Post by septor
In my view (although I leveled from 0-70 as holy) you should be shadow for most of the initial leveling. Abilities like silence, spirit tap, shadow weaving, and Mind Flay are much more powerful than anything you'll get from the first 30 points in the disc. tree.
I recommend :
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bZZxMgzMtohas a path for ya...if a more exp. shadow priest wants to add input, even better.
going shadow, all you have to do is dot, fear, mind blast, mind flay. repeat.
I think Discipline won't put out more effective damage and speed until you hit the mid 40s and can attain a spec like:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bI0GzhxxMuAnd that still lacks 5 points of holy crit in the holy tree, which is quite important for holy damage.
Also, once you get vampiric embrace, you can start providing a benefit to any instance groups you're with, whereas a discipline priest provides no raid benefit even at level 70 (P.I. doesn't really count)
Good luck!
I realize I won't have great damage output. I don't intended to go deep into discipline at 70 since it's not a really beneficial tree for groups. I realize if I want to be effective I will have to drop points in holy.
I was merely looking for people who
have leveled from 1-50ish as disicpline to tell me if they would do it all over again, if it was a rough road (finding groups and whatnot), or if I should just not worry about it and go shadow.
I do thank you for your contribution to the shadow aspect, I will, if needed, take your ideas into consideration.
If you're going to be mainly soloing you should definately be a shadow spec. I went pure disc all the way up to level 51 and the good thing about it was that I was able to easily hop back and forth between soloing and instances (I was pretty effective at both).
That doesn't make any sense..
I said I wanted to solo and instance and you told me I should go shadow but, you leveled as disc and it was pretty effective?
Post by septor
Seems to me popular opinion is leveling shadow is easier. I've decided to level as shadow until about 50 with this build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bZZE0Mt0tRbtxoAfter which I switch to a variation of a build posted above:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVMhkGxtrzvoZE00t0bAny suggestions, comments, or advice on these builds would be great.
Thank you to everyone who has commented thus far, it has been helpful.