Shadow Priest DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

These goals describe the core priorities that drive the priority list below.

1. Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active at all times. Use Tentacle Slam to apply/refresh if available.
2. Maintain Shadow Word: Madness uptime without capping Insanity.
3. Use short-cooldown Insanity generators (e.g., Void Volley, Mind Blast) to avoid wasting charges.
4. Use long cooldowns (e.g., Void Torrent, Halo) when they won't cause you to lose short-cooldown uses.
5. Fill with Mind Flay when nothing higher priority is available.

FAQShould I Always Finish a Mind Flay Cast?

No, you should not. Mind Flay is regarded as a filler spell, which means it is only used when nothing else more important can be cast. You typically want to start thinking about recasting Mind Flay about halfway through the channel. Mind Flay: Insanity is only 1 GCD long and thus cannot be ended early.

FAQHow do I play around Maddening Tentacles?

The best way to play around Maddening Tentacles with Tentacle Slam is to to remember this rule of thumb: When Tentacle Slam and Shadow Word: Madness are both available, ALWAYS Tentacle Slam BEFORE casting Shadow Word: Madness. Check out the cooldown section below for more information.

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

WARNING: Tentacle Slam is not selected in the table above, or you are not using an AoE preset. Please select this above to see an accurate advice for AoE. AoE content as a Shadow Priest without this will be torturous.

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.

During AoE, you will be using any tools you can to maintain Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain on several targets. You should try to maintain these DoTs on up to 12 targets roughly. Tentacle Slam should be able to cover 6 stacked targets. You can initially get up to 12 dotted but will need to manually refresh to supplement large target counts. Do not bother manually DoTing any target that will not last for at least 18 seconds.

As a Shadow Priest you should lean into your strength of priority target damage while dealing AoE by funnelling Shadow Word: Madness casts into the highest health priority target enemy. Check out the dedicated section on Shadow Word: Madness below to learn more.

1. If the pack is big enough, you should strongly consider using your cooldowns. Getting as many casts of your cooldown without losing uses of it or not having it for a boss is the biggest point of improvement most players can make in dungeons. This includes your major cooldowns like Voidform and Power Infusion.
2. Use Tentacle Slam to get your DoTs rolling. If this is on cooldown as you pull the pack, you need to do your best to DoT as many targets manually as possible while weaving in other spells.
3. At this point, your highest priority is maintaining DoTs. You should pick a main priority target to funnel in your Shadow Word: Madness into. This is typically the target with the highest amount of HP or a particularly powerful enemy.
4. Use short cooldown Insanity-generating spells to make sure you do not lose uses of them. This includes spells like Void Volley and Mind Blast.
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. This includes spells like Void Torrent Halo.
6. Fill with Mind Flay.

These openers assume no procs and are a brief snapshot of the rotation. Follow the priority list below for variations and proc-driven changes. Pre-buff Shadowform and Power Word: Fortitude before combat.

The placement of the trinkets selected in the table above are optimized below for just using a single on-use trinket. When using double on-use trinkets you should check with sims to know which order it prefers to use them in. Results in the table below will not always be accurate when selecting two on-use trinkets due to the trinket lock-out.

Before combat starts, make sure you have Shadowform and Power Word: Fortitude active.

1. Pre-Cast Vampiric Touch
2. Cast Tentacle Slam
3. Cast Shadow Word: Pain
4. Cast Halo.
5. Use Perfidious Projector.
6. Cast Voidform
7. Use your combat potion Tempered Potion.
8. 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.
9. Use Signet of the Priory.
10. Use Araz's Ritual Forge.
11. Use Lily of the Eternal Weave.
12. Use Astral Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity.
13. Use Sunblood Amethyst.
14. Cast Shadow Word: Madness.
15. Cast Void Volley.
16. Cast Void Torrent.
17. Continue with the priority list as described below.

FAQWhy do we open with Vampiric Touch?

