Shadow Priest Torghast Guide and Best Anima Powers — Dragonflight 10.2.5

This guide is focused on Torghast specifically, but feel free to use these tips in the open-world or any other solo content as well.

As a Shadow Priest you will get access to many helpful Anima Powers within Torghast and using these with our base class abilities will make you very strong inside of Torghast. We have lots of great utility spells we can use to make our runs easier, especially considering most mobs are Undead so we can use Shackle Undead for harder packs.

For a video walkthrough of Torghast as a Shadow Priest, check out my video guide below, where I go over everything you need to know about Torghast.

In general your strength inside of Torghast will be your plethora of Anima Powers coupled with baseline utility that simply trivialize packs of mobs. Between powers that augment your fear abilities to others that boost your Covenant spells, you will have lots of tools to be able to handle various problems thrown at you in Torghast. That being said, if you do end up overpulling one big weakness as a Shadow Priest is an easy way to run away or kite mobs once you have exhausted all your utility, so be careful about overpulling. There is no reason to rush through Torghast so you are better off taking your time and playing to your strengths.

The following talent builds apply to Torghast or other open-world content. If you are looking for other talent suggestions, check out the dedicated page for that below:

The following recommendations are specifically for Torghast. Check out the full page below to see what to run for other forms of content.

Your options vary between Covenants:

The suggested Soulbinds here are very similar to Mythic+ suggestions, as the damage pattern of the two pieces of content can be quite similar. Regardless of your Covenant choice, you will be just fine in Torghast and each one provides unique benefits, especially paired with the specific Anima Powers that augment those abilities.

Conduits-wise, our choices are very limited here and almost none of them offer a noticeable gain of damage inside short fights in Torghast. It probably is not worth swapping Conduits around for Torghast specifically but instead changing up your path to use the built-in Soulbind Traits instead of taking extra Conduits.

1. Shadowflame Prism
2. Talbadar's Stratagem
3. Stable Phantasma Lure

Talbadar's Stratagem will be a fine choice for Torghast, especially with powers that buff your Mind Blast damage. I typically start with Shadowflame Prism and then swap to Talbadar's at a Broker if I get enough Mind Blast powers for big single-target damage. Keep in mind if you start out with Shadowflame Prism you should use Mindbender.

Stable Phantasma Lure is honestly just a neat legendary to try if you can spare the Soul Ash. This gives you an increased amount of Torghast currency ( Phantasma) during your run, which you can use to purchase additional Anima Powers on that run specifically. Most runs will average out giving you an extra power or two with this, and will typically be a larger increase than a Shadow-specific Legendary would be.

Note that once you get the Memory of Unity you should equip that with whatever covenant legendary corresponds to your covenant choice.

Check out the full Legendaries guide for more information on what to use as a Shadow Priest.

As a Shadow Priest you have lots of important tools at your disposal to make sure your runs go smoothly and you avoid the risk of dying.

• Power Word: Shield — Offers a great passive reduction in damage that you can use before combat, as well as giving you a speed boost with Body and Soul.
• Psychic Scream — Allows you to fear up to 5 enemies giving your damage over time effects a chance to finish off targets, or let you kite away.
• Psychic Horror — Gives you a powerful single target stun that can be used on mobs you are trying to run away from or lock down.
• Mind Bomb — An interesting upgrade over Psychic Scream, this can be helpful if you wish to lock down more than 5 targets or you want a lower cooldown fear.
• Silence — Provides our baseline interrupt ability that can also prevent future casts for a short duration if that mob is not immune to the effect.
• Dispel Magic — Is a helpful offensive dispel for getting rid of any pesky buffs an enemy might have. This can be incredibly powerful, so make sure you have a good addon to let you know when something is dispellable (I use Plater for this).
• Purify Disease — This spell provides a disease cleanse for yourself or any ally; nice to have but generally does not need to be used often inside of Torghast.
• Mind Vision — This version of a Far Sight-like mechanic is incredibly useful inside of Torghast, allowing you to see through the eyes of your enemy. If you are searching for Anima Powers on a floor or want to find the exit, you can use this spell to weave through mobs without actually pulling them. While active on one target you can recast on another mob further down a hallway and keep recasting.
• Desperate Prayer — Gives the Priest a small heal and mini defensive that can come in handy when fighting powerful enemies.
• Shackle Undead — Is a great crowd control ability that can be used on most mobs in Torghast.
• Mind Soothe
• Fade — Can be used while you have a pet active or companion to pass threat off temporarily. Can also be used with Mind Soothe to further reduce the range that enemies attack you.
• Mind Control — Turns into a little bit of a DPS ability with certain Anima Powers, and can generally help you clear packs that otherwise would be extremely challenging.
• Vampiric Embrace — Is a great built-in self-healing cooldown that adds to the already powerful self-healing we get through Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch.
• Dispersion — Our main defensive ability that should be used once you run out of other spells to press to get you out of a bad situation.

