Shadow Priest guide.

[nicmel]

I'm trying to contribute what I can to the community here. I know next to nothing about hacks and scams, but I have played a shadow priest for over 28 months now, so figured I should do what I can to help anyone planning on re-rolling my favourite class/spec.

1. Creating your priest.
1.a. Race
Priests are different from most classes in that each race has access to a spell or two that most other races do not. I'll go through each one, tell you what I'd pick, but ultimately I recommend you pick whenever one you'd be happy staring at for hours on end. I have purposely left out skills that aren't related to being a priest, skills in italics are available to all classes, but are useful as a priest

Alliance
Draenei: Gift of Naaru (targetable HoT), +1% spell hit aura, Symbol of Hope (Party mana regen spell), Chastise (2 second stun)
Dwarf: Desperate Prayer (10 minute cooldown, instant selfheal, about 2k at 70), Chastise
Human: +10% spirit,Desperate Prayer, Feedback (useless, costs 700mana and burns about 100 of enemies mana if they casta spell on you)
Night Elf: Starshards (channelled AOE arcane damage spell)

If you're going alliance I'd take Draenei for the mana regen spell and for the Hit aura or human for the spirit buff (helps levelling, healing and slightly beneficial to shadow) and the faster rep gains.

Horde
Blood Elf: Arcane Torrent/Mana Tap (use Tap to gain 3 charges, then use Torrent to regain some mana) Consume Magic (deletes a buff of yours for mana), Touch of weakness (lowers attack power of those attacking you, and deals a little shadow damage)
Forsaken: Devouring Plauge (a disease that does shadow damage to the target whilst healing you for the same amount it damages) Touch of Weakness
Troll Hex of Weakness (target does 35 less damage and is healed for 20% less), Shadow Gaurd (attackers are hit with 130 shadow damage) Berserking Increases spellhaste depending on your health (10-30%) you need to be 40% or less of max health to get full benefit.

If I was going Horde I'd probably roll Forsaken for DP, or Troll for Berserking since some mobs are immune to disease.


2.Levelling your Priest
2.a. 10-45

Whilst people will argue about what spec to take I'd recommend starting in the discipline tree increasing the damage you do from wands, until level 36 your wand will do more damage than most of your spells, so it seems silly not to exploit this as much as possible. After level 14 start in the shadow tree working you way to a build similar to this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Make sure you keep the best wand you can get at all times, if you are an enchater or know one then you will be fine. Mind Flay only reaching equal DPS to an enchanter made wand at Rank 3 (level 36) so don't waste mana casting it, just wand then mobs down. A good rotation to use is to sheild, Shadow Word Pain and then wand. Spirit tap should see you to full mana before you reach the next mob. An alternative to using the Sheild is to use a rank 1 fear but this is situational ofcourse.

In terms of gear just go for spirit over everything else. "of Spirit" and "of the Whale" gear will be good, "of the Owl" isn't needed for levelling as a large mana pool isnt too important for a priest, regeneration is key.

2.b. On to 70
As you gain shadow form, and start levelling you'll probably want to start doing instances, you WILL be asked to heal, either say no and walk away, or just heal them, healing as shadow spec is fine in pre-60 instances. In outlands you'll probably want to start getting healing gear if you plan to keep healing instances.

If you plan to Solo at 70 then aim for something like Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft and just throw the rest of the points wherever you like (silence might be worth picking up)

If you plan to raid at 70 you'll want to aim for the "cookie cutter" build of 14/0/47 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

When levelling to 70 you'll still want a fair ammount of spirit, but adding on +damage will certainly help burning down the mobs as well as mana regeneration through Vampiric Touch.

At this stage I tend to cast VT, SWPain, Flay and then wand. If you can get in an extra flay then do so.


3. Starting to Raid
I never PvP on my priest so I'll leave that for those with knowledge. Here I'll discuss builds, gear and "rotations"

3.a. Talent Builds

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is easily the best starting for any raiding shadow priest.

