Shadow Priest DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Dragonflight 10.0.7

While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent builds listed below work great for specific purposes.

With Dragonflight you can now freely change talents anywhere without tomes so be sure to try out builds and have fun experimenting! These builds should act as a good starting point but there are likely micro-optimizations to make to further min-max your build to each situation.

The video version of this guide is also available if you would like to watch along as I talk about Shadow Priest.

If you want an overview and breakdown of every talent check out the Spell Summary first to help navigate your build choices.

The builds suggested below are generally good for most content, but if you want specific boss recommendations for the current tier check out the dedicated page below.

Import the following string to directly apply these talent changes:

• BIQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIk0CBAAAAAAAAAAAAQikkSkmU0iEJlESEkGJJJSjgEESRahkAA

This is a standard talent build revolving mostly around getting as much Insanity as possible to fuel more spells into your Dark Ascension windows. Idol of Y'Shaarj and Idol of C'Thun build paths buff this the most leading to a nice passive combination. These talents also fuel into a 1-minute cooldown cycle making it adaptable for almost any single target situation. Mind Flay is your default filler with this build.

You can also swap out Screams of the Void and Idol of C'Thun for Mind Devourer and Idol of Yogg-Saron if you prefer that playstyle. When you drop Idol of C'Thun for Yogg-Saron you will instead use Mind Spike as your default filler over Mind Flay.

Note that if you dislike playing with Mind Spike you can drop this for a ~3.3% drop in DPS by swapping points out of Mind Spike and related talents.

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If using Dark Ascension is not something you are particularly interested in you can opt into using Void Eruption instead which is roughly equivalent in damage. The main difference between these two builds is having to weave in Void Bolt and the damage pattern of changing to be a full 2 minute spec.

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Composite in this case refers to a general build to handle several situations like adds, additional targets, and movement scenarios.

Import the following string to directly apply these talent changes:

• BIQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISSLSAAAAAAAAAAAAAISiSkm0ISSSJhEBpRSSi0IIBhUkWIJAA

If you are looking for a more generic Raid build that can handle a larger variety of encounters I would suggest starting here. You take a slight dip in single target to grab more cleave talents to handle more situations like regular add spawns.

Throughout the raid you might find yourself wanting to optimize for 2-target or 4-target encounters. You can use the following builds as starting points for both of these situations:

Import the following string to directly apply these talent changes:

• BIQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISSLSAAAAAAAAAAAAAISiSkm0gkkUSiEBpRSSi0IIBhUkWIJAA

Import the following string to directly apply these talent changes:

• BIQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAESiIBAAAAAAAAAAAAACKRaJNSSSSJJSEkGJJJSjgEESRahkAA

This build is aimed at picking up the largest gains for Mythic+ damage possible, all without giving up too much single target. The primary focus here will be around Mind Sear and Mind Devourer and picking up things that easily work with our AoE spender. On top of this it also maximizes Psychic Link damage letting our big single target spells cleave to other enemies. There is some flexibility here in choice where you could tweak the build for the exact key you are doing, more detail on this in the sections below and the Mythic+ page.

If you want specific advice for Mythic+, check out the dedicated page below.

This build is an excellent starting point for questing and general-purpose usage.

Import the following string to directly apply these talent changes:

• BIQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIINOQAAAAAAAAAAAAAkcgkkSahUIJJJFIRQaRSkk0kAQiUapFSAA

Several of our talents actively change your rotation, or specifically your priority in given situations. You can find out more in the rotation section below.

This section is meant to give more context to choices in our talent tree. This section will not cover every single talent, but rather give you reasons and answers for how to approach making a build.

In our class tree our goal is to first pick up all the damage in the tree, which is mostly concentrated on the right-hand side. Your standard build will start you out with:

• Shadow Word: Death and Shadowfiend for free.
• Start off with Death and Madness and either version of Mind Control or Dominate Mind.
• Grab your movement ability by getting Dispel Magic, Improved Flash Heal, and Angelic Feather.

From there you get your choice of where to spend your last few points. For most content, I would suggest grabbing Purify Disease and From Darkness Comes Light for better off healing. After this, you will certainly want to get Leap of Faith, Shackle Undead, or Void Tendrils so that you can get Power Infusion in the next section. As soon as the next section unlocks you will want to spend points in that first before considering circling back.

Assuming you unlocked the section appropriately you want to straight away pick up the following to max out your damage:

• Power Infusion and Twins of the Sun Priestess
• Twist of Fate
• Throes of Pain (note you will need to pick something else to path here)

To fill out this section you will most likely pick up Vampiric Embrace and San'layn to get to Throes of Pain, but you have options. Other good things to note are grabbing more movement with Body and Soul and a defensive talent with Tithe Evasion. In this section, you have quite a lot of freedom of what to pick, and you can even circle back to the top section to grab more off-healing if you want that. You might also want to grab Mass Dispel if you can get good use out of this.

