WoW WotLK Classic Priest Leveling Guide

Introduction

How easy it is to level your priest all depends on what talent tree you choose to focus on. In the beginning, priests can, and will, seem like powerless casters due to Smite being their main damaging ability. This gets better though, at least if you choose Shadow (or Holy) as your leveling tree. Shadow is focused on damaging abilities, and with some clever talents like Silence and Psychic Horror, you’re well prepared for PvP and tough situations as well. The Discipline and Holy trees offer mainly healing abilities, with some Smite-enhancing talents.

You are not very gear dependent, but gear will always make some difference and make you kill mobs faster. Don’t spend all your gold on gear for your new priest though; quest rewards will be more than sufficient.

Priest Leveling Gear – stats to focus on

As a priest, you wear cloth, and this may seem to make it a tough choice of class, but as a spell caster you’re not supposed to let the mobs hit you much. Main stats to focus on at early levels are intellect and spirit, as well as spell power. Stamina is also great for survivability. Also, you would want to hit the mobs, wouldn’t you? Hit rating is a nice stat you should try have around 2-3% of. Though, if you are shadow you’ll later on get Shadow Focus and Misery, which means you don’t have to get too much from gear.

At higher levels you will see more and more gear with crit and haste, which of course is nice, but not necessary. However, you will encounter more gear with crit and haste as you go, and you should get the gear as long as it isn’t at the expense of spell power.

Armor Penetration isn’t for you either, but for the physical damage dealers. However, there is Spell Penetration, which ignores a part of your targets resistances. However, this isn’t really any stat to go for unless you PvP a lot, and even then you should not have too much.

Priest heirlooms

Got spare Badges or Emblems / Stone Keeper’s Shards/ Champion’s Seals lying around? Spend them on heirlooms. Heirlooms will greatly increase your leveling speed, as some of them provide extra experience. Also, they will upgrade (scale) as you level. Their stats often stay equal to dungeon drops around your level, and they are therefore a great way to enhance your leveling.

Which heirlooms can I get?

Priest Leveling Weapons (heirlooms)

Dignified Headmaster’s Charge or Devout Aurastone Hammer

I suggest getting the staff. Mainly because the low mp5 on the mace really won’t get you somewhere, and also, you will not have to go worrying about getting an offhand as you level up.

If you don’t want to spend your emblems/seals, or simply want some resilience, then get Grand Staff of Jordan or The Blessed Hammer of Grace which can be purchased in Wintergrasp for Stone Keeper’s Shards.

However, none of these are better than their emblem/seal equivalents.

Chest and shoulder heirlooms

• Tattered Dreadmist Robe
• Tattered Dreadmist Mantle

There’s only one chest-item for cloth users.

There are also shoulders you can buy for Stone Keeper’s Shards:

Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle

Again, they don’t beat the emblem/seal ones when it comes to damage.

Heirloom trinkets

Discerning Eye of the Beast will provide you with both spell power and mana, as opposed to Swift Hand of Justice which provides haste and health, and therefore I suggest taking the first one.

Also, remember that you can use two of the same heirloom trinket.

If you happen to do the fishing event in Northrend at 2 PM realm time on Saturdays and win, then you might consider yourself a lucky owner of Dread Pirate Ring. Awesome for that little extra boost while leveling.

Priest enchants

Some of these heirlooms can also be enchanted.

Priest weapon enchants

Weapons can take any enchant that doesn’t have a level requirement, such as Enchant Weapon – Mighty Intellect and Enchant Weapon – Spellpower.

Priest chest enchants

As a priest, you should get Enchant Chest – Greater Stats or Enchant Chest – Major Mana. Personally, I’d get Greater Stats because it boosts your Intellect, Spirit AND health pool.

As for other item slots and enchants, it is of course nice to enchant them for that extra point of damage, but not really something that will greatly boost your damage. If you have to find someone to enchant for you, the time used looking for an enchanter most likely will be greater than what you save with the enchant.

If anything, I suggest getting a low level pair of boots, like Tattered Cloth Boots and enchant them with Enchant Boots – Minor Speed. The run speed will be really nice until you reach level 20, and by that time you should already have at least one nice pair of boots on you from a quest or by a random drop.

