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Shadow Priest in Shadowlands - DPS Strengths, Best Covenants, Soulbinds and Legendaries
Shadowlands
Criado
21/11/2020 em 00:31
por
djriff
Shadowlands launches on November 23rd / 24th and all classes will be getting new toys to play with -- from Covenant abilities, to Conduits and returning Legendary effects! This article, written by Djriff, will provide details on the current state of Shadow Priest in Shadowlands, to help you to prepare for the upcoming expansion!
Introduction
Shadow is the only damage specialization available to Priests. Shadow received a rework in Legion, which introduced
Forma do Caos
and completely changed the flow of shadow. Battle for Azeroth iterated on that concept even more. With Shadowlands, Shadow received another large rework. Our specialization identity is a bit confusing as we still use void abilities, but we have ties to our older plague/vampiric roots. Below is our collective feedback and opinions on the current state of shadow that is set to go live when Shadowlands launches next week.
About the Authors
This article has been written by the Shadow Team of
Warcraft Priests
, the Priest Class Discord. The team is formed by
Anshlun
,
Djriff
,
Ellipsis - Ice Bear
,
Elvenbane
,
Jaerv
,
Publik
, and
Saeldur
.
Check out all our Shadowlands Launch Opinion articles by our Class Writers and members of the community! Click on any of the colored specs below to see what articles we've released so far.
These guides were meant to give you a preview of what's to come in the expansion, but don't worry -- our full Shadowlands Class Guides will be updated soon!
Blood Death Knight
Arcane Mage
Assassination Rogue
Frost Death Knight
Fire Mage
Outlaw Rogue
Unholy Death Knight
Frost Mage
Subtlety Rogue
Havoc Demon Hunter
Brewmaster Monk
Elemental Shaman
Vengeance Demon Hunter
Mistweaver Monk
Enhancement Shaman
Balance Druid
Windwalker Monk
Restoration Shaman
Feral Druid
Holy Paladin
Affliction Warlock
Guardian Druid
Protection Paladin
Demonology Warlock
Restoration Druid
Retribution Paladin
Destruction Warlock
Beast Mastery Hunter
Discipline Priest
Arms Warrior
Marksmanship Hunter
Holy Priest
Fury Warrior
Survival Hunter
Shadow Priest
Protection Warrior
The Big Rework
Shadow received a substantial rework in Shadowlands.
Forma do Caos
is now a cooldown we use, rather than a buff we try to maintain at all times. Some players already miss the heart pounding pace as you reach higher stacks of
Forma do Caos
and your
Insanidade
drains faster and faster. While that was a fun playstyle, it was very easy to mess up and the new incarnation of Shadow, which is similar to Shadow prior to Warlords of Draenor, is easier to pick up and still maintains a good skill ceiling.
Additionally,
Insanidade
generation has been reduced across the board slightly and instead we have
Insanidade
spenders,
Peste Devoradora
and the talent
. We’ve also gained a new passive,
Pensamentos Sombrios
, which gives us more incentive to have
Palavra Sombria: Dor
,
Toque Vampírico
, and
Peste Devoradora
active on the target we are using
Açoite Mental
or
on.
Forma do Caos
Forma do Caos
no longer being tied to
Insanidade
and acting as a true cooldown has been great for the spec. For several expansions, the only cooldown we had, if you can even call it that, was
Demônio das Sombras
. We did have access to
Infusão de Poder
, but that just served to fuel high stack
Forma do Caos
s and was short lived. Now, when we enter
Forma do Caos
, we feel an instant increase in power. We get 2 charges of
Impacto Mental
and access to
Seta Caótica
, which essentially lets you not worry about managing
Palavra Sombria: Dor
and
Toque Vampírico
for the duration as you’ll automatically extend them with each
Seta Caótica
cast, letting you focus on upfront damage dealing abilities. Additionally, you still get the cool
Forma do Caos
aesthetic.
Shadowlands Changes
As mentioned in the big rework section, Shadow now has a slightly different playstyle than before. While we still make use of our core spells, the spec does feel slower than it did with ramping haste and
Forma do Caos
stacks.
