I came, I saw, I wrote my little fingers off and caught up to the daily count. I am exhausted but like a proud new mama, happy as hell. Progress is a wonderful thing.
Now, I want all our priest readers, yes you, who have made your priest you main, who create your beloved squishy in the name of melting faces and healing, I want you all to gather around. I want to give each of you our custom "Medal of Suffering and Perseverance" to every single one of you. You all deserve statues. That's right, pigeon lovin’ statues in the middle of your respective faction and have people ooo and aaa every time they pass by.
Why?
Solo leveling a priest is like having your eyes glued to top of your skull, like having a hot poker skewering your inner thigh, like being forced to watch Who wants to be a Superhero. It is just that bad. I had heard it was painful, but when I started Persephen, my thought process was thus, "Oh I have leveled two characters to seventy, I can do this."
Alright, my retarded brain should have phased it as, "Oh I have leveled two DPS characters." and then freeze my fingers on the "create character" button. I am sure several people here, when they read I was leveling a priest must have shaken their heads and crossed their chests saying, "Vaya con Dios."
Why didn't someone warn me how excruciating it was going to be? Mind you, EVERY SINGLE of her points are in shadow and even at 32 it still take me a full minute to kill anything. Do you know how long a minute is in WoW?. I am sure you do, but for those that don't, that is an eternity. Worlds die, governments are overturned, hell, even suns go supernova before a low level priest can kill a mob.
Then there are those stories of the unthinkable. So horrible, one must cover their eyes and ears and assume the fetal position: a holy priest solo grinding their way up. I have to ask, are you okay? Do you want a nice comfy bed, maybe some padded walls? I am here, I won’t let the bad bear hurt you.
I have gained a different level of respect for priests. They are war veterans, survivors of teenage children, that guy that cleans sewers for a living.
Think for a moment about pain, the shameful suffering your priests have endured to be able play with you, to heal or DPS . Remember that while they may be powerful level 70's now, with uber duber leet gear, deep down inside, there is a little priest crying in the dark.
There are scars, my friends, and they run deep.
And they bear this, because as painful and humbling the experience, it is unfortunately, necessary for the continuation of WoW society as we know it.
So when you see your residential priest today, give them a hug. They deserve it.
19 comments:
LOL. Great read. :) I have a 70 priest, Holy every day of his life. But fortunately, I had 2 guildmates to level up with every step of the way. I tried soloing him a bit...got him a nice mace once.
Then I looked at his STR.
End of experiment.
Have fun. ;)
I hear you -- also coming from the hunter / dps side of the coin and trying to level up a priest (even like you 100% shadow) i'm at level 25 or so thinking - I'm never going to be able to get to 35 to level my tayloring.
*Scratches head* I have a shadow priest alt too, level 33. It doesn't feel that slow to me.
But then again it might be because I am used to slow classes. Looking back at my MMORPG carreer it seems I always got some slow class to play with. Everytime I start a new one I swear myself I will get a fast killing one but never get used to it since they usually die easier too. Hunters in World of Warcraft being the exception.
Anyhoo... I am not sure if this will help any but this is how I fight with my priest. Start the fight with Mind Blast, walk a bit behind, use shadow word pain. Then use mind flay, another mind blast if the mob's HP isn't below half yet and then finish with the wand.
This way I kill fast enough for me and conserve enough mana to go with out drinking for some time.
I can barely stand to quest. I specced holy when I hit 70 to help my guild, but I then proceeded to quit the game for like 5 months.
Now I'm back, trying to level fishing/cooking and get all my daily quests, set up for the netherwing rep grind, etc. and I'm ready to kill myself again.
I think if I don't spec back to shadow, I'm going to quit again. Sorry guild, but this is completely stupid. I don't have a DPS guildy waiting for my beck and call to run through these with. Drinking between every mob, etc. is horrid.
I actually leveled 1-60 holy, I think I should have gotten something special for not going to the darkside for 60 levels. It was hurtful, mind-numbingly horrible.
LOL this was kinda funny. I can't use any other words for it. Priest isn't so bad if you go shadow....but you have a hunter....so ya you didn't know leveling with that. I took a hunter to mid 30s just when I was bored on my old server. I think I logged out one day and logged back in with a new level. A hunter felt that easy. I couldn't skin fast enough to get rid of the dead bodies before there were more.
Granted hunters are a very complex class to play later (instances and raids) and right now probably the most powerful and usefull DPS class (most dont play them to thier full ability...the huntard name comes from most people realizing that) but man to solo a hunter to 70 is possibly the easiest thing. So I thank you for your shoutout. Keep up the good work.
Main-Calandris 68 priest
Old Main-Necroleanan 70 mage
The first priest I ever leveled, I tried shadow from the getgo. Ding 10, first point went into shadow. Ding ding ding... shadow shadow shadow.
I half solo'd her, half played her with hubby's mage up to about 25. Then that's when hubby pretty much quit playing, and she didn't see any play for -ages-. Why? Yeah. You know why. *grin* I eventually found a leveling partner in my best friend's priest and we melted faces all the way to 60, learning to heal with less mana in lvl 56+ instances, and topping heal meters in 20 man raids. Ah, I miss those days!
