I've recently hit 80 with my Priest, and am interested in what the best approach is to gearing up. My hope, eventually, is to primarily be a disc priest. For the time being, I have a dual shadow/disc spec: if I get sufficiently geared, I may switch the Shadow spec to a holy build instead.

Currently, my gear is very poor. I didn't finish up much in the way of questlines, so I don't have much in the way of high level quest blues, still wearing heirloom items, etc. (My Gear Score is 2400 according to the GearScore addon, which says something.)

I don't have a lot of experience with healing -- I mostly leveled by healing instances from 40-68, but haven't healed since I hit 68, for the most part. Healing is what my end-game goal is.

I've played as shadow primarily for leveling, and on a Boss target dummy, self-buffed, I can do about 1500 DPS for a total of 140k damage before I run out of mana (including Shadowfiend, but not including dispersion).

My priest is an alt, so I only have a small amount of gold I'm willing to really spend on this; I'm trying not to spend much over 500 gold total on the priest. I am willing to spend the 83 Conquest emblems I have on my main for items which make sense.

I've been told that I should go ahead and attack ToC normal (presumably as DPS rather than a healer, to start) to pick up gear. Though I know that ToC normal is a great instance to go to for gear, I'm afraid of what would happen if I ended up in a group of people who are not-so-geared; 1500 DPS is definitely too low for something like Naxx, and Normal ToC is said to be similar to Naxx level difficulty.

Most of the expensive BoE items -- Ulduar, ToC -- are far out of my reach; both crafted and dropped, they tend to go above 1000 gold. There don't appear to be any Naxx BoE drops on the Auction House for me to pick up on my server, unfortunately.

I have a bunch of Frostweave, and would be willing to shell out some dough to get it imbued (4g per infinite dust, so 8g per imbued bolt), if there is frostweave-based tailoring stuff I should pick up.

Am I geared enough for Normal ToC? If a shadow priest in your group is doing 1200-1500 DPS, are you still going to clear the run, or do you boot them after the first boss? Are there items I can pick up for relatively cheap that help me get started?

Are there other heroics that are useful for me to run -- high end purples from the last boss drop -- that I should take into account? Is healing UK or Nexus a good way to start? (Feels like ToC, even on normal, would be a ... somewhat harsh start.)

How should I go about gearing my Priest, learning to heal, and getting into raids eventually?

Thanks to all the advice here, I was able to move into TOC, ICC, and last night, after ~4 nights of attempts, I downed the Lich King with our guild group. Thanks for all the help in making me a Kingslayer :)

I've recently hit 80 with my Priest, and am interested in what the best approach is to gearing up. My hope, eventually, is to primarily be a disc priest. For the time being, I have a dual shadow/disc spec: if I get sufficiently geared, I may switch the Shadow spec to a holy build instead.

Currently, my gear is very poor. I didn't finish up much in the way of questlines, so I don't have much in the way of high level quest blues, still wearing heirloom items, etc. (My Gear Score is 2400 according to the GearScore addon, which says something.)

I don't have a lot of experience with healing -- I mostly leveled by healing instances from 40-68, but haven't healed since I hit 68, for the most part. Healing is what my end-game goal is.

I've played as shadow primarily for leveling, and on a Boss target dummy, self-buffed, I can do about 1500 DPS for a total of 140k damage before I run out of mana (including Shadowfiend, but not including dispersion).

My priest is an alt, so I only have a small amount of gold I'm willing to really spend on this; I'm trying not to spend much over 500 gold total on the priest. I am willing to spend the 83 Conquest emblems I have on my main for items which make sense.

I've been told that I should go ahead and attack ToC normal (presumably as DPS rather than a healer, to start) to pick up gear. Though I know that ToC normal is a great instance to go to for gear, I'm afraid of what would happen if I ended up in a group of people who are not-so-geared; 1500 DPS is definitely too low for something like Naxx, and Normal ToC is said to be similar to Naxx level difficulty.

Most of the expensive BoE items -- Ulduar, ToC -- are far out of my reach; both crafted and dropped, they tend to go above 1000 gold. There don't appear to be any Naxx BoE drops on the Auction House for me to pick up on my server, unfortunately.

I have a bunch of Frostweave, and would be willing to shell out some dough to get it imbued (4g per infinite dust, so 8g per imbued bolt), if there is frostweave-based tailoring stuff I should pick up.

Am I geared enough for Normal ToC? If a shadow priest in your group is doing 1200-1500 DPS, are you still going to clear the run, or do you boot them after the first boss? Are there items I can pick up for relatively cheap that help me get started?

