Hi i just started a new priest but i dont know if i should level as shadow or disc. My intentions are to play healer disc at 80 so i would rather play to 80 as the spec and learn it. if it is possible.
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Member
How is disc priest when leveling?
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Member
Levelling as a disc is much slower so I would not recommend it.
You can easily heal low level dungeons even in shadow spec.
You can also try the holy tree at lower levels (focusing on holy fire + smite related talents) if you are curious.
Don't worry about learning at level 80, disc priest is really easy to master and your preferred gear is pretty much the same as in shadow.
Plus you can always learn dual spec at level 40 (not that hard to collect the gold for it even if this is your first char).
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Member
I'd advice against leveling as a disc, go holy instead. It's way better than other specs at least for the early levels (until lvl50 or 60, possibly even more)
Talent build: http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#bZfxt0bbqbZh
Start with spirit tap in shadow after that take the holy talents.
lvl1-19: SW:pain/smite + wand spam
lvl20-49: Holyfire + smite spam
lvl50: This is when I specced in to shadow. I think If I were to level another priest I would wait until lvl60 for dispersion before going shadow.
Smite glyph is a must have.
Favor spirit gear and spellpower gear over everything else. Spirit gear increases your mana regen a lot with the spirit tap talent and also increases your spelldmg from holy talents. Spellpower is nice for obvious reasons.
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Banned
Sorry to disagree with you here but there is a good difference in stats preference between Discipline and Shadow.
Also leveling as Discipline is quite doable and easy. I leveled two of my priests as Discipline - The only thing is that you need to take certain talents that are not used in the PVE Scenario. Other than that, it's completely doable. Considering that he's willing to learn the class and this specific spec why shouldn't he level as Discipline since it's possible? I wish all the players in this community were actually like that and took the time to learn their class.
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Member
Talking about efficiency how's Disc compared to Holy? HF/Smite hit's quite hard and the regen of mana is nice aswell.
As disc I suppose you use HF/Smite to kill of mobs aswell, why not do it as holy when it actually hits harder because of your talents?
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Banned
While solo leveling you can solo a lot better as Discipline than as Holy and you can still use your Absorbs as a damage ability ( http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=41475 ). That means that in order to solo elites, as example, you have a lot more survival skills. You hit harder as holy - Not that much more quite honestly - but you take more damage. This is one of the few examples.
Edited: May 8, 2016
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Member
I'm currently leveling as a disc priest and I can tell you, its worth it! Eventhough damage you are doing is not as high as in Shadow Spec but you will be able to solo most of the quests that involves Elite. In addition, people are always looking for healers in order to successfully complete Dungeons safely.
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Banned
I guess my whole point has been made.
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Member
I'd say to listen the DakMonkey's advice. Holy leveling is the way to go and with Smite glyph you can easily do quests due to the good damage and you can easily heal dungeons due to the fact you are basically a Heal spec. After taking Surge of Light you can go Disc if you wanna level like that. But going straight disc is absolutely not worth it, compared to Holy. Priest leveling is the hardest in the game (With maybe Rogue coming second) so making it even harder is silly. At 50 you can respec Shadow.
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Member
I suppose nobody questioned your point, you can level as a disc if you want... but it is not the efficient way.
When your purpose is to get to max level as fast as possible your main goal is to decrease your "downtime" (healing yourself, replenishing your mana pool and yes, survivability is also very important). The best way to accomplish that is to follow DakMonkey's advice.
But of course there are other aspects as well and here is my advice: choose the spec which is the most fun for you. Leveling can be "painful" if you don't enjoy it (or at least try to) and you won't enjoy it if it is a constant struggle ;)
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Banned
People did question my point and pointed out invalid comparisons. Also if we want to measure the speed efficiency of leveling I'll state that it's completely irrelevant since you're playing on a private server that is not 100% Blizzlike just yet - Ragnaros and Deathwing, as example, are completely irrelevant to that point. If you know how to level as a Discipline (KNOW YOUR CLASS) you won't have a downtime at all. I've leveled a priest from 1 to 80 as Discipline in less than a day. I also leveled in Retail, as Discipline and questing, in four days. Downtime exists when you have no clue of what you need to do. That's why you need to study your class before pointing out that you shouldn't level as this because it's not efficient. Leveling is the easiest thing in the world.
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Member
In terms of raw leveling speed, I would say 1-60 it's:
Holy > Shadow > Disc
After 60 I think Shadow is probably a little better than holy (especially when you learn Shadowfiend).
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