Shadow Priest DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within Pre-Patch
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 — The War Within Pre-Patch.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Shadow Priest rotation.
Shadow Priest Rotation for The War Within
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.
If you are completely new to Shadow and need more information on your abilities, you can check out our Spell Summary page.
Best Talent Builds for Shadow Priest in The War Within
We highly recommend you go and grab the best Talent Builds for the spec before diving into the Rotation. Check out our dedicated Talents page below:
Simplified Shadow Priest Rotation for Beginners
If the rotations below seem overwhelming, you might benefit from visiting our Beginner page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.
PvP
The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.
Shadow Priest Rotations
The sections below explain your rotation as a Shadow Priest. Click the different boxes to switch the desired fight type.
Shadow Priest Rotation
Use the buttons below to swap to the various talent presets for
Single Target and AoE for Dark Ascension and
Void Eruption
variants. You can also use the checkboxes to individually add or remove
items and the rotation will dynamically update.
Active Talents | Passive Talents | On-Use Trinkets |
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DF Season 4 Set Bonus | ![]() |
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Single-Target Rotation Goals for Shadow Priest
Before going in-depth with the priority list, I wanted to break down the goals of playing Shadow Priest. These goals will help describe the why behind the full-on priority list, hopefully giving it more context.
- Maintain
Vampiric Touch and
Shadow Word: Pain roughly up to 12 targets.
- Maintain uptime of
Devouring Plague without capping on Insanity.
- Use short cooldown
Insanity-generating spells to make sure you do not lose uses of them. This includes
spells like
Void Bolt,
Mind Blast, 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. This includes
spells like
Shadowfiend and
Void Torrent.
If you can get these goals right, the rotation should make more sense and fall into play naturally.
AoE Rotation Goals for Shadow Priest
WARNING: Shadow Crash is not
selected in the table above or you are not using an AoE preset. Please select this
above to see an accurate example of an AoE opener. AoE content as a Shadow Priest
without this will be torturous.
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.
During AoE you will be using any tools you can to maintain Vampiric Touch
and
Shadow Word: Pain on several 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.
Depending on your playstyle choice, you can choose to either send your
Devouring Plague casts into the highest health priority target
enemy, or cast each Devouring Plague on a new target to spread the damage around.
Typically with
Mind's Eye you prefer to funnel and
Distorted Reality you prefer to spread, but either talent can play with
either playstyle. Check out the dedicated section on Devouring Plague below to learn more.
-
If the pack is big enough, you should strongly consider using your
cooldowns. Getting as many casts of your cooldown without losing uses of it
or not having it for a boss is the biggest point of improvement most players
can make in dungeons. This includes
Void Eruption,
Power Infusion, and
Shadowfiend.
- At this point,
your highest priority is maintaining DoTs. You should pick a main priority target to
funnel in your
Devouring Plague into. This is typically the target with the highest amount of HP, or a particularly powerful enemy.
- Use spells to generate
Insanity, like
Void Bolt,
Mind Blast, and
Surge of Insanity. Get these on cooldown quickly so you can blast with your bigger spells.
- Use bigger cooldown spells like
Void Torrent, and
Divine Star to do small burst damage.
- Fill with
Mind Flay.
Single-Target Opener for Shadow Priest
Note that this opener assumes you get unlucky with procs and does not
account for getting any of Deathspeaker,
Shadowy Insight,
or
Mind Devourer procs. Be sure to follow the priority list as
noted below. These openers are just a snapshot of the opener
up till your first cast of
Void Torrent.
This opener assumes you started with 24 Insanity via pre-pull
activities with Divine Star. See the section below on the
Pre-Pull rotation to learn more.
The placement of the trinkets selected in the table above are optimized below for just using a single on-use trinket. When using double on-use trinkets you should check with sims to know which order it prefers to use them in. Results in the table below will not always be accurate when selecting two on-use trinkets due to the trinket lock-out.
Before combat starts, make sure you have Shadowform
and
Power Word: Fortitude active.
- Pre-Cast
Vampiric Touch
- Cast
Shadowfiend.
- Cast
Mind Blast twice.
- 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.
- Cast
Void Bolt
- Cast
Devouring Plague
- Cast
Mind Blast
- Cast
Void Torrent.
- Continue with the priority list as described below.
Single Target Priority List for Shadow Priest
The single-target rotation relies on the following priority system of abilities.
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 rotation guide below is meant for advanced users who 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. 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 trinket section).
- Cast
Void Bolt if you will not cap Insanity.
- Spend Insanity on
Devouring Plague if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap on Insanity,
Mind Devourer is active, or
Dark Ascension is active.