Are there other heroics that are useful for me to run -- high end purples from the last boss drop -- that I should take into account? Is healing UK or Nexus a good way to start? (Feels like ToC, even on normal, would be a ... somewhat harsh start.)

How should I go about gearing my Priest, learning to heal, and getting into raids eventually?

I've recently hit 80 with my Priest, and am interested in what the best approach is to gearing up.

Currently, my gear is very poor. I didn't finish up much in the way of questlines, so I don't have much in the way of high level quest blues, still wearing heirloom items, etc. (My Gear Score is 2400 according to the GearScore addon, which says something.)

I don't have a lot of experience with healing -- I mostly leveled by healing instances from 40-68, but haven't healed since I hit 68, for the most part. Healing is what my end-game goal is.

I've played as shadow primarily for leveling, and on a Boss target dummy, self-buffed, I can do about 1500 DPS for a total of 140k damage before I run out of mana (including Shadowfiend, but not including dispersion).

My priest is an alt, so I only have a small amount of gold I'm willing to really spend on this; I'm trying not to spend much over 500 gold total on the priest. I am willing to spend the 83 Conquest emblems I have on my main for items which make sense.

I've been told that I should go ahead and attack ToC normal (presumably as DPS rather than a healer, to start) to pick up gear. Though I know that ToC normal is a great instance to go to for gear, I'm afraid of what would happen if I ended up in a group of people who are not-so-geared; 1500 DPS is definitely too low for something like Naxx, and Normal ToC is said to be similar to Naxx level difficulty.

Most of the expensive BoE items -- Ulduar, ToC -- are far out of my reach; both crafted and dropped, they tend to go above 1000 gold. There don't appear to be any Naxx BoE drops on the Auction House for me to pick up on my server, unfortunately.

I have a bunch of Frostweave, and would be willing to shell out some dough to get it imbued (4g per infinite dust, so 8g per imbued bolt), if there is frostweave-based tailoring stuff I should pick up.

Am I geared enough for Normal ToC? If a shadow priest in your group is doing 1200-1500 DPS, are you still going to clear the run, or do you boot them after the first boss? Are there items I can pick up for relatively cheap that help me get started?

Are there other heroics that are useful for me to run -- high end purples from the last boss drop -- that I should take into account? Is healing UK or Nexus a good way to start? (Feels like ToC, even on normal, would be a ... somewhat harsh start.)

How should I go about gearing my Priest, learning to heal, and getting into raids eventually?

I've recently hit 80 with my Priest, and am interested in what the best approach is to gearing up.

Currently, my gear is very poor. I didn't finish up much in the way of questlines, so I don't have much in the way of high level quest blues, still wearing heirloom items, etc. (My Gear Score is 2400 according to the GearScore addon, which says something.)

I don't have a lot of experience with healing -- I mostly leveled by healing instances from 40-68, but haven't healed since I hit 68, for the most part. Healing is what my end-game goal is.

I've played as shadow primarily for leveling, and on a Boss target dummy, self-buffed, I can do about 1500 DPS for a total of 140k damage before I run out of mana (including Shadowfiend, but not including dispersion).

My priest is an alt, so I only have a small amount of gold I'm willing to really spend on this; I'm trying not to spend much over 500 gold total on the priest. I am willing to spend the 83 Conquest emblems I have on my main for items which make sense.

I've been told that I should go ahead and attack ToC normal (presumably as DPS rather than a healer, to start) to pick up gear. Though I know that ToC normal is a great instance to go to for gear, I'm afraid of what would happen if I ended up in a group of people who are not-so-geared; 1500 DPS is definitely too low for something like Naxx, and Normal ToC is said to be similar to Naxx level difficulty.

Most of the expensive BoE items -- Ulduar, ToC -- are far out of my reach; both crafted and dropped, they tend to go above 1000 gold. There don't appear to be any Naxx BoE drops on the Auction House for me to pick up on my server, unfortunately.

I have a bunch of Frostweave, and would be willing to shell out some dough to get it imbued (4g per infinite dust, so 8g per imbued bolt), if there is frostweave-based tailoring stuff I should pick up.

Am I geared enough for Normal ToC? If a shadow priest in your group is doing 1200-1500 DPS, are you still going to clear the run, or do you boot them after the first boss? Are there items I can pick up for relatively cheap that help me get started?

Are there other heroics that are useful for me to run -- high end purples from the last boss drop -- that I should take into account? Is healing UK or Nexus a good way to start? (Feels like ToC, even on normal, would be a ... somewhat harsh start.)

How should I go about gearing my Priest, learning to heal, and getting into raids eventually?