****Please delete my previous post, I've redone it and finally completed this one. Also keeping this for my own record.****

Well obviously Seraphir started her thread about a Holy/Disc priest, I guess it's my turn to put my info about shadow priests.

I. Introduction
a. Why a Shadow Priest?
b. Pros/Cons
c. Group Role
II. Priest Makeup
a. Stats
b. Equipment
c. Professions
d. Builds
III. Misc Tips & Tricks

 

 

I.

As Seraphir had different builds and advice when it came to Holy/Disc priests, I will add all my knowledge that I have gained and read since Ive been shadow speced. I will link in this thread, forums I have read about builds, +damage, questions people have had, and so on. All of this in case someone chooses to roll a shadow priest and has questions; they can simply go to this thread and read on.

 

a. Why a Shadow Priest

Many people level their priests as shadow for easy leveling along with the concept of Spirit Tap

 

Spirit Tap (5/5)

Gives you a 100% change to gain 100% bonus

to your spirit after killing a target that yields

experience or honor. For the duration, your mana

will regenerate at a 50% rate while casting.

Lasts 15 seconds.

 

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=rZZx

 

With this talent, if someone knows how to grind good enough, they will be able to grind experience and mats with minimal to no downtime. This talent is one of the many awesome talents in the Shadow Priest tree. Although many people know about Shadow Priests, but many people dont know their main job in a Raid; health and mana regen. I will go over this when it comes to the Group/Raid role.

 

b. Pros/Cons

There are technically only 4 major Pros when it comes to having a Shadow Priest in your group.

 

Pros:   

1.      Health Regen

2.      Mana Regen

3.      Backup healing outside of Shadowform

4.      Sweet dps, giving the Shadow Priest has a decent amount of  +Damage

 

Cons:

1.      Shadow Priests have to share leveling gear with Mages and Warlocks until they have tailoring up high enough for Shadoweave set. They will also have to share rings and trinkets with Mages and Warlocks, these things might add the difficulty in getting max gear a bit higher.

2.      We wear clothbut remember Shadow Priest tank FTW!

3.      An average Shadow Priest with maxed out gear, not including rings and trinkets have roughly between 6-8k hp unbuffed. Kinda low when it comes to other classes.

 

At this point, these are all the pros/cons I can think of.

 

c. Group role

As I briefly advised earlier the 3 main group roles for Shadow Priests are:

1.      Mana regen

2.      Health regen

3.      Extra dps

 

Some people may not care about the spells that allows Shadow Priests to do what they do, but for those who are interested in leveling their own Shadow Priests, are wanting to learn more about other classes, or want to someday be a guild leader themselves, I would suggest you read this and the other links I post, because this will give you all the information you will need for this class spec.

 

Vampiric Embrace (1/1)

Afflicts your target with Shadow Energy that

causes all party members to be healed for 15%

of any Shadow damage you deal for 1min.

 

Improved Vampiric Embrace (2/2)

Increases your percentage healed by

vampiric Embrace by an additional 15%.

 

Combined obviously this heals for 35% damage I do. This may not seem like a lot, but as I go more into detail, you will understand how big this can be.

 

Vampiric Touch (1/1)

Causes 685-690 Shadow damage over 15sec. to

your target and causes all party members to gain

mana equal to 5% of any shadow damage you deal.

 

Again at first this doesnt seem like a lot, but once I have all damage combined, you can regen roughly around 1 spell cast for a quick trash fight. If that is so, just imagine how much mana you can regen on a long boss fight.

 

II. Shadow Priest Stat Information

As most people who are reading this would have already figured out that shadow priests require basically the same things as holy/disc and disc/holy priests, but of course there are variations as of what we drastically need and dont really care for.

 

1. Intellect Without intellect; you have no spells, so this is one of the most needed traits for a Shadow Priest
2. Stamina Without health; you die. Especially with some non-elite mobs in the world these days hitting for 1k a hit, ya this would definetly be a must need for Shadow Priests.
3. Shadow Damage A Shadow priest without any +damage doesnt have the right to call himself a shadow priest, unless of course he is still leveling.

Stats:

There are different stats you need to look at for Shadow Priests. Many people won't agree with all of it, since not all of it is smart, but from my research and reading about the class and spec; a shadow priest needs to stack as much shadow damage as possible. This means that even if you need to throw away Stam and Intel for more +damage.

