WoW Classic 39 Twink Shadow Priest Guide

Controversial and unorthodox, Shadow Priests are often scorned openly by allies for not specing Holy, as a typical healer priest would.  Shadow Priests are quite adept at healing however, especially for what is supposed to be a DPS build.  Their mastery over Shadow Magic, and through it – the siphoning of health from enemies, gives them the ability to send a constant stream of healing to their entire party, regardless of their allies proximity to them.  While Holy Priests might be able to offer decidedly more potent healing during battle, they do so by completely removing themselves from the field as a combatant.  Shadow Priests fight alongside their allies and don’t rely on them for safety or protection for the most part.

In the end, choosing the path of Shadow is harder, which means that your Priest will be all the stronger for it.

Contents

• Races:  Which races can play as Priests, and which racial traits help them most in PvP?
• Professions:  Which professions are best for Twinking, and which recipes work best for Priests?
• Spells and Abilities:  What spells are available to Priests at level 39 and how best can they be employed in PvP?
• Talents:  What Priest talents are good for Twinking and which builds work best in PvP in general?
• Gear:  What is the Best in Slot (BiS) gear for a level 39 Priest Twink and how can it be acquired?
• Enchantments:  Which enchantments are best for a Twink Priest in Classic WoW?
• Buffs:  What Scrolls, Potions, Elixirs and other consumables are of use to a level 39 Twink Priest?

Races

Priests have a unique advantage over other classes when it comes to the choice of race, which makes the decision of which race to play all the more difficult.  Each race not only has their own racial traits that all classes benefit from, but also special racial spells that are available only to the Priest class.    The good news is that there most assuredly is a best class to play from each faction, which makes the decision a lot easier.  Especially when specing for Shadow.

Alliance

Dwarf:  Only two of the standard racial traits for dwarves are particularly useful to a Priest, those being Stoneform and Frost Resistance.  The former is a fantastic short term buff that negates Bleed, Poison and Disease, while also giving a slight armor increase.  The latter is a pretty generally useful boon that can stop some of the damage from Mages and Hunters.  Find Treasure is useful to any class that likes gold, so it is worth a mention.

Desperate Prayer is one of the racial spells that dwarves have access to and it’s phenomenal, as it heals for almost as much as Heal, which is your best healing spell!  Dwarves also have access to the spell Fear Ward, which drastically increases their usefulness in PvP

Human:  Humans likely have the most racial traits useful to a Priest, though other races might have some that are more useful.  Diplomacy is good for helping with that WSG (Warsong Gulch) rep to get some of your BiS gear.  Having an edge over Rogues, whose first order of business is usually to find and kill the Priest, is always a good thing, so Perception is helpful.  The Human Spirit gives a solid buff to mana and health regen and is useful to any class, especially a Priest.  While it might seem of paltry benefit, Mace Specialization shouldn’t be ignored.  You can attack with a weapon for a reason – sometimes it’s all you have left and that minor percentage increase in skill might mean the difference between life and the graveyard.

Like Dwarves, Humans also possess Desperate Prayer, but at level 20, they also gain the use of Feedback, which is helpful in countering other Casters.

Horde

Troll:  Regeneration is a great survival racial that is probably one of the best reasons to choose the race at all.   Beast Slaying can find some use outside of PvE, when facing off against Hunter Pets.

Shadowguard instantly retaliates against any attacker, whether they be caster, melee or ranged and lasts for 10 whole minutes.  All of this, plus its potential to proc Blackout when talented for it, easily one of the best abilities available to troll priests at all.  A solid debuff can be found in Hex of Weakness and is particularly useful when your opponents aren’t very good at healing.

Undead: Cannibalize is a pretty nice, weak but free bandage that’s useful at the end of a fight, but since you can already heal a lot and you will have bandages…it’s probably just ok.  Shadow Resistance will help against Warlocks and other Priests as well.  Probably the best racial ability that the Undead possess and definitely one of the best racial traits for PvP, Will of the Forsaken is a great nope button for any obnoxious fear effects used against you.