- Cast
Void Torrent if
Devouring Plague will last for at least 2.5 seconds. Full channel this cast.
- Fully deplete
Mind Blast charges if
Mind Devourer is not active.
- Full channel
Mind Flay: Insanity.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health.
- Cast
Mind Flay. Interrupt this for any other action as it becomes available.
- Use the following spells in order should you
need to move and do not have any other casts to use:
Divine Star,
Shadow Word: Death, or
Shadow Word: Pain.
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 the time till the next tick;
Devouring Plague does not follow the same refresh rules as these two
DoTs, instead, roll their damage over and add duration based on time to the next tick.
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.
AoE Opener for Shadow Priest
WARNING: Shadow Crash is not
selected in the table above or you are not using an AoE preset. Please select this
above to see an accurate example of an AoE opener. AoE content as a Shadow Priest
without this will be torturous.
This is meant as a very basic example for opening on a pack in an AoE environment. The exact mob count and way the mobs are grouped will naturally change what you will do from pull to pull, especially depending on your cooldown state. Use this as a starting point along with the general priority list.
The placement of the trinkets selected in the table above are optimized below for just using a single on-use trinket. When using double on-use trinkets you should check with sims to know which order it prefers to use them in. Results in the table below will not always be accurate when selecting two on-use trinkets due to the trinket lock-out.
Before combat starts, make sure you have Shadowform
and
Power Word: Fortitude active.
- Cast
Vampiric Touch on any targets as the pack is being grouped up with
Fade (see below).
- Cast
Shadow Crash to put up DoTs on targets once everything is grouped.
- Cast
Shadowfiend.
- Cast
Mind Blast to get the cooldown reset before going into
Void Eruption. Skip this if the pack will not live long enough to get your full
Voidform out.
- Cast
Void Eruption
- Use your combat potion
Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power unless you want to save for an upcoming pack or boss.
- 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.
- Continue with the rotation as normal.
Note if the pack has more than 8 targets or
they are too spread for Shadow Crash You should do your best to pull with the
tank by using
Fade to not get aggro but still putting your DoTs up as the pack
gets pulled.
AoE Priority List for Shadow Priest
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 rotation guide below is meant for advanced users who want to min/max their rotation as much as possible.
When dealing damage in AoE it is crucial to make sure you are casting
spells onto targets that have Devouring Plague active. This ensures
the damage from
Psychic Link is being boosted as much as possible
through spells like
Mastery: Shadow Weaving or
Insidious Ire.
- 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 trinket section).
- Cast
Void Bolt if you will not cap Insanity.
- Spend Insanity on
Devouring Plague on the priority target if it is not active, about to expire, you are about to cap on Insanity,
Mind Devourer is active, or
Dark Ascension is active.
- Cast
Void Torrent if
Devouring Plague will last for at least 2.5 seconds. Full channel this cast. Can save this for an upcoming AoE burst up to 15 seconds away.
- Fully deplete
Mind Blast charges if
Mind Devourer is not active.
- Full channel
Mind Flay: Insanity.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death if the target is below 20% health.
- Cast
Mind Flay. Interrupt this for any other action as it becomes available.
- Use the following spells in order should you
need to move and do not have any other casts to use:
Divine Star,
Shadow Word: Death, or
Shadow Word: Pain.
In addition to the AoE priority list above, keep in mind these important target swaps:
- 12+ targets: Threshold for manually DoTing targets, typically not worth ever going over this
unless it is as the pack is being gathered with
Fade (including the 8 from
Shadow Crash).
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.
Specific Trinket Usage
Any on-use trinket offering a stat bonus should ideally be used inside your cooldowns to get the most benefit. Any exceptions to this are noted below.
- Use
Nymue's Unraveling Spindle right before casting
Mindbender.
- Use
Nymue's Unraveling Spindle right before casting
Shadowfiend. For every other cast, just use before cooldowns.
- Use
Belor'relos, the Suncaller if adds are up, or save it if they are coming in soon. Make sure you are within melee range of all targets. If you are using double on-use, hold this as your second on-use trinket and just use it off-GCD when possible. Our cooldowns do not buff its damage whatsoever.
- Use
Darkmoon Deck Box: Inferno (and other Darkmoon trinkets) on cooldown.
- Use
Conjured Chillglobe on cooldown.
- Use
Iceblood Deathsnare if adds are up, or save it if they are coming in soon. Otherwise, use this on cooldown.
- Use
Beacon to the Beyond if adds are up, or save it if they are coming in soon. Otherwise, use this on cooldown.
