Shadow Priest Raid Guide (2024)

Tier Set

• 2-Set: Shadowy Apparitions have an increased chance to Shadowy Insight by 25%. The Mind Blast from Shadowy Insight deals 40% increased damage and generates 4 additional Insanity.
• 4-Set: Passively increases Devouring Plague damage and makes it so every 4th cast of Devouring Plague gives you a buff for 10 seconds that increases your Shadowy Apparitions by 100%.

Single-Target

ST or "Single-Target" refers to focusing all damage and abilities on a single enemy. This approach is crucial for maximizing damage output against bosses or specific high-priority targets in encounters.

Opener Rotation

• The goal of the opener is to spend as many Mind Blasts as possible, as well as ensuring both Mind Blast and Void Bolt are on cooldown when channeling Void Torrent.

• Use your active trinkets, Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power and racials like Blood Fury or Berserking after using Void Eruption.

Priority List

This is a general priority you aim to maintain throughout the fight.

1. Keep up Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain.
2. Keep up Devouring Plague.
3. Cast Void Bolt.
4. Cast Mind Blast.
5. Cast Void Torrent.
6. Cast Shadow Word: Death if a target is below 20%.
7. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
8. Cast Halo (if talented).
9. Cast Mind Flay.
10. Cast Divine Star (if talented) -- Mainly used when moving.

Multi Target

Multi target or in some cases AoE (Area of Effect) involves dealing damage to multiple enemies simultaneously, making it effective for clearing groups of enemies quickly.

2 Target Opener Rotation

• Use your active trinkets, Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power and racials like Blood Fury or Berserking after using Void Eruption.

2 Target Priority List

• Keep up Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain.
• Keep up Devouring Plague.
• Cast Void Bolt.
• Cast Mind Blast.
• Cast Void Torrent.
• Cast Shadow Word: Death if a target is below 20%.
• Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
• Cast Halo (if talented).
• Cast Mind Flay.
• Cast Divine Star (if talented) -- Mainly used when moving.

3+ Targets Opener Rotation

• Below you see one variation of an opener on 4 targets assuming that you're playing the recommendedAoE talent spec.

• Use your active trinkets, Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power and racials like Blood Fury or Berserking after using Void Eruption.

3+ Target Priority List

1. Keep up Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain.
2. Keep up Devouring Plague.
3. Cast Void Bolt.
4. Cast Mind Blast.
5. Cast Void Torrent.
6. Cast Shadow Word: Death if a target is below 20%.
7. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
8. Cast Halo (if talented).
9. Cast Mind Flay.
10. Cast Divine Star (if talented) -- Mainly used when moving.

Void Torrent

When it comes to Void Torrent there are a couple of conditions you need to consider before pressing it:

1. Having at least 1 Mind Blast on cooldown.
2. Having Void Bolt on cooldown (if in Void Eruption).
3. Having Devouring Plague up on the target for the increased mastery benefit (If outside of Void Eruption).

Mastery: Shadow Weaving and Devouring Plague

The Shadow Priest's mastery is very important to play around. It makes it so that every DoT you have on the target increases your damage done by your mastery %, which makes your mastery management vital. Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain are up on the target nearly 100% of the time, this leaves you with the task of maintaining Devouring Plague on the target. Having as high uptime as possible on Devouring Plague is crucial to dealing the highest possible damage. During your Void Eruption you gain the maximum effect of your mastery no matter the DoTs on the target, meaning that instead of playing for uptime you can play to spawn more apparitions with your 4pc bonus active.

Spreading Devouring Plague

Spreading Devouring Plague is a DPS gain because of the mastery benefit being on multiple targets and boosts Phantasmal Pathogen. However, you only want to spread it when there's no priority target that needs to die.

• A good example of when you should spread it is on Council of Dreams or The Primal Council.
• A bad example would be spreading it on the small adds on Eranog instead of using all of your Devouring Plagues on the boss himself.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

Vault, Aberrus & Amirdrassil

The current focus is on the relevant bosses from Season 4, covering important aspects such as talent specs, cooldown management, and other crucial details. For the upcoming Raid in "The War Within," you receive a comprehensive look at all the bosses in the next update.

