Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week Matticus is going to look at the final 5 levels from 75 to 80!

When I finished off Grizzly Hills, I was a few bars into 75. To be fair, I did run a few normal instances to knock out the quests that were within them. In this week's post, I'll give you a quick glance of the last areas and what you can start working on once you reach 80 (such as instances and gearing for raids).

Zones of interest

Zul'Drak – Priests will have a field day in this zone. On one side, you're going up against Scourge forces trying to take over the Troll capital. On the other side, there's renegade Trolls running loose. Your Shackle Undead is going to come in great use here if find yourself getting overrun and overwhelmed.

Sholazar Basin – It seems as though no matter what you do, you just can't get rid of Nessingwary. Get ready for more exotic animals to kill. Note that flightmaster does not become available until after you do a few of the early quests. A plane can't fly until you get the parts for it to become operational again.

At level 77, you'll get access to Cold Weather Flying. In order to continue leveling, you're going to need it for certain areas in Storm Peaks and Icecrown. You won't have to complete an extensive chain in order to learn it anymore. There's a Cold Weather Flying trainer in Krasus' Landing in Dalaran who will gladly teach you this ability for a mere 1000g (depending on your reputation).

Storm Peaks – If you're not into Inscription, be sure to do this zone! The Sons of Hodir are the only faction in Northrend to offer shoulder enchants! If there's a quest chain to do in the entire game, I believe it's the one in this zone. I really loved the storyline and the Norse references and it's a big treat whether you're into the lore side of things or not.

Icecrown – Welcome to Icecrown. The lair of the Lich King is home to monstrosities that players could only dream of. He certainly does have quite the army at his disposal. The Argent Crusade have set up a camp towards the south east part of the zone and that's where most players will be starting from.

Skills

At 75, we get access to a new Shadow spell called Mind Sear. Check out Alex's post for more information on this new baseline ability.

At level 80, we also get Divine Hymn. Haven't tried it out yet extensively. It looks like a lot of fun to use in PvP.

Professions

Start working on your professions now that you're 80. You may have to resort to farming them on your own (dual spec can't come soon enough). The auction house has some ridiculous prices up there right now.

Now what?

Congratulations on reaching level 80! For the PvE players, the next step is to run a few instances and start gearing yourself up for Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum! Here's a few items of interest and where to get them from:

Gloves of the Time Guardian

These gloves would be something for early Priests to look at. All you need to do is run Caverns of Time: Stratholme and complete the quest Chromie gives you (A Royal Escort). If you're lucky, a Soul Preserver might drop which will help ease any mana woes you may have.

Moonshroud Robe

Tailors can create this epic level robe (which are extremely expensive). Run Utgarde Pinnacle and accept the quest (Junk in my Trunk) to get a Bauble-Woven Gown instead if you can't afford it.

Aurora Slippers

Here's another (relatively) cheap blue you can pick up. See if you can sweet talk a tailor to craft this for you and parting with one of their Moonshrouds.

Instances?

To fresh 80s, I strongly suggest staying away from the Occulus and from Halls of Lightning for a while until you start accumulating better items. Both of those instances are no joke and aren't the most forgiving. Replace any final green pieces you have from quest rewards or crafted items and you should be in decent shape. I found heroic Gundrak to be challenging as well (that snake boss and his wraps are intensely annoying). The last boss in Old Kingdom (Ahn'kahet) is going to put many healers to the test.

Try your hand at heroic Nexus or Utgarde Keep first and gauge your ability in there.

Quick tip for Ahn'kahet

On the last boss, just before he triggers his Insanity spell, have your group stack on each other. When they become hostile, blow a Psychic Scream and run in the opposite direction. Keep your Shield and Renew up on yourself. The idea here is to not DPS the mobs on your own. It's going to punish your mana too severely. Stay alive as much as you can and kite them around the entire room. Buy the rest of your party enough time for them to kill their ads and get to yours. Conserve your mana and keep fearing when the ads get close to you.

You're going to get frustrated. You're not as geared as you'd like to be and both normal difficulty and heroic difficulty instances are going to continue to be trouble for you. My advice is to stick with it. I spent 3 hours wiping on Heroic Halls of Lightning after dinging level 80 just hours earlier. It can be done. Bring pots, use consumables, and pay attention to everything. It's harder because you're not familiar with boss abilities. Once you get the hang of that, it's one less issue to worry about. So stay with it!

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Want to find more great tips for carrying out your Priestly duties? Spiritual Guidance has you covered with all there is to know! And don't forget to check out our other Leveling Guides as well as our Wrath Guides and Galleries!

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