A few shadowpriest Arena/PvP tips.

[KimBo]

Well, as a 2.2k rated shadow priest I thought I might as well share a few tips out, in no particular order (note that some of these may be obvious, but you'd be surprised):

1) Warrior Spell-Reflect - Very simple one, just use Mind Soothe rank 3. 90 mana and his spell reflect is gone at no loss for you at all. I have it bound to Ctrl+4 (4 is my regular Shadow Word: Pain)

2) Warrior Openers - in 90% of your fights vs warriors the warrior WILL use pummel on your first spell as they never have enough rage for mortal strike so long as you keep shield up (seem obvious? the warrior will almost never pummel you when he can MS instead, timing is everything) Always use a fake cast on your first cast. This wastes their rage at no loss to you.

3) PvP specced warlocks - this is so incredibly simple that I get seizures every time I see a shadow priest lose to a warlock. Just dispel their dots! Its THAT simple, they have one dot that you can't dispel. Fear? Heres the surprise: If you have no dots on you, fear is MUCH more likely to break from pet melee attacks while the warlock is dotting you.This was an undocumented patch 2.3 change, and was designed to prevent fear being used as an offensive tool (remember the whining?). Might sound strange, but thats how it is.

4) Rogues in general - Mind Flay. Almost never used. This is THE most powerful spell against rogues, for one reason, its spammable. I always see priests using VT or Mind Blast or Shadow Word death and hurting themselves more than the rogue, when mind flay gives 10 times the result. It's your only chance against s3 geared rogues, trust me.

5) Mind Control - the most underestimated spell in the game. I would never have broken 2k without it. There are plenty of guides on how to use it, in what situations, and everybody reads them but no one ever uses it. The most important part about mind control - your dots keep on ticking. Its 10 second duration, thats 3k damage just from your own dots in pvp gear (s3), prevents the target from being healed or doing anything AND gives you distance. The 3 second cast time is nothing really, it can be cast while the enemy is trinketing your fear. Just-use-it. in 80% of cases the opponents partner won't ever bother trying to attack you to break it, so long as they aren't double dps and focusing you.

6) Spell Damage - the most important stat in PvE, and surprisingly in PvP too. You're a glass cannon, 400 resilience won't change that, your damage is what gives you rating, not your defense. Don't get me wrong, 450 resilience is a must, but spell damage is just as important.

7) Healing - in most cases don't even bother. You'll go oom and your 800 mana 3.5k greater heal wont save you. Healing is VERY situational, but the wasted time, shadowform, mana and switch to defence will most likely lose you the duel/match with rare exceptions.

8) Druid HoTs - so incredibly simple. A druid will almost ALWAYS use NS (instant heal for 999999999999) and full HoT early vs shadowpriest nuke teams. Just dispel all his hots. Its that easy. Druid healing superiority is a myth and spread by people who just don't want to try new approaches. Your dispel will heal the target for 3k, or you risk them healing the target for 7+ with full hots. The druid WILL panic, they aren't used to this, even at high ratings, they're used to being maneuverable and panic when they see their team mate going down with no HoTs, as it actually takes a while to full HoT (11+ seconds for full HoTs with global cooldown).

9) Mages. They are your nemesis, no other class, even rogues, can kill you faster. LoS them for all youre worth and DISPEL ALL of their debuffs on you, especially ones that lock you in place or enjoy eating a 5k shatter combo in 2 seconds.

10) Warlock Pets - god doesn't everyone hate them? and yet no one looks for ways to counter them. Spell Penetration, very underestimated stat. Fear lasts 7 seconds, 23 sec cooldown with s3 gloves and talent. problem is warlock pets seem to have a 99% resistance, and 100% in arena. this changes with spell penetration. 60 will give you a 70% chance to fear the pet for 7 seconds, during which it cant damage, dispel or silence, + 3 or more seconds for it to run back. incredibly useful for drinking or nuking.

