WoW Classic Priest Leveling Guide

Welcome to our WoW Classic leveling guide for the priest class! These wielders of light and shadow are best known for their two healing specializations and unparalleled healing toolkit, but they also make formidable damage dealers.

At level 60, Holy Priests are always in demand as healers due to their broad selection of powerful healing spells. Many groups will also want a Shadow Priest for their shadow damage buff as well as the steady stream of passive healing they deal out alongside their damage. Priests also bring excellent group utility in the form of their buffs, dispels, crowd control, and Resurrection.

Priests are efficient, consistent, strong levelers, offering one of the smoothest rides to 60 out of all the classes. If played optimally, a priest should have next to no downtime, as they have a hyper efficient damage rotation cycle. This guide will cover all the talents, stats, rotation, and tips you’ll need to level your priest efficiently and hopefully have a lot of fun along the way!

Pros

• Mana efficient with little down time if played appropriately thanks to Wand Specialization and Spirit Tap.
• Highly sought after for group content. Can effectively heal most dungeons even with Shadow talents.
• Mind Control can make for some interesting and entertaining shenanigans.
• Dispel Magic and Abolish Disease mean that you rarely have to put up with long debuffs.
• Surprisingly sturdy thanks to Inner Fire, Power Word: Fortitude, and Power Word: Shield.
• Once you have Shadowform, the enemy faction will run in the opposite direction when they see you!

Cons

• Highly dependent on wanding, which can make for slow and unexciting gameplay.
• Low mobility – no talents or abilities that can reduce travel time, and no stealth.
• Limited crowd control and escape tools.
• High skill ceiling, with multiple ranks of multiple spells to put on your bars.

General Leveling Tips

While priests may not be the fastest levelers, they are very efficient. By leaning heavily on your wand and keeping yourself healed, you won’t need to spend any time eating or drinking. You should also be able to easily find groups as a healer, and dungeon leveling can be a quick and easy way to gain some levels while also keeping your gear current.

Here are a few tips for leveling your priest:

• Heal in dungeons while leveling for easy access to them (everyone needs a healer!). You can heal every leveling dungeon as Shadow, so don’t limit yourself by leveling as Holy (unless you want to, of course).
• Set up mouseover macros early on as they make healing and buffing much easier.
• Upgrade your wand whenever possible. It makes a huge difference in your kill times.
• Keep a couple of stacks of water on hand, and be sure to upgrade them every 10 levels. You shouldn’t need to drink often, but when you do run out of mana, you don’t want to be stuck standing around waiting for your passive regeneration to fill it back up.
• Aim to fight enemies that are the same level as you as they will give you the best experience.
• Before you decide which zone to level in, be sure there are going to be quests there for your faction and level range.
• Killing extra mobs that you encounter along the way will give you more efficient experience and ensure that you don’t run out of quests before you reach the level cap.

Priest Specific Gameplay Advice

• The Shadow build doesn’t really become dominant until you get Shadowform at level 40. Until then, you may find a Holy build more enjoyable, and it will make healing easier if you plan to run dungeons.
• Once you get Levitate, be sure to carry a stack of Light Feathers so you can use the spell. Being able to safely jump down from a cliff or walk across a body of water can save you a ton of time in the open world!
• Mind Soothe is another highly underrated priest ability that you can use to slip past mobs who would otherwise aggro to you. Combine it with Fade and you’ll be surprised how close you can get to a humanoid mob without pulling.
• Spirit Tap is a powerful talent, but it only works after you land the killing blow on a mob that gives you experience.

Stat Priority

1. Spirit
   • Spirit is extremely strong for priests due to the Spirit Tap talent. This talent combined with a large amount of Spirit is what makes priest leveling so efficient. That changes in group content, though, since Spirit Tap only works if you get the killing blow. Still, Spirit is strong for your mana regeneration regardless and will even buff your healing if you go deep enough into the Holy tree.
   • Increases out of combat health and mana regeneration.
   • Provides excellent mana returns with the Spirit Tap talent.
   • Increases your damage and healing if you go deep enough in the Holy tree to get Spiritual Guidance.
2. Spell Power
   • Spell Power directly increases the damage and healing of your spells. You won’t find much of it on gear while leveling, but it’s well worth taking it when you do.
3. Intellect
   • Intellect increases your mana pool and your critical strike chance and is a great stat to have, though Spirit and Spell Power are more imporant.
   • Increases mana points by 15 per 1 point.
   • Increases your Critical strike chance with spells.
   • Improves rate at which weapon skills level (including your wand).
4. Stamina
   • Having some Stamina will ensure that your health pool is large enough for you to take a few hits. It’s not worth going after Stamina at the cost of your other stats, but you should be able to get some naturally on gear that has other valuable stats for you.
   • Increases health points by 10 per 1 point.

