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Shadow Priest in Shadowlands - DPS Strengths, Best Covenants, Soulbinds and Legendaries
Shadowlands
Geposted
21.11.2020 um 00:31
von
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
Leerengestalt
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.
Leerengestalt
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
Leerengestalt
and your
Wahnsinn
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,
Wahnsinn
generation has been reduced across the board slightly and instead we have
Wahnsinn
spenders,
Verschlingende Seuche
and the talent
. We’ve also gained a new passive,
Dunkle Gedanken
, which gives us more incentive to have
Schattenwort: Schmerz
,
Vampirberührung
, and
Verschlingende Seuche
active on the target we are using
Gedankenschinden
or
on.
Leerengestalt
Leerengestalt
no longer being tied to
Wahnsinn
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
Schattengeist
. We did have access to
Seele der Macht
, but that just served to fuel high stack
Leerengestalt
s and was short lived. Now, when we enter
Leerengestalt
, we feel an instant increase in power. We get 2 charges of
Gedankenschlag
and access to
Leerenblitz
, which essentially lets you not worry about managing
Schattenwort: Schmerz
and
Vampirberührung
for the duration as you’ll automatically extend them with each
Leerenblitz
cast, letting you focus on upfront damage dealing abilities. Additionally, you still get the cool
Leerengestalt
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
Leerengestalt
stacks.
Unpruning
Verschlingende Seuche
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
Verschlingende Seuche
is that it functions similar to Ignite. Any time you cast
Verschlingende Seuche
on the same target the damage from your previous
Verschlingende Seuche
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.
Schattenwort: Tod
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.
Seele der Macht
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
Leerengestalt
, but overall it feels like a good button to press. Additionally, it’s off the global cooldown.
Verzweifeltes Gebet
is now available to all Priest specializations.
Gedankenbesänftigung
, a spell that's generally seen as extremely niche has also returned.
Dot Management
With the rework of
Leerengestalt
, 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
Elend
,
Bezichtigung
, and
that can help make this easier.
Mastery
Shadow’s mastery,
Meisterschaft: Schattenweben
, 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,
Dunkle Gedanken
. Additionally, during
Leerengestalt
, all targets will receive the maximum benefit, making
Leerengestalt
standout as a true cooldown for Shadow.
Schattenwort: Schmerz
&
Vampirberührung
Schattenhafte Erscheinungen
were changed to spawn on targets afflicted by
Vampirberührung
when
Gedankenschlag
,
Verschlingende Seuche
or
Leerenblitz
are cast, rather than triggering from a critical tick of
Schattenwort: Schmerz
. That’s left
Schattenwort: Schmerz
feeling a bit lackluster in what it brings to the table. Meanwhile,
Vampirberührung
now has everything going for it. Targets that have
Vampirberührung
on them will contribute to the number of
Schattenhafte Erscheinungen
spawned, it can apply
Schattenwort: Schmerz
when talented into
Elend
, be buffed using
Ausbreitende Dunkelheit
, adds damage to targets when casting
Gedankenschlag
while talented into
Psychische Verbindung
, and also heals us passively per tick. We would love to see
Schattenwort: Schmerz
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.
Festung des Geistes
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+.
Tod und Wahnsinn
is our bread and butter in Mythic+, which feels great.
Ausbreitende Dunkelheit
is the PvP talent for this row, due to its synergy with
Bezichtigung
.
Row 30
replaced Dark Void with a better spell. It's our only other
Wahnsinn
spender and it does a fantastic amount of damage.
Elend
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,
Elend
is better than
at lower target counts.
Schicksalshafte Wendung
is only slightly ahead of
Elend
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.
Verheißungsvolle Geister
is better on spread encounters and generally more consistent.
Psychische Verbindung
just doesn’t do enough damage and has counter synergy when talented into
.
Row 45
This row feels weird.
Bezichtigung
works well in PvP, or when you need to instantly get your dots on a target.
Leerenstrom
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.
Geistbeuger
is your press and forget button for passive
Wahnsinn
generation, which is great for Mythic+ when you’re hard pressed for GCDs. Generally speaking
Leerenstrom
will be the go-to talent for most PvE scenarios, it just hits very hard and looks awesome.
Row 50
Hungernde Leere
is by far our best talent in this row. The initial critical strike gain of Ancient Madness is nice for burst packs, but
Hungernde Leere
will give you a longer
Leerengestalt
, 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
Leerengestalt
uptime. Additionally,
is the go-to pick for Mythic+.
Leveling Perks
Gedankenbesänftigung
is available at level 52. This is a fairly niche spell.
Gedankenbesänftigung
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.
Psychischer Schrei
gains a rank 2 passive ability,
Psychischer Schrei
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
Psychischer Schrei
Stille
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.
Seele der Macht
is available at level 58 and you'll want to use it on cooldown, even outside of
Leerengestalt
. It'll make burning some hard to kill targets easier for you.
Covenant Abilities
Kyrian
You can use the cleansing effect from
Provost beschwören
if needed, but we have our own tools for cleansing yourself through
Krankheit läutern
,
Dispersion
, and
Massenbannung
(which also benefits our allies). .
When it comes to the actual covenant ability,
Segen der Aufgestiegenen
is absolutely bonkers. You'll want to use it with
Leerengestalt
,
Seele der Macht
, an Intellect Potion, and any on use trinkets you may have to boost it's damage. One special note about it is that
Woge des Aufstiegs
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.
Woge des Aufstiegs
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.