Spoils of Neltharus - Sync with
Power Infusion, do not fish for a particular buff.
- Use
Erupting Spear Fragment if adds are up or
Power Infusion is active.
- DEFAULT: Sync all other trinkets with
Voidform,
Dark Ascension, or
Power Infusion. If the cooldown is a minute or less, use it on CD. Lastly, use it if the fight will end before your cooldowns will come back up.
- Use
Desperate Invoker's Codex as your last priority trinket if you are using double-on-use trinkets. This should always be used on cooldown if it will not kill you.
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.
If you are using Balefire Branch you should try and weave in a
Power Word: Shield cast in pre-pull to limit taking damage while the
trinket is active.
Pre-Pull Rotation
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.
Divine Star x4 = 24 Insanity over 45 seconds (see note below)
Shadow Crash x2 +
Divine Star x2 = 24 Insanity over 20 seconds
Shadow Crash x2 +
Halo x1 = 22 Insanity over 20 seconds
Shadow Crash x2 = 12 Insanity over 20 seconds
Halo x1 = 10 Insanity over 1.5 seconds
With Divine Star, you can technically cast it more than 3 times in the opener to
get even more Insanity, but this requires 45 seconds of planning pre-pull. Casting it 4 times
(45 seconds) gives you enough Insanity to have
Devouring Plague be your first global
after
Dark Ascension.
Another micro-optimization is playing more around Twist of Fate. Particularly in the
opener, getting this buff active for the start of an encounter, especially if lusting on pull
can be valuable. One way to try and proc this is by speccing into
Renew
and/or
Prayer of Mending and casting this on tanks before the pull starts. This is a
pretty low-effort way to
potentially get procs of this on pull. You can even use this trick elsewhere, like during
downtime or intermissions, to try and proc it as well.
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.
- Pre-cast
Power Word: Shield if using
Balefire Branch.
Important Notes for Shadow Priest
Season 4 Set Bonus
The Season 4 set bonus for Shadow Priest is as follows:
- 2-piece set bonus:
Priest Shadow 10.1 Class Set 2pc
- 4-piece set bonus:
Priest Shadow 10.1 Class Set 4pc
Largely speaking, this set bonus does not have large implications
for our gameplay and rotation. It encourages you to spend Insanity
and your Shadowy Insight procs as you would normally play, while also
changing some talent choices along the way. In particular, builds
with
Void Eruption get stronger with this tier set in
general.
While generally the rotation does not change for maximizing overall damage,
the Priest Shadow 10.1 Class Set 4pc in particular might incentivize you to
pull around this effect. Depending on your gear levels, this should have
relatively high uptime this season, but there is still some optimization
if you are trying to save that 10-second burst window for an important
part of an encounter or for the top of your burst.
The tricky part with this optimization is that holding
Devouring Plague can have very costly effects to your damage. You
need to be extra careful when trying to play around this set bonus. For this reason,
most people do not need to bother tracking or playing around this proc, but you
will likely see more experienced Shadows playing around it. Taking a damage loss
at the end of a pack to make sure you have this burst for the start of a very
important pack coming up next with cooldowns could be a large damage gain in
coordinated groups.
Devouring Plague Refreshing
Devouring Plague is a relatively unique DoT that works differently
from
Vampiric Touch or
Shadow Word: Pain. As such, you must
understand how it works at a high level to avoid misuse of its unique effects.
When refreshing Devouring Plague, it rolls over any damage remaining
on the future ticks and adds that in the form
of a modifier to the new DoT 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.
While the damage does roll over regardless of when you use
Devouring Plague the exact timing of the refresh is important. Shadow
Priests Mastery,
Mastery: Shadow Weaving, benefits from uptime of
Devouring Plague. So to get the most damage out of the DoT, you want to
only refresh the DoT when it has less than a GCD remaining, or you are getting
close to capping on Insanity (deficit of ~20 or less) to get maximum damage
out of our Mastery. Furthermore, playing like this also gets the most value
out of the
Insidious Ire talent if you are using that.
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 multiple
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
The way you play with Devouring Plague strictly depends
on what you want to prioritize, overall AoE damage or priority target
damage. Both of these are viable strategies and can be used with
just about any talent combination.
To prioritize overall AoE damage you can spread
Devouring Plague. This is done by simply casting Devouring Plague
on a new target every time you get enough Insanity and then using that
as your new main target until you build up enough Insanity to restart
the process. This playstyle works particularly well with talents like
Distorted Reality and
Phantasmal Pathogen, but these
are not necessarily required to see gains with this playstyle. While
Devouring Plague does roll its damage over when re-applying you can
end up losing out on damage depending on when targets die. By spreading
the DoT around to whatever is the current highest health target you can
see gains from this playstyle.
