06-03-2005, 10:48 PM
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.
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.