Updated for Warlords of Draenor
The Darkness calls and you have answered.
Warlords of Draenor made a few changes to Shadow Priests. For one, Priests lost some abilities: Hymn of Hope, The old “Heal” has been removed, but Greater Heal has been renamed to Heal, Inner Fire, Inner Focus, Inner Will, Psyfiend, Rapture, Strength of Soul, Train of Thought, Void Shift.
Also gone are Hit, Expertise, Resilience, PvP Power, and any abilities affecting those stats.
Oh yeah, you have a new Mastery: Mastery: Mental Anguish, which increases the damage of Mind Blast, Mind Spike, Mind Flay, and Mind Sear by 20%.
For all the rest of the Priest changes see our Priests in WoD post.
Shadow Priest Contents
This Shadow Priest guide is primarily intended for use at level 100, in PvE environments and Raids. However, the principals will still apply during the leveling process, so if you’re looking for advice on leveling your Priest, check out our Priest Leveling Guide.
Other Priest Guides:
If you want the same in-game step by step leveling guide that we use to get to level 100 as fast as possible, take a look at our favorite in-game leveling guide.
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Shadow Priest DPS Talents
With the blackness of your soul one might think that your talent picks would be wildly different from other priests. Well, not so much, except where you actually, as Shadow, have access to different talents.
Depending on the fight and your style you might want to switch talents up, or at least experiment. On example being whether you prefer cooldowns or random procs. Talents can be changed at almost any time, you just need to click the new one, follow the prompts, and spend a tome. Keep a stack of them handy.
Our picks, for general raid use, are checked: 
Tier 1, Level 15
- Desperate Prayer is an instant self-heal for a decent amount of health. This is the best choice for most situations, even with the two minute cooldown. It’s instant and requires no mana.
- Specral Guise is more of a PvP thing.
- Angelic Bulwark shields us when we drop to low health, an alternative method of survivability to Desperate Prayer. It’s a passive effect, so is one less button to think about. If you’re constantly being slammed then this might be the best pick.
Tier 2, Level 30
- Body and Soul adds a nice speed boost to our Power Word: Shield. Especially nice if you need to get out of the hot stuff ASAP. If you’re casting it on others be aware of the Weakened Soul debuff.
- Angelic Feather is ideal for providing on demand speed boosts to one player at a time. Very flexible. Not as expensive to cast as Power Word: Shield (under Body and Soul.) Nice as a traveling talent.
- Phantasm is more for PvP heroes (it’s a PvP trinket) than us Dragon Slayers.
Tier 3, Level 45
No clear winner here, grab whichever works best for you. If your Mana is good then grab Surge or Solace, depending on your needs.
- Surge of Darkness – A chance for instant and empowered Mind Spikes. Very nice if you’re able to land your Vampiric Touch on a number of targets.
- Mindbender boosts Shadowfiend, increasing our mana regeneration, which isn’t bad at all, in addition to being a decent burst cooldown. This is the pick on the assumption that you need the mana.
- Insanity – If you have time to channel then this is a pretty good pick. If you’re moving a lot or otherwise don’t have that time then it’s far less useful. It does nice damage if you can do it.
Tier 4, Level 60
Doesn’t matter much which one you grab. All three of these are situationally useful at best and unlikely to add much to a fight.
- Void Tendrils is a point blank AoE root. They’re stuck, but can still act. Nice if you find yourself as the center of attention. Cast the tendrils, then move away. You can also target the tendrils with various spells.
- Psychic Scream – More of a PvP telent. It’s best use in PvE is to piss off the tank.
- Dominate Mind is exactly what it sounds like. Note that dominated targets will attack you when the domination wears off.
Tier 5, Level 75
All of these will add to your overall effectiveness, but Power Infusion gives you a burst when you need it.
- Twist of Fate is for those situations where you will have enough targets at low health to make it worthwhile.
- Power Infusion is a haste boost that also reduces the cost of our spells for the duration. This is the best option for most fights due to the control you have in deciding when to trigger the buff.
