Yva's Shadow Guide
Patch 6.2
A concise guide to raiding as a Shadowpriest! Feel free to ask for DPS advice, and offer your feedback
Table of Contents
Talents
Stat Priority
Damage Priority
Glyphs
Consumables
Racials
Macros & Addons
Frequently Asked Questions
Change Log
Talents
Level 15
Angelic Bulwark is a good choice, you get close to dying, you gain a shield - your life is saved on a fairly short cooldown: hard to argue with that. Spectral Guise can be used to evade certain mechanics such as Iron Maiden's Penetrating Shot, significantly reducing the damage your raid has to soak.
Level 30
Body and Soul can be a good choice if you would be Shielding while moving anyways, also commonly combined with Glyph of Reflective Shield. Angelic Feathers provide more uptime and are good for high movement encounters, but it's fine to take Body and Soul to reduce the number of keybinds you need to use, or if you dislike when people steal your feathers.
Level 45
Use Insanity for everything, unless you don't have enough GCDs on multi-dot, in which case use Mindbender (ex. Iron Maidens, Blast Furnace).
Level 60
Dominate Mind can be used on Guards during the Blast Furnace encounter to debuff the Slag Elemental adds once they are moved into position. Psychic Scream can be used on the Balcony adds during the Blackhand encounter to interrupt their casts and reduce raid damage.
Level 75
Use Twist of Fate for everything.
Power Infusion is good for burst, but we haven't had a fight that makes use of it yet.
Shadowy Insight sucks, never use it.
Level 90
Cascade or Halo is best. If adds will be stacked on the tank in waves, use Halo. If adds are everywhere, and persistent throughout much of the fight, use Cascade.
Level 100
Clarity of Power is best for pure Single Target. The reduced cooldown on Mind Blast, and passive +40% damage on Spike/Death make it good for pre-raid and Highmaul gear levels.
Once you reach ~25% crit chance, and/or gain the 4-piece set bonus from Blackrock Foundry, Auspicious Spirits is best for multi-dots (read: everything).
Never pick Void Entropy, it's a debuff disguised as a talent - don't let it trick you!
Stat Priority
Crit > Haste > Multistrike > Versatility > Mastery
Critical Rating: When Shadow Word: Pain critically hits we create Shadowy Apparitions, this makes Critical Rating the best stat for the talent Auspicious Spirits. It's also a good stat for Clarity of Power. This is your 'best stat', get all the crit gear you can. ALL THE CRIT. CRIT THEM ALL!
Haste Rating: Haste is our stat attunement, meaning we gain 5% more of it from any source, it is a multiplicative stat - not additive. Haste is a good stat all-around, but only 'the best' for Void Entropy.
Multistrike Rating: Like our old mastery, but it doesn't spawn Shadowy Apparitions or interact with procs like Shadowy Insight and Surge of Darkness. It's not bad for DPS, but it makes me sad to have such a cruel mockery of our old mastery.
Versatility Rating: Makes you hit harder, heal more, and receive less damage - people mistakenly assume that because it's good at everything it will be the worst DPS stat, but it's not as bad as you think - and it will only get better as the expansion goes on.
Mastery Rating: The best stat for Single Target Clarity of Power, but the worst stat for every other scenario (yes, often worse than Versatility). My advice is to avoid Mastery like the plague, and just accept that you suck at Patchwerk - every other fight will thank you
Damage Priority
The goal of Shadow is to Devouring Plague as often as possible. To do that, you need to generate Shadow Orbs as fast as possible. Once you understand that, everything else will make sense.
Since Shadow Word: Death and Mind Blast create Shadow Orbs, they are your Top Priority, interrupt everything else to cast them as often as possible.
If you are at 5/5 Orbs, do not Death/Blast, because you will not create a Shadow Orb. Instead, Devouring Plague to enable your Death/Blasts to make more orbs, then Death/Blast.
If you can't generate Shadow Orbs, and you don't have 5/5 Orbs for a Devouring Plague, but Cascade or Halo are available and there are things to hit with them, use Cascade/Halo.
If you can't generate Shadow Orbs, and you don't have 5/5 Orbs for a Devouring Plague, and Cascade or Halo are not available, but you could Searing Insanity some adds, Searing Insanity (interrupt for Orbs).
