Shadow Priest DPS Spell List and Glossary — The War Within (11.0.5)
On this page, we present you with all spells and procs that you need to understand as a Shadow Priest in World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.0.5).
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Shadow Priest spells.
The War Within Spell Glossary for Shadow Priest
If you are new to Shadow, this is a great place to start to get an understanding of how the spec works. On this page we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialization, how they interact with each other and also with important cooldowns. If you already have experience with Shadow and are comfortable with it in the current expansion, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.
Note that this page merely lists the Talents and explains them. For information on the best talents to use for your Shadow Priest in The War Within, check out our Talents page below.
Main Resource for Shadow Priest in The War Within
Insanity is your primary resource as a Shadow Priest. All of our offensive abilities generate Insanity. The goal is to generate Insanity and then spend it on Devouring Plague. It is crucial to use Devouring Plague before you cap on Insanity; otherwise, you will be wasting damage. It is okay to refresh Devouring Plague while it is already active; it adds the damage from the existing DoT to the new DoT whenever you refresh it!
Mana is your secondary resource as a Shadow Priest. Most of our utility spells cost Mana, though managing Mana attentively is generally not required.
Unlocking Abilities
Note that this page simply lists all the abilities, assuming you are at max level. If you are leveling, check out our dedicated Priest Leveling page, which has detailed information on when you unlock all of these abilities.
For the abilities below, you might see an included acronym or commonly used short-hand name to refer to that spell. This guide will otherwise avoid using this terminology in most places. Still, you might find them used in the class discord or elsewhere.
The War Within Abilities of Shadow Priest
These are your core skills that are available regardless of talents and form the core gameplay of the specialization.
Please read our rotation page for more information on using these abilities together in your rotation.
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
Shadowform | SF | Default form that you will always want to have active as it is just a simple 10% damage buff. It is important to note that when in Voidform, this goes away but will come back after you exit Voidform. It is required to be in this form to cast certain spells like Devouring Plague. |
Shadow Word: Pain | SWP | One of your two main DoT spells. It deals Shadow damage to the target over time and generates Insanity on the application. Since Misery has to be taken in every build, you almost never cast this ability. |
Vampiric Touch | VT | Your other main DoT spell. It deals Shadow damage to the target, over time, heals you for 30% of the damage dealt and generates Insanity on application. |
Mind Blast | MB | Deals damage to a single target, which has a 9-second cooldown, affected by Haste, and generates a high amount of Insanity. It is generally one of your highest-priority spells. You also gain an extra charge of this ability when you have Thought Harvester talent selected. |
Mind Flay | MF | Channeled spell that deals Shadow damage to the target and slows their movement speed by 50%. It generates Insanity and has no cooldown, and is used as a filler throughout your rotation. |
Mastery: Shadow Weaving | - | Our Mastery spell that emphasizes having DoTs up on as many targets as possible. Depending on your Mastery rating, you deal (4.0% + gear rating) increased damage to targets for each of your three DoTs active. So if you have a 0 mastery rating from gear, you will do a 4% increase in damage per DoT on the target, so all three DoTs would be a 12% increase to your damage. This is calculated per target, so spreading DoTs is very valuable, but only works with Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Devouring Plague for the DoT increase check. Note that this does not always work for every part of our kit, specifically pet damage, where it is on a case-by-case basis. In your damage breakdown, you will see a small entry for Shadow Weaving, this is specifically for the mastery damage bonus for Shadowfiend melee hits. |
Focused Will | FW | This is a passive ability that causes melee abilities and attacks to reduce all damage you take by 15% for 8 seconds. This gives you some passive defense, which is very welcome. |