- Shadowy Insight – Nice when you have to fight tough targets, giving your SW: Pain enough time to work and proc those Mind Blasts.
Tier 6, Level 90
Cascade is better for larger groups, Halo for smaller groups, and Divine Star should be skipped.
- Cascade operates best when the opposition is moving about a lot, in and out of Halo’s area of effect. This is probalby more useful for PvP.
- Divine Star is a cheap damage with a short cooldown. It’s more precise in its targeting then the others, which can be handy if you need to be precise.
- Halo is the highest damage choice, just make sure you aren’t going to tag those adds “over there.”
Tier 7, Level 100
Which is best? Kind of hard to say at this point.
- Clarity of Power: Your Mind Spike, Mind Sear, and Shadow Word: Death deal 40% additional damage to targets not affected by your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch. Also reduces the cooldown on Mind Blast by 3 sec and makes it instant cast. This will, depending on the encounter, change your style to prefer Spikes and Sears.
- Void Entropy: Consumes up to three Shadow Orbs to do damage over 60 seconds. Could be interesting in all longer fights. Not so hot for short fights (lasts too long,) but nice for bosses and tough adds. You might be able to keep it up on three targets, depending on procs. Two will be easy enough.
- Auspicious Spirits: Your Shadowy Apparitions grant 1 Shadow Orb instead of doing damage. This will allow many more uses of Devouring Plague.
Shadow Glyphs
One of the interesting glyphs changes is that all classes will learn some of the glyphs as they level. Even if you “poof to 90? you will get these glyphs free, along will all the other abilities that you will learn. You still have to manually install the glyphs, but you won’t have to buy them.
All the other glyphs from still be picked up from the auction house or your friendly, neighborhood Scribe.
- At level 25, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by all Priests: Glyphs of Levitate, Holy Fire, Fade
At level 50 you get: Reflective Shield, Smite, Mind Blast
At level 75: Penance, Renew, Dispersion
There are a number of glyphs that can be used by your Shadow Priest, but only a few are actually worth using. Note than none of them apply a damage increase. Make sure you note which glyphs are exclusive with each other (you cannot use them with each other.)
“Auto” glyphs are automatically learned (see above.)
- Glyph of Reflective Shield – 70% of the damage absorbed by your PW: Shield is reflected back to the attacker, and causes no threat.
- Glyph of Mind Flay – Since you will be casting Mind Flay all the time you might as well take this a get a nice little speed boost with the cast. More time in range means higher DPS numbers.
- Glyph of Vampiric Embrace – More healing (to you) and lower duration.
- Glyph of Fade (auto) – take 10% less damage while faded.
- Glyph of Weakened Soul – Get to use PW: Shield that much more often.
- Glyph of Dispersion (auto) – 15 second faster cooldown on your dispersion.
- Glyph of Delayed Coalescence – Slightly longer lasting dispersion might have the occasional use.
- Glyph of Free Action – move faster while dispersed.
- Glyph of Holy Fire (auto) – longer range on Holy Fire, Smite, PW: Solace.
- Glyph of Levitate (auto) – Faster movement while levitating.
- Glyph of Psychic Scream – makes Psychic Scream useful in PvE content.
Minor Glyphs are all cosmetic, they have no utility or DPS value. Pick any three to change the look of your abilities.
- Glyph of Angels – your heals grant you wings. Not that you actually use heals. 😉
- Glyph of the Heavens – Ride on a cloud.
Shadow Stat Priorities
Warlords: Hit, Expertise, PvP Power, and Resilience are dead. So is Reforging. You have two new stats in WoD: Multistrike and Versatility. Your attuned stat is (at level 90) Mastermind – 5% more Haste from all sources.
- Priority: Int > Spellpower > Crit > Haste > Multistrike > Versatility > Mastery
- If you’re using the Clarity of Power talent on single targets, then Mastery moves up to right after Spellpower. In all other cases it’s last.
Spellpower will appear on a few items, such as your weapons. It’s a direct add to damage, so it’s great when you can get it.
