TBC Classic Shadow Priest Spec, Builds, and Talents

Shadow Priest focuses on dealing damage. It brings a few debuffs to the raid that increase magic damage dealt by all players. Shadow Priests also grant Mana to their party members based on the damage they deal, making them great additions to raids.

If you are looking for leveling builds, please refer to our leveling guide for Priests.

This is the recommended Shadow Priest PvE spec. There are a few talent points you can change around based on your gear level, but most of the core talents will remain the same.

Here we will go over some of the key talents that you will want to have if specializing in Shadow.

• Meditation — This is a large improvement to your Mana regeneration.
• Inner Focus — This can be used for a free spell cast that has a 25% higher chance to critically strike.

Shadow Priest does not utilize the Holy tree for their PvE talent build.

• Spirit Tap — When you deal the killing blow to a mob that is near your level, you will receive 100% increased Spirit as well as having 50% of your Spirit regeneration working while casting.
• Shadow Affinity — Shadow Priests can deal very high threat with their spells as they are returning some of the damage dealt as both healing and mana. This reduces your threat generated by 25%, making it vital for raiding.
• Shadow Focus — This grants you 2% Spell Hit chance per talent point, up to a total of 10%. You can remove points from this if you have gear with plenty of Spell Hit rating on it. Your excess points can be placed into Focused Mind.
• Mind Flay — This is a channeled cast that you use to fill in any gaps in your rotation.
• Shadow Weaving — This is a stacking debuff that increases Shadow damage taken on your target by up to 10%.
• Improved Vampiric Embrace — In a raid scenario this makes you heal your party for 25% of the damage you deal, adding a huge amount of additional healing to your raid.
• Shadowform — You will want to be in this form at all times for the 15% increased Shadow damage dealt that it provides.
• Misery — This increases all Magic damage your target takes by 5%.
• Vampiric Touch — This is a damage-over-time spell that causes 5% of the damage you deal to be returned as Mana to your party. This is one of the main reasons people desire having a Shadow Priest in raids and parties.