Unpruning
Peste Devoradora
has made a return to Shadow. It’s gone through a few changes on Beta, and is now one of our hardest hitting abilities. A new mechanic of
Peste Devoradora
is that it functions similar to Ignite. Any time you cast
Peste Devoradora
on the same target the damage from your previous
Peste Devoradora
will be rolled into the new one. This is great for single target fights or fights where you need to funnel damage into one target while dotting many targets.
Palavra Sombria: Morte
has also made a return, this time baseline instead of a talent, however there are some potential issues with the current implementation. While the ability hits hard on targets below 20% health, it doesn’t integrate well into the rotation and the reflected damage could be detrimental should we encounter fights where our maximum health is reduced or targets take additional damage.
Infusão de Poder
is now a baseline ability for all Priest specializations. You can cast it on ally, but generally you’ll use it on yourself. With a 2 minute cooldown, it feels a little weird as it doesn’t line up with the cooldown of
Forma do Caos
, but overall it feels like a good button to press. Additionally, it’s off the global cooldown.
Prece Desesperada
is now available to all Priest specializations.
Reconforto Mental
, a spell that's generally seen as extremely niche has also returned.
Dot Management
With the rework of
Forma do Caos
, we need to manually recast our dots much more often. While this is how Shadow played before Legion, it does feel a bit strange going back to it after the past two expansions. Thankfully, we have a few talents like
Padecimento
,
Danação
, and
that can help make this easier.
Mastery
Shadow’s mastery,
Maestria: Tecelagem Sombria
, has changed this expansion. It is now based on Shadow’s dots being on the target rather than passively adding damage to spells. This synergizes well with one of our passive procs,
Pensamentos Sombrios
. Additionally, during
Forma do Caos
, all targets will receive the maximum benefit, making
Forma do Caos
standout as a true cooldown for Shadow.
Palavra Sombria: Dor
&
Toque Vampírico
Aparições Sombrias
were changed to spawn on targets afflicted by
Toque Vampírico
when
Impacto Mental
,
Peste Devoradora
or
Seta Caótica
are cast, rather than triggering from a critical tick of
Palavra Sombria: Dor
. That’s left
Palavra Sombria: Dor
feeling a bit lackluster in what it brings to the table. Meanwhile,
Toque Vampírico
now has everything going for it. Targets that have
Toque Vampírico
on them will contribute to the number of
Aparições Sombrias
spawned, it can apply
Palavra Sombria: Dor
when talented into
Padecimento
, be buffed using
Escuridão Desatante
, adds damage to targets when casting
Impacto Mental
while talented into
Elo Psíquico
, and also heals us passively per tick. We would love to see
Palavra Sombria: Dor
synergize with our toolkit beyond
interactions.
Talents
Talents are honestly in the best balance they have been in any expansion. While sims do say certain talents are better in a given scenario, and that will always be the case, some talents are viable in multiple situations. That being said, there are some competing synergies and some weak talents that still need to be addressed in tuning.
Row 15
This row feels mostly balanced.
Fortaleza da Mente
definitely feels like a raiding talent, mainly because it doesn’t buff the damage of
, which is what you’ll be using as your filler in Mythic+.
Morte e Loucura
is our bread and butter in Mythic+, which feels great.
Escuridão Desatante
is the PvP talent for this row, due to its synergy with
Danação
.
Row 30
replaced Dark Void with a better spell. It's our only other
Insanidade
spender and it does a fantastic amount of damage.
Padecimento
is still useful in fights that are spread out where
cannot affect sufficient multiple targets or you just want to spend fewer casts on dots. Additionally,
Padecimento
is better than
at lower target counts.
Virada do Destino
is only slightly ahead of
Padecimento
in terms of DPS on pure single target encounters.
Row 40
Current sims have
as our best talent, providing you hit all targets with it every cast.
Espíritos Auspiciosos
is better on spread encounters and generally more consistent.
Elo Psíquico
just doesn’t do enough damage and has counter synergy when talented into
.
Row 45
This row feels weird.
Danação
works well in PvP, or when you need to instantly get your dots on a target.
Torrente do Caos
is a short CD single target nuke with a fixed channel time. It's best to have your dots on the target prior to casting it to get the full Mastery benefit, but it hits hard nonetheless.
Dobramentes
is your press and forget button for passive
Insanidade
generation, which is great for Mythic+ when you’re hard pressed for GCDs. Generally speaking
Torrente do Caos
will be the go-to talent for most PvE scenarios, it just hits very hard and looks awesome.
