Wow Priest Guide - I Can't Heal, I'm Shadow

I've leveled a number of characters. Warrior, Priest, Paladin, Mage being the classes I have most experience playing.

One trend I've noticed when asking for healers/tanks for instances is the ever present "I can't Heal/Tank because I'm not specced for it" reply.

Now I realize the ease that spec allows and that it's not really the best idea to get a Feral Druid with 5k Mana to heal a Heroic or something, but in general - for leveling and the normal instances - people rarely will realize their classes potential to fulfill multiple roles. Are they just unaware that they're able to? Or are they lazy? I had a Holy/Prot Paladin in Blood Furnace get a Rogue on him and say "help i'm dying" while we were running back. I informed him he can tank the Rogue for a bit, heal and bubble till we get there. We find him dead and he's saying he can't tank anything cause he's a healer. I remember on my Paladin finding it quite fun to be able to tank mobs the tank hadn't picked up yet, HoJing them and healing, maybe bubbling in the worst circumstances.

Is it just that a lot of people who roll *potential tank/healing classes don't want to be pigeon-holed? Is it the communities stigma of off-specs? I find that it's not too difficult to build swap sets, and even at this level with my Warrior I find instances not particularly challenging for same level healers. Hell, I can put on my Tanking set on my Warrior if I need to and tank just fine, and it was the same for my Paladin. I could DPS, Heal or Tank anything up to heroics with the proper gear.

I yet to respond with "you can heal/tank it fine if you're not retarded, spec doesn't matter much in these instances" but I've come close. >.o

When I was leveling, I would just clarify that I'm not healing specced, but would try. If we were dying because I just couldn't heal it, then I'd say so and bow out. At 70, I just don't volunteer for instances unless I'm the DPS out of convenience.

While leveling, I had a pretty good healing set. Most of the time, I could keep a tank up with a renew and occasional gheal. At 70, it's significantly harder if you don't overgear the instance. I've been gathering a heal set up, however, and usually keep a mh/oh in my bags for times when the healer dies when the boss is at 10%.

All that doesn't really matter, though. Most people are, in fact, too worried about their spec. Fury/arms are actually better for tanking while leveling than prot, IMO. But people will be too afraid to tank. Also, people always go for their DPS set first and ignore tanking upgrades. I saw a slave pens run fall apart because our warrior tank didn't actually own a shield.

Think of hunters. You can have a lot of fun as a hunter, contribute quite a bit to a 5 man, and do some crazy stuff. Or you can autoshot and walk away. Most people prefer to stand there and do one thing than figure out all the ways their class works.

WoW Priest Guide - Leveling a Priest: How To Do It Right

While leveling my Priest to 60, I tried out multiple specs and strategies, and found the best possible way to grind to 60 in regards to both speed of kills, amount of downtime, and exp/h in general. After experimenting a little, I gave my friend a spec to help him level his Troll Priest to 60. After 35 levels, it's going extremely well; he loves it. He had played a Shaman and 2 Mages to 60 and aided leveling a Warlock and Druid to 60, yet still you'll hear from him, "I love Spirit Tap". I tried grinding myself, and it works extremely well. We have zero downtime and are able to easily break 20k/h as low as level 35.

The Gear

You will be Wanding a lot... a lot. It's important to wand to allow your mana to regen. Stock up on Spirit gear. Buy some stuff at the AH for cheap. Get massive Spirit gear! It'll make grinding so easy. Collect all Cloth gear from SFK. Run SM like a bot in your 40s. Don't waste money on Staff of Jordan; you can get Zum'Rah's Hexing Cane (http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=38853) a few levels later by running ZF a few times and it's a better staff. Always get the highest possible DPS wand for your level.
Look up "cloth armor 20-40" at the AH. There are tons of great Spirit items that'll help you a ton if you're willing to spend a few 10g's.
There isn't much +spirit gear that has +damage on it, and Spirit is your primary stat. Avoid 'Shadoweave' gear in your 40s... the +damage isn't worth the Spirit loss. Darkness and Shadowform offer all the +Damage you need.

Remember, Spirit > Damage > Intellect = Stamina, just don't gimp your life too much, especially on a PvP server.

The Talents

10-14: 5/5 Spirit Tap
15-19: 5/5 Wand Spec (I'm serious.)
20-21: 2/2 Imp SW:P
22-24: 3/5 Shadow Focus
25: Mind Flay (This skill SUCKS before lvl36 anyway)
26-27: 5/5 Shadow Focus (HIGHLY recommended over Blackout)
28-29: 2/2 Imp Psychic Scream (Filler)
30-31: 2/2 Shadow Reach
32-34: 3/5 Shadow Weaving (Best available, not a grinding talent)
35-37: 3/3 Focused Mind
38: VE
39: Silence
40: Respec to
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priest/talents.html?000000000000000000000000000000000000000000500252010051103051000
41-45: 5/5 Wand Spec
46-47: 5/5 Shadow Weaving
48-49: Whatever you find yourself needing. If you chose to use VE and want more healing, Improve it. If you use Mind Blast a lot, get Shadow Power. That's probably what I would do, it'll help more as you progress in levels.
50: At this point, I would do another respec. Yeah, respecs may cost a bit of money, but it's what helps grinding, and you'll make the 6g back in Outlands in about 2 minutes.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priest/talents.html?000000000000000000000000000000000000000000500252010251103051251
51-55: Unbreakable Will or Wand Spec, depending on what you want. They both kind of suck equally at the period you're at. I guess Wand Spec would be better overall for grinding.
56-57: 2/2 Martyrdom, this and Imp PW:S will be nice for Mind Flays.
58-60: 3/3 Imp PW:S
61-63: 3/3 Meditation! Congratulations on 60, you now have a third excellent mana talent to further aid you. Try and fit this talent into any build you make, except I suppose Arena Shadow.
64: Inner Focus
65-67: 5/5 Shadow Power
68-70: Whatever you find yourself needing.