Hespera of SWC
Shadow Priest-
* Spirit tap/Improved spirit tap - with the changes to shadow priest
spirit scaling in 3.3 this talent now provides a decent dps boost,
while improving mana regen at the same time. It's a must have talent.
*
Shadow Focus - Even if you are over the hit cap then this talent is
still useful because of the mana savings. Therefore I wouldn't
recommend dropping it even when you are above the hit cap.
*
Improved Mind Blast - a must have talent until you have the 4 piece T10
set bonus. After it is debatable about whether it is still worthwhile
to cast Mind Blast. Therefore you may want to consider dropping points
out of Improved Mind Blast and putting them somewhere else. That said,
there is nowhere great to put them so it's pretty much down to personal
preference. I would suggest 3/3 focused mind and 2/3 shadow affinity as
a decent choice.
* Veiled Shadows - the shadow fiend does a good
amount of damage (20-30k) so the main reason to choose this talent is
to enable him to be used more often = more dps. The additional mana you
get from this talent is just a nice bonus on top.
* Shadow Reach
- given the number of bosses where the raid is required to spread out,
additional range makes it that much easier to position yourself. And on
fights involving movement you can often start dps a little earlier.
*
Shadow Weaving - while 2/3 shadow weaving should be pretty much
guaranteed to keep up the buff stack in the long term, it can delay
getting the stack up to 5 if you are have bad luck which would cost you
dps.
* Improved Vampiric Embrace - I wouldn't call this a must
have talent, but it is generally helpful to have. If you are having
mana problems then this is the talent I would suggest dropping (in
favour of Focused Mind).
* Focused Mind - with a 3 minute shadow
fiend (see above) and disperson, mana really shouldn't be an issue on
any fight. It is generally possible to time dispersion so that you gain
mana without losing any dps (e.g. during the Putricide stun when you
couldn't do anything else anyway). However, if you find you really are
having mana issues and want to get Focused Mind then I would suggest
dropping points from Improved Vampric Embrace and Inner Focus.
*
Improved Shadowform - this is a must have talent. A lot of fights
involve unavoidable AE damage which will generally pushback
spellcasting. This would cause a dps loss which is counteracted by
Improved Shadowform (which stacks with the paladin Concentration Aura
for 100% pushback protection).
* Misery - this is a must have
talent even if you, and your entire raid, are above the hit cap. The
15% spellpower boost to Mind Flay and Mind Blast is independent of the
hit cap debuff and means that this talent is always worth having.
*
Pain & Suffering - On a straight stand and nuke fight, 2/3 Pain
& Suffering should keep up Shadow Word: Pain practically all of the
time. However few fights are straight stand and nuke, which means less
time casting Mind Flay on your primary target. For that reason it is
worthwhile to put 3 points into this talent.
* Disperson - In
practice this is a pretty useful talent. On most fights you can time
dispersion to avoid losing dps (i.e. using it only when you can't DPS
anyway) which makes it a nice mana boost. On other fights you can use
it as a dps increase such as on Festergut when you can avoid having to
run to the spores and simply disperse for a second or two when the
massive AE happens. Plus it is a handy "oh shit" button when you have
messed up and would otherwise die.
* Meditation - generally provides better mana savings than Focused Mind so is chosen in priority.
*
Inner Focus - not an amazing talent but better than the alternatives
available. If AE damage is a viable option then this is best used with
Mind Sear. As a single target dps boost then it is generally best used
with Mind Flay, or as a mana saving then it is best used with Devouring
Plague (although the crit chance increase doesn't work with DoTs).
Finally don't forget the combo of Inner Focus + Divine Hymn. This is a
pretty big heal and can often be useful on fights which have moments of
high raid damage.
4 Piece T10 Bonus
As
mentioned above, once you get 4 piece T10 it is debatable about whether
it is still worthwhile to cast Mind Blast. Therefore you may want to
consider dropping points out of Improved Mind Blast and putting them
somewhere else (although there are no amazing alternatives to take).
Glyphs
Gyphs are mostly covered in the Gear Discussion forum but I will briefly mention them here.
Major Glyphs
Glyph of Shadow and Glyph of Mind Flay are must have glyphs.
None
of the other major glyphs provide a major benefit for raids/dungons but
the best choice is likely to be one of the following:
Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain (for a small amont of mana regen)
Glyph of Mind Sear (for a bigger AE radius on Mind Sear)
Glyph of Dispersion (for a much shorter cooldown on dispersion)
Just
go with whatever fits your playstyle best. Glyph of Shadow Word: Death
is not really worth taking as it offers a small dps increase on a spell
you should not be casting very often while raiding. If you are lucky
you might get up to about 10 dps from this glyph (probably less).