Priest leveling builds/specs

At lower levels, shadow leveling may feel slow and monotonous. You get your major leveling spells at level 20 (Mind Flay), level 30 (Vampiric Embrace) and Silence. Before this, leveling as shadow can be slow and frustrating compared to some other classes. But fear not, because this guide will equip you with the knowledge to make leveling a breeze.

While it is possible to level your priest as any spec, the most common leveling spec is Shadow due to increased damage which is, naturally, useful when you’re questing, killing mobs, or grinding.

Shadow priest leveling guide

Talent by talent, spell by spell, this will show you what to do as shadow while leveling. Learning new spells without knowing what they do can sometimes be confusing and that new spell that could enhance your speed might not even get to see the light out of the spell book.

Here’s the final shadow leveling spec at level 80 that we’re aiming for:

Priest WotLK shadow leveling spec for level 1-80.

This guide is mainly for solo leveling and questing, while the spec will work quite well in battlegrounds and the odd dungeon.

Level 40 – level 80

This is when you pretty much stop getting new spells, or get them very rarely. Keep playing around with your current abilities.

Priest leveling spec level 41 – 50

41 – Improved Mind Blast 1/5

42 – Improved Mind Blast 2/5

43 – Shadow Power 1/5

44 – Shadow Power 2/5

45 – Misery 1/3

46 – Misery 2/3

47 –Misery 3/3

48– Improved Shadowform 1/2

You also get Prayer of Fortitude, a spell that will let you buff your whole party/ raid at the cost of a Holy Candle.

49 – Shadow Power 3/5

50 – Vampiric Touch 1/1

Vampiric Touch is one of the more important steps of becoming a real Shadow Priest. You are now just one Mind Blast away from Replenishment, a buff that regenerates 1% of your mana back every 5 seconds.

Shadow priest leveling rotation

Power Word: Shield → Vampiric Touch → Devouring Plague → Shadow Word: Pain → Mind Flay → Whatever is off cooldown/Mind Flay.

This “rotation” is also somewhat like your list of what to press and when, or priorities.

You would always want to take less damage, and therefore use your Shield. Is Vampiric Touch running out, and the mob is still standing strong? Cast another one. Same goes for Devouring Plague. You should hopefully not have to recast Shadow Word: Pain, due to the talent that refreshes it when you cast Mind Flay (at level 51). Also, use Mind Blast as soon as it is off cooldown, and Vampiric Touch is up and ticking on the target.

You can now just DoT up multiple targets and shield yourself (drop shadowform and heal yourself if you are in a crisis). It might be tough on your mana, but it lets you kill quite a few mobs.

Priest leveling spec level 51 – 60

Leveling a priest becomes more enjoyable now, and with the arrival of Vampiric Touch, you should watch yourself kill mobs faster than ever, and still have the mana to go on. Fewer drinking breaks results in faster leveling.

You won’t even get any new damaging spells in a while; all you get is Prayer of Shadow Protection and Prayer of Spirit, which will use a Sacred Candle and Devout Candle, respectively, to buff your whole raid or party. Remember to carry around a few of those candles if you happen to do dungeons a lot.

You can now also get a new minor glyph, the ones you can get at the moment, do not make much of a difference so I suggest picking one you like (playstyle) or get the Glyph of Levitate.

All the minor priest glyphs can be found > here <.

Level 51 – Pain and Suffering 1/3

Level 52 – Pain and Suffering 2/3

Level 53 – Pain and Suffering 3/3

Level 54 – Psychic Horror

Level 55-59 – Fill out Twisted Faith

Level 60 – Dispersion

Dispersion lets you move around like a shadowy ball that is almost immortal (damage taken reduced by 90%) for 6 seconds and restores 6% of your mana per second. Very awesome for tough fights and for getting mana while your DoTs kill the enemy.

Priest leveling Glyphs

Feel free to get the Glyph of Dispersion for a 45 sec reduced cooldown. If so, replace the Glyph of Shadow Word:Pain.

Priest leveling spec level 61 – 70

Level 61 – Shadow Power 4/5

Level 62 – Shadow Power 5/5

You also learn Shadow Word: Death

Level 63 – Improved Shadow 2/2

Level 64 – Improved Vampiric Embrace 1/2

Level 65 – Improved Vampiric Embrace 2/2

Level 66 – Veiled Shadows 1/2

You also get Shadowfiend. It returns mana to you when it strikes the target, and it will stay by your side for a few seconds. You can even make it “tank” for you. Apply your DoTs, cast your Shadowfiend and then Fade. This lets you gain a few seconds of DPSing or maybe running away before your fiend dies/expires.

