PvE Shadow Priest Talents, Builds, & Glyphs

The Mists of Pandaria expansion overhauled the talent options for every class and removed Prime Glyphs, leaving a more streamlined system for building out your character. For Shadow Priests, your choices will have a subtle, but still meaningful impact on your gameplay and performance.

Talents

Talents can now be changed out of combat as long as you have some Tome of the Clear Mind on hand. That means you can easily swap out talents on a fight-by-fight basis. This gives you greater flexibility to take advantage of niche talents when the situation calls for it instead of relying on a one-size-fits-all talent build.

Here is our recommended default talent build for the majority of content. Read on to find out about individual talents and what situations might call for different talent selections.

Level 15 Talents (Tier 1)

• Void Tendrils
  This is the most likely to be useful in endgame PvE content out of the three crowd control options in this tier. Its AoE root effect is on a short cooldown and can keep up to 5 mobs locked down for up to 20 seconds.
• Psyfiend
  This fear effect is a little less reliable than the root option. Best used with Glyph of Psychic Scream, but that requires taking up a Major Glyph slot with a glyph that doesn’t improve your DPS.
• Dominate Mind
  Mind control is not useful in endgame group content since you will not be able to continue dealing damage while using it.

Level 30 Talents (Tier 2)

• Body and Soul
  Piggybacks off of Power Word: Shield, which can be a nice way of also giving yourself some defense at the same time, but problematic if there is a Discipline Priest in your raid since you may have Weakened Soul when you go to use this (and they won’t really appreciate you putting Weakened Soul on yourself with it either). This talent may still be preferable since it’s targeted, which means you won’t have to worry about the wrong person picking up your speed boost if the group is tightly stacked or clustered. It’s also more convenient than trying to place a feather on the ground while DPSing.
• Angelic Feather
  This option offers a more powerful movement speed buff than Body and Soul at no mana cost, and it does not run the risk of failing due to the Weakened Soul debuff. You can even chain 3 in a row on yourself to sprint for 18 seconds straight. On the other hand, the feathers must be placed on the ground, which is awkward to do while dealing damage and can cause them to be used by the wrong person. (From Legion onward, you could use a macro to place the feather right on top of your target and avoid this problem, but that doesn’t work in Mists of Pandaria.) Feathers remain on the ground for 10 minutes or until 3 more have been placed, so you can set them up well in advance for your teammates to use.
• Phantasm
  This talent isn’t worth taking in most PvE content as it is effectively a PvP trinket.

Level 45 Talents (Tier 3)

• From Darkness Comes Light
  This option is the least reliable of the three since it is a random proc. It’s best used in fights where you will be DoTing up multiple targets, which gives it a lot more chances to proc. It also gains value with higher levels of Haste that make your DoTs tick faster.
• Mindbender
  Replaces your Shadowfiend with a buffed version that can be summoned every minute instead of every 3 minutes, which can amount to a lot of mana regeneration if used on cooldown. It also does some damage, but not enough to be competitive with the other two options. It should only be used on very mana intensive fights or when you can’t make good use of the other two talents.
• Solace and Insanity
  This talent offers strong burst damage as long as you can stand still to channel Mind Flay after using Devouring Plague. It should be your default choice unless a fight involves heavy movement.

Level 60 Talents (Tier 4)

• Desperate Prayer
  This is a simple and straightforward personal cooldown. It’s instant, costs no mana, and can heal a good chunk of your health every 2 minutes. You do have to actually remember to use it (and use it often) for it to have any real value, but it can be a fine option if you prefer to have a little more control over your defensive cooldowns. This ability can be cast in Shadowform, and it’s off the global cooldown so you can use it in macros.
• Spectral Guise
  This talent will almost never be useful in dungeons or raids. Its stealth effect doesn’t let you drop combat or avoid damage. At most it can prevent adds from targeting you when they spawn.
• Angelic Bulwark
  A bit weaker than Desperate Prayer, but it’s a passive effect that triggers automatically, so you won’t have to watch your health as closely or remember to use it. You can also benefit from it more often than Desperate Prayer if you are dropping low more than once every 2 minutes, since it has no cooldown.

Level 75 Talents (Tier 5)

• Twist of Fate
  A passive effect that gives you 15% increased damage and healing for 10 seconds after you deal damage or healing to a target who has fallen below 35% health. This talent is powerful but also very situational. Since you’re not healing, you will need to be doing damage to low-health enemies a lot to maintain this buff. If there are plenty of adds dying on a fight and you can maintain 40% or more uptime, this is the strongest option of the three.
• Power Infusion
  A powerful personal cooldown that can massively buff your spell casts for 20 seconds every 2 minutes. That’s a 17% uptime if used on cooldown. The buff increases your casting speed and the damage you deal as well as reducing the mana cost of your spells. This is best used for dealing burst damage on fights that have a burn phase. Note that unlike previous versions of this spell, this one can only be cast on yourself. It loses value somewhat at higher gear levels when you already have a lot of Haste.
• Divine Insight
  Like From Darkness Comes Light, this talent is a random proc and therefore a bit unreliable. It’s best for fights where you will be putting your DoTs on multiple targets so it has more chances to proc. It gains value as your Haste levels increase and your DoTs tick faster.

