PvE Shadow Priest DPS Guide

The Cataclysm Pre-Patch brings with it the updates and changes to class kits and talent trees. This means that there is a lot that may be new, as well as old spells that have been given new life. For most classes, the pre-patch will change relatively little about how you play your character, but there are still a lot of things to consider.

What’s New

Shadow Orbs

This is the new Shadow Priest mechanic in Cataclysm, and will eventually be augmented by the Mastery stat. [shadow orbs] is granted upon choosing the Shadow specialization. Each time [shadow word pain] or [mind flay] deal damage, they have a chance to generate a single Shadow Orb. You can hold a maximum of 3 Shadow Orbs at any given time.

Shadow Orbs last for 1 minute and their duration is refreshed each time one is generated. Casting [mind blast] will consume all of your Shadow Orbs, increasing the damage it deals based on Shadows Orbs consumed.

Any time you consume your Shadow Orbs, you will be granted [empowered-shadow], increasing the damage dealt by your damage-over-time spells for 15 seconds. This effect is not increased by having more Shadow Orbs, and you generally want to aim for a higher uptime on it.

Mastery: Shadow Orb Power

All specializations have a unique Mastery ability, augmented by the Mastery stat. In our case, [Shadow Orb Power] increases the damage bonuses granted by [shadow orbs]. This is very powerful for us, as [shadow orbs] improves both our [mind blast]s and DoT spells.

Shadow Power

Like [shadow orbs], this is granted by choosing the Shadow specialization. [shadow power] grants a flat 15% increased Spell damage, as well as increasing your critical damage by 100% for Shadow spells. This means that Crit Rating is a valuable stat for us.

Abilities

While a lot has changed for Shadow Priests in Cataclysm, the fundamental game plan remains the same. Keep your damage-over-time spells running and fill any downtime appropriately. At level 80 there isn’t a whole lot new just yet.

Changed Abilities

While a lot of abilities have received minor changes, this section aims to cover those that are relevant to Shadow Priests and their gameplay.

Mind Sear

[mind sear] in Cataclysm can be cast on a friendly player, radiating damage from that player. This is a big change that means we can hit all enemies in an AoE situation! In most situations, you will want to channel this on your tank or a melee DPS.

Shadow Word: Death

Instead of simply being a big, instant nuke spell that deals damage back to you if the target doesn’t die to it, [shadow word death] now deals triple damage to any target below 25% Health. This makes it a very strong execute-style ability that we prioritize on low-health enemies.

Shadowform

[shadowform] no longer grants any threat reduction, but now grants 5% Spell Haste to your raid members. This buff is shared with [moonkin-form] and [wrath-of-air-totem].

Single Target Gameplay

Maintain your damage-over-time spells like [shadow word pain], [devouring plague], and [vampiric touch] while casting [mind blast] on cooldown and killing time using [mind flay]. [shadow word death] is one of the most changed aspects of your kit, and now actually functions more as an Execute type spell than a nuke with backlash damage. Unless you need to restore Mana using [masochism], save [shadow word death] for the execute phase of a fight.

AoE Gameplay

Against smaller groups of enemies simply blanket them with [shadow word pain] and [vampiric touch]. You can cast only [devouring plague] on a single target, but if you are against 2-4 targets you can throw it up on one of them.

Against 3+ enemies you will likely want to use [mind sear] on a tank or melee DPS once the targets are blanketed with DoTs. If you’re up against 5+ enemies, skip the DoTs entirely and just cast [mind sear].

Cooldowns

Shadowfiend

This functions effectively the same as it always has. Pick a target, summon your Shadowfriend, and let it do its thing. Each time the [shadowfiend] attacks, you gain 3% Mana. You can use this either offensively for shorter encounters, or as a reliable way to get Mana back on longer fights.

Dispersion

Almost entirely unchanged, [dispersion] allows you to take massively reduced damage while regenerating a lot of Mana for 6 seconds. Use this to cheese mechanics, restore Mana, or make your Healers’ lives easier.

Talents

Cataclysm has brought with it the first talent tree revamp. We no longer receive one point per level, and we are required to choose a tree to commit our first 31 points into before we can spend points in any of the other trees. With the trees being heavily compressed, you’ll find that each talent is more impactful than ever before. Upon choosing a tree you will be granted a few abilities, and in the case of Shadow we gain [mind flay], [shadow power], and [shadow orbs] right away.

