Shadow Priest PvE

[positiv2 952]

This thread is for comments about our Shadow Priest Shadowlands Guide.

[MClemente 0]

In the Macro/Addon section, the mouseover macro conditionals (for Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch) should be "[@mouseover,harm][]". Without "harm" it acts as all mouseover, even if not targetting anything; without "[]" it will only cast when mousing over a target, not casting it against a target.

[Guest sock]

I don't really understand how to use unfurling darkness on a single target.  Am I supposed to double cast vampiric touch any time I need to re-apply shadow word: pain (assuming I take it with Misery) to take advantage of the unfurling darkness proc?  It only lasts 8 seconds, so on a single target it can't ever be used to re-apply dots.

[Publik 7]

Yes exactly, you want to ideally try and use that bonus damage every 15s, even if that means re-casting VT on a target that does not need refreshing yet.

[Guest ShinRai]

Hey, with the Void Torrent changes now live on retail, what would be the optimal time to use it? How would you use it in the opener? Do you delay Void Torrent until the first DP is cast?

[Publik 7]

On 11/19/2020 at 10:12 AM, Guest ShinRai said:

Hey, with the Void Torrent changes now live on retail, what would be the optimal time to use it? How would you use it in the opener? Do you delay Void Torrent until the first DP is cast?

Good question, I have updates that are queued up to the page soon so stay tuned for those. Generally speaking your goal with the opener is to get into Voidform ASAP, especially if you are lusting on pull. So for that reason we are primarily using Void Torrent strictly on the opener to get us a crap ton of Insanity. I do something like this:

 

- Prepull Vampiric Touch

- Shadow Word: Pain if not talented into Misery

- Void Torrent

- Shadowfiend

- Void Eruption

- Void Bolt

- Devouring Plague

 

Typically with Void Torrent overflowing us with Insanity we can drop that first Mind Blast. Hope this helps.

[Guest Acme]

actually there are haste/crit gloves from Mists of Tirna Scithe, but there aren't any wrists...so i guess its just otherwise round and the best item to get Eternal Call of The Void are wrists.

[orangepaw3 1]

Any word on what oil/stone we would want to use?

[Publik 7]

On 11/28/2020 at 9:22 AM, Guest Acme said:

actually there are haste/crit gloves from Mists of Tirna Scithe, but there aren't any wrists...so i guess its just otherwise round and the best item to get Eternal Call of The Void are wrists.

I did my sims with raid bis and with dungeon + raid bis and it seems that truthfully they are so close that it does not really matter at rank 4. That being said at lower ranks wrists seems to win, so I've reflected this change in the guide.

[Publik 7]

20 hours ago, orangepaw3 said:

Any word on what oil/stone we would want to use?

Shadowcore oil https://warcraftpriests.github.io/?talents=hv_as&sims=consumables&fightStyle=Composite

[Guest Thalian]

I'm finding it hard to track which mob has Hungering Void debuff when in Dungeons how are you dealing with that Pub? I'm to scared to use Surrender to Madness so this is my go to but I know I'm wasting it often as I'm finding tracking very difficult. Cheers.

[Guest grandma_moses]

I would like to snatch some information on the first few spells cast after entering Void Form in relation to what it says under the 'opening rotation' part of your guide.

At the point where you wrote 'use Mind Blast charges', wouldn't that be the point to re-hit Void Bolt?

So, would the correct rotation into Void Form not look like this, with making sure to hit a VB every 3 casts? -->

 

VF - PI - VB - UT - DP - VB - MB - DP - VB - MB - DP - VB - MB ( cooldown fits exactly here ) - filler ( as you miss Insanity for another DP ) - VB

 

That's assuming you have talented into Mindbender to get the Insanity necessary to pull this off and having no procs from the Dissonant Echoes conduit.

And one more thing I like to enquire: Is Unholy Transfusion, especially with Emeni as soulbind, a higher priority than applying our two bread-and-butter dots at the start of a fight when VF and PI are on cooldown?

 

Thanks in advance, have a nice day!

