Well she is 72 now, but I thought I should post her progress 
I am a fail priest! I do not really get the Shadow priest play style. My husband is devastated i am finding it so hard given he plays one very well.
He has been trying to teach me, and I am picking it up slowly. It is hard to tell how well i am actually doing because my gear is so bad. I handed in some quests last night and the ilevel was bout 100 points different. I did see a boost in DPS with just 3 pieces replaced.
Since we haven’t played our horde toons in a while I had to find another toon to level and that ended up being my priest. I would like to get my shammy finished since she is soooo close to 85!
Anyway I am having fun and that is the main thing. I wonder how many toons I can get to 85 by the time MoP comes out. The way I am going I will have my priest, shammy and hunter done. Then to consider the elusive lock, rogue and DK…not really sure I can level any of them to 85…heheh
I started as shadow in vanilla and BC but since changing to Disc, I haven’t really played the spec consistently since then. It’s more of a “I feel like dps’ing” or we only need 2-heals for this raid so it’s my turn to go shadow.
Gear definitely helps but I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it eventually
Yeah I really am only trying to level her do I can level my inscription
I am not like ever going to actually need her for anything else, but it is fun to try out
I am far too in love with my Mage and Druid to want to change from either of them for real
I can’t get my head around shadow either, Dasal levelled Holy since the start. Tried the other specs a couple of times but just too stuck in the habit of holy now.
I did start as holy, but 5 mans were just too painful at lower levels. I am glad I am not alone in the Shadow issue. It makes me feel better…but they do say that everyone has a class they feel most comfortable with
I do have a new found respect for Shadow priest players now !
So you SHOULD … mages are wannabe shadow priests
I thought that was warlocks :p LOL
no warlocks are wannabe mages who wannabe shadow priests
Shadow’s quite hard until about level 80. They have the warlock weakness in that nothing lives long enough to be worth dot’ing up until that point, and they get no AoE at all until 74. Their main nuke is a relatively long cast with a hefty cooldown, and their spammable trash-nuke, Mind Spike, only shows up at 85. That leaves them mostly channelling Mind Flay and praying for mobs to last long enough for their Mind Blasts to go off at all.
Yes, I would also love to know who thought this would be a good way to arrange abilities. Probably the same troll who put together bear tank levelling.
Don’t be discouraged, though. At present, spriests are a relatively simple but very powerful endgame raiding/dungeon spec. If you know the concept of a ‘carry’ from DotA-likes, that’s exactly what you’re looking at here.
The thing is I really do think it would be fun to play at end game, as you say they are very hard to play when everything dies so quickly.
I get maybe 3 GCD before death and it is such a waste. On boss fights my DPS rockets over the 1k mark, but trash – I am lucky to get above 600 consistently…and I know DPS isn’t everything…but you know what 5mans and PUGS are like….
heeheh