Level 90 Talents (Tier 6)

• Cascade
  This option offers the highest potential DPS of the three AoE talents in this tier, since it only does damage or healing, whereas the other two talents do both. It deals more damage (or healing) when the targets are far apart (and far away from you). You’ll want to use this on fights when you’re at max range from the boss or when there are lot of enemies spread far apart from each other.
• Divine Star
  This ability does less DPS than the other two options, but it does more healing, which can be useful for progression. It’s also on a shorter cooldown and has a lower mana cost. It’s best used in smaller group content, such as dungeons or even 10-player raids, and only if you can be close to a stacked group of enemies (or players) to be able to boomerang this through them frequently.
• Halo
  This is a very powerful burst AoE that also heals. It does the most single-target damage of the three choices, but its effect is strongest at a 25-yard distance, which can make it a bit finicky to use without an addon or WeakAura. It is also the most expensive and has the longest cooldown, and has potential to pull additional enemies since it hits everything within 30 yards of your character. It’s recommended to use caution when casting this in dungeons or other tight areas for this reason. Since this ability hits all enemies and players in its range, it’s pretty much guaranteed to proc trinket effects when you use it. Best used on fights where you will be at mid-range from the boss (and other targets who are stacked together).

Glyphs

Prime Glyphs are gone in Mists of Pandaria. You will still choose 3 Major Glyphs and 3 Minor Glyphs.

Major Glyphs

There are a few Major Glyphs for Shadow Priests that will be useful in the majority of content, and several alternatives that can be even more useful in the right circumstances.

Default Options

If you’re just looking to grab the 3 most straightforward glyphs for a Shadow Priest, here are your picks.

• Glyph of Inner Sanctum
  Provides additional movement speed when your Inner Sanctum is active and additional defense when your Inner Fire is active, a very flexible and useful combination. Most of the time you will be using this as a small boost to your survivability, but when you have to do some running you’ll be grateful for the extra speed on Inner Sanctum.
• Glyph of Mind Flay
  Allows you to trade Mind Flay‘s slowing effect for the ability to move faster after casting it. Since you don’t usually need the slow in group content, this amounts to a free movement speed boost with high uptime. Faster movement means less time spent repositioning and more time spent doing damage. It also helps you move out of fire more quickly.
• Glyph of Vampiric Embrace
  Shortening the duration of your Vampiric Embrace effect by 5 seconds is worth it for doubling its healing output. AoE healing cooldowns such as this are best front-loaded anyway since they are used following big damage spikes, and you’ll do more healing overall.

Situational Options

These can offer strong alternatives to the glyphs above depending on the content and your approach.

• Glyph of Dispersion
  Could be good in niche scenarios where you want to use Dispersion more often for mana or as a defensive, but there are probably better options in the vast majority of situations.
• Glyph of Fade
  Allows your Fade spell to double as a short-cooldown defensive ability.
• Glyph of Focused Mending
  Makes your Prayer of Mending only jump between the target and yourself. Remember not to cast it on yourself or it will have no one to bounce to. Can be a nice little bit of extra healing for you and the tank, especially in dungeons.
• Glyph of Inner Fire
  There’s a lot of Physical damage in endgame content in Mists of Pandaria, even if you aren’t getting hit by melee attacks. The extra armor from this glyph can be a solid survivability boost in those cases.
• Glyph of Mass Dispel
  Allows you to dispel Magic effects with your Mass Dispel even if they are normally not dispellable, which can be extremely valuable if such an effect is present in a fight.
• Glyph of Weakened Soul
  Reduces the duration of Weakened Soul and therefore lets you use Power Word: Shield on the same target(s) more often. Great combined with Body and Soul. Best used in dungeons and other content where you don’t have a Discipline Priest and can safely use PW:S without stepping on any toes.

Options to Avoid

These may seem like strong options for Shadow Priests at first glance, but they’re generally not as good and will only have limited or niche usefulness.

• Glyph of Levitate
  Won’t be as useful in a dungeon or raid environment where your Levitate is likely to be quickly broken, although you will still get at least 10 seconds of speed out of it. You also have other movement buffs and shouldn’t need this one.
• Glyph of Mind Blast
  Too random and unreliable to be useful in PvE content. It also has no effect on bosses.
• Glyph of Mind Spike
  We will be getting the nerfed version of this glyph in Mists of Pandaria, which is not very strong since it requires Mind Spike to be hard-cast in order to proc the effect. It’s for PvP only.
• Glyph of Psychic Horror
  You will almost never use Psychic Horror in PvE content, so this isn’t useful.
• Glyph of Psychic Scream
  Just like with the glyph above, you won’t get much use out of Psychic Scream or Psyfiend in PvE content.
• Glyph of Reflective Shield
  Doesn’t work in boss encounters, and you won’t be using Power Word: Shield much anyway.
• Glyph of Shadow Word: Death
  The tradeoff for being able to use Shadow Word: Death outside the 20% health window is not worth doing so in PvE content.
• Glyph of Scourge Imprisonment
  You will rarely use Shackle Undead in PvE, and when you do, the cast time won’t usually be a problem.

Minor Glyphs

All of your Minor Glyphs are cosmetic and do not affect your effectiveness in any way, but there are a couple that add visual effects that can actually be useful for endgame content.

• Glyph of Holy Resurrection
  Will highlight your Resurrection targets so that your group can see you are rezzing someone.
• Glyph of Inspired Hymns
  Adds a big glowy visual to your Hymn of Hope so that your group knows you’re channeling it.