Note: you will want to spend 2 points in Unwavering Will if you plan on getting anything in the far bottom left section specifically.

For the bottom section of our class tree we have some focused talents around Mindgames you will want for damage, but you still have lots of choices around that. Here is the base you will want to take in all content:

• Mindgames, Manipulation, and Shattered Perceptions
• Divine Star or Halo. Generally speaking Halo will be your default, but using Divine Star in open world or dungeon content can be a good alternative.
• Consider adding Crystalline Reflection if you find yourself casting Power Word: Shield often and the fight has lots of raid-wide damage.

If you have followed the suggestions to this point you now have lots of points left over to fill out your tree. This is where you can build your Priest the way you need for what you want to do, here are some common paths to consider:

• Defensive: Angel's Mercy, Light's Inspiration, and Translucent Image
• Off-Healing: Binding Heals, Surge of Light, and Power Word: Life
• Utility: Void Shift

Moving on to the Shadow Priest spec tree there are some interesting choices we can navigate through here, all framed with how you want to do your damage. The main considerations you will need to make for your build are around the encounter style and how many targets you will be facing.

Here are some of the main themes in the Shadow Priest Tree:

• Single Target
• Spread Cleave
• Cleave and AoE

Keep these themes in mind when building a tree to suit the situation you are trying to optimize for. The best builds will come from fine-tuning the suggestions below into workable trees for various situations. You will likely want to do micro changes to the build between dungeons and various raid bosses. Use this as a guideline to help you make those decisions.

This is the utility section of the tree where picking up all the damage you need generally speaking is quite easy. Start your build off like so:

• Devouring Plague for free.
• Shadowy Apparitions, Misery, and Coalescing Shadows.
• Pick up Dispersion and Silence for your standard utility.
• Choose Mind Sear for any cases where you are constantly fighting 3 or more stacked targets (sometimes even 2 depending on future talents) in addition to Mind Spike for all cases.
• For your last point you get to choose between any one of the following: Intangibility, Mental Fortitude, Last Word, or Psychic Horror. In most cases I would default to Mental Fortitude. Note that if you pick up Mind Sear and Mind Spike you would skip this unless you drop a point elsewhere later on.

Right now with current tuning Misery is likely to be more useful than Dark Void. While Dark Void does make spreading Shadow Word: Pain easier you can only use this every 30 seconds. On top of that the value you get with Shadow Crash spreading Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain with Misery it does not feel like you are missing out on much by not having Dark Void.

In this section of the tree you will be filling out the base part of your kit with some amount of definition. Before going forward it is important to start considering where you want to end your tree to make sure you pick things that all work together well.

• First off you need to pick your cooldown, either Void Eruption or Dark Ascension. See the section below to help make this choice.
• Regardless of your choice of cooldown the following abilities make sense in just about every single build and I would suggest starting with them: Ancient Madness, Shadowy Insight, Shadow Crash, and Auspicious Spirits.
• If you are taking Mind Spike for whichever reasons you almost always want to also pick Surge of Darkness and Mind Melt. Depending on the build you can consider dropping Mind Melt for Mental Decay if you are indexing more into Mind Flay talents. Regardless of that choice having Surge of Darkness will be valuable for an extra instant cast proc to use while moving.
• To finish out a single target build you typically want to get Puppet Master and Harnessed Shadows to get access to Mindbender in the next section. After this depending on how much you intend on pressing Mind Flay you will grab Mental Decay and 1 point in Dark Evangelism.

The major choice you need to make in this section is which cooldown to select. Unfortunately these cooldowns do not have a clear definition and generally will come down to numbers rather than a specific playstyle that one is better at compared to the other. That being said Void Eruption does have some amount of identity, specifically being great for generating more Shadowy Apparitions and having better AoE burst with the Mastery activation component of Voidform. With this understanding you effectively end up taking Dark Ascension whenever Voidform does not make sense, rather than wanting to take it for a specific reason. For most content, you will find Dark Ascension to be more useful and better damage in single target. This means for anything more than 2 targets you will typically choose Void Eruption.

Similar to the above section, this choice mostly comes down to numbers and damage tuning. On paper, it makes sense to take Auspicious Spirits in single target and in any cases where you want more insanity from your spirits. This makes it a great default choice and something you will take most of the time. Tormented Spirits is the contrast here where it is primarily there to give you more apparitions. However, even in AoE, we struggle to get a lot of insanity as often as we would like, which makes Auspicious Spirits still better than Tormented, even with Idol of Yogg-Saron talented.

