Shadow
From xenowiki
Contents |
Roles in a Raid
As a Shadow Priest, your primary function in a raid is to provide mana and health to the members of your group. Your secondary function is to do as much damage to the trash mobs and bosses as you can while staying alive. Because mana and healing concerns are the overriding considerations of raid leaders, expect to be placed in a group where Vampiric Touch and Vampiric Embrace will provide the most benefit to the raid as a whole. This means you will normally be placed in a group with healers or casters.
Do not expect to be grouped in a way that buffs your own damage, unless that will benefit the raid as well. You will likely not be placed in a group with a Balance Druid or an Elemental Shaman. When you are, quietly count your blessings. When you are not, accept that you are a "Mana Battery" and a prized member of the raid.
Choosing a Talent Spec
Discipline Talents
Most raiding Shadow Priests have 14 talents in the Discipline Tree. The important talents in this tree are 3/3 Meditation and 1/1 Inner Focus. To get to these two talents, you will probably want 5/5 Unbreakable Will (resist stun/fear and silence more often), 2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude (you WILL be asked to buff and tanks DO notice the difference), and 3/3 Improved Power Word: Shield (your +spell damage increases the amount your shield absorbs, so the talented shield is actually quite nice). 2/2 Martyrdom can be nice for solo play or for PvP, but for raiding, you shouldn't be getting hit that often.
Shadow Talents
There are a few "must haves" in the Shadow Tree. And since you will be spending approximately 47 points here, I'll break them into tiers.
Tier One
Spirit Tap or Blackout. Either of these options works well to get you to the next tier. Spirit Tap is awesome for farming/grinding because you have much less downtime, but during a raid it is rare that you will get the killing blow. Blackout is nice for keeping a horde or non-immune mob still for a second, but many mobs in instances are immune to the stun.
Tier Two
Shadow Affinity, Improved Shadow Word: Pain, and Shadow Focus are all excellent talents. You need 3/3 Shadow Affinity to help you manage your threat. 2/2 Improved Shadow Word: Pain gives you extra ticks of your SW:P meaning more damage per mana, and until you have +hit gear to offset it, 5/5 Shadow Focus makes you resist less. See the section on +hit to know when you can pull points from this talent.
Tier Three
The third tier has one of the staples of Shadow Priests--Mindflay. In addition, you will likely want to invest some points in Improved Mindblast, but the exact number is debatable. 4/5 gives you time for 2 Mindflays between each Mindblast. 5/5 does not fit as neatly into a spell rotation, but I have found that much of your time is spent reapplying dots as they fall off, so a "set" rotation is hard to maintain anyway. I currently do not have any points in Improved Psychic Scream, but if you want to be able to Silence in PvP, you will need 2/2.
Tier Four
Shadow Reach and Shadow Weaving are the important talents of this tier. You will need 2/2 Shadow Reach to increase your Mindflay range from 20 yards to 24 yards. Mindflay will still cause you be much nearer to the mob than other casters, but without Shadow Reach you might as well melee. Generally 4/5 Shadow Weaving will be sufficient to see that you quickly stack and maintain the debuff on your target, increasing the shadow damage done by the raid by 2%. This is the main source of warlock love, so make your demon-hugging friends happy.
Tiers Five and Six
Vampiric Embrace. Although this spell is situational in raids, you will use it almost all the time. There are debates about whether or not to improve it, but I would suggest at least one point in Improved Vampiric Embrace if you have the points to spare. Healing your group for up to 25% of your shadow damage makes you incredibly helpful for AoE encounters or other fights where many raid members take damage for various reasons. The other important talent of this tier 3/3 Focused Mind decreases your mana usage for Mindflay and Mindblast by 15%. 5/5 Darkness increases your shadow spell damage by 10%.