Touch of Weakness is one of the racial spells for an undead and it is good, but Devouring Plague the other and it is oh so much better.  It’s like a ranged Cannibalize that does damage and doesn’t make you stop and become vulnerable while you use it.

Professions

There are a lot of professions to choose from, which can make deciding which ones to go with hard.  Fortunately, one of the coolest professions is also an absolute necessity for a Twink of any class.  Engineering.  There are a plethora of gadgets, devices and bombs that are extremely useful within Battlegrounds and you won’t want to miss out on them.

While Engineering is a necessity, you’re other Profession is also important.  Which ones you’ll be interested in will largely depend on your class.

What follows is a description of each of the Professions that should be of interest to a level 39 Twink Priest and why.

Engineering

For Twinks of any class, this profession is an absolute must-have.  Along with all of the engineering gadgets and doodads you get before reaching 230 in engineering, there are some seriously fantastic items at this level that are of extreme use in PvP.  Make sure you get all of them.

The Major Recombobulator is especially useful for countering the Crowd Control (CC) effects of Polymorph.  Other items of note are the   Alarm-O-Bot, which can help in detecting Rogues and other Druids and the Dark Iron Bomb, which is the absolute best bomb in early Classic WoW, with the most damage and longest CC duration.  There are also three energy reflectors; Gyrofreeze Ice Reflector, Hyper-Radiant Flame Reflector and Ultra-Flash Shadow Reflector, which all reflect their type of damage for 5 seconds.  This is extremely useful and can quickly turn the tables on any caster in the game.  Finally, there is the Arcane Bomb, which absorbs mana and does half of what is absorbed as damage to anyone in range.

All of these items are incredibly useful in PvP and are the best engineering has to offer at this level.  Not to mention all of the fun fireworks and pet companions you can make.

Enchanting

Enchanting is probably the best choice for players who are not supporting their Twink with another character.  It has few expensive reagents that must be truly gathered, most being products of disenchanting items you are already likely to pick up.  It also offers lucrative selling opportunities with the many materials you will acquire from breaking down all of the Green and Blue items you do not need.  It can also offset the cost of getting your own enchantments some, as higher level enchanters are sometimes on the lookout for lower level materials.

Alchemy

If you are being supplied herbs and reagents by another character, then Alchemy can be an extremely useful Profession to endeavor upon.  The ability to simply create the many potions and elixirs that offer decided advantages in PvP at this bracket, instead of having to go shop for them, almost pays for itself.  Alchemy can also be a great way to make money, especially if the reagents and materials can be acquired cheaply.

Other Professions

If you are being funded by another character, and you should be, the gathering professions (Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning) should be avoided, because they are mostly good for earning money, which you wouldn’t need as much of.  The only other profession useful to a Twink Priest is Tailoring and its usefulness is slim at best compared to Alchemy or Enchanting, because none of your BiS gear is acquired through Tailoring.

Another use for for Alchemy, Leatherworking and Tailoring is to sell the various high level components and transmutes that only these Professions can craft.  Alchemists can transmute metals with recipes like Recipe: Transmute Arcanite, Leatherworkers can craft the Cured Rugged Hide and Tailors can use Pattern: Mooncloth to purify Felcloth.

Secondary Professions

• Cooking:  Cooking has but one benefit to any Twink at any level bracket.  The Well Fed Buff.  The food that offers the highest possible Well Fed bonus at this level is Spider Sausage, the recipe for which can be purchased from virtually any standard Cooking trainer.  Another fun and useful food the cooks can make at this level is Dragonbreath Chili, the recipe for which can be purchased from Helenia Olden (Alliance) or Ogg’marr (Horde) in Duskwallow Marsh.  It can also be purchased from Super-Seller 680 in Desolace.
• First Aid:  The only thing to worry about here is to get your First Aid maxed as high as it will go, so that you can use the Heavy Runecloth Bandage, which can heal you almost completely full with just one bandage.  To do this, you will need the three books Expert First Aid – Under Wraps, Manual: Heavy Silk Bandage and Manual: Mageweave Bandage.  The only trouble is that, because you still can’t get your Secondary Skills up to 300 yet, you’ll have to find someone to craft the bandages for you.  Alternatively, you could simply purchase them off of the AH.
• Fishing:  This skill is not as important at this level bracket, but it’s still a great way to increase your income, especially while you’re bored and waiting around near some water.  Take any opportunity you can to fish, because each time you fish is a chance to catch a rare fish that can earn you some good money.  It’s also not a bad way to get Cooking and Alchemy reagents to increase those skills.

