Introduction
Welcome to the Shadow Priest Guide from Method written by twitch.tv/jaervenxd.
I am Jaerv, a Shadow Priest main for Method that also dabbles in theorycrafting and SimulationCraft over at Warcraft Priests, where I help out with everything from APL work, general theory testing and just coming up with all the not so smart ideas to try and implement.
If you are coming from Dragonflight, then you can expect Shadow Priest to be very similar in War Within. We have received almost no changes to the core spec, and are still a builder-spender spec that specializes in spread cleave and big, sustained, AoE damage.
And if you are coming from an older version of Shadow Priest, such as Legion or Battle for Azeroth, then you can expect Shadow Priest to have moved away from it’s unique playstyle and minigame of fighting the insanity drain to a more cookiecutter builder-spender playstyle with two different cooldowns (Void Eruption and Dark Ascension) that are used for different scenarios.
What has changed
Patch 11.1 Changes
The only changes Shadow Priest is getting in 11.1 is the introduction of the new Tier Set and a small change to Twins of the Sun Priestess.
2-set: Your damaging spells have a chance to hit a Jackpot! That fires a Void Bolt at an enemy at 200% effectiveness. Casting Dark Ascension or Void Eruption always hits a Jackpot! (rppm 2+(haste)
4-set: Hitting a Jackpot! Grants you 5.0 seconds of Power Infusion. Mind Blas and Void Bolt deal 15% increased damage while Power Infusion is active
Twins of the Sun Priestess: "If no ally is targeted, it will grant its effect to a nearby ally, preferring damage dealers."
Patch 11.0.7 Changes
The only relevant changes to Shadow Priest is the introduction of the new ring, Cyrce’s Circlet. You can read a bit more information about it down in the Gearing section, but as a tl;dr
Best Gems:
Note: Depending on gear, Legendary Skippers Citrine might sim slightly higher than Windsinger’s, but generally…
- Thunder: Stormbringer’s Runed Citrine
- Sea: Fathomdweller’s Runed Citrine
- Wind: Windsinger’s Runed Citrine
Patch 11.0.5 Changes
- Sustained Potency: It now also pauses the duration of Dark Ascension or Voidform for up to 20 seconds while out of combat or affected by a loss of control effect. Note that this 20 seconds is fixed per cast of these cooldowns, so even if you enter or leave combat multiple times you cannot save more than 20 seconds per use of the cooldowns.
- Entropic Rift now displays a low-noise version for your allies, instead of being completely invisible.
The War Within Expansion Changes
In War Within there are generally two different types of changes for all classes and specs, the generic changes to the core class and spec, and the introduction of Hero Talents. We will discuss Hero Talents further down in the guide.
Priest changes:
- Mindgames and all its associated talents have been removed from the class tree and Mindgames have been moved to a PvP talent.
- Void Tendrils now lasts for 15 seconds (was 20 seconds).
- Halo is now a 1 minute cooldown.
- New Talent: Cauterizing Shadows: When your Shadow Word: Pain expires, is refreshed with less than 5 seconds remaining, or the target dies, a nearby ally within 40 yards is healed.
- New talent: Manipulation: Now causes you to take 1%/2% less damage from targets affected by Shadow Word: Pain.
- New talent: Phantom Reach: Increases the range of most spells by 15% (40 yards to 46 yards).
Shadow Priest changes:
- Mind Flay: Insanity now deals damage every 0.375 seconds for 1.5 seconds (was every 0.75 seconds for 3 seconds). It also generates 12 Insanity over the duration (was 16).
- New talent: Shadow Crash: Choice node with Shadow Crash that is instead targeted at a specific enemy.