Tiers Seven and Eight
Shadow Form--enough said. Also you will want 5/5 Shadow Power which increases the crit chance of your two crittable spells by 15%. Big Mindblast and Shadow Word: Death numbers will make you smile, trust me. If you do not get 5/5 Misery every spell caster in the raid will shun you. I'm not making this up. Misery causes the target to take an additional 5% spell damage from every member of your raid. Druid, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Shaman...anyone who causes spell damage benefits from this spell. It is NOT optional.
41 Point Talent
Vampiric Touch is the reason you are allowed to melt faces. Without it, your raid leader might allow you to raid, but they'd secretly be wishing you'd come to your senses and get Circle of Healing already. You are not really a Shadow Priest without this talent. You are just a delusional priest with a fetish for purple auras.
Gear Considerations
Stats
- Shadow Damage
Because two of a Shadow Priest's main functions are to convert a percentage of their damage into health and mana for their group, it is essential that a Shadow Priest be able to hit hard and often. Luckily, increasing the amount of +Damage you have will also increase your longevity in a fight. Therefore, +Damage is arguably the most important stat to look for in gear.
| Spell Damage | Longevity | Time Increase |
| 0 | 2.75 | |
| 250 | 3.24 | 0.49 |
| 500 | 3.95 | 0.71 |
| 750 | 5.03 | 1.08 |
| 1000 | 6.95 | 1.92 |
| 1250 | 11.24 | 4.29 |
| 1500 | 29.29 | 18.05 |
| 1600 | 81.87 | 63.82 |
Table taken from Glorbelle's Shadow Priesting Guide.
As I am not a mathematician, I cannot vouch for these numbers myself; they are based on Theory, so take them with a grain of salt. However, they do illustrate that an increase in +Spell Damage will increase the amount of health and mana you give back to your group, including yourself. The more mana you return with VT, the longer you can last in an encounter. The mana returned with VT is not "free" mana for you, but more along the lines of a Buy One Get One 1/2 Off sale. But a BOGO sale is better than nothing.
- Spell Hit
Spell Hit and Spell Damage are equally important. Having 1500 spell damage but only hitting a boss every other cast is extremely ineffective. The Shadow tree helps us to max out on +hit with a much lower number than most other classes.
| 76 hit | 5/5 Shadow Focus |
| 101 hit | 4/5 Shadow Focus |
| 126 hit | 3/5 Shadow Focus |
| 152 hit | 2/5 Shadow Focus |
| 177 hit | 1/5 Shadow Focus |
| 202 hit | 0/5 Shadow Focus |
- Spell Crit
Spell Crit only affects two of our spells: Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death. And it only crits for 150% damage. It is not really something to look for in gear.
- Intellect
Your mana pool does not need to be huge, as you will be regaining mana from VT, so Int is not necessarily a stat to focus on. Int does translate to spell crit, but again, spell crit is not that wonderful for Shadow Priests.
- Spirit
Spirit helps with both mana regen (Meditation increases while casting regeneration by 30%) and increased damage if buffed with Improved Divine Spirit. 9 spirit roughly translates to one spell damage.
Mana per 5 Mp5 is not something to focus on, but it is useful in some fights. It never hurts to have some, and possibly even a trinket you switch out for certain encounters where you go OOM often, but don't search for it.
Enchants
As much of your gear as possible should be enchanted for optimum performance. Below are suggested enchants by slot. The shoulder and head enchants require reputation with factions within Shattrath. The leg enchant can be made by a Scryer tailor. All other enchants can be obtained from guild enchanters.
- Head = <item not found>Glyph of Power</item not found> (The Sha'tar-Revered)
- Shoulder = [Greater Inscription of the Orb] (The Scryers-Exalted) [Greater Inscription of Discipline] (The Aldor-Exalted)
- Leg = [Runic Spellthread] or [Mystic Spellthread]
- Chest = Restore Mana Prime(6 mp5), Exceptional Stats (+6 all stats), or Major Spirit (+15)
- Cloak = Subtlety (2% threat reduction)
- Gloves = Major Spellpower (+20)
- Wrist = Spellpower (+15)
- Feet = Vitality (4 mp5/hp5) or Fortitude (+12 stam)
- Weapon = Soulfrost (+54 Shadow and Frost)
Gems
For most gem slots, [Runed Living Ruby] is hard to beat. Often placing +9 spell damage in all sockets is still better than the socket bonus you'd receive with other gems.
