Shadow Priest DPS Amirdrassil Raid Guide — Season 4

Below, you can find class and spec-specific advice for every fight in Amirdrassil. If you are looking for a general overview of the Raid that is not spec-specific, check out our dedicated Amirdrassil, the Dream's Hope guides.

On this page, you will find Shadow Priest specific information to deal with each boss in the Amirdrassil raid. These are not complete encounter guides but specific tips for doing the bosses as a Shadow Priest.

This page assumes that you already understand most of the mechanics of each encounter. These can be found on the full raid guide, so what is contained here are details specifically tailored toward Shadow Priest and how you can deal with each fight as best as possible.

All recommendations are progression-based tips and will not necessarily be the best for an overall DPS ranking.

Shadow Priest has several defensive spells that you should plan to use and rotate throughout mechanics. You should opt to use the smaller cooldown spells often as needed with incoming mechanics and save bigger cooldowns like Dispersion for large incoming damage.

• Flash Heal with Protective Light talented.
• Power Word: Shield for a small absorb.
• Fade with Translucent Image talented.
• Desperate Prayer
• Dispersion

As a Shadow Priest, you want to generally sync up your cooldown together. The typical sequence for cooldowns is the following:

1. Use Nymue's Unraveling Spindle if equipped.
2. Shadowfiend or Mindbender
3. Use damage-only trinkets like Belor'relos, the Suncaller if equipped.
4. Void Eruption or Dark Ascension
5. Power Infusion
6. Other on-use trinkets like Spoils of Neltharus

Note that with Shadowfiend, it does not sync nicely with certain cooldowns, but you should still plan to use this on cooldown. For more information, check out the rotation page.

In addition to the general rotation, you want to keep in mind that your goal is to use your cooldowns as often as possible during an encounter. With that in mind, your secondary goal is to use them at the correct time.

I highly suggest using some Addon or WeakAura to track the estimated time to die of your target/boss target. Method Raid Tools has this as an option if you are already using this addon. By tracking time to die, if you know that you can only fit one more cycle of your cooldowns in before the boss dies, you can choose to hold these cooldowns to better line up with Twist of Fate, Bloodlust, or any other mechanic that would make burning cooldowns better.

• For this boss, we suggest the single target with Shadow Crash build.
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• Try to be somewhat liberal with defensive cooldowns during the intermission, especially if you are running far to soak Splintering Charcoal and debuff branches with Ember-Charred.

• Adds spawn pretty often in Phase 1, so you should plan to save all casts of Shadow Crash for add sets, even for the opener. You can save stacks of Death's Torment to quickly burst these down if needed.
• During the intermission, cast a few Renew or Prayer of Mending buffs on a few targets (ideally tanks) to try and get procs of Twist of Fate for when the intermission ends.
• The intermission will end once all the roots are broken; make sure to pay attention to this so you can prep your cooldowns going into the double damage vulnerability phase. If you are using Nymue's Unraveling Spindle you should aim to start the channel as the intermission ends to take advantage of the increased damage taken from the boss since it counts as being Immobilized and dips onto the vulnerability modifier.
• You should be able to use all cooldowns on pull and get them back in time for the intermission.

• On Mythic, there are larger adds that need to be focused down. Make sure you are ready to swap to these as they are about to spawn.
• Dispersion can be used in the intermission to easily debuff roots quickly. You are usually taking a good amount of ticking damage, so this doubles as a personal cooldown. Similarly, you can use clever uses of Leap of Faith to help an ally clear more branches as well.

1. Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
2. Neltharion's Call to Suffering
3. Ominous Chromatic Essence (All Allies)
4. Spoils of Neltharus
5. Whispering Incarnate Icon (At least a Healer or Tank)

For more information, please refer to our Gnarlroot guide.

While this fight is mostly single target, I suggest running Shadow Crash so you can easily DoT the Blistering Spear that spawn on players. If you are in a coordinated group, you should be able to overlap these circles just perfectly so that Shadow Crash will hit every single one. If these are too spread, I would just try and easily hit 2-3 to limit how many you need to manually DoT.

• For this boss, we suggest the single target with Shadow Crash build.
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• If you are targeted with Blistering Spear, make sure to use at least Fade or Desperate Prayer before it hits. You can also use Dispersion to overlap multiple circles on certain difficulties, but be cautious.
• Consider using Dispersion if targeted by Slicing Torment. This can make it much easier to dodge the circle with the increased movement speed. Note that the travel time on the jump is based on distance from the boss, so it is usually a good idea to use Dispersion to run far as well.
• Desperate Prayer should be used AFTER Flaying Torment is applied, and you are ready to help remove the debuff. Depending on the strategy, you might delay this, so be sure to do this at the right moment.
• After each intermission, the boss deals increased damage. This means it is more critical to have good defensive usage after each subsequent intermission. By the end of the fight, you should be quite liberal with uses of Fade.