 

 

[Publik 7]

On 12/1/2020 at 12:00 PM, Guest Thalian said:

I'm finding it hard to track which mob has Hungering Void debuff when in Dungeons how are you dealing with that Pub? I'm to scared to use Surrender to Madness so this is my go to but I know I'm wasting it often as I'm finding tracking very difficult. Cheers.

Howdy! There are a few things I do to get around this, try these out and see what works for you:

1. Weak Aura to track the debuff on my current target. Can only be on one target at a time so this is good for me as a starting point. I use the one built into my set: https://wago.io/HkQsadDaf

2. Plater is a great way to track your debuffs on mobs. Highly suggest giving this addon a try: https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/plater-nameplates

[Publik 7]

On 12/3/2020 at 8:59 AM, Guest grandma_moses said:

I would like to snatch some information on the first few spells cast after entering Void Form in relation to what it says under the 'opening rotation' part of your guide.

At the point where you wrote 'use Mind Blast charges', wouldn't that be the point to re-hit Void Bolt?

So, would the correct rotation into Void Form not look like this, with making sure to hit a VB every 3 casts? -->

 

VF - PI - VB - UT - DP - VB - MB - DP - VB - MB - DP - VB - MB ( cooldown fits exactly here ) - filler ( as you miss Insanity for another DP ) - VB

 

That's assuming you have talented into Mindbender to get the Insanity necessary to pull this off and having no procs from the Dissonant Echoes conduit.

And one more thing I like to enquire: Is Unholy Transfusion, especially with Emeni as soulbind, a higher priority than applying our two bread-and-butter dots at the start of a fight when VF and PI are on cooldown?

 

Thanks in advance, have a nice day!

 

 

Hello! Thanks for pointing this out, I realize after you said this that I somewhat mixed the opener rotation and the priority list and that it could be confusing. When I pointed out to dump Mind Blast charges I should have just said "continue on with priority list" at that point, rather than dump both back to back as it reads.

To the second question, yes Unholy Transfusion is higher priority if and only if the mobs will live 15s or less. If you have enough time to DoT and THEN apply UT without any mobs dying, that is also more than fine. That just doesn't happen that often 🙂

[Guest grandma_moses]

1 hour ago, Publik said:

Hello! Thanks for pointing this out, I realize after you said this that I somewhat mixed the opener rotation and the priority list and that it could be confusing. When I pointed out to dump Mind Blast charges I should have just said "continue on with priority list" at that point, rather than dump both back to back as it reads.

To the second question, yes Unholy Transfusion is higher priority if and only if the mobs will live 15s or less. If you have enough time to DoT and THEN apply UT without any mobs dying, that is also more than fine. That just doesn't happen that often 🙂

Thank you very much for the quick answer and all the work you've put into this guide, it has been an invaluable source of information so far and it's nicely formatted on top of all that sweet information.

 

Keep doing what you're doing and enjoy Shadowlands - see you around!

[Guest the dude]

Here are a few of my handy macro's that I am using for my priest, all of them are using overlapping conditions to save macro slots.

The first is a overlap cast of mindblast and mind flay. The way it works, is while you are casting mind flay, it changes to mind blast. 
Since you can now cast the proc of mind blast while channeling mind flay, its awesome! Proc every single mind blast exactly when happen, and as soon as you can hard cast another mind blast it starts. this makes sure you always have your mind blast on cd, but I additionally have MB on its own key as well in its usual place. 

#showtooltip
/cleartarget [combat,noharm]
/targetenemy [noexists]
/cast [spec:3,channeling:Mind Flay]Mind Blast
/cast [spec:1/2]Smite;[spec:3]Mind Flay

The second is an easy shadowform macro for devouring plague.

