Shadow Priest DPS Spell List and Glossary — Dragonflight 10.2

If you are new to Shadow, this is a great place to start to get an understanding of how the spec works. On this page we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialization, how they interact with each other and also with important cooldowns. If you already have experience with Shadow and are comfortable with it in the current expansion, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.

Insanity is your primary resource as a Shadow Priest. All of our offensive abilities generate Insanity. The goal is to generate Insanity and then spend it on Devouring Plague. It is crucial to use Devouring Plague before you cap on Insanity; otherwise, you will be wasting damage. It is okay to refresh Devouring Plague while it is already active; it adds the damage from the existing DoT to the new DoT whenever you refresh it!

Mana is your secondary resource as a Shadow Priest. Most of our utility spells cost Mana, though managing Mana attentively is generally not required.

For the abilities below, you might see an included acronym or commonly used short-hand name to refer to that spell. This guide will otherwise avoid using this terminology in most places. Still, you might find them used in the class discord or elsewhere.

Note that this page simply lists all the abilities, assuming you are at max level. If you are leveling, check out our dedicated Priest Leveling page, which has detailed information on when you unlock all of these abilities.

These are your core skills that are available regardless of talents and form the core gameplay of the specialization.

Please read our rotation page for more information on using these abilities together in your rotation.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Shadowform	SF	Default form that you will always want to have active as it is just a simple 10% damage buff. It is important to note that when in Voidform, this goes away but will come back after you exit Voidform
Shadow Word: Pain	SWP	One of your two main DoT spells. It deals Shadow damage to the target over time and generates Insanity on the application.
Vampiric Touch	VT	Your other main DoT spell. It deals Shadow damage to the target, over time, heals you for 50% of the damage dealt and generates Insanity on application.
Mind Blast	MB	Deals damage to a single target, which has a 9-second cooldown, affected by Haste, and generates a high amount of Insanity. It is generally one of your highest-priority spells. You also gain an extra charge of this ability when you have Thought Harvester talent selected.
Mind Flay	MF	Channeled spell that deals Shadow damage to the target and slows their movement speed by 50%. It generates Insanity and has no cooldown, and is used as a filler throughout your rotation.
Mastery: Shadow Weaving	-	Our Mastery spell that emphasizes having DoTs up on as many targets as possible. Depending on your Mastery rating, you deal (4.0% + gear rating) increased damage to targets for each of your three DoTs active. So if you have a 0 mastery rating from gear, you will do a 4% increase in damage per DoT on the target, so all three DoTs would be a 12% increase to your damage. This is calculated per target, so spreading DoTs is very valuable, but only works with Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Devouring Plague for the DoT increase check. Note that this does not always work for every part of our kit, specifically pet damage, where it is on a case-by-case basis.
Focused Will	FW	This is a passive ability that causes melee abilities and attacks to reduce all damage you take by 15% for 8 seconds. This gives you some passive defense, which is very welcome.
Power Word: Fortitude	PWF	Group buff available to all Priests that gives everyone in your party 5% Stamina for 1 hour. This is an exclusive buffs just to Priests, there are no scrolls from Inscription to give you this buff, so this is a very strong piece of utility we bring to groups.
Mind Vision	-	Simple spell with minimal use, but it can occasionally be helpful to see far ahead if you know the name of a mob you want to target.
Mind Soothe	-	This spell has been slightly updated in Dragonflight. It is a unique ability that applies a buff to enemies in a 10-yard range that makes their aggro range significantly reduced. This has a short cooldown but can be used to skip past mobs while leveling or even inside of dungeons.
Desperate Prayer	-	Self-heal spell and defensive that provides a good chunk of on-demand healing on a 1.5-minute cooldown. Adding this to our defensive toolkit makes us one of the best defensive ranged DPS specs out there.
Fade	-	Powerful aggro-drop ability that can come in handy if you accidentally pull a threat on something, and it also gives you reduced aggro radius. When paired up with Mind Soothe in solo content, you can walk past almost any mob in the game without causing them to aggro you.
Psychic Scream	-	Fears all enemies within 8 yards for 8 seconds on a 1-minute cooldown. Primarily useful to get enemies off you when you are alone.
Flash Heal	FH	This has replaced Shadow Mend for us in this expansion and is our main healing spell in our kit. This is castable in Shadowform, but generally is less effective than Shadow Mend was, but at a lower mana cost.
Power Word: Shield	PWS	Allows you to shield a friendly target. This is primarily used on yourself when you need to mitigate damage, but it can also be used on other friendly targets.
Hallucinations	-	Passive ability that grants you 4 Insanity on successful Dispel Magic, Mass Dispel, Purify Disease, and Power Word: Shield casts. This reduces the penalty of having to spend globals on utility spells, as you do not lose any Insanity generation in the process.

