Shadow Priest PvP Rotation and Playstyle — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

The main role of a Shadow Priest is complex. A large majority of the time, you will just try to stay alive. You will be the focus for many teams. Make sure your partners can help peel for you so you can get away and cast. Not only that, but you will also have to help your teammates survive if they are being focused. There are two main things you will focus on as a Shadow Priest in Arena.

The first is keeping you and your team alive. This is a weird role to have as a DPS specialization. Most DPS classes will just focus on using crowd control and doing damage. Shadow Priests have unique utility that no other casters have, such as abilities like Power Word: Shield, Leap of Faith and Mass Dispel that help you and your teammates when being focused.

The thing you will focus on is to always spread the pressure on the enemy team. This can be difficult when being focused, but it is crucial. Shadow Priest AoE pressure is unmatched. Always refresh your DoTs and enter Voidform when there is an opportunity to free cast.

Understanding how to generate and spend Insanity is crucial for you to maximize damage with a Shadow Priest. There are numerous spells that will generate Insanity. Here are those abilities and when to use them:

• Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain are your two primary DoTs that should be used on as many enemies as possible. These are both the primary abilities that will generate your Insanity. You can use abilities, such as Tentacle Slam, to instantly place these DoTs after a healer dispels them.
• Mind Blast is cast and generates Insanity. This should be used when you have multiple enemies with your DoTs on them to take advantage of the passive Shadowy Apparitions.
• Mind Flay generates Insanity over the duration it is channeled. This is a filler spell that should be used when you have DoTs on all enemies and Mind Blast is on cooldown.
• Shadowfiend generate Insanity each time the Shadowfiend attacks. This has a long cooldown but can be used in times when you cannot cast to get DoTs on enemies. This can be used with Void Eruption to increase your burst damage. Note: Shadowfiend gets turned into Voidwraith if you are playing Voidweaver hero talents.
• Tentacle Slam generates Insanity after using it.
• If you are Voidweaver, Void Torrent channels damage on the target and will generate 24 Insanity over the duration it is channeled.
• If you are Archon, Halo generates a small amount of Insanity.
• Hallucinations is a passive ability. This makes it so your Dispel Magic, Mass Dispel, Vampiric Embrace, and Power Word: Shield all generate Insanity when they are successful.

Now that you know how to generate Insanity, there is only one ability that you have that spends all of the Insanity you are generating, Shadow Word: Madness. This costs 55 Insanity, deals a large amount of damage over 6 seconds, and heals you for 50% of the damage dealt. This should be used after the enemy healer dispels or is in crowd control.

Before the gates open, know exactly who you will be using crowd control ( Psychic Scream and Silence) on. Make sure to use Power Word: Fortitude on your teammates. It can be dispelled by abilities like Purge or Spellsteal, so be prepared to apply it often. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Most teams will focus on you, so be prepared to cast spells as soon as you get the chance.
• Try to "juke" enemies into wasting their interrupts. This means beginning to cast a spell and canceling it to get the enemy team to use their interrupts on nothing. If you are successful, you will get the Precognition buff and have a few seconds to cast without worrying about being interrupted.
• Always keep your DoTs ( Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain) on all enemies with Shadow Word: Madness on your primary kill target.

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns. If the enemy healer uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. With a ranged Silence, Shadow Priests no longer have to overextend to get crowd control on enemies. This helps with survivability and damage output.

Likewise, if an enemy DPS uses their trinket, you can crowd-control the healer and stun the DPS without a trinket. This means they can be burst down in a stun and possibly killed.

When opening do the following:

1. Make sure you are in Shadowform.
2. Cast Vampiric Touch on your main target.
   • If you are using Misery, it should also apply Shadow Word: Pain.
3. If you are playing Voidweaver, channel Void Torrent on your target to deal a large amount of damage and generate Insanity.
   • This will create an Entropic Rift on your target.
4. Use Shadow Word: Madness on your team's kill target.
   • Mind Devourer has a chance to proc after using Mind Blast. This increases the damage of your Shadow Word: Madness and it costs 0 Insanity. Use Shadow Word: Madness when you get this buff.
5. Cast Mind Blast on the main target once you get DoTs on as many enemies as you can.
6. Use Mind Blast when you get a Shadowy Insight proc.
7. Use Tentacle Slam on your kill target and to instantly apply your primary DoTs, Vampiric Touch & Shadow Word: Pain
8. If you are Archon, cast Halo if you have time and to generate a small amount of insanity
9. Cast Mind Flay as a filler.
10. From here, you will constantly be refreshing your DoTs on all enemies.
11. After your burst, perform your sustained damage rotation until your burst cooldowns are available.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control, and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage. To use your crowd control, simply use Silence or Psychic Scream on the enemy healer.