Crit doubles the damage of your strikes and gives you more Shadowy Apparitions as your SW: Pain crits. If you’re not casting SW: Pain, for whatever reason, then crit is less important.
Haste speeds up everything you do. Blizzard considers it to be that stat that will give you the most “Throughput,” hence it’s your “attuned” stat and you get that 5% extra. The above stats actually seem to be better.
Multistrike gives you a chance to do one or two additional 30% copies of your attack. Multistrikes can crit.
Versatility adds to your damage, your healing, and your damage reduction.
Spirit doesn’t have the same value as it does for healers as you’re fairly mana efficient. It does, as noted above, add to your Spell Hit rating.
In-Depth Shadow Priest Rotation Guide
Note about Periodic Damage (Damage Over Time or DOT) effects. They base their damage off of your stats at the point when they actually do damage, rather than at cast time. So if your massive Int proc falls off before the DOT is done then the remaining DOT ticks will not reflect that buff.
DOTs that are refreshed with 30% or less of their time remaining will have that time added to the new DOT. This means that you want to try to refresh your DOTs shortly before they end, rather than after.
Buffs
- Shadowform should be active at all times.
- Use your Flask and food buffs (see consumables, below)
- Int potions at the ready for burst phases. (Draenic Intellect Potion)
Cooldowns
- Shadowfiend (Mindbender, if you took that talent) should be used on cooldown for extra damage and mana.
- Dispersion can be used to avoid damage and/or generate mana depending on your circumstances. You’ll primarily be using this for mana purposes depending on the encounter as some fights may demand the use of Dispersion for survival purposes instead.
- Fade if you get into trouble and Dispersion is not available.
- Vampiric Embrace should be saved for when it will help the raid/group most as it has a 3 minute cooldown and only a 15 second duration. This buff causes your single target damaging spells to heal allies for 10% of the damage done.
- Leap of Faith if someone really needs to get out of the fire or is otherwise in trouble.
Basic Rotation
Shadow is blessed (cursed?) with a few possible rotations, depending on your talent picks, especially the level 100 talents. This is the basic one.
Your top priority is to maintain your DoTs on your target (Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch) and to generate Shadow Orbs.
- Mind Blast should be cast on cooldown, as it serves as one of your primary methods of generating Shadow Orbs.
- Devouring Plague (DP) should be cast whenever you have 3 Shadow Orbs. DP will give you the Insanity buff (if you took that talent)
- Cast Insanity
- Cast Mind Spike when your Surge of Darkeness procs it.
- Cast Mind Blast when your Shadowy Insight procs it.
- If the target is at 20% or less: Cast Shadow Word: Death on cooldown.
- Keep Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch maintained.
- Use Mind Flay when no other spells are available.
- Note: casting Mind Blast or SW: Death when you already have 5 orbs is a waste. Cast DP instead.
Small Groups
When facing multiple targets, apply your DoTs to all targets (assuming they’ll live long enough for the DoT to actually deal some damage) and continue to use Mind Blast, Devouring Plague and Mind Flay as state above.
It’s the same basic rotation without Insanity.
Larger Groups
It’s the same rotation, but add in your level 90 (tier 6) talent.
If you’re facing a particularly large group of enemies, meaning somewhere over 5 or 6, channel Mind Sear on either one of the enemies or preferably a friendly target such as a tank who is positioned close enough for the spell to hit all targets
Tier 3 Talented Abilities:
- Surge of Darkness will have to be monitored to make the most of the instant cast Mind spike it can provide.
- Mindbender simply augments the use of your Shadowfiend and should be used on cooldown as normal.
Tier 5 Talented Abilities:
- Twist of Fate is a passive effect so you won’t need to worry about using it.
- Power Infusion should be used on cooldown.
- Whenever Shadowy Insight procs you should use Mind Blast as soon as possible for maximum Shadow Orbs generation.
How to DOT Weave with Clarity of Power
Note: This is as of Warlords 6.0.3 and a future patch/hotfix might (or might not) kill it. DOT weaving also takes a bit of practice to pull off and is a DPS loss if you don’t do it correctly.
