Shadow Priest DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.1.0
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Shadow Priest in both single-target and multiple-target situations. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your DPS. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.1.0.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Shadow Priest rotation.
Shadow Priest Rotational Primer
The Shadow Priest rotation revolves around a modern version of a
builder/spender style of play that also mixes in damage-over-time effects.
You use abilities that generate Insanity and then spend that Insanity on
Devouring Plague.
The video version of this guide is also available if you would like to watch along as I talk about Shadow Priest.
Shadow Priest Rotation for Beginners
If the rotations below seem overwhelming to you, you might benefit from visiting our Beginner page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.
The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.
If you are completely new to Shadow and need more information on your abilities, you can check out our Spell Summary page.
Shadowform
Shadowform is an aura that increases your spell damage by 10%.
You should always have Shadowform active (you only need to activate it once,
and it will remain active until you die; entering
Voidform will
temporarily deactivate it but then automatically reactivate it when you exit
Voidform).
Talent Switch
Use the buttons below to select your talents to see how that changes the rotation:
Rotational Goals as a Shadow Priest
Before going in-depth with the priority list, I wanted to break down the goals of playing Shadow Priest on a single target. These goals are meant to help describe the why behind the full-on priority list, hopefully giving it more context.
If you can get these goals right, the rotation should make more sense and fall into play naturally.
- Maintain
Vampiric Touch and
Shadow Word: Pain roughly up to 12 targets. Use
Shadow Crash to help with this.
- Maintain uptime of
Devouring Plague on a single target without capping on Insanity.
- Use short cooldown Insanity generating spells to make sure you do not
lose uses of them. This includes spells like
Mind Blast,
Void Bolt, and
Surge of Insanity procs.
- Use your long cooldown spells ideally when you will not lose uses of any short cooldown spells, being sure not to hold too long to still take advantage of any active buffs.
Single-Target Rotation for Shadow Priest
The single-target rotation relies on the following priority system of abilities, depending on which phase you are in.
If you are looking for something easier to digest or you are just getting started, I strongly suggest looking at the Beginner page page. The below rotation guide is meant for advanced users that want to min/max their rotation as much as possible.
- Keep
Vampiric Touch and
Shadow Word: Pain active by using
Vampiric Touch to apply both DoTs. Use
Shadow Crash if available when you need to refresh and you do not need to hold for adds coming in less than 15 seconds. Refresh these during the proper pandemic window (see below).
- Keep
Vampiric Touch and
Shadow Word: Pain active by using
Vampiric Touch to apply both DoTs. Refresh these during the proper pandemic window (see below).
- Cast
Shadowfiend.
- Cast
Void Eruption to enter
Voidform. Make sure
Mind Blast charges are on cooldown before entering Voidform.
- Cast
Power Infusion.
- Sync any trinkets you have with your cooldowns (see below).
- Cast
Void Bolt.
- Spend
Insanity on
Devouring Plague. Maintain maximum uptime on the DoT without capping on Insanity. You can cast regardless during
Voidform if it will let you cast another
Void Bolt before Voidform expires.
- Cast
Mind Blast if capped on charges.
- Cast
Mind Blast if capped on charges or
Shadowy Insight is active.
- Cast
Void Torrent. This should always be full-channeled.
-
Cast
Mind Spike: Insanity.
-
Cast
Mind Flay: Insanity.
- Fully deplete all
Mind Blast charges.
- Fully deplete all
Mind Blast charges unless
Mind Devourer is active.
- Cast
Mindgames if
Devouring Plague will be active when the cast finishes.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% HP.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% HP or
Mindbender is active.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% HP or
Deathspeaker is active.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% HP,
Deathspeaker is active, or
Mindbender is active.
- Cast
Halo. Save if adds are coming in less than 20 seconds.
- While
Voidform is active dump Insanity with
Devouring Plague.
- Cast
Mind Spike.
- Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have
any instant casts to use:
Shadow Crash,
Shadow Word: Death,
Divine Star,
Shadow Word: Pain
When facing two targets, you still follow the single target rotation.
