WotLK [Guide] Shadow Priest PvP

[aMaZulu]

Heavens forsaken soldiers: The shadow priest.

So you're a shadow priest, forever to sit outside those narrow gates of heaven while your brethren the holy priest, lives in peace and harmony, you are the angel of death. Strap on your robes and let the mind games begin because as a shadow priest, it is your job to inflict misery, pain and suffering to those who choose to live outside the light.

There are some tough opponents out there and you will need to know what it takes to bring them to justice.


Glyphs :
Glyph of Power Word : Shield : It provides healing of a percentage value of the amount the shield absorbs. (Around 1k and 1.5k crit) Very effective when in the need for a quick heal.

Glyph of Fade: Reduces the cooldown of Fade by 6 seconds. This is a need when facing classes that constantly slow your movement

Glyph of Dispersion : Reduces the cooldown on Dispersion by 45 seconds. Need i say more?

The bread winner spec is 18/0/53 but in some situations I have my offspec for 20/0/51 , Removing 2 points from Improved VE and 1 Point from Twisted Faith and putting them into Mental Agility.

See the images below ; You can move talents around in the shadow tree to fit your situation, especially for those who use mooncloth, you may need to adjust points for more SP, I wouldn't recommend it.

When gemming, If you have over 950 resil and you aren't close to full wrathful(Usually Horde players due to insignia) DO NOT gem for resillience. Gemming for extreme amounts of resillience is something that should be avoided, we did it in s4 and a little in s5 but it is not wise anymore. As you can See I barely have 1050, but that's because I'm a pro, I prefer to use my PVE Weapon, so try to keep it around 1140-1220, or go for 1440 just don't use gems to achieve it. Make sure you have a minimum of 75 spell pen and a max of 130.



The Arms Warrior :
You may laugh at how incredibly easy it is to destroy a Fury warrior but the Arms Warriors are highly equipped gladiators who are known to pack a punch that will leaving a pool of blood trailing behind you, one of shadow priests formidable opponents.

What makes warriors so hard? A warrior wielding a S6 weapon will deliver heavy and deadly blows to cloth wearers. Not only that but their Mortal Strike make healing close to useless.
A pro warrior will know how to utilize stance dancing which will put many classes on their knees.
Precautions

-The first precaution when dealing with them is to keep a static distance, always stay in the safe zone's which is 7 yards up close and 26-36 yards when in a distance. Staying in melee range of a warrior is a NO-GO and should only be approached when finishing them off.
-One of the biggest vulnerabilities is being charged by a warrior, a charge will stun you allowing them to get a burst of hits. Avoid being hamstringed, as soon as you are hamstringed, use your fade ability and get your distance, the hamstring will put the warrior in a GCD and it will be of surprise if used quick enough, leaving you all the time you need to move away before he can retaliate.

Claiming the victory:
Claiming the victory over the arms warrior will become like walking in the park if you follow these priorities.

When the fight first starts the warrior will attempt to charge you, by then you have one of two options.
1. You can quickly run towards him, applying SWP and DP as you approach. Once you get in range, continue to apply VT.
2. You can run away and apply dots, break shadow form to use prayer of mending and right before he gets in charge range go back in shadow form.

Option 1 is the better option for a few reasons, the main being, without charge he has to make a swing to generate rage and you can use Psychic Scream to fear him, allowing the window for bursting.

You've gotten your dots up and the warrior is in melee range attempting to take you out. More than likely he has already gotten his Mortal Strike in which reduces healing by 50%. This is your window for using Psychic Scream, use it immediately. You probably already know that the warrior has Berserker Rage, which will break fear and make him immune for a few seconds. DO NOT, attempt to hold back your Psych Scream because you fear he may use this, use the skill and use all the time in between to break shadow form and heal if you've taken too much damage(lower than 70%) or start pushing mind flay. The healing priority is Always; PW: shield > Prayer of Mending > Renew > Flash Heal. If your hp is still above 70% do not attempt to get in a flash heal, go back to shadow form and reapply your dots. There are two situations in which you should use your Psychic Horror. 1. being during a bladestorm, if he attempts to bladestorm, immediately hit him with Psychic Horror and proceed to do as much damage as possible. 2. Being to stay alive. Use your Psychic Scream everytime it comes off cooldown, one Fear can be the end of a warrior. If you becoming low on HP save your Psychic for after a dispersion. A good arms warrior carries a 1 hander and shield for stance switching and healing in defensive stance. Be cautious of Spell reflect, if he casts it, use your shadow word pain, do not dispel the shadow word pain, this is your window to healing, cast Prayer of Mending wait for the heal and then proceed to dispel the dot.

