A priest with problems pre-teen.

[Brista]

At the Crossroads there is an apothecary who gives a quest called Fungal Spores

If you complete this quest (which could possibly be done with no fighting at all) you get a non-combat delivery quest (to Thunder Bluff as it happens)

Reward for that is a nice staff, 10 dps

Once you have a decent weapon pull with spell, whack with staff, heal when under 50%, you can solo almost anything doing that, even elites I've found

Generally speaking, if you split yourself between different areas you won't easily run out of green quests which should be fairly easy

I do agree that Priest isn't as robust as the Druid. It has other strengths and a very entertaining playstyle but it seems to me that the game is designed:

team of specialists > team of hybrids
single specialist < single hybrid

[MongoJerry]

Can Priests use staves? I thought it was not in my skill list when I looked. ONly maces and wands was there I think.

Ah, bingo! We have found the problem. One of the first things I did with my undead priestess after finishing Deathknell was run over to the zepplin, go to Kalimdor, and hoof it all the way to Thunderbluff to get the staff weapon skill from the weapon trainer there. (Make sure you have 10 silver in your pocket). Using a staff makes questing at the early levels *so* much easier, because you can get almost twice the dps out of a staff versus a comparable mace. And as you've realized, you're going to be melee'ing a lot when you're soloing as a priest.

At level 12, you should have both Inner Fire, which improves your armor and attack power significantly, and rank 2 PW:Shield. If you're finding yourself run out of mana in fights, you might want to cut back on your use of Smite once the mob gets in melee range. Save the mana for renews, shields, and SW:Pains.

Regarding Silverpine Forest itself, I found that it has a nice cluster of quests to do in the low teens, a real dearth of quests to do in the mid teens, and a nice cluster of quests to do in the high teens. That is, after doing a bunch of the quests in the north part of the forest, I found that all I had left in my quest log were red and orange quests. So, at that point, I went to the Barrens to level up a few times, and then came back. It's worth coming back, though, because there are some nice caster quest rewards in Silverpine Forest.

[lfd]

go to Kalimdor, and hoof it all the way to Thunderbluff
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...not forgetting to pick up the flight paths in Orgrimmar and the Crossroads. There's also this quest in the crossroads which will save you the long (and potentially slightly perilous if the hyenas stray too close to the road) run to Thunder Bluff.

Disclaimer: I remember doing this quest, but I can't remember if I'd already been to TB. I'm pretty sure it was my first flight, which would indicate that you get the flight path from xr to tb for free.

[Gurnsey]

...not forgetting to pick up the flight paths in Orgrimmar and the Crossroads.&nbsp; There's also this quest in the crossroads which will save you the long (and potentially slightly perilous if the hyenas stray too close to the road) run to Thunder Bluff.

Disclaimer: I remember doing this quest, but I can't remember if I'd already been to TB.&nbsp; I'm pretty sure it was my first flight, which would indicate that you get the flight path from xr to tb for free.
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This series of quests (Intro to Flight Paths, basically)is one of the very few race-specific quests out there.

For the horde:
Tauren get a quest from the Crossroads to TB.
Orcs and Trolls get a quest from the Crossroads to Orgrimar.
Undead get a quest from Sepulcher to Undercity.

The reason it works as your first flight is that all characters start knowing the flight point to their 'home' city.

[savaughn]

Like many people on these boards, I've made one of each of the characters. Having worked a character of each class up through level 30 (and most of them through level 40 or higher) I can say that without question the priest was the hardest to level. The warlock was also difficult to get through some of his early levels until I got the hang of it, but the priest was unquestioningly the worst.

None of the classes are particularly bad until around level 14 or so. You are just so much more powerful than the surroundings that it's easy to quickly whip yourself to that level.

The grind from level 14-20 for my priest was horrific. I've done this with three different priests at this point. The only one that didn't make me want to rip my hair out of my head was the one that I am playing with my wife. We play constantly paired with my priest and her hunter and the hunter does enough DPS for the both of us.

At level 20, things get a bit easier than they were IF AND ONLY IF you have put every point into shadow and now are able to get Mind Flay. Mind Flay allows a priest to have a reasonably damaging low mana cost spell. Things continue to stay slow however. In a given hour, my priest would gain 1/2 to 3/4 the same amount of experience that my other classes would. This continues well through the 30's. At 40, shadow form flips this on its head and you catch up (and even pass many classes). Again - this assumes soloing and is only corrected if you are playing a pure shadow priest who can get access to shadow form. In groups, the story is quite different since your ability to do damage is not the driver for how much XP you're gaining.

A real world example. There's a series of quests in Hillsbrad on the shore of Southshore involving mulocs, muloc heads, and nagas. I had several characters do this series of quests somewhere between level 31 and 33. My priest took an hour and a half to complete the quests. My rogue did it in 25 minutes. My mage did it in 40 minutes. My paladin did it in about 45 minutes but that's inexact (it was actually longer but I stopped and talked for a while inbetween).

