[Priest] Shadow Priest guide for Cata [4.3]Follow

Talents and Glyphs

I'm going to blatantly copy The Greatest Mage Post Ever in terms of lay out for this, because their layout is awesome.



And I'm going to use Purple here, because shadow priests love purple. If you don't love purple, you can GTFO.

Shadow Talents

Tier 1

Darkness (3)
~This is a no brainer. Haste is yummy for Shadow priests. We eat it for breakfast, or something.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Improved: Shadow Word Pain (2)
~Another no brainer. Increased DPS is always a good thing.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Veiled Shadows (2)
~This is definitely a good talent, but it's not really useful until you actually GET your Shadowfiend at 66. There's no point in picking this up until 55. The reason for this is, it's either Veiled Shadows, or take a PvP talent that you don't need. Unless you're leveling with PvP of course. The decrease to Fade is just a perk for PvE, but for PvP it can be quite useful if paired with Phantasm
R: A
P: A
S: B

Tier 2

Improved Psychic Scream (2)
~A strong talent for PvP, but only marginally useful for soloing and useless for raiding. Required to acquire Silence.
R: F
P: A
S: D

Improved Mind Blast (3)
~This is a good talent for both PvE and PvP. The reduced CD obviously helps you to use Mind Blast more often, and the reduced healing can be useful in PvP.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Improved Devouring Plague (2)
~Another great all around talent for shadow. DP is an instant cast, so giving it some initial damage upon cast is pretty handy, no matter what you're doing. However, given the large amount of mana it takes to cast DP, it's not quite as useful for soloing, especially at lower levels. I'd avoid using DP aside from bosses or trash with high HP in dungeons and raids. For PvP, use as much as you want, just be mindful of the mana cost.
R: A
P: A
S: D

Twisted Faith (2)
~Oh the joys of being a hybrid. Spirit = hit? Yes please! This is a good talent overall, but might be marginally less useful for PvP due to the lower hit requirements. Also less useful for leveling since hit isn't really needed. Still, I'd pick it up at some point anyways.
R: A
P: B
S: B

Tier 3

Shadowform (1)
~What makes a shadow priest a shadow priest. If you don't pick up this talent as soon as its available, you are a bad shadow priest, period.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Phantasm (2)
~This is mostly a PvP talent. It can be useful in PvE, but very rarely. I'd avoid picking this up for PvE unless there is a specific fight you plan on using it for.
R: F
P: A
S: F

Harnessed Shadows (2)
~Another bread and butter shadow talent. If you don't pick this up, you'll make me cry.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Tier 4

Silence (1)
~Great talent for PvP, aside from the long CD. Rarely useful in PvE. You may be asked occasionally to grab this talent for a specific fight if your raid group is short on melee folks for interrupts. Otherwise, skip this. If your raid leader does ask you to take this, gently remind them that Silence has a 45 seconds CD and you have to give up 3 points in DPS talents to take it. If they still want you take it, do so but grumble about it to your other shadow priest friends. Trade Imp. MB for Silence.
R: F
P: B
S: F

Vampiric Embrace (1)
~Must have. No questions asked. Yay utility! Required for Masochism and Vampiric Touch.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Masochism (2)
~Extra mana is yummy.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Mind Melt (2)
~Great talent. Makes SWD a lot more powerful. The Mind Spike effects are useful too, but not until you actually get Mind Spike of course.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Tier 5

Pain and Suffering (2)
~Another mandatory talent. Having MF refresh SWP is just awesome. Reduced damage from SWD is great too.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Vampiric Touch (1)
~Pick this up or else. This has the added bonus of being another DoT, and giving us Replenishment. Also required for Sin and Punishment.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Paralysis (2)
~This is a PvP talent. There's really no point in taking it for PvE.
R: F
P: A
S: F

Tier 6

Psychic Horror (1)
~Another PvP talent mostly. A lot of people pick this up for PvE, but I really don't see the use for it. I'd rather take an extra point in the Disc tree.
R: F
P: A
S: F

Sin and Punishment (2)
~This is a dual PvP and PvE talent. The VT part is great for PvP, and the Shadowfiend part is great for PvE. But again, you don't get Shadowfiend until 66, so don't start picking up this talent until you're 65. Get Apparitions first.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Shadowy Apparitions (3)
~This is an odd talent. Currently, because of the way WoW's combat logs function, we do not get credit for Shadowy Apparition DPS. Plus they make up a very small portion of our damage. However, there's nothing else to take, so take it.
R: C
P: C
S: C

Tier 7

Dispersion (1)
~Our final tier talent. Dispersion is awesome for many reasons. It gives us a large amount of mana back, and it's also great for defense as it reduces all damage you take by 90%. The only downside, is that we can't cast while Dispersed. Unless of course, you are awesome and a goblin. Goblins can use their Rocket Barrage racial while Dispersed. But, I'd just like to say before the other races freak out, it's only about 5k damage, so don't get your undies in a bunch, k?
R: A
P: A
S: A