Power Word: Fortitude | PWF | Group buff available to all Priests that gives everyone in your party 5% Stamina for 1 hour. This is an exclusive buffs just to Priests, there are no scrolls from Inscription to give you this buff, so this is a very strong piece of utility we bring to groups. |
Mind Vision | - | Simple spell with minimal use, but it can occasionally be helpful to see far ahead if you know the name of a mob you want to target. |
Mind Soothe | - | This spell has been slightly updated in The War Within. It is a unique ability that applies a buff to enemies in a 10-yard range that makes their aggro range significantly reduced. This has a short cooldown but can be used to skip past mobs while leveling or even inside of dungeons. |
Desperate Prayer | - | Self-heal spell and defensive that provides a good chunk of on-demand healing on a 1.5-minute cooldown. Adding this to our defensive toolkit makes us one of the best defensive ranged DPS specs out there. |
Fade | - | Powerful aggro-drop ability that can come in handy if you accidentally pull a threat on something, and it also gives you reduced aggro radius. When paired up with Mind Soothe in solo content, you can walk past almost any mob in the game without causing them to aggro you. |
Psychic Scream | - | Fears all enemies within 8 yards for 8 seconds on a 1-minute cooldown. Primarily useful to get enemies off you when you are alone. |
Flash Heal | FH | This has replaced Shadow Mend for us in this expansion and is our main healing spell in our kit. This is castable in Shadowform, but generally is less effective than Shadow Mend was, but at a lower mana cost. |
Power Word: Shield | PWS | Allows you to shield a friendly target. This is primarily used on yourself when you need to mitigate damage, but it can also be used on other friendly targets. |
Hallucinations | - | Passive ability that grants you 4 Insanity on successful Dispel Magic, Mass Dispel, Purify Disease, and Power Word: Shield casts. This reduces the penalty of having to spend globals on utility spells, as you do not lose any Insanity generation in the process. |
Priest Class Tree Abilities in The War Within
The following abilities are granted by taking those specific nodes in our Class Talent tree.
Class Tree Active Abilities
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
Renew | - | Base heal over time spell for Priests. While this does have little few uses for Shadow. It is castable in Shadowform, so it is an option if you want more off healing. |
Dispel Magic | - | Removes a beneficial Magic effect from an enemy each time you cast it. Handy tool next to Mass Dispel, particularly in dungeons. |
Shadowfiend | SF/Fiend | 3-minute cooldown, which summons a shadowy fiend that attacks your target for 15 seconds. It is an offensive cooldown that is not particularly strong. Ideally, it should be paired with high Haste buffs or right before Voidform, as getting more Haste means more melees, so more insanity gained. |
Prayer of Mending | PoM | Healing spell available to all Priests that can be more passive off-healing in your kit. Spells like this can come in handy during encounters that have downtime where you cannot DPS but where off healing your group is helpful. |
Purify Disease | - | Removes all Disease effects from friendly targets. This is generally niche in its use but sees use in dungeons from time to time which still makes it a valuable addition. |
Shadow Word: Death | SWD | Baseline execute ability that deals a moderate amount of damage, and even more damage if used on a target with less than 20% health. |
Holy Nova | - | AoE skill available in our tree but does not scale or interact with our kit. It is just a spammable AoE ability that will likely not be used much as a Shadow Priest. |
Angelic Feather | AF | Spell available to all Priests now and will compliment Body and Soul as another movement skill as a Shadow Priest. While you still can get Body and Soul, Angelic Feather lasts longer and will likely be more commonly used when you do not need the shield. |
Leap of Faith | LoF | Pulls a friendly party or raid member toward you. It has a 1.5-minute cooldown. This is a niche skill that can help get a group member out of an otherwise deadly situation. |
Shackle Undead | - | Allows you to prevent an Undead target from taking any actions for 50 seconds. This effect breaks upon any damage. |
Void Tendrils | - | Another AoE crowd control ability Priests get access to. These tendrils require you to be in melee range of your targets similarly to Psychic Scream, but instead, root enemies in place for 20 seconds or until enough damage is dealt to break the tendrils. |
Mind Control | MC | allows you to take control of an enemy target for 30 seconds. This does not work on Demonic, Mechanical, or Undead targets. While channeling this you cannot control your character. |
