Shadow Priest Talents Guide

As it stands right now, you will play significantly different builds depending on if you are playing Voidweaver or Archon. Therefore I will add one option of each to every section.

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This is the “cookie-cutter” class talent build that you will see from most people.

But more than that, it’s to show what talents are always taken, and what talents can float a little bit depending on the situation (Green is Always, Yellow is floater points).

Green (Always Take):

• Protective Light: Casting Flash Heal on yourself reduces all damage you take by 10% for 10 seconds.
• Spell Warding: Reduces all magic damage taken by 3%.
• Shadowfiend: Default for Shadow Priests. Summons a Shadowy fiend to attack the target for 15s. Generates 3 Insanity each time it attacks.
• Shadow Word: Death: Default for Shadow Priest. Your execute ability, it deals increased damage on target at or below 20% health.
• Death and Madness: Makes your Shadow Word: Death reset once if used on a target at or below 20% health.
• Power Infusion: Increases the Haste of the target by 20% for 15 seconds.
• Twins of the Sun Priestess: Also grants YOU 100% of the effect when used on an ally.
• Twist of Fate: Damaging or healing a target below 25% health you deal 10% more damage for 8 seconds.
• Vampiric Embrace / Sanguine Teachings: Choice node between Vampiric Embrace and Sanguine Teachings. Most of the time you will take Vampiric Embrace to help out with healing for the raid/group. But there are scenarios, especially in farm raids, where Sanguine Teachings have some value for personal survivability instead of raid/group value.
• San’Layn: Increases the effectiveness of Vampiric Embrace or Sanguine Teachings.
• Death Throes: Shadow Word: Pain deals increased damage and gives you Insanity when targets who are affected by the debuff dies. Not really Always Take because of its strength, but because it’s used to get down to Cauterizing Shadows.
• Translucent Image: Fade reduces damage you take by 10%.
• Cauterizing Shadows: When your Shadow Word: Pain expires or is refreshed with less than 5 seconds remaining, a nearby ally within 40 yards is healed.
• Manipulation: You take 2% less damage from enemies affected by your Shadow Word: Pain.

Honorable Mention: Halo/Divine star is something that you always take, but I placed it in yellow because it’s important to change which one you take based on what Hero Talent you play. Archon does not function without Halo talented, and Voidweaver does prefer Divine Star.

Yellow (Floater talents):

• Angelic Feather: Places a feather at the target location, granting the first ally to walk through it 40% increased movement speed for 5 seconds (this is pretty much always taken).
• Phantasm: Activating Fade removes all snare effects (can be used to remove any debuff that has a slow tag).
• Leap of Faith: Pulls a party or raid member, instantly moving them directly in front of you.
• Mind Control / Dominate Mind: Nowadays you almost always take Dominate Mind in PvE. It is used mostly as a pseudo CC ability, but does have some niche uses occasionally where you want to keep the target under your control either for it’s damage, or buffs that it can provide to you or your allies.
• Mass Dispel: Dispels magic in a 15 yards radius, removing all harmful Magic effects from 5 friendly targets and 1 beneficial Magic effect from 5 enemy targets. Nerfed fairly heavily in Dragonflight with an increased cooldown. Still has situations where it’s very good, but it’s not as hard locked as we saw in the early part of Dragonflight.
• Tithe Evasion: Shadow Word: Death deals 50% less damage to you. How often you pick this talent generally comes down to the tuning of Shadow Word: Death. The more you use the ability, the more mandatory it becomes.
• Body and Soul: Power Word: Shield and Leap of Faith increases your target’s movement speed by 40% for 3 seconds. Similar to Angelic Feather this is pretty much always taken, but not mandatory.
• Halo/Divine Star: As Mentioned previously, you will ALWAYS take one of them, but it’s very important in War Within to know the differences, and when you take which.If you play Archon, you will always play Halo. The Hero Talents do not function if you don't have it.If you play Voidweaver, you prefer to play Divine Star because it can be used to generate Insanity outside of combat (before pulls or in between pulls) and also gives you an extra global to press during heavy movement. Neither of the talents are worth pressing for it’s damage when playing Voidweaver, but since Divine Star has additional values outside of just damage or healing, it is preferred.
• Light’s Inspiration: Increases the maximum health gained from Desperate Prayer by 15%.
• Improved Fade: Reduces the cooldown of Fade by 5/10 seconds.
• Angelic Bulwark: When an attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 15% of your maximum health. Cannot occur more than once every 90 sec. It is important to know that this does not function as a cheat death, and if a hit is big enough to kill you, Angelic bulwark will not proc.
• Essence Devourer / Void Shift: Most of the time you will pick Essence Devourer, more so when playing Mindbender, but even with Shadowfiend it provides some decent passive off-healing. Void Shift is only used for very niche scenarios (latest example would be Fyrakk to heal the big trees).
• Phantom Reach: Increases the range of most spells by 15%.

