Jul 2, 2016 - This addon is developed to optimally track the new insanity resource of shadow priests in Legion. It helps to utilize insanity generators and predict when insanity falls of or can be extended. Features: Big insanity bar (width and height can be set in the interface addon options). SHADOW PRIEST Rotation Addon. Hotfix shadow word death and added cast bar, release holy priest UPDATED 20-4-2019 updated for optimal use in 8.1.5, converted all legacy auras to the newest variant aswell. Moved shadow crash and dark void into the main core rotation with their respective dynamic conditions. Shadow Priest Rotational Primer. The Shadow Priest rotation revolves around a build and spend/sustain style of play.You use abilities that generate Insanity until you reach the appropriate threshold (60 with the talent Legacy of the Void, 90 otherwise) to cast Void Eruption and enter Voidform.While in Voidform, you use a slightly different set of abilities to stay in Voidform for as long as.
Level90100Level 15Angelic Bulwark is a good choice, you get close to dying, you gain a shield - your life is saved on a fairly short cooldown: hard to argue with that. Spectral Guise can be used to evade certain mechanics such as Iron Maiden's Penetrating Shot, significantly reducing the damage your raid has to soak.Level 30Body and Soul can be a good choice if you would be Shielding while moving anyways, also commonly combined with Glyph of Reflective Shield.
Angelic Feathers provide more uptime and are good for high movement encounters, but it's fine to take Body and Soul to reduce the number of keybinds you need to use, or if you dislike when people steal your feathers.Level 45Use Insanity for everything, unless you don't have enough GCDs on multi-dot, in which case use Mindbender (ex. Iron Maidens, Blast Furnace).Level 60Dominate Mind can be used on Guards during the Blast Furnace encounter to debuff the Slag Elemental adds once they are moved into position. Psychic Scream can be used on the Balcony adds during the Blackhand encounter to interrupt their casts and reduce raid damage.Level 75Use Twist of Fate for everything.Power Infusion is good for burst, but we haven't had a fight that makes use of it yet.Shadowy Insight sucks, never use it.Level 90Cascade or Halo is best. If adds will be stacked on the tank in waves, use Halo. If adds are everywhere, and persistent throughout much of the fight, use Cascade.Level 100Clarity of Power is best for pure Single Target. The reduced cooldown on Mind Blast, and passive +40% damage on Spike/Death make it good for pre-raid and Highmaul gear levels.Once you reach 25% crit chance, and/or gain the 4-piece set bonus from Blackrock Foundry, Auspicious Spirits is best for multi-dots (read: everything).Never pick Void Entropy, it's a debuff disguised as a talent - don't let it trick you! Stat PriorityCrit Haste Multistrike Versatility MasteryCritical Rating: When Shadow Word: Pain critically hits we create, this makes Critical Rating the best stat for the talent Auspicious Spirits.
It's also a good stat for Clarity of Power. This is your 'best stat', get all the crit gear you can. ALL THE CRIT. CRIT THEM ALL!Haste Rating: Haste is our stat attunement, meaning we gain 5% more of it from any source, it is a multiplicative stat - not additive.
Haste is a good stat all-around, but only 'the best' for Void Entropy.Multistrike Rating: Like our old mastery, but it doesn't spawn Shadowy Apparitions or interact with procs like Shadowy Insight and Surge of Darkness. It's not bad for DPS, but it makes me sad to have such a cruel mockery of our old mastery.Versatility Rating: Makes you hit harder, heal more, and receive less damage - people mistakenly assume that because it's good at everything it will be the worst DPS stat, but it's not as bad as you think - and it will only get better as the expansion goes on.Mastery Rating: The best stat for Single Target Clarity of Power, but the worst stat for every other scenario (yes, often worse than Versatility). My advice is to avoid Mastery like the plague, and just accept that you suck at Patchwerk - every other fight will thank you.
