Shadow priest advice! Need experienced advice

Classes Priest
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Struggling priest in the hood low dps. Trying to be competitive with my mythic homies. I can pop some a** but struggle to be at mythic a** popping level. If anyone out there can help look over my logs or chat with me in game. I think I understand my rotation just maybe need to perfect it. But it’s hard out in the hood for a mediocre shadow priest hiding in the shadows till I can void erupt all over my enemy’s. Hit me up in game. Lorazepriest-thrall can look up logs or helix277# 1565 for btag. Get at me soon I fear I may be shot down if I can’t pump it up… priest down baby priest down…

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Hop into the Priest Discord
https://discord.gg/warcraftpriests

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My main account is EU not US, so I’ll have to reply to you on the forums. Hope this reaches you in good time.

I’m Ellipsis, one of the members of the WarcraftPriests Shadow Team, writer, theorycrafter, and Historian.

I’ll start by going over heroic, as with your gear and number of kills its where you should feel most comfortable, and be most capable of executing a fight properly. You only have one mythic log as shadow, Radiance of Azshara, in which you both struggled massively to keep your damage up, and died.

The obvious thing that jumps out to me before we even start with gameplay, is essences. CLF vs Lucid Dreams Major is something to consider. For these heroic farm kills / fights getting as short as 2 minutes in the case of Sivara, CLF is a strong choice, though going into much longer mythic encounters, and even later heroic fights such as Zaqul, Orgozoa, Court, and Azshara, Life Force starts to lose out to a well used lucid dreams, because of shadow’s inherent target scaling and the power of lucid on long fights.

However, if you do run the CLF major essence, as you are in many of these fights. You should also be running the rank 3 Lucid Dreams minor. Near permanent 400 versatility, as well as a massive amount of (Admittedly RNG) insanity generation provides a much bigger damage boost than some 400 haste.

Here is an excerpt from the WCP advanced guide on the subject (Credit Jereico)
https://warcraftpriests.com/shadow-priest-in-patch-8-2-advanced-tips-discussion-and-analysis/

In conclusion, Lucid Major is still going to be the preferred pick by top players on most progression encounters for the foreseeable future, but any fight with poor Lucid timings, or where priority single target damage is required.

On the topic of gameplay. There are 5 key aspects to shadow priest in raid encounters…

  1. Voidform Uptime %
  2. Movement Optimisation
  3. Lucid / CLF Usage
  4. Rotation Consistecy
  5. Dot Management

1: Voidform uptime should be 80-85% More with lucid major. 30 stack VFS low average, 44 minimum with lucid major used

2: Movement optimisation comes in two parts.

A. Stutter stepping void bolts and filling otherwise casted globals with insanity generating instants like SWP and shield.

B. When not in voidform, make it a priority to get in if it won’t kill you. Shadow is so much more mobile in voidform than out, and if you’re already in then moving isn’t going to lower your uptime. When you drop out, plant your feet and cast to get back in.

3: Lucid usage, it should be used to extent voidform, ideally 25-30 stacks without lust 33-35 with (Less if required but really not ideal).

CLF usage should be a global early on in voidform. That way it doesn’t delay entering nor does it possibly lose a use over the fights duration. Obviously for ashvane the timings are kinda set for CLF.

4: Rotation consistency. Voidform uptime / consistency takes precedent over anything else rotational, including dots. Void bolts cooldown is 3 globals, 1 is taken up by the bolt itself so two casted globals between each bolt without fail. Dots fit around void bolt, not instead of it. Same goes for re entering voidform.

5: Dot management. As was mentioned, apply dots around your main rotation, not as a priority, though always aim to apply dots to new targets during voidforms. Swp anything that will live longer than 5 seconds, VT anything that’ll live 8-9. Keeping good casting consistency will increase VF uptime, bolt numbers, therefore dot duration and lead to less need to re apply dots.

With those 5 things in mind, looking at your best log, and the simplest fight in the raid. Heroic Sivara. (Sivara: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/kK14hdPzwpBL8J6b#fight=3&type=damage-done)

1: Voidform lengths are short, but that’s to be expected without lucid dreams minor.

2: With venomous blood for entire fight, there should be little to no movement, and for the most part there isn’t.

3: CLF / Fiend usage. Both were popped early in voidform, but not in place of a mind flay, and ended up delaying void bolt. A small error but really this is more a matter of principle.

4: Rotation consistency is shaky at times, it doesn’t much matter for voidform lengths on a fight this short, but all those missed globals do add up to a fair bit of lost damage. Make sure you’re void bolting consistently and on cooldown.

5: Dot management. It’s a single target fight, but make sure you’re making the most of your pandemic window with when you can refresh dots (4.8 for SWP, 6.3 for VT). Your only dot reapplication across the whole fight delayed a void bolt by 2 globals.

Looking now at a more complicated fight (Court Heroic: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/Rxg1hMcFKyL3fZat#fight=77&type=damage-done&translate=true)

1: Voidform uptime % low, though again to be expected without lucid minor. However with multiple voidforms barely reaching over 20 stacks, there are also rotational / movement issues on this fight.

