Shadow Priest DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.0.5)

Before going in-depth with the priority list, I wanted to break down the goals of playing Shadow Priest. These goals will help describe the why behind the full-on priority list, hopefully giving it more context.

1. Maintain Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain at all times.
2. Maintain Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain at all times. Use Shadow Crash to help with this.
3. Maintain uptime of Devouring Plague without capping on Insanity.
4. Use short cooldown Insanity generating spells to make sure you do not lose uses of them. This includes spells like Mind Blast and Surge of Insanity procs.
5. Use short cooldown Insanity-generating spells to make sure you do not lose uses of them. This includes spells like Void Bolt, Mind Blast, and Surge of Insanity procs.
6. Use your long cooldown spells, ideally when you will not lose uses of any short cooldown spells, being sure not to hold too long to still take advantage of any active buffs. This includes spells like Mindbender, and Void Torrent.
7. Use your long cooldown spells, ideally when you will not lose uses of any short cooldown spells, being sure not to hold too long to still take advantage of any active buffs. This includes spells like Shadowfiend and Void Torrent.
8. Use your long cooldown spells, ideally when you will not lose uses of any short cooldown spells, being sure not to hold too long to still take advantage of any active buffs. This includes spells like Shadowfiend.
9. Use your long cooldown spells, ideally when you will not lose uses of any short cooldown spells, being sure not to hold too long to still take advantage of any active buffs. This includes spells like Mindbender.
10. Use your long cooldown spells, ideally when you will not lose uses of any short cooldown spells, being sure not to hold too long to still take advantage of any active buffs. This includes spells like Voidwraith and Void Torrent.
11. Use your long cooldown spells, ideally when you will not lose uses of any short cooldown spells, being sure not to hold too long to still take advantage of any active buffs. This includes spells like Voidwraith.

If you can get these goals right, the Rotation should make more sense and fall into play naturally.

WARNING: Shadow Crash is not selected in the table above, or you are not using an AoE preset. Please select this above to see an accurate advice for AoE. AoE content as a Shadow Priest without this will be torturous.

The Shadow Priest multi-target rotation is very similar to the single target priority list above, with only small differences. Our AoE damage is mostly unlocked by performing our single target rotation well. If you can do that well, you just need to maintain DoTs, and things should fall into place naturally.

During AoE, you will be using any tools you can to maintain Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain on several targets. You should try to maintain these DoTs on up to 12 targets roughly. Shadow Crash should be able to cover 8 stacked targets. Do not bother manually DoTing any target that will not last for at least 18 seconds.

Depending on your playstyle choice, you can choose to either send your Devouring Plague casts into the highest health priority target enemy, or cast each Devouring Plague on a new target to spread the damage around. Typically, with Mind's Eye, you prefer to funnel and Distorted Reality you prefer to spread, but either talent can play with either playstyle. Check out the dedicated section on Devouring Plague below to learn more.

1. If the pack is big enough, you should strongly consider using your cooldowns. Getting as many casts of your cooldown without losing uses of it or not having it for a boss is the biggest point of improvement most players can make in dungeons. This includes Void Eruption, Power Infusion, and Mindbender.
2. If the pack is big enough, you should strongly consider using your cooldowns. Getting as many casts of your cooldown without losing uses of it or not having it for a boss is the biggest point of improvement most players can make in dungeons. This includes Void Eruption, Power Infusion, and Shadowfiend.
3. If the pack is big enough, you should strongly consider using your cooldowns. Getting as many casts of your cooldown without losing uses of it or not having it for a boss is the biggest point of improvement most players can make in dungeons. This includes Dark Ascension, Power Infusion, and Mindbender.
4. If the pack is big enough, you should strongly consider using your cooldowns. Getting as many casts of your cooldown without losing uses of it or not having it for a boss is the biggest point of improvement most players can make in dungeons. This includes Dark Ascension, Power Infusion, and Shadowfiend.
5. If the pack is big enough, you should strongly consider using your cooldowns. Getting as many casts of your cooldown without losing uses of it or not having it for a boss is the biggest point of improvement most players can make in dungeons. This includes Void Eruption, Power Infusion, and Voidwraith.
6. If the pack is big enough, you should strongly consider using your cooldowns. Getting as many casts of your cooldown without losing uses of it or not having it for a boss is the biggest point of improvement most players can make in dungeons. This includes Dark Ascension, Power Infusion, and Voidwraith.
7. Use Shadow Crash to get your DoTs rolling. If this is on cooldown as you pull the pack, you need to do your best to DoT as many targets manually as possible while weaving in other spells.
8. At this point, your highest priority is maintaining DoTs. You should pick a main priority target to funnel in your Devouring Plague into. This is typically the target with the highest amount of HP or a particularly powerful enemy.
9. Use spells to generate Insanity, like Void Bolt, Mind Blast, and Surge of Insanity. Get these on cooldown quickly so you can blast with your bigger spells.
10. Use spells to generate Insanity, like Mind Blast and Surge of Insanity. Get these on cooldown quickly so you can blast with your bigger spells.
11. Use bigger cooldown spells like Void Torrent and Halo to do small burst damage.
12. Use bigger cooldown spells like Halo to do small burst damage.
13. Use bigger cooldown spells like Void Torrent, and Divine Star to do small burst damage.
14. Use bigger cooldown spells like Divine Star to do small burst damage.
15. Fill with Mind Spike.
16. Fill with Mind Flay.