Keep in mind that while doing Torghast solo you might need to interrupt more often than you have Silence available. This is where you can use abilities like Psychic Scream or Psychic Horror to further lock down a target if Silence is not available.

Anima Powers are found inside of each of your Torghast runs and will reset in between each run, so they are just temporary enhancements. You can accumulate dozens of these at the end of the run depending on how much you clear or how many mobs you kill. Most powers can also stack so you can keep getting the same power for incredible benefits.

There are several Powers that have great synergy together and can be chained with others to create some fun builds to play with, so do not shy away from non-damage Powers as they could be changed with others to become damage Powers! To find a list of all Anima Powers available to Priests, please use the buttons below.

The below ranking is going to go off of generic strength of an Anima Power in the context of these builds and potential use cases, but at the end of the day you should enjoy making builds of your own that are fun while clearing this content.

1. S Tier: the strongest powers available, almost always going to be worth using.
2. A Tier: these powers are still strong, but maybe not always a must-have pickup or require other powers to really impact your gameplay.
3. B Tier: below-average powers that have niche uses where they can make sense, but not for all runs.
4. C Tier: weak powers that typically do not make sense to use and are not very beneficial.

The list below is mostly going over Priest-specific powers, but there is a large list of generic powers that will also be available to you as choices. We have included some generic powers in the list that are fun to play with or are generally strong.

• Power Overwhelming — Possibly one of the most fun powers in all of Torghast, this causes your Mind Blast to have no cooldown and be instant cast while Power Infusion is active. This power gets a massive boost in damage when you get your T28 4-set: Shadow Priest 4-Piece since each extra Mind Blast extends this pet further.
• Cruelty Censer — Enemies that are feared ( Psychic Scream), horrified, stunned ( Psychic Horror or Mind Bomb), or dazed take 35% increased damage. This power gives you a fantastic combo where you put your DoTs on as many targets as possible and then fear them to finish them off.
• Dreamspun Mushrooms — Night Fae-only ability that simply increases the duration of Fae Guardians by 60%. This is very powerful and helps you keep insane Voidform uptime in your Torghast run.
• Fae-bliss Lantern — Night Fae-only ability that causes Fae Guardians to also increase damage and healing by 30%.
• Maldo's Soul Exploder — Necrolord-only ability that gives you a 20% chance to trigger an Unholy Nova after killing an enemy. Particularly useful for packs that have staggered health mobs.
• Death Harvester — Each time you score a killing blow with Shadow Word: Death, you increase the damage of all subsequent casts by 5%, stacking. This does not apply to trivial enemies.
• Fallen Priest's Blessing — Stacking power that gives your Mind Blast a boost to your next Devouring Plague. Great for pumping single-target damage for bosses.
• Voidwraith Signet — This power creates a Voidwraith any time you kill something with Shadow Word: Death. Pairs perfectly with Death and Madness and the Shadow Word: Death build.
• Soul of an Archon — This is an amazing power that will really scale your DoT damage, especially in AoE.
• Horrific Dictionary — One of our better powers, this will effectively boost your main stat passively as you cast "word" spells. You only need to cast one to refresh all your stacks. On broker floors you can swap to Holy and Discipline to get even more stacks.

• Generic Stat powers — Haste or generic Intellect powers.
• Baroness' Lost Plagueloop — Necrolord-only ability that causes your Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death casts to extend Unholy Transfusion by 3 seconds.
• Cracked Mindscreecher — Venthyr-only ability that causes the target to be silenced for 5 seconds after Mindgames expires, also causing them to take 100% more damage.
• Impulsor — Mind Blast will daze the target, reducing movement speed and chance to hit. Pairs well with Cruelty Censer. Any subsequent cast of Mind Blast will remove this effect.
• High Priest's Legacy — Gain the Misery talent. Typically I will always pair this with Twist of Fate.
• High Priest's Lesson — Gain the Twist of Fate talent. Similar to High Priest's Legacy this power lets you have Misery and Twist of Fate at the same time.
• Mask of Sheer Terror — Bolsters your Psychic Scream or Mind Bomb to require 400% more damage to break the fear. Works well with the fear build.
• Necromight Infusion — Necrolord-only ability that grants allies 3% Critical Strike every time they are healed by Unholy Transfusion. This occurs anytime they attack a mob that currently has the DoT ticking and can affect the player.
• Volatile Phantasm — Fade causes an illusion to spawn that lasts for 10 seconds. This illusion will trick enemies into attacking the clone instead of yourself. Depending on how long it remains alive it will explode for damage to all nearby enemies when it expires. Can be combined with Fragments of Obscurity to reduce the cooldown on Fade as well.
• Wailing Visage — Extends the max duration of Psychic Scream or Mind Bomb by 4 seconds.
• Dead Mawrat — Killing a Mawrat grants you a bonus charge of Shadow Word: Death.
• Catharstick — Stores up damage taken to deal that back when casting Shadow Word: Pain. Using this with Red-Hot Mindpokers has great synergy. On higher floors and especially in Twisting Corridors stacking this up can be a huge damage boost.
• Painwheel — Extends the duration of all Shadow Word: Pain casts by 3 seconds and increases its damage by 25%. A somewhat boring power but still reasonably strong.
• Vandal's Zeal — Great power that augments your Mind Blast each time you break an object, stacking up to 40 times. Pairs great with Talbadar's Stratagem and the T28 2-set: Shadow Priest 2-Piece.
• Dark Technique — Your fear abilities now cause targets to suffer 5% of your health every 1 second; this damage does not break the CC. Pairs great with the fear build and Stamina powers; typically only worthwhile when solo.
• Light-Infused Egg — Solid power to help give Mind Flay a bit of spice.

