Shadow Priest Mythic+ Guide (2024)

Tier Set

• 2-Set: Shadowy Apparitions have an increased chance to Shadowy Insight by 25%. The Mind Blast from Shadowy Insight deals 40% increased damage and generates 4 additional Insanity.
• 4-Set: Passively increases Devouring Plague damage and makes it so every 4th cast of Devouring Plague gives you a buff for 10 seconds that increases your Shadowy Apparitions by 100%.

Single-target

Opener Rotation

• The goal of the opener is to spend as many Mind Blasts as possible, as well as ensuring both Mind Blast and Void Bolt are on cooldown when channeling Void Torrent.

• Use your active trinkets, Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power and racials like Blood Fury or Berserking after using Void Eruption

Priority List

This is a general priority you aim to maintain throughout the fight.

1. Keep up Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain.
2. Keep up Devouring Plague.
3. Cast Void Bolt
4. Cast Mind Blast
5. Cast Void Torrent
6. Cast Shadow Word: Death if a target is below 20%
7. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity
8. Cast Halo (if talented)
9. Cast Mind Flay
10. Cast Divine Star (if talented) -- Mainly used when moving or in between pulls for Insanity generation

Multi Target

2 Target Opener Rotation

• se your active trinkets, Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power and racials like Blood Fury or Berserking after using Void Eruption

2 Target Priority List

1. Keep up Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain on both targets.
2. Keep up Devouring Plague.
3. Cast Void Bolt
4. Cast Mind Blast
5. Cast Void Torrent
6. Cast Shadow Word: Death if a target is below 20%
7. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity
8. Cast Halo (if talented)
9. Cast Mind Flay
10. Cast Divine Star (if talented) -- Mainly used when moving or in between pulls for Insanity generation

3+ Targets Opener Rotation

• Below you can see one variation of the AoE opener rotation on 3+ targets.

• Use your active trinkets, Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power and racials like Blood Fury or Berserking after using Void Eruption.

3+ Target Priority List

1. Keep up Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain on all targets.
2. Keep up Devouring Plague.
3. Cast Void Bolt.
4. Cast Mind Blast.
5. Cast Void Torrent.
6. Cast Shadow Word: Death if a target is below 20%.
7. Cast Mind Flay: Insanity.
8. Cast Halo (if talented).
9. Cast Mind Flay.
10. Cast Divine Star (if talented) -- Mainly used when moving or in between pulls for Insanity generation.

Void Torrent

When it comes to Void Torrent there are a couple of conditions you need to consider before pressing it:

1. Having at least 1 Mind Blast on cooldown.
2. Having Void Bolt on cooldown (if in Void Eruption).
3. Having Devouring Plague up on the target for the increased mastery benefit (If outside of Void Eruption).

Mastery: Shadow Weaving and Devouring Plague

The Shadow Priest's mastery is very important to play around. It makes it so that every DoT you have on the target increases your damage done by your mastery %, which makes your mastery management vital. Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain are up on the target nearly 100% of the time, this leaves you with the task of maintaining Devouring Plague on the target. Having as high uptime as possible on Devouring Plague is crucial to dealing the highest possible damage. During your Void Eruption you gain the maximum effect of your mastery no matter the DoTs on the target, meaning that instead of playing for uptime you can play to spawn more apparitions with your 4pc bonus active.

Spreading Devouring Plague

Spreading Devouring Plague is a DPS gain because of the mastery benefit being on multiple targets and boosts Phantasmal Pathogen. However, you only want to spread it when there's no priority target that needs to die.

• A good example of when you should spread it is on Council of Dreams or The Primal Council.
• A bad example would be spreading it on the small adds on Eranog instead of using all of your Devouring Plagues on the boss himself.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

← Scroll for more Dungeons →

Affixes

Learn how to effectively handle various Mythic+ Affixes as a Shadow Priest. Depending on the level of the Mythic+ Dungeon, you contend with up to two additional Affixes alongside Fortified and Tyrannical.

• Entangling
  • The talent Phantasm makes Fade remove Entangling when cast.
• Incorporeal
  • Shackle Undead
  • Dominate Mind also makes the Incorporeal cast on surrounding mobs, reducing their damage by 5% per cast.
  • Interrupt them with Silence.
• Bolstering
  • Psychic Link makes you one of the best classes to deal with Bolstering, so make sure you always hit the highest HP mob in the pull and that you have your Vampiric Touch on every mob.
• Spiteful
  • Dominate Mind can be used to mind control Spiteful.
• Bursting
  • Mass Dispel gets rid of all stacks of Bursting.
• Afflicted
  • Purify Disease clears one Afflicted mob.
  • Void Shift heals an Afflicted mob to full hp if cast while at full hp.

