Shadow Priest DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.2)

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 at all times.
2. Maintain Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain at all times. Use Shadow Crash to help with this.
3. Maintain uptime of Devouring Plague without capping on Insanity.
4. Use short cooldown Insanity generating spells to make sure you do not lose uses of them. This includes spells like Mind Blast and Surge of Insanity procs.
5. Use short cooldown Insanity-generating spells to make sure you do not lose uses of them. This includes spells like Void Bolt, Mind Blast, and Surge of Insanity procs.
6. 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 Mindbender, and Void Torrent.
7. 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 Shadowfiend and Void Torrent.
8. 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 Shadowfiend.
9. 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 Mindbender.
10. 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 Voidwraith and Void Torrent.
11. 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 Voidwraith.

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

WARNING: Shadow Crash 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. Shadow Crash 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 Devouring Plague casts into the highest health priority target enemy. Check out the dedicated section on Devouring Plague 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 Void Eruption, Power Infusion, and Mindbender.
2. 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 Void Eruption, Power Infusion, and Shadowfiend.
3. 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 Dark Ascension, Power Infusion, and Mindbender.
4. 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 Dark Ascension, Power Infusion, and Shadowfiend.
5. 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 Void Eruption, Power Infusion, and Voidwraith.
6. 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 Dark Ascension, Power Infusion, and Voidwraith.
7. Use Shadow Crash 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.
8. At this point, your highest priority is maintaining DoTs. You should pick a main priority target to funnel in your Devouring Plague into. This is typically the target with the highest amount of HP or a particularly powerful enemy.
9. Use spells to generate Insanity, like Void Bolt, Mind Blast, and Surge of Insanity. Get these on cooldown quickly so you can blast with your bigger spells.
10. Use spells to generate Insanity, like Mind Blast and Surge of Insanity. Get these on cooldown quickly so you can blast with your bigger spells.
11. Use bigger cooldown spells like Void Torrent and Halo to do small burst damage.
12. Use bigger cooldown spells like Halo to do small burst damage.
13. Use bigger cooldown spells like Void Torrent, and Divine Star to do small burst damage.
14. Use bigger cooldown spells like Divine Star to do small burst damage.
15. Fill with Mind Flay.

Note that this opener assumes you get unlucky with procs and does not account for getting any of Shadowy Insight or Mind Devourer procs. Be sure to follow the priority list below. These openers are just a snapshot of the opener up till your first cast of Void Torrent.

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 Halo before the pull.
2. Cast Halo right before the pull so that the boss is engaged when it reaches the target.
3. Pre-Cast Shadow Crash if you can reliably land the skill shot on the pull; otherwise, use Vampiric Touch.
4. Pre-Cast Vampiric Touch
5. Cast Shadowfiend.
6. Cast Mindbender.
7. Cast Voidwraith.
8. Use Perfidious Projector.
9. Cast Mind Blast
10. OPTIONAL: Cast Mind Flay until you get 25 Insanity.
11. Cast Dark Ascension.
12. Use your combat potion Tempered Potion.
13. 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.
14. Use Signet of the Priory.
15. Use Araz's Ritual Forge.
16. Use Lily of the Eternal Weave.
17. Use Astral Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity.
18. Use Sunblood Amethyst.
19. Cast Devouring Plague
20. Cast Void Torrent.
21. Cast Void Blast twice.
22. Continue with the priority list as described below.

Depending on if you were able to land your Shadow Crash on pull or how many melee swings you got out of Shadowfiend you might have to cast a tick or two of Mind Flay as indicated above. This should be only in rare cases.

1. Cast Halo before the pull.
2. Pre-Cast Shadow Crash if you can reliably land the skill shot on the pull; otherwise, use Vampiric Touch.
3. Pre-Cast Vampiric Touch
4. Cast Void Torrent, interrupt the cast with Halo ASAP.
5. Cast Halo.
6. Cast Shadowfiend.
7. Cast Mindbender.
8. Cast Voidwraith.
9. Use Perfidious Projector.
10. Cast Void Torrent.
11. Cast Devouring Plague.
12. Cast Void Blast twice.
13. Cast Void Eruption
14. Use your combat potion Tempered Potion.
15. 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.
16. Use Signet of the Priory.
17. Use Araz's Ritual Forge.
18. Use Lily of the Eternal Weave.
19. Use Astral Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity.
20. Use Sunblood Amethyst.
21. Cast Void Blast twice.
22. Cast Void Bolt
23. Cast Devouring Plague
24. Continue with the priority list as described below.

The single-target rotation relies on the following priority system of abilities.