• Red-Hot Mindpokers — Gives the initial damage component of your Shadow Word: Pain a guaranteed critical hit. Becomes A-Tier when paired with Catharstick.
• Deeply-Held Vow — is a Kyrian-only power that causes your Ascended Nova to apply Shadow Word: Pain to enemies hit and Renew to allies that are healed. This is quite a fun power, but not that useful.
• Feathered Fetters — Kyrian-only ability that increases the damage done of Boon of the Ascended but you cannot move while it is active. Use this to pull really large groups of mobs and destroy them quickly!
• Flashbox — Every 30 seconds that you do not cast Shadow Mend increases the healing by 100%, stacking up to 6 times.
• High Priest's Invocation — Gain the Last Word talent, allowing you to cast Silence more often while still using Psychic Horror.
• High Priest's Mythos — Gain the Damnation talent.
• High Priest's Ultimatum — Gain the Ancient Madness talent.
• Idea Eater — Causes your Mind Blast Critical Strikes to grant 20 Insanity.
• Mind Exploder — Increases Mind Blast damage by 500%, but causes the cooldown to also be increased by 400%.
• Modified Impulsor — Causes subsequent casts of Mind Blast to not remove the Impulsor effect.
• Painbreaker Psalm — Larger version of the Painbreaker Psalm that consumes Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch to deal that damage instantly. This power can be quite buggy with Death and Madness, sometimes not granting the proper killing blow reset; take with caution.
• Pandemonium Loop — Causes your Mind Blast casts on a target that is already feared to fear all other mobs near your target for 10 seconds. Particularly nice with the fear build.
• Power Word: Snuggle — Creates a chain of Power Word: Fortitude buffs if running with allies.
• Cowl of Influence — Allows you to control your character while Mind Control is active as a pet-like creature. Can be fun with certain mobs.
• Puppetmaster's Strings — Empowers your Mind Control to last 30 seconds longer and increase the damage of your target by 50%. Only shows up if you have Cowl of Influence.
• Scales of Trauma — Gives your healing done by Shadow Mend to be stored to empower your next Mind Blast. You must heal yourself while missing health to gain this benefit.
• Searing Lantern — Empowers your Shadow Mend to give Searing Luminosity to that target, causing them to reflect 50% of damage taken back at any attackers for 20 seconds.
• Thick Burlap Sash — Gives your Power Word: Fortitude buff an additional 10% Stamina. You must remove the old debuff/recast the spell to gain this benefit.
• Torch of Humility — Kyrian-only power that causes your next Boon of the Ascended to last for 30 seconds (up from 10 seconds).
• Fragments of Obscurity — Reduces the cooldown of Fade by 10 seconds, as well as preventing you from being slowed below 140%. Becomes easily A-Tier with Volatile Phantasm.
• Mindmancer Handgloves — Venthyr-only power that causes Mindgames to deal 20% more damage and healing. Stacking this can cause it to deal substantial damage on big targets.

