Shadow Priest DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Midnight (12.0.1)

This list is aimed at getting you started before the full launch of Season 1 taking into account all the sources of gear available in Pre-Season.

During Pre-Season you can acquire gear from Normal Midnight Dungeons, Delves, Crafting, or other Open World content. This list is focused on the gear you can farm from dungeons specifically, although you should supplement this with gear from other sources.

For Midnight Pre-Season, you can get gear from the following dungeons:

• Den of Nalorakk
• Magister's Terrace
• Maisara Caverns
• Murder Row
• Nexus-Point Xenas
• The Blinding Vale
• Voidscar Arena
• Windrunner Spire

Gearing is a journey, and there are multiple ways to outfit your character with optimal gear. There are several item sets that are considered BiS. Whenever there are more than one options, I will list them, but even some outside the list might be better for your character and your gearing setup. It is crucial that you sim your character to know for sure.

Be sure to check out the stats page to understand our goals with each secondary stat.

Slot	Item	Source/Note
Weapons	Doompetal (1H) Luminescent Sprout (OH) Corespark Multitool (2H)	The Blinding Vale The Blinding Vale Nexus-Point Xenas
Head	Overseer's Diadem	Voidscar Arena
Neck	Pendant of Malefic Fury	Murder Row
Shoulder	Nysarra's Mantle	Nexus-Point Xenas
Cloak	Bloodthorn Burnous	The Blinding Vale
Chest	Summoner's Searing Shirt	Murder Row
Wrist	Nibbling Armbands	Murder Row
Hands	Counterfeit Clutches	Murder Row
Waist	Lightblossom Cinch	The Blinding Vale
Legs	Forest Dream Leg-guards	Den of Nalorakk
Feet	Tempestuous Sandals	Murder Row
Rings	Omission of Light Occlusion of Void Bifurcation Band Sickening Signet of Atroxus	Nexus-Point Xenas Nexus-Point Xenas Magister's Terrace The Blinding Vale
Top Trinkets	Vessel of Tortured Souls Lightspire Core Heart of Wind Freightrunner's Flask	Maisara Caverns The Blinding Vale Windrunner Spire Murder Row

For the Pre-Season of Midnight we have a more limited selection of trinkets to choose from, with much more coming with the full launch of Season 1. These rankings are relative to the current options we have available, not taking into account trinkets from the future Seasonal gear drops.

NOTE: To keep things brief, not every trinket is listed below, only ones that are particularly relevant or popular. If a trinket is excluded from this list, it is likely well below D-Tier.

• Voidweaver
• Archon

• Voidweaver
• Archon

After launch this section will be updated with dedicated information on our top trinkets for Season 1. Look for updates soon after launch.

This section is focused on the best crafts you can do to improve your overall character before the full Season start. While these choices are not strictly Best-In-Slot in the end-game, they provide the most efficient use of your resources to make sure you are getting the most value out of your Sparks and Dawncrests early on.

Check out the End-Game tab if you want the simplistic crafting setup for end-game gear. You can also choose the End-Game setup if you get lucky with a good weapon early on.

1. Aln'hara Cane with Darkmoon Sigil: Hunt
2. Arcanoweave Cord
3. Craft the Arcanoweave Trappings end-game 2-set (Bracers, Treads, or Cloak)

FAQWhy are we crafting a weapon first if it is not Best-In-Slot?

Weapons scale incredibly well with item level, so this craft provides the biggest jump early in player power while being Crest efficient. You are effectively spending 80 Dawncrests to cover 2 slots worth of power, although you do need to spend 2 crafts worth of sparks to get there.

FAQAre there alternatives to Arcanoweave Cord for the second craft?

Yes, there are several competitive choices here, most notably the Arcanoweave Lining. The lining is particularly interesting as it can also buff an allies damage, which is great for progression.

FAQWhy are we using the Arcanoweave set instead of the Sunfire set?

