Priest love

Heh heh it's not what you think you perverts! *wink*

Nah, it's just that these past couple of days I've become re-acquainted with my low level priest and I'm starting to like the class and the gameplay.

I started this guy a very long time ago, I don't remember when. For a long time he remained at level 4. Then I brought him to 9 and it wasn't very easy. Priests are fragile at low levels, you see. But then, a miracle happened. I discovered the joy of heirlooms.

Since my Hunter main was engaged in the Argent Tournament dailies, he had acquired a large amount of Champion's Seals. I had already bought chest and shoulder heirlooms for my Warlock so it was only fitting that I would pass them on to my priest. Besides, I set my eyes on a couple of trinkets which proved to be awesome. With these 4 heirloom items, my priest transformed from a sheep to a demon... well, figuratively speaking. Suffice to say that leveling is much easier and quicker now.

He started wearing these heirlooms at level 15. Less than a couple of hours later he was 17, of course, with fully rested XP. Here are the heirlooms that he's wearing now:

Shoulders: Tattered Dreadmist Mantle, cost 60 Champion's Seals
Chest: Tattered Dreadmist Robe with +100 HP enchant, cost 60 Champion's Seals
Trinkets: 2x Discerning Eye of the Beast, cost 2x 75 Champion's Seals
Total: 270 Champion's Seals

The next thing I'm working on is the Dignified Headmaster's Charge, a very nice caster staff. Unfortunately weapons are very expensive, costing 95 Seals and I have run out of them. So I need to do the dailies for another week or so before I can get my sweaty hands on that shiny shaft... erm... got carried away there for a second. OK, I promise this is my last pervy lame joke.

So if someone like me decides to deck their young spellcaster in all the heirlooms they can get their hands on, it will cost them a total of 365 Champion's Seals. Here's a piece of trivia: if you gain 1 Champion's Seal a day, you will get all of them in exactly 1 year. Only a genius like me would figure that out. Seriously now, you should gain these Seals at the rate of 10 a day if you do all the dailies, perhaps more if you choose the reward bags instead of rep tokens. That means you should be able to get all 365 seals in roughly 36 days, or a little over a month.

All this assumes that you have at least a level 80 character capable of doing the Argent Tournament dailies.

Now going back to the priest, I'm leveling him as Shadow, obviously. I'm aiming for this 13/0/53 build which also happens to be very popular. At level 17, thanks to Spirit Tap, Improved Spirit Tap and the two trinkets, I'm getting all of my mana back after a fight. Right now I don't have a lot of mana so I only get about 16-19x2 mana back after a kill from the trinkets, meaning 32-38 total but it's not bad at all since it adds up with the mana regained from talents.

Here's a roadmap of what my priest will look like at levels 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80.

Level 20
0/0/11
Key talent: Mind Flay, the Shadow Priest's signature spell which melts faces.

Level 30
0/0/21
Key talent: Vampiric Embrace, which is an awesome buff that heals the Priest when he does damage.

Level 40
0/0/31
Key talent: Shadowform, the Shadow Priest's signature ability, which is too awesome for words.

Level 50
0/0/41
Key talent: Vampiric Touch, an ability which has all kinds of awesome written over it.

Level 60
0/0/51
Key talent: Dispersion, which is mostly a talent useful in groups but it can also come in handy while solo-ing. During leveling it should be particularly useful for mana regeneration and, of course, for clearing various snare effects.

Level 70
3/0/58
From 60 to 70 it's mostly filler talents and I've moved on to the Discipline tree. I have left out Improved Vampiric Embrace, well, because I've seen people recommend against taking it. I'll wait and see how my mana regen is at higher levels and if it's bad, I will get this talent.

Level 80
13/0/58
The final few points go into Discipline and the goal here is to gain access to Meditation which provides even more mana regen, even while casting.

And that's it for my future Shadow Priest's spec. I like this build because not only is it great for grouping, but it is just as good for leveling and solo-ing.

I'm anticipating a different play style than either Warlock or Mage. I also plan on trying my hand at some healing and hopefully I will start doing some of that in the Deadmines. Sorry guys but the grouping aspect still appeals to me because it's a different game than playing on your own. While solo-ing you can only DPS but in a group setting you can heal and you can tank. These are totally different experiences and I want to try them all. Who knows, I might even like healing.

At any rate, I will probably get Dual Spec at 40 and build a Holy off-spec but until then I will try to heal as Shadow. From what I hear, early dungeons can be successfully healed with a non-optimum spec so I'll see how that works for me.

Now I'm off to level my Shadow Priest some more. Hopefully by the end of this weekend he'll be at least 20.