This guide is simply intended to provide a general overview of leveling your Priest. For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource on Priests, including PvP, raiding, gold earning, and much more, check out the Killer Priest Guide .

Click here for either the Priest Class Guide or the Shadow Priest Class Guide or the Discipline Priest Guide.

• 1.0 - Introduction
• 2.0 - Talents
• 3.0 - Gear & Progression
• 4.0 - Leveling from 1-80

Introduction

Shadow Priests are one of my favorite classes, they present a lovely variety of damage capabilities as well as the ever-present healing/buffing power of any priest.  All in all they also come in very close to Warlock’s in terms of style and grinding ability, they just lack the pet.

Still, Shadow priests also have quite a bit of their own playstyle to enjoy, face-melting with mind flay (lazers!) as well as mind control hijinks that occupy quite a bit of my time due to being on a PvP server.

So, read on and learn how to maximize your shadow priests leveling experience.

2.0 – Talents

Shadow Priest Leveling Build - 14/0/57

1. Shadow Talents
2. 3 points in Spirit Tap - More mana regen
3. 2 in Improved Spirit Tap - Mana regen while casting
4. 3 in Shadow Focus - Better chance to hit, lowered mana cost for spells.
5. 2 in Improved Shadow Word: Pain - More damage
6. Mind Flay - Braaiiinnnnsssss
7. 2 in Improved Mind Blast - Faster casting of IMB
8. 2 in Improved Psychic Scream - More screams
9. 3 in Shadow Weaving - More Damage
10. 2 in Shadow Reach - More range for all shadow spells.
11. Vampiric Embrace - You get healed while opponent gets hurt
12. 2 into Improved Vampiric Embrace - More healing from V.E.
13. 2 into Focused Mind (2 out of 3) - Lowered mana cost
14. 5 in Darkness - (tier 1) More damage
15. Shadowform - Now you look like a Shadow Priest
16. 1 in Focused Mind (3 of 3) - Lowered mana cost
17. 2 in Mind Melt - Braaiiinnnnsssss
18. Silence - Great against casters (and player casters)
19. 2 in Improved Shadowform - More efficient casting
20. 3 in Misery - More efficient casting
21. Vampiric Touch - Damage and aids party casters
22. 3 in Pain and Suffering - Mind Flay now refreshes SW: Pain
23. 1 in Shadow Power - More crit damage
24. 5 in Twisted Faith - Increased Spell Power from Spirit and more...
25. Dispersion - Cleans certain spells from you, regens Mana
26. Discipline Talents
27. 5 points into Twin Discipline - More damage and healing
28. 3 in Improved Inner Fire
29. 2 in Improved Power Word: Fortitude - 30% Improvement
30. 3 in Meditation - Much better mana regen while casting
31. 1 in Inner Focus - Next spell cast is cheap and brutal
32. Back to Shadow
33. 2 into Veiled Shadows - Reduced cooldown of Fade and Shadowfiend
34. 4 in Shadow Power - Finished out SP, more crit damage

This build is designed to reach the core points of the shadow tree, allowing you to become the mana efficient non-stop killing machine as desired, as well as picking up what I consider the best choices of side-grade/supporting talents.

Unfortunately enough, shadow really doesn’t come into its real/full potential until as far as the 40’s, although a taste of the true killing ability does come starting around both the 20’s and 30’s.  It’s a mixture of mana regeneration and mana efficient killing spells that allow you to really keep going.

Spirit tap is both the first talent in the tree and one of the greatest, instantly providing a level of mana regeneration likely equaling your entire mana pool well into the 20’s, this is also further augmented by wearing lots of +spirit gear.

Mind flay, a real killer at higher levels but you’ll likely not notice it being of *great* use immediately upon picking it up.  Still, it’s definitely worthy of using in-between mind blasts in addition to a wand.

Shadow Reach, Improved Mind Blast, Improved Shadow Word Pain – All of these improve the primary spells of any shadow priest arsenal and therefore are a nice scaling boost to damage output as we await the real goodies.

Vampiric Embrace: this is another ability that, like mind flay, will seem somewhat negligible until your early 40’s whereupon it really comes into play as a massive time-saver due to the self-healing effect making every fight more efficient.

Now we get focused Mind, a point in shadow weaving, Darkness. Yet more side-grade style talents that just make life easier in general and improve your killing capabilities two-fold, however, worry not, the real stuff kicks in soon.

Shadow Form, and with it a taste of real power as you really get the combined force of all your previous talents plus a hefty 15% damage increase.  This is the benchmark line talent-wise for becoming a real powerhouse of leveling, wands become a thing of the past.

Shadow Weaving, Shadow Power, Vampiric touch – All of these talents now serve to beef up your already deadly arsenal and provide some slight mana regeneration/variety in the form of another DoT.

Zygor's Shadow Priest Leveling Build

Zuggy's Shadow Priest Leveling Build 14/0/57

3.0 – Gear & Progression

Gearwise, shadow priests have basically two priority picks and a whole slew of possible choices.  Those priority statistics would be +spirit and +shadow damage, spirit taking the chief slot until past 40 or so whereupon shadow damage becomes slightly more prevalent and useful.

Another thing to be kept in high priority is an ever-updated wand, maximum DPS as well as some +spirit or shadow damage stats on it is merely a plus.  Wanding is a large part of how any shadow priest levels prior to your late 40’s and thusly the right wand choice makes all the difference.

Your Stats:

1. Spirit - For leveling this stat doesn't have much use. If you switch to Holy (perhaps for a Raid) then it's your bread and butter stat.
2. Intellect - The more the better. Determines your mana pool and adds to your Spell Crit chance.
3. Stamina - is going to keep you alive, especially on PvP servers. Get as much as you need in order to survive.
4. Agility is nearly useless. It will provide some small defense gain, but nothing else. Skip it.
5. Strength is useless to you, skip it.
6. Hit Rating - you don't need much for leveling and you don't need any for healing. If you go raiding then you will need a fair amount.
7. Crit chance - Definitely useful for leveling.
8. Mana Regen - Nice to have
9. Haste Rating - Less important than the others, though it's nice to have in long fights.

Professions: Skip all crafting professions while you're leveling. Not that they're useless, but that they're very expensive. If you do have a ton of gold then tailoring is a good skill to get. You can buy the enchants you need for a lot less gold than you'll spend leveling that skill, so skip enchanting. Alchemy will allow you to make tons of useful potions, so that skill might be worth it.

• Herbalism is a nice gold maker and will provide mats for your Alchemy skill, if you take it. This skill will give you a small heal over time (HoT) spell.
• Mining and Skinning are nice money makers, as well. Mining will also give you a health bonus.
• Cooking will allow you to make some useful buffing foods, so is highly recommended.
• Fishing is a nice supplement to cooking, but takes a lot of time.
• First Aid is occasionally useful for those times when you might be low on mana. Look into it if you find yourself low on mana and health too often.

Questing is much more efficient than grinding for gaining XP, if you group smiliar quests together so you can do more than one at the same time.

If you can, always log out in an Inn to earn the 100% "rest XP bonus."

4.0 – Priest Leveling Guide for 1-80

The fastest way to blast your Priest to level 80 would be with a guide that did all the work for you, but botting (or buying power leveling) will get you banned.

Zygor's guide is the next best thing - it's like having an expert looking over your shoulder, helping you out with where to go and what to do. You will next have to ask, "Where do I go next..." or "What do I have to do now...?" It's all in the guide.

Fully automated, Zygor's will let you do you Vader thing without ever having to look up anything, set waypoints, or much else other than run and slay the opposition. Snag your copy of Zygor's Leveling Guide and get leveled fast, or check out our review first.