Bottom Line:
* Avoid being charged in the beginning of the fight, stay in the safe zones and apply dots as soon as possible.
* After all 3 dots are on, use your Psychic Scream, do not hold back due to Berserker Rage, you want it to be cast a.s.ap.
* Do not rely on Mind Blast while in melee ranges
* Always fade away from a hamstring
* Use your shadowfiend after the warrior is below 50%
* Immediately break bladestorm with Psychic Horror.
* Use Psychic Scream at every opportunity
* keep your shield up and heal at every window possible when needed even when being attacked or under the effects of Mortal Strike.
* Dispersion is a survival skill, time it with your Psychic Scream when your hp is low.

Now go out there and make those warriors into dead legends.

The Mutilate Rogue
Quick and lethal assassins said to have been birthed by the shadows of darkness themselves. The rogue has the ability to take you out with a couple blinks if you are not on your feet throughout the entire fight. But do not worry you have the mental power to make him fear attempting at your life.

Precautions:

- The BIGGEST precaution when dealing with a rogue is your PW: Shield. It is MANDATORY that it be up before an opening attack from a rogue.
- Never attempt to fish out a rogue using Holy Nova, you not only waste mana but you break shadow form, which will leave you vulnerable to a hit and run.
- If you are aware of a rogue attack prior to the attack, use the opportunity to put up your prayer of mending and renew.
-Always fade when needed, since rogues rely on energy and staying in range, they will attempt to use as much of it as possible, you can avoid a few hits by running away.

Claiming the victory:
A rogue will attempt to disable your movement, via sap. During sap don't panic(most people panic), you need to keep your focus because the opening attack ain't a pretty thing. As soon as you are sapped take a quick glance at your buff frame to make sure your PW:Shield isn't going to go off before the attack and to see how much time is left on your Weakened Soul effect. Some rogues will try and wait for the bubble to expire before attacking, but PW:S lasts twice as long as a sap so if your timing is right, he just gave you the advantage of Diminishing returns. Now it's time to play quick draw, have your hands ready on your PW: Shield key. As soon as the rogue opens with a attack, tap the hell out of PW : Shield until you renew your bubble, you have to squeeze it in between one stun and another. If the rogue garrotes, start running and as soon as your off silence get that PW: Shield in. most rogues will attempt to get as many points as they can for a long kidney shot, others will use it as soon as possible to try and keep you still a little longer. If the kidney shot is longer than 2 seconds, use your dispersion, if not wait it out, more than likely your bubble will give you all the protection you need to survive the burst.

Right now the rogue has used all his amazing quick kill energy on attempting to lower your HP, he will have one of two options. Attempt to continue attacking, utilizing every stun possible or he will attempt to vanish. Immediately upon leaving a stun, Use DP and SWP. As soon as those dots are up FEAR HIM, use your Psychic Scream and IMMEDIATELY following psychic scream, release your shadow fiend. DO NOT forget the shadow fiend, he will attempt to cloak of shadows and vanish, the shadow fiend will continue to deal dmg while he is immune to spells and keep him in combat. Do not attempt to cast spells on him while in cloak of shadows, use that window of opportunity to heal. The healing priority is; Prayer Of Mending > Flash heal > PW: Shield > Renew. ALWAYS run away from the direction the rogue vanished when attempting to heal, you need to start moving in the opposite direction of the rogues direction of travel as soon as he attempts to run away. Only stop moving to flash heal, never stop moving to cast instant cast spells.

