The first character I levelled to 100 was my priest. My plan was to do RBGs as shadow. However, shortly into the PvP season I realized that DPS have such low value in group PvP, and that my guild already had a shadow priest who had a lot more history with them than I.
I decided to try healing in PvP. I ran into another problem though, which is that I strongly prefer healing as Holy priest, and that Holy is not good in PvP right now. I tried Discipline, but I have never really played it before, and I also don't really enjoy the playstyle. I promptly decided that priest PvP healing is not how I want to play the game right now.
I wanted to heal in PvP, as I enjoy healing, I am relatively experienced at it, and the demand for healers in group PvP is so much higher than the demand for DPS. However I needed to decide what class I wanted to play. After doing some research on the different playstyles of each healing class, I decided to give Monk a try.
Monk is the newest class that was added to World of Warcraft, and there are a lot of interesting tweaks to this class that show how the developers used past experience with class design to create a fun and interesting class.
One of the most noticeable advantages of playing a monk is that they are in many ways designed to allow for easy, quick levelling. Here's a a few ways that monks excel at the levelling process:
Class Hub
The monk class hub is accessible through the monk's Zen Pilgrimage spell. At the hub there are vendors who sell various gear which can be used to cheaply upgrade your gear when you have some low pieces. There is also a vendor who sells cheap food which gives good food buffs, ensuring you can always have a relevant food buff up. Additionally, every 10 levels monks receive a class quest to be done at the hub, which rewards them with a one hour long 50% experience increase buff. Monks may repeat this quest as a daily to regain the buff. The buff stacks with itself, and will not run out while the player is offline, making it so that if players are only able to log in for a short time during the week they can stack the buff to a duration of several hours, and then use the buff to it's fullest when they have the time to play for longer.
Movement
Monks have several abilities that allow them to move around quickly while questing. Using the multi spec ability Roll, Windwalker specific Flying Dragon Kick, the level 15 talent, and several different glyphs, Monks can minimize travel time while questing, especially before the player acquires a mount. One other great thing about these mobility spells is that they can allow you to quickly evade corpse campers by buying you enough time to mount up.
Versatility
Monk is a very versatile class. They can fill any of the three roles, which means that you can have fast access to dungeon queues when you need it. Monks who choose to level as Windwalker can use the same gear for Brewmaster tanking. Every monk spec has the ability to self heal, and has access to varying amounts of crowd control. Another useful ability to mention is Touch of Death, an instant kill spell when used on most enemies. Touch of Death is extremely useful for killing off higher hp quest mobs, and allowing you to get back on your way.
I'm having a lot of fun levelling my monk. It feels like a class that was designed to make levelling less painful in many ways. I just recently starting using Brewmaster instead of Windwalker for questing, and I feel that is the right way to go. You deal comparable, if not more damage, and you are able to tank more mobs as well. Once I hit 100 I will try my hand at Mistweaver PvP.
