Shadow Priest PVE Guide

**Khalts** · 10-08-2008

Hello. =]

I will already say sorry for my bad english , i'm not a native english speaker so i will be doing the best i can so i can make myself understood.

Well most of you may be thinking " WTF LK incoming and this guy is just making a Pve guide for BC !!!!11111oneone."

But i am being forced by my parents ( along with my School grades (--.--) )to stop playing wow for a non specified time ;] so i would like to let everything i know for those who want to Master the Art of Shadows as an Soldier of GoD.

Talents

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Priest -> Talent Calculator

- I consider Spirit tap really superior in PvE against Blackout. Thats ur choice.
- If you dont want Improved PW: Shield, just get Martyrdom. Again, ur choice.
This build is Very Versatile , but nothing that you do will be really Away from this build.

Gear

To start raiding you will want at least 600 Shadow Damge so you can go to Karazan and get some gear ups ^^.

Lets imagine this situation:

i just got 70 with my cool char and he is Purple and all but i just have some grens and blues from instances from leveling.

Dont be afraid little Shadowy Newbie ;] you Should have between 250 (holy christ) and 500 ( hmm blues =] ) Shadow Damage .

Ok your mission to Reach Karazan is to Get 600-800 Shadow Damage and about 50 Spell Hit Rating (76 if possible).

Instances to Go :

Mana Tombs :
Voidfire Wand - Item - World of Warcraft Spelldamage + Spell Hit
Staff of Polarities - Item - World of Warcraft Spell damage + HIGH Spell Hit
Ethereal Boots of the Skystrider - Item - World of Warcraft Crit does it too ^^
Sigil of Shaffar - Item - World of Warcraft Neck =]

Sethekk Halls:
Sethekk Oracle Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft Great Back with Spell Hit
On Sethekk Halls you can use the Dungeon set 3 Pants from Mages (+crit) or Warlocks (+Hit)
Incanter's Trousers - Item - World of Warcraft Crit Ones
Trousers of Oblivion - Item - World of Warcraft Spell Hit

Shadow Labirint:
Jaedenfire Gloves of Annihilation - Item - World of Warcraft Great Shadow priest Gloves
Brooch of Heightened Potential - Item - World of Warcraft Great Neck with Hit and Crit
Wand of the Netherwing - Item - World of Warcraft Pure Spell Damage Wand
Silent Slippers of Meditation - Item - World of Warcraft Nice Boots with Spirit
Robe of Oblivion - Item - World of Warcraft Chest from Warlock DS3 Nice =]
Spaulders of Oblivion - Item - World of Warcraft Shoulders from Lock DS3

Auchenai Crypts have only 2 good for you:

Oculus of the Hidden Eye - Item - World of Warcraft Trinket with Low Spell damage
Sky Breaker - Item - World of Warcraft Nice Main Hand

I Believe those being Fairly easy instances with the harder being Auch Crypts and it has only 2 Drops for you. You can Also Check at the Tempest Keep instances for some little Upgears but if you get some of this items , you should be able to hit our Goals =]

Now you can go Karazan with ur friends / guild / pug and NOT be carried by a over geared dude/raid .
Dont forget the wonderfull items you can get from Heroics now ;D. A those have an Extra Prize with them : Badges of Justice !

We now have those Uber Badge Items that you can get without being afraid of wasting your badges. Trust me, they are Overpowered items =] you will only be trading them for BT / Sunwell gear mostly.

I'm not Going inside Crafted Items but , if you wish to get some really nice items and are a Tailorer, go to WoW head and look for Frozen Shadoweave Set, Belt of Blasting and Spellstrike set.

Raiding

Think with me :

- You have the Gear !
- You have the Spec !
- You have Fingers !

wait master, i still dont know how to play on a raid...

- You have this Guide ! :3

Lets go for the Rotation :

Your damage while raiding will come mainly from your Dots, so make sure to Keep them ;]

usually at low spell damage / mana pool / mana regen , this rotation is the most apropriated :

Vampiric Touch -> Shadow Word: Pain -> Vampiric Embrace -> Mind Blast -> Mind Flay -> Mind Flay -> Mind Blast -> Mind Flay ...

and so goes on eternaly on MB's and MF's BUT always stop MB/MF ing to put your Dots UP.