#showtooltip
/cleartarget [combat,noharm]
/targetenemy [noexists]
/cast [spec:3,nostance]Shadowform
/cast [@mouseover,exists,noharm,spec:1][spec:1]Penance;[spec:3]Devouring Plague;[spec:2]Holy Fire

 

The third macro, is one I am surprised no one has on their pages, is an uh oh button that can be put in place of the vamp embrace spell to heal back to full in combat:

#showtooltip
/castsequence [spec:3]reset=15 Vampiric Embrace,Desperate Prayer,Dispersion
/castsequence [spec:1,@player]Desperate Prayer,Pain Suppression,Rapture,Power Word: Shield,Penance
/use [@target,help][@mouseover,][]Prayer of Mending

And my combo macro for Mind Sear and nightmare:
 

#showtooltip
/use [spec:3,channeling:Mind Sear]Searing Nightmare
/use [@mouseover,exists,spec:1/2][spec:1/2]Power Word: Radiance;[spec:3]Mind Sear

 

[Guest Somtimes_a_priest]

The Torghast section of the guide needs to be updated. They revamped a lot of the powers in the last couple weeks.

[Guest BQ22]

On the Easy Mode page, you say to take the Mindbender talent, but then in the Basic Rotation you say to cast Shadowfiend, which of course was replaced by Mindbender.  You may want to fix this since the Easy Mode page is for noobs who might not figure that out.

Also on the Easy Mode page, you say to take the Misery talent, but then in the Basic Rotation you say "Keep Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch applied on all targets."  That's confusing for noobs as well.  Does that mean apply VT whenever SWP is about to drop off the target?  Or keep a separate button for SWP for every other application of it?

[Publik 7]

On 2/6/2021 at 10:41 AM, Guest BQ22 said:

On the Easy Mode page, you say to take the Mindbender talent, but then in the Basic Rotation you say to cast Shadowfiend, which of course was replaced by Mindbender.  You may want to fix this since the Easy Mode page is for noobs who might not figure that out.

Also on the Easy Mode page, you say to take the Misery talent, but then in the Basic Rotation you say "Keep Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch applied on all targets."  That's confusing for noobs as well.  Does that mean apply VT whenever SWP is about to drop off the target?  Or keep a separate button for SWP for every other application of it?

Thanks for the feedback, i'll add some notes here 🙂

[rowaasr13 17]

Something is really off about some power's tiers.

Psychic Wallet is "buy entire stock of all subsequent traders, guaranteed and forget about Stable Lure legendary forever" if played well. S tier in Twisting Corridors, A tier in regular mode, unless of course, you get it on the very last floor. Even one is enough if you mind control every target, two or combo with rat-spawning just makes it more reliable, though often result in amassing thousands (or ten thousands in TC) extra phantasma by the end of the run.

Impulsor alone is A in TC and S with Modified Impulsor, because it not only makes debuff stay through subsequent casts, mod makes those casts refresh it, thus pretty much making it permanent on bosses. 20% chance to ignore potential OHKO in TC? Yes, please.

Volatile Phantasm is S tier. Phantasm + 2 fragments = SSS tier. It is both heavy AoE bomb and complete immortality in one pack. Only higher floors bosses in TC start killing Phantasm faster than in 10 seconds it is on. And generally they spend at least 3-5 seconds doing so. If it lived through or  you've used that time to distance yourself from boss so you can kite it until it's ready again (remember -20% speed from Impulsor?) - then you should never get hit by anything except AoE, which is generally weaker and more often avoidable than direct attacks.

Catharstick - B? No no no no. S. On layer 8 and on all layers of TC it will always be the top line in your damage breakdown on any boss. Even with all the evasion powers listed above, you will always continue to take enough unavoidable damage that it will easily outrank all your SP spells simply because mob/boss scaling is so much more outlandish compared to your own and it profits directly from that.

Life Barrier - at very least B because you absolutely need to pick it at least once to add second scaling for your shields - from your HP. Without it PW:S scales only with spell power. With it each and every HP-raising ability starts buffing your shields too.

[Publik 7]

On 2/27/2021 at 4:37 AM, rowaasr13 said:

Something is really off about some power's tiers.