The following abilities are granted by taking those specific nodes in our Class Talent tree.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Renew	-	Base heal over time spell for Priests. While this does have little few uses for Shadow. It is castable in Shadowform, so it is an option if you want more off healing.
Dispel Magic	-	Removes a beneficial Magic effect from an enemy each time you cast it. Handy tool next to Mass Dispel, particularly in dungeons.
Shadowfiend	SF/Fiend	3-minute cooldown, which summons a shadowy fiend that attacks your target for 15 seconds. It is an offensive cooldown that is not particularly strong. Ideally, it should be paired with high Haste buffs or right before Voidform, as getting more Haste means more melees, so more insanity gained.
Prayer of Mending	PoM	Healing spell available to all Priests that can be more passive off-healing in your kit. Spells like this can come in handy during encounters that have downtime where you cannot DPS but where off healing your group is helpful.
Purify Disease	-	Removes all Disease effects from friendly targets. This is generally niche in its use but sees use in dungeons from time to time which still makes it a valuable addition.
Shadow Word: Death	SWD	Baseline execute ability that deals a moderate amount of damage, and even more damage if used on a target with less than 20% health.
Holy Nova	-	AoE skill available in our tree but does not scale or interact with our kit. It is just a spammable AoE ability that will likely not be used much as a Shadow Priest.
Angelic Feather	AF	Spell available to all Priests now and will compliment Body and Soul as another movement skill as a Shadow Priest. While you still can get Body and Soul, Angelic Feather lasts longer and will likely be more commonly used when you do not need the shield.
Leap of Faith	LoF	Pulls a friendly party or raid member toward you. It has a 1.5-minute cooldown. This is a niche skill that can help get a group member out of an otherwise deadly situation.
Shackle Undead	-	Allows you to prevent an Undead target from taking any actions for 50 seconds. This effect breaks upon any damage.
Void Tendrils	-	Another AoE crowd control ability Priests get access to. These tendrils require you to be in melee range of your targets similarly to Psychic Scream, but instead, root enemies in place for 20 seconds or until enough damage is dealt to break the tendrils.
Mind Control	MC	allows you to take control of an enemy target for 30 seconds. This does not work on Demonic, Mechanical, or Undead targets. While channeling this you cannot control your character.
Dominate Mind	-	Alternative choice to Mind Control which is a Mind Control-like spell that instead makes the valid target a pet that is fully under your control for 30 seconds on a 30-second cooldown. That means if you are good By refreshing this, you can maintain the pet with near full uptime.
Mass Dispel	MD	removes all harmful Magic effects on up to 5 allies, and 1 beneficial Magic effect on up to 5 enemies on a 2-minute cooldown. This is situationally very useful, particularly in dungeons. It can also dispel certain types of Magic that are normally not dispellable.
Power Infusion	PI	Haste-based cooldown spell that allows you to give an ally (or yourself) a 20% Haste buff for 15 seconds. While under normal circumstances you would cast this solely on yourself, with the talent directly below Twins of the Sun Priestess we will almost always be casting Power Infusion on another ally every 2 minutes.
Vampiric Embrace	VE	Heals allies based on 50% of the single-target damage you do for 15 seconds on a 2-minute cooldown. This is particularly useful in solo or up to 5-man content, but can also be useful for raids when used at the right time.
Divine Star	DStar	Short ranged ability that gives the Priest a combo damage and healing spell. For optimal use, you want to be within 24 yards of your targets so that the star hits each target twice for optimal damage and healing. This spell generates 6 Insanity.
Halo	-	Similar spell compared to Divine Star that is a slightly larger range that has more use cases in raiding environments. Note that this spell ONLY hits targets that are actively in combat so that you do not ninja-pull anything in Mythic+. This spell generates 10 Insanity.
Mindgames	MG	Returning Covenant ability that is now a Class Talent ability. This is more or less the same as it was in Shadowlands and is relatively short cooldown nuke ability. It has interesting interactions with reversing actions on the target you cast it on, acting as a pseudo-defensive/absorb on the target and/or reversing healing done by the target as damage instead. The reversal mechanic is relatively niche but can be useful. This spell generates 10 Insanity.