Note that this opener assumes you get unlucky with procs and does not account for getting any of Deathspeaker, Shadowy Insight, or Mind Devourer procs. Be sure to follow the priority list below. These openers are just a snapshot of the opener up till your first cast of Void Torrent.

This opener assumes you started with the default prepull Insanity depending on your talents (see below chart).

The placement of the trinkets selected in the table above are optimized below for just using a single on-use trinket. When using double on-use trinkets you should check with sims to know which order it prefers to use them in. Results in the table below will not always be accurate when selecting two on-use trinkets due to the trinket lock-out.

Before combat starts, make sure you have Shadowform and Power Word: Fortitude active.

1. Cast Aberrant Spellforge before the pull.
2. Cast Halo before the pull.
3. Cast Halo right before the pull so that the boss is engaged when it reaches the target.
4. Pre-Cast Shadow Crash if you can reliably land the skill shot on the pull, and you do not need to save for adds; otherwise, use Vampiric Touch.
5. Pre-Cast Vampiric Touch
6. Use High Speaker's Accretion
7. Cast Mind Spike to ensure we have enough Insanity for Devouring Plague when we start our burst.
8. Cast Shadowfiend.
9. Cast Mindbender.
10. Cast Voidwraith.
11. Cast Vampiric Touch to consume Unfurling Darkness.
12. Cast Dark Ascension.
13. Use your combat potion Tempered Potion.
14. Use Power Infusion and any stat-based racial abilities. Make sure to cast Power Infusion on an ally if using Twins of the Sun Priestess.
15. Use Mereldar's Toll
16. Use Mad Queen's Mandate
17. Use Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg ideally with 20 stacks of primary and 10 stacks of secondary.
18. Use Treacherous Transmitter. Be sure to complete the challenge after using!
19. Cast Shadow Word: Death.
20. Cast Mind Flay until you get enough Insanity for Devouring Plague.
21. Cast Devouring Plague
22. Cast Void Torrent.
23. Cast Void Blast twice.
24. Continue with the priority list as described below.

1. Cast Aberrant Spellforge before the pull.
2. Cast Halo before the pull.
3. Cast Halo right before the pull so that the boss is engaged when it reaches the target.
4. Pre-Cast Shadow Crash if you can reliably land the skill shot on the pull, and you do not need to save for adds; otherwise, use Vampiric Touch.
5. Pre-Cast Vampiric Touch
6. Cast Vampiric Touch to consume Unfurling Darkness.
7. Use High Speaker's Accretion
8. Cast Shadowfiend.
9. Cast Mindbender.
10. Cast Mind Spike to ensure we have enough Insanity for Devouring Plague after Void Torrent.
11. Cast Voidwraith.
12. Cast Void Torrent.
13. Cast Devouring Plague.
14. Cast Void Blast twice.
15. Cast Mind Blast twice.
16. Cast Void Eruption
17. Use your combat potion Tempered Potion.
18. Use Power Infusion and any stat-based racial abilities. Make sure to cast Power Infusion on an ally if using Twins of the Sun Priestess.
19. Use Mereldar's Toll
20. Use Mad Queen's Mandate
21. Use Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg ideally with 20 stacks of primary and 10 stacks of secondary.
22. Use Treacherous Transmitter. Be sure to complete the challenge after using!
23. Cast Void Blast twice.
24. Cast Void Bolt
25. Cast Devouring Plague
26. Cast Void Torrent.
27. Continue with the priority list as described below.

The single-target rotation relies on the following priority system of abilities.

If you are looking for something easier to digest or you are just getting started, I strongly suggest looking at the Beginner page page. The rotation guide below is meant for advanced users who want to min/max their Rotation as much as possible.

1. Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active by using Vampiric Touch to apply both DoTs. Use Shadow Crash if available when you need to refresh. Refresh these during the proper pandemic window (see below).
2. Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active by using Vampiric Touch to apply both DoTs. Refresh these during the proper pandemic window (see below).
3. Cast Shadowfiend.
4. Cast Mindbender.
5. Cast Voidwraith.
6. Cast Halo.
7. Cast Void Eruption to enter Voidform. Make sure Mind Blast charges are on cooldown before entering Voidform.
8. Cast Dark Ascension.
9. Cast Power Infusion.
10. Sync any trinkets you have with your cooldowns (see trinket section).
11. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target has an absorb shield for Devour Matter.
12. Cast Void Blast while available if Devouring Plague is active or Entropic Rift is about to expire.
13. Cast Void Bolt if you will not cap Insanity.
14. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, or you are about to cap out on Insanity.
15. Cast Void Torrent to open up Entropic Rift.
16. Cast Shadow Word: Death on any target that is below 20% health.
17. Cast Shadow Word: Death on any target that is below 20% health or you have Deathspeaker active.
18. Cast Mind Blast if Mindbender is active and you are capped on charges or will cap charges soon. Cast at high priority if Mindbender will expire otherwise (2 seconds or less).
19. Cast Mind Blast if Voidwraith is active and you are capped on charges or will cap charges soon. Cast at high priority if Mindbender will expire otherwise (2 seconds or less).
20. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Mindbender is active and will expire in less than 2 seconds.
21. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Voidwraith is active and will expire in less than 2 seconds.
22. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity if you have 3 or more stacks of Surge of Insanity
23. Cast Mind Spike: Insanity if you have 3 or more stacks of Surge of Insanity
24. Cast Devouring Plague if the target will die soon.
25. Cast Devouring Plague during Voidform or if the target will die soon.
26. Cast Devouring Plague if Mind Devourer is active or if the target will die soon.
27. Cast Devouring Plague during Voidform, Mind Devourer is active, or if the target will die soon.
28. Cast Devouring Plague if Entropic Rift is active or if the target will die soon.
29. Cast Devouring Plague during Voidform, during Entropic Rift or if the target will die soon.
30. Cast Devouring Plague if Entropic Rift is active, Mind Devourer is active, or if the target will die soon.
31. Cast Devouring Plague during Voidform, during Entropic Rift, Mind Devourer is active, or if the target will die soon.
32. Cast Void Torrent if Devouring Plague will last for at least 2.5 seconds. Full channel this cast.
33. Cast Vampiric Touch to proc Unfurling Darkness. This should only be done while the Unfurling Darkness debuff is not active to indicate you are not on cooldown. You should aim to spend this immediately after proccing the buff but can save for up to 8 seconds.
34. Cast Vampiric Touch to proc Unfurling Darkness while Dark Ascension is not active. This should only be done while the Unfurling Darkness debuff is not active to indicate you are not on cooldown. You should aim to spend this immediately after proccing the buff but can save for up to 8 seconds.
35. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Deathspeaker is active.
36. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges.
37. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges if Mind Devourer is not active.
38. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges. Hold charges a few seconds before Void Torrent.
39. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges if Mind Devourer is not active. Hold charges a few seconds before Void Torrent.
40. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges. Hold charges one cast before Void Torrent.
41. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges if Mind Devourer is not active. Hold charges one cast before Void Torrent.
42. Cast Mind Spike: Insanity if Devouring Plague will be active when the cast finishes.
43. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
44. Cast Vampiric Touch to proc Unfurling Darkness. This should only be done while the Unfurling Darkness debuff is not active to indicate you are not on cooldown. You should aim to spend this immediately after proccing the buff but can save for up to 8 seconds.
45. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health.
46. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health or Mindbender is active.
47. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health or Voidwraith is active.
48. Cast Vampiric Touch to proc Unfurling Darkness. This should only be done while the Unfurling Darkness debuff is not active to indicate you are not on cooldown. You should aim to spend this immediately after proccing the buff but can save for up to 8 seconds.
49. Cast Mind Spike.
50. Cast Mind Flay. Interrupt this for any other action as it becomes available.
51. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Divine Star, Shadow Crash, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
52. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Shadow Crash, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
53. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Divine Star, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
54. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.

Note: the pandemic window for our DoTs is 30% of the total duration. This means to get optimal value out of refreshing DoTs, you want to wait until they are at or below the following thresholds:

• Vampiric Touch - 6.3 seconds;
• Shadow Word: Pain (with Misery) - 6.3 seconds;
• Devouring Plague does not work like a traditional DoT spell, but it will add the old DoT damage to the new DoT damage as well as the time till the next tick;

Devouring Plague does not follow the same refresh rules as these two DoTs, instead, roll their damage over and add duration based on time to the next tick. The way you typically want to play around with this is to maximize the uptime of the DoT as much as possible without capping on Insanity. You want to do this for optimal uptime on our Mastery bonus.

