Shadow Priest DPS PvP BiS Gear, Trinkets, and Switch Items

This is our recommended gear for PvPing as a Shadow Priest. This gear will increase your odds in World PvP and Battlegrounds, but keep in mind that winning is always down to your skill and that of your group.

Stats wise, Stamina, Intellect and (Shadow) Spell Power are what you want from your PvP gear. Because you will mostly rely on instant casts, Spell Power will have much lowered effects. Also, taking a lot of damage (and receiving a lot of healing!) is inevitable in (organized) PvP, making it critical to have enough Stamina to survive burst damage. Due to their large damage reductions from Shadowform and Inner Fire Priests scale their effective health better with Stamina than most classes.

Because of Shadow Focus, you will not need any Spell Hit on your gear at all, although some pieces with it are too good to pass on and can allow you to pick other talents. Also, because Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Pain cannot critical strike, Spell Critical Chance is of mostly useless for Shadow Priests, and both of these factors will be taken into account in the BiS list.

The Priest PvP sets have a blue-quality version and an epic-quality version, both of which are very good for Shadow Priests in PvP due to the high amount of useful stats, including Stamina, and the unique glove / set bonuses.

Rare Priest PvP Sets Epic Priest PvP Sets

Our best in slot list will be focused on non-situational items that always have value based on their stats alone. If you are looking for the best situational items you can use / switch to, check the Switch Items section further below!

In case you want to compare this list with the Shadow Priest PvE Best in Slot, feel free to check out the link below!

While we are only listing the Horde versions of the PvP set, equivalent versions can be found on the Alliance side, with the same requirements, cost and stats.

* Will of Arlokk is a special case in that, while it is also a relatively good healing weapon, it is mostly used for its extremely high Spirit value. This allows you to swap to it in situations where you are not in combat and thus can get a free boost to your Mana regeneration.

It can often be useful to have a healing gear set (especially a weapon) to swap to when you are forced to heal.

Switch Items are items that you do not normally wear since they do not give very good stats, but offer an on-use effect that is very good for certain scenarios. So, you switch to them for their effect.

• Defiler's Talisman (or its Alliance counterpart, Talisman of Arathor) can be used to grant you a powerful personal absorb effect for 15 seconds. It can be obtained through Arathi Basin Friendly reputation.
• Skull of Impending Doom is one of the most powerful item switches you can have. This can be used to break many different CC abilities such as Polymorph, Freezing Trap, Sap, Seduce, and many more. It also has a niche use by helping you suicide which causes no item durability loss which can save you outside of PvP situations. In Battlegrounds this is only truly useful in Warsong Gulch since it is a battleground with a flag mechanic. This can be used to catch a flag carrier or run a flag since movement speed as a flag carrier is incredibly important (if you are attempting to use this in a battleground it is a good idea to have a healer put a HoT on you to negate the DoT effect ESPECIALLY if you are using it as a flag carrier). This is a reward from the level 40 quest Forbidden Knowledge in the Badlands.
• Furbolg Medicine Pouch is sold by Gorn One Eye when you reach Honored status with Timbermaw Hold. This is a great item that you can swap during combat to provide you with a significant 1000 heal over 10 seconds. For comparison's sake, Heavy Runecloth Bandage heals you for 2000 over 8 seconds, but requires you to channel it, and you cannot take any sort of damage in the channel duration.
• Tidal Charm is one of the strongest PvP trinkets in the game. It is very annoying to farm for so do not be discouraged if it takes you a while to obtain one. Tidal Charm has an estimated 30-yard range, making it very strong for stopping mounted people in world PvP. This trinket has a cooldown of 15 minutes though so make sure to use it wisely. Tidal Charm is a drop from Prince Nazjak in Arathi Highlands.
• Nifty Stopwatch provides a 40% run speed increase for 10 seconds when used, which can be invaluable for escaping or running someone down in PvP. This is a reward from the quest This Is Going to Be Hard in the Badlands.
• Barov Peasant Caller is a reward from a questline in Scholomance that summons 3 servants to deal damage for you. The duration is unclear but seems to be very short. This trinket is incredible against casters since the 3 servants attacking will continually push back the cast time of enemy casters' spells. These peasants can also break a Rogue's Vanish if the Rogue attempts to vanish while the servants are fixated on them. They also do a good amount of damage putting extra pressure on your target. All in all, this is a very easy trinket to obtain that has many good uses in PvP. This item is a reward from The Last Barov in Western Plaguelands.
• Glimmering Mithril Insignia does not break fear, it prevents you from being feared. So, you must use it before being feared. This trinket is fantastic for engaging either a Shadow Priest or Warlock to negate their major CC mechanic. Using this in conjunction with your Insignia trinket to break fear to prevent a chain fear is a great combination that allows you to easily pressure Shadow Priests and Warlocks.
• Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire is a more difficult trinket to obtain due to being an Onyxia drop from Onyxia's Lair. The trinket does not have very great stats on it, but just like Barov Peasant Caller it will attack Rogues through Vanish making it very strong in mirror matchups to prevent your target from getting a restealth. The skeleton does do a significant amount of damage (between 100 and 200 usually) and can critically hit, this allows you to pressure any class with it from just the damage that it does. This item is dropped from Onyxia in Onyxia's Lair.
• Arena Grand Master is difficult to acquire, but has an excellent on-use effect that gives you a roughly 1000 shield for 20 seconds. To get it, you must open the chest at the center of the Gurabashi Arena in Stranglethorn Vale 12 separate times to get 12 of Arena Masters. You turn in those Arena Master trinkets to Short John Mithril in the back of the arena for the reward.
• Insignia of the Alliance/ Insignia of the Horde are both very easy to obtain trinkets simply requiring you to be Honor Rank 2 and then to purchase one in your major city. These are required in PvP since they break fears and stuns and are the only active way to break one of these effects while they are already on you. The only other way would be to use an item such as Skull of Impending Doom before being feared or stunned but being able to break free from these effects is more powerful in our opinion.