• Diary of Necrotic Thoughts — Allows you to use Mind Control on Undead mobs as well, typically only useful if running the Mind Control build.
• Earworm — Venthyr-only ability that gives incoming attacks a 5% chance to inflict your target with the Mindgames debuff. Generally speaking this is not worth picking over other options due to how little it procs.
• Enchanted Shroud — Power Word: Fortitude now also reduces magical damage taken by 10%. You need to re-cast Power Word: Fortitude to get this benefit after selecting this power.
• Faithstone — Kyrian-only only ability that causes your self-healing from Boon of the Ascended to be increased by 100%.
• Glorious Prayer — Kyrian-only ability that causes casting Boon of the Ascended to heal you for your full health, and then at the end of the buff restore your full Mana.
• High Priest's Cypher — Gain the Fortress of the Mind talent. This typically does not give us much benefit except on pure single-target pulls.
• High Priest's Gift — Gain the Body and Soul talent. Mostly a preference talent, typically never my first choice to pick.
• High Priest's Legacy — Gain the Auspicious Spirits talent. Since mobs die so quickly this typically does not provide any DPS increase.
• Life Barrier — Grants Power Word: Shield an extra 5% absorb amount based on your max HP.
• Light-Tinged Scraps — Reduces the Mana cost of Shadow Mend by 30%.
• Pixie Dust — Night Fae-only power that heals yourself or the ally you cast a spell on whenever a Faerie is moved.
• Rapid Contagion — Causes any Mind Control casts on a Mawrat to cause all nearby Mawrats to spawn 2-5 additional Mawrats.
• Schaden Fluorite — When your Shadow Word: Pain expires (or a target dies) you heal all nearby party members for 10% of their maximum HP. Great off-healing power, but does not help with damage.
• Second Chorus — Kyrian-only power to reduce the cooldown on Boon of the Ascended by 20 seconds.

While the above tier list will net you positive results for your normal runs, inside of Twisting Corridors you will be flooded with powers and generally have your pick of anything you would like to use. For this reason I have made the below list of powers to strongly consider when you are in these Twisting Corridors runs to help guarantee finishing successfully.

• Life Barrier — Grants Power Word: Shield an extra 5% absorb amount based on your max HP. This health scaling provides a great synergy as you stack other Stamina and health powers.
• Enchanted Shroud — Power Word: Fortitude now also reduces magical damage taken by 10%. You need to recast Power Word: Fortitude to get this benefit after selecting this power.
• Thick Burlap Sash — Gives your Power Word: Fortitude buff an additional 10% Stamina. You must remove the old debuff/recast the spell to gain this benefit.

Now that you know the available Anima Powers for Shadow Priest, this section will specifically call out some natural builds you can target as you climb floors in Torghast.

This build relies on you getting one or more Cruelty Censer powers, and then augmenting your existing fears and control abilities to play into this effect. Once you get one Cruelty Censer you can add to it with the following powers that work extremely well together. Typically with this build I like to use Psychic Horror to have an additional control ability to proc this effect. Usually not suggested to use this build when running with others.

• Cruelty Censer
• Impulsor and Modified Impulsor
• Mask of Sheer Terror
• High Priest's Invocation — Access to more Silence casts while still having Psychic Horror is a great benefit.
• Pandemonium Loop
• Power Overwhelming works well with Pandemonium Loop
• Wailing Visage
• Shadowed Iris
• Dark Technique — also pairs well with any Stamina-related powers since it scales off of your health.

As you journey through Torghast, you will find several abilities that buff the power of Shadow Word: Death. If you find yourself getting these early on, here are some suggestions on other powers to buy/look for as you climb that floor. Keep in mind that with this build you are heavily suggested to use Death and Madness if you are not already using it. The Painbreaker Psalm can be a nice addition to this build as well, but is generally not worth using otherwise.

• Death Harvester
• Painbreaker Psalm
• Painwheel — directly buffs Painbreaker Psalm
• Dead Mawrat as well as Rapid Contagion
• Voidwraith Signet

Due to recent power additions and changes you can use this build to catapult the value of Talbadar's Stratagem dramatically by buffing Mind Blast. This is especially fun to play with once you get access to your T28 4-set bonus: Shadow Priest 4-Piece.

• Power Overwhelming (further buffed with Light-Infused Egg)
• Vandal's Zeal
• Idea Eater
• Fallen Priest's Blessing
• Scales of Trauma — Further augmented by any Stamina/Health powers.

Perhaps one of the strangest builds is one that revolves around using Mind Control on hard hitting enemies and turning that strength onto other targets within Torghast. This typically is not my favorite build to run, but can help you in clearing higher floors that you might be undergeared at doing by yourself.

• Diary of Necrotic Thoughts
• Puppetmaster's Strings
• Rapid Contagion
• Cowl of Influence

When running with others, sometimes it makes sense to pick up some off-heal powers to help out the group with healing if no one wants to play an actual healing spec. The following powers are great "support" Priest powers that are perfect for this use case:

• Schaden Fluorite
• Thick Burlap Sash
• Volatile Phantasm (further buffed with Fragments of Obscurity)
• Impulsor
• Enchanted Shroud
• Enduring Spirit
• Fae-bliss Lantern

Trinket tuning is still in progress, so right now I would suggest using any Raid or Dungeon trinkets you can find, generally speaking they are all pretty solid for Shadow Priest.