Segen der Aufgestiegenen
can be buffed using the
Mutiger Aufstieg
conduit, which increases the damage
Woge des Aufstiegs
does and
Aufgestiegene Eruption
will deal 1% more damage per stack of
Segen der Aufgestiegenen
. It adds a decent amount of damage value to
Segen der Aufgestiegenen
, but it's more noticeable in Mythic+.
Venthyr
Your covenant ability with the Venthyr covenant is
Gedankenspiele
. 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
Klingensturm
against you. Additionally you have access to
Schattentor
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.
Gedankenspiele
can be buffed by using the
Erschütterte Wahrnehmung
conduit. This causes
Gedankenspiele
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
Seelengestalt
and
Faewächter
as a Shadow Priest.
Seelengestalt
is semi useless for us as majority of the time you'll be talented into
Körper und Geist
. 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,
Faewächter
is interesting. Casting it provides your spells with 3 additional effects.
Zornige Fee
follows whichever target you've recently cast
Schattenwort: Schmerz
on. Note, this does not include
Schattenwort: Schmerz
inflicted when casting
Vampirberührung
while talented into
Elend
.
Wächterfee
provides your target to take 10% reduced damage, useful to place on your tank unless someone else needs it. That is triggered by casting
Machtwort: Schild
onto a target. Lastly
Gütige Fee
increases the cooldown rate of a major ability by 100%. For Shadow Priests this currently uses
Leereneruption
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.
Faewächter
can be buffed using the
Feenfermate
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
Fleischformung
and
Unheilige Nova
.
Fleischformung
is hardly worth casting, except in a pinch where you'll need the extra survivability.
Unheilige Nova
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
Unheilige Nova
when you know targets will live as close to the full duration of
Unheilige Transfusion
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,
Unheilige Nova
behaves a lot like shadow crash. You can target an enemy and cast
Unheilige Nova
, 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.
Unheilige Transfusion
can be buffed using the
Schwärende Transfusion
conduit, which extends it duration by 2 seconds and increases its damage. The added damage this provides is negligible.
Unheilige Transfusion
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
Unheilige Transfusion
, 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
Gedankenspiele
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
Gedankenspiele
.
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:
Mit gutem Beispiel vorangehen
, 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.
Emenis hervorragende Haut
allows you to get some extra health, really we only want this for the potency conduit.
Emenis wanderndes Fleisch
allows you to cast
Fleischformung
while moving, This isn't worth taking in most situations as we lose a potency conduit.
Knirschende Zähne
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
Seuchis Präventivschlag
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.
Dissonante Echos
and
Heimsuchende Erscheinungen
are our best potency conduits.
Dissonante Echos
should be slotted in first if you're talented into
Hungernde Leere
or
.
Heimsuchende Erscheinungen
should be slotted first if you're talented into
Uralter Wahnsinn
.
Here's an example of when to take the other Potency Conduits
Gedankenverschlinger
is slightly behind the above 2 conduits, it's better than
Erschütterte Wahrnehmung
or
Frenetische Schatten
.
Frenetische Schatten
is better than nothing in raids.
Geistbeuger
|
Schattengeist
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
Vampirberührung
up on targets to generate
Schattenhafte Erscheinungen
.
Mutiger Aufstieg
is slightly behind
Gedankenverschlinger
, but better than
Frenetische Schatten
, this is likely to do with the long cooldown of
Segen der Aufgestiegenen
and not syncing up with
Seele der Macht
.
Feenfermate
,
Erschütterte Wahrnehmung
, and
Schwärende Transfusion
should never be used.
Legendaries
The majority of the legendaries available to us are terrible. Our best legendary,
Ewige Anrufung der Leere
, 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.
Zwillinge der Sonnenpriesterin
is a good secondary legendary as you’ll have more control over it than
Ewige Anrufung der Leere
, and get to use
Seele der Macht
on another ally while still benefiting from it yourself.
That said, here's the rest of the legendaries that are available to us:
Class
:
Schmerzbrechender Psalm
: It seems attractive for burst reasons, but it's just not worth it.
Kauterisierende Schatten
/
Bedächtiges Nachsinnen
: This provides no DPS output, Shadow already brings tools to the table to help offheal, making this an even worse option.
Glaubenssprung
: Provides no real DPS output, you can either use a covenant ability to move quickly,
Machtwort: Schild
with
Körper und Geist
, or just be in a better placed spot.
Schmerzbrechender Psalm
: It seems attractive for burst reasons, but it's just not worth it.
Talbadars Strategie
: Isn't terrible, but it's worth saving up for
Ewige Anrufung der Leere
which will drop in the raid.
Schattenflammenprisma
: It's decent in M+, but
Ewige Anrufung der Leere
still outperforms it.
Generics
:
Echo von Eonar
: Just doesn't bring enough DPS to the table to choose to use it.
Urteilsspruch der Richterin
: A cool concept, but doesn't do enough damage and requires specific positioning to maximize the value of it.
Schlundröcheln
: 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.
Norgannons Klugheit
: 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.
Sephuz' Proklamation
: 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.
Stabiler Phantasmaköder
: This provides no DPS to us.
Drittes Auge des Kerkermeisters
: This just doesn't provide enough oomph to be competitive.
Vitalitätsopfer
: 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
Leerenblitz
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
Verschlingende Seuche
,
Schattenwort: Tod
,
Gedankenschlag
(with a
Dunkle Gedanken
proc), and
Schattenwort: Schmerz
. 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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