I don't play Shadow in Raids, so this is the result of a lot of research from people who do rather than from a lot of personal experience. I wrote this a week or so ago for my blog, http://spotheal.wordpress.com, but I thought I'd post it here because I hope it's useful information to people.

The original article is at: http://spotheal.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/shadow-priest-faq/

For starting Discipline Priest there is an FAQ here: http://spotheal.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/discipline-faq/

Holy Priests I'll try and have one up soon.


A list of common questions people look for when they first start. This isn’t really high end discussion and some things are glossed over. Furthermore, I rarely raid as shadow anymore so much of this comes from (I hope) thorough research. Big thank you to the sites out there like Shadowpriest.com and the various shadow blogs (Shadowaffinity for example) for their great information.

What’s the spec to use?

The standard PvE spec is this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbhZZGxfVRfzcfqfzAo:ahqzcV

The two points in Veiled Shadows are optional and could be moved to Improved Vampiric Embrace. However the reduced cooldown on Shadow Fiend is a nice mana boost and adds a small DPS burst in certain situations.

For PvP your spec would look something like:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxIbzoMZZ0efrRfkbfqfkqo:oMIMVz

How much Spell Hit and Spell Penetration do I need?

For PvE:

Spell Hit:

To have a 100% chance to hit you need 17%.
You get 3% from Misery, 3% from Shadow Focus.
So you need 11% from gear. If there is a Dranei in your party (not your raid, your party) you only need 10% because of their Racial Ability.
26.23 hit rating = 1% hit.
So with no Dranei you need 289 hit rating. With a Dranei you only need 263 hit rating.
Don’t take any Spell Penetration

For PvP:

Spell hit required: The cap is 4% against players of your level. However it depends on the talents of the target. For example, Paladins get a 30% resistance to having their spells dispelled so you could benefit from extra hit against these targets although it’s certainly not worth getting 30% more hit to work around this talent.

Spell Penetration reduces the targets spell resistance by 1 point. Around 100 is easy enough to get and should serve in most fights to remove much of a Paladin or Priests resistance against your Shadow spells. While more than this can be of benefit, Spell Penetration is a wasted stat against targets with no Spell Resistance and so it’s not always wise to get too much Spell Penetration.

Stat Weightings

Gear is very complicated at the moment and when you pick up a new piece of gear with different stats it can be hard to work out whether it’s a real upgrade. Using a lot of maths which people have done you can work out a value to give to each piece of gear to decide which will give you the most DPS. You can use an Add-on like Pawn and put these values in and it will help you quickly work out which is best by printing a value on the tooltip.

From Shadowpriest.com: http://www.shadowpriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=19553

Values change slightly depending on your current gear level and set bonuses.

But roughly speaking:

• Tier 7: -------------------------- Tier 8: -------------- Tier 9: -----------------


• Intellect: 0.22 --------------- Intellect: 0.22 ------ Intellect: 0.23 ---------


• Spirit: 0.34 ------------------ Spirit: 0.34 --------- Spirit: 0.34 -----------


• Spell Power: 1 -------------- Spell Power: 1 ----- Spell Power: 1 -------


• Hit: 1.46 --------------------- Hit: 1.51 ------------- Hit: 1.55 --------------


• Crit: 0.71 -------------------- Crit: 0.71 ------------ Crit: 0.75 -------------


• Haste: 0.65 ------------------ Haste: 0.62 --------- Haste: 0.63 -----------

How much Haste Rating should I get?

Thanks to: http://www.shadowaffinity.com/Home/tabid/1479/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/29/The-Basics-of-Haste-Rating.aspx

Haste does a few things for you. It decreases your global cooldown and increases your casting speed. The Shadow Priest rotation is rather restrictive. Haste helps you cast faster but Mind Blast still has a cooldown, Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague still last the same amount of time, and Haste doesn’t affect these except for slightly increase how quickly you can apply them.

The benefit of Haste is that it reduces your global cooldown so you can cast your spells faster and this lets you squeeze more Mind Flays into your rotation between your other spells. Mind Blast, fully talented, has a 5.5 second cooldown which lets you cast one full Mind Flay and 2 ticks of a second in this time. To increase your DPS you are interested in fitting extra Mind Flay ticks into this cooldown. The following gives you an idea of how much haste you need to fit extra ticks in:

Mind Flay Ticks ---- Haste Required ---- Haste Rating --
6 ---------------------- 8.5% ---------------- 274 HR --------
7 ---------------------- 22% ---------------- 703 HR ---------
8 ---------------------- 31.5% -------------- 1025 HR -------
9 ---------------------- 39% ---------------- 1276 HR --------

This is for perfect conditions. Because of latency and your reflex time, more haste than this is needed in practice.

