As you might expect for someone who writes a Priest column, my main is a priest. I've been Holy for quite some time (enough that it's starting to make me feel old), and I feel like I know the Holy game play style pretty well. I even leveled Holy from 60 to 70, shortly after Burning Crusade came out, and it was a blast. And I love healing. But lately I've been hearing the call of the dark side: I want to play Shadow.But this leaves me with a conundrum. I can't really get my Shadow on without abandoning (albeit temporarily) my Holy nature. Or can I? After all, we get up to 50 characters per account; there's no reason I can't delete one of those level one alts I made to talk to somebody for a story and make a brand-new priest, destined for Shadow, instead!
So that's just what I did. I had other motivations, of course; just wanting to play Shadow probably wouldn't be enough to get me to trudge through the 1–60 levels yet again. I've never played much Horde, so I'd like to see how the other half lives a bit. I've never played a Blood Elf at all, and I'd always heard those zones were well designed. And I wanted to hang out with some people on their server, which would mean rolling a new character anyway. Several factors conspired, and Hieronymus of Draenor was born (that link is giving me an error right now, but I assume it'll go away).
What I propose to do is this. As I level my new little elf, I'll keep notes, and every so often I'll bunch up my experiences and post them as an installment in the Shadow Diaries. This is up to you, though, for every post beyond this one: let me know in the comments if you don't want to hear any more of my quest towards Shadow Form, and I'll figure out something else to post in my next Spiritual Guidance. After all, the site exists for you readers. That said, you don't have much say over this post, so I'll plow on.
As you can see from the Armory link (if it's working), I have a mere 19 levels under my belt so far. In fact, with the talents I have, it's questionable whether you can even call me a shadow priest at all yet. However, all that is set to change next level when I get to start melting some faces all up and down the Barrens. So far, I've taken Spirit Tap because it's pretty much the best leveling talent in the game, Improved Shadow Word: Pain because it doesn't suck that bad, and 3/5 Shadow Focus because I needed somewhere to dump the points and getting resisted is never fun. Imp Pain will become more handy once my fights get longer and an un-improved Pain would run out before the fight is over.
So far, my general strategy for a fight has solidified as follows. Pull with Smite, strafe away while casting Pain, and then as soon as the GCD is up stand and cast Mind Blast. Then simply wand till the mob is dead. After the fight, I recast Inner Fire if necessary (i.e. if it has less than five charges or is about to run out), and slap a Renew on myself if I'm below about two-thirds HP. I never run out of mana, thanks to Spirit Tap. Every so often a fight goes bad due to resists or adds or what-have-you and I'm compelled to use Psychic Scream, Shield, extra damage spells, and so on, but my basic casting order gets me pretty far.
I cannot underscore enough the importance of having a good wand. Never is this more true than in the early levels. In fact, for a time, my Greater Magic Wand had higher DPS than my Smite. So casting Smite was literally a waste of time; I just wanded instead, and got everything done quicker using less mana. The first thing I do every time I go back to the city to train new spells is check the AH for a better wand. Unfortunately I'm on a server where I don't have a high-level main feeding me gold, otherwise Skycaller would have been mine in a snap. 20 gold may seem like a lot when you're under level 20, but for a level 70 it's the work of 15 minutes' farming.
As far as the quests, I'm not sure I'll have too much new to say. Most of you have probably experienced Everwood and the Ghostlands already. As a quick impression, I didn't find it nearly as compelling as the Draenei areas. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's because I've always been a big science fiction fan, and the spaceship and little bits of gadgetry strewn around those islands appeals to me more than the sorceror's-apprentice widgets that hang around the Blood Elf starting grounds. Maybe it's just because killing cats makes me sad.