Damage PriorityThe goal of Shadow is to Devouring Plague as often as possible. To do that, you need to generate Shadow Orbs as fast as possible.
Once you understand that, everything else will make sense.Since Shadow Word: Death and Mind Blast create Shadow Orbs, they are your Top Priority, interrupt everything else to cast them as often as possible.If you are at 5/5 Orbs, do not Death/Blast, because you will not create a Shadow Orb. Glyphs- Increases the potency of your utility cooldown, both by 33% overall (20% for 10 seconds is more than 10% for 15 seconds), and because it allows you more burst damage=healing potential in a 10 second window rather than a 15 second window. The only mandatory Glyph, in my opinion.- A popular glyph for passive movement speed, while Angelic Feathers are faster - this will always be active when you need to shuffle.- Causes 70% of your Power Word: Shield to return damage to the attacker, while our Shield is quite weak after repeated nerfs - this remains the only DPS increase from a glyph. In practice on a progression fight where you are using Shield fairly often for added survival, it can be a 1-2% DPS gain.- allows you to pull yourself out of fire, situational (sometimes you need Leap of Faith for utility) but fun and useful.- useful for high raid damage fights, not very strong - but everything helps.- lets you disperse through mechanics a little more often, not often necessary - but everything helps. Consumables- Made out of Herbs and the kindness of your guild's Alchemist.
Drink Me.- use one just before each pull to get an early boost of intellect, then use another when you need more damage later in the fight. You want to sync it with your best damage, so usually during Bloodlust or Execute Phase (Twist of Fate + Shadow Word: Death spam), and wait until you have 5 Orbs.- More Intellect = More Damage. These come primarily from enduring the torment of LFR, if you are lucky they come from Follower missions, or you can buy them on the Auction House.- tastes good, increases your critical chance, delicious!- tastes horrible, but increases your crit more, useful! RacialsEach race has a DPS racial bonus, due to the relative balance of stats in Warlord of Draenor - and the careful attention paid to making sure people don't feel obligated to race change for damage, I cannot recommend race changing just for the DPS racials.
Curse Client
The largest DPS gain between any of the two racials is a fraction of a fraction of a single percentage point.With the above disclaimer understood, there are two competing theories for racial DPS gains. Auspicious Spirits is the best talent for most encounters, and Auspicious Spirits prefers Critical Chance: Night Elves, Blood Elves, and Worgen. Then again, since almost all fights are multi-dot fights, and multi-dot encounters prefer Haste, haste racials are also strong: Night Elves, Goblins, Gnomes, and Trolls. Lastly, consider that all the other races are tuned so that that they match the benefit these races possess.For maximizing DPS, it makes more sense to pick the race that maximizes mobility: Goblins and Worgen.
Or allows you to escape CC: Undead and Human. Or makes you feel hot: Night Elves, Blood Elves, Draenei, and Trolls. Or makes you laugh: Tauren, Pandaren, Dwarves and Gnomes. The best Shadowpriests in the world include all of the above, your race is not the reason your damage is low.Pick the race you like the most. Macros & AddonsHere is my UI as an example of helpful addons:- The Raid Frames on the left of the screen, the Player and Target health frames on the bottom middle of the screen, the Boss Frames on the right of the screen (Arena Frames in the same spot, if you're interested). An addon like this is a must, it allows you to track DoTs on multiple targets during boss encounters, spot dispellable debuffs on raid members, and customize the visuals and position of all these frames to more suitable / high visibility locations.- Made by our very own SpinalCrack! Just above my health frame (bottom middle), the grey bar with red icon on the left end.