WARNING: Shadow Crash is not selected in the table above, or you are not using an AoE preset. Please select this above to see an accurate example of an AoE opener. AoE content as a Shadow Priest without this will be torturous.

This is meant as a very basic example for opening on a pack in an AoE environment. The exact mob count and the way the mobs are grouped will naturally change what you will do from pull to pull, especially depending on your cooldown state. Use this as a starting point along with the general priority list.

The placement of the trinkets selected in the table above are optimized below for just using a single on-use trinket. When using double on-use trinkets you should check with sims to know which order it prefers to use them in. Results in the table below will not always be accurate when selecting two on-use trinkets due to the trinket lock-out.

Before combat starts, make sure you have Shadowform and Power Word: Fortitude active.

1. Cast Vampiric Touch on any targets as the pack is being grouped up with Fade (see below).
2. Cast Shadow Crash to put up DoTs on targets once everything is grouped.
3. Cast Halo once all mobs are engaged in combat and within range.
4. Cast Aberrant Spellforge if you are not capped on stacks.
5. Use High Speaker's Accretion
6. Cast Shadowfiend.
7. Cast Mindbender.
8. Cast Voidwraith.
9. Cast Void Torrent.
10. Cast Devouring Plague.
11. Cast Void Blast twice.
12. Cast Mind Blast to get the cooldown reset before going into Void Eruption. Skip this if the pack will not live long enough to get your full Voidform out.
13. Cast Dark Ascension
14. Cast Void Eruption
15. Use your combat potion Tempered Potion unless you want to save for an upcoming pack or boss.
16. Use Spymaster's Web if you have full stacks.
17. Use Mereldar's Toll
18. Use Mad Queen's Mandate
19. Use Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg ideally with 20 stacks of primary and 10 stacks of secondary.
20. Use Treacherous Transmitter. Be sure to complete the challenge after using!
21. Use Power Infusion and any stat-based racial abilities. Make sure to cast Power Infusion on an ally if using Twins of the Sun Priestess.
22. Cast Devouring Plague.
23. Cast Void Torrent.
24. Cast Void Blast twice.
25. Cast Void Bolt.
26. Cast Devouring Plague.
27. Cast Void Torrent.
28. Continue with the Rotation as normal.

Note if the pack has more than 8 targets or they are too spread for Shadow Crash You should do your best to pull with the tank by using Fade to not get aggro but still putting your DoTs up as the pack gets pulled.

If you are looking for something easier to digest or you are just getting started, I strongly suggest looking at the Beginner page page. The rotation guide below is meant for advanced users who want to min/max their Rotation as much as possible.

When dealing damage in AoE, it is crucial to make sure you are casting spells onto targets that have Devouring Plague active. This ensures the damage from Psychic Link is being boosted as much as possible through spells like Mastery: Shadow Weaving or Insidious Ire.

1. Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active by using Vampiric Touch to apply both DoTs. Use Shadow Crash if available when you need to refresh and you do not need to hold for adds coming in less than 15 seconds.
2. Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active by using Vampiric Touch to apply both DoTs. Refresh these during the proper pandemic window (see below).
3. Cast Shadowfiend.
4. Cast Mindbender.
5. Cast Voidwraith.
6. Cast Halo.
7. Cast Void Eruption to enter Voidform. Make sure Mind Blast charges are on cooldown before entering Voidform.
8. Cast Dark Ascension.
9. Cast Power Infusion.
10. Sync any trinkets you have with your cooldowns (see trinket section).
11. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target has an absorb shield for Devour Matter.
12. Cast Void Blast while available if Devouring Plague is active or Entropic Rift is about to expire.
13. Cast Void Bolt if you will not cap Insanity.
14. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague on the priority target if it is not active, about to expire, or you are about to cap out on Insanity.
15. Cast Void Torrent to open up Entropic Rift.
16. Cast Shadow Word: Death on any target that is below 20% health.
17. Cast Shadow Word: Death on any target that is below 20% health or you have Deathspeaker active.
18. Cast Mind Blast if Mindbender is active and you are capped on charges or will cap charges soon facing 7 or fewer targets. Cast at high priority if Mindbender will expire otherwise (2 seconds or less).
19. Cast Mind Blast if Voidwraith is active and you are capped on charges or will cap charges soon facing 7 or fewer targets. Cast at high priority if Mindbender will expire otherwise (2 seconds or less).
20. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Mindbender is active and will expire in less than 2 seconds when facing 7 or less targets.
21. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Voidwraith is active and will expire in less than 2 seconds when facing 7 or less targets.
22. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity if you have 3 or more stacks of Surge of Insanity
23. Cast Mind Spike: Insanity if you have 3 or more stacks of Surge of Insanity
24. Cast Devouring Plague if the target will die soon.
25. Cast Devouring Plague during Voidform or if the target will die soon.
26. Cast Devouring Plague if Mind Devourer is active or if the target will die soon.
27. Cast Devouring Plague during Voidform, Mind Devourer is active, or if the target will die soon.
28. Cast Devouring Plague if Entropic Rift is active or if the target will die soon.
29. Cast Devouring Plague during Voidform, during Entropic Rift or if the target will die soon.
30. Cast Devouring Plague if Entropic Rift is active, Mind Devourer is active, or if the target will die soon.
31. Cast Devouring Plague during Voidform, during Entropic Rift, Mind Devourer is active, or if the target will die soon.
32. Cast Void Torrent if Devouring Plague will last for at least 2.5 seconds. Full channel this cast. Can save this for an upcoming AoE burst up to 15 seconds away.
33. Cast Vampiric Touch to proc Unfurling Darkness when fighting 5 or less targets. This should only be done while the Unfurling Darkness debuff is not active to indicate you are not on cooldown. You should aim to spend this immediately after proccing the buff but can save for up to 8 seconds.
34. Cast Vampiric Touch to proc Unfurling Darkness while Dark Ascension is not active when fighting 5 or less targets. This should only be done while the Unfurling Darkness debuff is not active to indicate you are not on cooldown. You should aim to spend this immediately after proccing the buff but can save for up to 8 seconds.
35. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Deathspeaker is active.
36. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges.
37. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges if Mind Devourer is not active.
38. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges. Hold charges a few seconds before Void Torrent.
39. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges if Mind Devourer is not active. Hold charges a few seconds before Void Torrent.
40. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges. Hold charges one cast before Void Torrent.
41. Fully deplete Mind Blast charges if Mind Devourer is not active. Hold charges one cast before Void Torrent.
42. Cast Mind Spike: Insanity if Devouring Plague will be active when the cast finishes.
43. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
44. Cast Vampiric Touch to proc Unfurling Darkness. This should only be done while the Unfurling Darkness debuff is not active to indicate you are not on cooldown. You should aim to spend this immediately after proccing the buff but can save for up to 8 seconds.
45. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health.
46. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health or Mindbender is active.
47. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health or Voidwraith is active.
48. Cast Vampiric Touch to proc Unfurling Darkness. This should only be done while the Unfurling Darkness debuff is not active to indicate you are not on cooldown. You should aim to spend this immediately after proccing the buff but can save for up to 8 seconds.
49. Cast Halo
50. Cast Mind Spike.
51. Cast Mind Flay. Interrupt this for any other action as it becomes available.
52. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Divine Star, Shadow Crash, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
53. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Shadow Crash, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
54. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Divine Star, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
55. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.

In addition to the AoE priority list above, keep in mind these important target swaps:

• 8+ targets: Drop high priority Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death actions for Inescapable Torment. You still use Mind Blast as a low-priority action to generate Insanity since, at this target count, you are not prioritizing Inescapable Torment damage.
• 6+ targets: Drop specifically casting Vampiric Touch to proc Unfurling Darkness.
• 12+ targets: Threshold for manually DoTing targets, typically not worth ever going over this unless it is as the pack is being gathered with Fade (including the 8 from Shadow Crash).

For specific tips about playing Shadow Priest in Mythic+, feel free to check out that dedicated page below. From a rotation standpoint, things will follow the priority list above.

Void Eruption is one of Shadow Priest's Major Cooldown abilities that is a choice node against Dark Ascension. After finishing the cast, you gain the Voidform buff. This is a 2-minute cooldown that syncs nicely with Power Infusion to produce our biggest sustained damage boost on multiple targets thanks to access to Void Bolt. This allows us to focus on our main Rotation while keeping our Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain sustained on targets we are in combat with.

This cooldown gives you access to:

• Void Bolt
• Spells deal damage as if Mastery: Shadow Weaving is fully stacked.
• Voidform
• When cast, it fully refreshes the cooldown on Mind Blast charges.
• Replaces Shadowform (cancelling out the damage increases)

The key mechanic with Voidform, in particular, is the extension mechanic. Every cast of Devouring Plague increases the duration on the Voidform buff by 2.5 seconds. This allows you to extend the cooldown up to get much longer Voidforms, particularly when playing with Mind's Eye or Archon builds.

When playing Archon Voidform is further enhanced by giving you an extra +20% damage to all spells while active. If you are taking Sustained Potency it also increases the duration of Voidform.

Dark Ascension is one of Shadow Priest's Major Cooldown abilities that is a choice node against Void Eruption.

This cooldown gives you access to:

• Buffs damage of non-periodic spells by 20%.

