Mists of Pandaria Classic Shadow Priest Talent Builds

Mists of Pandaria introduces a new talent system, where instead of filling out points on a tree, you are given several distinct sets of choices between abilities. Starting at level 15 and every 15 levels after, you will unlock a new row of talents, which will always be a choice between 3 abilities centered around a new theme each row. The Warrior talent choices are identical between every specialization, while most of the spec identity is included with the default passives and abilities you get from selecting the specialization and leveling up.

Recommended option: Void Tendrils.

This tier of talents offers some form of crowd control, making all three choices fairly useless for PvE content.

• Void Tendrils — Summons Shadowy tendrils out of the ground, rooting up to 5 nearby enemies; the tendrils can be killed to break the root.
• Psyfiend — Summons a Psyfiend that stands in place for 10 seconds and fears nearby enemies every 2 seconds. Has low health and can be killed.
• Dominate Mind — Charms an enemy, controlling their actions for a limited time.

Recommended option: Angelic Feather.

This tier of talents offers movement speed utility buffs, allowing you to speed up yourself and your allies.

• Body and Soul — Players targeted by Power Word: Shield or Leap of Faith by 60% for 4 seconds.
• Angelic Feather — Place a feather at the targeted area; allies that touch the feather will gather it, gaining 80% increased movement speed for 6 seconds. Stores up to 3 charges. This talent is overpowered and should always be taken.
• Phantasm — When you use Fade, you remove all movement impairing effects from yourself, and your movement speed is unhindered for 5 seconds.

Recommended option: Solace and Insanity.

This tier offers upgrades to existing abilities, replacing them with more powerful versions.

• From Darkness, Comes Light — Periodic damage from your Vampiric Touch has a 20% chance to cause your next Mind Spike to not consume your damage-over-time effects, become instant cast, cost no mana, and deal 50% additional damage; stores up to 2 charges max.
• Mindbender — Improves your Shadowfiend, increasing its damage output and mana return.
• Solace and Insanity — Improves Mind Flays damage against targets debuffed with Devouring Plague by 33% per Shadow Orb used.

Recommended option: Angelic Bulwark.

This tier of talents offers personal defensive options, improving your survivability greatly.

• Desperate Prayer — Instantly heals yourself for 30% of your max health.
• Spectral Guise — Temporarily enter stealth, leaving behind a copy of your charater at the location where you vanished. While stealthed, any action taken with end the stealth, or if the copy of your character is directly attacked 3 times.
• Angelic Bulwark — Anytime a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your max health; this can only occur once every 90 seconds.

Recommended option: Twist of Fate.

This tier of talents focuses on further improving your damage capabilities.

• Twist of Fate — After damaging or healing a target below 35% health, you deal 15% increased damage and healing for 10 seconds.
• Power Infusion — Infuses the Priest with power, increasing spell haste by 20%, all damage by 5%, and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%; lasts 20 seconds.
• Divine Insight — Periodic damage from your Shadow Word: Pain has a 5% chance to reset the cooldown on Mind Blast and cause your next Mind Blast within 12 seconds to be instant cast and cost no mana.

Recommended option: Halo.

This tier of talents will give you a new rotational ability, which can be used either defensively or offensively.

• Cascade — Launches a Holy bolt at the targeted ally or enemy which grows in power as it travels, dealing more damage or healing the further that it traveled. It will then split, forking out to hit additional allies and enemies.
• Divine Star — Fires a Divine Star in front of you, causing damage to all enemies and healing to all allies within its path. After reaching its destination it will return to you, also dealing damage and healing to all targets in its path.
• Halo — Creates a ring of Holy energy around you that quickly expands and grows in power, dealing damage to enemies and healing allies in the area. Gives you an additional off-heal spell and AoE damage.

Glyphs were changed in a major way during Mists of Pandaria. Primal Glyphs have been removed, whilst minor glyphs have been changed to be entirely cosmentic changes, offering no combat improvements. For this reason, we will only be recommending Major Glyphs, as they still offer in-combat power; you are free to use any Minor Glyphs that you desire with this build!

• Glyph of Vampiric Embrace — Improves your Vampiric Embrace, doubling the amount it heals but reducing its duration by 5 seconds. This is great to help with off-healing after a large raid-wide attack goes off.
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• Glyph of Fade — Gives you a 10% damage reduction whenever you use Fade. Gives you an additional defensive cooldown on a VERY squishly class.
• Glyph of Dispersion — While this only reduces Dispersions cooldown by 15 seconds, your options are limited and this has major potential upsides when handling raid mechanics.