This is the final half, the rogue is now vulnerable, he no longer has cloak of shadows. This is your victory. As soon as that rogue opens again, get the PW:S ready and get ready to screw this rogue up. The rogue has used his trinket so your Psychic Scream is the key to victory. Fear him, get all your dots up if they aren't already, start mind flaying and before he can get close to you pop Psychic Horror and continue to burst him down. If you played the match well this should be the end of the fight

Things to remember with dispersion :
- Dispersion is a survival skill when it comes to PVP, never use it to try and rebuild mana unless your mana is so low you can not cast. If your mana is at 2k, don't use dispersion.
- Against a rogue, Dispersion is best used to avoid a burst that you are sure will put you in the position to lose, never to just avoid a direct attack. One of those situations would be if the opening burst is too strong.

Bottom Line :
* Keep your PW:S up before an attack and apply it as soon as possible after an opening.
* If a Kidney shot lasts longer than 2 seconds, use dispersion DON'T TRINKET.
* Only trinket a blind if your are vulnerable to losing. Never trinket a blind if the rogue is attempting to run and your hp is reasonably high (over 70%)
* Always move when doing instant cast spells
* Your first Psychic Scream must be followed by shadow fiend.
* Remember to fade crippling effects
* When a rogue is attempting to run away don't chase him or stand there, always run in the opposite direction
* Remember the healing priority
* After a rogue returns from vanishing fear him as soon as possible, apply your dots and start your offense. before the rogue gets back in range, Psychic Horror, start running away and don't stop until he is back in range. A very effective technique is Using multiple Devouring Plagues just watch your mana. (people will complain that it is a noob method but guess what, YOU LOST, umad? there is nothing noob about winning)
* Heal whenever you have the window and need for it.

The Shadow Priest

The hardest opponent for the shadow priest by far is....The Shadow Priest. Shadow Priest have always been known for wanting to stir up chaos to prove who has the most powerful ability. No secret they clash minds from time to time in their attempts to settle the dispute.

Now fighting another shadow priest requires you be entirely potent in focus the entire fight, you have to be quick, accurate and smart when picking and choosing your moves. Here is the fight.

Precautions :
*One of the biggest precautions when facing a shadow priest is your distance. Never get within melee range of a hostile shadow priest, this leaves you vulnerable to being feared.
*Another precaution when fighting shadow priests are their dots, mainly being Vamperic Touch. Never attempt to dispel yourself while VT is up, not only is it beneficial to have dots on you but they can do nearly no number damage if you know what to do.
* Keep your Cure Disease up only after the initial Devouring Plague has been cast on you, it will continue to remove Devouring Plague and lasts 8 seconds.

* When using fear ward ,never put it on before the fights begins. Instead do so right before you are feared. But how do you know you will be feared? If you are in melee range of them, you will be feared. Which is why you keep your distance, the minute they attempt to approach you, fear ward.

Stealing the Fight:

A good shadow priest, knows when to heal, knows when to utilize their cooldowns and knows when to DISPEL. NEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR , That's never, open up a head on fight with another shadow priest with Dispel Magic. I said Never again period --> . Not only are you wasting valuable time and mana, you are giving them the opportunity to start dealing you damage. If you have to dispel make sure you do so after applying your dots. If the opponent is good he will do the same thing i'm telling you to do and proceed to attack while you are attempting to dispel them. Keep your shield up and when you have your dots up hit them with a mind blast and IMMEDIATELY cast prayer of mending and renew. Now lets pause here

Lets go over a possible scenario :
There are three different things a spriest can do to shut you up, Psychic Scream, Psychic horror and Silence.
-In the event that you are Feared, always pop your trinket. Never let the duration last too long. If you lost too much HP after a fear wares off, proceed to heal.
-In the event that you are silenced, move towards the priest asap. As soon as you come out of Silence, fear them. If they trinket wait to see the next action, they will either attack or heal. if they try and heal silence them, if they try and attack, cast prayer of mending or renew(depending on your hp) and then go back on the offense.
-In the event that you are Psychic Horrored, Wait for the 2 seconds to expire then continue doing whatever it was you were attempting to do, 2 Seconds is not a large opportunity window when facing another shadow priest.