Discipline Talents

Tier 1

Improved Power Word: Shield (2)
~As a shadow priest, this is mostly a PvP talent. It can be useful in a raid setting if you don't have a priest healer, but otherwise their shields are going to be far better.
R: C
P: A
S: A

Twin Disciplines (3)
~No brainer here. More damage is a good thing.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Mental Agility (3)
~You can take either 2 or 3 points of this talent. At first, just take two. If you want to stick another point in here, wait until your point at 84. It's really not necessary unless you're having mana problems though.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Tier 2

Evangelism (2)
~Mandatory. If you don't take this, I will slap you. Required for Archangel.
R: A
P: A
S: A

Archangel (1)
~Mandatory. Archangel gives you WIIIIIIINGS!
R: A
P: A
S: A

Inner Sanctum (3)
~This is pretty useful for both PvP and Raiding. I like to put my last 2 points in here to help out my healers.
R: B
P: A
S: C

Soul Warding (2)
~This talent is okay. Other talents are better for Shadow.
R: C
P: B
S: C

That's it for the talents. This is the base talent tree at 85. The last two points are up to you, but most people usually pick between Psychic Scream, the third point in Mental Agility, and Inner Sanctum.

Glyphs

Prime: Mind Flay, SWD, and SWP

Major: None of the major glyphs increase DPS, but I'd highly recommend Spirit Tap. Other good options are Fade, Mass Dispel, or Psychic Scream.

Minor: Same as Major. Good options are Fading, Levitate, Shadowfiend.

Edited, Sep 15th 2011 3:20pm by PigtailsOfDoom

Rotation

Okay, so now we get into the fun part. Melting faces.

Spell Abbreviations:
MF = Mind Flay
MB = Mind Blast
MS = Mind Spike
VT = Vampiric Touch
DP = Devouring Plague
SWP = Shadow Word: Pain
SWD = Shadow Word: Death
SF = Shadowfiend
AA = Archangel
ES = Empowered Shadows

For an opener, this is what I do for bosses. SWP goes up first, followed by SF. MF for 5 ticks to get your 5 stacks of Evangelism, then pop MB. Finally, put up VT and DP. Save AA for before you cast the second MB. Most people will recommend that you put up VT first, and then SWP and DP. The reason for waiting, is because most of the time, after you have your 5 ticks of MF with SWP up, you will have at least one orb. Once you pop AA and MB, you will then have your ES buff, and most likely your trinket buffs and power torrent will have activated, giving your first DoTs a big punch to start out with. Now granted, this only makes a huge difference at the start of a boss encounter. This opener I learned about from Kilee's guide, and he has stated that he has extensively tested both openers, and found that delaying your DoTs in favor of ES and other buffs, only pulls out ahead by a handful of dps. So unless you're in a progression raid, where every single point of dps counts, it's not a huge deal. Do whichever method feels most comfortable.

Under no circumstances should you ever cast your DoTs immediately after you use AA. This wipes your 5 stacks of Evangelism, which buffs your DoTs. If you need to recast DoTs after you use AA, get 5 ticks of Mind Flay first.

On to the priority system!

All 3 DoTs > SF & AA > SWD under 25% health > MB > MF

Keeping up your DoTs is your #1 priority. While MF usually ends up being a good chunk of our dps, it does relatively wimpy damage. It is our filler spell. SF & AA are our CD abilities and should be used as damage buffs. They have the extra perk of being mana CD's as well, but this is not their primary function. SF should be lined up with BL/Heroism and your Volcanic Potion, as much as possible. This becomes infinitely easier once you get 2 pieces of T12 and have the CD reduction. AA should as well, but with only a minute and a half CD, it's not as big of a worry. This is something that will take practice to get the hang of, and communication with your raid as to when BL will be used. Unless you are low on mana or are moving, SWD should not be used unless your target is under 25% health. MB should mostly be used on CD, but I will go over this later.

AoE: Shadow Priests have it very easy for AoE for the most part. If you have low health mobs, and there's more than three or so, you want to use Mind Sear. Now, to get the full damage potential, you need to have ES up. If you are just flying through trash in a heroic, don't worry about it. However, if you're doing an add phase in a raid encounter, say spiderlings on Beth for example, you want your ES buff.

Another method of AoE is to multi-dot. This is more of an advanced trick, but it will be great for boosting your damage. On regular Shannox for example, you have the boss, and then his two puppies. Most groups are going to want to get Rageface down first, so you perform your opener on him, and then once DoTs are up, you get SWP and VT up on Shannox and Riplimb. Your main target is always your priority as far as keeping DoTs up, but try to keep track of your DoTs on secondary targets as well, and it will significantly boost your DPS. On heroic Shannox, you don't want to do this because the dogs aren't supposed to die. Some T11 bosses that are great for multi-dotting are every boss in BoT, Nef, and possibly Omnitron in BWD. Omnitron is a bit trickier due to their shield mechanic. If you are the only person DoTing up the bot under 50 energy, you're probably fine. If there's someone else doing it too, there's a good chance you're going to break the shield, and depending on which bot it is, you could potentially wipe the raid, even with the nerfs.