During all of this time, my priest had difficulties soloing anything above her level without dropping low enough in mana that she had to drink between each encounter. My hunter or rogue could maintain the same kill speed as my priest while doing killing things substantially higher level. For example, in the same time my priest would kill something at her level, my hunter could take down something +3 or even +4.

End game, shadow priests easily rectify the problem and do a lot of damage. If you group you can take advantage of the fact that you have the best healing in the entire game and that makes up for the subpar damage. Aside from that, you'll just have to accept that low level priests, especially ones that are not going shadow heavy, are going to level very slowly. I can't imagine how slow it has to be if you're trying to solo as a holy priest where the lackluster Smite is your only alternative to Mind Blast.

[MongoJerry]

End game, shadow priests easily rectify the problem and do a lot of damage.&nbsp; If you group you can take advantage of the fact that you have the best healing in the entire game and that makes up for the subpar damage.&nbsp; Aside from that, you'll just have to accept that low level priests, especially ones that are not going shadow heavy, are going to level very slowly.&nbsp; I can't imagine how slow it has to be if you're trying to solo as a holy priest where the lackluster Smite is your only alternative to Mind Blast.

Even when I played pure holy/disc, I never used Holy Smite. The cast time was way too long and the small dps boost above just whacking things with my staff wasn't worth the mana that the spell costs, especially when the Smite gets stuttered and takes even longer to cast. PW:Pain, Mind Blast, and whacking with my staff (and/or shooting with my wand) were and are my primary damage dealing attacks. In between casts of Mind Blast, I cast renews on myself, possibly a psychic scream on the mob if the area is reasonably clear, and maybe a flash heal and/or PW:Shield if it's warrented.

A priest *can* solo in WoW, and if played well, there are lots of mobs that priest can kill that other classes can't kill due to their staying power. (e.g. the field day priests had solo killing the Princess in Mauradan). However, in general, they kill much slower than other classes when soloing. The priest is by nature a social class, though. Their power increases dramatically as they partner up with other players. When you think about playing a priest, you shouldn't think in terms of soloing ability. You should be thinking about how to maximize the power of the group you are in, whether you're with a single partner or in a party of five -- or even 40.

[Jarulf]

A small update on my situation :)

I got a wand, which is great!! I realized why I did not have inner fire and second rank PW:Pain, I had absolutely no money to buy them and they are 8 silver each. I lost some money when I found someone selling a quest item in Undercity. I thought it started a quest, when it probably was FOR a quest. Hence no money. I did head over to Kalimdor though. I will make most low level quests in Durator and then make the journey to Thunder Bluff (via Cross roads and the "see X in Y" on the way. Si right now, I don't really need the staff although I will probably not be more than level 14 when I end up In Thunder Bluff. I have by the way got my missing level 12 skills now since I made some money. So in a few days, I will be bacl on track with quests. I think I will hit SIlverpine a bit before I stay in Barrens for a while though (Mulgore, someone time later when I feel again to do simple quests). A nice thing with Durator is that most quests are still green to me (except starting area) so I get exp and reputation from them.

Thanks for all help!

[Treesh]

Even when I played pure holy/disc, I never used Holy Smite.&nbsp; The cast time was way too long and the small dps boost above just whacking things with my staff wasn't worth the mana that the spell costs, especially when the Smite gets stuttered and takes even longer to cast.&nbsp;
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Aleri still uses holy fire and smite very frequently when soloing. Open with holy fire, cast smite while the critter approaches (and I rarely get hit more than once while casting smite so it really doesn't get stuttered much for me), then mind blast when it's directly on me. Depending on what kind of critter it is and how fast it's approaching Pain gets thrown in before or after the blast. Since I have Holy Specialization maxed, holy fire and smite crit much more frequently than mind blast does so it's actually more mana efficient for me to use those. No, they don't crit all the time, but they really do crit very frequently. Holy fire damage also gets boosted by Curse of the Elements so if you've got a warlock who's using that because you have mages around too, it's quite nice. Unfortunately, it also doesn't work on the fire immune critters, but that's fine. You can't have it both ways. ;)

Aleri does not have Improved Smite nor does she have Divine Fury so she's using the vanilla versions of those spells except for the crit chances. Are they as good as the shadow crap? No, but you can still dish out some DPS when you want to with those. Do I recommend Aleri's build to others? Hell no! But smite, holy fire, and holy nova aren't as worthless as all those level 60 priests would have you believe. Aleri is also on a PvE server which makes a difference too.

And yes I realize that I said I wasn't going to talk about how Aleri plays anymore on the boards. :P