The main change is typically swapping out Mind's Eye for
Distorted Reality.
To see how this changes the rotation, use the talent switcher at the top of this section.
Note: the pandemic window for our DoTs is 30% of the total duration. This means to get optimal value out of refreshing DoTs, you want to wait until they are at or below the following thresholds:
Vampiric Touch - 6.3 seconds;
Shadow Word: Pain (with
Misery) - 6.3 seconds;
Devouring Plague does not work like a traditional DoT spell, but it will add the old DoT damage to the new DoT damage as well as duration based on ticks remaining;
Devouring Plague does not follow the same refresh rules as these two
DoTs, instead, roll their damage over and add duration based on ticks
remaining. The way you typically want to play around with this is to maximize
the uptime of the DoT as much as possible without capping on Insanity. You
want to do this for optimal uptime on our Mastery bonus.
Specific Trinket Usage
Any on-use trinket offering some sort of stat bonus should ideally be used inside your cooldowns to get the most benefit. Any exceptions to this are noted below.
Voidmender's Shadowgem - Sync with
Power Infusion.
- Use
Darkmoon Deck Box: Inferno (and other Darkmoon trinkets) on cooldown.
Erupting Spear Fragment should be used with
Power Infusion or if there is more than 1 target active.
Beacon to the Beyond should ideally be used with adds or multiple targets. You can use it on cooldown if there are no additional targets to save this trinket.
Spoils of Neltharus - Sync with
Power Infusion, do not fish for a particular buff.
- DEFAULT: Sync with
Voidform,
Dark Ascension, or
Power Infusion. If the cooldown is a minute or less, be sure to use it on CD. Lastly, use it if the fight will end before your cooldowns will come back up.
- Use
Desperate Invoker's Codex.
For on-use trinkets that ONLY deal damage, you can use them on cooldown, starting with Patch 10.1; Shadow Priest has no modifiers to buff them. The exception is when using double on-use, where you do not want to use a damaged on-use trinket if it means you cannot use a stat on-use trinket with cooldowns later. When in doubt, you can sim your character and see how the sim uses the trinket.
Shadow Priest Opening Rotation
To start the opener, your first spell will change, given your talents and the situation. Use the priority list below to know your FIRST spell to open combat with. This will adjust with your talents selected above:
Pre-Pull
If you would like a more comfortable opener, you can use a longer opener to pool
Insanity with Shadow Crash,
Halo, and
Divine Star. The goal of
this is to get to your first
Devouring Plague faster than you would normally.
This is not a massive DPS gain, but it is there if you want to min/max. These spells should be
used so they do not pull you into combat (specifically Divine Star and Shadow Crash). Note that
based on talents, this is how SimC behaves.
Shadow Crash x2 +
Divine Star x2 = 24 Insanity over 20 seconds
Shadow Crash x2 +
Halo x1 = 22 Insanity over 20 seconds
Divine Star x3 = 18 Insanity over 30 seconds
Shadow Crash x2 = 12 Insanity over 20 seconds
Halo x1 = 10 Insanity over 1.5 seconds
Aside from that, here are your normal opener activities:
- As a Blood Elf you can use
Arcane Torrent before pulling, do not use this during your rotation after this.
- Make sure
Shadowform is active.
- Make sure
Power Word: Fortitude is active.
Void Eruption (Voidform)
- Pre-Cast
Shadow Crash if you can reliably land the skill shot on the pull; otherwise, use
Vampiric Touch.
- Cast
Shadowfiend.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
- Cast
Void Eruption.
- Use your combat potion
Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power.
- Use
Power Infusion and any stat-based racial abilities. Make sure to cast Power Infusion on an ally if using
Twins of the Sun Priestess.
- Use any on-use trinkets that you may be running.
- Cast
Void Bolt.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
- Cast
Devouring Plague.
- Cast
Void Bolt.
- Cast
Void Torrent.
- Cast
Void Bolt.
