Cataclysm Classic Shadow Priest Spell Summary

Shadow Priest has a wide arsenal of spells available to them. Knowing your important spells and when they are best suited to be used is a key part of performing well in any environment. The sections below aim to show you your most important spells by each category and give you a brief example of what each spell does.

As a Shadow Priest, you will be mainly dealing damage. These are all of your main damaging spells that you will want to focus on using.

• Mind Flay — Channels your target, dealing damage every second for three seconds.
• Mind Spike — One of the new spells you gain in Cataclysm. 1.5 second cast spell that deals split Shadowfrost damage to the target, but removes all of your damage-over-time debuffs from them. This spell is not part of your regular rotation as it removes your DoTs from the target and should only be used on adds with very low health.
• Shadow Word: Pain — Deals high damage-over-time. Your Shadow Word: Pain will be automatically refreshed by your Pain and Suffering talent when you cast Mind Flay. Shadow Word: Pain is dynamic, meaning it updates every time it is refreshed by Pain and Suffering rather than snapshotting.
• Vampiric Touch — Deals moderate damage-over-time and grants up to 10 group members Replenishment whenever you deal damage with Mind Blast while Vampiric Touch is applied to the target.
• Devouring Plague — Deals great damage and heals you for 15% of the damage it deals. You can only have this debuff on one target at a time.
• Mind Blast — Deals high damage to the target after a short cast. This has a low cooldown and deals great damage. Buffs 10 group members with Replenishment when you use Mind Blast on targets with your Vampiric Touch debuff active.
• Mind Sear — Channel into a target, dealing damage to all enemies around them. This can be cast on either a friendly target or an enemy, just not on yourself. The damage of Mind Sear has been more than doubled in Cataclysm, making this a very competitive form of AoE damage.
• Shadow Word: Death — Instantly deals moderate damage to the target, tripled against enemies below 25% health, and deals the same damage back to you. If the target dies from this spell, you will not take the damage. This spell is buffed by two of your chosen talents; Masochism will restore 10% of your maximum Mana whenever you take damage from your own Shadow Word: Death; and Mind Melt further increases the damage of Shadow Word: Death by 30% to targets below 25% health.

Shadow Priest has limited cooldowns available to them, with Cataclysm adding a couple of personal DPS abilities. The rest of your non-DPS cooldowns are typically used to help the raid through various means and should be used as required.

• Archangel — Consumes all stacks granted by the prerequisite talent Evangelism. When the stacks are consumed, you gain 5% of Mana and increases the damage done by your Mind Flay, Mind Spike, Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death by 4% for each stack. The Dark Archangel buff lasts 18 seconds and changes your rotation to focus on using the buffed spells and ignoring your damage-over-time debuffs entirely.
• Dispersion — 2-minute cooldown. Reduces your damage taken by 90% and restores 36% of your Mana back to you. Typically you will use this to negate a raid mechanic, but the Mana restoration can also be utilized to keep your Mana high.
• Shadowfiend — 5-minute cooldown. Deals decent damage and restores 3% of your maximum Mana every time it attacks. You will want to use this on cooldown for the increased damage. The Veiled Shadows talent reduces the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 1 minute; the cooldown can be reduced even further with a second talent Sin and Punishment, reducing the cooldown by 10 seconds each time your Mind Flay Crits.
• Divine Hymn — 8-minute cooldown. This is a major AoE healing cooldown. Ideally you will want to just DPS and not worry about this, but there are times where you will need to use this to help stabilize the raid's health.
• Hymn of Hope — 6-minute cooldown. This restores 2% Mana to 3 nearby allies with the lowest Mana overall and increases their maximum Mana by 15% temporarily. Ideally you will want to use this cooldown in conjunction with other Mana-restoring cooldowns, such as Shadowfiend, as the temporary 15% increase to maximum Mana amplifies the effectiveness of abilities that restore a percentage of your Mana pool. Try to coordinate this with your other raid members.

In addition to your main spells and cooldowns, you also have many utility spells that can be game changing when used in the proper scenario. Make sure you understand each of the spells listed below to fully take advantage of your entire spellbook.