Dominate Mind | - | Alternative choice to Mind Control which is a Mind Control-like spell that instead makes the valid target a pet that is fully under your control for 30 seconds on a 30-second cooldown. That means if you are good By refreshing this, you can maintain the pet at a near full uptime. |
Mass Dispel | MD | removes all harmful Magic effects on up to 5 allies and 1 beneficial Magic effect on up to 5 enemies on a 2-minute cooldown. This is situationally very useful, particularly in dungeons. It can also dispel certain types of Magic that are normally not dispellable. |
Power Infusion | PI | Haste-based cooldown spell that allows you to give an ally (or yourself) a 20% Haste buff for 15 seconds. While under normal circumstances you would cast this solely on yourself, with the talent directly below Twins of the Sun Priestess we will almost always be casting Power Infusion on another ally every 2 minutes. |
Vampiric Embrace | VE | Heals allies based on 50% of the single-target damage you do for 15 seconds on a 2-minute cooldown. This is particularly useful in solo or up to 5-man content, but can also be useful for raids when used at the right time. |
Divine Star | DStar | Short ranged ability that gives the Priest a combo damage and healing spell. For optimal use, you want to be within 24 yards of your targets so that the star hits each target twice for optimal damage and healing. This spell generates 6 Insanity while in combat. |
Halo | - | Similar spell compared to Divine Star that is a slightly larger range that has more use cases in raiding environments. Note that this spell ONLY hits targets that are actively in combat so that you do not ninja-pull anything in Mythic+. This spell generates 10 Insanity. |
Power Word: Life | PWL | Powerful burst healing ability that is only usable if the target is below 20% health. This is a great piece of off-healing and something to consider if you want to provide more utility for your group. |
Void Shift | VS | Returning PvP talent is now available in our class talent tree. This can be used to quickly save a life, whether it is yours or someone else in your group. |
Class Tree Passive Abilities
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
Improved Flash Heal | - | Small healing increase to Flash Heal |
Psychic Voice | - | Small reduction in the cooldown of Psychic Scream |
Petrifying Scream | - | Changes Psychic Scream to tremble in place instead of fearing them away. |
Focused Mending | - | Buff to the initial healing of Prayer of Mending. Since we do not cast this much, you are unlikely to invest points in this side of the tree. |
Protective Light | - | Extra defensive talent that gives us a 10% reduction after casting Flash Heal. With how easily cast, Flash Heal is this can be a compelling talent if you can afford to cast the spell before a damage event. |
From Darkness Comes Light | - | Choice against Protective Light and shines in any situation you would not want the defensive capability and instead, opt for the increased healing from occasional Flash Heal casts. |
Phantasm | - | Gives an extra effect to Fade letting it also remove snare effects. Paired with Improved Fade, you could remove snares every 20 seconds! |
Death and Madness | DaM | Gives you a reset of Shadow Word: Death cooldown when you fail to kill a target below 20% health. This cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds. In addition, if you use Shadow Word: Death and the target dies within 7 seconds, you gain 8 Insanity. Practically speaking, this makes it feel as though Shadow Word: Death has an extra charge inside of execute range. |
Spell Warding | - | Simply reduces damage taken from magic abilities by 3%. This is pretty small but could be a useful thing to pick up in heavy Magic damage fights. |
Blessed Recovery | - | Talent that feels oriented to PvP gameplay and will likely not see much use in PvE. It requires you to be critically struck by an attack that does not often happen outside of PvP. |
Rhapsody | - | Gives a stacking damage buff to Holy Nova. Pending tuning, this could become relevant but likely not something Shadow is interested in. |
Sheer Terror | - | Reduces the amount of damage a target can take before Psychic Scream will break. Since this is only 75%, it will likely only be useful in solo encounters or PvP. |
Words of the Pious | - | Another non-Shadow based talent that increases damage of Smite and damage and healing of Holy Nova for a short time after pressing Power Word: Shield. |
Move with Grace | - | Simply reduces the cooldown of Leap of Faith by 30 seconds to make it a flat 1-minute cooldown. |
Sanguine Teachings | - | Gives you an extra 3% leech. |
Tithe Evasion | - | Reduces the damage taken from Shadow Word: Death by 50%. This is a great addition to Shadow's kit, especially when running talents like Inescapable Torment or Deathspeaker which will have you casting Shadow Word: Death more than you would otherwise. |