About Spell Hit

As a spell caster, you will always have a 1% chance to miss with your spells. Hit is more important at level 60 when you will be fighting raid bosses, but it’s still something to keep in mind.

• Against a target of the same level: You have a 4% chance to miss. 3% Hit is needed for cap.
• Against a target 1 level higher than you: You have a 5% chance to miss. 4% Hit is needed for cap.
• Against a target 2 levels higher than you: You have a 6% chance to miss. 5% Hit is needed for cap.
• Against a target 3 levels higher than you: You have a 17% chance to miss. 16% Hit is needed for cap.

Rotation

To make a long story short, you want to be able to keep fighting with the least amount of downtime possible in order to maximize your leveling speed (since you’ll never be a pew pew mage). In order to achieve that, I found it to be the most efficient to go with the following basic rotation:

Mind Blast  > Shadow Word: Pain > Shoot > Mind Blast > Shoot

A few caveats:

• It’s best to not re-apply Shadow Word: Pain since most targets won’t survive the full duration twice.
• Do not Mind Blast a second time if your target is already below 30% health as this is usually a waste of mana.
• Use Power Word: Shield & Renew to sustain yourself every other mob. Try to not PW:S too often as it will burn your mana quickly.
• If you accidentally pull 2 mobs equal to your level, dot both of them up, use Power Word: Shield on yourself, and go to town on the first mob.
• Use Psychic Scream carefully as to not pull even more mobs!

Talent Path

Below level 40

These are the talents you should use up to level 40.

Notes: Get 5/5 Wand Specialization directly after Spirit Tap and focus on Shadow afterwards.

Talent Order

Above level 40

These are the talents you should use at level 40 and higher.

Notes:

• Respec into Shadowform at 40 and then re-level Wand Specialization.
• Get some utility from the Discipline tree and then return to Shadow.
• Respec into Holy at level 60 if you intend to heal.

Talent Order

Alternative Talent Builds

Abilities to Train

• Levels 1-22 – Train every ability that is offered to you.
• Level 24 – Power Word: Fortitude rank 3, Power Word: Shield rank 4
• Level 26 – Flash Heal rank 2, Renew rank 4, Shadow Word: Pain rank 4
• Level 28 – Heal rank 3, Mind Blast rank 4, Psychic Scream rank 2
• Level 30 – Inner Fire rank 3, Mind Control rank 1, Power Word: Shield rank 5
• Level 32 – Abolish Disease, Flash Heal rank 3, Renew rank 5
• Level 34 – Levitate, Heal rank 4, Mind Blast rank 5, Shadow Word: Pain rank 5
• Level 36 – Dispel Magic rank 2, Mind Soothe rank 2, Power Word: Fortitude rank 4, Power Word: Shield rank 6
• Level 38 – Flash Heal rank 4, Renew rank 6
• Level 40 – Greater Heal rank 1, Inner Fire rank 4, Mind Blast rank 6, Shackle Undead rank 2
• Level 42 – Power Word: Shield rank 7, Psychic Scream rank 3, Shadow Word: Pain rank 6
• Level 44 – Flash Heal rank 5, Mind Control rank 2, Renew rank 7
• Level 46 – Greater Heal rank 2, Mind Blast rank 7
• Level 48 – Power Word: Fortitude rank 5, Power Word: Shield rank 8
• Level 50 – Flash Heal rank 6, Inner Fire rank 5, Renew rank 8, Shadow Word: Pain rank 7
• Level 52 – Greater Heal rank 3, Mind Blast rank 8, Mind Soothe rank 3
• Level 54 – Power Word: Shield rank 9
• Level 56 – Flash Heal rank 7, Psychic Scream rank 4, Renew rank 9
• Level 58 – Greater Heal rank 4, Mind Blast rank 9, Mind Control rank 3, Shadow Word: Pain rank 8
• Level 60 – Inner Fire rank 6, Power Word: Fortitude rank 6, Power Word: Shield rank 10, Renew rank 10, Shackle Undead rank 3