Dark Ascension, in particular, does not buff every part of our kit, notable spells it does not buff include:

• Shadow Word: Pain periodic damage
• Vampiric Touch periodic damage
• Devouring Plague periodic damage
• Void Torrent
• Mind Flay: Insanity
• Mind Flay
• Idol of C'Thun
• Idol of N'Zoth

When playing Archon Dark Ascension is further enhanced by giving you an extra +12% damage to all spells while active. This extra 12% applies to both direct and periodic spells. If you are taking Sustained Potency, it also increases the duration of Dark Ascension.

In addition to our core cooldown choice, you also gain access to Power Infusion. This is a 2-minute cooldown spell, so it naturally syncs with every cast of Void Eruption and every other cast of Dark Ascension. This gives you Haste for the start of these cooldowns.

Default this gives you 20% Haste when cast for 15 seconds but as an Archon Shadow Priest you gain 30% haste for 15 seconds.

This becomes one of the most powerful external buffs in the game with Twins of the Sun Priestess talent in our class tree, allowing you to give someone else Power Infusion and then also get the buff yourself. This is critically important as a Shadow Priest when playing in a group environment, as this can easily be an extra 4-5% DPS increase for your group as a whole, depending on who you are buffing.

Shadow Priest is on somewhat strict timers and likes to use Power Infusion on cooldown. This can influence the choice we make on who we give Power Infusion to so that ideally we can continue casting it when it is best for us. Here is a list of strong targets for Power Infusion on 2-minute timers.

1. Survival Hunter
2. Unholy Death Knight (See Note Below)
3. Beast Mastery Hunter
4. Feral Druid
5. Windwalker Monk
6. Enhancement Shaman

For Unholy Death Knights, you should consider casting Power Infusion on them for every 3rd cast of Power Infusion since they are a 1.5-minute cooldown class. This typically means casting it on them in the opener and switching to another spec for the rest of the fight until execute if the fight lasts 6 minutes for that set of cooldowns.

Note that this list assumes equal play among players to give the buff to, which is not always a good assumption. Sometimes, it makes more sense to buff up the best person in your raid rather than simply buffing what is a good spec for Power Infusion.

If you are playing Archon Halo becomes a more integral part of the Rotation. Because we want to use this spell on cooldown, it is important to know where it fits into the Rotation.

Since Halo has a cast time and is cast twice as often as Void Eruption, the cooldown will get slightly desynced over the course of a pull. In the opener we prefer to use this right before combat starts so that when you account for travel time it hits the boss just after it is engaged into combat by the group. This will also help offset the desync that happens by giving you a buffer to always get Halo back off cooldown before Void Eruption comes back.

Be sure to never hold the cast of Halo while Void Eruption is still cooling down to make sure that it lines up when the cooldown comes back. Once all your cooldowns are available, you can, of course, choose to hold depending on specific timings for that fight.

If you are playing with Voidweaver we primarily use this spell to generate Insanity pre-pull before combat starts. It can also be used for AoE damage when you have nothing else to press.

Void Torrent is a powerful talent that has unique interactions with several parts of our kit. This is a fixed 3-second channeled spell that adds more ticks of damage as you get more Haste. The Insanity generation is always fixed regardless of how many ticks you get.

Notably, this spell does not snapshot with any part of our kit; each tick re-checks modifiers like Mastery: Shadow Weaving. This leads to the Rotation wanting to only use this spell when at least 2.5 seconds of the channel will be buffed by our Mastery.

The spell itself is augmented by Malediction as well as Idol of C'Thun. C'Thun, in particular, gives you an instant proc at the start of every Void Torrent casts making the spell overall a powerhouse when it comes to Insanity generation, which can contribute to more casts of Devouring Plague.

On top of all of these interactions, Voidweaver upgrades this spell into a central part of the Rotation by spawning Entropic Rift and making Malediction and Idol of C'Thun lock in talents for that reason.

From a rotational perspective, be sure to keep these tips in mind:

• Be sure to have Devouring Plague active before casting the channel, especially for Voidweaver builds. As Archon, if you have at least 2.5 seconds left on the DoT, you can send it then as well.
• Prioritize using this early on in your burst windows so that the high Insanity generation can fuel your opening burst longer.
• In AoE environments, you can choose to hold for up to 15 seconds if you know you will need AoE burst coming up for a pack.

Voidwraith, Mindbender, and Shadowfiend are guardians that scale with your stats, which means using them in combination with, for example, Intellect, Haste, or Mastery procs is ideal. However, it is not ideal to delay them too much for both to accomplish this. They are not big enough damage increases to warrant doing so, and maximizing the number of casts is more important. If you lost a Voidweaver/Mindbender/Shadowfiend cast because of delaying it too much, then that will almost definitely not have been worth it. This is especially true for Mindbender, which has a short cooldown of 1 minute. When using Inescapable Torment, mastering this is important to get full damage out of the cooldown.

