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 .

Also see our Priest Class Guide or the Shadow Priest 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 a pretty cool class, once youi get into the good stuff, and they present a solid variety of damage capabilities plus the ever-present healing/buffing power of any priest.  All in all they also come in very close to Warlocks 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

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

Unfortunately enough, shadow really doesn’t come into its real/full potential until 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.

Until you hit that "killing machine" stage you'll just have to take it easy and have a bit of patience. Of course, you can level with the other trees, Holy or Discipline, but Shadow is generally faster. If you want to be a healer and like to team a lot (and do instances,) then you might find a Holy build to be interesting.

Shadow Priest Leveling Build - 14/0/57 - Updated for the 3.3 patch:

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 MB
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

An option is to go a bit deeper into Shadow for a little more damage and less mana regen :
8/0/63 Shadow Leveling Build

This build drops:

• Improved Power Word: Fortitude
• Meditation
• Inner Focus
• 1 pt of Veiled Shadows

and picks up:

• 3 pts in Improved Mind Blast
• 3 pts in Improved Devouring Plague
• Psychic Horror - Especially if you're on a PvP server.

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, full shadow weaving, and 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.

3.0 – Tips, Stats, & Stuff

Tips:

1. The goal is to spend more time actually leveling and less time on other things. If you have to run back and forth from the vendor to buy supplies and dump stuff then you're wasting time. Taking breaks to do fun stuff (duels, hanging with friends, etc. is cool, but doesn't help you level faster. But, since the game is supposed to be fun...)
2. Set up a bank alt and mail all of your sellable stuff to that character.
3. Buy the biggest bags you can afford, even from level 1.
4. Buy plenty of any supplies you might need, spell reagents, etc.
5. Learn cooking to gain access to the buffing foods, or buy them off the AH.
6. 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.
7. Always log out at an inn, to get the rest XP when you log back in.
8. Leveling with a competent buddy will make things go faster. Less XP per kill, but faster kills and less downtime will more than make up for it.
9. Instances are great if you can get a good group, but not if you have to spend all day looking for that group. WoW's new Dungeon Finder is a big help here and you'll want to make sure you grab all the dungeon quests, as well.
10. At level 40, if you can afford it, buy the dual talent capability and make your second build a healing build, which will put you in much higher demand for groups.
11. If you're not mana efficient look into using a wand.
12. Beware of fear spells. Mobs will run and bring back friends. You will learn all about this soon.
13. Use your hearthstone often.
14. Only buy gear upgrades if it's a major upgrade. It's a waste of time and gold to buy new gear ever level, you won't see much benefit from the small upgrades. Instances have great gear and that gear is free.
15. Likewise, don't repair your gear all the time. Wait till it get's really low, then do it. If you just happen to be near a repair station, then go for it.
16. Skip crafting, unless you enjoy it, since it takes a lot of time and gold.
17. Skip gathering, unless you need the cash or you're feeding a profession.
18. Heck, depending on how you're feeling at the moment, skip looting! (Heresy, I know.)

Gearwise, shadow priests have basically two priority picks and a whole slew of possible choices.  Those priority statistics would be +Int and +shadow damage (spell power,) though you can take spirit until shadow damage becomes more available.

If you want the best gear while leveling and don't want to spend time gold-grinding, then you should be doing the instances. See below for a guide to help you maximize your XP from the various instances in WoW.

Another thing to be kept in high priority is an ever-updated wand, maximum DPS as well as some +Int 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. +Spellpower/Shadowdamage is your top choice.
2. Hit Rating - you don't need much for leveling and you don't need any for healing. If you go dungeoning/raiding then you will need a fair amount.
3. Crit chance - Definitely useful for leveling.
4. Intellect - The more the better. Determines your mana pool and adds to your Spell Crit chance.
5. Mana Regen - Very Nice to have
6. Stamina - is going to keep you alive, especially on PvP servers. Get as much as you need in order to survive.
7. 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.
8. Agility is nearly useless. It will provide some small defense gain, but nothing else. Skip it.
9. Strength is useless to you, skip it.
10. 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.
• Inscription can be a decent money maker and some of the top level, self-only, items are very nice.

4.0 – Priest Leveling Guide for 1-80

But first, do you want to solo or do you love to team?