← Scroll for more Bosses →

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights as a Shadow Priest. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

• All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing. The damage of your pets does not heal you thus Leech is a great tertiary for you since most of your damage is coming from your own spells.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.

Trinkets

Trinkets come in two varieties: active and passive. Active trinkets require manual activation and inherit a cooldown providing a temporary boost to your output. On the other hand, passive trinkets provide a more consistent boost to your stats and abilities without requiring any actions.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Desperate Invoker's Codex
  • Decent upfront damage. Make sure you don't suffer from any debuff that amplifies nature damage before using this trinket.
• Spoils of Neltharus
  • It alternates between the secondary stats and can be delayed for a few casts for a preferable secondary stat.
• Ashes of the Embersoul
  • Strong 2 minute cooldown, on-use trinket, but has a haste penalty for a minute after use.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Whispering Incarnate Icon
  • Becomes a stronger option when both a tank and healer equip the same trinket.
• Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
  • Strong single-target damage while still doing respectable AoE damage

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• 2x Blue Silken Lining
  • It's a good choice if you have over 90% health most of the time and during your cooldowns.
  • The optimal slots to craft on are Wrists, Cloak or Neck depending on your available gear.

Honorable mention

• Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation
  • Provides less personal DPS but more overall DPS for your Raid.
  • Combine it with 1x Blue Silken Lining or Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch.
• Elemental Lariat
  • Good to use if you have access to the maximum amount of gems, and decent in multi-target scenarios especially if your Blue Silken Lining uptime is not great.

Remaining Sparks

• Make sure to apply Alchemical Flavor Pocket if you have an additional crafted item equipped to keep your food buff even if you die.
• Crafted items are 525 item level and regular items are 528 at maximum item level therefore it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Phials

• Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage -- maximum DPS.
• Phial of Tepid Versatility -- less DPS but more survivability.

Food

• Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak
• Deviously Deviled Eggs

Combat Potion

• Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
• Residual Neural Channeling Agent
  • Can be used while being dead if your potion is ready.

Health Potion

• Potion of Withering Dreams -- a big burst of healing
• Dreamwalker's Healing Potion -- less healing upfront but an additional small heal over time.

Weapon Rune

• Howling Rune
• Hissing Rune

Augment Rune

• Dreambound Augment Rune -- Requires Reputation
• Draconic Augment Rune

Sockets

• Skillful Illimited Diamond or Fierce Illimited Diamond -- Unique, made by work order
• Keen Ysemerald

For min-maxing a Shadow Priest in raiding, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Stoneform -- Dwarf
  • Can dispel Magic and Bleed debuffs. Has been useful in the past on some bosses with Bleeds.
• Rocket Jump -- Goblin
  • Do a small jump in the direction your character is facing.
  • While in the Rocket Jump animation you are placed on a global cooldown until your character lands.
• Blood Fury -- Orc
  • Strong racial for damage because of both Command and Blood Fury which lines up with Void Eruption.
  • 20% reduced stun duration on you which can be useful in some situations.
• Spatial Rift -- Void Elf
  • Activate to spawn a shadow traveling in the direction you are facing. Activate a second time to teleport to it.
  • Maximum range of 100 yards.
• Will to Survive --Human
  • You can use Will to Survive to get rid of stuns.
  • The Human Spirit gives you a lot of stats this season, making it the best simming race.

Recommendation

In general it's safe to say that if you care about min-maxing your DPS you should go with the highest DPS racial. That being said the story is a bit different if it's about progression raiding. Some help out massively to speed up the progression of certain bosses. Notably Dwarf with their Stoneform helped out on Tindral Sageswift & Fyrakk the Blazing in the latest Race to World First by having easy access to dispelling yourself at crucial points of the fights mentioned.

Discover recommended macros for Shadow Priests during Raid encounters and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

#showtooltip /cast [@cursor] Shadow Crash

#showtooltip/cast [@cursor] Mass Dispel

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Shadow Priest, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.

Credits

Written By: Stove

Reviewed By: Soda