However, there is an additional aspect to consider here. Both Shadowfiend, Mindbender, and Voidwraith generate an amount of Insanity whenever they hit their targets. Both pets generate 2 Insanity per melee swing. This is particularly useful in AoE when getting consistent Insanity generation is more difficult.

As a general rule of thumb, you will want to use Shadowfiend or Mindbender right before going into Void Eruption or Dark Ascension.

Idol of Y'Shaarj further empowers each cast of Mindbender with the following benefits based on the state of the target you cast it on if you are talented into it:

• If the target has more than 80% health: Devoured Pride - You and your pet gain 5% more damage
• If the target is enraged: Devoured Anger - Dispel the effect and increases your Haste by 5%
• If the target is stunned: Devoured Despair - You gain 5 Insanity per second
• If the target is feared: Devoured Fear - You and your pet gain 5% more damage and do not break Fear effects
• If none of the other conditions are met: Devoured Violence - Your Mindbender will last an additional 5 seconds.

It is important to know that, generally speaking, these buffs are very close together in terms of DPS gain. That being said, here is the rough ranking in order of priority:

1. Devoured Despair
2. Devoured Anger
3. Devoured Pride and Devoured Fear
4. Devoured Violence (Default)

Note that while in AoE environments, Devoured Despair becomes even further ahead and is clear the best option if you can proc it. Unfortunately, talenting into Psychic Horror is typically not worth it as a Shadow Priest, so coordinating this benefit with others in your group can be challenging.

Since these buffs are almost always within the margin of error of each other, you should play normally and not try and go out of your way to min/max this buff since that could end up costing you damage. The optimization here is every time you are about to cast Mindbender, consider the above table to try and get a bit of extra damage, but do NOT delay the cast.

Mind Blast is one of our main rotational abilities where the goal is not to lose any potential casts on the spell in most cases. With Thought Harvester this is made much easier by giving us 2 charges of the spell. Since only one charge can cool down at a time, we prioritize casting Mind Blast more only when you are capped on charges, which in this case is 2 charges.

In addition to the normal gameplay, we also have access to Shadowy Insight spec talent, which is taken in almost all scenarios. The important thing to understand about these procs is that they do not specifically change your rotational priority. While it does reset a charge of Mind Blast and make it instant-cast since it does not actually buff the damage of that Mind Blast, we do not need to prioritize using the proc any differently than normal casts of Mind Blast.

Keep in mind that if you get a Shadowy Insight charge and it gets you capped on Mind Blast charges, you should prioritize it accordingly.

The other important rotational note with Mind Blast specifically concerns the usage of the spell as Voidweaver. Since Mind Blast is transformed into Void Blast while Entropic Rift is active we want to make sure and get as many casts out of the spell as possible. Entering the rift does not adjust charges of Mind Blast so to make sure we maximize the amount of casts, it is appropriate to hold off on casting Mind Blast right before casting Void Torrent. When using Mind Spike, you should aim to hold a few seconds before Void Torrent and with Mind Flay, you only need to hold 1 second before casting Void Torrent.

The Season 1 set bonus for Shadow Priest is as follows:

• 2-piece set bonus: Priest Shadow Season 1 2pc
• 4-piece set bonus: Priest Shadow Season 1 4pc

This tier set does not require any sort of tracking to get optimal use of. You do not change your Rotation with this set bonus.

Devouring Plague is a relatively unique DoT that works differently from Vampiric Touch or Shadow Word: Pain. As such, you must understand how it works at a high level to avoid misuse of its unique effects.

When refreshing Devouring Plague, it rolls over any damage remaining on the future ticks and adds that in the form of a modifier to the new DoT ticks. This effectively means that when you are in a case where you often hit or get close to 100 Insanity (referred to as capping), you can freely refresh Devouring Plague and not lose any damage, assuming the target lives for the entire DoT duration. It is important to note that no part of this process is snapshotting stats but instead converting future damage ticks into a modifier value to the new ticks. Because of this period, Intellect and Haste's changes do not change how the rollover happens; it always works the same way regardless.

While the damage does roll over regardless of when you use Devouring Plague the exact timing of the refresh is important. Shadow Priests Mastery, Mastery: Shadow Weaving, benefits from uptime of Devouring Plague. So to get the most damage out of the DoT, you want to only refresh the DoT when it has less than a GCD remaining, or you are getting close to capping on Insanity (deficit of ~20 or less) to get maximum damage out of our Mastery. Furthermore, playing like this also gets the most value out of the Insidious Ire talent if you are using that.