It might seem odd to open with Vampiric Touch and then immediately Tentacle Slam but we want to make sure that we get the free Shadowy Apparitions generated from Maddening Tentacles.

Below is a condensed priority list to use as your baseline for single-target fights. For a gentler introduction, see the Beginner page.

1. Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active by using Vampiric Touch to apply both DoTs. Use Tentacle Slam if available when you need to refresh. Refresh these during the proper pandemic window (see below).
2. Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active. Use Tentacle Slam if available when you need to refresh Vampiric Touch. Refresh these during the proper pandemic window (see below).
3. Cast Halo.
4. Cast Voidform.
5. Cast Power Infusion.
6. Sync any trinkets you have with your cooldowns (see trinket section).
7. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target has an absorb shield for Devour Matter.
8. Spend Insanity on Shadow Word: Madness with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, or you are about to cap out on Insanity.
9. Spend Insanity on Shadow Word: Madness with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap out on Insanity, or Mind Devourer is active.
10. Cast Void Volley.
11. Cast Void Blast while available if Shadow Word: Madness is active or Entropic Rift is about to expire.
12. Cast Tentacle Slam if you are about to cap on charges or Shadow Word: Madness is not active.
13. Cast Void Torrent to open up Entropic Rift.
14. Cast Mind Blast.
15. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity if Shadow Word: Madness is active.
16. Cast Shadow Word: Death if any pet is active or the target is below 20% health.
17. Cast Shadow Word: Death if any pet is active or the target is below 35% health.
18. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health.
19. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 35% health.
20. Cast Mind Flay. Interrupt this for any other action as it becomes available.
21. Cast Shadow Word: Death for movement scenarios when you do not have other instant cast spells to press.

WARNING: Tentacle Slam is not selected in the table above, or you are not using an AoE preset. Please select this above to see an accurate example of an AoE opener. AoE content as a Shadow Priest without this will be torturous.

This is meant as a very basic example for opening on a pack in an AoE environment. The exact mob count and the way the mobs are grouped will naturally change what you will do from pull to pull, especially depending on your cooldown state. Use this as a starting point along with the general priority list.

The placement of the trinkets selected in the table above are optimized below for just using a single on-use trinket. When using double on-use trinkets you should check with sims to know which order it prefers to use them in. Results in the table below will not always be accurate when selecting two on-use trinkets due to the trinket lock-out.

Before combat starts, make sure you have Shadowform and Power Word: Fortitude active.

1. Cast Shadow Word: Pain on any targets as the pack is being grouped up with Fade.
2. Cast Vampiric Touch on any targets as the pack is being grouped up with Fade.
3. Cast Tentacle Slam to put up DoTs on targets once everything is grouped. Consider using both charges if the pack is big enough and you have them available.
4. Cast Halo once all mobs are engaged in combat and within range.
5. Use Perfidious Projector.
6. Cast Voidform
7. Use your combat potion Tempered Potion unless you want to save for an upcoming pack or boss.
8. 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.
9. Use Signet of the Priory.
10. Use Araz's Ritual Forge.
11. Use Lily of the Eternal Weave.
12. Use Astral Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity.
13. Use Sunblood Amethyst.
14. Cast Shadow Word: Madness.
15. Cast Void Volley.
16. Cast Void Torrent.
17. Continue with the Rotation as normal.

Note if the pack has more than 6 targets or they are too spread for Tentacle Slam You should do your best to pull with the tank by using Fade to not get aggro but still putting your DoTs up as the pack gets pulled.

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.

When dealing damage in AoE, it is crucial to make sure you are casting spells onto targets that have Shadow Word: Madness active. This ensures the damage from Psychic Link is being boosted as much as possible through spells like Mastery: Shadow Weaving or Insidious Ire.

1. Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active by using Vampiric Touch to apply both DoTs. Use Tentacle Slam if available when you need to refresh. Refresh these during the proper pandemic window (see below).
2. Keep Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain active. Use Tentacle Slam if available when you need to refresh Vampiric Touch. Refresh these during the proper pandemic window (see below).
3. Cast Halo.
4. Cast Voidform.
5. Cast Power Infusion.
6. Sync any trinkets you have with your cooldowns (see trinket section).
7. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target has an absorb shield for Devour Matter.
8. Spend Insanity on Shadow Word: Madness with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, or you are about to cap out on Insanity.
9. Spend Insanity on Shadow Word: Madness with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap out on Insanity, or Mind Devourer is active.
10. Cast Void Volley.
11. Cast Void Blast while available if Shadow Word: Madness is active or Entropic Rift is about to expire.
12. Cast Tentacle Slam if you are about to cap on charges or Shadow Word: Madness is not active.
13. Cast Void Torrent to open up Entropic Rift.
14. Cast Shadow Word: Pain on any targets if not active and will live for at least 12 seconds.
15. Cast Mind Blast.
16. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity if Shadow Word: Madness is active.
17. Cast Shadow Word: Death if any pet is active or the target is below 20% health.
18. Cast Shadow Word: Death if any pet is active or the target is below 35% health.
19. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health.
20. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 35% health.
21. Cast Mind Flay. Interrupt this for any other action as it becomes available.
22. Cast Shadow Word: Death for movement scenarios when you do not have other instant cast spells to press.

TipsSpreading Shadow Word: Pain without Misery

If you choose to play with Invoked Nightmare instead of Misery you will get a lot of benefit maintaining Shadow Word: Pain. With these builds it is essential that you use your time as the pack is gathering to apply these DoTs manually to as many targets as possible, and then once grouped you can use Tentacle Slam to get Vampiric Touch rolling as well. Once you have access to the new Apex Talents this should be enough to sustain you throughout most of the pull.

In addition to the AoE priority list above, keep in mind these important target swaps:

• 12+ targets: Threshold for manually DoTing targets, typically not worth ever going over this unless it is as the pack is being gathered with Fade (including the 6 from Tentacle Slam).

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.

Voidform is one of Shadow Priest's Major Cooldown abilities. This is a 2-minute cooldown that syncs nicely with Power Infusion and gives you access to Void Volley.

This cooldown gives you access to:

• Void Volley
• Spells deal damage as if Mastery: Shadow Weaving is fully stacked.
• +5% damage with Perfected Form ( Archon)
• +5% damage and 60 Insanity on cast with Improved Voidform
• Replaces Shadowform (cancelling out the damage increases)

Another key part of Voidform is the Ancient Madness talent which adds the buff extension mechanic to the spell. This talent increases the duration of Voidform for every cast of Shadow Word: Madness while in Voidform. The increased duration is reduced for each extension, and realistically caps around 10 extra seconds of duration.

In addition to our core cooldown choice, you also gain access to Power Infusion. This is a 2-minute cooldown spell, so it naturally syncs with every cast of Voidform. This cooldown simply gives you a Haste buff for the duration.

This becomes one of the most powerful external buffs in the game with Twins of the Sun Priestess talent in our class tree, allowing you to give someone else Power Infusion and then also get the buff yourself. This is critically important as a Shadow Priest when playing in a group environment, as this can easily be an extra 4-5% DPS increase for your group as a whole, depending on who you are buffing.

Shadow Priest is on somewhat strict timers and likes to use Power Infusion on cooldown. This can influence the choice we make on who we give Power Infusion to so that ideally we can continue casting it when it is best for us. Here is a list of strong targets for Power Infusion on 2-minute timers.

1. Affliction Warlock ( Soul Harvester)
2. Unholy Death Knight
3. Affliction Warlock ( Hellcaller)
4. Demonology Warlock ( Diabolist)
5. Fire Mage ( Sunfury)

Note that this list assumes equal play among players to give the buff to, which is not always a good assumption. Sometimes, it makes more sense to buff up the best person in your raid rather than simply buffing what is a good spec for Power Infusion.

If you are playing Archon you gain access to Halo. This spell is used on cooldown so it is important to know where it fits into the Rotation.