Another thing I was slightly disappointed by was the fact that the culminating Deatholme questline in Ghostlands requires a 5-man group. I never saw four other people on at the same time as me in that zone, let alone four others that had the quest, were of appropriate level, and wanted to group with me. I would have liked to see what it was like. As a consequence, I ended up having to leave the area, zep it over to Kalimdor, and run to the Barrens, without any breadcrumb quests leading the way out of Ghostlands. I'm sure I would have felt a little lost if I were a new player.
But all that is behind me now! The Barrens lie ahead for a little while, and probably my first instance in the Wailing Caverns, if I end up deciding to go for that. Also, my general rule is to start buying equipment at the AH when I get to 20 or so, so I might do that; I'll probably be on the lookout for Spirit at this point, since in my view that is the paramount Priest leveling stat. This is the talent build that I think I'm going for; I've only allocated points up to level 40, but I'm not sure how much time I'll be having to play in the near future, so that'll probably get me a ways. What do you guys think of the build? And do you have any tips for an up-and-coming minion of the dark?
More importantly, what do you think of this column? Would you like to see more Shadow Diaries in the future, or do you want me to keep my latest flare-up of altitis to myself?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
11-18-2007 @ 10:08PM
Donton said...
I think its a good idea, Personally, i've never played priest but went for the other denizien of shadow damage, the warlock. I was always interested in shadow priests though (ecspecially because of shadow vulnerability) and i would love to see how the other other face-melters live.
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11-18-2007 @ 10:19PM
Erika said...
I say keep it up. I just recently got my priest to 22 and is sitting in tarren mill right now.
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11-18-2007 @ 10:44PM
Pwncakes said...
I really think this is a super idea.
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11-18-2007 @ 11:06PM
Jon said...
On the build for the shadow, for mine, I filled up Improved Mind Blast all the way. Otherwise your big damage in shadow form takes a while to reload. just my thought. Plus just from my experience, silence isn't a necessity.
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11-18-2007 @ 11:38PM
Comic said...
Stick with it!
This post kept me interested all the way through, unlike some of the other recent posts which have been on the dull side. Also, I would ditch imp PS and silence, you will find that imp mind blast is more handy.
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11-18-2007 @ 11:41PM
Comic said...
Also, sorry for the double post, but putting five points into wand spec for your pre-40 lvls would increase your leveling rate exponentally.
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11-18-2007 @ 11:42PM
Eliah Hecht said...
Ah, Wand Spec was something I meant to touch on. That's an extremely good point, and in fact I think I will put five in there right after I get MF until I hit 40.
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11-19-2007 @ 1:36AM
Zarim said...
I'm leveling a shadow priest right now too, and from my own experience it's actually better to go with a combination of discipline and shadow until you can get shadowform at 40. For example, putting points into wand spec, imp power word: shield, and meditation can make leveling a lot easier. I usually go with Holy Fire, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Blast then just wand them down. If you make sure you have a good wand for your level, you'll find that you almost never need to stop to drink.
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11-19-2007 @ 1:52AM
mike said...
I've done two shadow priests now (probably my favorite class). One got to 63 until I got bored being stuck in zangarmarsh, the other is my current main, a draenei at level 68 (almost 69!)
I will probably be respeccing to holy full or mostly-full-time at 70, though. I've actually found that going completely, utterly shadow is the best way to do it. After level 20 or so, I never use my wand unless I'm out of mana. My cast sequence for grinding is: Shield, Mind Blast (long cast, for pulling enemies), SW: Pain, and flay while they're running towards me. By the time flay is up, my mind blast cooldown has ended and I can blast again, then flay, and then either another flay, or SW: Death (once you hit 62) and the mob is dead. Imp Mind Blast is crucial to this, it's really your main damage spell (I crit at around 2k). The only things I don't have points in are Imp Fade and whatever that talent is that resists crit attacks. I'm terrible at dealing with more than 3 mobs at a time, though. Once you have Vamp touch and Vamp embrace, you have so many DoTs that you can kill things just by putting pain and vamp touch on everything and then fearing them away. It's all easy-peasy. Up until outlands, I could easily take out elite mobs 2 levels above me, solo. I like shadow priests. :D
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11-19-2007 @ 2:07AM
Zemalf said...