Some priest will try to chain you out by combining all three of these to burst you down, If you see this about to happen, time a dispersion.

Getting back to the script, the biggest way to win against another shadow priest is by draining their mana, forcing them to use their dispersion for mana efficiency rather than survival. They may also attempt to use a shadow fiend. If your fear is open, attempt to get close to the priest so you can fear both the fiend and the priest. But you on the other hand play to win so you will proceed to use your shadow fiend after you have dropped them below 60% HP or if your mana is below 60%.

When to use Psychic Horror:
- Some of the best times to use Psychic Horror are 1. during an attempt to use mind blast(which lowers healing by 20%). 2. Being the most effective, right after a dispersion or an attempt to heal.
* Remember you are the better opponent, not him, never use your Psychic Horror immediately after a psychic scream or silence unless you are finishing them off. Them having 50% hp is NOT that moment. 30% and below is reasonable.
NEVER use psychic horror as some type of opener of a fight. This is a 2 minute cooldown and is a very valued one for overall success. If you and your opponent still has enough HP to very well survive after a psychic horror, then you just wasted it.

When to use Silence:
- The best times to use silence are 1. When they are attempting to use VT, this is the biggest damage dealer and also deals damage when dispelled. If you are fighting to stay on top, Silence the next VT. 2. If their hp is very low and they break shadow form to heal, hit them with a silence and attempt to finish them off, more than likely they will burn most of their mana attempting to outheal your damage.
* NEVER silence just to have the casting advantage.

Overall Cooldown Statement:
NEVER use your cooldowns in an attempt to be the first guy to get your dots up or to simply stop the opponent from casting. The proper use of cooldowns can lead to victory and the waste of them can very well be your lost.

The Bottom Line:
*NEVER open a head on fight with dispelling, if you can sneak it in without them focusing on you, that's the only opening, otherwise wait until your dots are up.
*Never stay in close range and if you see a priest attempting to move close, pull back because they are attempting to fear you.
*Never dispel SWP if VT is up, utilize it for instant prayer of mending.
* Renew and PW:S can outlast your opponents dots so keep them running.
* Watch your mana.
* Utilize your Shadow fiend for offensive bursts before using simply to gain mana.
* Fear whenever possible
* Know when to utilize your cooldowns, never use them just to gain an early advtange
* Theres nothing dangerous about using SW: death as long as your hp is above 40%
* Use Dispersion to avoid a chain of cc's or a dangerous burst.

Now you are better equipped to handle some of the shadow priests most feared opponents. Take this knowledge into the World of Warcraft and serve the shadow realm well.

[drmlol]

Good read, is there an upcoming update? :)

[Tam]

Author got raped by ferals.

[Syntx]

but that's because I'm a pro

Actually any experienced pvper will notice reading this post that while containing generally valuable information for beginners, you are far from "being a pro" and some of the things you say even made me wonder if you ever dueled good duelers at all, especially the rogue & warrior parts.

First of the warrior part :

The whole "try not to be charged by staying in the dead zone" thing will never work vs a good war, he'll find a way to charge you. Unlike a frost mage, Spriests doesnt have slowing effects (yes I know Mind Flay slows but you have to be static to use it so in this case it's irrelevant) so preventing a warrior from charging is pretty much impossible. I
Instead what you should do is MOUNT up yes mount up and jump on any direction right as the warrior charges you, if you do this right he won't be able to put a slow on you so he will have to use intercept, which you can either trinket or sit, and then fear him and use the second it'll take him to cast Berserk Rage to Fade and start running (he'll have no charges left so you can just spam instant dots for 10 seconds while running away which will give you a great opener against a war).
Another thing you said is to cast SW:P when he reflects which is totally incorrect and nonsensical since a) it will deal damage b) it will take a GCD to dispel. Instead you should always use Mind Soothe, yes you know this useless spell no ones ever used well it is the perfect counter to spell reflect since it doesnt do anything harmful, you don't have to dispel it, it cost very low mana (3 times less than SW:P) and it has no cooldown so you can use it whenever the warrior spell reflects.
Last thing I've noticed about the warrior part is that you never specify that you should ALWAYS use Fear Ward on your shadowfiend since a good war will keep his fear for countering your shadowfiend. Warrior's fear cannot be dispelled so if you don't use Fear Ward on your shadowfiend it will do pretty much 0 damage.

