- Author: Nevermore
- Date: July 10, 2022
- Updated: July 10, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
While there is a standard build for PvP Shadow Priest, there’s also plenty of flexibility in how you ultimately want to play this spec. This guide will showcase builds that help you with your mana management, builds that focus on destroying the enemy’s mana, or builds that simply empower your overall Shadow damage. In addition to covering talent builds, this guide will also go over the best glyphs for PvP Shadow Priests.
Notable Talents
- Dispersion is our strongest talent, allowing us to utilize one of the most powerful defensive spells in the game, a must-have for any Shadow Priest. Trying to play a hybrid build will not be possible, due to how strong this talent is.
- Shadowform is a mandatory talent, as it vastly improves our combat possibilities.
- Psychic Horror is mandatory, as it lets you disarm potentially dangerous melee opponents.
- Improved Mind Blast is mandatory, as you can dampen your opponent’s healing potential.
- Improved Devouring Plague is an extremely strong talent as you can allow Devouring Plague to instantly damage the enemy as well.
- Misery not only improves the spell power of some of your spells but it also increases spell hit chance for your allies and yourself.
- Unbreakable Will is a must-have as it severely reduces the duration of crowd control effects
- Improved Mana Burn can work wonders against heavy healer comps such as Holy Paladin/Arms Warrior.
This is what you could call a standard build — you have access to a lot of your strong talents such as Shadowform or Dispersion, while also attaining access to talents such as Meditation and Mental Agility that allow for better mana management.
This build plays a bit with the talents in the Shadow section, allowing you to sneak in more bonuses while focusing on one important aspect, Improved Mana Burn. Improved Mana Burn is extremely strong as it allows you to effectively destroy any healer: after you manage to dot them up, you can simply spam this ability and watch their anguish build up as you render them useless.
This build uses fewer points in the Discipline Section while focusing on empowering more talents from the Shadow Section. Essentially, you’re trading mana management for increased Shadow Damage. It’s most viable when you are trying to burst down your enemies fast and you do not care much about controlling their mana pool or yours.
Glyphs
Major Glyphs
- Glyph of Dispersion reduces the cooldown of your Dispersion spell by 45 seconds (Must have!)
- Glyph of Power Word: Shield allows your Power Word: Shield to also heal the target for 20% of the absorption effect. (Must Have!)
- Glyph of Mind Control reduces the chance your target breaks or resists Mind Control by 17% (Situational Glyph, useful for Battlegrounds)
- Glyph of Shadow Word: Death increases the damage of Shadow Word: Death by an additional 10% if you use it on an enemy that has 35% health or lower. (Good Glyph, useful in arenas)
- Glyph of Shadow grants you the chance to gain spell power based upon 30% of your total Spirit value when you deal non-periodical critical strikes while in Shadowform. (An extremely good choice if you have a high critical strike chance!)
Minor Glyphs
- Glyph of Fortitude reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude by 50%
- Glyph of Shadowfiend restores 5% of your mana if Shadowfiend dies from damage
- Glyph of Levitate grants you the ability to use Levitate without a reagent
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