World of Warcraft’s shadow priests have it pretty good. To begin with, they’re the quickest and best solo spec out of all the game’s healing classes. What really sets them apart is their ability to pull together a group. I know, you can level from 1 to 80 without ever setting foot in an instance or grouping up at all, especially if you’re following a priest leveling guide to the letter. That said, I’d suggest checking out some post-60 instances if you really want to see your shadow priest shine.
The area where shadow priests really outshine the other DPS classes and specs is versatility. For example, shadow priests have the easiest time of switching to backup healing since all they need to do is drop out of shadow form – dual spec is purely an extra. If you’re rocking good enough gear, main healing is even an option.
Most other healing classes can’t do this with their main DPS build. The reason for this is that a shadow priest uses very similar gear to a holy or discipline priest, so there is no need for them to carry around a second set of gear for healing. Feral druids, enhancement shamans, and retribution paladins have to focus primarily on melee gear, and bag space is enough of an issue that most do not carry around a set of healing gear. I don’t understand that mindset since you don’t have to stop collecting DPS gear from quests either, you can easily compile a nice set of healing gear from the wow auction house without spending much in the way of coin. I suppose some players just don’t consider it all that important to make full use of their classes abilities.
Another great reason to bring a shadow priest with any group is the utility that they offer. Even in shadow form casting only damaging spells, they are still helping out by healing the group and feeding them mana. Unfortunately for the other DPS classes, priests are the only class that offers that kind of utility without sacrificing any damage in the process. They won’t be the number one class on the damage meter usually, but they allow the other players a much wider margin of error than they would usually have. If you’re ever wondering what class to level and you want to solo well without giving up your group viability, give shadow priest a try.
