Shadow Priest PvP Talents and Builds (BfA / Patch 8.3)

Level	Choices
15	✘ Fortress of the Mind	✔ Shadowy Insight	✘ Shadow Word: Void
30	✘ Body and Soul	✘ San'layn	✔ Intangibility
45	✘ Twist of Fate	✔ Misery	✘ Dark Void
60	✘ Last Word	✘ Mind Bomb	✔ Psychic Horror
75	✔ Auspicious Spirits	✔ Shadow Word: Death	✘ Shadow Crash
90	✔ Lingering Insanity	✔ Mindbender	✘ Void Torrent
100	✔ Legacy of the Void	✘ Dark Ascension	✘ Surrender to Madness

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.

Shadowy Insight is the best choice in this tier. This gives you more sustained and burst damage that is instant.

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.

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.

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.

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. If your team is not focused on spread damage and you need extra damage on enemies when they are at low health, Shadow Word: Death is also a great choice.

Lingering Insanity is the best choice in this tier. This helps with keeping your damage output high when your Voidform ends. If your team is more focused on single target damage, Mindbender is also a great choice.

Legacy of the Void is the best choice in this tier. This passive reduces the cast time of Void Eruption and the amount of Insanity it takes to use it. This is an overall large increase to your damage output.

The first PvP talent tier is will give you a choice between Gladiator's Medallion, Relentless, and Adaptation. Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier. It is great for removing crowd control on you that your healer cannot dispel.

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.

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.

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. A great defensive for short games or against teams that might try to kill your healer. Note: if you are using the Conflict and Strife Major, you get this ability baseline. Continue down the list to see what you can use for an additional PvP talent.

Void Origins makes Void Eruption instant. This is great because it makes it easier to enter Voidform. It allows you to burst when you want and not have to wait.

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.

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. You can replace Void Origins for this PvP talent.

Psyfiend summons a Psyfiend beside you to attack the target at range with Psyflay. Psyflay deals up to 1% of the target's total health in Shadow damage. It also slows their movement speed by 50% and reduces healing received by 50%. It is important to use this when the enemy team is stunned because of how little health the Psyfiend has. You can replace Void Shift for this PvP talent.