If you have to move a lot then you might find DOT weaving to be even more difficult to pull off.
What is it? Weaving your Clarity of Power (C of P) abilities in with your DOTs.
Why do it? It’s the highest DPS routine for Shadow Priests. Not by a lot, but enough to be interesting and add a bit of challenge to your casting.
Necessary Talents: Insanity, Twist of Fate, Clarity of Power.
Stat Priority for the Weave:
- DOT Weaving priority: Intellect > Spell Power > Multistrike > Critical Strike > Haste > Versatility > Mastery
What you’re doing: Use your basic rotation to get four Shadow Orbs > secondary DOTS > Dev. Plague > Mind Blast > Double Insanity > Repeat.
“Secondary DOTs” are any DOTs other than SW: Pain or Vampiric Touch. The DOTs will expire by the time you finish the rotation and get back to them, so that you can just continue weaving.
The Dot Weaving Video
Gems for the ShadowPriest
In Mists of Pandaria (before you hit Warlords…)
Your Shadow Priest bonus adds to any Int gem bonuses, making them worth 5% more Int, that bonus does not add to other stats. After the Warlords stat squish those red gems that added 160 Int now add 10. Other gems are similarly squished.
As your gear improves so does the value of Haste, meaning that after about a 505 item level you will want to start gemming even more for Haste. In either case you do want to match socket colors for the bonuses.
Check out Tycoon if you need more gold to buy these things.
Some Warlords Gemming Notes:
- Gems sockets are actually few and far between and have a (small) random chance to appear on Raid and other gear, they are not as common as before. There are no meta gems or meta sockets, there are no socket bonuses, and all sockets are “prismatic,” which means that they will take any available gem.
- The gem themselves are actually available. They are all prismatic, meaning they fit into any socket. None have Int, they all have secondary stats (Mastery, etc.) Apparently there are no Meta sockets or gems.
- Older (Mists of Pandaria) gems work until item level 600, but the item squish cut them down a bit. What used to be 160 Int is now 10, for example. The new Prismatic gems are 50 points of Mastery or whatever.
- Older gems (Mists of Pandaria and lower) that used to code for Hit now do Crit, gems that had Expertise are now Haste.
This makes gemming much easier in Warlords than before. With no socket bonuses or Int gems:
- Gem for crit
- If you’re using Clarity of Power then gem for Mastery.
| Gems for Warlords of Draenor | ||
|---|---|---|
| Prismatic |  |
Greater Critical Strike Taladite: +50 Crit Critical Strike Taladite: +35 Crit Greater Haste Taladite: +50 Haste Haste Taladite: +35 Haste Greater Multistrike Taladite: +50 MultiStrike Multistrike Taladite: +35 Multistrike Greater Mastery Taladite: +50 Mastery Mastery Taladite: +35 Mastery |
| Mists of Pandaria Gems, for gear under ilevel 600. | ||
| Meta |  |
Courageous Primal Diamond: +20 Intellect and chance on beneficial spell to make your spells cost no mana for 4 sec. Sinister Primal Diamond: +20 Critical Strike, and chance on spell damage to gain 30% spell haste Capacitive Primal Diamond: +20 Critical Strike, and chance on melee or ranged hit to gain Capacitance Burning Primal Diamond: +14 Int & 3% Increased Crit Effect Ember Primal Diamond: +14 Intellect and +2% Maximum Mana Revitalizing Primal Diamond: +27 Spirit & 3% Increased Crit Effect |
| Red |  |
Brilliant Primordial Ruby: 10 Int |
| Yellow |  |
Quick Sun’s Radiance: +20 Haste Fractured Sun’s Radiance: +20 Mastery Smooth Sun’s Radiance: +20 Crit |
| Blue |  |
Rigid River’s Heart: +20 Crit Lightning Wild Jade: +10 Haste and +10 Crit |
| Orange |  |
Potent Vermilion Onyx: +5 Int & +10 Crit Reckless Vermilion Onyx: 5 Int, 10 Haste Artful Vermilion Onyx: +5 Int & +10 Mastery |
| Green |  |
Energized Wild Jade: +10 Haste, +10 Spirit Zen Wild Jade: +10 Mastery, +10 Spirit Sensei’s Wild Jade: +10 Crit and +10 Mastery Piercing Wild Jade: +10 Critical Strike |
| Purple |  |
Purified Imperial Amethyst: +5 Int, +10 Spirit Veiled Imperial Amethyst: 5 Int and 10 Crit |
| Cogwheel |  |
Requires an engie helm, such as this. Quick Tinker’s Gear: 38 Haste Smooth Tinker’s Gear: 38 Crit Fractured Tinker’s Gear: 38 Mastery |
Enchantments for Shadow
Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.
