Shadow Priest DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.2
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 10.2.
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, 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:
Active Talents | Passive Talents |
---|---|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
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. 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. Use
Shadow Crash to help with this.
- Maintain uptime of
Devouring Plague on as many targets as possible that will live the full duration.
- Use short cooldown Insanity generating spells to make sure you do not
lose uses of them. This includes spells like
Shadow Word: Death,
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.
If you can get these goals right, the rotation should make more sense and fall into play naturally.
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 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. 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).
- Cast
Mindbender.
- Cast
Dark Ascension.
- Cast
Power Infusion.
- Sync any trinkets you have with your cooldowns (see below).
- Spend
Insanity on
Devouring Plague. Spread this DoT around to all available targets with
Distorted Reality while continuing to focus targets that have the DoT active. Maintain maximum uptime on the DoT without capping on Insanity.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death if
Mindbender is active with the
Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 2pc or you have the
Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc regardless of the state of Mindbender.
-
Cast
Mind Blast if
Mindbender is active and you are capped on charges or will cap charges soon. Cast at high priority if Mindbender will expire otherwise (2 seconds or less).
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death if still available and you have the
Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 2pc equipped.
- Cast
Shadow Crash with the
Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc if you have 10 or more stacks of
Death's Torment and you are not holding for upcoming adds.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Pain with the
Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc if you have 10 or more stacks of
Death's Torment and
Shadow Crash is unavailable, and you are not holding for adds.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Pain with the
Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc if you have 10 or more stacks of
Death's Torment.
- Cast
Void Torrent if you are not saving for adds coming soon, and
Devouring Plague will last for at least 2.5 seconds or you are facing multiple targets. You can interrupt the channel ONLY if
Shadow Word: Death is available and
Mindbender is active with the
Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 2pc.
- Cast
Mind Spike: Insanity.
- Cast
Mindgames.
- Cast
Halo if it will hit at least 2 targets.
- Cast
Mind Spike.
- Use the following spells in order should you need to move and do not have
any other casts to use:
Divine Star,
Shadow Crash (if adds are not coming soon), or finally
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.
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
Belor'relos, the Suncaller if adds are up, or save it if they are coming in soon. Otherwise, use it as you cast
Mindbender as an off-GCD action. 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.
Spoils of Neltharus - Sync with
Power Infusion, do not fish for a particular buff.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
Void Eruption (Voidform)
This opener assumes you started with 10 Insanity from casting Halo pre-pull.
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 above.
- Pre-Cast
Shadow Crash if you can reliably land the skill shot on the pull, and you do not need to save for adds; otherwise, use
Vampiric Touch.
- Use
Nymue's Unraveling Spindle if equipped.
- Cast
Mindbender.
- Use
Belor'relos, the Suncaller if equipped with the
Mindbender cast.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death.
- 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.
- Use any on-use trinkets that you may be running.
- Cast
Void Bolt.
- Cast
Devouring Plague.
- Cast
Mind Blast twice.
- Cast
Void Torrent.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death
- Cast
Void Bolt.
- Cast
Devouring Plague.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
-
Cast
Mind Spike: Insanity.
-
Cast
Mind Flay: Insanity.
- Cast
Void Bolt.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
- Cast
Devouring Plague.
- Cast
Mindgames.
- Continue with the priority list in the top section above.
Dark Ascension (DA)
This opener assumes you only started with 10 Insanity from casting Halo
pre-pull. Depending on if you have
Shadow Crash,
Divine Star,
Bloodlust or
Arcane Torrent
you will adjust when you cast the first
Devouring Plague after you
get into
Dark Ascension. As soon as you get enough Insanity, you should
cast that first Devouring Plague; there is no need to strictly follow the below list.
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 above.
- Pre-Cast
Shadow Crash if you can reliably land the skill shot on the pull, and you do not need to save for adds; otherwise, use
Vampiric Touch.
- Use
Nymue's Unraveling Spindle if equipped.
- Cast
Mindbender.
- Use
Belor'relos, the Suncaller if equipped with the
Mindbender cast.
- 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 if you have not already.
- Cast
Shadow Word: Death.
- Cast
Devouring Plague.
- Cast
Mind Blast twice.
- Cast
Void Torrent.
- Cast
Mindgames.
- Cast
Mind Blast.
- Cast
Devouring Plague.
-
Cast
Mind Spike: Insanity.
-
Cast
Mind Flay: Insanity.
- 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. The rotation list above is setup for AoE as well; just make sure you select the proper talents.
Use the following list as a cheat sheet for the critical target swaps:
- 2+ targets: Start using
Halo above non-
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.
- 12+ targets: Threshold for manually DoTing targets, not worth ever going over this
(including the 8 from
Shadow Crash).
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 as many targets as possible; otherwise, continue to only keep
it active on a single priority target.
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 31 Set Bonus
Inside of Amirdrassil or through the Revival 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 10.2 Class Set 2pc
- 4-piece set bonus:
Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc
This tier set does change up several parts of our rotation depending on which part of the set you currently have equipped. These changes are all inside of the rotation priority list above, in addition to listed out below.
Shadow Word: Death becomes just about your top priority action (aside from spending Insanity) when you have the 4-piece set bonus OR
Mindbender is active, and you only have the 2-piece set bonus with
Inescapable Torment talented.
- The 4-piece set bonus also requires that you weave in either
Shadow Crash or
Shadow Word: Pain to spend your stacks of
Death's Torment. If you are fighting more than one target, you should only spend these stacks on Shadow Crash, even if you cap stacks. On a single target, you should avoid capping stacks and use Shadow Word: Pain to spend your stacks only when Shadow Crash is NOT> available.
It is important to note that the Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc can
only be consumed by hard casting
Shadow Word: Pain. This means even with
Misery
Vampiric Touch will NOT consume the set bonus
stacks. These stacks only apply to the initial damage of Shadow Word: Pain and
have no interaction with the periodic DoT component.
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
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. By casting more Devouring Plagues with Mind's
Eye, you will lose overall uptime of the DoT, leading to a loss because
you will be casting more spells when the target does not have the DoT active.
This is why, with Mind's Eye, you should not spread Devouring Plague.
Alternatively when using Distorted Reality you should spread
Devouring Plague around to targets that will live for at least half the 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. When doing this, make sure you are still casting spells on targets
with Devouring Plague active for the Mastery benefit. Even while spreading,
you should still have it active on at least 1 enemy.
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.
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 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
- 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.
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.
- WoW Servers Down and Explanation
- Professions Capped at 150 Skill in Season of Discovery Phase 1
- Amirdrassil 10.2 Raid DPS Log Rankings, Week 3: In the Middle of Two Tuning Passes
- Gates of Ahn'Qiraj Open on Season of Discovery Realms
- Death Knight Atal'dazar +20 Solo in Dragonflight Season 3
- Metamorphosis Rune Found in Season of Discovery
- Number of Raid Bosses Per Expansion
- The 10 Rarest Still Obtainable Mounts (Video)