- Cast
Devouring Plague.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
-
Cast
Mind Spike: Insanity
-
Cast
Mind Flay: Insanity
- Cast
Void Bolt.
-
Cast
Mind Spike: Insanity
-
Cast
Mind Flay: Insanity
- Cast
Mindgames.
- Continue with the priority list in the top section above.
Dark Ascension (DA)
- Pre-Cast
Shadow Crash if you can reliably land the skill shot on the pull; otherwise, use
Vampiric Touch.
- Cast
Shadowfiend.
- Cast
Dark Ascension.
- Use your combat potion
Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power.
- Use
Power Infusion and any stat-based racial abilities. Make sure to cast Power Infusion on an ally if using
Twins of the Sun Priestess.
- Use any on-use trinkets that you may be running.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
- Cast
Devouring Plague.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
- Cast
Void Torrent.
- Cast
Devouring Plague.
- Cast
Mind Spike: Insanity
- Cast
Mind Flay: Insanity
- Cast
Mindgames.
- Continue with the priority list in the top section above.
Multiple Target Rotation for Shadow Priest
The Shadow Priest multi-target rotation is very similar to the single target priority list above, with only small differences. Our AoE damage is mostly unlocked by performing our single target rotation well. If you can do that well, you just need to maintain DoTs, and things should fall into place naturally.
Use the following list as a cheat sheet for the critical target swaps:
- 2+ targets: Start using
Halo above
Surge of Insanity fillers. It can also be used on a single target, but not significant to drop it or only use it for healing at that target count.
- 8+ targets: Drop high priority
Mind Blast actions for
Inescapable Torment. You still use
Mind Blast as a low-priority action to generate Insanity since, at this target count, you are not prioritizing Inescapable Torment damage.
2+ Target Priority
When fighting more than a single target, your rotation will look almost identical,
except you will be using any tools you can to maintain Vampiric Touch
and
Shadow Word: Pain on both targets. You should try to maintain these
DoTs on up to 12 targets roughly.
Shadow Crash should be able to cover
8 stacked targets. Do not bother manually DoTing any target that will
not last for at least 18 seconds.
The other change is when using Distorted Reality you can spread
Devouring Plague to both targets; otherwise, continue to only keep
it active on a single target.
In addition, if you are using
Divine Star It starts being worth at 2 targets if you
can consistently hit it twice (you need to be within 24 yards of all targets).
Mythic+ Rotation
For specific tips about playing Shadow Priest in Mythic+, feel free to check out that dedicated page below. From a rotation standpoint, things will follow the priority list above.
Important Notes for Shadow Priest
Tier 30 Set Bonus
Inside of Aberrus or through the Inspiration Catalyst You can craft up to 5 pieces of tier slot gear. This gear gives you unique effects after having 2 or 4 pieces equipped:
- 2-piece set bonus:
Priest Shadow 10.1 Class Set 2pc
- 4-piece set bonus:
Priest Shadow 10.1 Class Set 4pc
One technical note, the set bonus will apply only to
Shadowy Apparitions spawned while the set bonus buff is active.
This means that even after the buff expires if a Shadowy Apparition spawned
with it active it will be buffed as if it was when it eventually
reaches the target.
These tier sets do not fundamentally change how you play in raid encounters.
For Mythic+ environments, you can choose to play a bit around the tier set
depending on the state of the pack. In general, if the pack is about to die,
it might not be worth using Devouring Plague when you have
three stacks of
Darkflame Embers. Proccing the set bonus
and the pack dying instantly later would lose you damage. Instead, consider
holding that Devouring Plague until the start of the next pull.
In addition, it is a small optimization to be closer to any mobs
as they will start to die to make sure your Shadowy Apparitions
give value. Any of them that hit after they
die do not generate Insanity and are wasted.
Devouring Plague Refreshing
Devouring Plague is a DoT unlike anything the game has ever seen.
As such, you must understand how it works at a high
level to avoid misuse of its unique effects.