Warlords Notes: There are no head enchants, all shoulder enchants come from the Inscription profession and are only for items under items level 600. There are new enchants for Neck, Cloak, Weapons, and your Rings. Not for any other pieces. (Not yet, anyway.)
| Warlords of Draenor Enchantments | |
|---|---|
| Weapons, Main & Off-Hand |
Warlords:
Mists:
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| Cloak | Warlords:
Mists:
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| Rings | Warlords:
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| Neck | Warlords:
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| Enchants for item levels below 600. | |
| Shoulders | Greater Crane Wing Inscription: +15 Int and 5 Crit |
| Chest | Enchant Chest – Glorious Stats: +9 to all Stats Enchant Chest – Mighty Spirit: +25 Spirit |
| Bracers | Enchant Bracer – Super Intellect: +15 Int Enchant Bracer – Mastery: +25 Mastery |
| Gloves | Enchant Gloves – Superior Mastery: +25 Mastery |
| Belt | Livingsteel Belt Buckle: Gem slot for a nice Int gem |
| Leggings | Greater Pearlescent Spellthread: +19 Int and +11 Spirit Greater Cerulean Spellthread: +19 Int and +11 Crit |
| Boots | Enchant Boots – Greater Precison: +12 Crit rating Enchant Boots – Pandaren’s Step: +10 Mastery, slight run speed increase. Enchant Boots – Greater Haste: +12 Haste |
Consumables for Shadow
Note that Pandarens get twice the food buff. All food buffs last one hour.
Foods:
- Feast of Blood: 75 in highest secondary stat, feeds up to 30
- Feast of the Waters: 75 in highest secondary stat, feeds up to 10
- Blackrock Barbecue: 100 Crit
- Calamari Crepes: 100 Multistrike
- Frosty Stew: 100 Haste
- Sleeper Surprise: 100 Mastery
- Blackrock Ham: 75 Crit
- Grilled Gulper: 75 Crit
- Braised Riverbeast: 75 Mastery
- Fat Sleeper Cakes: 75 Mastery
- Rylak Crepes: 75 Multistrike
- Fiery Calamari: 75 Multistrike
- Pan-Seared Talbuk: 75 Haste
- Sturgeon Stew: 75 Haste
- Mogu Fish Stew: 34 Int
- Steamed Crab Surprise: 34 Spirit
Elixirs: In Warlords there are no elixirs that give stats.
Flasks:
- Greater Draenic Intellect Flask: 250 Int for one hour
- Draenic Intellect Flask: 200 Int for one hour.
- Flask of the Warm Sun: 114 Int for an hour.
- Flask of Falling Leaves: 114 Spirit for an hour.
Potions: If you pop one immediately before combat you will be able to pop another during combat.
- Draenic Intellect Potion: 1,000 Int for 25 seconds
- Potion of the Jade Serpent: 456 Int for 25 seconds.
- Master Healing Potion: Heals 12k HP
- Master Mana Potion: About 6k Mana
Professions for Shadow Priests
In Warlords there are no professions bonuses. No special stat boosts that characters without the profession cannot get. The only profession that provides a stat buff, to yourself or anyone else, is cooking (feasts will feed the raid for +75 to their best secondary stat.)