Power Word: Life	PWL	Powerful burst healing ability that is only usable if the target is below 20% health. This is a great piece of off-healing and something to consider if you want to provide more utility for your group.
Void Shift	VS	Returning PvP talent is now available in our class talent tree. This can be used to quickly save a life, whether it is yours or someone else in your group.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Improved Flash Heal	-	Small healing increase to Flash Heal
Psychic Voice	-	Small reduction in the cooldown of Psychic Scream
Petrifying Scream	-	Changes Psychic Scream to tremble in place instead of fearing them away.
Focused Mending	-	Buff to the initial healing of Prayer of Mending. Since we do not cast this much, you are unlikely to invest points in this side of the tree.
Protective Light	-	Extra defensive talent that gives us a 10% reduction after casting Flash Heal. With how easily cast, Flash Heal is this can be a compelling talent if you can afford to cast the spell before a damage event.
From Darkness Comes Light	-	Choice against Protective Light and shines in any situation you would not want the defensive capability and instead, opt for the increased healing from occasional Flash Heal casts.
Phantasm	-	Gives an extra effect to Fade letting it also remove snare effects. Paired with Improved Fade, you could remove snares every 20 seconds!
Death and Madness	DaM	Gives you a reset of Shadow Word: Death cooldown when you fail to kill a target below 20% health. This cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds. In addition, if you use Shadow Word: Death and the target dies within 7 seconds you gain 8 Insanity. Practically speaking this makes it feel as though Shadow Word: Death has an extra charge inside of execute range.
Spell Warding	-	Simply reduces damage taken from magic abilities by 3%. This is pretty small but could be a useful thing to pick up in heavy Magic damage fights.
Blessed Recovery	-	Talent that feels oriented to PvP gameplay and will likely not see much use in PvE. It requires you to be critically struck by an attack that does not often happen outside of PvP.
Rhapsody	-	Gives a stacking damage buff to Holy Nova. Pending tuning, this could become relevant but likely not something Shadow is interested in.
Sheer Terror	-	Reduces the amount of damage a target can take before Psychic Scream will break. Since this is only 75%, it will likely only be useful in solo encounters or PvP.
Words of the Pious	-	Another non-Shadow based talent that increases damage of Smite and damage and healing of Holy Nova for a short time after pressing Power Word: Shield.
Move with Grace	-	Simply reduces the cooldown of Leap of Faith by 30 seconds to make it a flat 1-minute cooldown.
Sanguine Teachings	-	Gives you an extra 3% leech.
Tithe Evasion	-	Reduces the damage taken from Shadow Word: Death by 50%. This is a great addition to Shadow's kit, especially when running talents like Inescapable Torment or Deathspeaker which will have you casting Shadow Word: Death more than you would otherwise.
Inspiration	-	Relatively inconsequential talent for Shadow considering how little we will press Flash Heal, and generally follows the trend of talents on the far left not making sense for Shadow.
Mental Agility	MA	Reduces the mana cost of Purify Disease and Mass Dispel by 50% and reduces the mana cost of Dispel Magic by 10%.
Body and Soul	BaS or BnS	Our second movement ability in the tree gives you a small burst of movement speed after casting Power Word: Shield. It also works on a target you cast this on with either Power Word: Shield or Leap of Faith.
Twins of the Sun Priestess	Twins	Massive utility spell in our talent tree that can be a large DPS gain for your group. With this talent, you will want to always try and cast Power Infusion on another friendly target whenever possible.
Void Shield	VS	Allows you to refill part of your active Power Word: Shield with your damaging spells. Note that this does not refresh your Power Word: Shield, so it does not seem super useful.
San'layn	SL	Buffs Vampiric Embrace by 25% and reduces its cooldown down to 75 seconds. Note that this is significantly worse in Dragonflight compared to live with Vampiric Embrace only being base 50% rather than 85%. This buffs Vampiric Embrace to 62% in Dragonflight. If you instead have Sanguine Teachings, this will add 2% leech for a total of 5%.
Apathy	-	Gives your Mind Blast critical strikes a 75% slow for 4 seconds, having good synergy with talents like Mind Melt.
