I have never leveled an alt. The closest I ever came to a real alt was a Ret Paladin named Boudicah with whom I threw up my hands in frustration as the 1 billionth mob ran away from me before I could kill it.
Enter Looking for Group and my Shadow Priest, Julzie.
If it were just a matter of questing, I would have quit her long ago, as I always have in the past. However, as I’m actually able to actually run 5-man instances with her, I’m really enjoying this! When I leveled my hunter it was almost an impossibility to get into an appropriate 5-man instance. Now it’s just a matter of a few button clicks and I’m doing DPS in an instance with similar people with reasonable skill and (usually) moderate temperament.
And I get lots of phat loot, fozhizzle!
Things I Enjoy About Spriesting
1. Running amok in a pack of mobs being AoE-tanked and dotting the place up. As a gnome, I get +10 to bouncing, so this activity is a big favorite.
2. Watching my BoA-gear scale with my level.
3. Laying the smack down on hunters who roll Need on my wands.
4. Pulling aggro from tanks. As a hunter I worked hard not to do this, but as a spriest I take great pleasure in this. There’s no logic to it, but it’s true.
5. Shadow Word: Death. I don’t care how much damage I take, I love this spell.
5. Since getting into an instance is easy-peasy, I get to tell-off bad tanks and DPS when they’re screwing up. In Scholomance I had a tank pull Rattlegore’s entire room three times, wiping us each time, and then complain that all I did was Wand. I let him have it and we eventually kicked him. Five years ago, as a hunter, I would’ve had to shut up and take it as I got into only two or three instances per week.
Things I Don’t Enjoy About Spriesting
1. I really can’t AoE. At least not yet. I always thought a spriest could AoE. Color me “Ignorant”. Dot dot dot dot, Big Dot, Mind Flay, SWD, drink like a mo-fo as the group runs ahead of me.
2. Mana-conservation is nearly impossible. I should drop Inscription and take Alchemy just for the mana potions. When I’m behind a tank who doesn’t want to take drinking-breaks, I end up Wanding trash the entire way.
3. There’s no Spriest Community. Should I be Power Word: Shielding the tank as a spriest? If there’s another priest, I know the answer is to let him use his more powerful shield to the work, but if I’m the only priest, should I drop shields? I macro’d it to PWS my focus before boss fights, but perhaps I shouldn’t. I have no idea and there are no good spriest blogs to let me know.
So I really do have an alt. You might want to stack up on canned good and bottle water; the end of the world is nigh.
Back in the day, tanks needed to be damaged for rage and hated to be shielded before a fight. Maybe mid-fight?
Who knows, maybe they changed that as well?
Have a look at
http://shadowpriest.com/
I’ve not used it in a while but it used to be THE place to go for shadow.
Welcome to the land of the clothie. I’m mainly a disc priest on my main, but I’ve done shadow on and off. I usually try to pop up a shield on the pull to help the healer out a little bit, but it’s certainly not required or expected.
As for AoE, once you get Mind Sear you’ll be laying down the hurt big time. It’s not great for 2-3 mobs, but get a trash pack of 8-10 little buggers and wow, watch those numbers fly.
Also, once you get Mind Spike the whole game changes for questing and short lived mobs.
Spriests get an aoe channel at some point, or they used to – I have not done much priesting in a while. There is a lot of imbalance at lower levels. Some classes just don’t have all of their abilities yet. I look at meters to see where I am, but don’t fret about it.
If you really want to have fun, you should try specing disc and doing some battlegrounds. I can’t imagine anything getting under the horde’s skin more than a gnome bubbling everyone and flinging penance around.
I’ve not really played SP much – I love being healy – mostly Disc. That said some thoughts, all of which may be complete twaddle….
Your job is dps – if you’re having NO mana issues and there is no other priest then shield the tank if you must, but I wouldn’t
If you want to aggro dump, use fade. It works for a bit and gives Mr Tank time to pick stuff off you. Shield yourself before you SW:D to mop up some of the hit back.
You get to AOE with Mind Sear at lvl 74. You get a lovely pet to give you back mana at lvl 66. Before that there isn’t much AOE damage you can do.
Whisper the healer to ask for mana breaks – a reasonable tank will listen to them, or learn to quickly due to deaths.
For guides and blogs and all things helpful I’d start here…. http://murlocparliament.com/priest-guides/shadow-priest-guide/ – there is a ‘Shadow Priest Resources’ section at the bottom. The other priestly guides are fab too, should you desire to turn to the light
Have fun and I look forward to hearing more priestly tales of adventure.
My main is a priest who dabbles in the dark side when he can. I have found it best to save my shields for emergencies. I also recommend shadowpriest.com. They have a pretty good community there.
Back when Shadow Word: Pain used ta really hurt, I would do enough damage ta meself ta kill me many times over durin’ a boss fight. On Curator ya could one-shot yerself if’n ya weren’t carefuls.
And gods I hated the lack of any AoE with them trash waves on Hyjal. Tab, DoT, Tab, Dot, Slash Wrists, Tab, Dot, ….
Welcome to the dark side where we forsake the light and effectively enjoy destruction. Mind sear maybe the AOE you are hoping for. We get it at lvl 74 and you can target the tank and mid sear all the trash around him/her. It’s awesome sauce. I ditto the suggestion of visiting
http://www.shadowpriest.com
Best advice I have is to read, read, and then read some more over there. They got everything there from number crunching , gear macros– to the HOWTO on spriesting. I’ve been a reader there since I was a wee mana battery for the BC. As the main class that I’ve played for many years, it’s never been more fun that right now! Looking forward to reading more from a fresh perspective
Yay, a baby priest! I switched mains from hunter to disc priest in Wrath, still love both classes.