Spells and Abilities

Priest spells break down into three basic groups:  Discipline, Holy and Shadow Magic.  Discipline hold many of your utility and buff spells, Holy is mostly healing spells, and Shadow Magic is predominantly damaging spells and curses.  For this build, you will be focusing on spells that deal Shadow Damage in varying degrees in conjunction with the Vampiric Embrace.   While you will be using predominantly Shadow spells, you do have other abilities as well and will want to understand the full scope of your capabilities.

What follows is a brief description of the spells in each of these categories that are pertinent to a Twink Shadow Priest.

• Shadow
• Discipline
• Holy

Don’t forget about the racial spells that were discussed earlier:  Touch of Weakness , Devouring Plague, they can be extremely useful with this build, making Undead truly the best race for playing a Shadow Priest.  For alliance you also have Feedback, which not only does Shadow Damage, but does so by draining the many of an enemy caster, sucking away their life and magical essence to replenish you and your comrades.

Any ability that lets you do increased Shadow Damage is only a good thing and serves to not only devastate your foes, but restore your allies.

Talents

Shadow Priests main focus is on damage output.  The below spec focuses on maximizing your shadow damage through use of  the Darkness talent.

Another school of thought is to increase your survivability, by making you less vulnerable to multiple forms of CC with the Unbreakable Will talent.

BIS Gear

Gear is important for all classes and is usually one of the most difficult aspects of building a Twink of any level.  For Priests, whether gearing for PvP or not, your gear choices are going to depend on your talent build.  This guide focuses on a Shadow Magic build, so the gear that you’ll need for that will focus on increasing your Shadow Damage, Intellect, Spell Critical,  and Mana Regeneration in that order.  Stamina is also crucial, as you need to be able to absorb at least some damage while mixing it up, shoulder to shoulder with your comrades.

Acquiring all of this BiS gear won’t be easy and it is advised that you get financial backing from a Main to get the items from the AH, which will make the task much easier.  Listed below are all of your BiS gear slot items and how, or where to get them. Many of the best healing items can be found in the Scarlet Monastery Dungeon at this level.  Good Luck!