1. Make sure you have all of your DoTs active on as many enemies as possible.
2. If you are Archon, cast Halo if you have time and to generate a small amount of insanity
3. Use Power Infusion on your DPS teammate.
4. Use Shadowfiend or Voidwraith if you are Voidweaver.
5. Cast Voidform.
6. Use Void Volley.
7. Channel Mind Flay: Insanity.
8. Use Tentacle Slam on your kill target and to instantly apply your primary DoTs, Vampiric Touch & Shadow Word: Pain
9. If you are Voidweaver, channel Void Torrent on your target to deal a large amount of damage and generate Insanity.
   • This will create an Entropic Rift on your target.
   • It will also change Mind Blast to Void Blast.
10. Use Void Blast when you get a Shadowy Insight proc.
11. Use Shadow Word: Madness on your kill target.
    • When you use Shadow Word: Madness while Entropic Rift is active, Entropic Rift's damage and size is increased.
    • Mind Devourer has a chance to proc after using Mind Blast. This increases the damage of your Shadow Word: Madness and it costs 0 Insanity. Use Devouring Plague when you get this buff.
12. Use Psyfiend on your kill target.
13. Use Tentacle Slam if you need to refresh DoTs and enemies are stunned or stacked.
14. Cast Mind Blast.
15. Use Shadow Word: Death if the enemy is at low enough health.
16. Use Shadow Word: Madness on your kill target.
17. Use Mind Blast when you get a Shadowy Insight proc.
18. Use Void Volley when Voidform ends.
19. Channel Mind Flay as a filler.
20. Use Shadow Word: Madness on your kill target.
21. If Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain are close to expiring, start refreshing them by casting Vampiric Touch.

Note: Although most of your damage will come from your DoTs ( Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Shadow Word: Madness), your 'burst' damage can happen whenever you have Halo/ Void Torrent available. When it is active, you will summon an Entropic Rift on the enemy team and do more damage from Void Blast. Try to pair Halo/ Void Torrent with other spells like Psyfiend and crowd control ( Silence or Psychic Scream).

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.

1. Cast Vampiric Touch on your main target.
   • If you are using Misery, it should also apply Shadow Word: Pain.
2. Use the instant Vampiric Touch on any other enemy around you that do not have it active.
3. Use Tentacle Slam if there are multiple interrupts to stop you from casting to refresh DoTs on enemies around you.
4. If you are Voidweaver, channel Void Torrent on your target to deal a large amount of damage and generate Insanity.
   • This will create an Entropic Rift on your target.
   • It will also change Mind Blast to Void Blast.
5. If you are Archon, cast Halo.
6. Use Shadow Word: Madness on your kill target.
   • When you use Shadow Word: Madness while Entropic Rift is active, Entropic Rift's damage and size is increased.
   • After using Void Torrent, Void Volley will replace it. Use this ability immediately to fire bolts at your target and enemies around it.
7. Cast Mind Blast on the main target once you get DoTs on as many enemies as you can.
8. Use Mind Blast when you get a Shadowy Insight proc.
9. Cast Mind Flay as a filler to generate Insanity.
10. Use Tentacle Slam to refresh Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain.
11. Use Psyfiend on your kill target to reduce damage they take.
12. If you get interrupted, use Power Word: Shield.
13. Use Shadow Word: Death if the enemy is at low enough health.

Dispersion is the main defensive cooldown for Shadow Priests. This reduces all damage done to you by 60%, but you cannot use any abilities while it is active.

Vampiric Embrace is a defensive ability that, when used properly, can stabilize your team quickly. When you or your teammate is taking heavy damage, and you have time to free cast, use this ability. Abilities like Vampiric Touch and Mind Flay can completely heal your team.

Power Word: Shield is a versatile spell that helps your team. You can also use it to generate Insanity if you get interrupted on Shadow abilities.

Desperate Prayer increases your health by 25% for 10 seconds and instantly heals you for that amount.

Fade/ Mind Soothe. In PvP, these abilities do the same thing: they reduce the range at which attacks can be made to you. This is great versus teams with ranged classes on them. This will either force them to wait or make them overextend to deal damage/crowd control you.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.