2: Keeping on the theme of voidform. The lengths of voidforms 4, 7, 10, and 11 can be attributed to movement, and in the case of the latter, death. Watching the fight through, you don’t seem to over move for mechanics too much, but you are struggling with keeping the rotation consistent with some movement, especially when you’re dotting the sparks and trying to move for mechanics at the same time.

3: This is a fight where you really should have used lucid. CLF doesn’t scale well with targets at all, while Lucid Scales with our class (Which scales really well with targets). Once again LCF is being used at an Ok point within voidform, but it (And shadowfiend) are delaying your void bolts and overall reducing your insanity generation and damage.

4: Rotation consistency on this fight is a lot worse than it was on sivara. There are multiple instances where managing targets mistakenly takes priority over keeping Void bolt on cooldown to maintain insanity generation. Most commonly during sparks and movement.

Minor nod to the opener. Start with SWV. By pre shielding to 25 insanity before the pull, you can enter voidform in 4 globals. Precast SWV, SWP, VT, SWV, Erupt.

5: Dot management, like in consistency, this mostly comes down to you repeatedly delaying void bolt in order to dot fresh targets, this is lowering your insanity generation across the fight, your damage, and your ability to maintain voidform as long as possible. This would be even more apparent were you playing Lucid Dreams Major.

With two heroic fights out of the way. Mythic Radiance: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/AV3TxyW7Kf6mZnaq#fight=59&type=damage-done

1: The death obviously accounts for a lot of lost voidform uptime, but the lengths of voidforms (And more importantly gaps between them) when you are alive are also in need of work. There are gaps as large as 15 seconds, where in an optimal log I’d be looking for no more than 7-8. There are also multiple short voidforms, likely down to movement.

2: Radiance is a fight where you have to move a lot, but not very far each time. You should be able to comfortably stutter step on void bolt for most of the tornados and arcane bombs, where you don’t need to move, or you need to stand still to regain voidform, movement is also something you want to try to restrict to purely in voidform, when you drop out you want to plant your feet and cast to get back in asap so that movement no longer delays voidform and you have instants such as void bolt to move with. You’re also getting hit at times by tornados, which is definitely hurting your ability to keep the rotation consistent.

3: This fight is 6:07 in length. It is definitely worth using Lucid dreams major here, you should be using lucid dreams for most mythic ecounters, and only really considering CLF on repeat kills where the fight time is much, much shorter.

4: Rotation consistency on this fight is a lot worse for you than any of the others. You’re routinely having casts be interrupted, missing globals between void bolts, delaying void bolts, and spending a lot of time running around outside of voidform unable to do much other than mash shadow word pain. Going back to the point made in 2: Plant Your Feet And Cast. Radiance is an exercise in pre planning, position (By moving on every void bolt) such that you have to move unexpected / without an instant as little as possible, in the latter stages of voidform be thinking about how you’re going to get back in, and make sure you aren’t caught needing to move when you do drop out, as this will delay re entry substantially.

5: Though mostly a single target fight, the second phase does have a lot of adds, and once again your dot applications are delaying void bolt and reducing your insanity generation.

So to conclude.

1: Practice with Lucid Dreams major essence for multi target fights, and the longer mythic encounters. And when you do use CLF major, make sure to also use Lucid Dreams minor.

2: VOID BOLT ON COOLDOWN EVERY COOLDOWN. I literally cannot stress this enough.

3: Speaking of stress, don’t. Shadow is all about consistency, and staying comfortable with your rotation across long and often hectic fights is key to doing good damage as shadow.

4: Practice stutter stepping. Every void bolt, shuffle a little to where you’re next going to need to be, and if possible try to compartmentalise all movement into void bolt shuffles to lose no damage overall.

5: Practice dotting targets in voidform, going back to VOID BOLT ON COOLDOWN EVERY COOLDOWN, dots should never delay re entry into voidform, nor should they delay a void bolt once you’re in.

P.S: You’re progressing Ashvane now, looking at some of the wipes a lot of the same problems. 3 Phase ashvane is a long mythic fight so you should be using lucid, voidforms are again short and inconsistent, and many of the movement / consistency comments from earlier still stand.

P.P.S: If you’re using lucid dreams on Mythic Ashvane, I advise getting comfortable with the pre erupt opener for this boss. Though normally not a massive DPS increase, the timings for mechanics line up significantly better if you’re in your first voidform 5 seconds earlier on this boss.

Pre Erupt Opener (Again credit Jereico)

The “Pre-Erupt Opener” is the ideal opening cast sequence for Shadow, but requires some careful timing, and a larger amount of insanity before the pull begins. It requires you to pool up to 60 insanity by casting your out-of-combat insanity-generating skills (mostly Power Word: Shield), and pre-cast Void Eruption such that the cast completes before the boss is pulled. When combat begins, your insanity is immediately set to 25, which is substantially lower than the typical 60-100, and if not paired with Bloodlust, can actually result in a shorter-than-usual Voidform if not careful. Timings below assume a full 40-yard range from the boss, closer ranges should consider waiting slightly longer as needed.

This is also optimal on every other encounter (Except azshara for obvious reasons) but it’s at its most effective on Ashvane for making sure you’re able to time Void Eruption with bubble spawns, and also giving you the option to disperse during the end of your lucid voidform if you’re the one bubbled, preventing you from wasting chorus stacks.

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