With this build your first priority is to get hit capped (76 hit rating, 63 for Draenei) and then to maximise your spell damage. Once you are hit capped don't bother thinking amout +hit, just aim for +shadow damage, gem purely for damage (+9/+12 damage depending on your resources and what gear you have) However once you reach a certain level of raids you will automatically be "over capped" and will be in a position to drop a point from Shadow Focus and relocate it. The reason we take 4/5 Improved Mind Blast is so that we can get a nice MB-MF-MF-MB sequence going. When you have enough hit to drop a point or enough haste to knock off 0.25 seconds from a 3 second cast then go for 5/5 improved MB. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

If you arent yet hit capped but have a particularly large ammount of +shadow damage, or you don't mind drinking pots every 2 mins then consider going for a very agressive build such as Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft You drop 10% mana regen, but you gain 0.5 second reduction in Mind Blasts cooldown. You can "clip" Mind Flay to cast Mind Blast every time it is off cooldown. Your raid group will love the mana regen you give, but this is very mana intensive for you.

3.b. Spell "rotations"

The first thing I always tell people who ask me about a rotation for a shadow priest is "there isn't one". A shadow priest cant comming a cycle to memory and then simply repeat it, our cooldowns and DOTs are of different lengths and so it is a case of priotising our spells and casting which ever one is "up" first.

Generally we can think of the spells as:

Vampiric Touch. This is why you are in a raid, to return mana to the group, make sure this is up 100% of the time or as close to it. As soon as you notice it has less than 1.5 seconds duration, finish the spell you are casting and then get VT back up asap. Keeping this up is priority number 1

Shadow Word Pain: As another DOT you should make sure this is up as close to 100% as possible. Second must important spell.

Mind Blast: A short cast time, high burst damage spell, it's on a cooldown 5.5-8 seconds depending on talents. Try to make sure it's talented to at least 6.5 seconds and cast it as soon as it's off cooldown, assuming your DoTs are up.

Shadow Word Death: Instant cast, hits for about the same as a Mind Blast but it damages you for the same. Again cast this every time it's off cooldown, again assuming the DoTs are up.

Mind Flay: 3 second channelled spell, very mana efficient, but fairly low DPS, it's used as a filler for most priests, cast this when the DoTs are up and the nukes or on cooldown. Do not use a "/stopcasting" macro as you might clip the last tick, thus wasting mana.


The expeptions to this are at low end and high end progression.

At the lower end you may not have enough shadow damage (I'd say 1050-1100 is the point) to cast Mind Blast and SW Death on every cooldown, use your early raids as a feeler and see what suits your gear, maybe ignore one or the other. If you plan to ignore one then I'd recommend casting SW Death and ignore Mind Blast, not for any DPS reason, but just to get your healers used to having to throw out a small heal to you every now and again.

At the higher end of the scale you will be doing the opposite, throwing out Mind Blasts and SW Deaths as often as possible, this will mean cutting out the last tick of a Mind Flay. This will cut down your mana efficiency but will up your DPS. Use a mod of some sort to ensure you are only chopping 1 tick of MF, since chopping off 2 ticks will ruin your DPS.

3.c. Gear

A few simple rules, gearing a priest isnt hard at all.

1. Stay hit capped 76 for most, 63 hit rating for draenei.
2. Get as much +damage as you can.
3. If you go over the hit cap by 26 rating then drop 1 point from shadow focus (only do this if it's unavoidable)
4. Get as much + damage as you can
5. Once you have over 1400 shadow damage (fully buffed) then 1 haste will increase your DPS just as much as 1 damage will.

[darkprince11]

Good guide, but i don't know weather its copy/paste. so i wont rep you yet.

[nicmel]

lol i spent over 30 typing it out.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Norea]

Thank you I'm leveling my priest at the moment will certainly use this!
Good job and + rep!

[gogobananas]

Very nice, will help when I finish leveling my priest. +rep

[NeeK]

Nice guide, i was thinking of rolling a priest myself and you'd helped me with alot of info lol :P
ty =)
+rep

[nicmel]

glad I could help, now I am out of leecher status (yay!) I can send PMs, so if you have any questions feel free to ask here or PM me.

[Knew]

Yeah it was a good guide +rep!

[bpaquette]

Night Elf: Starshards (channelled AOE arcane damage spell)

starshards is an instant, and has been for awhile

my guess is copy/paste from a while ago, can't really see how he could make this mistake if he's been such an avid shadow priest for so long

[*3rik]

BTW a good list for starting gear shadowpriest.com • View topic - Best Casual Gear available

[nicmel]

starshards is an instant, and has been for awhile

my guess is copy/paste from a while ago, can't really see how he could make this mistake if he's been such an avid shadow priest for so long

not a copy and paste, just haven't played a nelf (of any class) in a long time.

[corel]

Yeah good guide. Have already a 70 Shadow Priest, but for ppl who want to level one it´s quite nice.
+rep for you