I know Dragonflight is coming out later this year and the talent trees and classes will probably change but I really want to try out a shadow priest. How good are they right now. Especially for max level content. And yes I’m picking it partly fit the asthetics. And any tips on mana management?
it’s not a thing for shadow unless you’re spamming shadowmend or using mass dispel frequently. if you’re just dpsing, mana doesn’t exist.
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Huh what does shadow end and dispel do?
Shadow Mend is a healing spell. It heals you for a big chunk of health but then damages you over time afterwards. Useful if you need it to stay alive or in solo content but it’s not really something you’re supposed to be spamming.
Dispel is what it sounds like. Take a negative effect on someone and get rid of it. Again you won’t really be spamming this as people simply shouldn’t need dispelling that frequently.
The main resource of Shadow Priests is insanity, not mana.
Spriest can purge beneficial buffs off of enemies and you get insanity for it. With the conduit that reduces mana cost it’s op
Other than purge, smend, dispel and mass dispel you can use power word shield but mana really isnt a concern outside of pvp
I’m not great at spriest so i don’t do very well at solo content spriest, but its a fun spec imo
As someone else mentioned, mana isn’t something we really worry about.
In my personal opinion, you’re going to work twice as hard as some other classes to compete. Spriest is fine in raids, but I find myself struggling to keep up in M+ outside of boss fights. Not a whole lot of aoe potential unless you sacrifice a strong ST talent. Get used to using mass dispel and people will love you for it.
It’s hard to solo with, as most of your damage is ramp up, but when your stats get into the right weights it’s very fun to run around with.
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It’s hard to say how much this specifically means though with DF coming up. With talent rows gone talents won’t be mutually exclusive anymore. So Priests won’t necessarily need to give up AoE for the sake of ST. I don’t know Priest that well but Feral is in a similar boat where we can either have very good ST, or decent AoE, but not both. The talent tree lets us take both talents at once.
Out of curiosity, how is s priest damage on the burst phase of ingra in mists? Does the ramp time mean u don’t do good dmg in that short period?
It shouldn’t since you have the entire tree phase to ramp up before the burst starts. It would be a problem if Ingra wasn’t targetable in that phase and you couldn’t set up on him, but he is he just takes reduced damage. So you can make sure everything is in alignment when the burst phase starts.
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My understanding is that the tree design isn’t coherent, and you will frequently stop casting to cast something else if you want to be optimal, which is a hallmark of bad design.
I have a 60 priest, but I don’t do anything serious with him.
Once you’re geared enough with a lot of haste and your 2-piece set bonus, shadow is very fun in a raiding environment. The 2-piece causes your free Mind Blast procs to occur a lot more often.
When you pop Void Eruption and Power Infusion, the 2-piece makes you feel semi-mobile the way you can move in-between all of the globals as you alternate between free Mind Blast procs and Void Bolts.
That said, shadow kind of sucks in AoE compared to other classes. We need to spec into a specific talent, Searing Nightmare. Otherwise, our AoE potential in a M+ is dotting everything up and Void Eruption with constant Void Bolts to keep our dots active… but Void Eruption is a 1.5 min cooldown. On top of that, the trash is usually near dead by the time you get that setup finished on a Tyrannical week.
I always felt like I was being carried when playing shadow in M+, so I opt to heal M+, instead.
I generally already have my ramp up prepared for when Ingra becomes a target and feel like a nuke.
I recommend you stop thinking about it, and just do it. You’ll answer all your questions.
Perfect time to level a Priest too.
They don’t have a great history in M+, but they do have a decent history in raids and PVP.
In fact, my two favorite PVP comps involve Shadow Priests (Frost Mage + SPriest or Shadow Play).
The main draw back is you have no alternate spec. That’s why I’ll favor lock over SPriest, even if a small part of me thinks SPriest looks more fun.
^^^ This, and it can be very frustrating because your damage needs to ramp up and sometimes that makes it appear like you are doing very little.
If raiding as a SP, get used to using Tomes of Still Mind because you have to swap talents often and well, sometimes that doesn’t do you much good either. Also get used to chasing down bosses because for some reason Blizzard has decided that each boss in the raid needed to run around (and in the case of one boss take a long walk).
But if you like a challenge, SP is really fun to play.
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I think Blizzard said they were deleting shadow priest
Last time Shadow Priests were popular was MoP. Their AOE was nerfed after that. Shadow Priests are weaker than Discipline Priests and heals drain mana fast so you have to learn the complex spell rotation. Shadow Priest is fun to play but not so great in PvP or Raids (IMO). All Priest specs never run out of Mana. It’s friggin’ endless! If you find your mana running low you can always cast Dispersion but that should never happen! Just kill something and your mana is restored. Use Dispersion sparingly like when you’re about to die.
What is a decent rotation for Shadow Priest?
ALWAYS BE IN SHADOWFORM WHEN IN COMBAT!!!
Single PvE Target: Cast Debuffs (Shadow Word Pain, Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague) then Mind Blast with Mind Flay then Shadow Word Death when the enemy is below 30% health (or you just wanna do heavy damage on the target).
Multiple PvE Target: Power Word Shield then Debuffs (Shadow Word Pain and Vampiric Touch) on each target (3 tops) then Mind Sear followed by Shadow Word Death when target below 30% health. If you get more than 3 in a mob see Survival below.
Boss PvE Target: Power Word Shield then Debuffs (Shadow Word Pain and Vampiric Touch–maintain Debuffs). Vampiric Embrace then Power Infusion and Trinkets. Mind Blast and Mind Sear until Void Eruption then Mind Blast and Void Bolt. When Void Eruption ends use Devouring Plague and Shadow Word Death. Send Shadowfiend whenever it procs or save when you need a tank.
Survival: About to Die?
- Use Vampiric Touch, Debuffs and Power Word Shield then Shadow Mend
- Dispersion and Run Away
- Strike Target and send in Shadowfiend followed by Fade then Run or Fight
- Use Psychic Scream, cast Power Word Shield and Run
- Use Power Word Shield then jump off a cliff and cast Levitate on yourself (if the enemy hits you while you are levitating and you begin falling just cast Levitate on yourself again)
- Pull train on someone else doing AOE on a mob
Shadow doesn’t require mana Managment. It’s a build and spend resource kinda spec.
I may have an unpopular opinion but Shadow priest feels absolutely horrible right now. Way to much work for subpar DPS. The rework did it no favors. There is way to much going on with the spec in raids and mythic. And just playing it in open world feels like you’re doing the same rotation over and over and over. (I guess every class feels this way since everything scales though) I do not recommend it. I played a Shadow Priest from Vanilla into Cataclysm. Warlock is just better in every way.
There is no mana management in retail unless you are a healer or a arcane mage.