-Dont Waste your Mana, dont stop a mind flay at the middle to recast a Dot.

At End Game with something about 1000 Shadow damage your rotation should include SW

(shadow wordie: deathta )

it will come after Mindblasts when its Up :

VT -> SWP -> VE -> MB -> SWD -> MF -> MF -> MB -> ...

Remember to have Omen / threat meters beacause we are like Ultra Threat Generators beacause of hmmmm dont know , we just have HIGH threat =]. Fade when you need to.

Fadelol Quote about Rotation

Just to make it clear, thinking of it as a rotation is the flaw because you can't get a set rotation because as a shadow priest the spells are never off cooldown in the same order. Instead it is more of a spell priority system where it goes(for the most mana intensive priority, from most important->least important):

1. Vampiric Touch
2. SWP
3. MB
4. SWD
5. MF

However, this is not set in stone either, situationally MB/SWD can be better than casting a new DoT depending on how much uptime you actually lose. Also it is extremely important not to refresh a dot _too_ early because then you lose the final tick. If you go into serious raiding you might want to get Imp VE, it's especially good in Sunwell and by then you shouldn't be able to take aggro of the tanks else than on Felmyst.

Could also write something quickly about macro's. Not that there is much needed really. Only ones I use are(written from memory so might not be 100% accurate)

Code:
#showtooltip Vampiric Touch
/use 13 //Hexshrunken Head(remove after //)
/use 14 //Icon of the Silver Crescent(remove after//)
/cast Vampiric Touch
and
Code:
#showtooltip Devouring Plague
/cast Inner Focus
/cast Devouring Plague

Enchants

So lets get Started. This part is really easy ( if you have the gold

Gems

Finally to the Last part of what you need to know about your Gear =].

Shadow Priests use mainly Pure Spelldamage gems.
Those would be :
Runed Living Ruby - Item - World of Warcraft +9 Spell damage
Runed Crimson Spinel - Item - World of Warcraft +12 Spell damage

If you are not Hit capped, just get some gens with spell hit + damage :
Veiled Noble Topaz - Item - World of Warcraft +4 Spell hit +5 Spell damage
Veiled Pyrestone - Item - World of Warcraft +5 Spell hit +6 Spell damage

and thats it ! Remember always. With 5/5 Shadow Focus, your Spell hit Cap is 76 ( i thinks ... =S ).

Here is a Spell damage table to give you some directions of what you can raid:

Assuming you are Hit capped :

Shadow Damage --------------------- Raid
500-700 ----------------------------- Karazan
700-900 ----------------------------- Grulls - Mag - The Eye
900-1100 ----------------------------The Eye - SSC - Hyjal and BT (hardly)
1100-1400 --------------------------- BT and Sunwell ( you knew it =* )

the places list only raids that have items to Upgrade your gear and get you better Spelldamage / crit / etc

As last words in the guide, i will NOT talk about Haste because if you get far enough to have it in considerable amounts, you should be pretty much prepared to Deal with the rotation of spells.

This is the end. If you Read the guide until this point, you are probally ready to own any raid with your Shadowy Char =]

I Wish luck for all those that play the as a Shadow Priest and see you in the LK ( maybe ^^ ).

------>THIS GUIDE WAS WROTE BY KHALTS FROM MMOWNED AND YOU CANT COPY THIS WITHOUT MY CONSENT.<------

By Khalts.

**HolyGraal** · 10-08-2008

from a shadow priest perspective who downed kil'jaeden 1month ago, there are a lot of information missing, even for the new shadow priests who passed karazhan

anyway... +rep for writing it

**Fadelol** · 10-08-2008

Feedback:

- Gear part is very lacking
- Rotation?! Mega fail, honestly wtf?
- For current patch, this guide will be worth it for another week(if you use it which you shouldn't)
- No PuG is likely to bring a 600 dmg SP to Karazhan, you will want at least 800 damage for this(very easily obtainable as well)
- Nothing about S2 mace from honor
- Doesn't bring up haste at all
- Does not say recomended on subtlety on cloak(enchant section)
- Spelldamage for instance is off, you're at 1250 damage minimum starting Sunwell if you are going for pure damage, a bit less if you have some haste(you can easily reach even 1250 before even entering SSC/TK)
- No section about cutting MF after second tick(yes this is still debated but I tend to feel a slight dps increase when I time it properly)
- Very poorly written/structured
- Missing what BoJ items are recomended
- Belt of Blasting is BoE, you don't need tailoring

Can't honestly say I see much positive in this guide, sorry.