11) Mana Burn - forget about it. Don't waste your time, you're not a disc priest, the healing your damage requires actually wastes MORE mana than mana burning AND heals you. This is especially true since patch 2.4 with 750 mana burns (and costs 355 mana), and even talented its not worth spamming with your regen/damage capabilities. Very very situational (good for 1vs1 when you have the upper hand). Basically unless you're disc or winning by a wide margin, don't use it.

12) Killing Healers - this may come as a surprise to you, but you are the healer killing spec. No other class in the GAME has your burst damage, and coupled with silence and fear, you can take a season 3 druid down just with your burst. Why? No one EVER expects it. People just refuse to understand how fast you can tear them apart with full cycle dps (especially as undead or nelf). Don't ever be afraid of killing disc priests first, they can't stand against a well geared shadowpriest & partner, trust me.

13) Paladin Shield - this isn't quite as simple as it seems. Paladins have a very high resistance against mass dispel, but 4/5 times it will go down on your first dispel. Now here is the trick: almost always after bubble the paladin will start casting a Holy Light 2.5 second spell. This is a very stupid tactic, as mass dispel (untalented) is a 1.5 sec cast, and immediately after cast a fear/silence. The paladin is screwed. Always try to judge when a paladin is about to shield and start casting a mass dispel right before it, this is much simpler than it sounds, as a paladin will usually use it when hes controlled in any way and is under pressure to heal (a simple rogue kick will most often cause them to shield.

14) Survival - you don't have it. don't chase after it, don't expect a miracle when you get 4/5 s3 (you'll already understand this at 5/5) or when you hit higher ratings, if anything, it gets harder. you die the fastest out of anyone except to warriors. Never focus on outlasting, i wasted so much time on this in S2 when our problems started. Pressure your opponents, but never ever go defensive yourself unless you have the upper hand.

bleh im tired and its 4 am. I've got quite a lot to add but my brain isn't working right now. ill put more in tomorrow ^_^. also don't be afraid of going disc, its 10 times easier to get the same ratings, but no where near as fun.

Continued:

15) Hunters generally - I have a few tips here. Firstly, never ever ever run straight at hunters (for fear or to get in melee range) as you WILL trigger the trap that they planted. Instead, run to them in a semi-circle arc, hunters always trap to put the trap between them and yourself, this is easily countered. another point here is to kill the pet. MM or BM it doesn't matter, if you can LOS the hunter, the pet will die in 10 seconds, and even if the hunter put mend pet on it, needless to say if you cant LOS the hunter, ignore the pet completely, dont waste fear on it unless you get the hunter too. Also, if you triggered a snake trap: DO NOT FEAR. fear affects the closest 5 targets, and chances are it wont be the hunter, his pet, or whoever else you are trying to fear. If you have a stubborn hunter who camps on his trap, you can just run to 6 yards of him and fear, the trap wont be triggered but the fear will land. another good tip for hunters is to mind flay. don't bother with mind blast or other casts unless you have martyrdom procced and the hunter has used silencing shot, you'll get more results from flay spam.

16) Retri paladins - a good retri paladin is very very rare. but when you do meet him you'll wish you hadn't, this is also the class against which mana burning and healing works even as a shadowpriest. "loladin" is a s1/s2 term, now they can really really hurt you. fortunately, there are a lot of ways to counter them. firstly, dispel! everything, both off of yourself and off the paladin. this will put him into "oh shit" mode since he won't be able to cookie cutter insta-gib you and will waste his mana like crazy. thirdly, you can force and early shield by casting mana burn on the paladin, as this is their greatest weakness. as always, dont forget to keep yourself shielded all the time.

