How do shadow priest handle melee?

[Ragaflask]

What is the strat for working against melee? I want to try maining my shadow priest for awhile.

[Yvaelle]

In RBGs and 5s it's easier to play back behind the fray - set up your pressure, stealth in for aoe fear->silence, and drop your burst. 3's is another matter entirely:

The only way to play Shadow in 3s right now is to never get hit - that means you build your entire comp around people who can peel melee off you, and you win/lose based on how well your teammates can root/stun, and how fast you can run. That means bring the best 2 root-spam specs in the game, Frost Mage and Resto Druid, and you run like hell. Shatreeplay remains like ~100% of high end Spriest 3s comps - solely because no other comp is able to offer the babysitting we need to function.

The build I use for almost all PvP lately is:

Spectral Guise - while in the past we used this to land fears, nowadays you mostly want to save it as a brief reprieve from damage / instill confusion so you can run away and heal up / wait for incoming heals. You will get much more use from Guise than either of the other talents, so don't bother with the alternatives.

Insanity or FDCL - based on whether you expect to tank damage or whether you expect to have time to channel Insanity during your kill cycles, generally if you are fighting double melee FDCL or even Mindbender can be best, because you will pretty much never be allowed to channel an Insanity - whenever anyone has a free GCD they will be hitting you, if you are fighting caster+melee+healer (and intend to kill the melee), or if you are fighting wizard cleaves Insanity can work

Twist of Fate or Power Infusion - ToF is good for long fights, it helps ensure when people get low they die, and if not it helps your pressure / burst. If you are fighting a ret, or any massive initial burst comp, Power Infusion can be the stronger choice because the match might be decided in the first 20 seconds anyways - and we need time to get our orbs before we can start fighting back.

Clarity of Power - solely because of how important Shadow Orbs are, and therefore how strong an Instant cast mind blast is (that can't be interrupted/stunned/cc'd) - Clarity of Power is currently the only choice for any form of PvP. AS would be viable if our crit weren't terrible, and/or if crit weren't too sucky to enchant for pvp, and/or if we had our old mastery (multistrike) back - so in later seasons of this expansion AS might rise to power, but for now it's Clarity of Power alone. Maybe when Void Entropy gets redesigned we will get another option.

I also highly recommend Glyph of Mind Blast, while our crit chance is terrible we live/die based on peels - and so that one small chance at a root is essential to our survival. Personally I also like Glyph of Reflective Shield, Mass Dispel of course when fighting bubble classes, and Vampiric Embrace or reverse life grip when dispel is not needed.

Edit: Oh and 2's, don't play 2's. If you absolutely feel you must, get a ret to carry you - while the enemy team is panicking about wings, you are gathering orbs, and by the time their wings ends, your burst is just coming online. Still, the real answer is don't play 2's.

[Sard]

On the other hand, if you mean "How well does Shadow Priest handle melee if you get randomly jumped by 2 of them in Ashran", then the answer is that you don't. Melee are king of world/random pvp right now, and you just die to them. We are poorly equipped for creating distance from enemy melee characters, largely because our only snare clear requires us to take an otherwise bad talent (snare clear on Fade) and give up our only mobility (feathers). Most of my random world fights with melee go 1) I scream, they trinket, 2) I PWS/Phantasm/guise to get distance, they charge/shadowstep/deathgrip/whatever and 3) I Die. Things are a little different if you start the fight with orbs and/or the other person isn't on the spot with their play (like they don't have a pvp trinket), but don't expect much.

As Yvaelle said though, the counter to this is that our burst damage is bonkers good and if you can get top notch peels/heals in arena, you will melt faces.

[Flatspriest]

As a Shadow Priest, the best way to handle melee is...


Very Carefully.

[Deleted]

SoD vastly outperforms Insanity, I feel without it our consistent damage throughout the game is very low. Bursting with 5 orbs double insanity does indeed do wonders, but it's extremely rare to ever be able to pull that off (unless you run a specific arena comp that allows it, in that case disregard what I just said and use your own judgement). SoD also makes some insane switches possible - it's a proc your enemies almost never tracks, and it deals pretty ridiculous damage to un-dotted targets. It's also why I prefer PI over Twist of Fate, basically using PI means infinite SoD procs. Cooldown is also short, which is nice in BGs and what not which I assume OP will be mainly playing, at least at first

If you can, try to get the melee trinket your fear so you can use 5 orb psychic horror - remember to farm the PvP 4 piece asap since the bonus is absolutely necessary for 1v1 situations. Consider glyph of Mind Harvest, the extra orbs proc from totems pets etc. Personally I don't like it since being able to MB every 4th global is huge, but a lot of people talk fondly of it

To deal with melee reflective shield is nice, or glyph of weakened soul. Try to make sure the heal from DP doesn't go to waste, which is to say don't open with it unless you really have to. Remember to use spectral guise since the cooldown is pretty short, it allows for some juking and usually you get at least one cast off when coming out of the invisibility. Glyph of restored faith helps greatly, especially in BGs. And take Angelic Feather over Body and Soul (level 30 talent), they're pretty much a permanent 60% speedboost and you can help others with them

The most important part is knowing the opposing class and his toolkit, juking their interrupt (or instantly casting what you can if they do interrupt you - sometimes eating an interrupt on VT on purpose can be wise if you know you can spam flash heal without getting stunned right after)

As for stats, I prefer versatility, haste and mastery, in that order. Crit and multistrike both have reduced effects in PvP. Stacking haste in general with these item levels can't go wrong, you'll be moving a lot and haste shines in movement. Don't take these for an absolute fact though, since I don't have any actual data to back any values up. You'll be having rocky times with a bad gear and will be extremely frustrated at times, but once you get some nicer equipment spriests become quite durable and able to dish out surprising amounts of damage even in heavy movement situations. But yeah, in any case we're not exactly at the top of the food chain at the moment, though not at the bottom either

Our biggest problems with melee are a) not being able to slow / peel them well, and b) not reliably getting away from them. BG with your frost mage or paladin friend, makes it infinitely more pleasant

[mindp]

I mean, how does one beat off a rogue?





/hehe

[Cempa]

Pull yourself to a teammate...Guise...Feathers...Fear...Horror...Breaking LoS...Dispel button abuse...Have enough crit to root on MB...

I kind of like Gnome 60CD trinket...Dwarf is also a really good choice for the feather--->stoneform--->guise

[Ragaflask]

Pull yourself to a teammate...Guise...Feathers...Fear...Horror...Breaking LoS...Dispel button abuse...Have enough crit to root on MB...

I kind of like Gnome 60CD trinket...Dwarf is also a really good choice for the feather--->stoneform--->guise

Thank you all for the advice, im going to try to work with all the strats and talent you spoke of. You guys have been very informative, thank you !

[mag07]

From my limited pvp experience in shadow spec - fear, feather, shield on the run (screaming for help) = works best , else, we don't handle mele, mele handles us.
Don't remember when I last enjoyed pvping in Arena with my priest not as disc.

[Frozenbeef]

Run away and find some friends to take their attention from you :S