Movement: Shadow priests are lucky in that we have a pretty good amount of mobility. If you have a movement heavy fight, like Atramedes from BWD or Rag in Firelands, the best thing to do is to spam DP, make sure you keep SWP up, and if you like you can cast SWD on CD, although if the target is at 25% health or above, it's not going to do a whole lot of damage. Just make sure you keep an eye on your mana. DP costs a lot, it can be pretty easy to get low on mana without realizing it if you spam it. Also, depending on the situation, you can do a move, stop and cast, move type of thing, while doing a normal rotation. If you have to book it though, I wouldn't recommend doing that.

Managing your ES buff: This, in my opinion, is what makes the Shadow priest rotation fun and challenging. Orbs are a bit RNG, but it's not usually a problem. Basically, to get the ES buff, you must cast either Mind Blast or Mind Spike while you have at least one orb up. 95% of the time, you're going to want to use MB because MS damage is kinda wimpy and it wipes your DoTs off the target. The only time you want to use MS in a raid environment is for that purpose, to hold off on pushing a boss into the next phase.

Now, it's important to keep track of your timers on both MB and ES. The reason for this is you want to make sure you always have ES up when you refresh your DoTs, as ES gives them a nice damage boost. MB has an 8 second CD on it, and ES buff lasts for 15 seconds. So, if you have no orbs when MB is off CD, but you have more than 8 seconds left to your ES and/or your DoTs, go ahead and use MB. If you have no orbs, and your DoTs and ES are about to come off, you want to refresh those DoTs before ES comes off, and then go ahead and use MB. There are times where you are going to want to hold off on using MB though. This is a learning process, and you'll get better at timing things with more practice.

Managing your DoTs: One of the great changes that Cata brought us is that you no longer can clip your DoTs. This makes managing DoTs much easier, because you don't have to worry about losing ticks. The best time to refresh VT is about 1 to 2 seconds before it falls off. SWP you shouldn't have to worry about due to MF refreshing it, and DP does enough initial damage via the Improved DP talent, that you can refresh it early without it being a dps loss. In fact, I use a cast sequence macro so that I can spam a button and cast VT and DP, and I refresh DP with VT, unless I had a nice buff with my previous cast of DP, in which case I'll hold off until the next round since the timer on DP is nearly twice of VT.

As I said earlier, keeping up your DoTs is your number one priority. You want your DoT uptime as close to 100% as you can get. Refreshing DP and VT at the same time, makes it so that my uptime on SWP and VT are normally at 100%, or close to it. 80 to 85% uptime on VT is a good target, but until you hit 100% there's always room for improvement. For an example, you can look at a log from last week for me for Baleroc. If you click on the Damage by Spell tab, you can see my uptime on my DoTs. SWP is at 99%, DP is at 92% and VT is at 90%.

Clipping MF: This is another advanced technique. I'm not exactly sure how to explain it, other than copying a post of Kilee's word for word, so I will just leave a link to the thread here and if you have any questions you can ask. He explains it in the second post.

Edited, Nov 2nd 2011 8:15pm by PigtailsOfDoom

Edited, Nov 14th 2011 4:48pm by PigtailsOfDoom

Fade CD reduction is awesome for PvP Tails because of Phantasm.

Okay thanks for the comments guys, I'll fix those.

For Reforging, maybe reformat it to make priorities clearer. For gear without haste, which stat gets reforged into haste? Something like the following...

Crit/Haste: Reforge crit to spirit up to 17% spell hit, then mastery.

Hit/Haste, Spirit/Haste: Reforge hit/spirit to mastery if over 17% spell hit.

Mastery/Haste: Last alternative to reforge to Spirit to reach 17% spell hit.

Crit/Mastery: Reforge crit to Haste.

Crit/Spirit, Crit/Hit: If over 17% spell hit, reforge hit/Spirit to haste. Else reforge crit to haste.

Mastery/Spirit, Mastery/Hit: If over 17% spell hit, reforge hit/Spirit to haste. Else reforge mastery to haste.

Took you long enough, slacker!

But looks very nice.

Awesome.

Very much appreciated. I thought I was doing it wrong and now I know

Jeez pigtails, you're such a failure!!

I've re-read this a couple of times and I still can't figure out what use Mind Spike is? A mild nuke that wipes the dots seems like a strange idea. I must be missing something.

Also I'd add that for soloing rather than raiding the glyphed PW:S is a very handy heal without leaving shadowform.

Mind Spike's use is dependent upon what you're doing. In raids and dungeons, it's use is primarily for getting down low level adds or wiping the DoTs off a boss to prevent pushing into a new phase (or in the case of Omnitron, to prevent shields from coming down and exploding the raid). If you are soloing, the fastest way to get mobs down is to do the rotation of MSx3, MB and then SWD if it still isn't dead and is less than 25% health. It might take two rotations to get the mob down low enough, and that's fine.

The general rule of thumb, is that if a mob is going to die in less than 15 seconds, it's better to use MS and MB than to put up DoTs.

Glad to hear it.