If you are looking for something easier to digest or you are just getting started, I strongly suggest looking at the Beginner 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. 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 Voidwraith.
6. Cast Halo.
7. Cast Void Eruption to enter Voidform.
8. Cast Dark Ascension.
9. Cast Power Infusion.
10. Sync any trinkets you have with your cooldowns (see trinket section).
11. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target has an absorb shield for Devour Matter.
12. Cast Void Blast while available if Devouring Plague is active or Entropic Rift is about to expire.
13. Cast Void Bolt if you will not cap Insanity.
14. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, or you are about to cap out on Insanity.
15. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap out on Insanity, or Entropic Rift is active.
16. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap out on Insanity, or Mind Devourer is active.
17. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap out on Insanity, Mind Devourer is active, or Entropic Rift is active.
18. Cast Void Torrent to open up Entropic Rift.
19. Cast Void Torrent. Cancel early if Void Bolt becomes available or you need to refresh Devouring Plague.
20. Cast Void Torrent. Cancel early if you need to refresh Devouring Plague.
21. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity if Devouring Plague is active.
22. Cast Mind Blast.
23. Cast Void Volley.
24. Cast Devouring Plague if available.
25. Cast Devouring Plague if available and Voidform is active.
26. Cast Shadow Crash if adds are not coming soon and you do not need to hold for movement events.
27. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health.
28. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 35% health.
29. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Shadowfiend is active or the target is below 20% health.
30. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Shadowfiend is active or the target is below 35% health.
31. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Mindbender is active or the target is below 20% health.
32. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Mindbender is active or the target is below 35% health.
33. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Voidwraith is active or the target is below 20% health.
34. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Voidwraith is active or the target is below 35% health.
35. Cast Mind Flay. Interrupt this for any other action as it becomes available.
36. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Divine Star, Shadow Crash, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
37. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Shadow Crash, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
38. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Divine Star, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
39. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Shadow Word: Death, or 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.

WARNING: Shadow Crash 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 Vampiric Touch on any targets as the pack is being grouped up with Fade (see below).
2. Cast Shadow Crash 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.
3. Cast Halo once all mobs are engaged in combat and within range.
4. Use Perfidious Projector.
5. Cast Void Torrent, interrupt the cast ASAP.
6. Cast Shadowfiend.
7. Cast Mindbender.
8. Cast Voidwraith.
9. If needed cast up to one Mind Blast and/or a few ticks of Mind Flay until you get 25 Insanity.
10. Cast Void Torrent.
11. Cast Devouring Plague.
12. Cast Void Blast twice.
13. Cast Dark Ascension
14. Cast Void Eruption
15. Use your combat potion Tempered Potion unless you want to save for an upcoming pack or boss.
16. 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.
17. Use Signet of the Priory.
18. Use Araz's Ritual Forge.
19. Use Lily of the Eternal Weave.
20. Use Astral Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity.
21. Use Sunblood Amethyst.
22. Cast Devouring Plague.
23. Cast Void Torrent.
24. Cast Void Blast twice.
25. Cast Void Bolt.
26. Cast Devouring Plague.
27. Continue with the Rotation as normal.

Note if the pack has more than 6 targets or they are too spread for Shadow Crash 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 Devouring Plague 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 Shadow Crash 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 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 Voidwraith.
6. Cast Halo.
7. Cast Void Eruption to enter Voidform.
8. Cast Dark Ascension.
9. Cast Power Infusion.
10. Sync any trinkets you have with your cooldowns (see trinket section).
11. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target has an absorb shield for Devour Matter.
12. Cast Void Blast while available if Devouring Plague is active or Entropic Rift is about to expire.
13. Cast Void Bolt if you will not cap Insanity.
14. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, or you are about to cap out on Insanity.
15. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap out on Insanity, or Entropic Rift is active.
16. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap out on Insanity, or Mind Devourer is active.
17. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague with high priority if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap out on Insanity, Mind Devourer is active, or Entropic Rift is active.
18. Cast Void Torrent to open up Entropic Rift.
19. Cast Void Torrent. Cancel early if Void Bolt becomes available or you need to refresh Devouring Plague.
20. Cast Void Torrent. Cancel early if you need to refresh Devouring Plague.
21. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity if Devouring Plague is active.
22. Cast Mind Blast.
23. Cast Void Volley.
24. Cast Devouring Plague if available.
25. Cast Devouring Plague if available and Voidform is active.
26. Cast Halo.
27. Cast Shadow Crash if adds are not coming soon and you do not need to hold for movement events.
28. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health.
29. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 35% health.
30. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Shadowfiend is active or the target is below 20% health.
31. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Shadowfiend is active or the target is below 35% health.
32. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Mindbender is active or the target is below 20% health.
33. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Mindbender is active or the target is below 35% health.
34. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Voidwraith is active or the target is below 20% health.
35. Cast Shadow Word: Death if Voidwraith is active or the target is below 35% health.
36. Cast Mind Flay. Interrupt this for any other action as it becomes available.
37. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Divine Star, Shadow Crash, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
38. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Shadow Crash, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
39. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Divine Star, Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.
40. Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have any other casts to use: Shadow Word: Death, or Shadow Word: Pain.

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 Shadow Crash).

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.

