Questing rotation for new Shadow Priest

Classes Priest
1

I started leveling my Shadow Priest after leaving her on the shelf during most of BFA. Everything is different, it seems, and I’m struggling with mobs that my BM hunter and DH just obliterate.
I’ve been using the Icy Veins raid build and rotation but it seems so slow, and I keep getting killed by the packs that Blizz loves to jump you with. Having done the first four levels of Torghast on my hunter I shudder to think what the packs there will do to me. I’m level 55 atm with a gear level of 101. My hunter came to SL with a 120 gear level so that might account for the troubles, but I just don’t know.

How does a Shadow Priest handle being jumped by 3 or 4 mobs at once? I try to dot them and mind flay but there’s always one or two that are beating on me and I can’t avoid losing a ton of health. Psychic Scream helps but the main problem I have seems to be the packs.
Do I need a different build, or is there a more efficient (and deadly) rotation for questing and Torghast (when I get there)?

2

Death and madness is only good if you are killing the mobs, which it sounds like you are not. Switch to Unfurling darkness for more burst imo. Last word is worthless in pve, switch to psychic horror for better cc options. Body and soul is ok for indoor movement but it clearly isn’t helping you survive - switch to San’layn. Damnation is ok, but void torrent + san’layn is a massive heal for damage - much better than another devouring plague. Personally I ran Unfurling, san’layn, psychic horror, void torrent. The others I had the same. Drop psyfiend for greater fade (use that grade time to spam mend if needed) and just keep pumping damage out. Typically I focused the mob that Unfurling touch damaged because one dead faster is one less hitting you. Mind control to whittle one down in the packs as well. Regarding Torghast, it’s just easier to punch through it as disc for me personally

3

I also personally feel psychic link is better than spirits as one blast cutin half is equal to the damage of two spirits (which would be a crit), but people will probably tell you to go with shadow crash

4

Death and Madness makes SW: Death apply a debuff to the target that lasts for 6 seconds, so the insanity generation gained from killing that target within 6 seconds is good to keep chain pulling and dumping DPs for damage and self healing.

5

That self healing comes in the form of a dot though, and it requires you to actually kill the mobs. Unfurling’s instant damage contributes to San’layn’s healing, and while D&M might be good if you are killing mobs it’s worthless if you are having problems - which was initially stated. They are having a problem killing NPCs, which implies chain pulling is out of the question

6

Thanks for all of the suggestions; I’ll give them a try.

1 Like
7

I’ve cleared torghast no problem as shadow. It’s really just all about the anima powers.

Anyways this is the build I use for solo play and torghast.

Fortress of the Mind for torghast and works well with the anima power that makes our mind blasts instant casts while power infused. Death and Madness is not really what you want to be doing in torghast. But it’s good for dungeons.
Misery,
Psychic Horror
Shadow Crash
Surrender to Madness

In general, it’s bad rule to make big pulls as shadow in torghast. You can do it easily enough on the lower floors but as you get higher they just have too much HP. It’s not worth risking it. So it is a slow process if you want to play shadow in torghast.

Shadow aoe in general is not good. You have to devout all your talents to it or you’ll fall behind everyone else. Mind sear only gets good with searing nightmare now and feels very underwhelming without, but you’re not going to be pulling large enough packs to make it worth using 90% of the time. Even in mythic+ pugs right now people aren’t pulling large enough packs to justify using searing nightmare. So misery is the better option with surrender of to madness to keep higher void form times up. Surrender to madness is particularly good in solo play as more void forms is never a bad thing.

So your opener will look like this. Save insanity for pulls. VT, VT, VT, DP one target, shadow crash, void torrent, dp, void form, void bolt, mind blast, mind blast, void bolt. You can mind sear here as filler as well, but if you’re doing it correctly, you won’t really have time to mind sear because you’re always casting one of your big damaging spells. This really only applies to 3 targets or less. But it should give you some concept of what you should be doing.

Weaving in DP so you don’t cap insanity, and keep it rolling on one target as you burst it down with your bigger damaging spells.

Anyways, go to warcraftpriest website, then go to shadowpriest guide for shadowlands through the tabs at the top. Also, recommend joining the shadow priest discord. They’ll probably do a better job of explaining than I did.

8

Thank you. That is very helpful. :smile:

9

I know exactly what you are going through, as I went through it every new expansion, trying to survive what other classes consider trivial.

For talents, I used Unfurling darkness/San’layn/Misery/Psychic Horror/Auspicious Spirits/Void Torrent/Ancient Madness.

Getting jumped by a group of mobs, I would shield myself, then start dotting with vampric touch. With each touch applying two dots due to the misery talent, and the second touch being instant, I was able to dot up each pretty quick. By this time they were through the shield, and I would use my fear. Pick one of the fleeing mobs and lay into it with void torrent and mind blast, along with devouring plagues as they come up. What you’re trying to do is blow one up before the rest return. Some will tell you to save your void torrent for your vampric embrace, but with a 30 second CD and 60 insanity generation, you need to get that out early. Devouring plagues cause lots of damage and heal you for half the amount.

Usually by this time your first focus target is dead or close to dead and his friends come back…that is when you hit Vampric Touch. Keep focusing on one while refreshing dots with the rest. Also use your psychic horror to make one less monster hit you for a bit. Bubble every time it’s up. As long as you keep focusing on one at a time, keep up dots on all of them, shield and spam shadow mend on you when you get a little low, you should be able to outlast a sizable pack of normal mobs.

WHen you’re not as familiar with the class and spec, you want to try to generate as much insanity as possible without worrying too much about more buttons to press and more situations to think about while trying to survive. As you become more experienced in survival, I encourage you to change a talent up here and there to find out what you like to use.