This is true for Clarity of Power, Auspicious Spirits, and Void Entropy - all three are about maximizing your Orb Generation - applying DoTs, Mind Spiking, Flaying, Insanity, and Sear all are secondary to Orb Generation.
If you understood the above, you should see now that Auspicious Spirits is good because it makes more orbs. Clarity of Power is good because it shortens the cooldown on Mind Blast, allowing you to make more orbs. Void Entropy is bad because it steals your orbs. Orbs are love, Orbs are life. Disregard Insanity, Acquire Shadow Orbs.
In my extensive experience, 99 times out of 100 when a Shadow Priest's damage is lower than it could be, it's because they weren't making enough Shadow Orbs. In past expansions it was DoT uptimes or DoT snapshotting, in Warlords of Draenor it's Shadow Orb generation. Use Macros & Addons, get all the Orbs
What is DoTweaving?
Using the talent Clarity of Power, you cycle between Mind Blast and Mind Spike, until you have 5 Shadow Orbs, then what? Well, you could simply press Devouring Plague, then channel some Mind Flay/Insanity, then Mind Blast, Devouring Plague again, and Insanity again.
Or you since you will spend the next ~15 seconds Flay/Insanity anyways, and since you cannot Mind Spike while Devouring Plague is applied, why not first apply Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain during this time? That is DoTweaving. It is a process by which we once gained a slight DPS gain on single target encounters, by cycling between phases of Mind Spike/Mind Blast, and phases of Devouring Plague/Insanity (with VT+Pain active).
Should I DoTweave?
No.
How do I DoTweave exactly?
You don't - the arcane secrets of this forbidden practice have been transcribed into our ancient tomes and sent back into the Void, where only those Elder Shadowpriests may return. If you don't know by now, you need not ever know. If you do know by now, I proclaim this ancient ritual to be a secret nary to be spoken of again. Ask not, lest the void itself answer your call.
Glyphs
Glyph of Vampiric Embrace - Increases the potency of your utility cooldown, both by 33% overall (20% for 10 seconds is more than 10% for 15 seconds), and because it allows you more burst damage=healing potential in a 10 second window rather than a 15 second window. The only mandatory Glyph, in my opinion.
Glyph of Mind Flay - A popular glyph for passive movement speed, while Angelic Feathers are faster - this will always be active when you need to shuffle.
Glyph of Reflective Shield - Causes 70% of your Power Word: Shield to return damage to the attacker, while our Shield is quite weak after repeated nerfs - this remains the only DPS increase from a glyph. In practice on a progression fight where you are using Shield fairly often for added survival, it can be a 1-2% DPS gain.
Glyph of Restored Faith - allows you to pull yourself out of fire, situational (sometimes you need Leap of Faith for utility) but fun and useful.
Glyph of Fade - useful for high raid damage fights, not very strong - but everything helps.
Glyph of Dispersion - lets you disperse through mechanics a little more often, not often necessary - but everything helps.
Consumables
Greater Draenic Intellect Flask - Made out of Herbs and the kindness of your guild's Alchemist. Drink Me.
Draenic Intellect Potion - use one just before each pull to get an early boost of intellect, then use another when you need more damage later in the fight. You want to sync it with your best damage, so usually during Bloodlust or Execute Phase (Twist of Fate + Shadow Word: Death spam), and wait until you have 5 Orbs.
Focus Augment Rune - More Intellect = More Damage. These come primarily from enduring the torment of LFR, if you are lucky they come from Follower missions, or you can buy them on the Auction House.
Blackrock Barbecue - tastes good, increases your critical chance, delicious!
Pickled Eel - tastes horrible, but increases your crit more, useful!
Racials
Each race has a DPS racial bonus, due to the relative balance of stats in Warlord of Draenor - and the careful attention paid to making sure people don't feel obligated to race change for damage, I cannot recommend race changing just for the DPS racials. The largest DPS gain between any of the two racials is a fraction of a fraction of a single percentage point.