Minor Glyphs
There aren't really any great minor glyphs so you are basically free to choose anything you like.
Glyph of Levitation is highly recommended simply for the convenience of not having to carry around light feathers.
Glyph
of Shadowfiend potentially offers a slight raiding advantage, but it is
an extremely small advantage as the shadowfiend rarely dies.
Glyph
of Fading also potentially offers a slight raiding advantage by saving
30% mana cost on a spell which is occasionally useful on raids.
Glyph of Fortitude and Glyph of Shadow Protection both add some convenience.
Leveling Spec
The
most important talent to pick up is 3/3 spirit tap. This will help
your mana regen enormously and help reduce the amount you need to drink.
For the remainder, there are a number of suitable paths you could
follow. I've suggested a reasonable path below but by no means is it
the only path to follow:
3/3 Spirit Tap
5/5 Darkness
2/3 Shadow Focus - good for the mana savings mainly
1/1
Mind Flay - note that Mind Flay isn't particularly awesome when you
first pick it up. It isn't until you get to about level 40 and Shadow
Form that it starts to become a very mana efficient killer
3/3 Shadow Focus
2/2 Improved Shadow Word:Pain
1/2 Improved Psychic Scream - not really useful yet, but needed to get to silence which is somewhat useful for levelling.
3/3 Shadow Weaving
2/2 Improved Psychic Scream
1/2
Shadow Reach - note that Improved Mind Blast isn't that great for
levelling. You are unlikely to be casting Mind Blast more than
once/fight anyway.
1/1 Vampiric Embrace - this will make life much easier and should basically remove the need to heal
1/1 Silence - good for casters to either pull them or prevent them from healing
3/3 Focused Mind
2/2 Mind Melt
1/3 Improved Devouring Plague - you probably won't be casting this very much when levelling as it is very mana intensive.
2/2 Improved Vampiric Embrace - even more free healing.
1/1
Shadowform - 15% damage reduction, 15% more damage. And with Vampiric
Embrace you won't need to heal anyway. What's not to like!
3/3 Improved Devouring Plague
2/5
Shadow Power - you probably won't be critting much at lower levels due
to lack of crit gear, so this isn't a top priority talent.
2/2
Improved Shadowform - you are likely to be getting a lot of pushback
from being hit while you cast, and this will help a lot.
5/5 Shadow Power
1/1 Vampiric Touch - a very powerful dot, and when combined with Mind Blast will refund much of the casting cost.
3/3
Misery - not great as you are unlikely to need the hit, and probably
don't have too much spellpower yet, but better than nothing.
1/1 Psychic Horror - useful as an "oh shit" button. You could skip this if you find you don't need it.
5/5
Twisted Faith - spirit gear is valuable when levelling as it reduces
downtime. This talent should provide a significant spellpower boost.
1/1
Dispersion - great as an "oh shit" button, and awesome as a general
mana regen talent. You can use this when looting corpses to restore
mana without losing dps time.
5/5 Twin Disciplines
2/2 Veiled
Shadows - the first point is pretty much useless, but the second point
coincides with getting the shadowfiend spell at L66. The shadowfiend
does pretty good damage, and returns a lot of mana.
2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude
3/3 Inner Fire - the third point in this will coincide with the L71 version of Inner Fire which gives a spellpower bonus.
3/3 Meditation
1/1 Inner Focus
At
this point you can either go for Improved Mind Blast, Pain &
Suffering (useful if you are doing a lot of dungeons) or 2/2 Improved
Spirit Tap for the remaining few levels.
My standard rotation
is Vampiric Touch, Mind Blast, Devouring Plague, and then Mind Flay. If
your target is almost dead by the end of this, you might want to
consider moving on to the next target earlier -- but only if you're sure
the tank can handle it. If you mess up and grab aggro, use Fade as fast as you can.
If the group is moving through content quickly, don't even bother casting Shadow Word: Pain.
Damage-over-time spells are only useful if the enemies are alive long
enough for them to tick a couple times. If you're confident that your
tank can hold aggro, Mind Sear is probably your best
choice for groups of three or more -- again, these trash fights seldom
last long enough for DoTs to tick. Multidotting -- throwing those
damage-over-time spells on more than one enemy at once -- is a waste of
time if they're dying right away.