Because these sets give raw stats they are subject to diminishing returns. At end game gearing levels we will typically have enough haste to not need it from the Sunfire Set. On the other hand the Arcanoweave set giving critical strike means it will always have steady value.

FAQAre there any slots to avoid crafting for?

You should be cautious crafting on ring slots in particular. For Pre-Season and Season 1 there are Rings that drop with special effects, which will likely be desirable, so you want to be careful to not box yourself out of these slots.

This section is focused on the best crafts as a Shadow Priest if resource efficiency is not a concern. This is particularly useful for players who are not concerned with maximizing efficiency and instead want to focus on getting best-in-slot.

Check out the Progression tab if you want the better path for optimizing efficient crests and sparks.

1. Arcanoweave Cloak
2. Arcanoweave Bracers

Below, you will find detailed information about the various crafted items as a Shadow Priest.

Darkmoon Sigil: Hunt grants a temporary secondary stat buff when your spells or abilities trigger it. The stat granted depends on the type of creature you are fighting:

• Haste: Elemental, Aberration, Demon
• Critical Strike: Beast, Mechanical
• Mastery: Humanoid, Dragonkin
• Versatility: Undead, Giant, Other

For Shadow Priests, this embellishment is particularly strong because it provides very high stat uptime and scales with encounter types throughout the game. The effect is entirely passive and triggered naturally through your rotation.

Important Notes:

• The stat gained is determined by the enemy creature type, meaning its value can vary depending on the dungeon or raid encounter.
• Many raid bosses and dungeon enemies fall into the Humanoid or Demon categories, which often results in Mastery or Haste, two very strong stats for Shadow.
• Because it provides consistent stat gains regardless of fight style, it remains one of the best early-season embellishments, especially when crafted on a weapon.

Arcanoweave Cord has a chance to grant a temporary Mastery increase when your damaging spells trigger the effect.

Mastery is a valuable stat for Shadow Priests because it directly increases the damage of many of your core abilities, including your damage-over-time effects.

Important Notes:

• The effect procs naturally through normal gameplay with no rotation adjustments required.
• Since Shadow Priest has frequent spell casts and damage-over-time ticks, the effect tends to have good uptime in sustained combat.
• This embellishment is often used as a secondary crafted item when paired with another embellishment like Darkmoon Sigil: Hunt.

Arcanoweave Lining has a chance to summon a Mana Wyrm that grants Arcanoweave Insight to you and a nearby ally. This effect increases the Primary Stat of both players for a short duration.

For Shadow Priests, Primary Stat increases are extremely powerful since Intellect scales all spell damage.

Important Notes:

• The effect also buffs a nearby ally, providing a small amount of group utility.
• Because the buff is shared, the total raid value of the effect can be slightly higher than purely personal embellishments.
• The proc is fully passive and does not require any gameplay adjustments.

This set encompasses using 2 of the following items:

• Arcanoweave Bracers
• Arcanoweave Treads
• Arcanoweave Cloak

The Arcanoweave Trappings set bonus grants Critical Strike while you remain above 80% health.

Shadow Priests typically maintain high health in raid environments, which makes maintaining this condition fairly consistent during most encounters.

Important Notes:

• The buff is conditional, meaning it will temporarily deactivate if you fall below 80% health.
• The effect performs best in raid environments with predictable damage patterns, where players can remain above the health threshold most of the time.
• This embellishment is one of the stronger long-term embellishment combinations available.

Generally speaking, the embellished items are about 1-2% of your DPS each (so up to 4% total). If you are in a position where you are struggling more with surviving compared to dealing damage, you can consider certain defensive alternatives. These will all be tough to work into your gear-set to keep the DPS loss minimal, but it could be worth it, depending on your situation.

• Voidstone Shielding Array

After crafting your two embellished pieces, I suggest simming your character to see what profession item upgrades are the most DPS for your character. You can craft every slot with the various professions via crafting orders, and filling out your gear with 204 items can be quite lucrative until you get better items.

Other items can definitely still be an upgrade; make sure to sim your current gear setup to see what makes the most sense to craft.