For the final section of talents you need to decide what your end goals are. At level 70 you can comfortably get two Idol spells to make up your build. Generally speaking, builds utilizing two Idol talents are better than those with zero or one. While there are many different combinations of Idols I will only be going over the ones that will be more common.

• Idol of Y'Shaarj + Idol of Yogg-Saron
  • Mindbender, Inescapable Torment, Idol of Y'Shaarj, Encroaching Shadows, Mind Devourer, and Idol of Yogg-Saron.
  • Options: Mind Flay: Insanity for single target or finishing up Psychic Link or Dark Evangelism depending on the build.
  • Strengths: Great Single Target
  • One of our most versatile build options that double as being great at stacked 2 targets. Can be paired with Dark Ascension for single target or Void Eruption for AoE.
• Idol of Y'Shaarj + Idol of C'Thun
  • Mindbender, Inescapable Torment, Idol of Y'Shaarj, Mind Flay: Insanity, Screams of the Void, and Idol of C'Thun.
  • Options: Finish with Encroaching Shadows + 1 point in Mind Devourer or Insidious Ire.
  • Strengths: Best Single Target
  • Currently the best performing single target build when paired up with Dark Ascension.
• Idol of C'Thun + Idol of Yogg-Saron
  • Mindbender, Screams of the Void, Idol of C'Thun, Encroaching Shadows, Mind Devourer, and Idol of Yogg-Saron.
  • Strengths: Great All-Around performance and Best AoE
  • Similar to the Yshaarj Yogg build this is equally strong in all around performance, making it another contender for Mythic+ builds. Almost always paired with Void Eruption.

There are plenty of other combinations of builds, especially when we get more talent points but these should be a good starting point for pre-patch.

While Shadow Priests might have a somewhat unique tree and layout there are options and decisions that can give talents different points of viability depending on the content you are doing. Use the tables below to get a deeper understanding of when to prioritize certain talents and how to tweak the starting templates above to the exact situation you want to optimize for. If you would like to see a list of every talent's effect, check out our spell summary section.