When refreshing Devouring Plague, you do not need to worry about
doing this at a specific time, and that is because whenever you do refresh the
spell, it rolls over any damage remaining on the ticks and adds that in the form
of a modifier to the new DoTs ticks. This effectively means that when you are
in a case where you often hit or get close to 100 Insanity (referred to as
capping), you can freely refresh Devouring Plague and not lose any damage
assuming the target lives for the entire DoT duration. It is important to note
that no part of this process is snapshotting stats but instead converting
future damage ticks into a modifier value to the new ticks. Because of this
period, Intellect and Haste's changes do not change how the rollover happens; it
always works the same way regardless.
This mechanic is mostly passive but can be used to your advantage to burst
down a specific target. By banking up 100 Insanity (or 150 with
Voidtouched) you can use two
Devouring Plague casts back to
back and get a new DoT with much more powerful ticks in the same amount of time
as a single
Devouring Plague. Otherwise, if your target lives, you
should always prioritize keeping the DoT active on the target for as long as
possible for maximum benefit with our Mastery. While maximizing this, make sure
you are also NOT capping on Insanity. Juggling these two conditions will be how
you master this spell.
For most types of content, you should play completely normally; there is nothing to game with how this works unless you are trying to burst something down specifically. Just play normally and enjoy not losing damage when you would have otherwise capped Insanity.
If you want to see this change explained in video form, I go over this in more detail in this video.
Multi-Target
Now that Devouring Plague is our only Insanity spender, I wanted
to briefly cover multi-target. The way you play with this strictly depends
on if you are playing with
Distorted Reality or not. When you are
NOT using Distorted Reality, you should maintain Devouring Plague
on just a single target, even in AoE. Pick the one that is the most
important to focus down. You could spread this if there are more than
one big priority targets you care about, but that is almost always
an overall DPS loss.
Alternatively when using Distorted Reality you can spread
Devouring Plague around to targets that will live for that duration.
This can be hard to know from just looking at health, but generally, you can
just spread this blindly. You can still tunnel on one target, but that will
typically be a DPS loss with this talent compared to just using
Mind's Eye
instead.
Fade Pulling
For dungeon pulls specifically, you should always be pulling WITH the tank,
not after. By getting proper setup as the tank is pulling by putting up
Vampiric Touch ASAP, you will further increase your damage in the pack
without suffering from loss in casting our Insanity spenders. This is only
possible by using
Fade as a threat drop, as the tank is pulling to be
able to DPS before the threat is fully established. Mastering this is crucial to
doing well in Mythic+.
When to refresh Vampiric Touch with Unfurling Darkness
The Unfurling Darkness talent can be a bit awkward to play around with, but if
you do you think of it less as having to cast an extra
Vampiric Touch and more
like a cooldown, you press every 15 seconds; that should make more sense.
Generally, you want to try and use Vampiric Touch every 15 seconds to process this
"extra" damage and then re-cast Vampiric Touch again (ideally on a different
target to help with DoT uptimes) for that damage bonus. You only have 8 seconds
to use this free cast, so use it wisely.
Depending on how much other stuff to do, you do not need to go out
of your way to cast this every 15 seconds, especially if this means losing
Devouring Plague casts. It will mostly be passive damage
naturally as you refresh your
Vampiric Touch and then re-cast it for the
benefit. Do not let the buff expire and play naturally.
Optimizing Mindbender/Shadowfiend Usage
Both Mindbender and
Shadowfiend are guardians that
scale with your stats, which means using them in combination with, for
example, Intellect, Haste, or Mastery procs is ideal. However, it is
not ideal to delay them too much for both to accomplish this. They are not big
enough damage increases to warrant doing so, and maximizing the number of casts
is more important. If you lost a Mindbender/Shadowfiend cast because of
delaying it too much, then that will almost definitely not have been worth it.
This is especially true for Mindbender, which has a short cooldown of 1
minute. When using
Inescapable Torment, mastering this is important to
get
full damage out of the cooldown.
However, there is an additional aspect to consider here. Both
Shadowfiend and
Mindbender generate an amount of
Insanity whenever they hit their targets. Both pets generate 2 Insanity per
melee swing. This is particularly useful in AoE when getting consistent Insanity
generation is more difficult.
