Mists of Pandaria Classic Shadow Priest Leveling

Shadow is the ideal leveling spec for a Priest when playing solo as your kill time is much higher than the other healing specs. This spec has very high damage output and can (and should) be pulling multiple enemies at a time, dotting everything you can.

In Mists of Pandaria, you will unlock a new row of talent selections every 15 levels, starting at level 15. The goal of our talent recommendations is to maximize your up time and damage so you may quickly progress through each zone.

Recommended option: Void Tendrils.

This tier of talents offers some form of crowd control, we will go with Void Tendrils as we can gather several mobs with Shadow Word: Pain, let them group up, then root them via Void Tendrils before moving away and casting Vampiric Touch on all enemies. This allows you to pull many enemies at once without suffering from the normal spell push back that occurs while you attempt to cast a spell.

• Void Tendrils — Summons Shadowy tendrils out of the ground, rooting up to 5 nearby enemies; the tendrils can be killed to break the root.
• Psyfiend — Summons a Psyfiend that stands in place for 10 seconds and fears nearby enemies every 2 seconds.
• Dominate Mind — Charms an enemy, controlling their actions for a limited time.

Recommended option: Angelic Feather.

This tier of talents offers movement speed utility buffs, allowing you to speed up yourself and your allies. Angelic Feather is simply far too strong for us to consider taking any other options.

• Body and Soul — Players targeted by Power Word: Shield or Leap of Faith by 60% for 4 seconds.
• Angelic Feather — Place a feather at the targeted area; allies that touch the feather will gather it, gaining 80% increased movement speed for 6 seconds. Stores up to 3 charges.
• Phantasm — When you use Fade, you remove all movement impairing effects from yourself, and your movement speed is unhindered for 5 seconds.

Recommended option: From Darkness, Comes Light.

This tier offers upgrades to existing abilities, replacing them with more powerful versions. Causes your Vampiric Touch to proc free Mind Spikes, greatly improving your burst damage.

• From Darkness, Comes Light — Periodic damage from your Vampiric Touch has a 20% chance to cause your next Mind Spike to not consume your damage-over-time effects, become instant cast, cost no mana, and deal 50% additional damage; stores up to 2 charges max.
• Mindbender — Improves your Shadowfiend, increasing its damage output and mana return.
• Solace and Insanity — Improves Mind Flays damage against targets debuffed with Devouring Plague by 33% per Shadow Orb used.

Recommended option: Desperate Prayer.

This tier of talents offers personal defensive options, improving your survivability greatly. We will go with Desperate Prayer as it offers us a way to easily heal ourselves up in emergencies, or even just as mana-free heal between pulls.

• Desperate Prayer — Instantly heals yourself for 30% of your max health.
• Spectral Guise — Temporarily enter stealth, leaving behind a copy of your charater at the location where you vanished. While stealthed, any action taken with end the stealth, or if the copy of your character is directly attacked 3 times.
• Angelic Bulwark — Anytime a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your max health; this can only occur once every 90 seconds.

Recommended option: Twist of Fate.

This tier of talents focuses on further improving your healing and damage capabilities. We will choose a passive bonus here that is often active, although Power Infusion should be swapped to before fighting tough enemies if playing solo, such as elites.

• Twist of Fate — After damaging or healing a target below 35% health, you deal 15% increased damage and healing for 10 seconds.
• Power Infusion — Infuses the Priest with power, increasing spell haste by 20%, all damage by 5%, and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%; lasts 20 seconds.
• Divine Insight — When you cast Penance, there is a 100% chance your next Power Word: Shield will both ignore and not cause the Weakened Soul effect.

Glyphs were changed in a major way during Mists of Pandaria. Primal Glyphs have been removed, whilst minor glyphs have been changed to be entirely cosmentic changes, offering no combat improvements. For this reason, we will only be recommending Major Glyphs, as they still offer in-combat power; you are free to use any Minor Glyphs that you desire with this build!

• Glyph of Vampiric Embrace — Improves your Vampiric Embrace, doubling the amount it heals but reducing its duration by 5 seconds. This is great for fighting elites, and simply healing yourself up after close fights.
• Glyph of Inner Fire — Improves the armor from Inner Fire, offering a consistent damage reduction for the whole leveling process.
• Glyph of Mind Blast — While you likely won't crit much early on while leveling, you really don't have many choices for glyphs. This roots any enemies that your Mind Blast critically strikes.

Your leveling rotation on enemies will be as follows:

1. Vampiric Touch — Apply and maintain this on all targets. This will give you you as many procs of From Darkness, Comes Light as possible.
2. Shadow Word: Pain — Apply and maintain this on all targets;
3. Devouring Plague — Apply to your main kill target if you have 3 Shadow Orbs.
4. Mind Blast — Use on CD. If you already have 3 Shadow Orbs, look to use a spender before using Mind Blast.
5. Mind Spike — Use whenever you have a From Darkness, Comes Light proc.
6. Shadow Word: Death — Use on enemies below 20% health.
7. Mind Flay — Use as a filler.

Use your cooldowns as needed, usually when pulling multiple enemies.