Shadow Priest DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.2.6

The Shadow Priest rotation revolves around a modern version of a builder/spender style of play that also mixes in damage-over-time effects. You use abilities that generate Insanity and then spend that Insanity on Devouring Plague.

The video version of this guide is also available if you would like to watch along as I talk about Shadow Priest.

If the rotations below seem overwhelming, you might benefit from visiting our Beginner page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.

The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.

If you are completely new to Shadow and need more information on your abilities, you can check out our Spell Summary page.

Shadowform is an aura that increases your spell damage by 10%. You should always have Shadowform active (you only need to activate it once, and it will remain active until you die; entering Voidform will temporarily deactivate it but then automatically reactivate it when you exit Voidform).

Use the buttons below to select your talents to see how that changes the rotation:

Active Talents	Passive Talents
Halo	Surge of Insanity
Divine Star	Unfurling Darkness
Mind Spike	Distorted Reality
Void Eruption	Inescapable Torment
Dark Ascension	Mind Devourer
Shadow Crash	Deathspeaker
Mindbender	Idol of C'Thun
Void Torrent	Shadowy Insight
	Insidious Ire
	Idol of Yogg-Saron

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 roughly up to 12 targets. Use Shadow Crash to help with this.
2. Maintain uptime of Devouring Plague on a single target without capping on Insanity.
3. Maintain uptime of Devouring Plague on as many targets as possible that will live the full duration.
4. Use short cooldown Insanity generating spells to make sure you do not lose uses of them. This includes spells like Shadow Word: Death, Mind Blast, Void Bolt, and Surge of Insanity procs.
5. 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.

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

The single-target rotation relies on the following priority system of abilities, depending on which phase you are in.

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 and you do not need to hold for adds coming in less than 15 seconds. 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 Void Eruption to enter Voidform. Make sure Mind Blast charges are on cooldown before entering Voidform.
6. Cast Dark Ascension.
7. Cast Power Infusion.
8. Sync any trinkets you have with your cooldowns (see below).
9. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague. Maintain maximum uptime on the DoT without capping on Insanity.
10. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague. Maintain maximum uptime on the DoT without capping on Insanity. You can cast regardless during Voidform if it will let you cast another Void Bolt before Voidform expires.
11. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague. Spread this DoT around to all available targets with Distorted Reality while continuing to focus targets that have the DoT active. Maintain maximum uptime on the DoT without capping on Insanity.
12. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Mindbender is active with the Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 2pc or you have the Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc regardless of the state of Mindbender.
13. 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).
14. Cast Void Bolt.
15. Cast Shadow Word: Death if still available and you have the Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 2pc equipped.
16. Cast Shadow Crash with the Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc if you have 10 or more stacks of Death's Torment and you are not holding for upcoming adds.
17. Cast Shadow Word: Pain with the Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc if you have 10 or more stacks of Death's Torment and Shadow Crash is unavailable, and you are not holding for adds.
18. Cast Shadow Word: Pain with the Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc if you have 10 or more stacks of Death's Torment.
19. Cast Mind Blast.
20. Cast Mind Blast if Mind Devourer is not active.
21. Cast Void Torrent if you are not saving for adds coming soon, and Devouring Plague will last for at least 2.5 seconds or you are facing multiple targets. You can interrupt the channel ONLY if Shadow Word: Death is available and Mindbender is active with the Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 2pc.
22. Cast Void Torrent if you are not saving for adds coming soon, and Devouring Plague will last for at least 2.5 seconds, or you are facing multiple targets.
23. Cast Vampiric Touch to consume Unfurling Darkness.
24. Cast Mind Spike: Insanity.
25. Full channel Mind Flay: Insanity.
26. Cast Mindgames.
27. Cast Halo if it will hit at least 2 targets.
28. Cast Mind Spike.
29. Cast Mind Flay. Interrupt this for any other action as it becomes available.
30. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Divine Star, Shadow Crash (if adds are not coming soon), or finally, 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.

Any on-use trinket offering a stat bonus should ideally be used inside your cooldowns to get the most benefit. Any exceptions to this are noted below.

1. Use Nymue's Unraveling Spindle right before casting Mindbender.
2. Use Belor'relos, the Suncaller if adds are up, or save it if they are coming in soon. Otherwise, use it as you cast Mindbender as an off-GCD action. Make sure you are within melee range of all targets. If you are using double on-use, hold this as your second on-use trinket and just use it off-GCD when possible. Our cooldowns do not buff its damage whatsoever.
3. Use Darkmoon Deck Box: Inferno (and other Darkmoon trinkets) on cooldown.
4. Spoils of Neltharus - Sync with Power Infusion, do not fish for a particular buff.
5. DEFAULT: Sync all other trinkets with Voidform, Dark Ascension, or Power Infusion. If the cooldown is a minute or less, use it on CD. Lastly, use it if the fight will end before your cooldowns will come back up.

For on-use trinkets that ONLY deal damage, you can use them on cooldown, starting with Patch 10.1; Shadow Priest has no modifiers to buff them. The exception is when using double on-use, where you do not want to use a damaged on-use trinket if it means you cannot use a stat on-use trinket with cooldowns later. When in doubt, you can sim your character and see how the sim uses the trinket.