Unwavering Will	-	Reduces the cast time of Flash Heal while above 75% health.
Twist of Fate	ToF	Has been slightly buffed in Dragonflight, now proccing from damage OR healing spells for Shadow. This means we can potentially have more uptime on this buff from healing spells like Halo. Currently gives you get a 10% damage buff when you proc this, making it one of our execute talents.
Throes of Pain	-	Adds in passive Insanity when targets die with your Shadow Word: Pain in addition to buffing its damage. This lets you start each subsequent pack in Mythic+ with some Insanity and smooths transitions.
Angel's Mercy	-	Gives you a 20-second cooldown reduction to Desperate Prayer, giving you more chance to use Desperate Prayer.
Binding Heals	-	Decent talent choice for anyone that intends on doing a lot of Flash Heal off healing, where those will also heal you for 20% of the amount when used on allies.
Translucent Image	-	Makes Fade an instant cast 10% defensive button, making it one of the few in our kit.
Surge of Light	SoL	Gives your healing spells and Smite a small chance to give you a free instant cast Flash Heal. Since we do not cast either of these spells often, you are not likely to get many of these procs as Shadow without actively healing.
Light's Inspiration	-	Buffs Desperate Prayer from 25% max health gain up to 40%, giving us a large chunk of health when used. Very good synergy with Angel's Mercy.
Crystalline Reflection	CR	Adds a small instant heal to Power Word: Shield and causes some of that damage to reflect to your attacker. This works with raid boss mechanics that are dealt with directly by those targets, so it could be nice to have in a fight with lots of raid damage.
Improved Fade	-	Reduces the cooldown on Fade.
Manipulation	-	Causes your Mind Blast, Mind Flay, and Mind Spike casts to reduce the cooldown of Mindgames.
Benevolence	-	Your healing spells now heal for 3% more. This does not work with things like Devouring Plague, Vampiric Touch, or Vampiric Embrace. But does work with spells such as Divine Star, Halo, and Essence Devourer.
Angelic Bulwark	AB	Cheat-death-like shield that procs when you fall below 30% HP. The shield is only 15% of your max health, though, so unsure how useful this will be.
Essence Devourer	ED	Gives your Shadowfiend or Mindbender melee swings an additional effect where it will also heal a single nearby injured ally.
Shattered Perceptions	-	Gives each component of Mindgames buffs including damage, reversal amount, and debuff duration.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Devouring Plague	DP	Deals a considerable 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 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	Disp	Your main defensive spell is Shadow, reducing all damage taken by 75% but also preventing you from casting any spells for. It also increases your movement speed by 50% and makes you immune to movement-impairing effects.
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.
Psychic Horror	PH	4-second single target stun on a 45-second cooldown.
Mind Spike	MS/Spike	Filler spell that replaces Mind Flay as a casted version depending on talents. Exact use cases for when to use this vs. Mind Flay is not very obvious, but it can be a playstyle choice.
Void Eruption	VoiEr/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.
Void Bolt	VB	Ability that replaces Void Eruption while Voidform is active. It is instant cast, and it deals damage to the target, adding 3 seconds to the existing durations of Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch to the target and all nearby targets, on top of also generating Insanity. This is generally one of the more important spells for Shadow when in Voidform and is ideally cast on cooldown, but make sure you do not overcap on Insanity with this ability.
Dark Ascension	DA	The alternative cooldown option is on a brief 1-minute cooldown. Activating this gives you 30 insanity while also buffing the damage of non-periodic spells by 25%.
Shadow Crash	SC	Fixed 20-second cooldown uncapped AoE spell that applies Vampiric Touch on up to 8 enemies that it hits when talented into Whispering Shadows as well. This will prefer to apply these DoTs to targets that do not already have DoTs added, although this part can be a bit inconsistent. The damage of this spell is reduced when it hits more than 5 targets.
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.
Void Torrent	VoiT	Large single target channel that generates 60 Insanity on a base 45-second cooldown (reduced by 15 seconds with Malediction).

