Shadow Priest PVE Guide – Cataclysm

Welcome to the PVE Shadow Priest Guide for World of Warcraft Cataclysm!

This guide will teach you how to play a Shadow Priest in a raid. It covers talents, glyphs, gems, enchantments, rotation, and gameplay tips.

This standard Shadow Priest raid build takes 2 points in Inner Sanctum for the 4% spell damage reduction, but you could put optionally put a 3rd point in Mental Agility (and only 1 in Inner Sanctum).

Prime Glyphs

• Glyph of Mind Flay
• Glyph of Shadow Word: Death
• Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Fade
• Glyph of Inner Fire
• Glyph of Spirit Tap

Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Fading
• Glyph of Levitate
• Glyph of Shadowfiend

Gems are situational and depend on the build and equipment. They are used to reach the required stat caps.

• Meta – Burning Shadowspirit Diamond
• Red/Prismatic – Brilliant Queen’s Garnet, Brilliant Inferno Ruby (cheaper), or Brilliant Chimera’s Eye (Jewelcrafting)
• Yellow
  • If Socket Bonus is not at least +20 Intellect or +30 of another statistic – Brilliant Queen’s Garnet or Brilliant Inferno Ruby (cheaper)
  • Else, Reckless Lava Coral or Reckless Ember Topaz (cheaper)
• Blue
• If Socket Bonus is not at least +20 Intellect or +30 of another statistic, Brilliant Queen’s Garnet or Brilliant Inferno Ruby (cheaper)
• Else, Purified Shadow Spinel or Purified Demonseye (cheaper)

• Head – Arcanum of Hyjal
• Shoulder – Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone or Felfire Inscription (Inscription)
• Cloak – Enchant Cloak – Greater Intellect or Lightweave Embroidery
• Chest – Enchant Chest – Peerless Stats
• Bracers – Enchant Bracer – Mighty Intellect or Draconic Embossment – Intellect (Leatherworking) with Socket Bracer (Blacksmithing)
• Gloves – Enchant Gloves – Greater Mastery or Enchant Gloves – Haste (to reach softcap) with Synapse Springs (Engineering) or Socket Gloves (Blacksmithing)
• Waist – Grounded Plasma Shield (Engineering) or Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
• Legs – Powerful Ghostly Spellthread or Sanctified Spellthread (Tailoring)
• Boots – Enchant Boots – Lavawalker or Enchant Boots – Haste (cheaper)
• Rings – Enchant Ring – Intellect (Enchanting)
• Weapon – Enchant Weapon – Power Torrent or Enchant Weapon – Hurricane (cheaper)
• Off-hand – Enchant Off-Hand – Superior Intellect

Shadow Priests get Hit Rating from Spirit at a 1:1 ratio, so either stat works to help you reach the Hit softcap. For the Haste softcaps, if you can’t reach the next softcap, it’s better to add another stat until you can get all the way to the next softcap.

• Intellect
• Hit Rating or Spirit (to 17%)
• Haste (soft caps at 18.74/24.97/30/31.26/41.67%)
• Mastery
• Critical Strike
• Haste

You should always have Shadowform active while DPSing.

Single Target Rotation

• Use Shadow Word: Pain and keep it applied (it can be refreshed via Mind Flay)
• Use Devouring Plague and keep it applied
• Use Vampiric Touch and keep it applied
• Use Mind Blast on cooldown
• Use Shadow Word: Death, when target is below 25% health or when you need mana
• Use Mind Flay

AoE Rotation

The goal here is to keep your DoTs applied to all the targets as much as possible. This means using Mind Flay on each target in turn, after applying your DoTs to all of them (you cannot apply Devouring Plague to more than one target at a time).

• Use Shadow Word: Pain
• Use Vampiric Touch
• Use Mind Flay
• Use Mind Blast

Against 5+ targets, instead channel Mind Sear on a nearby tank or melee DPS, or an enemy

Cooldowns

• Use Inner Fire whenever possible to increase your DPS
• Use Inner Will if you need a movement speed increase
• Use Dark Archangel on cooldown
• Use Dispersion to avoid dying, or if you need to regenerate your mana, but know it will severely reduce your DPS while active