Before talking about Shadow Priest builds we first need to cover your base class tree. The Priest class tree has lots of interesting choices with minimal amounts of throughput choices. This means you can pick up all the damage talents easily while having plenty of points leftover for more off-healing, defensive capabilities, or utility.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Angelic Feather	AF	Provides you with 3 charges of a movement ability for a small amount of move speed. Does not stack with Body and Soul.
Death and Madness	DaM	Reworked version of a previous talent that gives you an extra cast of the spell in execute in addition to Insanity if the target dies shortly after. Note that the cooldown reset is limited to every 20s.
Power Infusion	PI	Gives the target 25% haste for 20 seconds. Can be cast on the player or on an ally with Twins of the Sun Priestess to also get the effect.
Vampiric Embrace	VE	Causes a percentage of your single target Shadow abilities to be given to an ally as healing.
Body and Soul	BaS	Gives the target of Power Word: Shield or Leap of Faith a small movement speed increase. Does not stack with Angelic Feather.
Twins of the Sun Priestess	Twins	Causes you to also gain Power Infusion when cast on another player. Does not work on pets.
Twist of Fate	ToF	Causes any damage or healing event on a target below 35% health to give you a damage increase buff. Acts as an execute talent giving us more damage as a fight goes on.
Throes of Pain	-	Buffs your Shadow Word: Pain damage and gives you 5 Insanity anytime a target dies while afflicted with this DoT.
Halo and Divine Star	-	Choice node between two damage cooldowns. Halo is generally preferred and easier to use, however you will notice Divine Star doing more damage than Halo as you increase targets. Halo is not strictly a DPS increase on single target, so typically only used with adds or for off-healing. Divine Star is only a DPS increase starting at 2 targets and you need to be within 24 yards of all targets to get it to hit twice.
Translucent Image	-	Transforms Fade into being a small defensive.
Mindgames	-	Deals single target damage to a target and causes some damage or healing to be reversed that it would have otherwise dealt. This means if the target is hitting you it will instead heal you up to the cap, and if it casts any type of healing it would also reverse that to damage itself.
Light's Inspiration	-	Buffs the amount of health gained when activating Desperate Prayer making it a more useful defensive.
Manipulation	-	Causes casts of Mind Blast, Mind Flay, and Mind Spike to reduce the cooldown of Mindgames.
Shattered Perceptions	-	This talent buffs your Mindgames base damage and reversal damage while also increasing the window for potential reversed damage by 2 seconds.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Purify Disease	PD	Gives the Priest a friendly disease dispel. Situationally useful but only when there are frequent diseases in the encounter or dungeon. Especially useful if your group does not have a disease dispel already.
Leap of Faith	LoF	This can be quite a situational talent to help save an ally that gets into a rough spot. The trick is by the time you realize you need this talent, it would have been too late to talent into it. For this reason any player that feels confident enough in their movement will likely pick this talent to help their allies.
Shackle Undead	Shackle	Hard crowd control ability that locks down any Undead enemy for 50 seconds. Due to the target requirement you only need to take this when the CC is required and you are fighting undead enemies.
Void Tendrils	-	Somewhat of a niche CC ability that roots enemies around you for a short period. Effectively similar to parts of Psychic Scream and likely not used much, but could be helpful for certain scenarios.
Dominate Mind	MC	Alternative to Mind Control that gives you a relatively high uptime on the target as a pet. The pet will auto-cast their abilities but can be added to a macro if you would like. Can be particularly useful for mobs that have useful abilities or deal lots of passive damage.
Mass Dispel	MD	A casted ability that dispels certain magic effects on enemies and allies. Situationally very useful utility to have, especially when any buff goes out to multiple allies or enemies at once that are worth dispelling.
Crystalline Reflection	CR	Causes a portion of damage absorbed to be reflected to the attacker. This can produce a reasonable amount of damage on any encounter you find yourself moving often with Body and Soul and taking any amount of damage from a boss mechanic.
Power Word: Life	PWL	This acts as a small Lay on Hands like spell for Priests that can be very strong if you can use it well to save an ally that needs a quick heal while at low health.
Void Shift	VS	Similar to Power Word: Life this talent can be used to swap your health with an ally, even healing either if they are below 25% health. This life swap could save a life if used well.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Devouring Plague	DP	Deals an extremely large amount of damage and is our single target insanity spender. The entire spec basically revolves around building up insanity and then spending it on Devouring Plague. Due to our Mastery, we want to make sure we keep this DoT up as long as possible, but we also do not want to cap insanity. Because of this problem, Blizzard has made the spell roll damage over. This means that if you cast Devouring Plague while you already have Devouring Plague ticking, it will carry the old damage over as a modifier to the new Devouring Plague's ticks so you do not lose damage. So you should play the same since nothing snapshots, but if you are overcapping insanity make sure you keep casting Devouring Plague, you will not lose any damage doing so!
Dispersion	-	This is your main defensive spell as Shadow, reducing all damage taken by 75% but also preventing you from casting any spells for its so increases your movement speed by 50% and makes you immune to movement-impairing effects.
Shadowy Apparitions	SA	Works directly with casts of Mind Blast, Devouring Plague, or Void Bolt to spawn a Shadowy Apparition that float towards any targets that have Vampiric Touch currently ticking. In addition, if any of those three abilities critically strikes the apparition will deal double damage.
Silence	-	Allows you to prevent a target from casting for 4 seconds on a 45-second cooldown. If the target is immune to silence effects, it also works as a standard interrupt if you use it on a target while it is casting.
Mental Fortitude	MF	Lets your overhealing done by Vampiric Touch or Devouring Plague build up a shield on your character.