Situational talents:

• Purify Disease: Removes all Disease effects from a friendly target.
• Void Tendrils: Summons shadowy tendrils, rooting all enemies within 8 yards for 15 sec or until the tendril is killed.
• Shackle Undead: Shackles the target undead enemy for 50 sec, preventing all actions and movement. Damage will cancel the effect.
• Angel’s Mercy: Reduces the cooldown of Desperate Prayer by 20 sec.
• Power Word: Life: A word of holy power that heals the targets for (1035% Spell power). Only usable if the target is below 35% health.

It’s a little harder to talk about what Spec Talents are more important than others, since it all comes down to tuning, tier sets or additional borrowed power. But there are a few talents that you more or less always play:

• Devouring Plague: Our very first talent, and also our spender.
• Dispersion: Reduces all damage taken by 75% for 6 seconds, but you are unable to attack or cast spells. 2 minute cooldown.
• Shadowy Apparitions: Mind Blast, Devouring Plague and Void Bolt conjure Shadowy Apparitions that float towards all targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch.
• Mental Fortitude / Silence: This is not a choice node, but more so that you either play Mental Fortitude or you play Silence. You need to pick one of them to have enough points to go further down the tree, so one will always be picked. Generally you pick Silence if you need interrupts in your group and if you don't, you always play Mental Fortitude to have some additional defense.
• Misery: Vampiric Touch also applies Shadow Word: Pain to the target. Shadow Word: pain lasts an additional 5 sec.
• Thought Harvester: Mind Blast gains an additional charge.
• Psychic Link: Your direct damage spells inflict 30% of their damage to all other targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch within 40 yards.Does not apply to damage from Shadowy Apparitions, Shadow Word: Pain, or Vampiric Touch.
• Surge of Insanity: Every 2 cats of Devouring Plague transforms your next Mind Flay or Mind Spike into a more powerful spell. Can have up to 2 charges.
• Void Eruption / Dark Ascension: Our main cooldown abilities.
• Shadowy Insight: Shadow Word: Pain periodic damage has a chance to reset the remaining cooldown on Mind Blast and cause your next Mind Blast to be instant.
• Ancient Madness: Voidform (Void Eruption) and Dark Ascension increases the critical strike chance of your spells by 10% for 20 sec, reducing by 0.5% every second.

Outside of these few points, everything else is just down to tuning.

Shadow Priests have the option to pick between Voidweaver and Archon.

Voidweaver causes your Void Torrent to create an Entropic Rift that follows the target to deal AoE damage during its duration and then explode based on how many Devouring Plagues you casted during the window. When Entropic Rift is active, your Mind Blast ability is also transformed into Void Blast which deals a lot more damage.

The entire premise of the Voidweaver is to have small burst windows every 30-seconds and to cast as many Void Blasts as possible during the duration of the rift.

Archon causes your Halo to repeat and return 3 times. It also increases the effectiveness of your cooldowns and enhances your Surge of Insanity procs to do more damage and spawn Shadowy Apparitions.

