If you just want to see what order to take talents in then copy this spec, if you want to learn more about the reasoning behind it and more intricacies of priest leveling then see below.
TLDR Talent Ordering:
- 5/5 Wand Specialization (Because with Enchanting wand, you don’t need spirit tap until ~15)
- 5/5 Spirit Tap
- 1/5 Shadow Focus
- 3/3 Improved Power Word: Shield
- 2/2 Martyrdom
- 1/1 Inner Focus
- 3/3 Meditation
- 5/5 Holy Specialization
- 5/5 Divine Fury
- 2/2 Improved Shadow word: Pain
Respec to Shadow at 42:
- 5/5 Spirit Tap
- 2/5 Blackout
- 3/5 Shadow Focus
- 2/2 Improved Shadow Word Pain
- 2/2 Improved Psychic Scream
- 1/1 Mind Flay
- 3/3 Shadow Reach
- 5/5 Shadow Weaving
- 1/1 Silence
- 1/1 Vampiric Embrace
- 5/5 Darkness
- 1/1 Shadow Form
- 2/5 Wand Specialization
Shadow: 42-60
- 5/5 Spirit Tap
- 2/5 Blackout
- 3/5 Shadow Focus
- 2/2 Improved Shadow Word Pain
- 2/2 Improved Psychic Scream
- 1/1 Mind Flay
- 3/3 Shadow Reach
- 5/5 Shadow Weaving
- 1/1 Silence
- 1/1 Vampiric Embrace
- 5/5 Darkness
- 1/1 Shadow Form
- 5/5 Wand Specialization
- 3/3 Improved Power: Word Shield
- 2/2 Martyrdom
- 1/1 Inner Focus
- 3/3 Meditation
- 1/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude
- 5/5 Mental Agility
Talent Reasoning/Thought Process
Wand Spec Before Spirit Tap:
With enchanting wand you won’t need to drink at all before 15+ so Spirit tap not needed.
Spirit Tap:
Best leveling Talent, try to play around it by avoiding going into the 5 second rule while it is active for as long as possible. Finish mobs off with wand, heal up with Inner Focus or Desperate prayer after killing a mob, Rebuff Inner Fire after damage rotation before starting to wand etc)
Shadow Focus:
Only one point up to 42 because you have 96% chance to hit equal level mobs, you cannot get higher than 99% chance to hit so a second point in this talent would lose half it’s value vs equal level and below mobs (ideally we want to be farming yellow mobs between equal level and 2 levels below us for maximum experience/time)
After 42 when we respec shadow we’re forced to choose between more points in this and blackout, I believe blackout is the weaker choice until 3/5 shadow focus as this allows you to be more versatile with the level of mobs that you are fighting (will be hit capped on mobs 2 levels above us by taking 3/5, taking more points does not cap us for mobs 3 levels above us so not worth it.)
Improved Power Word: Shield:
More protection for Inner Fire and better mana efficiency of Power Word: Shield.
Martyrdom instead of Improved Fortitude:
Can be valuable to avoid pushback at times, will increase leveling speed oveall by small amount. Improved Fortitude has no value unless we survive on 1% meaning we already messed up. Always spec assuming perfect gameplay then strive for that.
Inner Focus:
Taken asap as we can use it to maximise spirit tap casting by Inner Focus > Heal when low to avoid entering 5 second rule. (We can rotate this with Desperate Prayer while grinding to prolong the need to heal inefficiently and in turn drink)
Meditation:
Extra regen asap while leveling, this will grant us the most mana over the course of leveling to 42. Gains double value from spirit tap. We gear spirit for leveling so Meditation grants us a lot of value while casting in terms of extra regen.
Holy Specialization:
Raw damage increase, mostly taken to reach divine Fury
Divine Fury:
Best talent for raw DPS increase on smite and Holy Fire, it isn’t worth the 7 extra points to take Searing Light however. (10% smite/holy fire damage)
Improved Shadow Word: Pain
Taken last because mobs start to be tankier and our wand is no longer as strong around level 40, if you take it early, the mobs will die before regular pain expires anyway so this has no value unless you multi pull which is already less efficient.
