Here, I’m going to show you how to play a Shadow Priest in five minutes or fewer. This means stats, talents, rotation, and enchants that you’re going to need in order to play Shadow confidently for raiding or Mythic Plus.
If you’re someone who’s new to the spec or a returning player just looking for a quick refresher, this guide is perfect for you. After reading this guide, I highly recommend checking out the Wowhead or Icy Veins guides on the spec in order to see the big picture.
Overview
Shadow Priests are a ranged DPS spec, which focuses on a mixture of dealing direct damage and damage over time.
They excel at single target fights and have a ton of utility with things, like Mass Dispel, Vampiric Embrace and, of course, they bring Power Infusion, which is one of the most heavily sought after buffs in the game. So, you’ll have no problems getting invites for groups. Shadow Priest is also a good option if you want to farm a lot of WoW Dragonflight Gold.
The one big downside to playing Shadow is that they’re not very mobile.
Stats
When it comes to your stats as a Shadow Priest, these are just some generic stat weights that you guys can look at for reference.
General Stats:
- Intellect
- Haste
- Mastery
- Critical Strike
- Versatility
However, these are just some generic stat weights for shadow. I would not blindly follow these. In fact, it’s not recommended. You need to actually sim your characters if you want to figure out what is an upgrade for you or not.
So, whenever you get a new piece of gear, head over to Raidbots and sim your character.
Talents
When it comes to your talents, this is the build that I would use for rating and or single target.
The big takeaway here on the Priest side is we’re going to be picking up Power Infusion and then also making sure that we pick up the Twins of the Sun Priestess. That way, when we actually cast Power Infusion on an ally, we get the same benefit, too.
So, always make sure that you’re casting it on another player instead of yourself. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of talent.
Then, on the Shadow side, we’re going to be hugging the right side of the talent tree and picking up Idol of Yogg-Saron and Idol of C’Thun because they’re just both incredibly powerful. And on top of that, make sure that you’re picking up Mind Spike because this is a Mind Spike oriented build.
Then, for Mythic Plus, this is the talent build to use. On the Priest side, nothing changes. The only difference here is that we’re swapping a few talents out in order to make room for Shadow Crash, which is our huge AOE ability that we’re going to use for middle class.
Rotation
Now, let’s actually look at how we play Shadow with the rotation.
First, make sure that you have both Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch active on the target.
Cast Shadowfiend.
Cast Void Eruption on cooldown and make sure that before you cast it, you have used up all of your Mind Blast charges.
Cast Power Infusion on a DPS player.
Use your offensive trinkets and potions.
Cast Void Bolt.
Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague. And this is an important one. Make sure that you’re not capping out on Insanity and you’re always dumping it into Devouring Plague.
You want to cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% HP.
Cast Mind Blast to not cap out on charges.
Cast Void Torrent.
Cast Mind Spike: Insanity.
Cast Mind Flay: Insanity spam mind blast charges unless you have the Mind Devourer Talent active.
Cast Mindgames.
Cast Mind Spike: Insanity.
Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
Cast Halo.
And while in Voidform, make sure to dump all of your Devouring Plague charges.
Cast Mind Spike.
Cast Mind Flay.
If you ever have to move out of something to avoid taking damage, always try to prioritize casting your instant cast spells while you move.
When it comes to AOE as a Shadow Priest, it's actually pretty simple. You're literally just going to be doing your single target rotation. The only difference here is that you're going to be using Shadow Crash to spread your DoTs. And when Shadow Crash is not available, you're just going to be tab targeting to spread the DoTs and then pick a target and just focus it.
Enchants
For consumables and your enchants, here's a list of all of the things that you guys should be using for Shadow Priest.
Enchants:
- Weapon: Sophic Devition (Best Enchant) & Sophic Writ (Cheaper Version)
- Cloak: Graceful Avoidance (Best Enchant) & Graceful Avoidance (Cheaper Version)
- Chest: Waking Stats (Best Enchant) & Waking Stats (Cheaper Version)
- Belt: Shadowed Belt Clasp (Best Enchant) & N/A (Cheaper Version)
- Bracers: Devotion of Avoidance (Best Enchant) & Devotion of Avoidance (Cheaper Version)
- Legs: Frozen Spellthread (Best Enchant) & Vibrant Spellthread (Cheaper Version)
- Boots: Plainsrunner's Breeze (Best Enchant) & Plainsrunner's Breeze (Cheaper Version)
- Ring: Devotion of Haste (Best Enchant) & Devotion of Haste (Cheaper Version)
Comsumables:
- Raiding: Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
- Raiding: Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power (Cheaper)
- Mythic+: Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
- Phial of Tepid Versatility
- Feast: Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak
- Personal Food: Deviously Deviled Eggs
- For their weapons, Shadow Priest will always use Howling Rune.
Gems:
- You'll want to use Fierce Illimited Diamond as your Diamond Gem and Keen Ysemerald in all other sockets.
Always remember to prioritize the higher quality items because those are more powerful.
When it comes to the Potions of Ultimate Power, if you're broke, I would say when it comes to just rating in general, you can use the second tier quality ones. Because they'll be a lot cheaper.
Recent Nerfs
One last thing I want to say is that we just got a nerf to Shadow Priests.
I was looking at the Class Discord. Overall, for a single target, it's only about a 2 to 3% loss in damage. And Mythic +, it's about 3 to 4% loss.
So, overall, it's not that big of a deal. Shadow is still incredibly strong, and it's not going anywhere.
