Was it possible to quest and grind mobs in a healing spec or did you just dedicate yourselves 100% to running dungeons? I imagine it’s pretty slow, especially at lower levels.
Anybody who played a priest in Beta or back in Vanilla have any input? Thanks! ![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
I leveled as Holy and it was mighty slow. Partially, I didn’t take the talents I should have. There are some talents in the Holy tree that help your dps, whereas I focused blindly on healing talents.
Honestly you can heal low level dungeons just fine with a shadow or hybrid spec, then respec at 60.
But were you able to heal well in dungeons as Shadow? If not, are you able to fend off enemies and such during quests while leveling up?
I leveled as shadow and healed all of MC as shadow, only DPSing on Rag because it was a DPS race to avoid a second Sons spawn. I only had to switch to Holy/Disc for BWL. It was both the first time the raid healing was actually taxed and the first time the lack of threat reduction talents mattered.
Leveling as a non-shadow actually isn’t that bad. Make sure to get to the improved wand out of the DISC tree, and spirit tap out of the shadow tree, as well as the improved smite and holy fire talents. Can’t remember where those are however.
Focus on keeping your wand up-to-date. Then just smite, shadow word pain, holy fire, then finish off with the wand to let the mp5 kick in, and you will have a decent clear speed, good uptime, and good survivability.
People get so hung up on spec.
This isnt bfa.
You can heal dungeons as shadow. You can tank dungeons as fury.
For leveling grinding dungeons is not the most efficient.
For priest all you need to level is spirit tap (rank 1 shadow talent) and wand specialization (rank 1 disc talent). You just shield smite/mindblast sw:p and wand till dead.
Priest is one of the most efficient levelers out there as if done properly you rarely need to drink.
Protip: equip a quiver to wand faster.
Did this work on the beta? I haven’t been able to find anything outside of pservers about this.
Not sure if it worked on beta i didnt have access. ![:frowning:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")
i know it worked on pservers tho.
i only ever got my priest to level 22 in the early vanilla days before making another new character and sticking with it lol it was VERY dreadful solo i tended to wait for my friend to log on and play with eventually they out leveled me and that was when i decided to level a different class.
in short it was painful and scary lol
I leveled a priest as Holy in the first half of 2005. It sucked. I did Holy because my friends said they’d level others too and we’d run dungeons, but it wasn’t often enough to be satisfying.
Shadow is the better way to level as it’s one of the most efficient leveling specs in the game with Spirit Tap. You literally never go OOM, the only thing you need is a wand, and upgrade it as much as possible.
With Spirit Tap and the wand you will mind blast, swp then wand till the mob is dead, you will be full Mana at the end.
Here’s the great news, shadow can fully heal ALL 5 man dungeons. If you try to last hit mobs with wanding you will proc spirit tap, just means you need to drink less.
Shadow will get spirit tap and wand spec then go all shadow, as soon as u hit 40 go retrain out of wand spec and go full shadow for shadowform, then put next 5 points back into wand spec.
It did not work during beta, Staysafe had tested it at one point.
Why do I have to bring up a streamer? Cause most of us didn’t have access…
At least someone tested it.
With a good wand you will come up with an efficient spell/wand rotation – leveling a priest in any spec isn’t too bad. Plus, if you get in trouble you have lots of tools to keep yourself alive.
Source: Leveled two vanilla priests to 60.
Never met a priest while leveling that was anything but shadow and they healed all 5 mans just fine.
First 5 points as a priest should be in 5/5 wand spec. Also try and get a lesser magic wand as soon as possible you can equip at 5 and is super cheap, also when you hit 13 get a greater magic wand that will last you till 20+ and is still relatively cheap. If you can do that you will be wanding mostly for early levels.
Till 40 it really doesn’t matter what talents you take. Once you get 40 shadowform will help questing a lot and you can still heal.
Also dungeons are only efficient for leveling if you have a deticated group farming them, in which case they become one of the best ways to level. If you can get in one of those groups then spec holy, otherwise you are better off leveling as shadow till 60.
Basically, what everyone is saying here. Levelling in the shadow tree is most efficient and you can still heal all 5-man content without issue. I put quite a few points in holy as well just to go in more confidently and because I wanted to main as a healer.
This toon was my first serious attempt at the game, people QQ a lot about leveling as a holy but I guess I never noticed. Wand + water + blissful ignorance ftw.
I had played a rogue before but I was so flipping terrible at it that I’m sure holy was faster.
Actually looking at the talent tree for priest it seems like you get better dps talents before 40 in the holy tree…(other than wand spec and spirit tap)
Yes.
Vanilla was not like retail. Healers could heal without speccing for it. So could tanks tank without specing for it.
Talent spec didn’t define your job, it just made you better at it.