Shadow Priest DPS Easy Mode — Dragonflight 10.0.7

This section is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous priorities and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

Shadow Priest has evolved into a more modern builder spender spec that specializes in damage over time (DoT) effects. At a high level, the spec mostly revolves around keeping your DoT effects up on as many targets as possible while also building Insanity to spend on spells that cost Insanity. The rest of this page is dedicated to getting you to that goal in the easiest way possible to reduce the demands of the specialization at the top end of play without causing a large drop in numerical output.

If you are completely new to Shadow and need more information on the abilities available to you, you can check out our Spell Summary page. There were a lot of changes to Shadow Priest going into Dragonflight, so it might be helpful to read that page just to see what all is different!

The video version of this guide is also available if you would like to watch along as I talk about Shadow Priest.

These choices are optimized for ease of use. Although some talents might offer marginally higher gains when played perfectly, these same talents often result in damage losses when utilized by many players. The talents recommended here aim to present the best setup that has very little punishment for unfamiliarity or mistakes.

This build avoids taking actives that can clutter the rotation and instead buffs the spells that you would normally press. This build should work reasonably well in most content, although you can absolutely experiment with your choices in the bottom section or even using Void Eruption.

• Mind Sear as your Insanity spender for stacked AoE
• Dark Ascension as your main cooldown
• Shadow Crash giving you an easy DoT application on 8 targets every 30 seconds
• Mental Decay should limit how often you need to re-apply DoT effects
• Idol of C'Thun and Idol of Yogg-Saron offer damage patterns that work in almost all content.

Generally speaking you will find better results using Void Eruption instead of Dark Ascension on anything with 3 or more targets, but this cooldown does require more precise usage so running Dark Ascension as you learn the spec makes more sense.

If you are looking for the absolute best talents for Shadow, which do not compromise on performance for ease of use, you can find a more in-depth analysis on our full talents page below.

Currently, you will want to prioritize stats as follows:

1. Intellect;
2. Haste;
3. Mastery;
4. Critical Strike = Versatility.

Typically, you will be looking for Haste/Mastery pieces, but because of the strength of Intellect, having Haste with anything at a high item level will be a good place to start. While you are learning fights you will get more value out of Haste stacking as it can help cover up mistakes more than other stats can.

While the stat priority for classes is normally the same for both the Easy Mode page and our full guide, subtle differences can still occur. If you want to see the full explanation of the stat priority, as well as the absolute top choices for the priority, head to our full stats page below.

Before you start combat make sure you have Shadowform active and use Vampiric Touch to start combat.

1. Keep Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch applied on all targets. Note that with Misery, you should always use Vampiric Touch to refresh either of these DoTs, unless you are moving.
2. Cast Shadowfiend or Mindbender on cooldown.
3. Cast Dark Ascension or Void Eruption on cooldown.
4. Cast Power Infusion on cooldown (make sure you cast it on an ally if using Twins of the Sun Priestess).
5. Spend Insanity on Devouring Plague in single-target or Mind Sear when fighting 3 or more targets.
6. Cast Mind Blast whenever available to generate Insanity
7. Cast Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% HP.
8. Cast Void Bolt if inside of Voidform (with Void Eruption talented).
9. Cast Mindgames.
10. Cast Shadow Crash.
11. Cast Halo.
12. Cast Mind Flay to generate Insanity as your filler spell.

For a more in-depth priority list that includes all talents and all the edge cases for the rotation, check out the full guide to fully master your Shadow Priest.