PvE Shadow Priest Addons & Macros

Addons and macros are useful tools for improving your performance as a Shadow Priest. Below you’ll find a list of recommended addons as well as some examples of useful macros that you can customize for your own purposes.

Addons

Addons can be used to extend the game’s interface and provide functionality that doesn’t otherwise exist in the game. These tools can greatly enhance your performance as a damage dealer. Some are even considered mandatory in many raiding guilds.

Be sure that you download the appropriate version of each addon for Mists of Pandaria Classic. Most of these addons have multiple versions.

Performance Addons

These addons can significantly improve your performance as a Shadow Priest in dungeons and raids and are highly recommended if not mandatory.

• Healbot Continued or Vuhdo
  These are just two options for unit frames addons that you can use. They will help you track relevant buffs and debuffs on your teammates and have built-in mouseover macro functionality. Although you are not a healer, you have a lot of friendly spells that can utilize this functionality.
• DeadlyBossMods
  This addon is perhaps the most mandatory for raiding. It provides extensive tracking and alerts for boss abilities and is a game changer in terms of raid awareness.
• GTFO
  Provides audio notifications whenever you are standing in dangerous effects. A great addition to DBM.
• Details
  Shows you how much damage, healing, etc, everyone in your raid is doing. There are similar addons such as Recount, but this is the most robust option by far.
• WeakAuras
  An extremely versatile addon that can track buffs and debuffs, modify the User Interface, or even create audio notifications. Many raiding guilds will require this so they can share specific WeakAuras with the entire group.
• OmniCC
  Displays a timer on the action bar for the remaining time until a cooldown is available.

Quality of Life Addons

These addons can provide useful features to make your general gameplay experience smoother, but they don’t do anything that will affect your performance in endgame group content.

• MinimapButtonButton
  If you get annoyed with all of the little addon icons cluttering up your minimap, this is a must-have. It can really clean things up if you’re using a lot of addons.
• Leatrix Plus
  Provides many features such as auto-accepting quests, summons, and resurrections, blocking party or duel requests, and modifying the interface.
• Leatrix Maps
  Enhances the world map by adding coordinates, increasing zoom level, and more. The default game offers no way of seeing your map coordinates, and coordinates are commonly used to give directions in guides and walkthroughs.
• TomTom
  You can use this in place of or alongside Leatrix Maps. It lets you see your current map coordinates, mark coordinates as waypoints on the map, and see an arrow pointing to the currently selected waypoint.
• Auctionator
  A great tool for any interaction with the Auction House. Streamlines the process in many helpful ways.
• Questie
  Tracks and showcases quests & quest objectives on the map. Not as vital as it was in vanilla Classic, but still extremely useful, especially if you’re going after quest achievements such as Loremaster.
• Rarescanner
  Tracks and showcases rare mobs when in proximity to them. It is very helpful for acquiring early loot or completing achievements, especially in Pandaria.
• Bagnon
  Completely revamps the bag interface and combines all bags into one big window.
• Plater Nameplates
  This addon, similar to Weakauras, allows you to customize all nameplates in the game entirely. It is great for players who struggle to track debuffs on targets or simply want to overhaul the default interface.
• ElvUI
  This is an all-in-one interface overhaul that essentially combines many of the addons listed above. It’s extremely customizable and offers a lot of features. Some players don’t like the look of it or find it is way more than they need.

Macros

Macros can allow you to combine multiple actions into one keybind, saving space on your action bars and helping you to use your abilities more efficiently. They can also be used to change the way that an ability is used, such as by allowing you to heal or deal damage to someone other than your current target.

Mouseover Healing

If you’re using one of the unit frames addons recommended above, they can handle this for you. If not, you can do this the old-fashioned way through macros, although it will be more time consuming.

These macros will allow you to cast a spell on the target you are currently mousing over rather than your actual target. This means that you can keep the boss targeted to DPS and watch for important casts while also dispelling or healing your team by interacting with your unit frames. It also means you only have to click or press a key once rather than clicking on a target first and then using your keybind. If you’ve never tried this before, you may be surprised by just how much faster and smoother it feels.

The example below uses Prayer of Mending, but you can replace this with any other targeted spell. This macro will attempt to cast that spell on your mouseover target if they are friendly and if they are alive. If these requirements aren’t fulfilled, it will simply try to heal your target as it would by default, without the macro.

#showtooltip Prayer of Mending
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][] Prayer of Mending

Cooldown Macros

The following abilities are off the global cooldown and can be used in combination with other spells via macros:

• Desperate Prayer
• Fade
• Power Infusion
• Void Shift
• Synapse Springs (Engineering)
• Potions
• Healthstones
• Trinkets

This can save you precious fractions of a second by triggering multiple abilities with one button press. You can use any number of non-GCD abilities followed by any ability that does trigger the GCD. Here are a couple of examples.

This macro will use your Synapse Springs as well as both of your trinkets along with Devouring Plague if they are off cooldown. (10 is your Hands slot, 13 and 14 are your two Trinket slots.)

#showtooltip Devouring Plague
/use 10
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Devouring Plague

Items and potions can be added to a macro with the /use command. Here’s an example of combining a Master Mana Potion and Shadowfiend into a powerful mana regen button.

#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/use Master Mana Potion
/cast Shadowfiend

Dispersion Cancel Macro

Pressing this once will trigger Dispersion, and pressing it again will cancel it. Useful if you don’t need the full duration and want to cast something else. Be wary of mashing this button if you don’t want to immediately cancel the effect.

#showtooltip Dispersion
/cancelaura Dispersion
/cast Dispersion

Mind Sear Macro

This macro does two things for your Mind Sear spell. First, it allows you to spam the button and re-cast the spell immediately when it ends, without fear of clipping your current channel. Second, it will channel the spell toward your Focus target if you have one available, and your current target otherwise. Since the spell does no damage to its primary target, you’ll get the most damage out of it by channeling it onto a friendly target, usually a tank.

#showtooltip Mind Sear
/cast [target=focus,exists,nochanneling:Mind Sear][nochanneling:Mind Sear]Mind Sear

Mind Flay Macro

This macro works similarly to the one above in that it prevents you from clipping your current channel when you spam your Mind Flay button.

Note that when you are using Solace and Insanity, interrupting and restarting your current Mind Flay cast can be beneficial if your Devouring Plague is about to run out. In that case you may want to avoid this one.

#showtooltip Mind Flay
/cast [nochanneling:Mind Flay] Mind Flay