Inspiration | - | Relatively inconsequential talent for Shadow considering how little we will press Flash Heal, and generally follows the trend of talents on the far left not making sense for Shadow. |
Mental Agility | MA | Reduces the mana cost of Purify Disease and Mass Dispel by 50% and reduces the mana cost of Dispel Magic by 10%. |
Body and Soul | BaS or BnS | Our second movement ability in the tree gives you a small burst of movement speed after casting Power Word: Shield. It also works on a target you cast this on with either Power Word: Shield or Leap of Faith. |
Twins of the Sun Priestess | Twins | Massive utility spell in our talent tree that can be a large DPS gain for your group. With this talent, you will want to always try and cast Power Infusion on another friendly target whenever possible. |
Void Shield | VS | Allows you to refill part of your active Power Word: Shield with your damaging spells. Note that this does not refresh your Power Word: Shield, so it does not seem super useful. |
San'layn | SL | Buffs Vampiric Embrace by 25% and reduces its cooldown down to 75 seconds. Note that this is significantly worse in Dragonflight compared to live with Vampiric Embrace only being base 50% rather than 85%. This buffs Vampiric Embrace to 62% in The War Within. If you instead have Sanguine Teachings, this will add 2% leech for a total of 5%. |
Apathy | - | Gives your Mind Blast critical strikes a 75% slow for 4 seconds, having good synergy with talents like Mind Melt. |
Unwavering Will | - | Reduces the cast time of Flash Heal while above 75% health. |
Twist of Fate | ToF | Has been slightly buffed in Dragonflight, now proccing from damage OR healing spells for Shadow. This means we can potentially have more uptime on this buff from healing spells like Halo. Currently gives you get a 10% damage buff when you proc this, making it one of our execute talents. |
Throes of Pain | - | Adds in passive Insanity when targets die with your Shadow Word: Pain in addition to buffing its damage. This lets you start each subsequent pack in Mythic+ with some Insanity and smooths transitions. |
Angel's Mercy | - | Gives you a 20-second cooldown reduction to Desperate Prayer, giving you more chances to use Desperate Prayer. |
Binding Heals | - | Decent talent choice for anyone who intends on doing a lot of Flash Heal off healing, where those will also heal you for 20% of the amount when used on allies. |
Translucent Image | - | Makes Fade an instant cast 10% defensive button, making it one of the few in our kit. |
Cauterizing Shadows | CS | Whenever your Shadow Word: Pain expires, it is refreshed with less than 5 seconds remaining, or a target with the DoT active dies, you will heal a nearby ally. |
Surge of Light | SoL | Gives your healing spells and Smite a small chance to give you a free instant cast Flash Heal. Since we do not cast either of these spells often, you are not likely to get many of these procs as Shadow without actively healing. |
Light's Inspiration | - | Buffs Desperate Prayer from 25% max health gain up to 40%, giving us a large chunk of health when used. Very good synergy with Angel's Mercy. |
Crystalline Reflection | CR | Adds a small instant heal to Power Word: Shield and causes some of that damage to reflect to your attacker. This works with raid boss mechanics that are dealt with directly by those targets, so it could be nice to have in a fight with lots of raid damage. |
Improved Fade | - | Reduces the cooldown on Fade. |
Manipulation | - | Causes you to take 2% less damage from enemies that currently have your Shadow Word: Pain active. Note that this will not work for damage effects that do not specifically come from a target. |
Benevolence | - | Your healing spells now heal for 3% more. This does not work with things like Devouring Plague, Vampiric Touch, or Vampiric Embrace. But does work with spells such as Divine Star, Halo, and Essence Devourer. |
Angelic Bulwark | AB | Cheat-death-like shield that procs when you fall below 30% HP. The shield is only 15% of your max health, though, so unsure how useful this will be. |
Essence Devourer | ED | Gives your Shadowfiend or Mindbender melee swings an additional effect where it will also heal a single nearby injured ally. |
Phantom Reach | PR | Gives most of your spells 15% more range. For a 40-yard spell, this ends up increasing the range to 46 yards. This does work with Psychic Link however it does not work with the following spells: Idol of C'Thun, Idol of Yogg-Saron, Psychic Scream, Void Tendrils, and Psychic Horror. |
Shadow Spec Tree Abilities in The War Within
Active Abilities
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