Class Quests

• Level 10 Racial Ability: You’ll get a quest from your class trainer at level 10 to acquire your first race-specific priest ability. See the list of abilities below to find out which ability you’ll get.
• Level 20 Racial Ability: You’ll get another quest for a race-specific priest ability at level 20. These are also listed in the next section.
• Blood of Morphaz: This quest chain inside the Sunken Temple dungeon offers a choice of two powerful items that will serve you well all the way to 60. The only problem is choosing between them! Woestave is an excellent wand while Blessed Prayer Beads are a very useful healing trinket.

Priest Racial Abilities

One of the interesting aspects of playing a priest in WoW Classic is their unique racial abilities. Depending on what race you choose, you will have a slightly different experience playing a priest, as some of these abilities can have a pretty significant impact on your gameplay.

Alliance Classes

Dwarf

• Desperate Prayer (level 10): a great personal cooldown for every part of the game (leveling, PvE, PvP).
• Fear Ward (level 20): Hands down the best PvE race-specific spell, since it completely negates fear effects.
• General Dwarf racial abilities:
  • Stoneform
  • Gun Specialization
  • Frost Resistance
  • Find Treasure

Human

• Desperate Prayer (level 10): a great personal cooldown for every part of the game (leveling, PvE, PvP).
• Feedback (level 20): Burn 54 mana per spell cast against you and cause 1 shadow damage for each point of mana burned. Primarily useful in PvP.
• General Human racial abilities:
  • Diplomacy
  • The Human Spirit
  • Mace Specialization
  • Sword Specialization
  • Perception

Night Elf

• Starshards (level 10): Rains starshards on target’s head, causing 756 damage over 6 sec. Pretty mana intensive & a channeled cast making it not all that great during leveling.
• Elune’s Grace (level 20): Reduces ranged damage taken by 95 and increases Dodge chance by 10% for 15 sec. Good for leveling purposes and 5-player dungeons while leveling.
• General Night Elf racial abilities:
  • Shadowmeld
  • Quickness
  • Wisp Spirit
  • Nature Resistance

Horde Classes

Troll

• Hex of Weakness (level 10): Weakens the target enemy, reducing damage caused by 20 & the effectiveness of healing by 20%.
• Shadowguard (level 20): When the caster is the target of a melee, ranged, or spell attack, the enemy gets struck for 116 shadow damage. Useful cooldown to use while leveling/farming.
• General Troll racial abilities:
  • Berserking
  • Regeneration
  • Beast Slaying
  • Throwing Specialization/Bow Specialization

Undead

• Touch of Weakness (level 10): The next melee attack on the caster hits the enemy for 64 shadow damage and reduces damage caused by 20. Useful for leveling.
• Devouring Plague (level 20): Afflicts the target with a disease causing 904 shadow damage over 24 sec. Useful for leveling.
• General Undead racial abilities:
  • Will of the Forsaken
  • Cannibalize
  • Underwater Breathing
  • Shadow Resistance

Equipment

• Priests can only wear cloth armor. That limits what you can use, but also makes it pretty easy to just focus on maximizing your stats.
• Try to use a one-hander and an off-hand item for a better combination of stats. You do have access to staves, but it is often better to use a one-handed mace or dagger and an off-hand item instead. Staves will naturally offer less stats than two items combined. You can ignore your melee weapon’s DPS as a priest, however, since you’ll be using your wand instead.
• Wands are a major part of your DPS, especially in the first 40 levels. Upgrading your wand’s DPS will make a big difference in your kill times before you get Shadowform, and even then you will want to have a high DPS wand as a backup.