Void Eruption is one of Shadow Priest's Major Cooldown abilities that is a choice node against Dark Ascension. After finishing the cast, you gain the Voidform buff. This is a 2-minute cooldown that syncs nicely with Power Infusion to produce our biggest sustained damage boost on multiple targets thanks to access to Void Bolt. This allows us to focus on our main Rotation while keeping our Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain sustained on targets we are in combat with.

This cooldown gives you access to:

• Void Bolt
• Spells deal damage as if Mastery: Shadow Weaving is fully stacked.
• Voidform
• When cast, it fully refreshes the cooldown on Mind Blast charges.
• Replaces Shadowform (cancelling out the damage increases)

The key mechanic with Voidform, in particular, is the extension mechanic. Every cast of Devouring Plague increases the duration on the Voidform buff by 2.5 seconds. This allows you to extend the cooldown up to get much longer Voidforms, particularly when playing with Mind's Eye or Archon builds.

When playing Archon Voidform is further enhanced by giving you an extra +20% damage to all spells while active. If you are taking Sustained Potency it also increases the duration of Voidform.

Dark Ascension is one of Shadow Priest's Major Cooldown abilities that is a choice node against Void Eruption.

This cooldown gives you access to:

• Buffs damage of non-periodic spells by 25%.

Dark Ascension, in particular, does not buff every part of our kit, notable spells it does not buff include:

• Shadow Word: Pain periodic damage
• Vampiric Touch periodic damage
• Devouring Plague periodic damage
• Void Torrent
• Mind Flay: Insanity
• Mind Flay
• Idol of C'Thun

When playing Archon Dark Ascension is further enhanced by giving you an extra +12% damage to all spells while active. This extra 12% applies to both direct and periodic spells. If you are taking Sustained Potency, it also increases the duration of Dark Ascension.

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 Void Eruption and every other cast of Dark Ascension. This gives you Haste for the start of these cooldowns.

Default this gives you 20% Haste when cast for 15 seconds but as an Archon Shadow Priest you gain 30% haste for 15 seconds.

If you are still using the set bonus for Season 2, you will periodically gain small buffs of Power Infusion. It is important to note that there is a cap of 30 seconds of buff duration you can have at a time so if you get super lucky with procs and have more than 15 seconds you should avoid pressing Power Infusion until you fall below that threshold so you do not waste duration. This should be extremely rare.

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 Halo becomes a more integral part of the Rotation. Because we want to use this spell on cooldown, it is important to know where it fits into the Rotation.

Since Halo has a cast time and is cast twice as often as Void Eruption, 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 Void Eruption comes back.

Be sure to never hold the cast of Halo while Void Eruption 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.

If you are playing with Voidweaver we primarily use this spell to generate Insanity pre-pull before combat starts. It can also be used for AoE damage when you have nothing else to press.

Void Torrent is a powerful talent that has unique interactions with several parts of our kit. 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 spell itself is augmented by Idol of C'Thun and lets you cast Void Volley if talented. C'Thun, in particular, gives you an instant proc at the start of every Void Torrent casts making the spell overall a powerhouse when it comes to Insanity generation, which can contribute to more casts of Devouring Plague. Note that Void Torrent starts its cooldown as soon as it is pressed, even though Void Volley shows instead.

On top of all of these interactions, Voidweaver upgrades this spell into a central part of the Rotation by spawning Entropic Rift and making Idol of C'Thun a lock in talent for that reason.

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

• Be sure to have Devouring Plague active before casting the channel, particularly for Voidweaver builds. As Archon, we just use this to proc Idol of C'Thun and Void Volley and you can cancel this in favor of Void Bolt or Devouring Plague (see above rotation).
• 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.

Starting with Season 3 Archon now chooses to cancel Void Torrent after 1 GCD's worth of ticks in favor of other high priority spells. This is simply more damage to just get the procs of Idol of C'Thun and Void Volley than let the channel finish.

In the opener this means after casting Void Torrent you go right into Halo. Outside of that you can interrupt it for Devouring Plague or Void Bolt.

Note that you should NEVER do this as Voidweaver.

Voidwraith, 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 Voidweaver/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, Mindbender, and Voidwraith 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.

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. While it does reset a charge of Mind Blast and make it instant-cast since it does not actually buff the damage of that Mind Blast, we do not need to prioritize using the proc any differently than normal casts of Mind Blast.

Keep in mind that if you get a Shadowy Insight charge and it gets you capped on Mind Blast charges, you should prioritize it accordingly.

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.

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.

The way you play with Devouring Plague 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 Devouring Plague. This is done by simply casting Devouring Plague 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 Phantasmal Pathogen, but these are not necessarily required to see gains with this playstyle. While Devouring Plague 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 Devouring Plague 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 Devouring Plague in a dungeon.

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 Shadow Crash 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. This is where the power of Void Eruption builds comes into play since you can then sustain those DoTs with Void Bolt during higher key pulls.

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. Be sure to track these stacks so that you know when you are about to proc the pet. 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.