Psychic Wallet is "buy entire stock of all subsequent traders, guaranteed and forget about Stable Lure legendary forever" if played well. S tier in Twisting Corridors, A tier in regular mode, unless of course, you get it on the very last floor. Even one is enough if you mind control every target, two or combo with rat-spawning just makes it more reliable, though often result in amassing thousands (or ten thousands in TC) extra phantasma by the end of the run.

Impulsor alone is A in TC and S with Modified Impulsor, because it not only makes debuff stay through subsequent casts, mod makes those casts refresh it, thus pretty much making it permanent on bosses. 20% chance to ignore potential OHKO in TC? Yes, please.

Volatile Phantasm is S tier. Phantasm + 2 fragments = SSS tier. It is both heavy AoE bomb and complete immortality in one pack. Only higher floors bosses in TC start killing Phantasm faster than in 10 seconds it is on. And generally they spend at least 3-5 seconds doing so. If it lived through or  you've used that time to distance yourself from boss so you can kite it until it's ready again (remember -20% speed from Impulsor?) - then you should never get hit by anything except AoE, which is generally weaker and more often avoidable than direct attacks.

Catharstick - B? No no no no. S. On layer 8 and on all layers of TC it will always be the top line in your damage breakdown on any boss. Even with all the evasion powers listed above, you will always continue to take enough unavoidable damage that it will easily outrank all your SP spells simply because mob/boss scaling is so much more outlandish compared to your own and it profits directly from that.

Life Barrier - at very least B because you absolutely need to pick it at least once to add second scaling for your shields - from your HP. Without it PW:S scales only with spell power. With it each and every HP-raising ability starts buffing your shields too.

Thanks for the feedback! I would say for the most part I agree with you in specific situations in TC, but generally would not change the rankings. While a power can have certain benefits in TC, just because it has a single good interaction doesn't make it better than other powers on that given tier, especially relative to the other powers we have available.

I will highlight some of these in a TC specific section, but generally not something I would change the tier rankings for. These are there to highlight the strength on any run, not just very specific scenarios in TC.

[Ogaith 0]

Hi Publik.

First love your guids they help me a lot on playing my favourite spec in the game. 
 

so im NF and you say that the SFP is the new Bis lego for single target. Since im still running the void lego cause I haven’t played in the last month should i get it instead of talbards? And can you elaborate a little more why is it the best for NF?

ty in advance 

[Publik 7]

6 hours ago, Ogaith said:

Hi Publik.

First love your guids they help me a lot on playing my favourite spec in the game. 
 

so im NF and you say that the SFP is the new Bis lego for single target. Since im still running the void lego cause I haven’t played in the last month should i get it instead of talbards? And can you elaborate a little more why is it the best for NF?

ty in advance 

Great question. I would say Shadowflame Prism is probably worth the investment over Talbadar's if you are Night Fae. The extra Voidform uptime as Night Fae leads to directly more Mind Blast casts which means you get more Shadowflame Rifts off compared to non-Night Fae. For this reason you see it directly compete with Talbadar's in Single Target, and basically crush it on 2-5 targets.

[Guest Guest]

Hey,

Just so you are aware, there is a bit of inconsistency in your BiS guide - the Overall BiS legs are from a mythic dungeon, but are different from the BiS legs from pre-Nathria content (Purge Protocol Legwraps vs Mueh'zala's Hexthread Sarong). Obviously both are good in different circumstances goven they are both Haste Mastery, but different higher secondary stat.

Just so you know :)

[Publik 7]

14 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

Hey,

Just so you are aware, there is a bit of inconsistency in your BiS guide - the Overall BiS legs are from a mythic dungeon, but are different from the BiS legs from pre-Nathria content (Purge Protocol Legwraps vs Mueh'zala's Hexthread Sarong). Obviously both are good in different circumstances goven they are both Haste Mastery, but different higher secondary stat.

Just so you know 🙂

Hello! This is actually done on purpose, the pre-raid bis was made as a "im gearing up" list, which is different than the full bis list. The difference is important because as you are gearing up you REALLY need haste, but once you start getting ilvl you can start prioritizing mastery and haste equally.