• Head
  • What: Green Lens (of Shadow Wrath) / Goblin Rocket Helmet/ Gnomish Mind Control Cap
  • Where: Buzzek Bracketswing – Engineering Trainer / Goblin Rocket Helmet – Engineering / Gnomish Mind Control Cap – Engineering
• Neck
  • What: Necklace of Calisea / Triune Amulet
  • Where: Narillasanz, Alterac Mountain 0.0167% / High Inquisitor Whitemane, Scarlet Monastery 33%
• Shoulders
  • What:  Lunar Mantle (of Shadow Wrath/ the Eagle)
  • Where:  Razortalon, The Hinterlands 0.641%
• Cloak
  • What: Gossamer Cape (of Shadow Wrath / the Eagle)
  • Where: Razortalon, The Hinterlands 0.0641%
• Chest
  • What: Robes of the Lich/ Robe of the Magi
  • Where:  Amnennar the Coldbringer, Razorfen Downs 20% / Burgle Eye, Duskwallow Marsh 0.0056%
• Bracers
  • What: Royal Bands (of Shadow Wrath) / Bloodband Bracers
  • Where: Razortalon, The Hinterlands 0.641% / Quests – The Captain’s Chest (Alliance) and The Captain’s Chest (Horde)
• Gloves
  • What: Royal Gloves (of the Eagle) / Black Mageweave Gloves
  • Where:  Razortalon, Hinterlands 0.641% / Tailoring – Black Mageweave Gloves
• Belt
  • What: Defiler’s Cloth Girdle/Highlander’s Cloth Girdle / Deathmage Sash
  • Where: Sold By – Illiyana Moonblaze/Kelm Hargunth / Mordresh Fire Eye, Razorfen Downs 33%
• Legs
  • What: Shadoweave Pants / Necromancer Leggings
  • Where: Tailoring – Shadoweave Pants / Prince Raze, Ashenvale 0.005%
• Boots
  • What:  Defiler’s Cloth Boots / Highlander’s Cloth Boots / Royal Boots (of Shadow Wrath / the Eagle) / Gnomish Rocket Boots / Goblin Rocket Boots
  • Where:  Sold By – Illiyana Moonblaze and Kelm Hargunth/ Razortalon, The Hinterlands 0.0641% / Gnomish Rocket Boots – Engineering / Goblin Rocket Boots – Engineering
• Ring One
  • What: Underworld Band
  • Where: Crushridge Warmonger, Alterac Mountains 0.0013%
• Ring Two
  • What: Advisor’s Ring / Lorekeeper’s Ring
  • Where: Sold By – Illiyana Moonblaze/Kelm Hargunth
• Trinket One
  • What: Arena Grand Master / Arena Master/ Mark of the Chosen
  • Where: Quest – Arena Grandmaster / Arena Treasure Chest 100% / Quest – The Pariah’s Instructions
• Trinket Two
  • What:  Rune of Perfection / Tidal Charm / Nifty Stopwatch
  • Where:  Sold By – Illiyana Moonblaze/Kelm Hargunth / Prince Nazjak, Arathi Highlands 45% / Quest – This Is Going to Be Hard
• Main Hand
  • What: Hypnotic Blade
  • Where: Arcanist Doan, Scarlet Monastery 25%
• Off-Hand
  • What: Umbral Crystall / Skull of Impending Doom
  • Where: Murderous Blisterpaw, Tanaris 0.0056% /  Quest – Forbidden Knowledge
• Two Handed
  • What: Staff of Jordan
  • Where: Colonel Kurzen, Stranglethorn Vale 0.0013%
• Wand
  • What:  Ember Wand (of Shadow Wrath/the Eagle) / Jaina’s Firestarter
  • Where: Darbel Montrose, Arathi Highlands 1.064% / Narillasanz, Alterac Mountains 0.0167%

Enchantments

The enchantments for your gear are almost as important as the gear itself.  Make sure to get all of the best enchantments for each gear slot item that can be enchanted.  If your Main is not an enchanter, then acquiring these enchantments will be expensive, so keep that in mind.  Here are all of the best enchantments for a level 29 Twink Shadow Priest.

• Head: Lesser Arcanum of Constitution / Arcanum of Focus
• Shoulders:  Power of the Scourge
• Cloak: Enchant Cloak – Superior Defense / Enchant Cloak – Greater Resistance
• Chest: Enchant Chest – Major Health / Enchant Chest – Greater Stats
• Bracers: Enchant Bracer – Superior Stamina
• Gloves: Enchant Gloves – Shadow Power
• Legs: Lesser Arcanum of Constitution / Arcanum of Focus
• Boots:  Enchant Boots – Minor Speed / Enchant Boots – Greater Stamina
• Weapons: Enchant Weapon – Spell Power

Buffs

There are a plethora of buffs to be had at this level and some of them are incredibly useful.  If you’ve taken Alchemy, you’ll be able to acquire most of these, fairly easily.  Otherwise, you can get them through other players who are Alchemists, or simply from the AH. Some of them are often sold by vendors in a limited quantity as well.

Elixirs

Remember that you can only have one Battle and one Guardian Elixir active at a time.

