Shadow Priest DPS Uldir Raid Guide — Dragonflight 10.2.5

This page will be a rough outline of the bosses and mechanics in Uldir. Recommendations on this page are based on personal experience and on what other people are doing, and will focus on what you can do as a Shadow Priest in order to optimize your DPS. This is not a full guide for each individual boss. As more data becomes available, this page will be updated continuously to make sure it properly reflects what is optimal.

Shadow Priest looks like it will be able to perform at an average level in Uldir. Low single-target damage means that about half of the fights in Uldir will leave Shadow in a precarious spot, despite its burst AoE and multi-target damage being valuable on some of the encounters at the same time. The downside is that most of the burst AoE Shadow has access to is in our talent tree, presenting a trade-off that may or may not be worth it in some cases.

• Shadow Word: Death is particularly good on this fight due to the fact that Taloc does not start the fight at 100% Health. Auspicious Spirits can do pretty well too overall.
• Taloc has the potential for a lot of movement, which can make you drop out of Voidform early if you get targeted by mechanics a lot. As such, while the recommended talent to take here is Dark Ascension, you may see more success using Legacy of the Void depending on the pull. Dark Ascension has higher damage potential, however.

• In order to deal with Plasma Discharge, use stutterstepping (as explained in the Common and Worst Mistakes section of this guide) and cast Shadow Word: Pain instead of Mind Flay if just stutterstepping is not enough.
• In order to conserve space in the room, you can use Dispersion to stack up pools on top of each other, as you can stand still in one spot for the duration of Plasma Discharge during Dispersion. This also reduces the penalty for movement in this fight because your Insanity will not continue to drain during Dispersion.
• You can use Psychic Horror to stun the slimes during the intermission and last phase should it be needed.

• Shadow Word: Death may seem like a good option due to the fact that MOTHER takes more damage in the last room, however, the fight ends when she goes to 10% of her Health. This means that the execute period lasts half as long as it usually does and therefore devalues Shadow Word: Death. Both Auspicious Spirits and Shadow Crash are fine options here, but overall Auspicious Spirits should be a bit better.
• Due to the amount of frequently occuring movement on this encounter, it may happen that your Voidforms can be cut short sometimes, or the time between Voidforms is increased. This gives Legacy of the Void an edge over Dark Ascension, but Dark Ascension is still the recommended talent. Legacy of the Void is a viable option too, however, if you do not want to deal with the potential frustration of Dark Ascension.
• Depending on when you get sent through, you may lose a lot of uptime on the boss. This devalues Lingering Insanity and as such may cause it to lag behind Mindbender.

• Dealing with the heavy movement in this fight is best countered through the use of stutterstepping (as explained in the Common and Worst Mistakes section of this guide) as best you can. Use Shadow Word: Pain instead of Mind Flay when just stutterstepping is not enough.
• If you are one of the last people remaining in the room where the boss is in, help out the healer by using Shadow Mend if needed.
• The adds that spawn from people moving through the Defense Grid can be stunned by Psychic Horror and interrupted by Silence.

• Due to the increased damage the boss takes starting at 50%, and the fact that there are frequently spawning low numbers of adds, Shadow Word: Death is the preferred talent on this fight. However, Auspicious Spirits can do just as well on overall damage as long as you have the Critical Strike (around 18%) for it. You can pick both depending on what you personally prefer.
• The movement on this fight appears low enough for Dark Ascension to not lose value, and the on demand Voidform it offers for the adds can potentially be very valuable depending on how overlaps end up happening. You can play Legacy of the Void for consistent Voidforms if you want to, however.
• Lingering Insanity is the recommended talent for best overall damage, however, you may find that Mindbender does more useful damage to the adds. You should pick what you think your raid needs more.

• If you took Shadow Word: Death, make sure to get off both charges on the slimes that spawn to maximize its value.
• Try and make sure that Shockwave Stomp does not knock you out of range of a target for too long, as this hurts your Insanity generation otherwise.
• You can use Shockwave Stomp to your advantage and have it knock you towards the add you have to kill, instead of manually moving to the add.
• Be liberal in your usage of Dispersion if you have Putrid Paroxysm to help out your healers.
• If possible, keep up your DoTs on the boss while fighting the slime adds.

• Movement on Zek'voz is relatively low, so this opens up the possibility to use San'layn if you are comfortable with losing the mobility that Body and Soul offers. San'layn will increase your utility significantly, but it is up to you whether you think this is worth trading the only mobility the spec has to offer.
• Depending on what your raid needs, you can pick Dark Void or Misery. Misery will help you be better at dealing with the three big adds that spawn, but it will be worse at dealing with the large group of small adds that spawn. The latter is better handled by Dark Void.
• A case can also be made for Twist of Fate, as you still get good value from all the adds spawning in Phase One and Phase Two, and then in Phase Three it provides you with execute damage (since it will be up all the time in the last phase).
• Shadow Crash helps with the AoE parts of the fight, and you will frequently be able to hit two or more targets with it. However, depending on how long the three big adds in particular live, you may also end up seeing success with Auspicious Spirits, if you have the Critical Strike for it (around 18%). The difference in damage here is very minor.