Since Halo has a cast time and is cast twice as often as Voidform, the cooldown will get slightly desynced over the course of a pull. In the opener we prefer to use this right before combat starts so that when you account for travel time it hits the boss just after it is engaged into combat by the group. This will also help offset the desync that happens by giving you a buffer to always get Halo back off cooldown before Voidform comes back.

Be sure to never hold the cast of Halo while Voidform is still cooling down to make sure that it lines up when the cooldown comes back. Once all your cooldowns are available, you can, of course, choose to hold depending on specific timings for that fight.

Void Torrent is a powerful talent that is available to Voidweaver Shadow Priests. This is a fixed 3-second channeled spell that adds more ticks of damage as you get more Haste. The Insanity generation is always fixed regardless of how many ticks you get.

Notably, this spell does not snapshot with any part of our kit; each tick re-checks modifiers like Mastery: Shadow Weaving.

The main driver of this spell is that at the start of the cast it spawns an Entropic Rift and then refreshes it to the full duration when the channel of Void Torrent ends.

From a rotational perspective, be sure to keep these tips in mind:

• Be sure to have Shadow Word: Madness active before casting the channel.
• Prioritize using this early on in your burst windows so that the high Insanity generation can fuel your opening burst longer.
• In AoE environments, you can choose to hold for up to 10 seconds if you know you will need AoE burst coming up for a pack.

Overview: Tentacle Slam is an instant cleave damage effect summons a massive shadowy appendage dealing damage in front of you and around your target. This applies Vampiric Touch to up to 6 enemies, prioritizing ones without the DoT already applied. Note that this does not strictly speaking prioritize your target. When talented into Maddening Tentacles Tentacle Slam also applies Shadow Word: Madness at 25% reduced effectiveness to your current target (does not AoE).

By far the biggest reason this is a critical cooldown is with the upcoming Apex Talents in Midnight, Void Apparitions. When you talent into these effects it also grants an effect from one of your Idol spells, regardless of if you are talented into them. This is further extended with the Apex talents where it causes each generated Idol spell to spawn Shadowy Apparitions. Note that we do not have access to this in the Midnight Pre-Patch.

• Area/Cleave: It hits multiple nearby enemies depending on tentacle placement and add placement.
• Partial Shadow Word: Madness application: If Tentacle Slam is empowered by Maddening Tentacles, it applies a free Shadow Word: Madness at 25% effectiveness.
• Cooldown/charges: Be mindful of cooldown charges capping and do not waste slams on low value targets.

This interaction is important because the 25% Shadow Word: Madness applied by Tentacle Slam functions as a modifier that affects the active DoT's tick rolls. The game uses the most recent Shadow Word: Madness modifier when resolving each DoT tick, so the order in which modifiers are applied changes the outcome.

• Modifier rewrite: The Tentacle Slam partial Shadow Word: Madness can overwrite or be overwritten by a normal cast of Shadow Word: Madness. The active modifier is always the last applied one for subsequent tick calculations.
• Positive ordering (optimal): If Tentacle Slam (25% modifier) is applied first, then you immediately cast a normal Shadow Word: Madness, the resulting tick sequence behaves like two Shadow Word: Madness applications in sequence, effectively the same total damage as two normal Shadow Word: Madness casts back-to-back.
• Negative ordering: If you cast Shadow Word: Madness first and then cast a Tentacle Slam that applies the weaker 25% modifier afterward, the later modifier can weaken the active Shadow Word: Madness ticks and reduce overall damage compared to the optimal order.
• Rule of thumb: When Tentacle Slam and Shadow Word: Madness are both available, ALWAYS Tentacle Slam BEFORE casting Shadow Word: Madness. This prevents accidental downgrades of your Shadow Word: Madness modifier and enables the effective double DoT outcome when desired.

Mind Blast is one of our main rotational abilities where the goal is not to lose any potential casts on the spell in most cases. With Thought Harvester this is made much easier by giving us 2 charges of the spell. Since only one charge can cool down at a time, we prioritize casting Mind Blast more only when you are capped on charges, which in this case is 2 charges.