• While the intermission can be hectic, you have plenty of time to dodge swirlies that spawn under your character. The delay is quite substantial , so as long as you are not stacked with someone, you should always be able to finish your current cast and stutter step to dodge afterward. The boss takes full damage during the intermissions, so you should continue to play as normal.
• Careful with Shadow Crash usage, particularly during the intermission. Spears are cast often and you always want to have it right when they spawn.

• Try to position yourself at a far enough distance away so that dodging Twisting Blade is easier.
• During the intermission, make sure you are mindful of your positioning so you do not get accidentally knocked back into a Marked for Torment circle. Soaking more than once will be deadly.
• Mass Dispel may be used to easily dispel off 5 stacks of the stun from soaking Hacking Torment.

1. Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
2. Neltharion's Call to Suffering
3. Ominous Chromatic Essence (All Allies)
4. Spoils of Neltharus
5. Whispering Incarnate Icon (At least a Healer or Tank)

For more information, please refer to our Igira guide.

• For this boss, we suggest the single target build.
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• While soaking, Flood of the Firelands deals a relatively small amount of damage; shortly after, the boss will channel Serpent's Fury. This is your best candidate to use your Fade and/or Desperate Prayer to help mitigate this damage.

• No specific timings to mention.

• Note that Nymue's Unraveling Spindle does increased damage to this boss as it counts as being Immobilized. This means you should almost certainly use the trinket if you have one.
• When soaking Flood of the Firelands, be sure to position yourself so that you get knocked back in the correct direction. The direction is determined based on the position of your character and the center of the soak.

1. Nymue's Unraveling Spindle
2. Neltharion's Call to Suffering
3. Ominous Chromatic Essence (All Allies)
4. Whispering Incarnate Icon (At least a Healer or Tank)
5. Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart

For more information, please refer to our Volcoross guide.

During this encounter, you will need to pay attention to which boss you are focusing on. They all need to die within a few seconds of each other, or they will full-heal. As such, you should choose the build on this fight that is easiest for you to execute these target swaps. Distorted Reality generally makes managing Devouring Plague easier in multi-target, especially since it lets you spread the DoT for more overall damage.

• For this boss, we suggest the multi-target council build.
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• Be sure to use a defensive if you are ever soaking Barreling Charge. Depending on how many people are also soaking Fade or Desperate Prayer should be enough, or if it is very few people consider using Dispersion.

• No specific timings to mention.

• Be sure to pay attention to boss health to kill them as evenly as possible.
• Positioning is CRUCIAL for this boss. You need to be within 40 yards of all 3 of the bosses in order for Psychic Link cleave to function. Failure to do so could be catastrophic for your damage.
• Make sure to have good boss frames set up so that you can clearly tell remaining duration on your Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain. You take Shadow Crash on this fight to make refreshing a bit easier. You should always try and hit at least 2 of the bosses with every Shadow Crash cast, ideally empowered with stacks of Death's Torment. You should avoid spending stacks on Shadow Word: Pain.
• As a ranged spec, you should generally be focusing Pip or Aerwynn over Urctos. This boss should fall naturally to cleave since he should always be tanked on one of the other two.

1. Ominous Chromatic Essence (All Allies)
2. Neltharion's Call to Suffering
3. Spoils of Neltharus
4. Whispering Incarnate Icon (At least a Healer or Tank)
5. Tome of Unstable Power

For more information, please refer to our Council of Dreams guide.

• For this boss, we suggest the single target with Shadow Crash build.
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• Be sure to progressively use more defensive abilities for each cast of Raging Inferno as it does ramping damage for each subsequent cast.
• You should use at least Fade every time you soak Falling Embers in Phase 2.
• Pay attention in Phase 2 if you get targeted by Flash Fire. You should use Desperate Prayer and potentially a Flash Heal to help get this absorb off you quickly before you explode when it expires.

• Consider slightly delaying cooldowns around picking up the Blazing Coalescence orb. This does deal a bit of damage when picking up but also gives you increased critical strike chance for 10 seconds. The buff is not super important to plan around, but it is worth paying attention to these spawns around your cooldowns since they need to be soaked regardless. Only hold for a few seconds maximum to make sure you do not lose a use of your cooldowns.
• Make sure to coordinate with your group based on your Bloodlust timings. Most groups will save this for the second phase, so you want to be sure to have cooldowns ready as you phase the boss.
• While the boss does his mini-intermission you should avoid using Shadow Crash to make sure you have it for the set of Treants that will spawn shortly after.