Alternatively you can choose to increase your priority target
damage while in AoE but funneling casts of Devouring Plague
onto the most important mob of a pack. This damage pattern is less
commonly found in other specs in the game, which makes Shadow Priest
in particular highly desired in high-end key compositions. Often times
packs have a few priority target mobs that either have more health
than most of the pack or perhaps have a set of deadly abilities that
makes the mob important to kill first. This playstyle typically
prefers running
Mind's Eye to get more casts off of Devouring
Plague in a dungeon.
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+.
Typically we only maintain DoTs up to 12 targets during a pull (8 from
Shadow Crash and 4 from manual
Vampiric Touch). By pulling
with the tank this allows you to get more manual Vampiric Touch DoTs out
to increase the amount of targets we can sustain our damage on. This is where
the power of
Void Eruption builds comes into play since you can
then sustain those DoTs with
Void Bolt during higher key pulls.
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.
Idol of Y'Shaarj Optimization
Idol of Y'Shaarj further empowers each cast of
Mindbender
with the following benefits based on the state of the target you cast it on
if you are talented into it:
- If the target has more than 80% health:
Devoured Pride - You and your pet gain 5% more damage
- If the target is enraged:
Devoured Anger - Dispel the effect and increases your Haste by 5%
- If the target is stunned:
Devoured Despair - You gain 5 Insanity per second
- If the target is feared:
Devoured Fear - You and your pet gain 5% more damage and do not break Fear effects
- If none of the other conditions are met:
Devoured Violence - Your
Mindbender will last an additional 5 seconds.
It is important to know that, generally speaking, these buffs are very close together in terms of DPS gain. That being said, here is the rough ranking in order of priority:
Devoured Despair
Devoured Anger
Devoured Pride and
Devoured Fear
Devoured Violence (Default)
Note that while in AoE environments, Devoured Despair becomes
even further ahead and is clear the best option if you can proc it.
Unfortunately, talenting into
Psychic Horror is typically
not worth as a Shadow Priest, so coordinating this benefit
with others in your group can be challenging.
Since these buffs are almost always within margin of error of each
other, you should play normally and not try and go out of your way to min/max
this buff since that could end up costing you damage. The optimization here is
every time you are about to cast Mindbender, consider
the above table to try and get a bit of extra damage but do NOT
delay the cast.
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 or Dwarf's
Stoneform.
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
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within pre-patch.
- 09 May 2024: Add option to cancel Mind Flay: Insanity in AoE situations.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 02 May 2024: Increase priority of Void Bolt and correct opener from this change.
- 26 Apr. 2024: Adjust Mind Flay: Insanity and Mind Spike: Insanity priority in AoE.
- 25 Apr. 2024: Add new video link and clarify Nymue trinket usage with Shadowfiend.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Update rotation for Season 4 with new placeholder builds and options.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 08 Feb. 2024: Add aoe rotation video link.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.5.
- 02 Jan. 2024: Add more detail around spending stacks of Death's Torment in the tier section.
- 03 Dec. 2023: Add section on optimizing Idol of Y'Shaarj.
- 03 Dec. 2023: Add clarifying note about how the 4pc set bonus works.
- 24 Nov. 2023: Remove Power Word: Shield action during movement.
- 19 Nov. 2023: Add extra SW:D line when only using the 2-piece set bonus.
- 07 Nov. 2023: Adjust movement GCDs in main rotation priority.
- 07 Nov. 2023: Small clarifying update to using Belor'relos, the Suncaller.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2.0 and the new Season 3 set bonus.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7.
- 13 Aug. 2023: Update video link.
- 09 Aug. 2023: Removed Shadow Word: Death in Void Eruption opener when using Inescapable Torment.
- 09 Aug. 2023: Added note to the Dark Ascension opener to make it clearer.
- 08 Aug. 2023: Adjust Dark Ascension opener to account for Distorted Reality.
- 26 Jul. 2023: Adjust sections for Divine Star and Mindgames usage to set them at a lower priority.
- 23 Jul. 2023: Reviewed from the recent hotfixes.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5 and small update to Voidform opener.
- 27 Jun. 2023: Rotational updates for Shadow Word: Death depending on talents selected. Clarify some Distorted Reality usage.
- 20 Jun. 2023: Update Devouring Plague refreshing details.
- 15 Jun. 2023: Clarifying note to Void Torrent around Devouring Plague.
- 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.
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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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