Battle Elixirs

• Arcane Elixir:  Gives a massive boost in spell damage and finally there is a decent Battle Elixir for casters!

Guardian Elixirs

• Elixir of Greater Intellect: A very good choice if you can get it, as it offers an even higher bonus to Intellect than Arcane Intellect at this level.
• Elixir of Fortitude:  Not a single character in all of WoW has ever complained about having more health.  You shouldn’t either.
• Mighty Troll’s Blood Potion:  This one is great to pop right before a long fight.  It helps mitigate damage to you and let’s your Healer take it a bit easier.
• Elixir of Greater Defense:  More armor is always a good thing, especially in these quantities.
• Gift of Arthas: Hard to come by and somewhat situational with respect to the resistance, but definitely worth the defensive proc.  Being able to disease opponents is very useful in PvP.
• Elixir of Water Walking This one might only be useful when running away from something, but when you can walk on water and your opponents can’t you’ll be glad you bought this.

Potions

• Lesser Stoneshield Potion: One thousand extra armor?  Yes, you can easily find a situation where this is useful.
• Invisibility Potion: Makes you invisible.  What’s not to love?
• Swiftness Potion: No matter what bracket you’re in, no matter what class you play, this potion will never not be useful in some way in PvP and in CTF it is invaluable.
• Restorative Potion: Expensive, but worth the price and extremely utilitarian.  You can just keep this in your back pocket just in case and rest easy, knowing you have an answer for almost every debuff.  Good to hold on to these to use yourself and save your spells for allies.

• Magic Resistance Potion:   If 50 resistance in all schools of magic doesn’t seem like enough to you, you are wrong.  This potion is perfect for when every caster on the field is flinging different colored light at each other.
• Dreamless Sleep Potion:  Makes you vulnerable for awhile but pretty much completely restores your health and mana.  Good to use right after some kind of mass CC has just occurred, like Psychic Scream, or Fear.  Also, good for when everyone else is back to full health and you need to get back to 100%.  Try popping it right after casting Renew or Power Word: Shield.
• Superior Healing Potion:  The healing potion is a staple of adventurers everywhere.  Good for you, or and ally.  Use it in good health.  Heheh.
• Superior Healing Draught:  Not as effective as the above, but plentiful and cheap.  You can only use them in BGs though.

• Greater Mana Potion: An absolute must have for all casters.  Make sure you have at least a couple of these before ever even heading out.

Scrolls

• Scroll of Protection III: Use this when you don’t have an Elixir of Defense.
• Scroll of Intellect III: Use this when you don’t have a Mage who can give you Arcane Intellect.
• Scroll of Spirit III: Use this when you don’t have a Priest who can give you Divine Spirit.
• Scroll of Stamina III: Use this when you don’t have a Priest who can give you Power Word: Fortitude.

Use all of them if you are alone, because they are cheap and why not?

Team Buffs

Power Word: Fortitude  should always be on you, end of story.  All other classes want it as well and the health it gives.  Arcane Intellect is also extremely useful, as it increases your Mana pool.  Mark of the Wild raises all of your stats a little and stacks with most buffs.  Blessing of Kings does kind of the same thing as Mark of the Wild, only a bit better and only for Alliance players.

Other Consumables

• Rumsey Rum Black Label: Being a little tipsy is a small price to pay for an extra 15 Stamina.
• Minor Wizard Oil:  These things are great, because imbues will stack with weapon enchantments. So if you’re a caster, get this on your weapon.
• Dragonbreath Chili: As stated above, this is a great little added boon that you can get easily if you cooking skill is high enough.
• Spider Sausage: Again, make sure you have some of this sausage before heading out there.  The well fed buff shouldn’t be ignored.

All that you need to know about how to create the perfect level 39 Twink Shadow Priest, you now possess.  You may now reach out and touch the pure Void of existence, to submit to Its will, or bend it to your own.  Go now and use the power of Shadow to sap the life of your enemies and bequeath it unto your followers…err, allies.  Yes, go and help your allies.  Have fun!