Level 67 – Veiled Shadows 2/2

Level 68 – At this point you can finally start putting your final talents into the Discipline tree. Twin Disciplines 1/5

New Spell: Prayer of Mending, a healing spell that’ll heal your target once their health points go down. It won’t heal when damage is being absorbed, parried or dodged and so on.

Level 69 – Twin Disciplines 2/5

Level 70 – Twin Disciplines 3/5

Priest leveling spec level 71 – 80

Level 71 – Twin Disciplines 4/5. As well as a new rank of Inner Fire that gives you spellpower.

Level 72 – Twin Disciplines 5/5

Level 73 – Improved Inner Fire 1/3

Level 74 – Improved Inner Fire 2/3

Level 75 – Improved Inner Fire 3/3

Mind Sear – Your one and only (not counting Holy Nova) AoE-spell. If you want to kill a whole bunch of mobs with it, then I suggest DoTing up your channeling target and just let the rest take damage. Remember that you use cloth, so don’t take too big risks. Keep your enemies close, but your Dispersion closer.

Level 76 – Improved Power Word: Fortitude 1/2

Level 77 – Improved Power Word: Fortitude 2/2

Level 78 – Meditation 1/3

Level 79 – Meditation 2/3

Level 80 – Meditation 3/3

First of all, congratulations on reaching level 80.

Upon visiting the trainer, you’ll now learn two helpful spells:

Divine Hymn, which can work like a “oh dear”-button while you are in a group, that really can save lives. If you can, put up a Power Word: Shield on yourself first to not lose any of the channeling time.

Hymn of Hope is the second one, and it restores mana as well as increasing the mana pools of those with the lowest current mana by 20%. A really nice spell to pop if you see the healer or yourself run low during a fight when Shadowfiend and Dispersion still is on cooldown.

While this spec is awesome for soloing and questing at 80, it falls behind in dungeons, and it is not optimal for PvP either.

Priest leveling tips

Some tips just can’t be repeated enough; they are simply awesome, and they will enhance your leveling.

• Keep all your buffs up.
• This means Power Word: Fortitude, spirit, Inner Fire, and of course Vampiric Embrace and Shadowform as shadow.
• Remember that even shadow priests can heal if needed. Have those healing spells ready.
• Use Shadow Protection for shadow resistance against enemies with abilities that do shadow damage.
• Bring loads of consumables with you – waiting for your mana to regenerate or having to go to the vendor to buy more all the time slows you down. Also get as big bags as possible because of this.
• Shield yourself with Power Word: Shield to prevent increased casting time, and to absorb damage taken.
• In the early levels I suggest visiting the auction house or consult a friend with enchanting for the wands. The first one requires level 5 and provides a great damage output.

Keep upgrading your wands as you level; quest rewards should be good enough.

Addons

Here are some addons that can be useful for leveling or any gameplay. Not all of them are specific to priests, some of them work for other classes, too.

Leveling and questing addons

Questie is an addon that helps with finding and completing quests, and therefore can obviously help with leveling. It can show you available quests on your minimap and world map, as well as the level of those quests, their objectives, and the XP reward. Once you accept some quests, Questie can also help you track them (track 20 quests instead of the default 5 max), and show you where to go in order to complete them and turn them in. If you ever get stuck, there is a database you can search and look up things like NPCs, mobs, objects and quests. It can be combined with the addon TomTom to give you an arrow inside WoW that points you in the right direction to complete your quest objectives.

DoT tracking addons

This will simply make your day. Ever wondered how long it is until your DoTs expire on the other targets when you run around multi DoTing? Maybe they ran out? Can’t be asked to target to check. Get a DoT timer such as:

DoT Timer – This addon is easy to understand while it keeps track your DoTs and cooldowns. Easy to understand and ready to track DoTs from the first seconds.

ForteXorcist – requires a bit more modification than DoTimer does, but when you get it to work, you’ll love it.

Threat meter addons

If you do dungeons and level with others quite a lot, then this is a really nice addon for you.

I personally prefer Omen Threat Meter, which is both easy to use and easy to customize.