17) Enhancement shamans - one word, OUCH. another downside to this fight, other than the fact that they can actually kill you with 470 resilience in under 10 seconds, is that this is a hard fight to learn and to not panic. the only way to win this fight is to get off a good fear and kite, its the only way. but wait, how do you fear them with a tremor and grounding totem? simple, kill the tremor totem. unfortunately this isnt as easy as it sounds. a good shaman will be ready to pop another totem when he sees you targeting his, and sometimes macroing a spell wont work because of grounding. what you do here is start dotting the shaman, dont be afaraid, they will start by dispelling you. while you are dotting get to the tremor totem and kill it with a melee attack, the good thing here is melee doesnt cause a global cooldown which would allow a shaman to pop another one, and you can fear the same instant the totem dies. the shaman will normally not realize what you did and will wait for the fear to be eaten by the tremor totem, which gives you ample time to redot/dps. now here is the catch, once the shaman trinkets, he will either frost shock you or go ghost wolf. if he frost shocks you, silence him and mind flay. if he goes ghost wolf, dispel him! by this time the shaman should be at around 40% if not less and its just a matter of time to kill him. remember, this fight is all about control and pressure on the shaman.

18) The Shadowfiend - this is one of the most misused priests spells. i rarely use the shadowfiend for mana, it has much better uses for a shadowpriest. a shadowfiend will do around 1.5-2.5k (if used properly, not on a mage with ice block CD up) damage during his 15 seconds AND is affected by all +spell damage, +attack power on you and group and -defence debuffs on your target. more than the shadowfiend keeps the target in combat, interrupts spells, is almost impossible to control and can proc timbals focusing crystal. a good example is if you're fighting a rogue and you trinket his kidney shot; the rogue will generally use cloak of shadows + blind, bandage then restealth and start all over again. now imagine if you put the shadowfiend on him, that gives you minimum 20 seconds to prevent the rogue from doing that (vanish is broken, pets generally break it). this is only one use, you could use it to kill tremor totems, interrupt healers/casters and generally be a pest to disorient you opponent.

19) Fear Ward - never ever use fear ward in arena before the match has started. 9/10 times the opponent will dispel you then fear, negating its entire use. instead, try to buff it once the fight has started or you are up against classes that cant dispel. dont forget to buff it even if you're against classes that cant fear, as it acts as dispel fodder. of couse, as double undead you can use fear ward to force and early dispel during which you happily nuke away. another bug is if you mind control someone and buff them with fear ward, it will appear in their buffs but won't make you immune to fear. this has no uses what-so-ever but i thought of mentioning it anyway :D

20) DPS rotation - i generally see a lot of shadowpriests standing there trying to cast vampiric touch and getting los'ed/interrupted/silenced and whatnot. and i can never understand why. anything with a cast time is a bonus, it isn't necessary. the first things you should ever do are get shadow word pain and vampiric embrace up, and nothing else, even if youre 100% sure that you won't be interrupted. those, mind flay and shield are you main utilities, everything comes after. if you have someone with silence/interrupt on you its pure logic to use instant casts. example is you stand there for 3 seconds casting mind blast only to get kicked, simply stupid. use those 3 seconds to unload a 1400 mind flay which is spammable. its all about time management, the entire point of a shadowpriest is to get your casts off. notice how mages just don't stand in melee range casting frostbolt? exactly the same principle. your job is to do damage, having a lot of dots up and you target at 100% while youre at 70% is good. its all about keeping pressure on your opponent. TL;DR: instants are your friends, anything with a cast time isn't.

well thats all i had time for now, gtg raid :D anyways, thanks for the positive responses and ill add more later.

[Kingpin]

Can you give me your priest??

Haha, +2 rep mate, well done.

Maybe you should include the DPS rotation you talk about.

[Snor12]

nice guide =D

thanks man expecting to see what you add hopefully
+rep

[adio369]

not bad, played a priest for 2 years, got pretty boring, everything here seems logical and self explanatory, good guide.

[laren]

just the best guide in this field I ever seen +Rep

[Couwae]

This seems useful, as I myself play both retail and private server...
Nice little tips ^^
+rep from me definately

[pewpewlazerz]

+ rep, would love to see you continue it

[Liteness]

Amazing, i play a shadow priest and this just kicks ass. +Rep

[KimBo]

updated :D