Pulling your weight and staying alive is what really matters in these
five-man scenarios, and that simply means putting in a solid effort with
reasonable numbers. DPS never matters on trash, unless someone in your
party is a jerk. If you're running Ragefire Chasm
and the lame prepubescent pally starts spamming Recount to show your
group what kind of damage you're doing and why you suck because of it,
feel free to inform him where he can jam his Recount reports.
If you spend your time in five-man instances caring about what people who you'll never see again think of your skills, you're gonna have a bad time.
The big leagues: Spell priority on bosses
Shadow
priests are a DPS spec. We have some neat damage-reducing abilities,
but when you come down to it, we're there in the group to melt Lady Deathwhisper's
face clear off. (The fact that her face already melted or otherwise
rotted off not withstanding, of course.) We deal damage, and we want to
deal a lot of it. That's why we're beloved the world over.
Raid bosses (and even heroic bosses) can stay alive for a long period of
time (you know, in relative WoW terms). Because their ticks will
actually matter in long fights, we need to have DoTs up on every time.
It's a no brainer -- our DoTs are pretty quick to cast and they'll do
damage over a long period of time, continuing to hurt the enemy even if
we need to put our focus elsewhere.
Here's your major takeaway: Your DoTs will do the most amount of damage
relative to the amount of time it takes to cast them. I ran a few simple
trials on training dummies to find the relative value of each cast in
terms of total damage per second of casting time. While these numbers
won't hold true for you exactly, the ratios between them should stay
close enough to be of use to a raiding (non-haste-capped) shadow priest. Standardizing the numbers to the biggest damage dealer, Devouring Plague, we get:
Devouring Plague: 1 (with Improved Devouring Plague)
Vampiric Touch: 0.77 (1.07 with the 2 piece tier 9 bonus)
Shadow Word: Pain: 0.58
Mind Blast: 0.28
Mind Flay: 0.21 (0.25 with the 4 piece tier 10 bonus)
Simple, right? Always keep your damage-over-time spells active, cast
Mind Blast when you can, and fill the gaps with Mind Flay in between.
You should be casting spells on a constant basis as a shadow priest -- anything less is a net DPS loss.
Squeezing out every last drop
When we're taking on Lord Jaraxxus
for the 20th time, we're going to have a tendency to phone it in. (You
can admit it -- don't worry, I won't tell your raid leader.) And really,
that's fine. The actual act of getting the boss down is more important
than the speed in which you do it.
When you're going up against Festergut
in a serious DPS-checking fight, though, every little bit of help
really does count. There are a few things I can suggest to wring every
last bit of DPS out of your shadow priest and make Thumper proud:
- Use a Potion of Speed the moment before the tank starts the fight. There's a one minute cooldown on potions, but the cooldown doesn't begin unless you're out of battle. Drinking the moment before the battle starts boosts your haste by 500 for 15 seconds, letting you get your spell rotation in full swing faster, all while leaving you free to drink another potion later on in battle after the one minute cooldown is up.
- Apply Shadow Word: Pain at the perfect moment. At the very least, this means casting the DoT only after you get up to 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving. If you have the Nevermelting Ice Crystal, this means casting SW:P immediately after using your trinket.
- Use your Shadowfiend early and often -- ideally immediately after setting up your initial DoTs and procing your Ice Crystal, if you have one. Yes, most of its mana regen will be wasted by using it early. Remember, though: it's a great DPS boost, and this is the point of the fight where you're likely to have the most procs active (like Lightweave, the Ashen Verdict ring proc, etc.).
- Never clip a spell. It's almost always going to lead to a net DPS loss. This means waiting for your channel of Mind Flay to finish even if you want to cast something better. (Easier said than done when you have trigger fingers as itchy as mine.) This means timing your refresh of Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague to connect the immediate moment after the previous DoT expires. If you refresh too soon, you'll lose the final tick of the spell, and lose out on some DPS.
- Keep Replenishment active. You can't DPS if you can't cast, so keeping your mana up is important. Besides, the ability of shadow priests to regenerate the party's mana is one of the most valuable things you bring to a group, so make sure it stays active. This will likely happen without much effort on your part (Mind Blast needs to connect when Vampiric Touch is active).
- Make sure you're fully self buffed! This step is so important, yet so easy to miss. Use a Flask of the Frost Wrym. Make sure Inner Fire is up and active. Get a Well Fed spell power buff from Firecracker Salmon, Tender Shoveltusk Steak, or a Fish Feast.
- Staying alive takes top priority. Don't wait until your spell finishes casting to get out of the fire. Your DPS drops to zero when you're dead, so do whatever it takes to stay alive, even if it hurts your DPS in the short run.