Row 50
Caos Voraz
is by far our best talent in this row. The initial critical strike gain of Ancient Madness is nice for burst packs, but
Caos Voraz
will give you a longer
Forma do Caos
, resulting in more damage over the course of a fight, be that short or long.
is great when you can successfully kill a target marked within its debuff window, granting you additional
Forma do Caos
uptime. Additionally,
is the go-to pick for Mythic+.
Leveling Perks
Reconforto Mental
is available at level 52. This is a fairly niche spell.
Reconforto Mental
has very few use cases, as it's limited to Humanoid and Dragonkin targets. You should use it to avoid aggroing mobs when you just want to skirt by. If the target resists it, they'll aggro to you. Additionally if you use it on an enemy player, it will cause guards of neutral cities to aggro you.
Grito Psíquico
gains a rank 2 passive ability,
Grito Psíquico
at level 54, which increases the amount of damage a target can take before breaking out of your fear. This doesn't really have an impact on how you would use
Grito Psíquico
Silêncio
gains a rank 2 passive ability,
which increases it's range by 10 yards. This finally puts us on even footing terms of range of an interrupt with other caster classes.
Infusão de Poder
is available at level 58 and you'll want to use it on cooldown, even outside of
Forma do Caos
. It'll make burning some hard to kill targets easier for you.
Covenant Abilities
Kyrian
You can use the cleansing effect from
Evocar Comissário
if needed, but we have our own tools for cleansing yourself through
Purificar Doença
,
Dispersão
, and
Dissipação em Massa
(which also benefits our allies). .
When it comes to the actual covenant ability,
Dom dos Ascendidos
is absolutely bonkers. You'll want to use it with
Forma do Caos
,
Infusão de Poder
, an Intellect Potion, and any on use trinkets you may have to boost it's damage. One special note about it is that
Impacto Ascendido
has a 1s global cooldown, which is hasted, it will feel a bit awkward as the rest of our spells trigger a 1.5s global cooldown, also hasted. It's worth waiting for it to be back up rather than missing a cast.
Impacto Ascendido
does not grant insanity, which will feel a little weird.
When it comes to the other soulbinds, they just don't measure up, Pelagos is too strong by comparison. even after the nerfs.
Dom dos Ascendidos
can be buffed using the
Ascensão Corajosa
conduit, which increases the damage
Impacto Ascendido
does and
Erupção Ascendida
will deal 1% more damage per stack of
Dom dos Ascendidos
. It adds a decent amount of damage value to
Dom dos Ascendidos
, but it's more noticeable in Mythic+.
Venthyr
Your covenant ability with the Venthyr covenant is
Jogos Mentais
. The spell doesn't really require any thought or special handling, just cast it on cooldown. You can technically minmax it with periods where you know a mob will be dealing damage, for example a warrior using
Tornado de Aço
against you. Additionally you have access to
Porta das Sombras
which can be a niche utility to go from A to B quickly. This covenant serves as a good choice if you're going to be playing a healer, as the soulbinds are quite close in value. Additionally if you plan on seriously playing PvP, this is the best covenant to do so.
As far as soubinds go, Theotar and Nadjia are fairly close to each other, assuming specific pathing. Draven isn't too far behind (literally 1%), so you can go with whichever soulbind you want in this case and have it only minimally impact your potential DPS.
Jogos Mentais
can be buffed by using the
Percepções Estilhaçadas
conduit. This causes
Jogos Mentais
to last 2 additional seconds, deal more initial damage, and causes more damage or healing to be reversed. It's not really worth taking in any scenario.
Night Fae
Going Night Fae gives you access to
Forma da Alma
and
Guardiões Feérios
as a Shadow Priest.
Forma da Alma
is semi useless for us as majority of the time you'll be talented into
Corpo e Alma
. One upside to it is that you'll have a much longer duration inside of rested areas. which makes navigating cities that don't allow mounts in certain areas slightly faster.
When it comes to DPS,
Guardiões Feérios
is interesting. Casting it provides your spells with 3 additional effects.
Fada Irascível
follows whichever target you've recently cast
Palavra Sombria: Dor
on. Note, this does not include
Palavra Sombria: Dor
inflicted when casting
Toque Vampírico
while talented into
Padecimento
.