Professions now are for the gear and/or the gold. Most have something that can be used as starting raid/pvp gear or sold, such as ilevel 640 gear pieces. Leveling a profession can be done quickly and relatively easily once you get the Draenor version.
Some of the professions, eg: Engineering, have really useful items for leveling and world events. They’re not usable in raids, however (sigh.. no firing rockets at the boss…)
| Professions | |
|---|---|
| Blacksmithing | Mail and Plate armor and weapons. Keys for locks. |
| Engineering | has lots of interesting toys, some of which have situational use. You might not be able to use rockets and shield in the raid, but you can use them in the world. |
| Jewelcrafting | Useful rings and neck items, pretty gems, gemmed mounts. |
| Inscription | Glyphs, some trinkets, caster weapons, fortune & Darkmoon cards, and more. |
| Alchemy | Chemistry is fun, unfortunately you can’t make acids or bombs. You can make flasks and potions to boost stats and cause other interesting effects. |
| Enchanting | Enchant all those items and cast illusionary enchants. |
| Tailoring | Cloth armor, flying carpet, murlock chew toy. Make your starting raid gear. |
| Leatherworking | Leather and mail armor. Nothing to see here. |
| Skinning | For gold gathering and for leatherworking |
| Herbalism | For Inscription, Alchemy, and gold gathering |
| Mining | Making gold and powering Blacksmithing and some engineering. |
Race Choice for Priests
Since Cataclysm all of the WoW races can be Shadow Priests, except Orcs. Yes, even Pandarens can be Priests. This doesn’t change in Warlords.
Blood Elf: You have the best hair, does that count?
- Arcane Torrent restores some mana and silences casters, but you aren’t planning to be that close to other casters.
- B’elves are good with Enchanting.
- +1% to crit rating.
Goblin: Two goblins were shipwrecked and stranded on a small island. When rescued they had both become rich by trading their boots back and forth.
- Increased Haste is a decent stat for you.
- Rocket Jump is a nice escape for when things get close.
- Vendor discounts will make things a bit easier on the good supply, especially if you’re poor (and why would you be poor?)
Tauren: Besides being cute, cuddly, and well horned, they can do a…
- War Stomp stuns nearby opponents. This is an occasionally useful ability to stun things allowing you to escape. Melee range is not where you want to be.
- The increased health is nice at mid-levels and amounts to about three Stam gems at 90.
- Good with Herbalism.
- +2% to critical effect on damage and heals.
Troll: Best tusks, laid back, but make pretty good Priests.
- Berserking is a good emergency ability, increasing your casting speed for a few seconds. Drop it into your burst macro.
- Increased damage Vs Beasts will help vs some trash mobs and any bosses that happen to be classed as “beasts.”
- Resistance to movement impariing effects, like the Orc ability, has its uses in PvP, but less so elsewhere.
- Ranged weapon expertise has zero value for you.
Undead: You’re Undead because the Gods didn’t want you and now you’re a Priest? Well… you are Shadow.
- Canibalism can reduce downtime and means that you don’t have to carry food along while leveling. If you do PvP you can eat your opponents after you kill them.
- Will of the Forsaken is a very nice PvP ability, but you’ll find little use for it elsewhere.
- Touch of the Grave drains life and heals you for the same amount. This ability automatically triggers with your spell-casting and will add a bit to your DPS.
- Indefinite Underwater Breathing might be of some use in some deep dark cave…
Draenei: Your (male) shoulders make a human look puny.
- +1 to Hit racial is a nice stat, as it adds right into that 15% Spell Hit you will need.
- The self-heal would be nice if you didn’t already have a few of your own.
- Bonus to your Int
Dwarf: So Runt, Ya wanna be a Priest, eh?
- Your Stoneform washes away bleeds and reduces damage, which will occasionally be useful to you.
- Expertise with Maces adds 1% to your Spell Hit if you equip a mace in your main hand.
- Ranged weapon Expertise is useless to you.
