Talent Spec
It's tough to find talents to trade out for Silence but interrupts are often useful. If you have 2p t12 just skip Silence and get more Shadowfiends.
Prime Glyphs aren't negotiable: Flay, Pain, Death. Major and Minor are wide open, but I recommend Fade for fights with lots of new adds getting Mind Seared, and Spirit Tap for soloing.
Gear
Intellect >> 17% Hit > Haste >= Crit = Mastery
You do want to reach the 17% hit cap (Spirit and Hit equally effective). For non-bosses it's nice to have gear to swap in to drop to about 6% hit to avoid a lot of stat waste.
Instructions
Opener
- Shadow Word: Pain
- Mind Flay until a Shadow Orb procs
- Use Trinkets, if any
- Mind Blast
- If necessary, Mind Flay to 5 stacks of Dark Evangelism
- Vampiric Touch
- Devouring Plague
- Dark Archangel
- Mind Blast, if it's back up
- Shadowfiend
- start running the regular rotation
Regular Priorities
- Mind Blast
- Devouring Plague (only if Empowered Shadow and Dark Evangelism(5) are present)
- Vampiric Touch (only if Empowered Shadow and Dark Evangelism(5) are present)
- Dark Archangel (only if Dark Evangelism is at 5 stacks)
- Shadow Word: Death (only if you need mana or the mob is below 25% HP)
- Shadowfiend
- Mind Flay (stop channeling in favor of a higher priority spell, but fill ALL your downtime with Mind Flay)
On the Move
When you need to move, it's important not to waste that time. Shadow Word: Death and Devouring Plague are both instant, so spam them while on the run (including the beginning of fights when you're getting in position).
Short Fights / Adds
Sometimes you need to kill adds quickly and applying dots doesn't make sense. This is where a shadow priest gets to prove he's more than another affliction warlock. Your Mind Spikex(3or4),Mind Blast rotation is excellent dps and doesn't require any dotting.
AoE
Mind Sear is all you need for AoE. Do it on a friendly target if possible so it doesn't end early.
Other Tips
Do NOT use Dispersion unless you are avoiding some big incoming damage.
You may want to use a mod like MFClip, FaceMelter, or TellMeWhen so that you can easily see when your DoTs need refreshing.
A lot of casters lose a big chunk of their DPS to lag. This is quite unnecessary, as there is about a half second during which the server will queue your next cast. So just hit your next spell before your current one finishes.
Helpful Addons
- FaceMelter - Simple addon that just tells you what to cast next for the single target rotation.
- MFClip - Nice all-encompassing shadow priest utility. I stopped using it in favor of TellMeWhen and Quartz, but you might like it more.
- TellMeWhen - I use this mod for all my dps toons to notify me when to use which abilities.
- Quartz - Especially useful for watching Mind Flay ticks. It's best to interrupt your Mind Flay channel to refresh dots and Mind Blast, but you want to do it right after a tick to avoid waste.