• Once the Treants are killed and are no longer hostile, you can Leap of Faith these adds out of the fire so that they can be healed more quickly.
• If you are targeted by Scorching Roots be sure to not get hit and kite this effectively so your group members can easily purify it with the Seed of Life.
• DPSing while performing the Seed of Life mechanics will be quite challenging. If you are assigned to do this, I would plan your cooldowns before or after this.
• Be sure to get a Shadow Crash ready as the Treants are spawning in Phase 1, there are circles on the ground that will show before they spawn you can plan the Shadow Crash hit for. In Phase 2, you will just need to manually DoT these as they spawn on the edges of the room. Be sure to stay within 40 yards of all targets to maximize Psychic Link damage.

1. Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
2. Neltharion's Call to Suffering
3. Ominous Chromatic Essence (All Allies)
4. Spoils of Neltharus
5. Whispering Incarnate Icon (At least a Healer or Tank)

For more information, please refer to our Larodar guide.

Consider using Silence if your group desperately needs the extra interrupt. You can either drop Mental Fortitude (defensive loss) or Dark Evangelism (DPS loss).

• For this boss, we suggest the single target build.
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• If you know you have to cross a line, it is a good idea to use something to mitigate the damage of the DoT.
• After the add burn, consider stacking up in melee to get more group healing or even layering in a defensive cooldown.
• Can use Dispersion to quickly drop off Barrier Blossom at the edge of the room.

• Phase timings on this boss can be awkward with our 1m/2m cooldowns but do you best to use these on cooldown as to not de-sync them. You can also hold your Dark Ascension for 5-10s to have it for the start of the add phase if you need to add damage there instead.

• Note that Nymue's Unraveling Spindle does increased damage to this boss as it counts as being Immobilized. This means you should almost certainly use the trinket if you have one.
• Be sure to constantly be on the lookout for soaking flowers that deal Surging Growth damage to the whole raid.
• While fighting the Cycle Warden, Nymue is effectively immune, so you should just focus the add and not worry about the boss.

1. Nymue's Unraveling Spindle
2. Neltharion's Call to Suffering
3. Ominous Chromatic Essence (All Allies)
4. Whispering Incarnate Icon (At least a Healer or Tank)
5. Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart

For more information, please refer to our Nymue guide.

• For this boss, we suggest the single target build.
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• Depending on the strategy used, you can save Desperate Prayer to help heal off your Overheated debuff quickly. You might be stacking with group members for this, and if so, you typically want all of these to be healed off at once, so be cautious.

This encounter will likely be one of the first walls you face in Mythic difficulty. As such, there are a few modifications you can consider to optimize your character defensively, even at the cost of some throughput.

Consider using this version of the single target talent tree that maximizes your defensive value at the cost of some DPS:

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• Strictly speaking, you should avoid having to press Power Word: Shield for movement and use other DPS abilities to stutter step, but often points in this fight, the extra defensive value cannot be ignored. Due to this reason Void Shield can be particularly nice.
• Depending on your cooldown timings you can still consider using Vampiric Embrace, although typically when we are cooldowning the raid is not as in need of healing. For this reason Sanguine Teachings makes for a decent alternative that helps us self-heal more throughout the fight.
• Manipulation and Shattered Perceptions are quite a minimal loss in damage (less than 0.5% DPS), so on prog we consider dropping these points for more defensive value elsewhere.
• Angel's Mercy and the pathing points of Unwavering Will are also optional but can help with healing off an extra Cauterizing Wound depending on timings.

In addition to talent changes consider the following optimizations for gear:

• Consider removing as much self-damage as possible coming from your gear. The common ones are Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch, Belor'relos, the Suncaller, and Desperate Invoker's Codex.
• If you are in dire need of more defensive power, consider using Undulating Sporecloak or Choker of Shielding.
• Instead of choosing to gear for extra Critical Strike after getting good amounts of Haste and Mastery go for Versatility instead. See the secondary stat page for more info on these thresholds.
• Most of the lethal damage in this encounter is not reduced by Avoidance. For this reason, you should consider using Leech enchants: Enchant Cloak - Regenerative Leech and Enchant Bracer - Devotion of Leech.