Improved Inner Fire:
Can potentially take 2 points in this instead of Improved Shadow Word: Pain if you feel like you’re taking a lot of damage
Respec To Shadow
Blackout:
We take 2 points in it to get to a lower tier, not insanely valuable but better than the alternatives.
Improved Psychic Scream:
Not insanely valuable but we’re more limited in shadow by good points available early in the tree, plus this enables us to get silence which is decent for mobs that heal.
Mind Flay:
Weak until rank 3 which we get at level 44. This coupled with the weak early portion of the shadow tree is what makes early holy/disc a better option for leveling. We use this as filler on mob pulls.
Shadow Reach:
Pulling from further away inherently causes us to take less damage.
Shadow Weaving:
Most likely will only have 9% or 12% up on average mobs while grinding, depending on if we cast one or two mindflays. A Decent damage boost but not as much as it seems, mostly boosts our shadow wand at 42 which benefits from it
Silence:
Good on Heal mobs.
Vampiric Embrace:
Decent heal utility, needed to take shadow form
Darkness:
Extra dps boost
Shadow Form:
More damage, more survivability. Limits casting of healing spells though.
Spell Rotation + Logic:
For 1-42 we have a few rotation options, they vary depending on newest spell rank, wand and mana efficiency i have listed the core ones.
1 – 10
Smite (Finish things off early with smite rank 1 if smite rank 2 is going to overkill to save some mana, pain not worth it a lot of the time as things die too fast)
10 – 13
Smite > Mindblast > Pain > Wand
13 – 18 (Or until you train smite rank 3)
Mindblast > Pain > Wand
18 – 20
Smite > Mindblast > Pain > Wand
From here there are two main options depending on if 2 ticks of pain > 2/wandspeed * wand damage.
Option 1: Holy Fire > Smite > Mind Blast > Pain > Wand
Option 2: Holy Fire > Pain (Jump back on global) > Smite > Mind Blast > Wand
Obviously the earlier cast of pain allows for two extra ticks of pain, the later cast of pain allows for 1-1.5 extra hits of wand depending on wand speed. I will list the latter for convenience but adapt your pain ordering as you see fit.
We additionally vary our use of Holy Fire now as well. Things to keep in mind are, Holy fire is always more mana efficient than smite but only sometimes better dps, thus the ordering varies depending on latest rank trained as we can see below.
Note: You can use a Holy Fire as an opener even when smite is better dps if you’re low on mana and trying to sustain back up while grinding.
20 – 21
Holy Fire > Smite > Mindblast > Pain > Wand
22 – 23
Smite > Smite > Mindblast > Pain > Wand
24 – 29
Holy Fire > Smite > Mindblast > Pain > Wand
30 – 35
Smite > Smite> Mindblast > Pain > Wand
36 – 37
Holy Fire > Smite > Mindblast > Pain > Wand
38 – 41
Smite > Smite> Mindblast > Pain > Wand
We now respec to Shadow and the rotation becomes:
42 – 60
Mind Blast > Pain (Jump away) > Mind Flay > Wand
You can potentially add a second mindflay depending on mana and mob distance.
Random Facts:
- Inner Fire does not lose stacks while you have shield, this can make shield more efficient than Healing up due to the extra damage mitigation and preservation of Inner Fire buff.
- Wand has a 0.5 Second global after any spell.
- Spells which do not cost mana, do not trigger the 5 second rule.
- Go for Spirit > Int > Stam > Agi for leveling, agility provides a very small bonus to wand critical chance but it is almost negligible and the safety provided by stamina outweighs it.
- Quiver %attack speed does not work on classic
- Wand weaving does not work on classic
- Blackbone wand (42) shadow wand benefits from the bonus shadow damage of Shadow Weaving and Shadowform but not Darkness.