Shadow Priest PvP Talents and Builds (The War Within Pre-Patch)

The build below is the best talent build for maximizing your spread and single-target damage.

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.

Some important spells to note in the Priest talent tree:

• Void Tendrils summons tendrils and roots all enemies for 8 seconds or until they are killed. This is a perfect talent for increasing your survivability vs melee or to help you get a fear.
• Translucent Image/ Improved Fade/ Void Shift are all crucial talents you should take to increase your survivability.

Some important spells to note in the Shadow Priest Talent tree:

• Idol of N'Zoth is one of the last talents that can be picked that applies a debuff on your targets with Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch. This debuff will occasionally explode, dealing spread damage.
• Mind Spike is a returning spell that deals damage and reduces the cast time of your next Mind Blast, and increases its critical strike.
• Unfurling Darkness makes it so you spend less time casting Vampiric Touch and more time casting harder-hitting spells.

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.

Phase Shift should primarily be used when you will be the focus for the enemy team. This causes you to avoid all attacks and spells for 1 sec after using Fade.

Mind Trauma steals Haste from enemy players. Mind Spike and fully channeled Mind Flays grant 1 stack of this, fully channeled Void Torrent grants 3 stacks. This is a useful PvP talent against all matchups.

Psyfiend is a crucial spell that channels Psyflay on the target. This deals damage and reduces the healing received by the target by 50%. A well-timed Psyfiend can quickly end games.

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.

Catharsis stores 20% of the damage you take and increased the initial damage of your next Shadow Word: Pain. This is another strong PvP talent that increases your already strong damage output.

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.