In addition to the normal gameplay, we also have access to Shadowy Insight spec talent, which is taken in almost all scenarios. The important thing to understand about these procs is that they do not specifically change your rotational priority. This is because Shadowy Insight procs grant you a full temporary charge of Mind Blast, so it can be used whenever you would normally use a cast of Mind Blast.

The other important rotational note with Mind Blast specifically concerns the usage of the spell as Voidweaver. Since Mind Blast is transformed into Void Blast while Entropic Rift is active we want to make sure and get as many casts out of the spell as possible.

Shadow Word: Madness 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 Shadow Word: Madness, 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 Shadow Word: Madness 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 Shadow Word: Madness the exact timing of the refresh is important. Shadow Priests Mastery, Mastery: Shadow Weaving, benefits from uptime of Shadow Word: Madness. 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 ~35 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 Shadow Word: Madness casts back to back and get a new DoT with much more powerful ticks in the same amount of time as a single Shadow Word: Madness. 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.

The way you play with Shadow Word: Madness strictly depends on what you want to prioritize: overall AoE damage or priority target damage. Both of these are viable strategies and can be used with just about any talent combination.

To prioritize overall AoE damage you can spread Shadow Word: Madness. This is done by simply casting Shadow Word: Madness on a new target every time you get enough Insanity and then using that as your new main target until you build up enough Insanity to restart the process. This playstyle works particularly well with talents like Distorted Reality and Spectral Horrors, but these are not necessarily required to see gains with this playstyle. While Shadow Word: Madness does roll its damage over when re-applying; you can end up losing out on damage depending on when targets die. By spreading the DoT around to whatever is the current highest health target, you can see gains from this playstyle.

Alternatively, you can choose to increase your priority target damage while in AoE but funneling casts of Shadow Word: Madness onto the most important mob of a pack. This damage pattern is less commonly found in other specs in the game, which makes Shadow Priest, in particular, highly desired in high-end key compositions. Often, packs have a few priority target mobs that either have more health than most of the pack or perhaps have a set of deadly abilities that make it important to kill the mob first. This playstyle typically prefers running Mind's Eye to get more casts off of Shadow Word: Madness in a dungeon.

FAQDoes Applying DoTs to Secondary Targets Increase Single-Target DPS?

It depends on talents and desired outcome. Spreading DoTs gives more proc opportunities (with decay), while funneling increases priority-target damage. Decide based on talents like Maddening Touch, Auspicious Spirits, and your group's strategy.

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 the damage to 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+.

Typically, we only maintain DoTs up to 12 targets during a pull (6 from Tentacle Slam and up to 6 from manual Vampiric Touch). You can double cast if the investment is worth. By pulling with the tank this allows you to get more manual Vampiric Touch DoTs out to increase the number of targets we can sustain our damage on.

Idol of Yogg-Saron is a common question when looking to maximize damage on your Shadow Priest. In particular, getting this to proc at better points can be advantageous if you can play around it cleanly, particularly in Mythic+ environments.

Every time you generate a Shadowy Apparitions you generate a stack of Idol of Yogg-Saron. Unfortunately, we do not have too much control over this as so many of our spells generate Apparitions, but you can choose to sacrifice your damage at the end of one pack to try and game the proc to happen at the start of the next one.

Crucially if you are trying to game the proc of Idol of Yogg-Saron you need to think about this earlier than you might think. Due to Tormented Spirits proccing randomly while you have your Shadow Word: Pain active you can easily proc this a few times if you are trying to save for the next pull. As such, waiting at 24 stacks is never suggested; you would always need to plan earlier than that, likely around 20 stacks.

Note that while you can cancel the buff for building up Idol of Yogg-Saron this is almost never going to be worth it from an overall DPS perspective. Be extra careful with these micro-optimizations of the spell, as if done incorrectly, you can lose quite a lot of damage.