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Mythic+ dungeons as a Shadow Priest. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing. The damage of your pets does not heal you thus Leech is a great tertiary for you since most of your damage is coming from your own spells.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to the recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the scenario.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Spoils of Neltharus
  • It alternates between the secondary stats and can be delayed for a few casts for a preferable secondary stat.
• Ashes of the Embersoul
  • Strong 2 minute cooldown, on-use trinket, but has a haste penalty for a minute after use.
• Belor'relos, the Suncaller
  • Decent for priority target nukes.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Whispering Incarnate Icon
  • Is a stronger option when both a tank and healer equip the same trinket.
• Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
  • Strong single-target damage while still doing respectable AoE damage.
• Vessel of Searing Shadow
  • Solid single-target trinket, loses significant value on AoE.
• Tome of Unstable Power
  • Great for AoE but loses value in Single Target.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• 2x Blue Silken Lining
  • It's a good choice if you have over 90% health most of the time and during your cooldowns.
  • The optimal slots to craft on are Wrists, Boots, Waist or Cloak depending on your available gear.

Honorable mention

• Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation
  • Provides less personal DPS but more overall DPS for your group.
  • Combine it with one Blue Silken Lining or Elemental Lariat.
• Elemental Lariat
  • Good to use if you have access to the maximum amount of gems, and decent in multi-target scenarios especially if your Blue Silken Lining uptime is not great.

Remaining Sparks

• Make sure to apply Alchemical Flavor Pocket if you have an additional crafted item equipped to keep your food buff even if you die.
• Crafted items are 525 item level and regular items are 528 at maximum item level therefore it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Phials

• Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage -- For maximum DPS.
• Phial of Tepid Versatility -- For less DPS but more survivability.

Food

• Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak
• Deviously Deviled Eggs

Combat Potion

• Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
• Residual Neural Channeling Agent
  • Can be used while being dead if your potion is reeady.

Health Potion

• Potion of Withering Dreams -- For a big burst of healing
• Dreamwalker's Healing Potion -- For less healing upfront but an additional small heal over time.

Weapon Rune

• Howling Rune
• Hissing Rune

Augment Rune

• Dreambound Augment Rune -- Requires Reputation
• Draconic Augment Rune

Sockets

• Skillful Illimited Diamond or Fierce Illimited Diamond -- Unique, made by work order
• Keen Ysemerald

For min-maxing a Shadow Priest in Mythic+, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Stoneform -- Dwarf
  • One of the most potent racials in Mythic+ currently and historically.
  • Use-cases:
    • Bursting stacks.
    • Splinterbark on Overgrown Ancient (Algeth'ar Academy).
    • Deep Chill from Glacial Proto-Dragons (Halls of Infusion).
    • Withering from Fetid Rotsingers and Brackenhide Shapers (Brackenhide Hollow).
    • Earthen Shards from Sentinel Talondras (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
    • Stolen Time from Infinite Timereavers (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
    • Dragon Strike from Chargath (Neltharus).
    • Bold Ambush from Qalashi Hunters (Neltharus).
• Shadowmeld -- Night Elf
  • Also one of the most potent racials in Mythic+ historically.
  • Use-cases:
    • Cast Shadowmeld when Forgemaster Gorek (Neltharus) targets you with Blazing Aegis, this completely negate the mechanic for you and the rest of the group.
    • Run past basically any mob and then cast Shadowmeld to make them reset. Even works on mobs that have stealth detection if you get enough distance before you Shadowmeld.
• Blood Fury -- Orc
  • Strong racial for damage both because of Command and Blood Fury which lines up with Void Eruption.
  • 20% reduced Stun duration on you which can be useful in some Mythic+ dungeons.
• Rocket Jump -- Goblin
  • Do a small jump in the direction your character is facing.
  • While in the Rocket Jump animation you are placed on a global cooldown until your character lands.
• Will to Survive --Human
  • You can use Will to Survive to get rid of stuns.
  • The Human Spirit gives you a lot of stats this season, making it the best simming race.

Recommendation

Dwarf and Night Elf aren't the overall best racials in terms of DPS but their abilities have such a big impact on your Mythic+ experience that you need to use either of them if you're serious about pushing keys with your Shadow Priest.

Discover recommended macros for Shadow Priest during Mythic+ dungeons and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

#showtooltip /cast [@cursor] Shadow Crash

#showtooltip/cast [@cursor] Mass Dispel

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Shadow Priest, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Mythic+ dungeons to make your life easier.

Credits

Written By: Stove

Reviewed By: Soda