- Good with Archeology.
- +2% to critical effect on damage and heals.
Human: You look good in the right armor and have two things that can add to your Spell Hit.
- Your escape ability is nice for PvP and it allows you to use two DPS trinkets, or grab more Resilience, but the ability is pretty situational when raiding.
- Diplomacy if great is you have any interest in building Rep with any of the bazillion WoW factions.
- Your Spirit is increased by 3%, which helps with Spell Hit and Mana Regen.
- Expertise with Mace adds 1% to your Spell Hit if you equip a mace in your main hand.
- Bonus to your versatility.
Gnome: Besides being the butt of “short jokes” you do have a couple of useful abilities.
- Expertise with daggers will add 1% to your Spell Hit if you equip a dagger in your main hand.
- Escaping from Speed Altering Effects (slows) has its uses in PvE (rare) and PvP.
- Increased Mana pool will be of some use.
- Good with Engineering, a pretty useful skill.
- +1% Haste
Night Elf: You look good in armor and you know it.
- Shadowmeld will let you drop out of combat and drops aggro, so is handy for those times when things get tight.
- 2% increased dodge is nice while tanking, but you will have little use for it.
- 2% faster run speed
- +1% Haste by night and +1% Crit by Day
Worgen: One word: Snuffling. Other than that the Crit and Sprint are quite nice.
- Increased crit chance is an Ok stat for you.
- Moving quickly is definitely a useful ability.
- Worgen are good with skinning (which also adds to your Crit rating.)
Shadow Abilities
These abilities define you as a Shadow Priest, all the other abilities and talents are common to any Priest.
SW Death
new mastery
Shadow |
||
| Mind Flay | 10 | Basic attack |
| Spiritual Precision (P) | 20 | |
| Mind Blast | 21 | Blasts target and generates an orb. |
| Devouring Plague | 21 | Burn Shadow Orbs to throw damage and heal self. |
| Shadow Orbs (P) | 21 | Used to power Dev. Plague and Psychic horror |
| Shadowform | 24 | Hmmm, I wonder what this could be… |
| Vampiric Touch | 28 | Put a DOT on the opposition and gain mana. |
| Shadowy Apparitions (P) | 42 | A Shadowy suicide bomber you walks towards the enemy. |
| Mind Spike | 44 | Blasts the target and zaps your DOTs on same. |
| Shadow Word: Death | 46 | DOT for targets at 20% health or less. |
| Silence | 52 | Time to shut up. The enemy, not you. |
| Dispersion | 60 | Massive damage reduction and regen mana |
| Psychic Horror | 74 | Boo! |
| Vampiric Embrace | 78 | Heal allies while you do damage. |
| Mastery: Mental Anguish (P) | 80 | More damage from your DOTs. |
| Void Shift | 87 | |
| Mastermind | 90 | +5% Haste from all Sources |
Perks are enhancements to existing abilities, rather than entirely new abilities. You get a new perk at levels 92, 94, 96, and 98. Which perk you get is randomly chosen from the four available. By 98 you will have them all.These are your perks, not necessarily in the order in which you will get them.
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Addons and Macros for Shadow
Some useful Shadow addons
Descriptions are from the addon developer. Click through for more info on each.
- Forte Xorcist – This provides you with a lot of useful tools to make playing your character easier and more fun. The main features are a Spell Timer, Cooldown Timer, Self & Raid messages, Warning Sounds, and more.
- Weak Auras – WeakAuras is a powerful and flexible framework that allows you to display highly customizable graphics on your screen to indicate buffs, debuffs, and a whole host of similar types of information. It was originally meant to be a lightweight replacement for Power Auras, but it now incorporates many features that Power Auras does not, while still remaining more efficient and easy to use.
- Gnosis is a highly configurable castbar and single timer addon. Gnosis can show ticks of channeled spells, detect unintentional clipping while channeling and combine data of channeled spells to combat text addons (MSBT, SCT, Parrot). It also allows to create buff, debuff, and cooldown (spell, rune, item) timers with a similar set of options castbars have.