Devouring Plague | DP | Deals a considerable amount of damage and is our single target insanity spender. The entire spec basically revolves around building up Insanity and then spending it on Devouring Plague. Due to our Mastery, we want to make sure we keep this DoT up as long as possible, but we do not want to cap Insanity. Because of this problem, Blizzard has made the spell roll damage over. This means that if you cast Devouring Plague while you already have Devouring Plague ticking, it will carry the old damage over as a modifier to the new Devouring Plague's ticks so you do not lose damage. So you should play the same since nothing snapshots, but if you are overcapping insanity, make sure you keep casting Devouring Plague; you will not lose any damage doing so! |
Dispersion | Disp | Your main defensive spell is Shadow, reducing all damage taken by 75% but also preventing you from casting any spells for. It also increases your movement speed by 50% and makes you immune to movement-impairing effects. |
Silence | - | Allows you to prevent a target from casting for 4 seconds on a 45-second cooldown. If the target is immune to silence effects, it also works as a standard interrupt if you use it on a target while it is casting. |
Psychic Horror | PH | 4-second single target stun on a 45-second cooldown. |
Mind Spike | MS/Spike | Filler spell that replaces Mind Flay as a casted version depending on talents. Exact use cases for when to use this vs. Mind Flay is not very obvious, but it can be a playstyle choice. |
Void Eruption | VoiEr/VF | Causes you to enter Voidform. Void Eruption also deals a big burst of damage to all enemies within 10 yards of your target and grants you an extra charge of Mind Blast while also resetting its cooldown. This effect lasts a minimum of 15 seconds and is extended based on Insanity spent. |
Void Bolt | VB | Ability that replaces Void Eruption while Voidform is active. It is instant cast, and it deals damage to the target, adding 3 seconds to the existing durations of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch to the target and all nearby targets, on top of also generating Insanity. This is generally one of the more important spells for Shadow when in Voidform and is ideally cast on cooldown, but make sure you do not overcap on Insanity with this ability. |
Dark Ascension | DA | The alternative cooldown option is on a brief 1-minute cooldown. Activating this gives you 30 insanity while also buffing the damage of non-periodic spells by 25%. |
Shadow Crash | SC | Fixed 20-second cooldown uncapped AoE spell that applies Vampiric Touch on up to 8 enemies that it hits when talented into Whispering Shadows as well. This will prefer to apply these DoTs to targets that do not already have DoTs added, although this part can be a bit inconsistent. The damage of this spell is reduced when it hits more than 5 targets. |
Shadow Crash | VC | Alternative version of Shadow Crash that is instead targeted at a specific enemy mob. This version will also follow that target should they move after you cast the ability. All other interactions are exactly the same. This spell is sometimes referred to as VC, which stands for Void Crash, which was the previous name of the ability while it was being developed. |
Mindbender | Bender | Replaces Shadowfiend to be a 1 minute spawned pet instead. The actual damage and Insanity remain the same; you just get to press it more often. |
Void Torrent | VoiT | Large single target channel that generates 60 Insanity on a base 45-second cooldown (reduced by 15 seconds with Malediction). |
Passive Abilities
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
Shadowy Apparitions | SA | Works directly with casts of Mind Blast, Devouring Plague, or Void Bolt to spawn a Shadowy Apparition that float towards any targets that have Vampiric Touch currently ticking. If the base ability for this critically strikes the apparition will do double damage instead. |
Intangibility | - | Makes your Dispersion heal for more and also reduce its cooldown by 30 seconds down to 90 seconds. |
Mental Fortitude | - | Lets your overhealing done by Vampiric Touch or Devouring Plague, build up a shield on your character. |
Misery | - | Causes your Vampiric Touch to also apply Shadow Word: Pain. In addition, it also makes Shadow Word: Pain last an extra 5 seconds, causing it to line up perfectly with Vampiric Touch. |
Last Word | LW | Reduces the cooldown of Silence by 15 seconds. |
Thought Harvester | TH | Mind Blast is granted an additional charge. |
Mental Decay | - | Causes ticks of Mind Flay to extend Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch by 1 second or 2 seconds with Mind Spike. It also increases the damage of Mind Flay and Mind Spike by 10%. |
