How to: Shadow Priest PvE

[Tatertots]

Hello =], I am here to give you some insight on the abilities and sell rotations of Spriests! This thread will not be covering what each spell does and when to use them, this guide is here for how to form a simple DPS Rotation and understand WHY we use one. I know that there is one for PvE healing but I want to cover PvE Shadow.

I've seen alot in my days of wow and I figure around half the spriest population does not understand what rotation to use and when to us cooldowns.

Our rotation is a priority rotation similar to a Hunter's, but unlike hunters we have a prerequisite to start a main rotation. That Prerequisite is the buff Shadow Weaving (Shadow Weaving - Spell - World of Warcraft).

First, lets take a look at what stats we want.
Being hit capped for a priest is 17%. With talents you can get that down to 11%. I will not go into specs as there are countless threads on this.


MAJOR STATS:
Stam: More health, but not needed in PvE in anyway.
Intel: Bigger mana pool, more crit.
Spirit: Scales poorly with spellpower but the majority of cloth pieces have it anyways.

Sub Stats:
Spell Power: Your number 1 gemming choice, take this over anything else.
Crit: With 3.1, our dots now crit, you want your crit to float around 20%ish.
Haste: Helps with Mind Flay ticks and clipping, nice for getting dots off faster.
Hit: You need to be at 11%, no exceptoins. You can try and test fate with 10%ish, but don't push your luck.
So as you can see, your priority for stats should be Hit (11% or 290) > SP > Haste > Crit > Intel > Spirit.

Where to start: Every shadow spell you cast gives you 1 point of shadow weaving. Excluding Mind Flay (Mind Flay - Spell - World of Warcraft) which gives 3 stacks of Shadow Weaving due to it ticking 3 times. The first thing you want to do is get the Misery (Misery - Spell - World of Warcraft) debuff up there for other classes, you don't want t apply Shadow Word: Pain (Or SWP) because you do not have the effects of Shadow Weaving yet.
Your best option is to go for Vamparic Touch (Vampiric Touch - Spell - World of Warcraft) for your first spell because it applys a dot, sets you up for Replenishment and also adds misery.
Now, you should have 1 stack of Shadow Weaving, from you can take different routes on how to get to 5 stacks. Most Priests use the following as the opening Rotation:
VT > DP > MB > MF2 (The 2 means for two ticks of it) > SWP.

REASONING BEHIND SWP BEING LAST
The reason why priests do not put up SWP is because of shadow weaving, this is the only dot we never have to reapply due to Pain and Suffering (Pain and Suffering - Spell - World of Warcraft). This refreshes the dot every single tick of Mind Flay. SWP only recieves the benefit of your spell power and crit from the Mind Flay refresh, not the base damage of your shadow.

Example: Say you only have 2 stacks of Shadow Weaving on you, through the whole fight, your SWP would only be gaining the effect of it WHEN IT WAS FIRST CASTED, meaning that it will only gain 4% bonus damage instead of the 10%.

Written 100% by me, Tatertots
Any questions post here and I will do my best to help you guys

[LettersFromWar]

I prefer starting with VE, VT, Mind Blast, a full Mind Flay, Devouring Plague and then Shadow Word: Pain, but as long as Shadow Word: Pain is cast when you have 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving, it shouldn't matter much.

[Tatertots]

It would make more sense to do VT > DP > MB > MF Just for the fact that in the long run you'll have more DP uptime.

[DaemonOnFire]

Is this only for high level (80) or this it make also sense to use this constellation earlier?
(+Rep for you)

[Dragaei]

You need 10% hit-rating with a Draenei in-group and jus keep your eyes open.

It's Crit > Haste,with CSD meta.

[Tatertots]

Is this only for high level (80) or this it make also sense to use this constellation earlier?

Earlier, depending on your level you want to use SWP > MB > MF > MF.
Untill you get VT of course, once you do just follow the same rotation as stated above