The red indicator is saying I am too close to optimally use Cascade against my current target (not optimal for the fight, btw) - it is essential for getting the most out of Halo, Cascade, and Divine Star. A must-have addon.- Bottom middle. Provides a Cast Bar (Insanity in the picture) complete with visible ticks for channeled spells. It also acts as my DoT Timer for my primary target (the DoT bars directly above the channel). There are many suitable addons for this purpose, but having one of them will improve your DoT uptime.- the only visible component is the timer in the top middle (Disrupting Roar), however it provides numerous useful warnings for avoiding fire and preparing for encounter mechanics. Knowing precisely when that wave of adds will appear is essential to landing a big Halo+Searing Insanity. Knowledge is power.- Allows numerous chat related functions, but the most useful is that it lets you copy URLs out of guild chat, for when your guild has important cat photos to share.- In the bottom middle, right of the chat box.
It allows customization and alternate placement of the map.- In the bottom right corner is a tool for analyzing your damage between fights, it is useful to get a feel for where your damage is coming from, and to whom it is dealt. Alternately, performs the same task equally well.- allows you to program your own warnings for buffs, debuffs, procs, not being in Shadowform while in combat, or anything else you can imagine.
An excellent example is just above my Health Frame (bottom middle), the small purple box with two timers in it is a Weak Aura created by Twintop which tracks the uptime on our 4-piece tier set: very helpful!(create a New aura, select Import at the bottom, and paste this into the provided text box). Frequently Asked QuestionsIs this 685 item better than than this 700 item because it has better secondary stats? Intellect is king, everything else is secondary.How many targets are required for Mind Sear (or Searing Insanity) to be better than Mind Flay (or Insanity)? 3 is a rough break-even, but I would recommend at least 4 for it to be worthwhile over focusing a higher priority or health target, or focusing one down faster to activate Twist of Fate sooner.What is the best Racial?How do I collect points?How do I pronounce your name? Say it fast, like 'Evil'Tell me about Shadowpriest Lore?
I'm very impressed. Your quick sentences explaining shadow orb generation are going to be the key to getting people to understand shadow, but something like them had been missing from past guides.
Only change I'd suggest is glyph of silence for fights where interrupts are useful and there isn't necessarily an assigned interrupt rotation, like blast furnace.Also thanks for giving versatility a little respect. I'm tired of trying to convince my guildies that it does more than zero damage, and they should probably take that versatility item because +15 ilvls in main stat is better than whatever they think they're losing for vers. Anything less and it's likely not worth it. Depends on the stats, obviously, but undeniably versatility is the worst spec in many/most cases for all specs.Not true, and not true for Shadow in particular. Take a good look at all the Mastery on your gear - exempting Mythic Butcher (full CoP single target) - Versatility is better than all that Mastery you're wearing (I have 1300 mastery on my gear right now that I wish I could make into Versatility). Do I interrupt insanity to re-apply DoTs?With CoP, you will not re-apply DoTs.
You have a DoT-weaving rotation that covers one full duration of both DoTs, and they drop off when it's done. If you're on two targets and your second target has the DoTs, you likely won't be using Insanity anyway because you don't DoT-weave on the primary target (use SoD instead). If you're on more than two targets, don't go CoP, go AS (even on two, AS pulls ahead fairly quickly as you gear up).With AS, SW:P is higher priority than Insanity, because it's essentially an Orb generator.
Generators should always be used when available, so if there's targets without SW:P around (that won't die shortly), DoT them up instead of using Insanity. VT is a bit of a tricky thing, I'm not entirely sure where it stands in the priority. From my understanding it's higher DPCT than Insanity, but I could be wrong. Luckily in practice, basically the only two fights where you'll even want to keep VT rolling on more than one target are Hans/Franz and Maidens. Everywhere else things either die too quickly, or you're busy spamming a high-priority target.
Nice thread, I'm new to shadow priests, (my main as a warlock but planning on re-rolling shadow priest because the current shadow priest rotation feels a lot like the old warlock one). It would be nice if you could add a bit more detail about the for CoP? And maybe also a per fight recommended talents thing. Thank youThis might help (not allowed to post links yet sadly):i.imgur.com/v13KIph.pngIt gives a decent overview of what talents to us on what fight - you could maybe add it to your guide Yvaelle with some explanation/reasoning behind it.