This mechanic is mostly passive but can be used to your advantage to burst down a specific target. By banking up 100 Insanity (or 150 with Voidtouched) you can use multiple Devouring Plague casts back to back and get a new DoT with much more powerful ticks in the same amount of time as a single Devouring Plague. Otherwise, if your target lives, you should always prioritize keeping the DoT active on the target for as long as possible for maximum benefit with our Mastery. While maximizing this, make sure you are also NOT capping on Insanity. Juggling these two conditions will be how you master this spell.

For most types of content, you should play completely normally; there is nothing to game with how this works unless you are trying to burst something down specifically. Just play normally and enjoy not losing damage when you would have otherwise capped Insanity.

If you want to see this change explained in video form, I go over this in more detail in this video.

The way you play with Devouring Plague strictly depends on what you want to prioritize: overall AoE damage or priority target damage. Both of these are viable strategies and can be used with just about any talent combination.

To prioritize overall AoE damage you can spread Devouring Plague. This is done by simply casting Devouring Plague on a new target every time you get enough Insanity and then using that as your new main target until you build up enough Insanity to restart the process. This playstyle works particularly well with talents like Distorted Reality and Phantasmal Pathogen, but these are not necessarily required to see gains with this playstyle. While Devouring Plague does roll its damage over when re-applying; you can end up losing out on damage depending on when targets die. By spreading the DoT around to whatever is the current highest health target, you can see gains from this playstyle.

Alternatively, you can choose to increase your priority target damage while in AoE but funneling casts of Devouring Plague onto the most important mob of a pack. This damage pattern is less commonly found in other specs in the game, which makes Shadow Priest, in particular, highly desired in high-end key compositions. Often, packs have a few priority target mobs that either have more health than most of the pack or perhaps have a set of deadly abilities that make it important to kill the mob first. This playstyle typically prefers running Mind's Eye to get more casts off of Devouring Plague in a dungeon.

For dungeon pulls specifically, you should always be pulling WITH the tank, not after. By getting proper setup as the tank is pulling by putting up Vampiric Touch ASAP, you will further increase the damage to the pack without suffering from loss in casting our Insanity spenders. This is only possible by using Fade as a threat drop, as the tank is pulling to be able to DPS before the threat is fully established. Mastering this is crucial to doing well in Mythic+.

Typically, we only maintain DoTs up to 12 targets during a pull (8 from Shadow Crash and 4 from manual Vampiric Touch). By pulling with the tank this allows you to get more manual Vampiric Touch DoTs out to increase the number of targets we can sustain our damage on. This is where the power of Void Eruption builds comes into play since you can then sustain those DoTs with Void Bolt during higher key pulls.

The Unfurling Darkness talent can be a bit awkward to play around with, but if you do you think of it less as having to cast an extra Vampiric Touch and more like a cooldown, you press every 15 seconds; that should make more sense. Generally, you want to try and use Vampiric Touch every 15 seconds to process this "extra" damage and then re-cast Vampiric Touch again (ideally on a different target to help with DoT uptimes) for that damage bonus. You only have 8 seconds to use this free cast, so use it wisely. You usually consume this proc as soon as you generate it.

Since Unfurling Darkness is not buffed during Dark Ascension we only want to press this during that cooldown when you have nothing else to press other than non-buffed fillers like Mind Spike or Mind Flay.

Depending on how much other stuff to do, you do not need to go out of your way to cast this every 15 seconds, especially if this means losing Devouring Plague casts. It will mostly be passive damage naturally as you refresh your Vampiric Touch and then re-cast it for the benefit. Do not let the buff expire and play naturally.

Note that the "cooldown" for this is effectively managed via the Unfurling Darkness debuff on your character. If it is not active it is ready to be procced.

Idol of Yogg-Saron is a common question when looking to maximize damage on your Shadow Priest. In particular, getting this to proc at better points can be advantageous if you can play around it cleanly, particularly in Mythic+ environments.

Every time you generate a Shadowy Apparitions you generate a stack of Idol of Yogg-Saron. Be sure to track these stacks so that you know when you are about to proc the pet. Unfortunately, we do not have too much control over this as so many of our spells generate Apparitions, but you can choose to sacrifice your damage at the end of one pack to try and game the proc to happen at the start of the next one.

Crucially if you are trying to game the proc of Idol of Yogg-Saron you need to think about this earlier than you might think. Due to Tormented Spirits proccing randomly while you have your Shadow Word: Pain active you can easily proc this a few times if you are trying to save for the next pull. As such, waiting at 24 stacks is never suggested; you would always need to plan earlier than that, likely around 20 stacks.

Note that while you can cancel the buff for building up Idol of Yogg-Saron this is almost never going to be worth it from an overall DPS perspective. Be extra careful with these micro-optimizations of the spell, as if done incorrectly, you can lose quite a lot of damage.