There is not a great craftable Meta Gem for Shadow Priests, so look at either the +12 spell damage meta gem purchased with spirit shards or one of the other caster meta gems. None are stellar for us, because spell crit is not a stat we focus on.
All Blue quality craftable gems are listed on the Jewelcrafters page.
Spell Rotations
Due to the cooldown of various Shadow Priest spells, it is difficult to maintain a set "Spell Rotation" throughout the duration of a boss encounter. However, there are certain spells that have higher priority than others for different fights.
General Opening Spell Sequence:
VT + VE + SW:P + SW:D + MB + MF
I recommend casting the spells in this order for a variety of reasons. Beginning with VT + VE + SW:P on a boss allows the tank a moment to gain aggro. VT is the longer cast of the three, so I begin with it to make sure that the tank has actually hit the target before my spells land or tick. In a raid situation (at least on a boss) the tank should have sufficient threat at this point to bring out the harder hitting spells. It does not matter what order you choose to cast SW:D or MB, but casting SW:D prior to MB helps you heal a bit of the damage caused by the SW:D kickback. If you are concerned about the threat generation of the tank on the target, using Mindflay prior to the other two might be advisable, but it is situational.
Spells in Approximate Order of Priority:
- Vampiric Touch
VT is a damage over time spell that causes the target to take periodic shadow damage (~685 over 15 sec). It also causes members of your group to gain mana equal to 5% of the shadow damage you deal while the dot is on the target.
As a "Mana Battery" this is your bread and butter. Your group members will receive "free" mana for every shadow spell that you cast on an affected target. In boss encounters, this spell should be up at all times, provided you will not be pulling aggro from the tank.
- Vampiric Embrace
VE is a non-damage spell that causes all party members to be healed for 15% of your shadow damage (Improved Vampiric Embrace increases this amount by an additional 10%). The constant small heals that your party members receive can be invaluable in some encounters, however it also creates additional healing threat for you that you must learn to manage. Depending on the strength of other raid healers, the type of encounter, and the amount of threat generated by the tank, this spell may not be needed for every fight. But as a general rule, keep it up, you never know when your small heals may ease another healer's burden.
- Shadow Word: Pain
SW:P is a true DoT. It's only purpose is to cause shadow damage over a period of time. In most fights it should be up at all times. In fights where a boss drops aggro, you should strive to time it so that your SW:P does not cause the boss to focus on you. Over an entire boss encounter, SW:P will do a considerable amount of damage.
- Mind Blast
Mind Blast should be used whenever it is available. It is one of the two (2) spells in a Shadow Priest's arsenal that can crit. And the only one that doesn't also damage you.
- Shadow Word: Death
SW:D is the second spell that can crit. However, unless you kill the target with the spell, you will take "kickback" damage. SW:D is useful in most fights, and should be used as often as you feel comfortable using it. However, you might avoid it in encounters where you take unexpected damage, your spell damage is increased by a fight-specific buff, or you are already at low health. SW:D is an instant spell and can be tacked on at the end of longer casts. If you wish to minimize the amount of healing that you require, you might consider casting it prior to Mind Blast, so that the VE heal from Mind Blast will help heal you up.
- Mind Flay
Mind Flay is a channeled spell that requires you to be within 20 yards of your target (24 yards with Shadow Reach), placing you much closer to your target than many other casters. It is invaluable in some encounters for it's slowing ability. In most fights it will be used as the filler between spells that have cooldowns.
Recommended Mods
Dot Timer - Any mod that keeps track of cooldowns and tracks the debuffs on your target is helpful for maximizing your dps and effectiveness.
Gear Organizer - A mod to make switching between Damage and Healing sets of gear easy.