The premise of Archon is to weave in super-juiced Surge of Insanity procs into your core rotation and to have stronger cooldown windows. Halo is now also used as a “cooldown button” at the start of your burst windows. It also provides some added off-healing and more Stamina.

Voidweaver:

• Entropic Rift: Void Torrent tears open an Entropic Rift that follows the enemy for 8 sec. Enemies caught in its path suffer Shadow damage every 1 sec while within its reach.
• No Escape / Dark Energy: A choice node between a slow from your rift, or being able to cast Void Torrent while moving. At the moment, you will pretty much always pick Dark Energy for added mobility. It also always guarantees you to be able to fully channel your Void Torrent at all times.
• Void Blast: Entropic Rift upgrades Mind Blast into Void Blast while it is active.
• Inner Quietus: Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain deal 20% additional damage.
• Devour Matter: Shadow Word: Death consumes absorb shields from your targets, dealing 255% extra damage to them and granting you 5 Insanity if a shield was present.
• Void Empowerment / Darkening Horizon: A choice node between gaining a guaranteed Mind Devourer proc at the start of your Rift window, or to cause your Void Blast to increase the duration of Entropic Rift by 1sec, up to a maximum of 3 sec. As it stands right now, you will always play Darkening Horizon if it will cause you to gain an additional cast of Void Blast.
• Depth of Shadows / Voidwraith: A choice node between having your Shadow Word: Death to have a chance to summon a Shadowfiend or Mindbender for 5 sec when damaging targets below 20% health. Or to transform your Shadowfiend or Mindbender into a Voidwraith. Voidwraith deals increased damage to high health enemies, up to a maximum of 50% if they are full health.
• Voidheart: While Entropic Rift is active, your Shadow damage is increased by 10%.
• Void Infusion: Void Blast generates 100% additional Insanity.
• Void Leech / Embrace the Shadow: A choice node between passively stealing 3% health from an ally within 40 yards every 2 seconds, or absorb 3% of all magic damage taken. Void Leech is a little dangerous, since it can cause you to accidentally kill your teammates, but it does have a fail safe where it will only steal health if the target is higher health than you. As it stands right now, I would always play Embrace the Shadow if there are magic damage present during the fight or dungeon, and then play Void Leech if there is not.
• Collapsing Void: Each time you cast Devouring Plague, Entropic Rift is empowered, increasing its damage and size by 20%. After Entropic Rift ends it collapses, dealing Shadow damage split amongst enemy targets within 15 yards.

Archon:

• Power Surge: Casting Halo also causes you to create a Halo around you at 100% effectiveness every 5 sec for 10 sec. Additionally, the radius of Halo is increased by 10 yards.
• Perfected Form: Your damage dealt is increased by 10% while Dark Ascension is active and by 15% while Voidform is active.
• Resonant Energy: Enemies damaged by your Halo take 2% increased damage from you for 8 sec, stacking up to 5 times.
• Manifested power: Creating a Halo grants Surge of Insanity.
• Shock Pulse / Incessant Screams: A choice node between making your Halo to reduce the enemy movement speed by 5% for 5 sec, stacking up to 5 times, or, causing your Psychic Scream to create an image at your location that will cast an additional Psychic Scream after 4 seconds.
• Empowered Surges: Increases the damage done by Mind Flay: Insanity and Mind Spike: Insanity by 25%
• Energy Compression / Sustained Potency: A choice node between increasing the damage of Halo by 30%, or causing your Halo casts to extend the duration of Dark Ascension or Voidform by 1 sec. If Dark Ascension and Voidform are not active, up to 6 seconds is stored and applied the next time either of them are used.
• Concentrated Infusion: Your Power Infusion effect grants you an additional 10% haste.
• Consuming Surge of Insanity has a 100% chance to conjure Shadowy Apparitions.
• Divine Halo: Halo now centers around you and returns to you after it reaches its maximum distance.