Shadow Priest Secrets

Why pick and choose when you can have them all?

Raiding Shadow Priests (PVE only) really can have it all. There are enough talent points at level 80 to buy all DPS increasing Shadow Talents without having to weigh the relative values. Although I did some preliminary analysis of various talents, the lack of need to pick and choose prevented me from wasting too much time on it.

Here is the raiding build I am currently using: PVE Shadow Priest. With this build there are several talents that contribute nothing to DPS. These talents are the easiest to customize to your play style and I'll list them below with a few comments.

Improved Power Word: Fortitude - This talent now gives the priest a health pool increase on top of improving the buff itself. Five points must be spent at this tier and I like being a bit less squishy.

Meditation - I value some mana regen while casting. Great for long fights.

Veiled Shadows - Threat issues have vanished in WoLK for single target fights; however, casting your fiend on a faster rotation really helps during longer fights and increases DPS. Fade is invaluable during AOE fights.

Shadow Reach - Distance provides greater safety in most encounters.

Focused Mind - Again, just a mana saver; however, I almost never have mana problems. This talent keeps my DPS high as I rarely need to drink potions or disperse during a boss fight. These points are the most likely candidates to move elsewhere.

Improved Shadowform - Mostly a PVP improvement, but it also reduces DPS lost when using Mind Sear. In addition, it helps against mob AOE attacks, like the trash in Onyxia.

Dispersion - Great mana regen for long fights.

One final note about Shadow Focus. I've been asked over the last year about whether to buy this talent. The thought is that you can use these points elsewhere and just get higher hit gear. This is a mistake. Due to Blizzards itemization of gear, high hit gear has lower DPS attributes. Sacrificing these points means selecting weaker gear to relocate points that have no DPS increasing place to go.

Here is my current PVP build. Some talent swapping is likely depending on what classes you arena with, but this is a good starting template. Keep in mind you need 6% to hit in order to overcome all racial's in PVP, and remember that builds that give you tools you use, are better than mirroring someone else's build and having talents you aren't exploiting.

Now on to Spell Cycles.