In the first tier, all three options are fantastic. [darkness] no longer grants Shadow Damage, instead giving us 1% Spell Haste per point. [improved shadow word pain] no longer increases the duration of [shadow word pain], instead giving it a damage boost. [veiled shadows] is mostly the same, only found much earlier in the tree.

The second tier gives us [improved mind blast], which is effectively the same as it was. [improved devouring plague] is also mostly the same, causing [devouring plague] to deal a chunk of damage upfront alongside its DoT component. This allows us to use [devouring plague] as a somewhat spammable instant damage spell when we need to stay on the move. [twisted faith] has been fully overhauled, and now grants increased Shadow Spell Damage, as well as giving us Hit Rating equal to 100% of our Spirit from gear and buffs. This allows us to potentially ignore Hit Rating when gearing and focus on Spirit instead.

The third tier brings the classic and beloved [shadowform], which now provides a Haste buff to the raid, similar to [moonkin-form]. [harnessed shadows] is completely new, giving us an additional 8% chance to generate [shadow orb]s, as well as a 100% chance to generate a [shadow orb] when we are critically hit. [phantasm] is the first half of the old Improved Shadowform talent, but is generally not needed in PvE content.

The fourth tier offers [vampiric embrace]. While the numbers have been tweaked, this is effectively the same as in Wrath. [masochism] gives us Mana back whenever we take a big hit, but more importantly, it gives us Mana back whenever we deal damage to ourselves with [shadow word death]. This can be a fantastic tool for keeping your Mana high, as long as you have someone keeping an eye on your Health. [mind melt] is no longer related to Critical Hits, instead giving [shadow word: death] even more damage when used against low Health enemies. The latter half of the talent is irrelevant during pre-patch, as we cannot learn [mind spike] just yet.

The fifth tier has our third and final DoT spell, [vampiric touch]. This functions mostly the same as its Wrath incarnation, except the dispel protection is no longer baked into the spell and requires a later talent. [pain and suffering] is also effectively the same, but is no longer a 100% chance, instead being reduced to 60% with the talent maxed. [paralysis] is a fun talent, causing your critical [mind blast]s to root enemies, but this is very niche in PvE.

The sixth tier brings [sin and punishment], adding dispel protection back to [vampiric touch]. Instead of simply dealing a chunk of damage on dispel, the dispeller and all of their nearby allies are instantly feared for 3 seconds. This talent also causes [mind flay] criticals to reduce the cooldown of [shadowfiend], and this reduction can add up very quickly. [shadowy apparition] is also new, and quickly became an iconic Shadow Priest ability. Each time [shadow word pain] deals damage, it has a chance to summon an apparition that will float toward the target, dealing a chunk of damage when it reaches them. This chance is increased significantly while you are moving, making it a DPS boost to keep in motion anytime you are on the global cooldown but not currently casting. The final talent in this row is [psychic horror], a 3-second Horror and 10-second Disarm.

Our capstone talent is [dispersion], functioning the same as it always has. Once you have spent 31 points in the Shadow tree, you are free to branch out into Holy & Discipline. In our case, we only care about the Discipline tree. At level 80 we only have a total of 36 points to work with, giving us 5 points to spend outside of Shadow.

In the first tier of Discipline, we want to grab [twin disciplines], giving us 6% more Shadow damage. The final two points are somewhat optional, but there isn’t a much better place to put them than in [mental agility], reducing the Mana cost of our Instant Cast Spells. This makes up a large amount of our casts, so we get decent value from it.

Glyphs

Glyphs have been overhauled in Cataclysm, replacing the previous Major-Minor system with a three-tiered system instead. Prime Glyphs are where you’ll get your biggest benefits, offering things like flat damage increases to certain spells, or boosts under certain conditions. Major Glyphs are more situational or defensive, offering things like reduced cooldown on defensive abilities. Finally, Minor Glyphs are quality of life or cosmetic effects, such as changing the appearance of [shadowform] or removing the reagent cost of [levitate].

Prime

[glyph of shadow word pain]

This increases the damage of [shadow word pain] by 10%. A no-brainer boost for us.