When can I start doing Heroics/Naxx/Ulduar/Trial of the Champion?

This will obviously change depending on the rest of the raid group. Sartharion 25 man can be done relatively easily with 7 or 8 well geared players. So if you were in a raid with 24 well geared players your DPS wouldn’t matter. The amounts I’m giving are rough guesses from my experience as a raid leader assuming you are beginning raiding with similarly geared players.

Heroics: 2k DPS

Naxxramas: 2k DPS ten man , 2.5k Heroic DPS (remembering you need 17% hit)

Ulduar: 3k DPS 10-man, 3.5k DPS 25-man. For the Keepers, 3.5k DPS 10-man. 4K DPS 25-man

Trial of the Crusader: 3.5k DPS 10-man. 4k DPS 25-man

What is my Rotation?

Thanks to: http://www.shadowpriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=23234

Single target DPS –

Shadow Priests don’t have a rotation they follow, rather they have a priority system. You cast whatever spell is top of the priority list and not on cooldown/already applied.

The only time this is not true is when the fight first starts. For the opening the key is to stack Shadow Weaving nice and quickly so you can get SW:P on the target with the Shadow Weaving benefits. Once your opener is complete you follow your priority list

Opener: Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Shadow Word: Pain Shadow Word: Death, Mind Blast.

Priority: 1. MB 2. VT 3. DP 4. MF

Two to three targets -

For 2 or 3 mobs the ideal rotation is to DoT them all up whilst casting Mind Blast whenever it’s ready. This means Devouring Plague, Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Pain on the main target. Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain on the other 1-2 targets. Use Mind Blast whenever you can.

Make sure none of the DoTs fall off the other targets by refreshing SW:P with Mind Flays and by recasting Vampiric Touch just as it ends. If you are having difficulty maintaining DoTs on all three targets, without missing refreshes or Mind Blasts, then you are better off doing single target DPS on just one target.

Four targets or more -

For four or more targets just use Mind Sear alone without DoTs. Mind Sear at this point is doing more damage than DoTs or Mind Blasts would.

Heroism/Bloodlust uptime -

I used to wonder whether when I had Bloodlust it was worth solely casting Mind Flays. It is not. When Bloodlust is up you are able to fit extra Mind Flay ticks in between your Mind Blast cooldowns. However your overall priority remains pretty much the same.

When should I manually re-cast SW:P and when should I just let it be refreshed by Mind Flay?

Pain and Suffering is a talent towards the bottom of the Shadow Tree which makes Mind Flay refresh the duration on your Shadow Word: Pain. Refreshing Shadow Word: Pain is not the same as recasting it.

Refreshing Shadow Word: Pain via Mind Flay won't apply certain effects, but will apply others.

It will take account of:
Changes to your spell power.
Buffs or Debuffs on the target which increase the amount of damage they receive. (Things like Curse of Elements, or Mimiron's Magnetic Field)
Improvements to your crit damage. Things like Hodir's Storm Cloud.

It won't take account of:
Changes (increases or decreases) to your crit chance.
Changes to your % spell Damage. (things like Shadow Weaving, Shadowform)
Debuffs on the target which which improve your crit chance against them. Things like Improved Scorch.

This means you will need to recast SW:P manually to cause it to benefit from certain effects. But there are advantages too. If you gain a temporary buff, apply SW:P manually, and then simply continue to refresh SW:P throughout the fight and not recast it, your SW:P will continue to benefit from that buff, even long after the buff has faded from you. Things like Potion of Wild Magic for example will let you gain the extra crit on your SW:P for an entire fight.

Should I cast Inner Focus with Vampiric Touch/Shadow Word: Pain/Devouring Plague?

No, Inner Focus will not increase the crit chance of these DoTs (except for the initial damage from Devouring Plague). Use Inner Focus on, ideally, Mind Sear, but otherwise Mind Blast.

What should I cast while questing?

This will depend a lot on your level obviously. When you are level 80, with good gear, your best way to kill mobs while questing is to apply DoTs to multiple mobs. For example, I do quests by applying SW:P and Vampiric Touch to mobs one after the other as they die extremely quickly without me having to re-target them. The only time I would not do this is for mobs which heal themselves, or mobs which stun or interrupt me.

