I want to Play a Priest, But...

[Ana]

This will be the most mana efficient if you actually want to be useful (i.e. healing stuff) outside of applying shadow weaving. Open with R1 SWP spam, then keep the debuff up with R1 mind blast on cooldown (SWP would be cheaper but you don't really want to keep the dot up). Can move the point from Inner Focus to 5/5 weaving for super safety.

[PriestInOurTime]

I'd put 5 points into weaving and give up one of the (admittedly all very good) points for it. Don't wanna cast additional Mind Blasts because of 20% miss on application. (I surely wouldn't cast it on CD)

Not sure if Inner Focus is actually the worst point though, would have to math it out. My guess would be IF and Meditation are pretty equal.

[Ana]

I would keep Meditation for convenience's sake. Focus is somewhat situational, and well, if the raid needs a hybrid popping focused huge heals, the situation is probably pretty dire already

[Garfunkel]

I have people telling me no one chooses them for raiding because of the debuff limit. I've been told to go Mage or Warlock instead.

Is this true? If I DPS as a Priest, will I have a bad time?

Even after the 16 debuff slots become a thing, most raids will only bring 1 shadow priest, that's it.

[gotmilk0112]

Yeah, honestly, Shadow Priest is not viable in PvE until TBC. If you want to play Spriest, you're much better off PvPing, as they melt face in PvP.

[Glimwow]

If you WANT to play priest then just play priest. Have fun with it.

This surely depends on what he wants to do on max level. For a ton of players raiding is the endgame and if that is his cup of tea then telling him to follow his heart and play shadow is setting him up for likely misery.

Yeah, I'm just saying though. Spriest was something I always wanted back in vanilla but never did it. Now is the perfect time.

[Jeniwyn]

If you WANT to play priest then just play priest. Have fun with it.

This surely depends on what he wants to do on max level. For a ton of players raiding is the endgame and if that is his cup of tea then telling him to follow his heart and play shadow is setting him up for likely misery.

Yeah, I'm just saying though. Spriest was something I always wanted back in vanilla but never did it. Now is the perfect time.

If is also a perfect time to actually see vanilla endgame content in a proper setting. And that is unlikely to happen as a non-healing priest. Just sayin'.