• Typically, you will want to save cooldowns for the intermission phase, where you will get significantly increased damage from Ignited Essence. You have 5 orbs to collect each intermission, and if you fail to collect any, the boss instead gets the buff. The timings for the intermission after you pick up your orbs is roughly ~1:10, ~2:50, ~4:30, and ~6:00.
• I would suggest the following for cooldowns if your group decides to Bloodlust on pull.
  • 0:00 - All cooldowns + Bloodlust
  • ~1:10 (int 1) - Dark Ascension
  • 2:00 - All cooldowns
  • 3:00 - Dark Ascension and Shadowfiend
  • ~4:30 (int 3) - All cooldowns
  • 5:30 - Dark Ascension
  • 6:30 (enrage) - All cooldowns
• I would suggest the following for cooldowns if your group decides to Bloodlust FIRST intermission.
  • 0:00 - Dark Ascension and Shadowfiend
  • ~1:10 (int 1) - All cooldowns + Bloodlust
  • ~2:50 (int 2) - Dark Ascension
  • ~4:30 (int 3) - All cooldowns
  • ~6:00 (int 4) - Dark Ascension
• I would suggest the following for cooldowns if your group decides to Bloodlust THIRD intermission.
  • 0:00 - All cooldowns
  • ~1:10 (int 1) - Dark Ascension
  • 2:00 - All cooldowns
  • 3:00 - Dark Ascension and Shadowfiend
  • ~4:30 (int 3) - All cooldowns + Bloodlust
  • 5:30 - Dark Ascension
  • 6:30 (enrage) - All cooldowns
• I would suggest the following for cooldowns if your group decides to Bloodlust FOURTH intermission.
  • 0:00 - All cooldowns
  • 1:00 - Dark Ascension
  • 2:00 - All cooldowns
  • 3:00 - Dark Ascension and Shadowfiend
  • 4:00 - All cooldowns
  • 5:00 - Dark Ascension
  • ~6:00 (int 4) - All cooldowns + Bloodlust

• Before the intermission starts, you will get knocked back and spawn 5 Ignited Essence orbs you need to soak.

1. Neltharion's Call to Suffering
2. Ominous Chromatic Essence (All Allies)
3. Spoils of Neltharus
4. Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
5. Whispering Incarnate Icon (At least a Healer or Tank)

For more information, please refer to our Smolderon guide.

• For this boss, we suggest the single target with Shadow Crash build.
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• Be sure to use something if you are running out with Fiery Growth. This DoT ticks quite hard as you are waiting for your dispel.

• Generally speaking, the fight works out naturally well for our 2-minute cooldowns if you use things on cooldown as you get them. You should always have these for every intermission burn phase.
• Make sure you prep Shadow Crash, Halo, and any on use damage trinkets like Belor'relos, the Suncaller for when the roots are spawning.

• Can coordinate Mass Dispel to help the healers out or dispel your bomb when convenient. Note that you should not dispel all the bombs on Mythic as this will instantly wipe you.
• Note that Fade with Phantasm does NOT work for breaking the roots, only Dispersion. Generally speaking I would avoid planning on using Dispersion and save it for life-or-death situations.

1. Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
2. Neltharion's Call to Suffering
3. Ominous Chromatic Essence (All Allies)
4. Spoils of Neltharus
5. Belor'relos, the Suncaller

For more information, please refer to our Tindral guide.

Note that on Mythic difficulty, it might be worth to path into Void Shift to help heal the giant tree add depending on your healing composition.

• For this boss, we suggest the single target with Shadow Crash build.
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• Use Fade when targeted with Firestorm. Can optionally use Dispersion as a big defensive if you also need the movement to drop it in a good spot at the edge of the room.
• As you run away from Dream Rend casts be sure to at least use Fade to help mitigate the drop-off damage.
• During the Incarnate intermission, when you are trying to break the shield, be sure to pop something before soaking any Shadowflame Orbs that are about to hit the boss. There is no need to run out to soak these; you should let them come to you in melee since if the boss phases, all unsoaked orbs are despawned.
• Layer in any spare defensives you have during the Phase 3 casts of Apocalypse Roar.

• After using all of your cooldowns on pull, consider holding subsequent uses of them as the boss gets closer to 70%. At that point, he will fly to the center of the room and apply Corrupt, a large shield that needs to be burned quickly. Depending on your progression, having cooldowns for this could be crucial for your group (particularly on Mythic difficulty).
• During Phase 2, you should aim to be in range of the two Infernals that spawn at all times and use these two targets to cleave off of any small adds that get DoTs cast on them via Shadow Crash. These generally do not live very long, so spending a lot of time manually DoTing is typically not worth the time.

• Coordinate with healers to use Mass Dispel to dispel up to 5 active Aflame debuffs on the raid. You can use a WeakAura to help indicate how many are currently active as well.
• Aside from Silence and Psychic Horror (if you choose to talent it) Shadow Priest has no group CC that is helpful on the smaller adds during Phase 2.

1. Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
2. Neltharion's Call to Suffering
3. Ominous Chromatic Essence (All Allies)
4. Spoils of Neltharus
5. Whispering Incarnate Icon (At least a Healer or Tank)

For more information, please refer to our Fyrakk guide.