When starting out, a shadow priest needs to get the Frozen Shadoweave and Spellstrike sets. With both of these sets, you will already be tier 5 equivalent. People will ask how good the tier 4 and tier 5 sets are compared to this; IMO it's crap. There are ofcourse non-set items you need to get that are obtainable to you from raiding, heroics, and badges.

Now to get to what i've been trying to state. 10-man raids are completely different from 25-man raids. 10-mans and heroics you don't have to worry about getting a stam set, 25-mans are different.

Unbuffed
My 10-man raid set is as follows (roughly)
Health: 6700
Mana: just under 9000
Shadow Damage: 1206

My 25-man stats (roughly)
Health: 8400-9k
Mana: 8.5-9k
Shadow Damage: 1100

Hit Rating: Hit rating is very important for you to have unless you have the best gear possible. Hit rating decreases the amount you will be resisted by a boss/mob. The more your spells are getting resisted the less dps your putting out the more mana your wasting. The cap for hit rating it 76, which means once you go above 76 you can get gear without hit rating as long as you don't go below 76. It is suggested that you put points into Shadow focus, just to be safe though, 2-3 points are always safe. If you don't have alot of spell hit, put 5 points into shadow focus until you get higher.

 

Now i'm still working on both of these sets and trying to perfect them the best i can. I'm still in need of the new trinket and rings that came with the latest patch that are tier 6+ equivalent. I also am working towards getting the Darkmoon Card: Crusade deck, this will add an additional 96 +damage for when ur casting; although this isn't added to your +damage until its stacked all the way, you can still consider it in your set.

The reason you need an additional set for 25-man's is due to all the aoe damage the mobs and bosses put out. An AoE can easily hit you for 3-4.5k in a simple aoe, so if you don't have all that health, your practically already dead.

Professions:

For professions you will need Tailoring and its high HIGHLY suggested to get Enchanting. Tailoring because you cannot make the FSW and Spellstrike Sets without it, and enchanting bc you will have the ability to add 50+ damage to all your gear with all the enchants.

Main enchants:

Soulfrost: 54 shadow and frost damage to your weapon
15 damage to bracers, and both rings
20 damage to hands
Vitality: restores 4 health and mana every 5 seconds
Superior Wizard oil (temporary does not override permanents): adds 42 spell damage to your weapon for 1hour.
**There is another enchant to leggings that i cannot remember what its called: 25 damage and 15 stamina**

Alt Enchants but highly suggested, these are from vendors that do not go through enchanting itself:

Glyph of Power (from sha'tar[for helm]): 22damage + 14 spell hit
Greater Inscription of Discipline (from Aldor [for shoulders]): 18 spell damage + 10 spell crit rating

Builds:

When specing for DPS in a raid, you need to be able to pump out as much dps as possible while keeping up VT constantly. The following are a couple builds i suggest using: ill explain each one as i post them.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVMhzhZZxGbpMLohtio
Now if you are planning on specing for nothing but raiding; this includes not farming this build would be best. I have filled in the most important and must needed areas. I left open the ones that are up to you. You can take out the extra points in IMP: MB, or a point in SW. This due to since your raiding only, you can take a point out of here to place in a different area if you want.

Shadow Power: it's always nice to have some extra crit for you MB and Death. Always keep Darkness and Misery maxed out for max dps. For VE, its for the oh **** situations, and also due to the MASSIVE aggro you get from ve, there is no reason for you to have Imp: VE. Although there is one fight in SSC (Lurker) that you don't have to worry about pulling aggro, due to it's impossible for you to pull it.

Wand Specialization and Unbreakable will are completely up to you. If you would rather have the Stun/Fear/Silence resist over the extra wand damage if you get to wanding in raids thats up to you.

Martydom is not needed, this because you shouldn't be getting melee'd in a raid.

IMP: Shield: always nice to have the extra damage absorbsion in those "oh ****" situations.

IMP: Fort: May not seem like alot, but the extra 25 stam is nice. Tanks will love you for the extra 1010 health vs. the 760 health.

Meditation: 30% mana regen while casting; your constantly casting, so why not? 30% regen + VT, HOTTT!!

