How To Improve As Shadow Priest — The War Within Pre-Patch
On this page, you will find out how you can improve at playing Shadow Priest in World of Warcraft — The War Within Pre-Patch. We list the common mistakes that you should try to avoid and the small details that can greatly improve your performance.
Pressing Buttons Faster
This might seem like a silly mistake to the point that people might be making, but it is something seen fairly often. It is crucial for Shadow because you always have something to cast, and you operate at high Haste levels than most specs in the game do. This means that it is easier to miss a cast here or there, and throughout a fight, this can add up. Try always to mash the next button you want to cast while casting your current spell to make sure you cast it as fast as possible.
Dealing with Movement Properly
Perhaps the biggest learning curve as a Shadow Priest is learning
how to deal
with movement during a fight. While Priests can use Angelic Feather or
Body and Soul for movement, being able to move without relying on
these is a good way to improve DPS. It is important to master the following
two guidelines:
First of all, it is important to understand the concept of something we call
'stutter-stepping.' Stutter-stepping means that you are moving
small distances between your globals and fitting in any instant spells you
may have to ensure you do not lose any casts. Luckily for Shadow,
during Voidform, you get access to
Void Bolt, which is instant
and available often. Outside of
Voidform, you can use
Shadow Word: Death,
Devouring Plague, or certain procs like
Shadowy Insight. This means you can move a few
yards after every instant cast ability you cast if you want to. Playing around
with this is key to optimizing your damage. You can sometimes move into position
ahead of time if you know a mechanic will force you to move soon. The goal here is
that you slowly move to your destination over time, but you will lose no casts in
the process. Using instant casts to cover your movement is
ideal, but sometimes that is not enough. In the first place, because you
may not be in Voidform when movement happens; in the second place
, because
certain fight mechanics do not give you the time to do this properly.
Secondly, you must learn to use Shadow Word: Pain in cases of movement.
When doing the rotation normally,
Mind Flay or
Mind Spike is
your filler spell. If there is a movement where the above-explained stutter
stepping does not cover it entirely, the second most ideal way to deal with movement
is to use some ability while moving. You can insert any available ability here, the point being
you are pressing something while on the move and not only moving. Shadow Word:
Pain is always available, so use this as a last resort.
Knowing How To Sim Yourself
When simming your character, it is important to sim for the types of things that your character is dealing with. If you just sim for simple Patchwerk 1 target, then that is all your character will be optimized for. I recommend simming a few times when determining if something is an upgrade across various fight types. For the sims we do internally, we use the following different settings: [Patchwerk, Light Movement, Heavy Movement] X [1 target, 2 target] X [No add, 3 small adds, 1 big add]. If you are new to Simulating your character, make sure you check out the Simulations page to learn more or check out the SimC Wiki.
To see full sims out there for Shadow Priests, check the GitHub Sim Charts Site. This site contains sims for almost everything you could need to get started on your Priest or if you are just looking for some direction when gearing your character. These sims are all run using Composite sim types. They take some of the scenarios described above and weigh them into a composite number based on how often that type of mechanic shows up in the current raid tier.
Changelog
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7.
- 23 Jul. 2023: Reviewed from the recent hotfixes.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.0 removing references to Surge of Darkness.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Priest Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Publik, Shadow Priest theorycrafter and SimC dev at Warcraft Priests. He currently raids in The Exiled on Arthas-US.
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