Alliance Wand Progression

• Lesser Magic Wand – 11.3 DPS – Requires lvl 5 Crafted Green from Enchanting
• Spark of the People’s Militia – 12.8 DPS – Quest Reward “The People’s Militia” Westfall
• Greater Magic Wand – 17.5 DPS – Requires lvl 13 Crafted Green from Enchanting
• Excavation Rod – 24.2 DPS – Quest Reward “Ormer’s Revenge” Wetlands
• Spellcrafter Wand– 20.3 DPS – Quest Reward “Retrieval for Mauren” in Stonetalon Mountains
• Cookie’s Stirring Rod – 22.3 DPS – Drops off Cookie in Deadmines 35%
• Consecrated Wand– 24.2 DPS – Quest Reward “Worgen in the Woods” Duskwood
• Excavation Rod – 24.2 DPS – Quest Reward “Ormer’s Revenge” Wetlands
• Gravestone Scepter – 29.0 DPS – Quest Reward “Blackfathom Villainy” Blackfathom Deeps
• Rod of Sorrow – 31.8 DPS – Quest Reward “Wanted Otto and Falconcrest” Arathi Highlands
• Burning Sliver – 32.7 DPS – Quest Reward “Crushridge Warmongers” Alterac Mountains
• Blackbone Wand – 35.3 DPS – Wand Vendor sells this white wand in all capital cities
• Cairnstone Sliver – 41.4 DPS – Quest Reward “The Morrow Stone” Feralas
• Noxious Shooter – 50.0 DPS – Drops from Noxxion in Maraudon at 20%
• Smokey’s Fireshooter – 53.2 DPS – Quest Reward “When Smokey Sings, I get Violent” EPL
• Rod of Corrosion – 55.0 DPS – Drops from Shade of Eranikus in Sunken Temple 32%
• Mana Channeling Wand – 60.9 DPS – Drops from Cho’Rush the Observer in Dire Maul 25%

Horde Wand Progression

• Lesser Magic Wand – 11.3 DPS – Requires lvl 5 Crafted Green from Enchanting
• Smoldering Wand – 13.4 DPS – Wand Vendor sells this white wand in all capital cities
• Greater Magic Wand – 17.5 DPS – Requires lvl 13 Crafted Green from Enchanting
• Excavation Rod – 24.2 DPS – Quest Reward “Ormer’s Revenge” Wetlands
• Gravestone Scepter – 29.0 DPS – Quest Reward “Blackfathom Villainy” Blackfathom Deeps
• Gnomish Zapper – 32.7 DPS – Quest Reward “Sunken Treasure” Arathi Highlands
• Dancing Flame – 32.9 DPS – Quest Reward “Final Passage” Thousand Needles
• Blackbone Wand – 35.3 DPS – Wand Vendor sells this white wand in all capital cities
• Cairnstone Sliver – 41.4 DPS – Quest Reward “The Morrow Stone” Feralas
• Noxious Shooter – 50.0 DPS – Drops from Noxxion in Maraudon at 20%
• Smokey’s Fireshooter – 53.2 DPS – Quest Reward “When Smokey Sings, I get Violent” EPL
• Rod of Corrosion – 55.0 DPS – Drops from Shade of Eranikus in Sunken Temple 32%
• Gnomish Zapper – 60.9 DPS – Drops from Cho’Rush the Observer in Dire Maul 25%

Professions

You could forego professions altogether while you level if you want to focus exclusively on getting to the level cap as quickly as possible. But professions can be valuable, both in terms of making gold and in terms of making your character stronger. If you know which professions you will want to use at endgame, it can be more efficient to level them alongside your character so you don’t have to return to lower level zones to level your professions. It can also allow you to break up the leveling process a little.

Priests benefit the most from these professions while leveling:

• Tailoring – Without a doubt, tailoring is your best profession option while leveling. You’ll be able to craft cloth gear and bags, which can be useful to you and also great for making some gold on the Auction House. You’ll also get a head start on one of your best professions at endgame, which will allow you to craft some powerful items when you reach level 60.
• Enchanting – If you’re going to take tailoring, then you should also grab enchanting. This is another profession that doesn’t require a gathering profession, but it is also useful when combined with tailoring. When you’re leveling up tailoring and need to make armor you don’t need, you can disenchant it for extra enchanting materials.
• Herbalism – Another good option is herbalism. It can be used alone to gather and sell herbs, but it is better when paired with alchemy.
• Alchemy – Alchemy is fantastic for a priest because you can make several different potions and elixirs that will increase your spell damage. The one downside is that these bonuses are temporary compared to permanent robes worn from tailoring.