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bAMhzhZZxGxtMxohtVo
In this build i just filled in some slots, took out the slots for Shadow Power in case you don't care for the extra crit, maxed out IMP: MB, and maxed out Shadow Focus.

IMO If you have gotten the best gear you can have and have 76 hit rating or over maxing out shadow focus is a total waste and can be used in different areas of your choice. IMO the first build is the best with the most important talents in there, the rest of the points is your choice.

III.

Tips and Tricks:

 

Pre-BC, the only real reason to have a shadow Priest in the raid was for constant healing as long as the Priest had mana. But now with the addition of a spell called, Vampiric Touch, everything when it comes to the world of a Shadow Priest has changed. Nowadays when it comes to Shadow Priest raiding, shadow priests almost always have a guaranteed spot in the raid for one specific reason mana regen.

In addition, with the addition of VT, you are always guaranteed a spot in a raid if the raid doesn't have a shadow priest. This due to all shadow priests are considered these days are "mana batteries".

As you stacking your shadow damage, the more you have the less trouble with mana you will have. It is known that once you hit the 1100 shadow damage spot, you will start seeing a huge difference in you chugging mana pots. You will notice that once you have all your dots up and mind flaying and whatnot, you will realize that you are regenning 40+ mana per second. this is not including your Mind Blasts and Deaths.

Now you are probably wondering what your best spell rotation is. Technically there is no set spell rotation. Your job, is to keep your dots up and keep ALL your cds down. This meaning Mind Blasting and Deathing every single time the CD is up.

You are now saying that if you do that, you will eventually go /oom. That brings up another part of your job: MANA POTS. You always ALWAYS need to have mana pots on you. This so that you can have no downtime when dpsing.

If you are running out of mana before your mana pot cd is up or before your Manafiend cd is up, you are doing something wrong or you don't have enough shadow damage to keep this up. Which this means you need to stop MBing and Deathing as much as you are. Sure your damage on the damage meters will go down, but atleast your not running out of mana and not not returning mana

                                                    PVP

In pvp I suggest you not be shadow for arena. You do not have the survivability you will have as disc or holy. Respec to one of them if you want to be actually good in arenas or else once you get to a rating you will not be able to go farther due to you will be focused fired down too fast.

Bgs are a different story, you can be shadow in bgs. Just make sure you spec correctly for it.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMGzhMZbZVMGd0tRbtAo
This is what i suggest you do for bgs if you decide to stay shadow for them. Obvious Blackout for those stuns with your spells. Please realize that Blackout can only proc only when you cast a shadow spell, it does not proc off ticks from your dots.

Unbreakable will is awesome in bgs, 15% resist to stuns, fears, and silences; if you get the meta socket that has the 18 stam/5% stun resist. Get the gems you need in your gear to get the socket bonus and thats 20% stun resist.

Martydom is great when you are in bgs and getting hit, 100% chance to gain focused casting when you take a melee crit. I've destroyed a warrior with this.

IMP Mana Burn: Takes one second off your cast time for mana burn, believe me this can be a life saver. It's also hilarious when your standing right beside a healer Mana Burning him and he doesn't even realize it. Hilarious.

IMP PS and Silence. Reduces 4 sec. from you cd of PS and the Silence. Speaks for itself, silences the target from casting for 3 seconds. Deadly.

IMP VE: Increases the amount of healing from VE by 10%

Shadow Resilience is up to you, the 4% of resilience is nice, but since it's so far down into the tree it's almost not worth it for that small amount.

IMP Pain: why not? adds 6 seconds to the dot that causes the most damage. In my dps set this does over 5k damage over the 24 seconds.

Healing Focus: I myself don't have it, but its interesting to look at this due to, when you drop form to heal yourself or someone else, you have a 70% chance to gain focus casting and not lose casting time which could save your life.

Inner Focus: One of the best talents we got, and only with a 3 min cd. should be in any and every build you got. Free cast every 3 minutes. Awesome, don't forget to make a couple macros of this for either, MB, Death, Pain, or any other spell you want.

For More information on a shadow priest please go to www. shadowpriest.com
This will give you even more information and you will be able to speak with thousands of shadow priests all over the world and get their views and opinions on specing subjects and whatnot.

-- Edited by Echolipse at 06:06, 2007-12-17