One thing: Get a Glyph of Spirit Tap (http://www.wowhead.com/item=45757). Helps a lot with mana!
Uhm. Sorry to the unknown person whose Gravatar I stole because I mistyped the email adress. :/
My preferred alt is a shadow squishie, and good news! Mana conservation does indeed exist- just comes at later levels. Between glyphing spirit tap (12% back if mob dies from Death) and Masochism (10% back if mob DOESN’T die from Death); then you have the lovely and amazing Dispersion giving 36% back every 2 minutes (mine’s at 1.25 minutes- yay haste!) -I don’t even remember what it was like not having mana ^.^
My guild will tell you the end is nigh because I have an alt that is now level 81. Never mind that she is the only dwarf mage in the guild and I made her just because we’re going for the “Stay Classy” with it’s wonderful 8th bank tab. What we’ll do with that tab is anyone’s guess but, when she dings 85 at the end of this week, we get THREE, count ‘em, THREE guild achievements.
I have no idea what I’m doing as a mage. I do know that I’m playing her like I play my hunter. Cast something to “pull” and then hope I can dps the mob down before it gets to me since I’m arcane and don’t have a pet. I tend to stand my ground way, way, too much because my hunter can take licks. Oh yeah, I wear cloth on this toon.
“This means you’ll run on your mage now, when we already have a hunter in the group, right?” Um….no. If there’s an achievement involved the hunter does not have, you’re taking the hunter, end of discussion. I haven’t read any mage blogs although I did look up builds and glyphs. I envision parking this gal once she’s at 85 and hauling her out only if we are desperate.
My hunter is me. I can’t imagine playing anything other than the hunter most of the time, but oooh, I like the dps I can do.
Hey Dan,
I switched to priest during WoTLK and had a blast. My pally and hunter are now in OL so if you hurry up we might be able to do some dungeons together. If we even end up on at the same time.
Cheers
Kol
Have played a priest since the dawn of WoW pretty much. Got conned into leveling a toon on a friend’s server and decided to try leveling shadow. Horribly bad idea on my part! Mana?! H3ll no! After getting out-dpsed by the healers whilst I spent most of the instance drinking, I swapped to disc till regen starts taking off. Will see how it is at 60. Mind Sear is well worth the wait though!
Don’t shield the tank unless they are dying and the healer is having issues – or you will get trapped into trying to do a double job of keeping everyone safe when you should be dpsing. Don’t be too eager to break shadowform, but especially when your in the lower levels no one will care if you throw a renew on people and if the healer dies you will be invaluble in preventing a wipe, don’t expect anyone to thank you though
What may help with your mana issues is when you cast Mindblast on a mob with VT up on it you will proc replenishment, so pick a mob that isn’t going die in 3 secs.
Have a go at mages who steal your spirit gear, cause they will! Have fun!
Yeah Mana is extremely annoying as you level. Once you get the mana-returning talents/abilities mentioned above you go from mana-starved to mana-spoiled. Once I reached 80-85 I could chain pull like the old ret/prot pally levelers of old.
Glyph of Spirit Tap! This will make mana noooooo problem. Until I was able to get that glyph, I was all like, “How do they DO THIS!??”
My spriest is my alt as well, but she’s level 82 now and I haven’t had this much fun dpsing since leveling my hunter. I so agree with all of that!
You should have rolled a paladin – Then you could go into LFG specced as prot, blasted to the top of the dps charts, and taunted people that you were doing it as prot
)
Ellifain formerly of Khaz’Goroth
I have always had a hunter. Ghostkid was my first toon, and he’s the one I play all of the time.
I have a priest that is in the mid 40s right now. He’s leveling as a healer. I do not enjoy healing very much.
I also have a Warrior tank that is level 81. Tanking is fun as all heck! I must say that the view from melee range sucks, but it is a welcome change to pew pewing from 40 yards away.
Dan -
Save most of your dots for bosses, most of the time they die too quickly to make it worth casting. Warlocks have a similar issue.
I play a Shadow Priest as one of my alts. My role is DPS, so keeping the tank alive isn’t my concern unless the healer is struggling and we’re about to die, or the healer has already died and I’m the only one alive who can do some semblance of healing. So no, don’t shield the tank.
Haven’t read your blog in a while, so this post really shocked me! LoL A shadow priest. Good times! <3
Shadow Priest? Really? They’re just knock-off mages, too embarrassed to show their faces so they hide inside their shadow whatchamacallit form.
Shoulda chosen the original, no high-fructose corn syrup added, filled with bacon dps class. Mage. Y’know, the class you find at the top of the meters…..
But I’m sure you’re enjoying being all…shadowy and stuff.
I have a spriest alt that has been a joy to play since BC. Here are some basic things that I have learned (main = hunter). First, you MUST get buttontimers. It is much easier and more informative than any of the other timer addons. I now use it on my hunter as well. Second, rotation. Fairly easy and routine. Most spriest sites describe the priority. Keep DOTs up, Mind Blast and PW: Death when they are up, then Mind Flay. And use PW:S on yourself. It isn’t strong enough to help the tank much, and there is a long, annoying cool down.
According to my wife who is a face melter “shadow priest” she says welcome and you play just like her
. Pull as hard as you can and bounce around like you just don’t care 
lol.
Priests seem to be popular alts for Hunter mains, at least that’s my experience and observation. I’ve checked out shadowpriest.com myself and liked it, but I don’t actually play shadow very much.
If you want to heal, I suggest ignoring any leveling experience, as it does not compare to max level healing at all. Healing at 85 is way more fun and interesting. And aggravating. And everything becomes your fault. And you will hate your fellow player. I’m not making a good case, am I?
Doesn’t matter, fueled by hate. Soon I’ll ding my Blood DK and bring that hatred to a new level.