So you've decided to level a Priest and now you're wondering just how to best go about spending your talents while making your way to 80. Well good! Then you've come to the right place as this article is just about that.

Typically it's recommended that all Priests level as Shadow before switching over (or staying) once you hit the level cap. This is because Shadow Priests do excellent damage, have awesome survivability, but most importantly have an amazing capacity to keep killing and killing without having very much down time. This means you won't be wasting precious leveling time by sitting and eating or drinking to replenish health or mana.

So how best should you spend your talents? Here's an overview and then we'll go into it in a bit more detail:

Shadow Tree:

3 points in Spirit Tap

2 in Improved Spirit Tap

3 in Shadow Focus

2 in Improved Shadow Word: Pain

Mind Flay

2 in Improved Mind Blast

2 in Improved Psychic Scream

3 in Shadow Weaving

2 in Shadow Reach

Vampiric Embrace

2 into Improved Vampiric Embrace

2 into Focused Mind

5 in Darkness -

Shadowform -

1 in Focused Mind

2 in Mind Melt

Silence

2 in Improved Shadowform

3 in Misery

Vampiric Touch

3 in Pain and Suffering

1 in Shadow Power

5 in Twisted Faith

Dispersion

Discipline Tree

5 points into Twin Discipline

3 in Improved Inner Fire

2 in Improved Power Word: Fortitude

3 in Meditation

1 in Inner Focus

Shadow Tree Again

2 into Veiled Shadows

4 in Shadow Power

These talents focus on mana efficiency, damage and then survivability.

At first, we try and maximize our up time by putting points into mana regen talents. Until by level 20, you'll be ready to get Mindflay, which will be your most used spell.

In addition to spell damage and mana efficiency we also delve into improved psychic scream and silence. Both could be considered PvP talents (and are great for that) but also leveling. I would remove these once I was at max level, but having a shorter time on your AoE fear can really save you in clutch circumstances.

Silence is also excellent against casters. They can do a lot of damage, but none at all if they don't have the ability to do so. In addition, some mobs will try and heal themselves at a certain percentage, so having Silence can help prevent having to try and re-kill the mob.

In terms of healing, no you won't be healing as well as a Holy Priest or Discipline Priest, however, you can still heal just fine even as shadow. In my experience leveling Priests (I've done it 3 times....) you still have the tools to heal in the lower level instances. At 70 and onward, however, if you're healing all the time, I would recommend switching to a holy spec as at this point healing instances can be really tough if you're not using the proper build.