Whispering Shadows | - | Causes your Shadow Crash to apply Vampiric Touch (and Shadow Word: Pain if talented into Misery) to up to 8 targets. This prefers targets without the DoT already active. |
Unfurling Darkness | UD | Causes your Vampiric Touch casts to add a damage hit for your next cast of Vampiric Touch. This buff lasts 8 seconds, meaning you need to cast Vampiric Touch within 8 seconds of the first cast to get the damage. This effect has a 15-second cooldown. |
Shadowy Insight | SI | Gives Shadow Word: Pain damage a chance to give you a Shadowy Insight proc. This proc gives you a free charge of Mind Blast and makes your next cast instant. This proc does not scale with the number of ticks you get of Shadow Word: Pain, so more DoTs out do not give you more procs on average. |
Ancient Madness | AM | Gives either Void Eruption or Dark Ascension a decaying Critical Strike buff after activating the cooldown. Note that this only increases the Critical Strike chance of your Shadow Priest spells and does not show on your character's stat sheet. |
Voidtouched | - | Increases the damage of Devouring Plague and increases your maximum Insanity by 50 for a total of 150. |
Mind Melt | MM | Stacking buff that makes your Mind Spike casts increase the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast by 20%. You can stack this up to four times. |
Maddening Touch | MT | Gives your Vampiric Touch damage a chance to give you 1 Insanity. This proc chance is lowered as you are fighting more targets. |
Dark Evangelism | DE | Makes your Mind Flay, Mind Spike, and Void Torrent trigger a stacking buff that increases your periodic Shadow effects by 1%/2%, stacking up to 5 times. |
Auspicious Spirits | AS | Causes your Shadowy Apparitions to deal more damage and gives them a chance to generate Insanity. This Insanity proc scales down as you are fighting more targets. |
Tormented Spirits | TS | Gives your Shadow Word: Pain damage a chance to spawn a Shadowy Apparitions on all targets with your Vampiric Touch. Critical strikes of pain have twice as much chance to spawn an apparition. |
Psychic Link | PL | Causes most single-target abilities to deal a percent of the damage done to all other targets within 40 yards afflicted by your Vampiric Touch. All spells are included except for pet spells, Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Shadowy Apparitions. This does work with both the instant damage and tick damage of Devouring Plague. |
Phantasmal Pathogen | PP | Increases the damage of Shadowy Apparitions to targets afflicted with Devouring Plague. |
Mind's Eye | ME | Reduces the Insanity cost of Devouring Plague by 5 for a new cost of 45. |
Distorted Reality | DR | Increases the damage of Devouring Plague and causes it to deal its damages over twice the duration but increases the Insanity cost by 5 for a new total of 55. |
Deathspeaker | DS | Gives your Shadow Word: Pain a chance to reset the cooldown on Shadow Word: Death and make the next cast act as if the target was below 20% to deal more damage. |
Surge of Insanity | MFI/MSI | Causes every other cast of Devouring Plague to transform your Mind Flay into Mind Flay: Insanity or Mind Spike into Mind Spike: Insanity. Casting Mind Flay: Insanity consumes the buff and deals more damage, generates more Insanity, slows the target more, and channels faster compared to Mind Flay. In contrast Mind Spike: Insanity is only consumed as the cast completes and does more damage. |
Inescapable Torment | IT/SFP | Returning Shadowlands legendary Shadowflame Prism as a talent. This causes your Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death casts during Mindbender to make your pet teleport behind that current target and deal AoE damage to 5 targets and increase the duration of Mindbender. |
Mastermind | - | Increases the critical strike chance of Mind Blast, Mind Spike, Mind Flay, and Shadow Word: Death and increases their critical strike damage. |
Screams of the Void | SotV | Causes Devouring Plague to trigger a buff that increases the tick rate of all your active Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch DoT effects. |
Mind Devourer | MD (shares with Mass Dispel) | Causes your Mind Blasts to have a chance to proc Mind Devourer. This causes your next Devouring Plague to cost no Insanity and deal additional damage. |
Insidious Ire | II/Talbs | Buffs your Mind Blastand Void Torrent whenever you have Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Devouring Plague all active on the same target. You get this benefit regardless if that is the target you have all your DoTs active on. |
Malediction | Male | Reduces the cooldown of Void Torrent by 15 seconds for a new cooldown duration of 30 seconds. |
Idol of Y'Shaarj | IoY/YShaarj | Causes you to gain an extra effect when you summon your
Mindbender.