Keep it up! I'm rather new to WoW (only at the end of my free month), and I started the game as priest, went shadow and never looked back (I might respec for end-game when I get there thou).
As said, I dont have experience on other classes, but I dont know if I can play another caster after Spirit Tapping it for this long! 5x Wand Spec + 5x Spirit Tap, and people keep asking me "how you level so fast" :)
I'm almost at level 52 now and I love my PW:S,Mind Blast+SW:P,strafe run,MF,Wand grinding, zero downtime, 100% fun. Oh, and respec to full shadow for Shadowform at 40 was a good choice btw.
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11-19-2007 @ 4:07AM
Bastinator said...
Silence is great for shutting up casters, as well as helping out the tank when instancing (even if you're healing). I wouldn't pass it up; it's just a shame you have to grab Imp PS.
Imp MB is excellent for levelling; however at 70 I found MB to be a mana sink and Imp MB turned out to be a burden instead of a boon.
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11-19-2007 @ 4:09AM
Richie said...
Dont start again!!! Just respec seriously Shadow does not get really good till lvl 40 for Shadowform or indeed lvl 50 for Vampiric touch.
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11-19-2007 @ 6:11AM
sheepe said...
Not true, if for example you want to kill something 2 levels higher than you normally it would have around 7% resist chance. With 3 points in shadow focus it will have onlt 1%. Since being reisted is very annoying on spells with cooldowns or high mana costs (so everything but mind flay really) thats totally worth the few points it costs.
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11-19-2007 @ 6:27AM
Someone said...
Keep it up.
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11-19-2007 @ 7:06AM
Zinoron said...
I've been leveling my own shadow priest for a short while. He's 69 now and getting ready to taste endgame. I would say that if you're going to hit discipline before filling out shadow, go for martyrdom and leave it at that until you're pretty much done with shadow. I recommend against 5 points in shadow weaving, as well. 3 points is enough to get a decent return. Any fight that last long enough for the extra shadow damage to matter will get the 5 stack eventually. I would never get full Imp Mindblast, either. That puts it out of sync with GCD and mindflay timers and will be a waste of at least a point or more depending on latency/reflexes.
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11-19-2007 @ 8:04AM
harywilke said...
Two words: First Aid! I'm suprised nobody touched on this yet. No need to waste mana going in and out of shaodw form just to heal. keeping a nice fat stack of bandages around will help cut down on your grind. also, whenever you can, Kill Ogres! Easily the best mob to grind lvl's on. They have human loot tables (cloth for first aid) and they don't run (no unexpected adds).
enjoy the dark side.
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11-19-2007 @ 8:33AM
Lenny said...
I got a shadow priest up to level 20 in preperation for the patch that is now upon us. I know I'll play him someday but right now life mediates more attention than an alt. I'm eager to see what happens with your priest so I can compare to how I play mine.
-Lenny
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11-19-2007 @ 8:36AM
altimer said...
I finally rolled a holy priest to compliment my shadow priest as i got tired of switching specs all the time. Granted, shadows get more invites these days to raids but old fashioned high-powered lightwell fueled healing always goes ofer well.
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11-19-2007 @ 9:11AM
ThorinII said...
This is excellent! I haven't been on w/my priest in a while, but if I have some helpful hints, I may start.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Mal%27Ganis&n=Jeesus
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11-19-2007 @ 10:07AM
Mode said...
There are two Breadcrumb quests in that part of the world. One is to take a necklace to Lady Silvanas in Undercity, and you get the other one to go to Orgrimar after you finish the deathholme chain. I have never had trouble getting a group for the deatholme chain (Considering the rewards are amzing for that level). Also, blackout is where you should have put those other points, shadow focus isn't worth it until much later. 5 Spirit Tap, 3 Blackout, 2 Imp Pain, Mind Flay.
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