Shadow Priest talents guide

This is the “cookie-cutter” class tree build you are going to see from most people.

I have circled the Always Take talents with Green and the most of the time take talents with Yellow.

Green (Always Take):

• Shadowfiend: Default for Shadow Priests. Summons a Shadowy fiend to attack the target for 15s. Generates 3 Insanity each time it attacks.
• Shadow Word: Death: Default for Shadow Priest. Your execute ability,  it deals increased damage on targets at or below 20% health.
• Death and Madness: Makes your Shadow Word: Death reset once if used on targets at or below 20% health
• Tithe Evasion: Reduces the damage Shadow Word: Death deals back to you
• Power Infusion: Increases the haste of the target by 25%
• Twins of the Sun Priestess: Also grants YOU 100% of its effect when used on an ally.
• Mindgames: Single Target nuke that reverses the perception of the target. Any healing they do during it will instead deal damage, and any damage the deal will instead heal. Is mostly just used for its instant damage in PvE content.
• Manipulation: Mind Blast and Mind Spike reduces the cooldown of Mindgames
• Shattered Perceptions: Mindgames lasts 2 seconds longer, deals more damage, and reverses more damage or healing. 

Yellow (Take most of the time):

• Twist of Fate: (This should probably be in Always Take, but I can see very very few niche scenarios where you do not need it.) Damaging or healing a target below 35% health you deal 10% more damage for 8 sec.
• Angelic Feather: Increases your Movement Speed by 40% for 5 sec, 3 charges.
• Body and Soul: Increases your Movement Speed by 40% for 3 sec. Tied to Power Word: Shield
• Halo / Divine Star: Choice node between Halo or Divine Star that brings some added AoE damage and off-healing. Close enough in value that you could play whichever you prefer but TECHNICALLY Divine Star is slightly better in most situations.
• Throes of Pain: Increases the damage done by Shadow Word: Pain and also causes it to generate insanity if the target dies while afflicted by it.
• Translucent Image: Fade reduces damage you take by 10%

Outside of these points you have a lot of floater points that you pick based on the situation.

Some points that are used in niche scenarios and can be moved around depending on what YOU need:

• Shackle Undead: If you need crowd control on undead mobs
• Void Tendrils: If you need a “mass-root” crowd control on up to 5 targets
• Purify Disease: If you need Disease dispel
• Move with Grace: If you need your Leap of Faith up more often
• Phantasm: Causes your Fade to remove slow effects.
• Dominate Mind: Turns your Mind Control target into your pet for 30s instead but also has a 30s cooldown. Very very good in certain dungeons
• Power Word: Life: Dropping most of the middle section of the bottom tree and going the route over to Power Word: Life will often be very worth it. It's a very strong heal if used on targets under 35% health. Basically a Lay on Hands light on a very short cooldown.
• Psychic Voice: Mostly used as a travel point but can have some niche value if you need Psychic Scream up more often.
• Void Shift: Swaps health percentages with your target. Can be very good on Necrotic Weeks to save the tank since it works through healing reductions. Has a very long cooldown though so is not something you always pick.
• Crystalline Reflection: A niche way to give you slightly more damage on fights where you often use Power Word: Shield for movement but does not need any of the other points for survivability. 

As you can see you have very few points that are deemed “mandatory” and you have a lot of options to customize the upper and middle tree to suit your needs. You might even go so far as picking up Renew and Prayer of Mending in situations where you need a lot of off-healing but less DPS.

The only section you generally want to avoid apart from the nodes leading up to Power Word: Life is the left side. It is filled with nodes that only buff spells for Holy/Disc and will do nothing for you as a Shadow Priest.

Notes: With 10.1, our Spec Tree has gone through a full revamp, not only with new talents and removed talents, but also swapping the position of existing talents. So, a lot of the builds might look very different from what you are used to.

Notes Single Target:

If you want Deathspeaker, you can drop Screams of the Void for a 2% damage loss to get a bit more movement. If you want to play Dark Ascension, you can pick the 2nd build recommended under Single Target for a small loss in overall damage, about 2-3% behind Void Eruption currently in sims, but might have value on certain fights where 1 minute CD windows line up better with mechanics and/or add spawns.

Notes Dungeon Builds:

Dungeon builds are still very up in the air and will depend, as always, on the dungeon you run and what YOUR group needs for that specific dungeon. But here are 2 options that currently perform very well in simulations and testing.

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