I’ve read their great at 1 v 1 dueling scenarios, but how do they fare in general as a spec outside of that? For example in 5mans, battlegrounds, and overall world QoL?
Shadow priests are basically great everywhere outside of raids.
It’s highly valuable for a raid to have one shadow priest, but due to mana concerns and debuff limits, more than one is difficult to manage.
Honestly depends on the person, can be great, or just ez pickings, depends on how well you play. PVP wise, yes, you have great potential. PVE wise, you may want to heal or form your own groups. 1 per raid in competitive environment, maybe more if people seeking to fill.
Also, make sure to check priest racials, yes racials! Different for every race!
Shadow Priests are all around pretty good in pvp. Specialize in 1v1.
5-man, you function fine as a dps… especially for a druid healer(Cause they don’t have rez). You are better in 5-mans, because mana isn’t as much of an issue… but you bring buffs and vampiric embrace… which is nice.
Raids, each raid should have at least one shadow priest, due to the shadow damage debuff… but you are considered low dps, so if you are in a heavy Min/Max hardcore guild you’ll have trouble finding a spot… otherwise… you are fine.
As a shadow priest, you will melt faces in PvP.
(Lets see how many of you were around on the old forums)
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Faces will melt in PvP, if a shadow priest you make.
They aren’t very good in battlegrounds. You’ll constantly run out of mana and get ripped by viper stings, which you can’t remove unless you went dwarf. (Hope you got a healer friend to keep that crap off you) 5mans, works fine. Raids, decent enough to have 1 due to shadow weaving. But again, you’ll constantly run out of mana. Better get used to guzzling major mana pots and dark runes to play this class. It’s very high maintenance… vs warlock not needing those at all.
5 mans - they are fine to bring.
Pre-made BGs - they oom way to fast and dont have good burst so they arent usually used.
PUG BGs - they do fine.
Questing in the world - they are good.
Melt faces, you will.
In raids, as a Shadow Priest, your primary function will be to maintain Shadow Weaving on a target–not to do damage. Generally speaking, you’ll open up by spamming rank 1 Shadow Word: Pain 5x for 5/5 SW. You will maintain this debuff by casting rank 1 Mind Blast. That is the extent of your contribution in terms of what Shadow has to offer. The rest of the time you will be performing the same functions as any other healer not assigned to an MT, except that you’ll also be casting Power Infusion on caster DPS. There may be special circumstances where your raid will have you do something different, but in my experience, 31/20 is the optimum “Shadow” spec for raiding.
In 5 man content they can be really enjoyable! Fortitude, Bubble, Resurrections, Silence, Mind Control, and passive healing through Vampiric Embrace can really give a stand run a different flavor. You will suffer from mana problems if you can’t proc Spirit Tap, but you should also have Major Mana potions and Demonic Runes to help fill the gap.
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They are “Really” good in BG’s! NOT sure why anyone would say otherwise. With your DOTS, DPS, and Vampiric embrace you are very hard to kill in Shadow form. You don’t drop like normal cloth wearers. I loved playing my shadow priest in pvp. You can bounce back and forth and heal flag carriers, or raid members up then change back and take someone down.
EDIT- I was a SOLO type guy though. I did not run with pre-mades as there were not a lot at that time on my server.
Good for dueling
Good for bgs/premades
Good for dungeons just be vigilant about your mana
Bad for raiding. If you get the one shadow priest spot for raiding, don’t expect to top the meters. Also, mages and warlocks should be priority gear wise.
THIS
That being said tons of high-end guilds run 1 Shadow Priest, but only one and really just to buff warlocks, because shadow weaving is huge. But I wouldn’t expect to see a demand until around phase 4 when locks start doing amazing dmg!