Twisted Faith

One of the biggest reasons why Shadowpriests are not cookie-cutter DPS, cannot macro their spell rotations or utilize the “head on keyboard” method of casting is that we have a slew of different abilities, on different cooldowns.

Instead, we have a spell priority, where we basically need to keep our DoTs up on the target at all times, and use our on-cooldown abilities as long as their are off cooldown and it is safe to use them. A little googling discovered me a very interesting flowchart which sums it all up in a nice little package.

(Courtesy of Dwarfpriest.com)

Now, let’s take a closer look at our most used DPS/Utility spells:

Vampiric Touch (VT) - Vampiric touch is a DoT that also allows us to grant the Replenishment ability to up to 10 people in a raid when we cast Mind Blast on a target afflicted with Vampiric Touch. Always keep VT up on your target. VT can Crit, and is marginally affected by Haste (only the cast time is lowered).

Shadow Word: Pain (SW:P) – Our main DoT, plain and simple. Always keep SW:P up on your target. SW:P can crit but is unaffected by haste.

Vampiric Embrace (VE) – When placed on a target, this allows us to return 15% of the damage we deal to the target as healing to ourselves, and 3% to our party. This can be talented for +33%/+66% return, for a maximum of 25% of damage returned as health to you and 5% to your party. Use it if you know your group will suffer AoE damage, to allow a good buffer of healing which gives the healers time to catch up. Using this spell on trash is generally a waste, and using it on aggro sensitive fights (with phase transitions where aggro is reset, or Gurtogg Bloodboil in Black Temple, for example) it is downright dangerous.

Mind Blast (MB) - A spell with a 1.5 second cast time and 8 seconds cooldown. This is our basic “big nuke”. It can be talented to reduce its cooldown by up to 2.5 seconds. Mind Blast can Crit, and its cast time is affected by Haste. Use Mind Blast whenever it is not on cooldown.

Shadow Word: Death (SW:D) - An instant cast spell with a 12 second cooldown. When we cast this spell on a target, and it does not kill the target, we suffer backlash damage equal to the amount of damage we dealt to the target. SW:D can Crit, but is unaffected by Haste. Use it when you are stuck between cooldowns for a while or have to move, and you are not likely to die from the backlash (such as during AoE effects or when the damage is ramped up too much such as on Curator during evocation, or Netherspite while standing in the blue beam).

Mind Flay (MF) – A 3-second channeled spell which deals shadow damage and slows the target. Whenever our DoTs are on the target and  MB is on cooldown, use this spell, as it is our main nuke. Mind Flay can Crit, and ticks faster with Haste. As a channeled spell, you will suffer a loss in DPS if you are hit while channeling it. Some people prefer to cut the Mind Flay short in order to use MB or SW:D as soon as they come off their cooldowns, other people do not. This choice is situational and relies on many factors, such as lag. If you cut the last tick of Mind Flay, this may result in lowered DPS if you time it incorrectly.

Devouring Plague (DP) - An instant cast DoT which heals us for 15% of the damage done. It also has a great coefficient, and when talented with Improved Devouring Plague will deal 15% of its total damage right when it is cast. This spell adds greatly to our PvE survivability and personal DPS output.  Before, a Death Knight could spread it, because it is a disease, but this has been removed in patch 3.1.

Mind Sear (MS) – A burst AoE shadow damage spell, centered on the enemy we target. However, the creature we target is not affected by the spell’s damage. This means that a little use of braincells will tell us to either DoT up a target and Mind Sear on it, or to use it on CC’d targets. However, I have seen less and less CC actually being used in PvE in Wrath, so the latter use may be a bit of a relic.