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
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. If the base ability for this critically strikes the apparition will do double damage instead.
Intangibility	-	Makes your Dispersion heal for more and also reduce its cooldown by 30 seconds down to 90 seconds.
Mental Fortitude	-	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.
Last Word	LW	Reduces the cooldown of Silence by 15 seconds.
Thought Harvester	TH	Mind Blast is granted an additional charge.
Mental Decay	-	Causes ticks of Mind Flay to extend Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch by 1 second or 2 seconds with Mind Spike. It also increases the damage of Mind Flay and Mind Spike by 10%.
Whispering Shadows	-	Causes your Shadow Crash to apply Vampiric Touch (and Shadow Word: Pain if talented into Misery) to up to 8 targets. This prefers targets without the DoT already active.
Unfurling Darkness	UD	Causes your Vampiric Touch casts to add a damage hit for your next cast of Vampiric Touch. This buff lasts 8 seconds, meaning you need to cast Vampiric Touch within 8 seconds of the first cast to get the damage. This effect has a 15-second cooldown.
Shadowy Insight	SI	Gives Shadow Word: Pain damage 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.
Voidtouched	-	Increases the damage of Devouring Plague and increases your maximum Insanity by 50 for a total of 150.
Mind Melt	MM	Stacking buff that makes your Mind Spike casts increase the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast by 20%. You can stack this up to four times.
Maddening Touch	MT	Gives your Vampiric Touch damage a chance to give you 1 Insanity. This proc chance is lowered as you are fighting more targets.
Dark Evangelism	DE	Makes your Mind Flay, Mind Spike, 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 more damage and gives them a chance to generate Insanity. This Insanity proc scales down as you are fighting more targets.
Tormented Spirits	TS	Gives your Shadow Word: Pain damage a chance to spawn a Shadowy Apparitions on all targets with your Vampiric Touch. Critical strikes of pain have twice as much chance to spawn an apparition.
Psychic Link	PL	Causes most single-target abilities to deal a percent of the damage done to all other targets within 40 yards afflicted by your Vampiric Touch. All spells are included except for pet spells, Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Shadowy Apparitions. This does work with both the instant damage and tick damage of Devouring Plague.
Phantasmal Pathogen	PP	Increases the damage of Shadowy Apparitions to targets afflicted with Devouring Plague.
Mind's Eye	ME	Reduces the Insanity cost of Devouring Plague by 5 for a new cost of 45.
Distorted Reality	DR	Increases the damage of Devouring Plague and causes it to deal its damages over twice the duration but increases the Insanity cost by 5 for a new total of 55.
Deathspeaker	DS	Gives your Shadow Word: Pain a chance to reset the cooldown on Shadow Word: Death and make the next cast act as if the target was below 20% to deal more damage.
Surge of Insanity	MFI/MSI	Causes every other cast of Devouring Plague to transform your Mind Flay into Mind Flay: Insanity or Mind Spike into Mind Spike: 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. In contrast Mind Spike: Insanity is only consumed as the cast completes and does more damage.
Inescapable Torment	IT/SFP	Returning Shadowlands legendary Shadowflame Prism as a talent. 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.
Mastermind	-	Increases the critical strike chance of Mind Blast, Mind Spike, Mind Flay, and Shadow Word: Death and increases their critical strike damage.
Screams of the Void	SotV	Causes Devouring Plague to trigger a buff that increases the tick rate of all your active Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch DoT effects.
Mind Devourer	MD (shares with Mass Dispel)	Causes your Mind Blasts to have a chance to proc Mind Devourer. This causes your next Devouring Plague to cost no Insanity and deal additional damage.
Insidious Ire	II/Talbs	Buffs your Mind Blast and Void Torrent whenever you have Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Devouring Plague all active on the same target. You get this benefit regardless if that is the target you have all your DoTs active on.
Malediction	Male	Reduces the cooldown of Void Torrent by 15 seconds for a new cooldown duration of 30 seconds.
Idol of Y'Shaarj	IoY/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 with 5% 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	IoC/Cthun	Gives your Mind Flay, Mind Spike, and Void Torrent have a chance to spawn either a Void Tendril or a Void Lasher. The Tendril deals single target damage, and once you are facing 3 or more targets, you will instead summon a Void Lasher that deals AoE damage. In addition, when you first cast a Void Torrent, you will automatically get a proc. These tendrils also generate Insanity over time as they deal damage.
Idol of Yogg-Saron	IoYS/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 cleave to targets around that one.
Idol of N'Zoth	IoN/NZoth	Gives Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Devouring Plague a chance to apply a stack of Echoing Void on that target. Each time a stack is applied, you have another chance to collapse those stacks. When the stacks collapse, each stack explodes for AoE damage every 1 second until no more stacks remain. All stacks will explode should the target die with stacks are still active.