• Leap of Faith — One of the new spells you gain in Cataclysm. Pull the target ally towards your location. A great cooldown to save a group member who is in a bad position or help someone catch up if they are falling behind.
• Dispel Magic — Can remove one magical buff from an enemy or two magic debuffs from yourself or an ally. Use this whenever someone in your group is afflicted with a dangerous magical debuff, or an enemy has a beneficial buff that will hamper your group.
• Mass Dispel — An AoE version of Dispel Magic that removes one magical debuff from up to 10 friendly targets, and one magical buff from up to 10 enemy targets. Can also remove stronger magical buffs that cannot be dispelled in other ways, such as Ice Block and Divine Shield.
• Cure Disease — Removes one Disease from an ally.
• Fear Ward — Makes a friendly target immune to the first fear used against them. Use this whenever you are facing enemies that will use a fear, ideally on the tank or yourself.
• Levitate — Allows your target to float above the ground, walk above water, and greatly reduce their falling speed. Glyph of Levitate removes the reagent cost of Levitate, making it only cost Mana.
• Shackle Undead — Shackles an Undead enemy in place, preventing them from moving, attacking, and casting; this crowd control will break if the target takes any damage. Use this if you ever need to crowd control an Undead enemy.
• Fade — Temporarily reduces your threat to 0. This is mostly useful when new adds have spawned as they might not have been picked up yet by the tank. Remember that this is temporary and you will regain the threat back after the effect ends.
• Mind Soothe — Reduces the aggro range of a Humanoid or Dragonkin mob, allowing you to more easily avoid aggroing them. This is mostly used for skipping certain trash groups in PvE content and preventing patrolling mobs from randomly walking into you and aggroing.

Buffs are an important part of any party or raid group as they greatly increase your abilities to tank, heal and deal damage as a whole. Make sure you keep your buffs up at all times to ensure the highest chance of success in whatever content you are in.

• Mind Quickening — Increases all group members Spell Haste by 5% while you are in Shadowform. Does not stack with other, similar buffs.
• Vampiric Embrace — Buffs the Shadow Priest only, causing your single-target Shadow damage to heal you for 6% of the damage dealt, and heal nearby party members for 3% of the damage dealt.
• Inner Fire — Personal buff only, increasing your Armor and Spell Power as long as this buff remains active. In Cataclysm this spell no longer has charges and can not be dispelled. Can be improved by picking the Inner Sanctum talent, adding 6% reduced spell damage taken.
• Inner Will — One of the new spells you gain in Cataclysm, a personal buff only. Increasing your movement speed by 10% and reduces the Mana costs of instant cast spells by 15%. Can be improved by picking the Inner Sanctum talent, adding 6% additional movement speed.
• Power Word: Fortitude — Buffs all nearby party and raid members, increasing their Stamina for one hour. The Mana cost of this spell can be reduced by 50% if using Glyph of Fortitude, which is useful if rebuffing a raid member in combat after they have been ressed.
• Shadow Protection — Buffs all nearby party and raid members, increasing their Shadow Resistance for one hour. This buff can have its duration increased by 10 minutes if using Glyph of Shadow Protection.

In addition to all the previously mentioned spells, Priests have a few more spells with very niche uses that are worth mentioning to help you fully understand your entire spellbook.

• Mana Burn — Burns a portion of the target's Mana based on your maximum Mana. Mostly only useful in PvP, but may have some uses in specific PvE situations.
• Mind Control — Take control of the mind of your target, controlling their movement and actions; only works on human targets. Doesn't have many uses in PvE content but can be useful when soloing content like quests or in dungeons.
• Psychic Scream — Fears up to 5 nearby enemies for 8 seconds. Mostly just a panic button if you are being attacked in melee range. Typically you will not want to use this in dungeons and raids expect as a last resort as it will send mobs in all different directions, possibly pulling additional trash.
• Holy Nova — Deals damage to all nearby enemies and heals nearby party members without causing any threat. Has some uses in dungeons as you can both DPS and heal at the same time with this spell, but overall is not a very strong spell.
• Resurrection — Simple res spell; brings an ally back to life outside of combat. Cataclysm also brings the new spell Mass Resurrection, which can be used to res your whole group at once instead of 1 player at a time.
• Mind Vision — Allows you to see through the point of view of your target. Mostly just a fun ability to let you scout and see things from a different perspective.