- HaloPro creates a customizable bar that can be sized and positioned anywhere in your UI. As you move closer or farther away from a tracked unit the bar’s texture changes to let you know whether you need to move in or away to get in proper range (25 yards). This ensures you can accurately cast and time your use of Halo. HaloPro also goes further and monitors the other lvl 90 talents as well, to ensure you are maxing your healing or damage from Cascade, and know you are never out of range for Divine Star to hit twice.
- Impluse makes keybindng and macros easy. Check it out.
Shadow Priest Macros
These were grabbed from HowToPriest. Check ’em out.
Dispersion: Press once to Disperse, again to cancel if you don’t need the full amount of mana or damage reduction. DO NOT button mash this because you’ll immediately cancel it.
- #showtooltip Dispersion
- /cancelaura Dispersion
- /cast Dispersion
Devouring Plague: These trigger the on use Engineer glove enchant and both trinkets any time they’re off CD and you recast DP. 10 is the Item Slot number for Hands while 13 and 14 are your trinkets. You can also drop other burst enchants here, such as the cooldown from your herbalism skill, lifeblood.
#showtooltip Devouring Plague
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Devouring Plague
Tier 90: Spinalcrack’s Tier 90 one button macro. Best macro ever. NAME THIS “T90” OR IT WILL NOT WORK! This is useful if you regularly switch your top tier talents. With this you only need one key and never again have to drag the new talent down to your bar. It will switch the tooltip and the icon upon your first cast after grabbing the new talent.
- #showtooltip
- /cast Cascade
- /cast Divine Star
- /cast Halo
- /script m_c=GetSpellInfo(121135); m_ds=GetSpellInfo(110744); m_h=GetSpellInfo(120517)
- /run SetMacroSpell(“T90”, GetSpellInfo(m_c) or GetSpellInfo(m_ds) or GetSpellInfo(m_h))
Power Infusion: Keeps PI on your bars after you change out of it so you don’t have to remap it every time.
- #showtooltip Power Infusion
- /cast Power Infusion
Shackle Undead: Easiest way to use Shackle is in a focus based macro such as this one. Feel free to augment the /clearfocus to suit you.
- #showtooltip Shackle Undead
- /clearfocus [mod:alt][@focus,dead][@focus,help][@focus,noexists]
- /clearfocus [mod:shift]
- /focus [@focus,noexists]
- /cast [@focus]Shackle Undead
Dominate Mind: Basically the same as Shackle, but with the Dominate Mind talent instead:
- #showtooltip Dominate Mind
- /clearfocus [mod:alt][@focus,dead][@focus,help][@focus,noexists]
- /clearfocus [mod:shift]
- /focus [@focus,noexists]
- /cast [@focus]Dominate Mind
How to Get your Priest to the Level Cap, ASAP
Priest leveling is easy, especially for Shadow. Holy and Disc. can level in PvP or Dungeons and Shadow can do all of that and quest effectively. Then you hit the tops and the game changes. And then you have those other alts you want to level though those 100 levels.
With the thousands of quests to 100 and a bazillion mobs to kill (not to mention other players, but they don’t count here) sorting out which quests are best and which series of quests will get you to 100 the fastest is important, which is why we highly recommend Zygor’s Guide.
Zygor’s is an in-game guide and it nearly automates the whole leveling process: you just pick your starting point, at any level, and the guide tracks which quest you’re on, tracks the quest objectives, and automatically advances and updates as you complete your tasks and quests. In addition, a waypoint arrow is set automatically, so you never have to wonder where to go. All of the important quest info is included in the guide so you never have to wonder what to do. You’ll find that it’s vastly superior to the in-game questing help.
Playing with Heirlooms and/or Recruit a friend? Gaining a few levels in the dungeons or in PvP? Zygor has your back. The guide knows what level you are and will correctly suggest where to go next and will let you dump all of your obsolete quests. You will probably never need to look at your quest log again.
Grab your copy here and get to 100 as fast as possible, or read our review, first.
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