Priest Leveling Guide by Yumytv

Priest is the only class that has class racial abilities on top of the normal racials so your decision on what race to play is slightly more impactful. All priest races are relatively are close in overall strength, with small advantages depending on your preferred role and the main activities you plan on partaking in once max level. These are simply my recommendations but you should be mainly choosing your characters race based off of personal preference.

Alliance

Gnome

Gnomes are a slight favorite for alliance priest in endgame with Expansive Mind and Eureka! improving mana efficiency. Contingency Plan is a solid all-around racial that doesn't have much downside other than its longer cooldown time.

Horde

Undead

Undead are preferred for horde as Dark Sacrifice allows conversion of health to mana. Additional sustain while leveling is provided by Touch of the Grave . Cannibalize can situationally boost mana regen in a pinch although it will likely not be usable in most raid fights.

Your wand damage is the single biggest contributor to your damage and kill speed for nearly all of leveling. Aim to seek out wand upgrades whenever possible. Because wand damage doesn't really scale with any stats - we will instead look for items to improve our sustain so we can move from mob to mob quickly and efficiently. Once we convert to deep shadow at level 40 we begin stacking spellpower.

Priority:

1. Wand Damage: As mentioned above wand damage is #1. The DPS stat is the only main consideration when looking at wands. We very slightly prefer faster wands but speed doesn't matter much.
2. Spirit: Spirit increases mana regeneration while not casting as well as health regeneration outside of combat. Because of Spirit Tap and Meditation, every point in spirit benefits priest tremendously. Aim to acquire as much spirit as possible to minimize downtime and take advantage of these powerful talents.
3. Spell Damage: Once we reach level 40 spell damage becomes another big contributor to our damage. This is the main stat we should be looking to stack alongside spirit. Before level 40 it is still a slight bonus to our damage but not nearly as important
4. Stamina & Healing Power: Stamina increases our maximum health, and healing power boosts the healing of all abilities. Besides spirit, another way to preserve our mana is just have a large health pool with more mana efficient heals. These stats are nice to have when possible but don't sacrifice any of the above stats for them.
5. Intellect: Intellect increases maximum mana and increases spell crit by a very small amount. It may seem counterintuitive but increasing maximum mana doesn't necessarily improve our leveling speed much. Intellect is better than nothing but not a big part of leveling.

Since priest is not the most effective open-world class - many priest opt out of gathering professions in favor of ways to either make money in town or boost combat potential.

1. Tailoring: Tailoring is great for priest leveling as you get all the required cloth for crafting while leveling naturally. Cloth can be converted to bolts to make armor that boosts our healing and damage output. The added emphasis on professions in WoW: Forever makes it likely that tailoring will have powerful end-game recipes for priest similar to Truefaith Vestments in vanilla wow.
2. Enchanting: Enchanting allows for the disenchantment of magic quality or better items to create enchantments that buff gear. Since priest generally prefers to be in a group at max level - enchanting allows for extra income running dungeons as well as providing services in town. Notably enchanting also enables crafting of wands which are useful for priest leveling.
3. Engineering: Useful for PvP, with gadgets that help control enemies and bombs that add burst damage. Turn stone into blasting powder while it still grants skill-ups, then use it to make bombs for leveling.
4. Fishing: Fishing does not take up 1 of the 2 primary profession slots so it can be learned and trained at any time. Although it doesn't directly benefit our leveling speed - it can be an easy way to earn legacy points as priest, and the campfire buff from fishing is very useful.

Campfires are new additions to WoW: Forever that provide hour-long combat buffs that can be refreshed by sitting at a campfire for one minute. The buffs are dependent on profession items used at the campsite - and the following are buffs that are relevant to you during your leveling journey.

• Faction Banner: This is the Tailoring campfire buff, and provides spirit. This is useful until level 30 when you unlock Divine Spirit as the effects do not stack.
• Enchanted Lute: A useful defensive buff from Enchanting that is nice to have while leveling but doesn't impact speed much
• Fish Bowl : If you happen to level Fishing you can use this buff to boost all stats.
• Camp Tent: Provides rested experience for 5% of a level. Although leatherworking is not recommended for priest, look to join in on campfire tents that you see in towns while leveling.