For the rogue part :

Here again your knowledge of the matchup is questionable since you say that PW:S lasts twice as long as sap, so basically the rogue just waste DR by sapping you. While this is true that PW:S last way longer, there is actually a way for a rogue to get an opener with you without your shield up. That is by sapping you 3 times starting exactly when your PW:S debuff weakened soul has 2 or 1 second left. He will then open and your shield will come off naturally during the first second of his cheap shot. This is a huge deal in this duel since being opened without a shield will put you at great disadvantage in this fight. Vs mutilate rogues there is an easy way to prevent that, you just have to cast a Mass Dispel on the ground around yourself when your weakened soul debuff has 4-5 seconds left and you will be in combat from the mass dispel, so the rogue can't start the sap chain before you can PW:S again. However vs sub rogues way harder since they can just step - stap you from 25 yards away so you won't be able to hit them with Mass Dispel and get in combat.
Basically the Spriest vs Mutilate rogue duel is pretty straightforward, you wanna trinket first kidney and fear him, 99% of the times he will trinket this fear, so now you have to survive until Fear is up again which is 23 seconds. In order to do that you have 2 major tools : Disarm (psychic horror) and Dispersion.
The part about using Shadowfiend on the first fear is totally wrong, vs mut rogue shadowfiend HAS TO BE USED just after you use your Disarm (psychic horror), because a good mut rogue will BLIND your shadowfiend, since you have deadly poison on, he'll never be able to get a Blind on you anyways. If you use it while he is in the Psychic Horror stun you will have at least the 3 seconds of uptime from shadowfiend, he won't be able to Blind instantly and on top of that Evasion is irrelevant since he is stunned. So basically trinket first KS -> fear (you don't shield right after the trinket because you wanna fear instantly so he doesnt reapply slows) -> rogue trinkets fear -> Psychic Horror (you are still not slowed if you did it right) -> keep running while casting Shadowfiend, SW:P, DP (you can even cast 3 or 4 DP here, good damage will force him to cloak early). At some point he will cloak and then vanish before you can dot him again, the part about running on the opposite direction of where he vanished is obviously right, but at this point spamming Holy Nova is NOT a bad move here, POM - Renew - Holy Nova spam is actually a pretty effective way of topping yourself up while getting the rogue out of stealth. Mana should never be a problem in this kind of short fight unless you have a really ****ty gear.

I'm not trying to ruin your post btw, it is generally helpful and contains lots of good pointers for beginners, and you did a great job writing it, but some parts are just not true and misleading so I thought I'd constructively point them out.

Take care,
Synt

[sukacakers]

Who needs so long guides how to face a class they can easily win in a duel, you should pretty much start to undrestand how to beat them after few duels if you've played the game before, and i doubt new players are able to memorize these books.

[DaBroda]

i have struggles against unholy dk and feral druid i know they are counter to shadow priest but meh still a few advices will be great

[Petko]

i have struggles against unholy dk and feral druid i know they are counter to shadow priest but meh still a few advices will be great

Are you talking about arenas or just 1v1 situations. If it is 1v1 Glyph of Shackle offers tremendous help when fighting DKs. You can shackle them after a fear (they always Lichborne the first fear) which will give you time to apply VT. If you keep their pet shackled you will be taking less damage (even less if you shackle the garg). Try to shackle it on every DR. If they trinket your second fear this leaves them vulnerable to a full Psychic Horror later on. You can use it combined with Silence when finishing them off (not allowing them to heal or ams) or you can use those abilities defensively for example if you silence a dk he can't kick your casts so you can cast 2-3 heals. I usually save Dispersion for AMS and/or Gargoyle (you can't shackle it for the full duration).

[Tam]

Grenade/net in AMS helps a lot.

[Caturdays]

and feral druid

You can try overtryhard feral with grenades, nets, free action potions, but in standart fight you are chanceless with equal gear and skill, unless feral has some cooldowns not ready.