If you are using Balefire Branch you should try and weave in a Power Word: Shield cast in pre-pull to limit taking damage while the trinket is active.

To start the opener, your first spell will change, given your talents and the situation. Use the priority list below to know your FIRST spell to open combat with. This will adjust with your talents selected above:

If you would like a more comfortable opener, you can use a longer opener to pool Insanity with Shadow Crash, Halo, and Divine Star. The goal of this is to get to your first Devouring Plague faster than you would normally. This is not a massive DPS gain, but it is there if you want to min/max. These spells should be used so they do not pull you into combat (specifically Divine Star and Shadow Crash). Note that based on talents, this is how SimC behaves.

1. Divine Star x4 = 24 Insanity over 45 seconds (see note below)
2. Shadow Crash x2 + Divine Star x2 = 24 Insanity over 20 seconds
3. Shadow Crash x2 + Halo x1 = 22 Insanity over 20 seconds
4. Shadow Crash x2 = 12 Insanity over 20 seconds
5. Halo x1 = 10 Insanity over 1.5 seconds

With Divine Star, you can technically cast it more than 3 times in the opener to get even more Insanity, but this requires 45 seconds of planning pre-pull. Casting it 4 times (45 seconds) gives you enough Insanity to have Devouring Plague be your first global after Dark Ascension.

Another micro-optimization is playing more around Twist of Fate. Particularly in the opener, getting this buff active for the start of an encounter, especially if lusting on pull can be valuable. One way to try and proc this is by speccing into Renew and/or Prayer of Mending and casting this on tanks before the pull starts. This is a pretty low-effort way to potentially get procs of this on pull. You can even use this trick elsewhere, like during downtime or intermissions, to try and proc it as well.

Aside from that, here are your normal opener activities:

1. As a Blood Elf you can use Arcane Torrent before pulling, do not use this during your rotation after this.
2. Make sure Shadowform is active.
3. Make sure Power Word: Fortitude is active.
4. Pre-cast Power Word: Shield if using Balefire Branch.

This opener assumes you started with 10 Insanity from casting Halo pre-pull.

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 as noted above.

1. 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.
2. Pre-Cast Vampiric Touch
3. Use Nymue's Unraveling Spindle if equipped.
4. Cast Shadowfiend.
5. Cast Mindbender.
6. Use Belor'relos, the Suncaller if equipped with the Mindbender cast.
7. Cast Shadow Word: Death.
8. Cast Mind Blast twice.
9. Cast Void Eruption.
10. Use your combat potion Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power.
11. 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.
12. Use any on-use trinkets that you may be running.
13. Cast Devouring Plague.
14. Cast Mind Blast.
15. Cast Void Bolt.
16. Cast Devouring Plague.
17. Cast Mind Blast twice.
18. Cast Mind Blast.
19. Cast Void Bolt.
20. Cast Void Torrent.
21. Cast Devouring Plague.
22. Cast Shadow Word: Death
23. Cast Void Bolt.
24. Cast Devouring Plague.
25. Cast Mind Blast.
26. Cast Mind Spike: Insanity.
27. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
28. Cast Mind Blast.
29. Cast Void Bolt.
30. Cast Devouring Plague.
31. Cast Mind Blast.
32. Cast Devouring Plague.
33. Cast Mindgames.
34. Continue with the priority list in the top section above.

This opener assumes you only started with 10 Insanity from casting Halo pre-pull. Depending on if you have Shadow Crash, Divine Star, Bloodlust or Arcane Torrent you will adjust when you cast the first Devouring Plague after you get into Dark Ascension. As soon as you get enough Insanity, you should cast that first Devouring Plague; there is no need to strictly follow the below list.

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 as noted above.

1. 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.
2. Pre-Cast Vampiric Touch
3. Use Nymue's Unraveling Spindle if equipped.
4. Cast Shadowfiend.
5. Cast Mindbender.
6. Use Belor'relos, the Suncaller if equipped with the Mindbender cast.
7. Cast Dark Ascension.
8. Use your combat potion Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power.
9. 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.
10. Use any on-use trinkets that you may be running if you have not already.
11. Cast Devouring Plague.
12. Cast Shadow Word: Death.
13. Cast Devouring Plague.
14. Cast Mind Blast twice.
15. Cast Void Torrent.
16. Cast Devouring Plague.
17. Cast Mind Blast.
18. Cast Mind Spike: Insanity.
19. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
20. Cast Mindgames.
21. Cast Mind Blast.
22. Cast Devouring Plague.
23. Cast Mind Spike: Insanity.
24. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
25. Continue with the priority list in the top section above.

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. The rotation list above is setup for AoE as well; just make sure you select the proper talents.

The below video should also be helpful going over examples with some common talent setups in AoE.

