Spriest single target rotation

So I’ve recently decided to main all 3 priest specs. Originally I only played holy but have gotten into shadow and I feel that I’ve been doing ok in m+ but I can’t get a good feel for my single target rotation. It always feels like I’m doing something wrong, mostly because with all the procs I feel like i just have too much to press. Is this a common issue or am I just playing it wrong?

That is a common feeling. The developers were told this numerous times during beta development and they completely ignored that feedback. Now we see them fixing Retribution Paladins for the exact same problem. We can only hope that Shadow Priests get the same treatment in the near future.

There are several good guides out there that explain the current single target rotation. The guide by Ellipsis on Wowhead as well as the guide by Publik on Icy Veins are great. In the end it all comes down to muscle memory from practicing the rotation.

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Don’t forget your rotational filler changes based on your talent selection.

Ok thanks! I’ve tried checking out the guides before but those only offer so much because of how situational everything is, I’ll manage to get by though :smiley:

The biggest thing is to understand that yes, you do have more available than you need or can necessarily use. You’ll overcap insanity a bit trying to fit in void torrent sometimes, you won’t always get to use a full Mind Flay: Insanity every time you cast devouring plague. The best thing to do is get the basics down of trying not to waste insanity, not to waste blast charges, and using your big cooldowns as close to on cooldown as possible.

After that you kind of just build a muscle memory that, as it gets more familiar, becomes easier to adapt / bolt extra bits on to. While shadow might have more buttons, as a dps spec its priorities are still pretty similar to that of other specs.

You don’t really have a rotation, you have a list of priorities and usually more procs that you know what to do with. You are going to miss some procs sometimes.

The only thing you can really do to improve your dps is go full haste and mastery and keep your devouring plague up as much as humanely possible, because is your single greatest damage source and increases every other ability damage through mastery. That is in my experience the greatest source of dps improvement.

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I just maxed a Spriest and can confirm it has too many buttons.

The priority list is insane:

Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain up on your target(s)
Cast Mindbender on cooldown
Cast Dark Ascension or Void Eruption
Pair your Power Infusion and Trinkets with either Dark Ascension or Void Eruption
Cast Devouring Plague if you have 100 insanity
Cast Shadow Word: Death if you have Inescapable Torment talented and your Mindbender is active
Cast Mind Blast Death if you have Inescapable Torment talented and your Mindbender is active
Cast Void Bolt if you have Void Eruption talented
Cast Mind Blast if you have two charges.
Cast Devouring Plague to maximize uptime for your Mastery
Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health
Cast Mind Blast
Cast Mindgames if you have all DoTs on your target, you can delay for a few seconds if Dark Ascension is about to come off cooldown.
Cast Shadow Crash even if you don’t have to reapply DoTs
Cast Void Torrent if you have all DoTs on your target
Cast Mind Flay: Insanity if you have Screams of the Void and Idol of C’Thun talented
Cast Mind Spike if you do NOT have Screams of the Void and Idol of C’Thun talented and you have a Surge of Darkness proc.
Cast Mind Flay: Insanity if you do NOT have Screams of the Void and Idol of C’Thun talented
Cast Mind Flay if you have Screams of the Void and Idol of C’Thun talented
Cast Mind Spike if DO NOT you have Screams of the Void and Idol of C’Thun talented
Cast Shadow Crash, Shadow Word: Death. Divine Star or Shadow Word: Pain if you are moving.

Ezpz

They intended for the proc based build for pvp, then realized everyone wanted to play spriest because both healing specs were less than favorable. Then they quickly realized they had less healers and had to do something so they continued to do what blizzard does……… nerf spriest pvp strength and buff their pve strength thus giving you this crappy build you have to attempt to decipher. They were told this would happen and now you have a confusing pve spec and a very niche end game pvp spec.

Blizzard won’t make spriest viable because they lose healers when they do and we all know what an issue blizzard has with healer retention!!!