Shadow Priest DPS Gems, Enchants, and Consumables — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

This section covers your character's optimal gems, enchants, food, and flasks. To get a more detailed rundown of the different stats for Shadow Priest, please visit our dedicated Stats page.

You will have 2 categories of gems to choose from: Rare or Epic. The Rare gems are either just a single stat or a combination of 2 secondary stats on one gem. The Epic gems are significantly stronger, but you can only use one at a time for your entire character.

Gems can be applied to a Helm, Bracer, or Belt via the Technomancer's Gift item from the Great Vault. In addition, a Jewelcrafting item lets you apply up to 2 sockets to a Neck or Ring item with Magnificent Jeweler's Setting.

For your Epic Gem in Pre-Patch I would strongly suggest using Elusive Blasphemite for more utility. Technically Culminating Blasphemite is more damage but it is so minor (0.2% DPS) that it is not worth the significant loss in movement speed compared to the Elusive Gem. Using these gems gives you an incentive to have one of each colored gem socketed.

Elusive Blasphemite with full colored sockets gets you up to 10% movement speed, which is a massive increase in our mobility as a Shadow Priest.

Another thing to note with Elusive Blasphemite is that it counts as temporary movement speed. This means it does not stack with effects like Angelic Feather, Body and Soul, or Stampeding Roar.

In total, there are five distinct colors for Rare gems: Emerald (Haste), Ruby (Critical Strike), Onyx (Mastery), Sapphire (Versatility), and Amber (Stamina). As a Shadow Priest, you want to use each of these colors except Amber for fully optimized setups. This, however, is a minor increase as factoring in the Amber is only a 0.2% DPS loss (roughly half the total increase of a normal gem), so if you prefer the Stamina over that amount, go for it! This also gives you an extra 2% move speed if you choose to use Elusive Blasphemite.

Below is the list of optimal gems for each color. Once you are satisfied with your color requirements for your Epic gem, I would suggest stacking either Quick Onyx or Masterful Emerald.

• Emerald: Masterful Emerald
• Ruby: Masterful Ruby or Quick Ruby
• Onyx: Quick Onyx
• Sapphire: Masterful Sapphire or Quick Sapphire
• Amber: Masterful Amber or Quick Amber

Here is an example progression as you work your way towards all 9 sockets:

1. Elusive Blasphemite
2. Masterful Emerald
3. Quick Onyx
4. Masterful Ruby
5. Masterful Sapphire
6. OPTION: Masterful Amber
7. Masterful Emerald on remaining 3 or 4 sockets

For the final 4 sockets, you should pick either Masterful Emerald if you are lacking on Haste, or Quick Onyx if you have a decent amount. Usually, early on in the gearing process, you will lean towards Haste, and towards the end, you will stack more Mastery. On single target, you will typically notice Mastery being more valuable and on AoE Haste being more valuable.

Rare gems are roughly worth 0.25% DPS. If you are considering replacing an item with a socket, keep this in mind. As you get more gear, this could be even higher, but this is a rough number you can use. Simming different gem choices is extremely difficult because of how low of an increase this is, you should take gem sims with a large amount of caution as, typically, gains that are that small when comparing gems are within the margin of error.

Slot	Enchantment
Chest	Enchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance
Cloak (non-throughput)	Enchant Cloak - Chant of Winged Grace Enchant Cloak - Chant of Leeching Fangs
Wrists (non-throughput)	Enchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Avoidance Enchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Leech
Legs	Sunset Spellthread
Ring	Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste (see note below) Enchant Ring - Radiant Mastery (see note below)
Feet (non-throughput)	Enchant Boots - Scout's March (Mobility) Enchant Boots - Defender's March (Small Defensive)
Weapon	Enchant Weapon - Stonebound Artistry Enchant Weapon - Oathsworn's Tenacity

When deciding on your weapon enchant I would generally suggest simming yourself to see which one is best. For most people you will find the Mastery proc, Enchant Weapon - Stonebound Artistry will be good early on. Once you get enough Mastery to hit the first diminishing return threshold (19%) you will likely find Enchant Weapon - Oathsworn's Tenacity start beating it out. In rare cases you might also find that Enchant Weapon - Stormrider's Fury could also make sense, particularly for AoE optimizations.

