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a guide to levelling priests |
| a guide to levelling priests |
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First off, I will not give you levelling locations, everyone has their own
preferences, this guide is to show you how to manage your Mana and how to
efficiently level the priest with as few downtimes as possible.
Bags:
Your first priority should be to get more bag space. You do not want to be
running back every 30 minutes to empty your bags. And you will need the gold!
You can get Herb a bag or two, these wonderful bags can only hold herbs but are
bigger than other bags. Personally I seldom have more than 10 stacks of herbs in
my bag, and when I do I?m usually about to return to a city / inn where I can
either put everything in my bank or mail it to a carrier toon. On the other hand
if placed in a bank slot a herb bag is advantageous if you are planning on going
for Alchemy.
(thanks to Huka for pointing this one out)
Auction House (AH) and Gold:
Auction house is a great way to loose your hard earned cash! Keep in mind that
most people will be checking the AH between 18:30 and 20:00. There are also many
more people online on a Friday evening than a Monday evening. Knowing this, put
your auctions up at about 18:00 for the shortest amount of time (2 hours). It
will usually get sold and you don?t pay that much on commissions. Yes, the AH
takes money for selling your items. The AH takes a deposit when you put an item
in, the longer an auction is up the more you pay, you will be refunded this
deposit if the item is sold, if not you loose the deposit. If you don?t sell an
item after having put it up 2-3 times, sell it to the NPC.
Sell anything green in the AH, leave the start bid as it is, put the buyout to
about 30% - 50% more than the start price for green items. Blue and purple items
have their own price range, if you are unsure what the item is worth ask in your
guild or check wow.allakhazam.com or www.thottbot.com. These give a rough
indication of the price range. The prices indicated are probably not what the
items sell for on your server, but it gives you a range.
Professions:
At level 5 you can learn 2 professions. I would strongly suggest herbalism and
skinning. High level herbs and leather sell well on the AH. Ores stack up to 10,
Herbs up to 20. When mining you will pick up one ore at a time, mining for 3
seconds every time, then you will need to smelt the ore into bars, this takes
another 3 seconds. Herbs get picked several at a time, the maximum I saw was 4,
usually it will be one or two or three herbs at a time. Do not get herbalism and
mining! You can have only one tracker active at any given time.
DO NOT start a profession that produces something (alchemy, tailoring, etc?)
until at least level 40! If you start training anything else than a gathering
profession you will spend a lot of gold on recipes, gold that you will need for
your mount. Only if you have good equipment, enough gold for your mount, start
levelling earlier if you want.
Equipment:
Start to check the AH really early for a wand! GET A WAND! DON?T THINK JUST DO
IT! I made the mistake of levelling without a wand and only casting up to level
13. I never was more frustrated! MOBs delaying my cast times, bringing my health
down so that I had to heal, using even more Mana. I needed to rest after every
MOB. When I got a wand my levelling sped up by a factor of 6. Therefore, GET A
WAND! Why not a staff? You will be getting a 25% damage bonus to wands later on.
No staff can match that for DPS. Also, Wands count as Magic damage, which
ignores armour. Staves are melee damage where armour gets factored in, therefore
lowering your DPS.
As we are on the subject of wands, try to get a Shadow wand once you are close
to getting Shadowform. Shadow wands never proc the following talents:
- stun effect of the Blackout talent
- heal effect of Vampiric Embrace talent
- damage bonus from the Darkness talent
(Thanks to MPS_Cowboy for this information)
Where shadow wands are affected is the 15% damage boost from Shadowform.
Wands have one big advantage and one big disadvantage. The advantage is that
they cannot be delayed. The disadvantage is that they have a global cooldown on
all your abilities.
What stats are better, Intelligence or Spirit? Here the opinions part. While
having a large Mana pool is important, so is regeneration. The more mana you
have, the more spells you can throw at a MOB, or the more you can heal without
resting. The more spirit you have, the faster you regenerate Mana, although the
returns on spirit are minimal, anything helps. Although it may cost you some
silver, you can always boost your mana regeneration by drinking. Personally I
prefer spirit gear, most prefer intelligence gear.
I found this thread in the Blizzard Forums that has some very good information
concerning Intelligence / Spirit / MP5 equipment.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-priest&t=755875&p=1&tmp=1#post755875
At level 44 buy a few stacks of Elixir of the Sages. This wonderful potion gives
you +18 Intelligence and Spirit for one hour. Any boost is good! ;)
In short, spend that hard earned gold! Keep enough to buy yourself a mount at
level 40 though.
Bandages. Bandages are always good to have. As a priest you have the advantage
that most bandages will fill your health to 100%. Use bandages, not spells to
fill your health, it may cost you something, but you reduce your downtime due to
lack of Mana.
Talents:
Ah yes, talents. At level 10 you will be able to spend your first talent point.