At lower levels, or lower gear levels where mobs don’t die to two DoTs, things are different. Mind Flay is your most mana efficient spell if you aren’t getting interrupted. However if you are having to cast shields on yourself to avoid interruption it’s less efficient because the shields are expensive. Don’t use DoTs on the target unless they are lasting for most of their duration. Applying three DoTs and then killing the mob 5 seconds later is extremely mana inefficient. You are better off applying only one or two DoTs, killing the mob slightly more slowly but saving mana.

What should I cast during short trash fights?

This depends on just how long the mob will survive is. Mind Blast is always your best DPS spell and should be your first priority cast.

Once Mind Blast is on cooldown you either cast Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay or a DoT depending on how long the mobs will last. If the DoT takes 1.5 seconds to cast then it must do more damage during the fight than 1.5 ticks of Mind Flay would have given.

As for your DoTs: given you will cast MB first, and again every 5.5 seconds after that the target must last at least 6-8 seconds to be worth casting Vampiric Touch. To be worth casting another (probably Devouring Plague) you want the target to survive 8-10 seconds. To be worth a third DoT the target should last 10-12 seconds. This may mean you are better applying DoTs to the second target rather than the primary kill target to allow yourself time to do damage if the targets are dying quickly.

Always squeeze Shadow Word: Death in just as the mob is about to die.

What Glyphs should I take?

Glyph of Mind Flay, Glyph of Shadow, and Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain

If you have any questions, suggestions, corrections, or updates to fit with new patches, I’d be very happy to hear them.

Nice effort. :) I think this will be usefull for alot of people. Just want to add 2 things regarding pvp. The hit cap against ud and belfs are 6 %, not 4%. And as shadow you should aim for 130 spell penetration to completly ignore the shadow resistance aura / buff.

Would like to add the PVP spec linked is incomplete, not all points spent.

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Would like to add the PVP spec linked is incomplete, not all points spent.

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Works for me. Mmm, maybe you didn't select the entire text?

Nice effort. One comment though:

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Pain and Suffering is a talent towards the bottom of the Shadow Tree which makes Mind Flay refresh the duration on your Shadow Word: Pain. When Shadow Word: Pain is refreshed it will take account of any changes to your spell power since SW:P was cast. So if you use a trinket and refresh SW:P with Mind Flay the Shadow Word: Pain will be updated to take account of the increased Spell Power. When your spell power is returned to usual Shadow Word: Pain will be updated on the next refresh. You don’t need to recast the spell manually.

However, this is not true of changes to buffs on you which increase your % Spell Damage or spell. So for example, if you cast Shadow Word: Pain, then enter Shadowform and refresh it with Mind Flay the Shadow Word: Pain will not do the 15% additional damage. To benefit from that you need to recast Shadow Word: Pain manually. This is true with similar buffs from Bosses like on Malygos. And crucially, Shadow Weaving increases your % shadow damage. So you should make sure you manually cast SW:P when you gain stacks of Shadow Weaving, don't just refresh it.

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SW:P doesn't refresh based on crit buffs you get either, so you need to update it after the Ele shaman procs Elemental Oath (unless you have a boomkin) or when you get spores from Loatheb. I tested on Loatheb, as the difference in crit would be quite obvious on recount, and it was. I haven't tested for crit effect on the target, as those are much lower and take more effort to test.

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I haven't tested for crit effect on the target, as those are much lower and take more effort to test.

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They need a manual refresh too.

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Works for me. Mmm, maybe you didn't select the entire text?

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Bah its working now, dunno what was up earlier. But nice work.

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They need a manual refresh too.

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From what I've read you don't need to for Improved Scorch. Is this wrong? Or is Improved Scorch an exception?

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From what I've read you don't need to for Improved Scorch. Is this wrong? Or is Improved Scorch an exception?

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Yes, you need to for scorch.

(Download the addon shadowgreenlight, it keeps it all monitored :P )

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Yes, you need to for scorch.

(Download the addon shadowgreenlight, it keeps it all monitored :P )

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Yeah that's where I just found that piece of information out myself :)

http://www.shadowpriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=23642

Thanks for the help

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Yes, you need to for scorch.

(Download the addon shadowgreenlight, it keeps it all monitored :P )

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I have the addon and I follow it personally. I just haven't seen solid evidence for the addon being correct, and I don't like arguing with "the addon says so, ergo it's true". :P

Hello. I'm a newbie shadow priest that mostly raids 10 mans and I took the first "basic raiding build" from Wowwiki, but it doesn't have the Spirit Tap talents. Am I missing out on a lot of potential dps due to a lack of mana regen because of that? I now do see that Shadow Affinity is something I can save talent points on because I practically don't overaggro anyway, but can I safely sacrifice both Inner Focus and Improved Vampiric Embrace for Spirit Tap and Imp. Spirit Tap?