[glyph of shadow word death]

This causes the cooldown of [shadow word death] to be reset if cast on a target below 25% Health without the spell killing them. This can only happen once every 6-seconds, so you can’t machine gun it, unfortunately. Now that [shadow word death] is more of an execute-type spell this is a big DPS increase for us.

[glyph of mind flay]

This increases the damage of [mind flay] by 10%. Another clear choice.

Major

[glyph of spirit tap]

Spirit Tap as a spell no longer exists, replaced by this Glyph. Whenever you land a killing blow with [shadow word death], you regenerate 1% mana every second for 12 seconds. This isn’t particularly vital, but it is nice to have when it does proc.

[glyph of fade]

This reduces the cooldown of [fade] by 9 seconds, bringing it down from 24 seconds to 15 seconds if combined with [veiled shadows]. While this isn’t the most important spell, there aren’t that many solid Major options for us either.

[glyph of psychic scream]

Instead of Fearing enemies, [psychic scream] now functions as a Horror-style effect, causing enemies to be locked in place instead of scattering wildly. This makes [psychic scream] a much more useful CC tool for things like Heroic Dungeons, removing the risk of mobs randomly aggroing everything. As a small downside, this Glyph increases the cooldown of [psychic scream] by 3 seconds.

[glyph of mass dispel] & [glyph of scourge imprisonment]

This reduces the cast time of [mass dispel] or [shackle undead] respectively from 1.5 seconds to 0.5 seconds. Any time you would regularly cast either spell, this Glyph will make the process significantly less painful.

Minor

[glyph of fading]

Reduces the Mana cost of [fade] by 30%. Mostly insignificant, but so are all Minor Glyphs.

[glyph of levitate]

Removes the need for a [light feather] when casting [levitate]. Never be without this one, you never know when you need to go floating.

[glyph of shadow]

This makes your [shadowform] significantly less dark, allowing you to see more visual detail on your character.

[glyph of fortitude]

Reduces the mana cost of [power word fortitude] by 50%. Not super important, but it’s always nice to have less downtime, or if you happen to need to rebuff mid-fight.

[glyph of shadow protection]

Increases the duration of [improved devouring plague] from 60 minutes to 70 minutes. I guess you could use this if you wanted to but… Why?

[glyph of shadowfiend]

If your [shadowfiend] dies to damage, you receive 5% of your maximum Mana. This is almost entirely irrelevant in PvE content as your [shadowfiend] takes massively reduced damage from AoE effects, and no boss is going to swap target to smack it to death.

Stats

Stats have received a lot of changes in Cataclysm. Most notably, Spell Power is no longer a common thing. Instead, Intellect provides most of our increased damage.

In the case of Shadow Priests, we still want to reach the Spell Hit Cap of 17%, but using the talent [twisted faith] allows us to gain Hit Rating from Spirit as well. In the new Cataclysm character sheet, you can hover over your Hit Chance to see more details, including your miss chance against boss enemies.

Haste Rating increases the speed of everything we do. Our DoTs tick more often, our casts are faster, and our global cooldown is lower. In the case of DoTs, it is important to consider that as your Haste goes up, the duration of DoTs goes down. At certain breakpoints, Haste will add additional ticks to your DoTs. This makes Haste very valuable at these breakpoints, but not quite as much between.

Critical Rating increases our chance to score Critical Hits. Unlike previous expansions, damage-over-time effects can deal critical damage without needing specific buffs or talents. The new passive [shadow power] also makes our Critical Hits deal significantly more damage. These changes combined make Critical Rating more useful than ever before, but it still tends to lag behind both Haste Rating and Mastery.

Mastery is a new stat in Cataclysm. This augments the effect of your specs Mastery ability, which in our case is [shadow orb power]. Each point of Mastery increases the damage of [shadow orbs] by a set percentage. Similar to Critical Rating and Haste Rating, one Mastery Rating is not equal to one Mastery point.

With all of this in mind, your stat priority will generally be:

• Intellect
• Spirit/Hit until cap
• Haste Rating
• Mastery
• Critical Rating

Remember, this is not set in stone and certain gear levels, groups, fights, or any number of variables may shift this around.