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.
What has changed
In Midnight, Blizzard has pruned almost every spec in the game, removing a lot of abilities, talents and passives. There are a lot of changes to Shadow, and if you want to read them all I suggest going to the official patch notes over here.
Summary of important changes:
Baseline Changes
- Silence is now baseline (cooldown changed from 45s to 30s).
- Dispersion is now baseline.
- Vampiric Embrace is now baseline.
Class Talent Changes:
- Many nodes have changed position in the tree.
- Mind Blast is now in the class tree and Shadow Word: Death is no longer granted by default.
- Shadowfiend has been removed as a baseline spell, and is now only available as a proc from the talent Depth of Shadows.
- Psychic Scream, Desperate Prayer, and Fade have been moved into the Class Tree.
Spec Talent Changes:
- Many nodes have changed position in the tree.
- Mind Flay: Insanity procs are now only for Archon, and only proc after casting Halo.
- Devouring Plague renamed to Shadow Word. Madness. Mechanically still very similar.
- Shadow Crash reworked into Tentacle Slam.
- Dark Ascension has been removed.
- Void Eruption reworked into Voidform - Voidform has 2 additional talents, Improved Voidform and Ancient Madness.
- Void Bolt replaced by Void Volley. Void Volley has a 15s base cooldown (reduced by haste).
- Shadowfiend, Mindbender and Voidwraith are now all passive spells.
Hero Talent Changes:
- Halo is now the keystone for Archon (removed from Voidweaver).
- Void Torrent is now the keystone for Voidweaver (removed from Archon).