I have recently started maining a shadow priest, after maining a warrior for the majority of BFA. Ranged is just more to my liking than melee.
I had a notion that shadow was a really bad spec, but I have found out it’s not as bad as people say. Shadow shines in the right settings. It is certainly not meta, but it kinda works.
When I first started playing the spec, my dps was awful. Absolute trash. I was close to switching to another ranged class. But I sticked with it, and my dps quickly improved when I got better gear and better azerite traits. But I want to improve further, and for that I need your help.
If you look at my logs (mainly mythic+), you will see that I perform slightly higher than average (avg being 50, I’m at around 54-55). How can I improve that number?
I follow the rotation about 95 % of the time, sometimes missing VB/SW:V on cooldown. I do however get stacks of Voidform 30+ regularly.
I know I need more crit/haste, something I’m working on.
I also want to replace a shoulder azerite with a shadowy apparition one.
What corruptions do you recommend? I have a rank 2 stars, but is it as good as it seems? How would you rank stars vs twisted appendage?
Really hope to get some insightful comments I want to go from average to a good shadow priest!
Best thing you can do is play a class that isn’t utterly gimped. I cannot believe how bad spriest is right now… single target damage is absolutely horrific.
In my opinion, if you mainly play m+, best corruptions would be Severe 1-3 (Increases the amount of Critical Strike you gain from all sources by 6/9/12%) and Expedient 1-3 (Increases the amount of Haste you gain from all sources by 6/9/12%). (I still cant get ANY of them but I believe that raw stats such as crit and haste will benefit your dmg the most right now.) Racing pulse and deadly momentum are also worth noting. Twisted appendage is better than stars for m+ if you had to choose one, imo. Try to get Vita from Raden as well.
I want more expedient and severe. I have 2 severe and 1 expedient atm. I would probably swap out my stars rank 2 for more Sev/Exp.
I do raids as shadow, and would probably swap out stars for more Sev/Exp there as well. Stars is too rng, sometimes giving me 10 stacks on bosses, sometimes 3.
A question about the rotation: If You are in voidform when adds spawn, do you dot everything asap or do you try to keep up voidorm with void bolt/ SW:V?
Prioritise bolt on cd if its needed to maintain voidform, otherwise fill with your dots where you would be casting flay. never let SWV sit at 2 charges.
[assuming you play chorus]
Staying in void form as long as possible isnt always desireable in m+. If you have a decent chunk of vf stacks and you just engaged some new adds, it might be worth dotting them up and almost intentionally leaving voidform, as the dmg on the adds will get a significant boost from chorus buff. It simply depends how long those adds will live. If they will live for a long time, you should maintain voidform a bit. Its almost impossible to give any clear answer here because the math is impossible to do unless you know exactly how long the pack will live and how long it will be til you engage the next pack. You simply wanna utilize the chorus stacks, and avoid only having chorus on downtime inbetween packs.
Another option for m+ which probably yields about the same results as properly played chorus build (unless very high keys) is to simply stack death throes/HoD/spiteful, maybe 1x thought harvester.
A little tip: dispersion stops insanity drain, so you can use it whenever there’s nothing to hit or when dealing with mechanics that would normally screw your voidform.
Yeah I’m playing chorus x 3.
But I also have Searing Dialouge I desperatly wanna swap for another Spiteful apparition trait. I would them have x 2 of SA.
I imagine that will work wonders for my DPS, as Mind Sear channels are rarely ever finished
With the ilvl inflation anything can kill anything.
Essences do more damage than our dots, so if you feel like some days it takes longer to kill stuff, look at the procs. Essences being triggered can make a difference between a fast run and a painfully slow one.
Shadow’s complexity comes from triggering or avoiding to trigger voidform, sometimes you sit at 100 insanity for a few seconds because the pack is about to die or letting voidform drop early for chorus stacks, since the blank dots (simple dot damage, no traits, no essences, no corruption) is pitiful.
I’ve recently picked up this priest again and I have to admit, I wished voidform was a talent in most scenarios. For world questing it triggers when the mob pack is near dying, for visions it gimps mobility so I use it just as a cooldown for miniboss fights and it’s just sitting there unused for large periods of time. And they’re keeping it for shadowlands as well…
Just a quick question about the rotation. You want to keep VB on cd and the charges of SW: rolling. In between the core rotation, you Mind Flay. Do you always Mind Flay in between? If you have cast a SW:V and VB is off CD in 0,5 sec do you still Mind Flay? If I do that, I feel like im wasting a global, but could only be me. Hope you understand what I mean
I want to go from average to a good shadow priest!