|
Idol of C'Thun | IoC/Cthun | Gives your Mind Flay, Mind Spike, and Void Torrent have a chance to spawn either a Void Tendril or a Void Lasher. The Tendril deals single target damage, and once you are facing 3 or more targets, you will instead summon a Void Lasher that deals AoE damage. In addition, when you first cast a Void Torrent, you will automatically get a proc. These tendrils also generate Insanity over time as they deal damage. |
Idol of Yogg-Saron | IoYS/Yogg | Spawns a Thing From Beyond after conjuring 25 Shadowy Apparitions. When the pet spawns, it continually casts Void Spike to deal a large amount of single-target damage at your current target and small cleave to targets around that one. |
Idol of N'Zoth | IoN/NZoth | Gives Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Devouring Plague a chance to apply a stack of Echoing Void on that target. Each time a stack is applied, you have another chance to collapse those stacks. When the stacks collapse, each stack explodes for AoE damage every 1 second until no more stacks remain. All stacks will explode should the target die with stacks are still active. |
Shadow Hero Talent Abilities in The War Within
Archon
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
Power Surge | PS | Effectively creates 2 extra Halo casts each 5 seconds apart from each other. Also brings the range up to 40 yards. |
Perfected Form | PF | Gives an extra modifier to Dark Ascension and Void Eruption. Note that this extra damage scales everything in our kit, so the extra modifier given to Dark Ascension works for all spells. |
Resonant Energy | RE | Applies a debuff to enemies that will get 2 stacks per cast of Halo assuming each hit connects with a target which is 6 in total when accounting for Power Surge and Divine Halo. |
Manifested Power | MP | Adds more procs into the kit, giving you 3 total Surge of Insanity procs per cast of Halo. |
Shock Pulse | - | Applies a slow component to the Resonant Energy debuff that stacks in a similar way. |
Incessant Screams | IS | Gives our kit an extra delayed stop after the normal cast of Psychic Scream. Note that this second cast is subject to the DR, so it is not a full-duration fear the second time. The second cast of fear is cast at the exact same location, so if the mob moves out of it the second cast will miss. Depending on the situation Petrifying Scream might be useful with this. |
Word of Supremacy | WoS | Effectively gives your character an extra 5% stamina all the time. Keep in mind that this bonus only applies to yourself and not any group members. |
Heightened Alteration | HA | Adds 2 seconds to the duration of Dispersion, which also makes it get extra ticks of the healing component. |
Empowered Surges | ES | Massively increases the damage of Mind Flay: Insanity and Mind Spike: Insanity baseline. |
Energy Compression | EC | Increases both the damage and healing of Halo. |
Sustained Potency | SP | Gives you 3 seconds of Dark Ascension or Voidform per cast of Halo. Note that the stored value is reset upon starting combat with a Raid boss. In addition this talent also allows either of these buffs to be paused for up to 20 seconds outside of combat or while you are stunned. This is a max of 20 seconds per cast of each spell and does not reset if you drop and enter combat several times within a single buff. |
Concentrated Infusion | CI | Gives you an extra 10% haste on the Power Infusion applied to yourself. When using Twins of the Sun Priestess, this means when casting Power Infusion on an ally only the buff applied to yourself gets this increase. |
Energy Cycle | - | Gives another all-around benefit to Surge of Insanity procs where completing these casts also triggers Shadowy Apparitions. |
Divine Halo | - | Gives you the ability to have finer control over the positioning of Halo as well as getting extra hits of Halo itself. |
Voidweaver
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
Entropic Rift | ER | Causes you to tear open a rift towards your current target when you cast Void Torrent. At the end of the Void Torrent cast, the duration is refreshed based on how many seconds you channeled Void Torrent for, meaning you are encouraged to always fully channel this cast. |