Fada Guardiã
provides your target to take 10% reduced damage, useful to place on your tank unless someone else needs it. That is triggered by casting
Palavra de Poder: Escudo
onto a target. Lastly
Fada Benevolente
increases the cooldown rate of a major ability by 100%. For Shadow Priests this currently uses
Erupção do Caos
to reduce it's cooldown to roughly 70 seconds.
For soulbinds, all three soulbinds are fairly close (within 1% of each other) with proper pathing and conduits.
Guardiões Feérios
can be buffed using the
Fermata Feéria
conduit, which causes any of the Faeries to leave a reduced power version of their benefit on the target for a short while. We won't be moving around our buffs as often as some classes, so we gain very little benefit from this conduit.
Necrolord
Shadow Priests get access to
Moldacarne
and
Nova Profana
.
Moldacarne
is hardly worth casting, except in a pinch where you'll need the extra survivability.
Nova Profana
does surprisingly well on lower target counts thanks to it's square root scaling. Basically, it's stronger on lower target counts, but weaker with higher target counts. You'll want to use
Nova Profana
when you know targets will live as close to the full duration of
Transfusão Profana
as possible. Unlike Kyrian's Ascended Nova, you do not need to be in melee range to use this covenant's ability and it will instead spread to targets within 15yds of it's impact zone. There is a caveat though,
Nova Profana
behaves a lot like shadow crash. You can target an enemy and cast
Nova Profana
, however it will lock it's landing location based on where the target was standing at the time you cast it.
For soulbinds, you'll want to go with Emeni, as they're a bit ahead DPS wise in all scenarios.
Transfusão Profana
can be buffed using the
Transfusão Purulenta
conduit, which extends it duration by 2 seconds and increases its damage. The added damage this provides is negligible.
Transfusão Profana
already has some issues where the targets need to live the full duration to get value out of it, meaning adding more time to that is giving you a bigger window to miss out on damage. Provided you get the full duration of
Transfusão Profana
, it's not bad, but we have better options.
Most of our covenant choices are really close. You can really pick whichever covenant you want and still do comparable DPS. For PvP, you’ll want to pick Venthr, as
Jogos Mentais
is the best covenant ability we have access to in those situations.
Which would I choose if Shadowlands came out tomorrow?
With the rapid fire changes that are currently happening on beta as we approach closer to release, the small gap between covenants is getting smaller. If I had to choose right now, personally I would go with Necrolord. The main reason for that is I enjoy running dungeons and it's one of Shadow's best covenants for dungeons. It also performs decently on single target encounters, even beating out
Jogos Mentais
.
Soulbinds
Given my above choice of a covenant, this is the pathing I would take for Emeni, my chosen covenant.
Emeni provides a couple of interesting nodes:
Liderança pelo Exemplo
, the initial trait in the tree, functions as group utility. Your party members are granted them 2% primary stat, and you gain up to 8% primary stat yourself.
Pele Magnífica de Emeni
allows you to get some extra health, really we only want this for the potency conduit.
Carne Ambulante de Emeni
allows you to cast
Moldacarne
while moving, This isn't worth taking in most situations as we lose a potency conduit.
Mastigadores Rangentes
provides stacking haste when defeating mobs. This comes at a cost of an extra potency conduit and is fairly weak in comparison.
My second soulbind would be Plague Deviser Marileth, mainly so I could get access to
Ataque Preventivo do Pestento
which is useful in Mythic+ for burning down priority targets.
Conduits
Overall, we only have a handful of potentially good potency conduits. Since we're limited to at max 2 potency conduits for any given soulbind, that vastly limits our choices. Additionally, there are a couple cases where you'll only want to grab 1 potency conduit as the alternative path will buff the damage of that soulbind our the class ability enough to outweigh the gain of the potency conduit.
That being said, you'll never want to pick a covenant specific potency conduit as the shadow priest potency conduits are stronger.
Eco Dissonantes
and
Aparições Assombradoras
are our best potency conduits.
Eco Dissonantes
should be slotted in first if you're talented into
Caos Voraz
or
.
Aparições Assombradoras
should be slotted first if you're talented into
Loucura Ancestral
.
Here's an example of when to take the other Potency Conduits
Devorador de Mentes
is slightly behind the above 2 conduits, it's better than
Percepções Estilhaçadas
or
Sombras Raivosas
.