With the above disclaimer understood, there are two competing theories for racial DPS gains. Auspicious Spirits is the best talent for most encounters, and Auspicious Spirits prefers Critical Chance: Night Elves, Blood Elves, and Worgen. Then again, since almost all fights are multi-dot fights, and multi-dot encounters prefer Haste, haste racials are also strong: Night Elves, Goblins, Gnomes, and Trolls. Lastly, consider that all the other races are tuned so that that they ~match the benefit these races possess.
For maximizing DPS, it makes more sense to pick the race that maximizes mobility: Goblins and Worgen. Or allows you to escape CC: Undead and Human. Or makes you feel hot: Night Elves, Blood Elves, Draenei, and Trolls. Or makes you laugh: Tauren, Pandaren, Dwarves and Gnomes. The best Shadowpriests in the world include all of the above, your race is not the reason your damage is low.
Pick the race you like the most
Macros & Addons
Here is my UI as an example of helpful addons:
Shadowed Unit Frames - The Raid Frames on the left of the screen, the Player and Target health frames on the bottom middle of the screen, the Boss Frames on the right of the screen (Arena Frames in the same spot, if you're interested). An addon like this is a must, it allows you to track DoTs on multiple targets during boss encounters, spot dispellable debuffs on raid members, and customize the visuals and position of all these frames to more suitable / high visibility locations.
Halo Pro - Made by our very own SpinalCrack! Just above my health frame (bottom middle), the grey bar with red icon on the left end. The red indicator is saying I am too close to optimally use Cascade against my current target (not optimal for the fight, btw) - it is essential for getting the most out of Halo, Cascade, and Divine Star. A must-have addon.
Quartz - Bottom middle. Provides a Cast Bar (Insanity in the picture) complete with visible ticks for channeled spells. It also acts as my DoT Timer for my primary target (the DoT bars directly above the channel). There are many suitable addons for this purpose, but having one of them will improve your DoT uptime.
Deadly Boss Mods - the only visible component is the timer in the top middle (Disrupting Roar), however it provides numerous useful warnings for avoiding fire and preparing for encounter mechanics. Knowing precisely when that wave of adds will appear is essential to landing a big Halo+Searing Insanity. Knowledge is power.
Chatter - Allows numerous chat related functions, but the most useful is that it lets you copy URLs out of guild chat, for when your guild has important cat photos to share.
SexyMap - In the bottom middle, right of the chat box. It allows customization and alternate placement of the map.
Skada Damage Meter - In the bottom right corner is a tool for analyzing your damage between fights, it is useful to get a feel for where your damage is coming from, and to whom it is dealt. Alternately, Recount Damage Meter performs the same task equally well.
Weak Auras - allows you to program your own warnings for buffs, debuffs, procs, not being in Shadowform while in combat, or anything else you can imagine. An excellent example is just above my Health Frame (bottom middle), the small purple box with two timers in it is a Weak Aura created by Twintop which tracks the uptime on our 4-piece tier set: very helpful!
Twintop's 4-piece set bonus aura (create a New aura, select Import at the bottom, and paste this into the provided text box):
Twintop's Auspicious Spirits Orb Tracker
Wobb's BRF Weak Auras
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this 685 item better than than this 700 item because it has better secondary stats? No. Intellect is king, everything else is secondary.
How many targets are required for Mind Sear (or Searing Insanity) to be better than Mind Flay (or Insanity)? 3 is a rough break-even, but I would recommend at least 4 for it to be worthwhile over focusing a higher priority or health target, or focusing one down faster to activate Twist of Fate sooner.
What is the best Racial? Spore Bat.
How do I collect points? Evaporate Ice Tents.
How do I pronounce your name? Eva-Elle. Say it fast, like 'Evil'
Tell me about Shadowpriest Lore?
Shadow Identity in the WoW Universe
On Reality: The Power of Words, and the Words of Power
Our Connection with the Sha, Wielding Emotions, and the Dominion of Minds
What are Shadow Orbs?
Change Log
March 19th, 2015 - Stayed up too late but wrote a bunch!
March 20th, 2015 - Added more.
March 30th, 2015 - Updated to correct typos, added a DoTweaving explanation section.
April 7th, 2015 - Added a GCD sequence table for DoTweaving, courtesy of ThrashMetalFtw's suggestion.
June 20th, 2015 - Lightly updated for 6.2, mostly it's the exact same stuff though.