Use the following list as a cheat sheet for the critical target swaps:

• 2+ targets: Start using Halo above non- Surge of Insanity fillers. It can also be used on a single target, but not significant to drop it or only use it for healing at that target count.
• 8+ targets: Drop high priority Mind Blast 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.
• 12+ targets: Threshold for manually DoTing targets, not worth ever going over this (including the 8 from Shadow Crash).

When fighting more than a single target, your rotation will look almost identical, except you will be using any tools you can to maintain Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain on both 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.

The other change is when using Distorted Reality you can spread Devouring Plague to as many targets as possible; otherwise, continue to only keep it active on a single priority target.

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.

Inside of Amirdrassil or through the Revival Catalyst You can craft up to 5 pieces of tier slot gear. This gear gives you unique effects after having 2 or 4 pieces equipped:

• 2-piece set bonus: Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 2pc
• 4-piece set bonus: Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc

This tier set does change up several parts of our rotation depending on which part of the set you currently have equipped. These changes are all inside of the rotation priority list above, in addition to listed out below.

• Shadow Word: Death becomes just about your top priority action (aside from spending Insanity) when you have the 4-piece set bonus OR Mindbender is active, and you only have the 2-piece set bonus with Inescapable Torment talented.
• The 4-piece set bonus also requires that you weave in either Shadow Crash or Shadow Word: Pain to spend your stacks of Death's Torment. If you are fighting more than one target, you should only spend these stacks on Shadow Crash, even if you cap stacks. On a single target, you should avoid capping stacks and use Shadow Word: Pain to spend your stacks only when Shadow Crash is NOT> available.

Simply put, you should prefer spending stacks of Death's Torment on Shadow Crash if you have it talented, even in single target. While you do not take Shadow Crash specifically in single target, you will often have it in these cases if the fight has a sporadic amount of adds, but you are currently just fighting the boss. Shadow Crash is only ahead of Shadow Word: Pain because it saves you the global you would cast in the future manually re-applying your DoTs with Vampiric Touch. In terms of raw damage, spending stacks on Shadow Word: Pain is better only in pure single target.

Use the simplified priority below when you are talented into Shadow Crash for pure single target. Anything more than a single target will strongly prefer Shadow Crash unless you are capping stacks.

1. Cast Shadow Crash when you have 10+ stacks of Death's Torment and you are not saving for upcoming adds.
2. Cast Shadow Word: Pain when you have 10+ stacks of Death's Torment and you are either saving Shadow Crash for adds, or it is currently on cooldown to avoid overcapping stacks.

Note that if the target is going to die in less than the time of your current DoTs, you should spend your stacks on Shadow Word: Pain for maximizing single target damage.

It is important to note that the Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc can only be consumed by hard casting Shadow Word: Pain. This means even with Misery Vampiric Touch will NOT consume the set bonus stacks. These stacks only apply to the initial damage of Shadow Word: Pain and have no interaction with the periodic DoT component.

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.

Now that Devouring Plague is our only Insanity spender, I wanted to briefly cover multi-target. The way you play with this strictly depends on if you are playing with Distorted Reality or not. When you are NOT using Distorted Reality, you should maintain Devouring Plague on just a single target, even in AoE. Pick the one that is the most important to focus down. You could spread this if there are more than one big priority targets you care about, but that is almost always an overall DPS loss. By casting more Devouring Plagues with Mind's Eye, you will lose overall uptime of the DoT, leading to a loss because you will be casting more spells when the target does not have the DoT active. This is why, with Mind's Eye, you should not spread Devouring Plague.

Alternatively when using Distorted Reality you should spread Devouring Plague around to targets that will live for at least half the duration. This can be hard to know from just looking at health, but generally, you can just spread this blindly. You can still tunnel on one target, but that will typically be a DPS loss with this talent compared to just using Mind's Eye instead. When doing this, make sure you are still casting spells on targets with Devouring Plague active for the Mastery benefit. Even while spreading, you should still have it active on at least 1 enemy.

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 your damage in 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+.

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.

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.

Both 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 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 and Mindbender 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 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 as a Shadow Priest, so coordinating this benefit with others in your group can be challenging.

Since these buffs are almost always within 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.

Depending on the race you decide to play, you will get various amounts of spells that you can use to buff your character further. Unfortunately, not all of these are useful. Use this section if you are curious about how to use them in combat.

Note that as of writing, the DPS difference between the various racial buffs is anywhere between 1-2%. Because this is so small, picking a race just for the DPS output is generally not suggested. Often, you will get more value out of picking the one that has better non-DPS options, such as Goblin's Rocket Jump or Dwarf's Stoneform.

• Fireblood, Berserking, Blood Fury, and Ancestral Call should be synced up with Power Infusion to maximize damage.
• Lightforged Draenei's Light's Judgment should be a low-priority action above your fillers. It gets better with adds and is worth saving and using for them.
• Blood Elf's Arcane Torrent should only be used before combat; it is a DPS loss to use during combat.
• As a Zandalari Troll, I suggest sticking with Embrace of Pa'ku for your Embrace of the Loa.
• Nightborne's Arcane Pulse is not worth using for DPS purposes.
• Vulpera's Bag of Tricks is not worth using for DPS purposes.