Sombras Raivosas
is better than nothing in raids.
Dobramentes
|
Demônio das Sombras
can essentially be thought of as a dot you cast and forget. While this conduit does increase the attack speed of your summoned guardian, it does not benefit from a partial attack. So if your guardian does 15.6 attacks per cast with this conduit, you'll only benefit from 15 attacks, leaving that extra 0.6 useless to you. That said, it's more valuable in Mythic + as majority of the time you'll be running
not not have
Toque Vampírico
up on targets to generate
Aparições Sombrias
.
Ascensão Corajosa
is slightly behind
Devorador de Mentes
, but better than
Sombras Raivosas
, this is likely to do with the long cooldown of
Dom dos Ascendidos
and not syncing up with
Infusão de Poder
.
Fermata Feéria
,
Percepções Estilhaçadas
, and
Transfusão Purulenta
should never be used.
Legendaries
The majority of the legendaries available to us are terrible. Our best legendary,
Chamado ao Caos Eterno
, will not be available to us until the raid comes out. Three of the four Shadow specific legendaries are ok but have their own issues.
Gêmeos da Sacerdotisa do Sol
is a good secondary legendary as you’ll have more control over it than
Chamado ao Caos Eterno
, and get to use
Infusão de Poder
on another ally while still benefiting from it yourself.
That said, here's the rest of the legendaries that are available to us:
Class
:
Salmo da Dor Rompida
: It seems attractive for burst reasons, but it's just not worth it.
Sombras Cauterizantes
/
Contemplação Comedida
: This provides no DPS output, Shadow already brings tools to the table to help offheal, making this an even worse option.
Salto da Fé
: Provides no real DPS output, you can either use a covenant ability to move quickly,
Palavra de Poder: Escudo
with
Corpo e Alma
, or just be in a better placed spot.
Salmo da Dor Rompida
: It seems attractive for burst reasons, but it's just not worth it.
Estratagema de Talbadar
: Isn't terrible, but it's worth saving up for
Chamado ao Caos Eterno
which will drop in the raid.
Prisma da Chama Sombria
: It's decent in M+, but
Chamado ao Caos Eterno
still outperforms it.
Generics
:
Eco de Eonar
: Just doesn't bring enough DPS to the table to choose to use it.
Julgamento da Juíza
: A cool concept, but doesn't do enough damage and requires specific positioning to maximize the value of it.
Chacoalho da Gorja
: Most groups of mobs should die around the same time in dungeons. The delay makes this an even worse choice. For raids, it just doesn't do enough damage. That said, the damage reduction component could be fairly niche, but you'll be better off killing something faster.
Sagacidade de Norgannon
: This is a bit of a training wheels legendary. If you're just swapping to a ranged DPS class for the first time after playing melee or a beast mastery hunter, this may help you get used to having to plant your feet to deal damage. Once you get used to that, the value of this legendary drops dramatically and it's better to just learn to play a caster properly than gimp your DPS by choosing the wrong legendary.
Proclamação de Sephuz
: The stat proc is nice. Back in Legion, the ring version of this was our best in slot. However, it just doesn't give us the oomph that it used to. This could change as the expansion goes on.
Atrator de Fantom Estável
: This provides no DPS to us.
Terceiro Olho do Carcereiro
: This just doesn't provide enough oomph to be competitive.
Sacrifício de Vitalidade
: This may be decent in open world content or pvp, but generally you want to avoid taking damage when possible.
Conclusion
Shadow feels quite strong going into Shadowlands. We're not reliant on any borrowed power of the covenant system. Shadow's framework feels very solid and you'll have options to carve out needs for your raid. Shadow brings decent sustained single target damage, excellent spread target damage, decent stacked AoE damage, and off healing. Shadow does lack in the mobility department, the loss of stutter step casting with
Seta Caótica
will require Shadow Priests to plan ahead of where they need to be and will result in less damage on big moves. That said, we're not completely powerless as we do have several instant cast spells we can use on the move. These are
Peste Devoradora
,
Palavra Sombria: Morte
,
Impacto Mental
(with a
Pensamentos Sombrios
proc), and
Palavra Sombria: Dor
. Overall, Shadow has come out performing well with the rework and looks very promising regardless of content you'll be participating in.
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