Shadow Priest PvP Talents and Builds (Shadowlands / Patch 9.2)
Choosing the right PvP and PvE talents is a prerequisite to proper performance in PvP. This guide goes through the various talent choices available to you as a Shadow Priest and gives you the best combinations you can take.
This page is part of our Shadow Priest PvP Guide.
Talent Choices for Shadow Priests
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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25 |
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30 |
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35 |
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40 |
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45 |
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50 |
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While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.
Regular Talents for Shadow Priests
Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
Unfurling Darkness is the best choice in this tier. This talent will
make it so you spend less time casting
Vampiric Touch and more time
casting harder hitting spells.
Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents
Intangibility is the best choice in this tier. This talent
heals you while
Dispersion is active and reduces its overall
cooldown. This is crucial to increase your survivability.
Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents
Misery is the best choice in this tier. This talent is crucial
when your DoTs are constantly being dispelled. This will help with overall
spread pressure on the enemy team and you can use the extra time you gain by
helping your teammates or kiting enemies.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents
Psychic Horror is the best choice in this tier. This gives your
team additional crowd control for healers or kill targets. The cooldown of
Psychic Horror pairs well with the cooldown of
Silence.
Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents
Auspicious Spirits is the best choice in this tier. This talent helps
increase your sustained and spread damage output. It also helps with generating
Insanity much faster. You can also play
Shadow Crash if you are playing
against a team where you cannot cast often and want more instant damage.
Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents
Damnation is the best choice in this tier. This will instantly place
all of your important DoTs on your target. This should be used after the enemy
healer dispels and also works with talents like
Unfurling Darkness.
Tier 7 (Level 50) Talents
Hungering Void is the best talent in this tier. This makes it so you
deal increased damage after using
Void Bolt on your target. This is great
for increasing your burst damage.
PvP Talents for Shadow Priests
You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful, but can be replaced with other PvP talents depending on your team's goal.
Mandatory PvP Talents
Greater Fade increases your movement speed and makes you immune
to most damage and spells. This is a mandatory talent that should be taken
every arena match. You can use Greater Fade for multiple different things.
For example, you can use it defensively when a team is focusing you to
avoid being killed. You can also use it aggressively when you are close to
getting a kill and an enemy is trying to use crowd control on you.
Situational PvP Talents
Void Volley is a situational talent that offers you more damage and
crowd control. When you enter
Voidform, you send out a bolt that deals
damage and fears enemies hit by it. This could be a great way to follow up
other crowd control with yours.
Void Shift swaps the health between you and your current
target. It also increases the lower health percentage of the two to 25% if
below that amount. This is a mandatory defensive to use in every arena game.
Driven to Madness makes it so while
Voidform is not
active, being attacked will grant you 9 Insanity over 3 seconds. It is
important to note that these attacks need to be melee and this is a powerful
PvP talent against teams with a melee DPS on it.
Thoughtsteal is a very interesting talent that steals an ability
from an enemy. This gives you access to the ability and the enemy cannot use it
for 20 seconds! This will primarily be taken versus teams with Warlocks, Mages
or Restoration Druids on it. Here is a list of the abilities you can steal from
other classes/specs:
- All Druid specs:
Rejuvenation
- All Mage specs:
Polymorph
- Mistweaver Monk:
Renewing Mist
- All Paladin Specs:
Blessing of Freedom
- Shadow Priest:
Vampiric Touch
- Holy Priest:
Renew
- Discipline Priest:
Penance
- All Shaman Specs:
Frost Shock
- All Warlock Specs:
Fear
Mind Trauma will give you a large amount of Haste, which will greatly
increase your damage output. This should be chosen versus teams with casters
where you will be able to fully channel
Mind Flays.
Changelog
- 28 Feb. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2.
- Updated Best PvP Talents.
- 21 Nov. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 16 Jul. 2021: Updated PvP talents.
- 08 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Talent Table.
- Updated Tiers 5 and 7 Regular Talents.
- Updated PvP Talents.
- 15 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch (9.0.1)
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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