Engineering is considered to be an almost required profession in PvP due to the exceptional trinkets and other on-use items that you can use in various situations. The strongest of those trinkets are listed below. For more information on Engineering, check out our Engineering profession guide linked below.

• Arcanite Dragonling is an interesting trinket since the level of the Dragonling is your Engineering skill divided by 5 meaning as a Level 39 twink you can potentially have a Level 60 Dragonling (even higher if you are a gnome). This trinket has an absurd cooldown time of 1 hour so be very careful when using it. The Dragonling attacks normally but has a fire breath attack that deals much more damage (between 250-350 a hit) however this is pretty rare and only usually happens once during the uptime. If you are using Fire attacks (such as a Fire Mage or Destruction Warlock would) then this trinket's Fire Breath ability puts a debuff on the target that makes Fire spells against the target deal extra damage. This item is an Engineering item that requires 300 Engineering.
• Gnomish Battle Chicken is similar to the Arcanite Dragonling. The level of the summoned chicken is your Engineering skill divided by 5, meaning that this is very powerful for twink brackets and gnomes. The Battle Chicken occasionally squawks which gives 5% more attack speed for 4 minutes. This trinket, just like the Arcanite Dragonling, can see Rogues in stealth. If you use both the Battle Chicken and Arcanite Dragonling, it is recommended to alternate them, given that they both have very long cooldowns. This item is an Engineering that requires Gnomish Engineering and 230 Engineering to make.
• Ultra-Flash Shadow Reflector reflects any shadow spell cast on you for 5 seconds when used. The plans to craft this drop from Crimson Inquisitors in Stratholme.
• Gyrofreeze Ice Reflector reflects any frost spell cast on you for 5 seconds when used. The plans to craft this are sold by Xizzer Fizzbolt in Winterspring.
• Hyper-Radiant Flame Reflector reflects any fire spell cast on you for 5 seconds when used. The plans to craft this drop from Solakar Flamewreath in Upper Blackrock Spire.
• Gnomish Net-o-Matic Projector will root your target in a net for 10 seconds, which will not be broken by damage. However, it occasionally backfires and will net you instead. The plans can be learned from Gnomish Engineering trainers.
• Goblin Mortar will do some fire damage and stun all targets in a small radius for 5 seconds. The plans can be learned from Goblin Engineering trainers.
• Gnomish Cloaking Device will make you invisible for 10 seconds. The plans drop from Mekgineer Thermaplugg in Gnomeregan.
• Gnomish Death Ray can be channeled for a few seconds, draining your health some, to deal a huge burst of damage to your opponent at the end of the channel. The plans can be learned from Gnomish Engineering trainers.
• Goblin Rocket Helmet allows you to rapidly charge and disable an enemy for 30 seconds, which is a huge amount of time in most PvP situations. Although this disabling effect will only hold if the enemy is not attacked during this period, you can sneak attacks in before / while using it without it breaking and it is of great usefulness when against multiple enemies.
• Gnomish Mind Control Cap is similar to the Rocket Helmet in that it, usually, instantly takes an enemy out of the fight for a long period of time. However, instead of simply stunning the enemy, it converts him into your minion for 20 seconds!
• Gnomish Rocket Boots and Goblin Rocket Boots serve similar purposes: to make you run much faster for a short period of time. The main difference between them is that, when they fail, Gnomish boots make you run around as if you were Feared for a bit, while Goblin boots occasionally (30% unless you cancel the effect early, which makes it less likely) explode, causing you to have to make more of them to keep using their effect.

We hope this guide was helpful for your PvP exploits! Feel free to check out the general PvP Talent and Consumables guide as well in the link down below.