**evilgoat** · 10-08-2008

Originally Posted by HolyGraal

from a shadow priest perspective who downed kil'jaeden 1month ago, there are a lot of information missing, even for the new shadow priests who passed karazhan

anyway... +rep for writing it

Agreed on the lacking part.. There's really nothing about haste in here at all, although if you're in need of haste, you probably shouldn't be looking up Spriest guides on MMOwned

**stormer** · 10-08-2008

Nice guide =) i Wish that there will be guide to start raiding For all classes.

**Chrommie** · 10-08-2008

Rotation : bind random dots and spells to your action bar and smash ur face in ur keyboard

**HolyGraal** · 10-08-2008

Originally Posted by Chrommie

Rotation : bind random dots and spells to your action bar and smash ur face in ur keyboard

that's the sl sl lock in arenas:P

**Khalts** · 10-08-2008

This is not finished yet, unfortunelly my Real Life Time is not Infinite and i have more things to do right now.Sorry for not writing this on the main guide.

Feedback:

- Gear part is very lacking
- Rotation?! Mega fail, honestly wtf?
- For current patch, this guide will be worth it for another week(if you use it which you shouldn't)
- No PuG is likely to bring a 600 dmg SP to Karazhan, you will want at least 800 damage for this(very easily obtainable as well)
- Nothing about S2 mace from honor
- Doesn't bring up haste at all
- Does not say recomended on subtlety on cloak(enchant section)
- Spelldamage for instance is off, you're at 1250 damage minimum starting Sunwell if you are going for pure damage, a bit less if you have some haste(you can easily reach even 1250 before even entering SSC/TK)
- No section about cutting MF after second tick(yes this is still debated but I tend to feel a slight dps increase when I time it properly)
- Very poorly written/structured
- Missing what BoJ items are recomended
- Belt of Blasting is BoE, you don't need tailoring

Can't honestly say I see much positive in this guide, sorry.

-To Write the gear part will be the bigger section of the guide and with the items listened above, a priest can start raiding karazan. Dont missjudge my guide. I am Writing it for Starters that wish to Grow up as a Shadow priest.
-I dont see my Rotation MegaFail, if you can, please share the "right" rotation with me.
-You honostly didnt read the 1st part of my guide did you ?
-Dont try to be a smart ass with your pug coment, 600 spell damage is more them enough for Kara Run, PLUS you know that a lie can easily ocurrs ( not my case ) plus you can get much more from Crafts and heroics but doing kara is so Easier, plus its a raid experience for 1st time raiders and get you some gear, seeing that nowadays players are all overgeared with little exceptions.
-I dont believe in Raiding with PVP Gear. Its Really your choice to raid with whatever gear you want, but i just dont like it. Will include in the Guide for those who wish this way.
-Not Talking about Haste, until having enough time for it.
-My bad for Subtlety thing
-Again my bad for Spell damage, but that table is not write in stone. Its just for further orientation.Will put Sunwell on a higher bracket above BT.
-It would take 50 walls of words to tell you WHEN TO and WHEN NOT TO cut MF on second tick.
-I like my Structure i see it very newbie friendly and that was what i intented it.
-BoJ items will be added as soon i have time.
-BoB is a craft from tailoring, being BoE or Not. I Will add a link for all the items, so people will be able to see it for themselves.

show me more hate =* joke. Thanks for pointing out what you see of negative.

@Stormer : there will be no other guides because i Play a Shadow priest and not Other Classes ^^ Sorry

Looking forward to make this an usefull guide Yet. tnx for Coments

**Fadelol** · 10-08-2008