No Escape | NE | Turns your Entropic Rift into a very light black hole mechanic where enemies are slowed. This can be useful in certain cases but might also make positioning mobs more challenging. |
Dark Energy | DE | Allows Void Torrent to be cast while moving. |
Void Blast | VBlast | Grants access to an upgraded version of Mind Blast, Void Blast, that is only available while Entropic Rift is active. |
Inner Quietus | IQ | Increases the damage of Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain. |
Devour Matter | DM | Causes Shadow Word: Death to deal extra damage when you cast it on an enemy with an active absorb shield. This also grants you an extra 5 Insanity for that cast. |
Void Empowerment | - | Gives you a free proc of Mind Devourer when you summon Entropic Rift. This proc does not require that you are talented into Mind Devourer to get the proc. |
Darkening Horizon | DH | Gives you an extension mechanic to Entropic Rift where each cast of Void Blast will extend the duration up to 3 seconds. |
Depth of Shadows | DoS | When you cast Shadow Word: Death on a target with less than 20% health or when you consume Deathspeaker you have a very high chance (~90%+) to summon a Shadowfiend or Mindbender for 5 seconds. |
Voidwraith | VW | This transforms your Shadowfiend (2-minute version) or Mindbender (1-minute version) into a Voidwraith. Voidwraith works with all spells that the other pets do, including Inescapable Torment in addition to dealing increased damage to targets the higher their health percentage. |
Voidheart | VH | Gives you a massive 10% modifier to Shadow spell damage while Entropic Rift is active. This does notably work for other items that deal Shadow damage in addition to most spells in our kit. |
Void Infusion | VI | Doubles the Insanity generated by Void Blast. |
Void Leech | VL | Causes you to leech health from a nearby ally if they have more health than you do. While this can provide a lot of healing, it might not necessarily make your group more defensive depending on how much overhealing is happening. |
Embrace the Shadow | EtS | Provides an effective 3% reduction towards magic damage taken in addition to healing back that same amount if it was Shadow damage. This utility can be very powerful on high Shadow damage encounters. |
Collapsing Void | CV | This adds to gameplay elements to Entropic Rift. The first causes each cast of Devouring Plague to increase the damage of ticks of Entropic Rift and eventually the damage of Collapsing Void itself. The second details the Rift itself collapsing at the end of the duration to all enemies within 15 yards from the center of the Rift. This means the Rift size does not change the size of Collapsing Void. |
For more information on how to use these abilities together in your rotation, please read our rotation page.
Changelog
- 04 Nov. 2024: Reviewed from recent hotfixes.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Added entries for Hero Talents.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 03 Dec. 2023: Add more detail about Idol of Y'Shaarj.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Update spells from changes in Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Update description of Angel's Mercy from the change in 10.1.7.
- 23 Jul. 2023: Reviewed from the recent hotfixes.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Add in references to Benevolence and Essence Devourer talents for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 Jun. 2023: Add a bit more detail to Shadow Crash.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for new spells in 10.1.0.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Add new talents for 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 03 Nov. 2022: Included acronyms and commonly used references to spells.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Priest Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Publik, Shadow Priest theorycrafter and SimC dev at Warcraft Priests.
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