Misery	-	Causes your Vampiric Touch to also apply Shadow Word: Pain. In addition, it also makes Shadow Word: Pain last an extra 5 seconds, causing it to line up perfectly with Vampiric Touch.
Coalescing Shadows	CS or Shadow Orbs	Adds a new proc to the kit. It gives your Mind Sear, Shadow Word: Pain, and Mind Flay a chance to give you a stack. Casting Mind Blast or Mind Spike will consume all stacks to deal 10% more damage per stack. When consuming your stacks you get a buff that increases the damage of periodic spells by 10% for 15 seconds.
Mind Sear	MS	Channeled insanity spender that deals Shadow damage to your target and all other targets within 10 yards. You must have 50 insanity to begin a channel and each tick consumes 25 insanity. Generally speaking, this is used over Devouring Plague whenever facing multiple stacked enemies.
Mind Spike	Spike	Filler spell that effectively replaces Mind Flay as a casted version depending on talents. Exact use cases for when to use this vs. Mind Flay are not very obvious but it can be a playstyle choice.
Mental Decay	-	Causes ticks of Mind Flay and Mind Sear to extend Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch by 1 second.
Dark Ascension	DA	Alternative cooldown option that is on a brief 1-minute cooldown. Activating this gives you 30 insanity while also buffing the damage of non-periodic spells by 25%.
Void Eruption ( Voidform)	VF	Causes you to enter Voidform. Void Eruption also deals a big burst of damage to all enemies within 10 yards of your target and grants you an extra charge of Mind Blast while also resetting its cooldown. This effect lasts a minimum of 15 seconds and is extended based on Insanity spent.
Surge of Darkness	SoD	Gives your Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague damage a chance to cause your next Mind Spike to be instant cast and deal 200% more damage. This can stack up to three times and can be very helpful for movement.
Shadowy Insight	SI	Passively gives you 1 extra charge of Mind Blast as well as giving Shadow Word: Pain a chance to give you a Shadowy Insight proc. This proc gives you a free charge of Mind Blast and makes your next cast instant. This proc does not scale with the number of ticks you get of Shadow Word: Pain, so more DoTs out do not give you more procs on average.
Ancient Madness	AM	Gives either Void Eruption or Dark Ascension a decaying Critical Strike buff after activating the cooldown.
Shadow Crash	SC	Fixed 30-second cooldown uncapped AoE spell that applies Vampiric Touch on up to 8 enemies that it hits. This also works when talented with Misery to get Shadow Word: Pain on any targets that get Vampiric Touch. This proc also prefers targets without active Vampiric Touch DoTs. Note that this does not proc or consume Unfurling Darkness.
Dark Evangelism	DE	Makes your Mind Flay, Mind Sear, and Void Torrent trigger a stacking buff that increases your periodic Shadow effects by 1%/2%, stacking up to 5 times.
Auspicious Spirits	AS	Causes your Shadowy Apparitions to deal 15% more damage and generate 1 Insanity.
Psychic Link	PL	Causes your Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Void Bolt, Void Torrent, Mindgames, and Mind Spike to deal a percent of the damage done to all other targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch.
Mindbender	Bender	Replaces Shadowfiend to be a 1 minute spawned pet instead. The actual damage and insanity remain the same, you just get to press it more often.
Mind Flay: Insanity	MFI	Causes Devouring Plague to transform your Mind Flay into Mind Flay: Insanity. Casting Mind Flay: Insanity consumes the buff and deals more damage, generates more insanity, slows the target more, and channels faster compared to Mind Flay.
Encroaching Shadows	ES	Buffs the initial damage of Devouring Plague (which is buffed by Dark Ascension) and the damage of Mind Sear by 20%.
Inescapable Torment	IT or SFP	This causes your Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death casts during Mindbender to make your pet teleport behind that current target and deal AoE damage to 5 targets and increase the duration of Mindbender.
Screams of the Void	SotV	Causes Mind Flay to increase the tick rate of your active Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch on that target. If you are channeling Mind Sear it causes those DoTs to tick faster on ANY target, regardless if it is being hit by Mind Sear. Note that currently this talent is bugged when paired with Mental Decay and does not properly increase the tick rate of Shadow Word: Pain when channeling Mind Flay.
Mind Devourer	MD (shares abbreviation with Mass Dispel)	Causes your Mind Blasts to have a chance to proc Mind Devourer. This causes your next Devouring Plague or full channeled Mind Sear to be free of cost.
Idol of Y'Shaarj	Yshaarj	Causes you to gain an extra effect when you summon your Mindbender. If your target has more than 80% health, you and your pet gain 5% more damage. If the target is enraged it dispels the effect and increases your haste by 5%. If your target is stunned you gain 5 insanity per second. If your target is feared you and your pet deal 15% increased damage and either damage will not break that fear. If none of these conditions are met your Mindbender will last 5 more seconds. Aside from the default case these effects are extended with Inescapable Torment.
Idol of C'Thun	Cthun	Gives your Mind Flay ticks have a chance to spawn a Void Tendril that deals single target damage and your Mind Sear ticks have a chance to spawn a Void Lasher that deals AoE damage. Both of these pets give you the same insanity per second.
Idol of Yogg-Saron	Yogg	spawns a Thing From Beyond after conjuring 25 Shadowy Apparitions. When the pet spawns it continually casts Void Spike to deal a large amount of single-target damage at your current target and small amounts of cleave to nearby ones.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Last Word	LW	Reduces the cooldown of Silence by 15 seconds, which can be nice anytime your group is low on interrupts.
Psychic Horror	PH	4-second single target stun on a 45-second cooldown.

In the open world, you get the option to go into "War Mode". Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10%+ increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10%+ more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended enabling the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and the possibility to be "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of Shadow Priest-specific PvE talents.

• Void Origins makes your Void Eruption or Dark Ascension an instant cast which is a tremendous quality of life improvement.
• Catharsis is a great boost to damage in the open world if you find yourself in solo content or 1v1s.
• For your last option you can choose between Driven to Madness for higher Voidform uptime or Void Volley if you want to have some fun!