Mists of Pandaria Classic Shadow Priest Rotation and Cooldowns

If you have not already, we recommend reading the Spells Summary page first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page. While Shadow Priest is not the strongest DPS out there, it has a very fun and active playstyle, and excels ahead of the rest whenever a fight has multiple targets to apply damage-over-time to.

Shadow Orbs remain as a passive, and are still a staple part of the Shadow gameplay. Now you will generate 1 Shadow Orbs passively every 6 seconds, and an additional orb each time you use either Mind Blast or Shadow Word: Death. These Shadow Orbs are consumed to increase the damage of Devouring Plague greatly, giving you a builder-and-spender style of game play to enhance your damage.

The Shadow rotation largely revolves around keeping your damage-over-time debuffs applied at all times, and managing your Shadow Orbs, which need to be stacked up and spent to enhance your damage. You should always have Shadowform active while DPSing as Shadow.

1. Mind Spike Use on pull only with the pre-pull timer.
2. Shadow Word: Pain Apply and maintain on your target.
3. Vampiric Touch Apply and maintain on your target.
4. Devouring Plague Use only when you have 3 Shadow Orbs.
5. Mind Blast If you have less than 3 Shadow Orbs.
6. Shadow Word: Death Can only be used on enemies at or below 20% health; use if you have less than 3 Shadow Orbs. This should always be used twice in a row.
7. Mind Flay Deals additional damage while Devouring Plague plague is applied to a target. Use as a filler wherever your rotation has gaps. Cancel the channel if a higher priority spell becomes ready, or a DoT must be re-applied.

Shadow Priest has a varying rotation depending on the amount of targets you are facing. Below you can find the recommended AoE rotations depending on how many enemies you are facing.

This is where you will excel above all other classes, keeping damage-over-time up on multiple targets at a time. When facing 2-4 targets that will live for at least 15 seconds, follow this rotation.

1. Shadow Word: Pain apply and maintain to all targets that will live for the duration.
2. Vampiric Touch apply and maintain to all targets that will live for the duration.
3. Mind Flay use as a filler if Devouring Plague is up on a target.
4. Devouring Plague Keep this applied to the target with the most health; remember that it can only be on one target at a time.
5. Mind Blast if you have fewer than 3 Shadow Orbs.
6. Devouring Plague when you have 3 Shadow Orbs.
7. Shadow Word: Death use on low-health targets to get 3 Shadow Orbs.
8. Mind Sear or Mind Flay to fill if mobs are stacked or not.

Against 5 targets specifically, you will still want to maintain Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch on all targets before using Mind Sear. Nothing else is worth using here unless you need to move.

1. Shadow Word: Pain apply and maintain to all targets that will live for the duration.
2. Vampiric Touch apply and maintain to all targets that will live for the duration.
3. Mind Sear on a friendly melee target, such as the tank, to AoE all enemies.

Things are much simpler when fighting larger groups of enemies, simply use Mind Sear on a target, ally or enemy, in the middle of the group of enemies to AoE them all down.

Shadow Priest has limited cooldowns available to them, but luckily Priest has many to offer for the raid. You will use most of your cooldowns for yourself when needed, either to increase damage dealt or reduce your damage taken, but Mists of Pandaria add a couple of new tools to your kit.

• Void Shift 5-minute cooldown. New to Mists of Pandara, this swaps your health with the target. After swapping, if either player is below 25% of their maximum health, they will be healed to that amount. This is great for saving someone who is about to die, as long as you are safe too!
• Vampiric Embrace 3-minute cooldown. Causes you to heal yourself and nearby injured allies for 50% of all single-target Shadow damage dealt. The healing is evenly split between all injured allies and lasts for 15 seconds. Great for helping to top the raid up after major raid-wide damage.
• 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.
• Power Infusion Tier 5 Talent Choice; Can only be used on yourself now; 2-minute cooldown. Grants you a self-haste and mana-reduction buff that also increases your damage dealt.
• Shadowfiend 3-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, as you do not need the Mana it gives.
• 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.