I later hopped servers for a bit for a change of pace. Friend rolled a lock and I, again, rolled a priest. But I thought I'd try leveling disc. Oh my. Wow. What a difference! First points in improved wand, then imp shield and imp fort. DIE MOBS DIE! HAHAHAHAHA! I once took on a set of 5 mobs (at level) in westfall, just wanding them down one by one. I could shield and reshield and heal till the cows came home, because I didn't use my mana to kill. I kept my wand updated with the best dps as I could. Because it killed fast.
But back to my first priest, when she dinged around level 30, shadow spec really started to shine. I'm not sure why you're killing things slowly. Can you give an example of a fight? Though I freely admit my memory might be dim on this part. It's pushing a year and a half or more since my little raiding shadow priest hit 60, and her grind to 70 was reletivly pain free and solo to boot!
PS: Find a friendly tailor to make you the lvl 35-42? shadoweave pieces. Pretty pretty, and tons of +shadow damage. Ignore their lack of good stats. >.> FAst killing > stats!
What your readers don’t know is that your superhero identity is the poet and your motto is fighting crime with rhyme using a quill pen and a note book as your weapons of choice. HEHEHE
You become dang near OP when you get Shadowform. I'm 70 and holy/disc so grinding money is non-existent now. :(
Most people I know leveled with someone--either a DPS class (like a lock or mage) or a tank, so they just leveled in instances all the time.
I did take a resto druid 1-60, which wasn't exactly pleasant either...
You really should think about going disc and not just jump on shadow because everyone else does. ;) Remember when BM was for bots and bots only? We changed our minds, didn't we? And we (or at least I) realized that disc is probably the most undervalued tree in all of wow. You basically get better shield, more mana, more mana regen and it's all wand, shield and laugh your way to 70. And you can heal a LOT better than a shadow specced priest at lower lvl dungeons, so you can even get some instancing going. That's what I did with mine, and now she's a holy one in kara and gruul, which is SO much fun. :) I swear, I've gotten addicted to the heart attacks I get when healing. I love my hunter to bits, but I've never been so stressed out playing her.
Solsikke - 70 hunter
Nimale - 70 priest
Bronzebeard EU
Funny that you post this right around the same day I post this. Being a DPS'er as my main, I'd always thought that blasting away max damage was the best way to go. My experiences with a priest (albeit only at lvl 20 so far) have been dramatically different, in a good way. I totaly loved the first 20 levels of my priest, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things go as I get into instances and other content with him.
The various comments here that talk about disc have me thinking. I did a quick search when I started, and found a few guides with talent specs in shadow for leveling, so I followed those.
Does anybody have a link to a good path in disc to spend my talent points on?
What do i do for maximum mana conservation and killing quickly? Hmm...
It's been a while since i played my priest, but i believe it goes something like...
SW:P
Mind Flay until he's close
Fear
Mind Flay until he's on top of you again unless he dies
wand
It's not bad at all. And priests have good survivability, despite how things may look, because they can fear, shield, fear again later all while running away... it's all very nice.
WOW! Thanks everyone for your wonderful suggestions. I will use them! Taking deep breaths and trying to settle my frayed nerves. I will keep you guys updated on Perseph's progress and she slowly gets to 70.
@Lost Warrior...Thank you honey, I love you :)
My Shadow priestess has made it to L34 without undue difficulty. Fights with mobs at her level last about 30 seconds on the average. Mind Blast, dot, shield, wand, renew shield, wand until dead and it is over.
This takes the best wand you can buy at the AH or get as a boss drop. However, it has worked quite well for me thus far. Better yet, my priestess is at nearly full mana at the end of a fight.
My routine attack will probably change when Shadow Form becomes available. Until then, fights will remain boring.
I also play an L61 huntress, L48 warrior, L42 pali and lock, L40 mage and L34 druid. My Arcane/Fire mage has been the most difficult to level thus far. Frost would have been a better leveling build.
Wow, thanks for the recommendations on Discipline -- I respec'd my level 25 priest from shadow to all disc and things are So Much Better! I almost feel like a hunter again :)
I started out using Shield, too, which was smart right at the beginning before i got Fear, but was a habit i had to break. While i was at first afraid to use Fear on enemies lest they run into more enemies, i got over that once i realized the benefits:
1) Fear uses less mana than Shield and typically keeps you safe as long or longer, especially against harder-hitting mobs.
2) If you pull them a short distance away from other mobs (as ANY class does!) and use Mind Flay while they're feared, they won't run into other mobs.
3) On particularly powerful mobs, like elites, you can use Fear, then use Shield, then use Fear again when the cooldown is up, then probably Shield one more time if necessary.
Note that wanding IS subject to pushback from attacks. That is, wanding has a 0.5 second casting time, and being attacked WILL make you wand more slowly. However, the difference isn't exactly huge, so don't be afraid to use it as long as it's only one enemy hitting you.
I have a level 62 priest, who leveled specced holy to 60. Mostly soloing.
And I enjoyed it.
Lol... my NE priest, long since deleted, can vouch for it... it's all true, every word of it.
And don't even start me on Starshards, worst racial spell EVER. :P
-Track
Post a Comment