I kinda like Imp. VE's healing effects to compensate a bit for not doing as much dps as the others, you see. Maybe that's a silly thought, but that's why I ask.:p

My $0.02

You can certainly ditch Inner Focus, it's really not important in todays environment, even for healers. One free spell every few minutes it's negligible (unless it's Divine Hymn) and the crit chance on one spell will give you no real DPS boost.

Improved Vampiric Embrace is not completely awful. But if you're doing 4,000 DPS (say) then the difference is between you healing for 120 healing per second, and 200 healing per second. It probably won't make much difference to your healers, but if that's what you'd like to do, I doubt anybody will complain too much.

Of the three talents you mention, none of them are particularly good. If you're not running out of Mana I really don't think it matters which you take.

Reported for sticky.

A really informative and helpful topic.

I don't agree with the shadow pvp spec at all.
Imp mana burn isn't something i ever saw someone at a decent rating ever take, shadowpriest simply can't win a outlast game, even with improved mana burn. And if your focused it's impossible to even get a cast off.

Depending on your play style/setup there's so many different options you can't even say there's single shadow pvp spec.

Generally you either go with 2 pieces spirit/ 3 crit or full crit (even if full spirit is far from a impossibility).

Shadow power is usually the big talent diffrence. Since shadowpower doesn't increase the crit of dots and shadowpriests don't have more than around 18-21% crit (without talents) in full crit gear, many people chose to go half crit, half spirit gear and skip shadowpower to get some more mana from the disc tree. And more things is like when you play with a rogue you don't need 5/5 imp mindblast etc.

My own crit build looks something like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxIbuZZ0xfiRfk0fqfkAo:oIZm0V with some different glyphs. Not saying it's the 1 to go with, others i saw look slightly different.

Pvp glyphs for shadow is dispersion. That's probably like the only glyph 99% of the shadowpriests take. Inner fire is the 2nd glyph most take, but not everyone (even if i'd recommend it). Rest of glyphs you can chose is Fade, Mind flay (this is what i use), Shadow word: pain, Power word shield and probably something i forgot.

About the pve part:
Why skip inner focus for pve? It's a 1 point talent which provides + dps (even if its far from big), why take a talent which gives me no dps at all and a little more mana which i don't need?

Btw that's not dps values you have there ;x But i guess it gives you a general idea of what stats to get anyway...

Edit: Other than that it looks nice.

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I don't agree with the shadow pvp spec at all.
Imp mana burn isn't something i ever saw someone at a decent rating ever take, shadowpriest simply can't win a outlast game, even with improved mana burn. And if your focused it's impossible to even get a cast off.

...

Rest of glyphs you can chose is Fade, Mind flay (this is what i use), Shadow word: pain, Power word shield and probably something i forgot.

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No I completely agree. This isn't a PvP guide and I understand that there is a looooooot more variation with PvP builds than with PvE builds. I looked around and this was a reasonably common one I saw, but it's probably not ideal for every aspect of PvP play (from arena to battlegrounds). So I do appreciate the extra feeeback.

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About the pve part:
Why skip inner focus for pve? It's a 1 point talent which provides + dps (even if its far from big), why take a talent which gives me no dps at all and a little more mana which i don't need?

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It's utterly negligible. But I've already said in a couple of posts above, those points are indeed variable. In somes ways Spirit Tap, Inner Focus, Improved Vampiric Embrace are all pretty bad talents and up to you to pick between.

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Btw that's not dps values you have there ;x But i guess it gives you a general idea of what stats to get anyway...

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True it's converted to Psuedo-spell power to take account of item budget rather than just be a DPS value. Which makes them more useful in my opinion. But point taken and I've changed the name to better represent that.

first off: grats for the sticky.

secondly: i might be mistaken, but is improved shadowform not more a PVP talent? the slow removal and the channel time reduction seem rather useless to me. but that might be because i don't have a shadow priest myself. i would spend those points in veiled shadows.

so i would have taken this spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbhZZGxfVRfzffqczAo:ahqzcV

it is the same as your spec, but i just moved 2 points from improved shadowform to veiled shadows, giving up a snare removal (which seems rather useless to me in PvE) and a pushback reduction (also rather useless in PvE) for an aggro dump with a shorter CD and a mana/DPS CD with a shorter CD.

just my 2 coppers.

edit: also, you mention inner focus in your second post, but you don't have it in your talent build.