As a general rule of thumb, you will want to use Shadowfiend or
Mindbender right before going into
Void Eruption or
Dark Ascension.
When to use your Racial Abilities
Depending on the race you decide to play, you will get various amounts of spells that you can use to buff your character further. Unfortunately, not all of these are useful. Use this section if you are curious about how to use them in combat.
Note that as of writing, the DPS difference between the various
racial buffs is anywhere between 1-2%. Because this is so small, picking a race
just for the DPS output is generally not suggested. Often you will get
more value out of picking the one that has better non-DPS options, such as
Goblin's Rocket Jump.
Fireblood,
Berserking,
Blood Fury, and
Ancestral Call should be synced up with
Power Infusion to maximize damage.
- Lightforged Draenei's
Light's Judgment should be a low-priority action above your fillers. It gets better with adds and is worth saving and using for them.
- Blood Elf's
Arcane Torrent should only be used before combat; it is a DPS loss to use during combat.
- As a Zandalari Troll, I suggest sticking with
Embrace of Pa'ku for your
Embrace of the Loa.
- Nightborne's
Arcane Pulse is not worth using for DPS purposes.
- Vulpera's
Bag of Tricks is not worth using for DPS purposes.
Changelog
- 06 Jun. 2023: Add note clarifying Void Torrent should always be fully channeled.
- 01 Jun. 2023: Clarifying note about how the tier set bonus works.
- 26 May 2023: Add a note about tier set optimization in Mythic+.
- 22 May 2023: Add more detail on using Halo, Divine Star, and Shadow Crash during pre-pull. Add note about Spoils usage.
- 18 May 2023: Correct typo in the intro section.
- 05 May 2023: Clarify Shadow Crash usage is only for refreshing DoTs.
- 03 May 2023: Lower priority for Shadow Word: Death.
- 02 May 2023: Clarification for Dstar and Halo and expanded on Distorted Reality in Devouring Plague section.
- 01 May 2023: Significant updates to support the 10.1 rework.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 25 Feb. 2023: Clarify Void Torrent use in opener.
- 23 Feb. 2023: Fix issue with Void Torrent in single target, should only cast with all 3 DoTs active.
- 03 Feb. 2023: Adjust high priority Mind Flay: Insanity action to only use when Void Torrent is not available.
- 31 Jan. 2023: Correct high priority Mind Flay: Insanity line with Cthun when not taking Mindbender. Condense AoE rotation down to be easier to read.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Update rotation guide for 10.0.5 with Void Torrent usage.
- 12 Jan. 2023: Remove Mind Sear usage on single target.
- 11 Jan. 2023: Rotational updates for 10.0.5, mostly formatting changes with some small clarity updates.
- 04 Jan. 2023: Small clarification on Devouring Plague refresh notes and add some Trinket notes.
- 03 Jan. 2023: Update openers with more detail. Split them out by cooldown to be easier to maintain.
- 01 Jan. 2023: Lower priority on Shadow Word: Death with Inescapable Torment.
- 29 Dec. 2022: Add new logic for Mind Flay: Insanity and change default checkboxes.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Added section discussing Tier 29 set bonus rotational changes.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 09 Nov. 2022: Added extra note about Mind Spike vs. Mind Flay with Mind Melt and Idol of C'Thun.
- 08 Nov. 2022: Moved racials out of the rotation into their own section. Fixed opener to be easier to read.
- 07 Nov. 2022: Made some parts of the rotation around Mind Blast easier to read.
- 05 Nov. 2022: Cleaned up Devouring Plague lines to be more clear.
- 03 Nov. 2022: Updated the rotations filler sections to be clearer. Added a new section on how to use Mind Sear.
- 02 Nov. 2022: Made it clearer when to use your filler spells with the bottom section.
- 26 Oct. 2022: Added more rotation switches to make things easier to look at.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Adjusted priority of Shadow Word: Death, Mind Flay, and Mind Spike.
- 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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