• If you are using Dark Void, save it specifically for the Silithid Warriors and do not use it at any other time in Phase One.
• As soon as the Silithid Warriors spawn, you can get off a couple of Vampiric Touch casts before they get stacked up.
• If you are using Misery, you want to cast Vampiric Touch on all of the Silithid Warriors provided they live for around 10 seconds or longer.
• Try and hit as many of the Silithid Warriors with Void Eruption or Dark Ascension as possible, but do not delay either in favour of this too much.
• For the big adds in Phase Two, focus on mainly keeping up Shadow Word: Pain on all targets if you are not using Misery. If you are using Misery then you can keep up both DoTs on all targets at all times.
• Stay relatively close to the boss (yet slightly spread when Eye Beam comes in) to make dealing with Surging Darkness easier; this is espcially important to do if you took San'layn.

• Due to the limited mobility needed in this fight, you can pick San'layn if you are comfortable giving up Body and Soul for some extra utility.
• Shadow Word: Death is the preferred choice on this fight because it is the most useful damage against the add that spawns. On top of that, it also gives you execute damage which is useful on a fight like this that gets progressively harder. For overall damage, Auspicious Spirits is about on par, but Shadow Word: Death is deemed more useful because you do more damage to the add that way.
• Lingering Insanity might be a competitive option as well, but it is unclear if the intermission phases will cause you to have too much downtime for that to be the case. Mindbender is a safer option in this regard.

• Make sure to get off both charges of Shadow Word: Death on the add that spawns to maximize its value.
• During the intermission, help out your healers by using Shadow Mend on injured players, as there are no targets to hit anyway.

• At 40% health, Zul is the only target you fight, and considering the important nature of this phase, you can opt to use Twist of Fate which also gets you a lot of value in the rest of the fight. If you feel you need the better AoE damage from Dark Void or Misery, that is also worth considering, but this should generally not be the case.
• Shadow Crash will mainly help you do more damage to the Crawgs which is pretty useless damage, especially on Mythic. Auspicious Spirits will be more boss damage.

• If you are using Dark Void, save it for any add spawns exclusively.
• The Minion of Zul adds that spawn can be killed through dispelling them with Mass Dispel or Dispel Magic.
• You can use Leap of Faith to delay having to dispel a player affected by Death Wish, so ask your healers when they might want you to do this.

• Auspicious Spirits should technically be the winner on this fight in regards to overall damage if you have 18% Critical Strike or more, but Mythrax provides you with the opportunity to snipe Shadow Word: Death during the intermission and also provides you with potentially important execute damage. You should pick between these two depending on what your raid needs the most.
• Due to the potential of being charmed on this fight, it may happen that your Voidforms get cut short frequently. Because of this, you may not enjoy playing Dark Ascension, as its cooldown desyncing with your Voidforms is pretty bad. Legacy of the Void is a much more consistent option, which is not punished nearly as much by this, but might still not be better.

• In order to deal with Imminent Ruin, use stutterstepping (as explained in the Common and Worst Mistakes section of this guide) to slowly make your way to the edge of the room, as you have plenty of time to do so.
• If your raid allows you to, try and stand in the middle of both big adds during the intermission in order to multi-DoT.
• Snipe Shadow Word: Death on low adds whenever possible during the intermission.
• Use Silence on the Visions of Madness to interrupt their cast.
• You can use Dispersion to deal with the damage of Imminent Ruin when it comes in. This is especially important in the last phase, as you will progressively have less Health as the fight goes on.

• While Misery is incredible in Phase One, it is not worth it beyond that, as you also get a way to proc Twist of Fate in later parts of the fight and provides you with valuable execute damage.
• Shadow Word: Death is a great talent on this fight as there are plenty of opportunities to use it in Phase One, a couple of opportunities in Phase Two and then constantly in Phase Three (as that starts when G'huun hits 20% Health). Phase Three in particular makes Shadow Word: Death the recommended choice here, as this gives you execute damage which is extremely valuable on this fight, but also gives you extra mobility to make sure that you do not ever have to miss a cast due to movement if you play it correctly.
• Auspicious Spirits is just as good for overall damage compared to Shadow Word: Death, however, the execute property of Shadow Word: Death is far too important to not use it here.

• If you took Misery, focus on keeping up both DoTs on all targets in Phase One. If you did not take Misery, mainly focus on keeping up Shadow Word: Pain.
• Interrupt casts by Cyclopean Terror using Silence.
• Move to the edge of the room quickly using Power Word: Shield (assuming you took Body and Soul) to prevent blowing up in the raid with Explosive Corruption.
• If you get feared by Gaze of G'huun, use Dispersion to stop your Insanity from draining.
• In Phase Three, always save one stack of Shadow Word: Death for the movement of Malignant Growth. Stay close to the edge of the current safe zone and the zone that is about to explode to make sure movement is minimal.