When picking Cloak and Wrist enchants, I would suggest defaulting to Avoidance versions, but keep in mind that not every fight will have mechanics that can be avoided. For those difficult progression fights, consider swapping to Leech. Mythic+ environments should always prefer Avoidance, especially as you push up to higher keys.

For Ring enchants, you want to use Haste or Mastery, depending on the content you are trying to optimize for and your current gear set. Early on, you might lean towards Haste and then as you gear up move towards Mastery.

Leveling in a new expansion is all about minimizing downtime and front loading power. While endgame enchants and consumables are often disabled or heavily scaled during early leveling, there are still several items worth stockpiling ahead of time to make the process smoother, faster, and less frustrating. The recommendations below focus on items that historically remain useful at expansion launch and provide value regardless of tuning changes.

The War Within enchants will still work throughout the leveling process, and can be a cheap way to add small boosts of power. Enchants that grant haste or speed are particularly valuable early on when gear upgrades are sparse. Prioritize the following:

• Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste (helps as you lose haste while leveling)
• Enchant Boots - Scout's March
• Enchant Cloak - Chant of Burrowing Rapidity
• Enchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Speed

Combat potions that remain usable at lower levels can significantly speed up difficult pulls, elite quests, or story encounters. Stock a small supply for moments where burst damage or survivability matters. Be sure to use these before you get to max level content!

Having a small stack of health potions reduces reliance on cooldowns and self-healing, especially during early levels when defensive toolkits are incomplete. These are particularly helpful for soloing elite quests or accidental overpulls.

I would avoid buying too many, as once you hit level 81 you can acquire Silvermoon Health Potion, which is significantly better and cheaper to make.

Certain consumables can dramatically improve leveling flow:

• Goblin Glider Kit
• Gunshoes or Potion of the Reborn Cheetah
• Light-Step Hoofplates
• Thunderous Drums
• Draught of Silent Footfalls
• Fried Bonefish or Bear Tartare

For Pre-Patch, several flasks or phials could make sense depending on the content you are doing. Use the following table as your guide; the higher in the table, the more DPS. While each phial has a different top-end DPS, I think there are scenarios where you may want to have at least a few of each around at a time, depending on the encounter.

Phial Name	When to Use	DPS Increase at Rank 3 with Potion
Flask of Alchemical Chaos	Default Choice.	3.3%
Flask of Tempered Versatility	More defensive option.	2.9%

Flask of Alchemical Chaos is our default choice of flask primarily due to the interaction with Tempered Potion and the other Tempered Flasks. When using a single stat Tempered Flask you are effectively reducing the value of your potion uses enough to make them slightly less desirable. If you are looking for a more defensive choice, Flask of Tempered Versatility is very close and a good option to consider for progression content. In some cases you might also find that Flask of Tempered Swiftness can also be competitive if you are low on Haste, particularly in AoE situations.

Our best combat potion in all content is Tempered Potion.

Invigorating Healing Potion is our healing potion of choice.

For your food buff, we ideally use one of the secondary stat combination food in all forms of content. These are generally better than Feasts, such as Feast of the Midnight Masquerade. Chippy Tea is a good default but many of the other ones are good as well depending on your specific stats. You can also use Beledar's Bounty as a cheaper alternative that is easier to make.

Depending on the level of progression content, you can also choose to craft Hearty versions of most food, which gives the exact same effect (despite a few wrong tooltips), but the buff now persists through death. This costs 5 normal food to produce 1 hearty version.

For your temporary weapon oil, you should use Algari Mana Oil.

You should aim to use an Augment Rune to get a boost of Intellect during any progression content. This is a gain of about 0.6% DPS.

For Pre-Patch the following Augment Runes are available:

• Crystallized Augment Rune (Consumable version)
• Soulgorged Augment Rune (Consumable version, persists through death)
• Ethereal Augment Rune (Reusable version)

In addition to the above items you should also always make sure you have the following in your bags for Raiding and Mythic+ environments as a Shadow Priest.

• Gateway Control Shard - Reusable item that will auto-click a nearby Warlock Gateway.
• Thunderous Drums - Provides a weaker Bloodlust effect for the group that can be useful in Mythic+ dungeons without a class to provide it naturally.
• Convincingly Realistic Jumper Cables - Castable Battle Resurrection item that can be used in combat, even as a non-engineer.
• Draught of Silent Footfalls - Invisibility potion that can be used instead of a Tempered Potion to skip trash in certain Mythic+ dungeon routes.