Shadow Priest Specs

[llDemonll]

If you're looking for a PvE spec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bcGoZZGbGdMzrd0fo with 1 extra point

Prime: SWP, SWD, MF
Major: Mass Dispel, Fear Ward, Fade
Minor: Fade, Levitate, Shadowfiend

that's my personal favorite and how I will be speccing

[Kaesebrezen]

Here's mine: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bcroZZ...d0fo:RkMoRc0zV
That's for raiding - For dailies replace mass dispel with spirit tap.

[Annesh]

Which, 4 Shadow Word Deaths used over the course of a minute restores more mana than a glyphed Dispersion, not to mention the fact that you're not limited to 4 Deaths in its cooldown.

Keep Dispersion as a defensive cooldown. Locks can take off 25% of their health for mana. You can do damage to Life Tap. It's really not that bad.

agree

swd used above 25% as a lifetap thing seems like pretty neat design, and far preferable to dispersing for mana.

[Katayl]

Here's mine: talent#bcroZZGbGdrzrd0fo:RkMoRc0zV
That's for raiding - For dailies replace mass dispel with spirit tap.

This spec for sure. The one point out of Mental Agility for the 2/2 in Phantasm is totally worth it. I don't know what 85 is like in terms of mana usage, but if it's anything like 80 I doubt we'll have any mana issues that warrants the one extra point.

[Damaros]

About using SW: Death as mean to replenish mana instead of Dispersion...

With the healing becoming much more of a mana lasting and saving game, wouldn't it be more useful to only use it if it is the ONLY way we can regen mana ? In Wrath, I would have said no problem, but with the massive nerf to Vampiric Embrace we got, I'd rather use Dispersion as a mean to regen mana.

I'd replace the Glyph of SW: Death with the Glyph of Dispersion. First, SW: Death deals more damage with a boss under 25% health, which also equals more damage taken. Also, when the boss' health reach 25% and less, this is usually when healers start to look more and more and their mana bar going nearly empty, so I'd rather not use SW: Death that much, and gain more survivability / mana regen by glyphing Dispersion.

Is it a loss of DPS ? Yeah. But, it reduces the stress on your healer, and makes your main tool meant to keep you alive even more effective, which I think, increases the chance of downing whatever boss you are facing.

[Deleted]

About using SW: Death as mean to replenish mana instead of Dispersion...

With the healing becoming much more of a mana lasting and saving game, wouldn't it be more useful to only use it if it is the ONLY way we can regen mana ? In Wrath, I would have said no problem, but with the massive nerf to Vampiric Embrace we got, I'd rather use Dispersion as a mean to regen mana.

I'd replace the Glyph of SW: Death with the Glyph of Dispersion. First, SW: Death deals more damage with a boss under 25% health, which also equals more damage taken. Also, when the boss' health reach 25% and less, this is usually when healers start to look more and more and their mana bar going nearly empty, so I'd rather not use SW: Death that much, and gain more survivability / mana regen by glyphing Dispersion.

Is it a loss of DPS ? Yeah. But, it reduces the stress on your healer, and makes your main tool meant to keep you alive even more effective, which I think, increases the chance of downing whatever boss you are facing.

As long as your healer only just goes oom once the fight ends, and you're doing as much damage as possible, then thats better. If you don't stand in fire, or in other ways take damage, even with the nerf to VE you will eventually get your health back on your own.

Loosing the SW glyph is simply too great a dps loss. Also, if you're using SW on a target that is <25% it doesn't hit for a theatening amount at all. On targets under 25%, as long as you time the cast so it doesn't land right before any big aoe attack you're fine there as well, even with 2 crits in a row. I haven't killed myself with SW on any fight ever since they introduced the cooldown, and even then it was only on BQ with the buff that I managed to do it.

[Tryinmilkme]

Here is a spec I just put together. My thought was that we are only using MB for the dot buff so reducing the cd is pointless at this time. Also I took the Utility abilities because they will most likely come in handy for 5 mans and maybe even have some raid use. http://wowtal.com/#k=Y-mmxAGd.a8t.priest.qikLn_

[Barovecat]

You don't really need Masochism talent if SW: D stays in it's current stage doing 20% of the damage it did in the first days of the new patch. Most of the damage in PvE can be avoided and if you dont, then in most cases you will end up dead so it is really a pointless talent. On the other hand you can use shadowfiend in less than 60 seconds from the last cast which is your new mana baterry. You are not likely to go oom if you use it wise (not just before cast of some spell that will get it killed for example). You can use dispersion which will be needed if you fail to move in time from the fire etc (hint: get the glyph). In short you can safely spent the 2 points from Masochism to somewhere else. I would personally spend them to Phantasm to remove all snares cast on me during boss fights (if there is any) and this being on only 15 seconds cooldown makes it very useful.

[allaiva]

Will probably use a spec similar to that of Tryinmilkme. Having both Psychic Horror and Silence can make a big difference in entrance raids/heroics. From what I've heard mana is supposed to be a bigger issue which is why they implemented the SWD life tap talent (which they buffed from 8% to 10% later on in beta) which would lead me to believe that it's something to plan on using. Using SWD as a life tap; if you're doing near 20k dps, even 6% is in the ballpark of 1.5k hps on you so it shouldn't take long to heal up from it's weak pinprick >25% damage output when there's no AoE to contend with. Mental Agility is nice at any point as it affects SWP, DP, SWD, and MF (from my experiences) and if it makes you cast SWD one less time above 25% that's a pretty decent dps gain for a single talent point. Leaving Imp MB empty will be something that I'll have to feel out depending on the damage that it can pull. If it's even comparable to MF i'll probably try to move a point or two over as that 1s will mean you can cast it once more every 56s which can possibly be significant in a fight that lasts longer than what ICC fights tend to go for.

Lots are thinking that Shadowfiend will always be available in cata because it is now. Not sure about ya'lls, but while being essentially haste capped i hit around 42% crit in raid buffs in a caster oriented 10m which is far from the 20% max i would expect in first raid tier gear (along with much less haste which also directly affects how often you crit).
Snares aren't something commonly seen in raid fights nowadays, and those that are are magic effects and hit more than one person so a glyphed Mass Dispel is more beneficial to the raid.

(sorry for the wall'o'text)

[Veiled]

Phantasm 1/2.

[Deleted]

http://wowtal.com/#k=a5FX_sQj.a6d.priest.Fjnul

It's what I'll be using.

[Tryinmilkme]

@Allaiva: I agree with most of what you are saying.

Part of my reason for dropping Imp MB is because with the RNG nature of our Orb generation I don't think the possible extra damage of MB will outway the chance of not having at least one Orb up right before we are refreshing dots.

Since I am not on Beta I do not know how good a MB is during DA but even there specing into imp MB won't allow an extra cast during the phase.

[allaiva]

Since I am not on Beta I do not know how good a MB is during DA but even there specing into imp MB won't allow an extra cast during the phase.

I know it wont add a cast during Archangel, but If the base damage from MB compares well to MF, having any Shadow Orbs would increase it's priority over just refreshing Empowered Shadow and in that case, an extra cast per minute would improve your damage over the course of a fight (dps). Would be nice if they gave it a 5s cd via talents or something so that you could pop an extra one in during Archangel though if it was worth it >.<