs. God I hate those guys" - Silence ftw. And you can dispel a lot of annoying caster stuff. I never had any problem with casters.

- "I only use 1 Mindblast per mob kill because it's a big mana dump and Mind Flay seems to be more efficient to me. " - Mind flay is much more mana efficient, but if more mindblasts lets you kill something faster, the increased speed may > increased efficiency, especially when you have jucy and delicious SPIRIT TAP! Also, when fighting something hard, like an elite 3 levels above you, high throughput is important.

And now, a Levelling Talent Guide!

This is the work of an Opinionated Bastard. I am not telling you how to play. Your mileage may vary. Not valid in Florida. Employees and family members of employees may not participate. No purchase necessary.

10-14: SPIRIT TAP! Go ahead and wet yourself. It's that good.

15-16: Two points in imp. SWP. Some people dismiss this as not that exciting, but IMHO it's an excellent talent. I was very happy to have it.

17-19: I would take 3 in shadow affinity, but a case could be made for 3 in blackout.

20: MIND FLAY! Go ahead and wet yourself again. This is when you graduate and become an official Shadow Priest. Congratulations. Go get 'em, tiger!

21-24: 2 points in imp. Psychic Scream, 2 points in imp Mind Blast.

25-29: Some combination of shadow reach and shadow weaving. You pick.

30-31: Silence and Vamp Embrace. Yay! VE changes your usual spell opening sequence; make sure to learn how to use it effectively.

32-34: Some combination of shadow reach, shadow weaving, or maybe some more imp. mind blast. You might want to max out shadow weaving, it's a good thing.

35-39: Darkness... if you thought your priest kicked ass before, this is the ramp to the summit of shadow leetness. Darkness kicks ass.

40: Shadowform. GG. At this level, with this build, you are unstoppable. You can kill any other player, and often kill multiple players at once. You laugh in the face of elites that are higher level that you, especially if you took Shadow Focus instead of blackout. It's good to be you.

At this point, you could take 2 points in healing focus so you can get heals off without having to shield yourself first. That talent didn't exist when I was levelling my shadow priest. You also want to get imp PWF soon. Wand Spec is another fantastic talent for priest levelling; as a priest, you want to use your wand a decent bit, especially to finish off a mob (so when SPIRIT TAP comes up you're out of the 5-second rule and get back more mana). Finally, there are more points you could probably put in shadow to help with the face melting. Personally, I'd get tasty things in discipline at this point.

Recommended things to fool with in this guide: All the points in imp. mind blast, shadow focus, shadow reach, and shadow weaving (to a lesser extent, perhaps; you want at least 3 or 4 points in this, probably 5) can be mixed around. Shadow focus will help a lot with killing higher-level elites, especially. The order you take these talents in and how much goes in each are pretty discretionary.

Once you have mind flay, you could also go after wand spec, imp PWF, and/or healing focus before climbing back up the shadow tree, then resepc at 40 (the earliest level you can get shadowform) to put all your points back into shadow. Personally, though, I'd really miss a lot of the shadow talents in the meantime, though, so my bias is to climbing straight up shadow until 40.

I hope this helps!

maybe i'll give it a try again. although my DURID is almost 40 . healing in SM is good practice.

LOL!

I actually created a NE priest on another server just so i can play with a shadow priest again. it's around 20 now, and knowing that it's not going to completely suck as i level keeps me playing.

One thing I'd suggest is be an Undead priest. I should have deleted and created a new priest when I realized priests had "class racials".

Undead get devouring plague (985 mana,904 damage,904 healed,3 min timer) which is a real nice boost when you're in trouble. Just this + VE + Imp SW:P is going to do over 2000 damage and heal you for 1300. Throw a 700 (noncrit) mind blast and a 200/second MindFlay on top of that and you're MELTING FACES. The best part is when some rogue 2 levels above you jumps you and you stomp him into the ground so hard that when he comes back to rez, he jumps on his mount and flees before you can own him again.

I actually enjoy leveling though, and doing it in the most efficient way possible, and getting groups takes too long and then someone forgot to empty their bags before they came, and then someone needs to go back to repair, and then someone gets a drop and says he's going back to repair but then decides he's going to get the item enchanted and please wait to finish the quest, and I guess I'm just an old curmudgeon.

Devouring plague rules! I can't believe i forgot to mention that.

lol!!! yeah groups can suck, but if you find a good person to level with it makes things easier.

I've been lucky that when I've been leveling characters that i can find a leveling buddy.

My alliance characters, which i don't play much, i usually just go solo. I'm a little psyched to play a shadow priest again, even if it's a silly NE. (elune's grace? i haven't really figured out if that's helpful or not.) In a couple of levels i'll be melting faces again.

Pookievander wrote: I've been lucky that when I've been leveling characters that i can find a leveling buddy.
That's because you're a giiiiiiirl
Quote: I'm a little psyched to play a shadow priest again, even if it's a silly NE. (elune's grace? i haven't really figured out if that's helpful or not.)
Don't forget starshards woohoo!

lol!!!!

yeah...being a girl really really works in my favor a lot and i do take advantage of that.