Here is the order in which I suggest to spend talent points:
Shadow:
1. Spirit Tap 5/5 (5 points)
2. Shadow Focus 5/5 (5 points)
3. Mind Flay 1/1 (1 point)
4. Improved Shadow Word Pain 2/2 (2 points)
5. Improved Mind Blast 2/5 (2 points)
6. Shadow Reach 3/3 (3 points)
7. Shadow Weaving 5/5 (5 points)
8. Improved Mind Blast 3/5 (1 point)
9. Vampiric Embrace 1/1 (1 point)
10. Darkness 5/5 (5 points)
11. Shadowform 1/1 (1 point)
12. Improved Psychic Scream 2/2 (2 points)
13. Silence 1/1 (1 point)
14. Improved Mind Blast 4/5 (1 point)
Discipline:
15. Wand Specialisation 5/5 (5 points)
To fill the above you will need level 49.
The key to this is that you want to maximise your damage output as quickly as
possible. Silence is a skill that I found to be very useful against casters. It
is very annoying to have a MOB down to 10% and he heals himself to 90%. It is
also useful against casters that make a lot of damage. A break of 4 seconds is a
huge damage reduction for casters.
Some of you will notice that Blackout is not in this build. You might say that
10% stun is not bad, and allows you to get a head start. The Proc only counts on
spell casts, not on DoTs. Your Shadow Word Pain has only one chance of
triggering the stun. Also, it is annoying if this procs at maximum Shadow Range
when the MOB is not in range for the Mind Flay. With the above build you will
hardly take damage unless you pull 2 or 3 mobs at the same time.
Picking a fight:
Unfortunately every MOB is different, there is no ?one way fits all? method of
killing MOBS. Some have more health than others, requiring you to recast to
finish the MOB, others have an insane amount of Shadow resist that not even a
wand who does shadow damage is much help. You want to bundle your casts then
have a long pause between casting. This is because when you cast, your Mana does
not regenerate. If you stop casting and shoot your wand, after 5 seconds your
mana begins to regenerate. If you cast, shoot wand, cast, you will delay the
Mana regeneration.
This is the sequence I used against 95% of the MOBS, if needed I will throw in
another cast, a silence, or only use spells to bring a MOB down. The below
method however defines a way to conserve Mana, regenerate Mana and be able to
fight MOBs without interruption.
1. Shield
2. Mind Blast
3. Shadow Word Pain
4. Mind Flay
5. Mind Blast (not always ? see below)
6. Shoot wand until MOB is dead
Using this sequence against MOBs 2 levels above me brings me to the point where
the last tick of Shadow Word Pain kills the MOB (or the MOB is very close to
death), I have regenerated my mana without having to drink, the MOB made once or
twice damage on me (rest was absorbed by the shield) and I can move on to the
next MOB.
Without using the last Mind Blast, I will end up having a plus on Mana, allowing
me to regenerate Mana over several MOBs. Using the last Mind Blast allows me to
kill a MOB quickly. Reducing my Mana a bit more.
Consider that the faster you kill a MOB, the more inefficient your Shadow Word
Pain will be. If you kill a MOB in 10 seconds, you will not only have used over
half your Mana, you will also have to stop and drink after the second MOB.
Unless you always have a friendly Mage nearby who gives you water, you will be
spending a lot of gold on buying water. I can think of many ways I?d rather
spend my hard earned gold as on water.
You will level a little faster if you kill a MOB only with spells, but consider
the costs of the water you will need. Personally, I can spare the extra few
seconds per MOB if I at the end can buy myself better equipment. The most cost /
time efficient is if you manage the delicate balance of killing MOBS versus Mana
regeneration.
Questing:
Red quests have the highest XP reward. Green the lowest, grey give no
experience.
Take all available quests in an area. Read what the quest requires, bundle the
quests together. Complete several quests at one time, you can always return them
later. Keep levelling or do another quest while you are in the area. Do not
return to the NPC who gave you the quest after every single quest, it?s a waste
of time.
Consider also if the quest is worth doing. There is a quest from Everlook that
requires you to go to Un?Goro and Gadgetzan then back to Everlook. The trip
takes about 30 minutes, for about 5000 XP. Sure, you get a cute mechanical Yeti
for it which helps you fight, but in the same time I make well over 15?000 XP
unrested.
Keep Quests in your book until you are sure you will not return to the area, or
you need the space or they turned grey.
Questing in a group:
This is only advantageous if you all do quests that are red! You will get the
most experience out of these.
The time to complete these quests will be greatly reduced. Avoid collection
quests when in a group when everyone has to absolve the same quest. If everyone
needs 100 termites (Quest from Western Plaguelands) and you are in a 5 man
group, you will be in the area a very long time.
Questing alone:
Excluding elite quests, most yellow quests you can solo. They give good XP and
sometimes very good rewards. Some orange quests you can solo, on very rare
occasions you can solo red quests.
Try to hand in quests when they are yellow or above, this gives a lot more XP
than if they are green.
Instances:
There are 2 classes that make or break an instance run. Warriors and priests.
As a priest you will be often asked if you want to go to an instance. I have
even been asked to go to the sunken temple when I was in Winterspring. If you
want to go into an instance and have a warrior, you will probably find other
people to join you.
Levelling in instances is another way to get XP and much better equipment.
Depending on your level and rested status, you will get a good portion of XP per
MOB. Elite MOBs give a lot more XP than normal MOBs. Run a few raids before
reaching level 60 (even if you are shadow skilled) and improve your equipment.
Thanks to:
MPS_Cowboy
Huka
megachirops
EDIT NOTES:
- stack size changes of ores that came with the latest patch
- Clarified AH Comisions and Deposits
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