WotLK Shadow Priest: Advanced Guide [PVP]

[DamnOriginal]

The set bonus IS that good though. People constantly underrate it. Yes it requires active participation but providing that you won't be playing with a healer then you always will be casting PW:S on cooldown.

No, you wont. There are far too many variables that can and will prevent you from using it on cooldown 100% of the time. Dispels, spell priority, range, LoS, CC, all will heavily affect how often you can use PW:S and how often you get value from the 2 second window of the 4p. When it comes down to it, what you get is a theoretical 13,33% increase in uptime which in practice will be much lower due to outside factors. If we assume average strength of shields being 5k, it's an increase of 666 per shield in the absolute best situation but only on the second cast and afterwords and if at any point you take longer than 2 seconds to reapply the shield, which is going to happen in every single game, your 4p is wasted. Since the 4p requires a second cast to even start doing anything, it does very little against burst damage. Since it requires you to be able to cast, it does nothing during CC. They have dispels? 4p wasted. Had to cast something else while weakened soul ran out? 4p wasted. There's a plethora of situations that render the 4p useless and you will encounter those situations constantly in arena.

Going for double 2p nets you 41 extra stats in the form of resilience or 1.1% damage reduction, 0.5% crit chance reduction and 1.2% crit damage reduction. Not only do you get more raw stats but you also get resilience instead of SP, which allows you more freedom in PvE gear. As for how much damage is mitigated, there are far too many variables to give an accurate number. Just the damage reduction itself will increase your effective health by around 300, assuming 29k hp, increasing the value of each point of healing, allowing you to survive burst better and make sure you actually get to the point where you can recover. A single crit prevented can wield anywhere between 100-4000 damage reduction. Assuming that on average 30% of a player's damage is crits, and that's being very conservative considering the PvE gear on Icecrown, the crit damage reduction amounts to an extra 0.3% damage reduction and healing value or 100 effective health. All of this taken into consideration, the survivability you get from the extra resilience is very comparable to the 4p bonus but it's always there, requires no global cooldowns to be useful and allows you to get more resilience from your PvP set, so you can wear more high ilvl PvE offsets without losing too much survivability.

I can see the attraction of another 2 piece set bonus, but it's almost always a noob trap. Either run full Satin or full Mooncloth, no in between.

- Silent

I'm not saying 2p x2 is necessarily better, I recognize the pros and cons of both sets, I'm saying the difference is so small and variable that it can go either way on a case to case basis. You'll get more mileage out of 2p x2 if you're being focused by burst and 4p will be better when you or your partner are taking consistent damage. The main drawback of 2p x2 isn't the fact that you're losing the 4p, it's the stat split you'll have to do with the PvP set but let's be honest here, both spirit and crit are extremely mediocre stats, what you really want is SP, haste and mp5, which you will be able to get more of with more PvE gear.

[Paperlolz]

If we assume average strength of shields being 5k, it's an increase of 666 per shield in the absolute best situation but only on the second cast and afterwords and if at any point you take longer than 2 seconds to reapply the shield, which is going to happen in every single game, your 4p is wasted.

You are still underrating the value of having PW:S up 2 seconds sooner. You should be reapplying it every single time on cooldown vs competent opponents. As a priest you won't always have the luxury to spend those 2 seconds dispelling offensively.

It's not simply damage reduction, it's absorption effects and other mechanics that differ depending on whether they hit a shield or a clothie with a little extra resilience.

Since the 4p requires a second cast to even start doing anything, it does very little against burst damage.

It requires a global, not quite a second. I disagree PW:S is fantastic against burst.. Priest rotations literally revolve around their shield play. Which is why when a priest gets dispel spammed, they just die - regardless of their resilience.

100 resilience sounds attractive but it really is a noob trap. 13.3% PW:S uptime > 100 resilience alone. Nevermind the 88 spell power you get from 4 piece and not having to mix spirit and crit.

Had to cast something else while weakened soul ran out? 4p wasted. There's a plethora of situations that render the 4p useless and you will encounter those situations constantly in arena.

Sure in situations where you can be offensive your defensive bonus is wasted.. It's really for situations like when a SM Warrior is bladestorming on top of you and getting that shield 2 seconds sooner is the difference between life and death.

Just the damage reduction itself will increase your effective health by around 300, assuming 29k hp, increasing the value of each point of healing

Well that depends on how much resilience you already have. For example if you play with 1416 resi (soft cap), adding additional to that is a lot less useful. If you need resilience stack it everywhere else, don't sacrifice your 4 set bonus for it.

so you can wear more high ilvl PvE offsets without losing too much survivability.

ilvl PvE offsets are a luxury only horde priests can afford. As humans give up their MOTA for an even superior stat bonus. Running pve offsets will most likely be too costly in resi if you are not a MOTA user.

I'm saying 4p is definitively better. Years of experimenting with both.

[DamnOriginal]

You are still underrating the value of having PW:S up 2 seconds sooner. You should be reapplying it every single time on cooldown vs competent opponents. As a priest you won't always have the luxury to spend those 2 seconds dispelling offensively.

It's not simply damage reduction, it's absorption effects and other mechanics that differ depending on whether they hit a shield or a clothie with a little extra resilience.

Anything with offensive dispels will just dispel/steal your early shield and just **** on you during its cd. That's bad play. You want to time your shield during their burst so they either break it on accident or have to waste globals dispelling and in situations like that, the 4p doesn't do much. I don't know what you mean by different mechanics that differ depending on whether the hit is absorbed or not because there's only one such mechanic, that's ret's judgements of the wise and rets are a complete joke to a shadow priest.

It requires a global, not quite a second. I disagree PW:S is fantastic against burst.. Priest rotations literally revolve around their shield play. Which is why when a priest gets dispel spammed, they just die - regardless of their resilience.

You do not get any benefit on your first cast of PW:S with 4p because until you manage to land the second PW:S, you're getting nothing out of it. If at any point you take longer than 2 seconds, this resets and you have to do it again. Just like with anything that reduces the cooldown on an ability, if you wait for the ability's original cooldown anyway, it's not doing anything and with 4p that's very easy to do because the time frame where you can get value from it is less than 2 global cooldowns that might be taken by something else in that time.

100 resilience sounds attractive but it really is a noob trap. 13.3% PW:S uptime > 100 resilience alone. Nevermind the 88 spell power you get from 4 piece and not having to mix spirit and crit.

You don't get 88 SP, you get 59 because the 2p will get you 29 SP x 2. 100 resilience stats - 59 SP stats = 41 more overall stats and it's resilience which is harder to get than SP.

Sure in situations where you can be offensive your defensive bonus is wasted.. It's really for situations like when a SM Warrior is bladestorming on top of you and getting that shield 2 seconds sooner is the difference between life and death.

What if you're in a hammer of justice? Your bonus now does nothing if you die within the stun while the resilience can help you live long enough to get out and have the opportunity to shield yourself. You can handpick any amount of situations that make one set look better than the other, only thing that proves is that both have their uses.

Well that depends on how much resilience you already have. For example if you play with 1416 resi (soft cap), adding additional to that is a lot less useful. If you need resilience stack it everywhere else, don't sacrifice your 4 set bonus for it.

Soft cap is 1414, nerd.

No, see this is why resilience is more valuable than SP in this meta. You want to wear as much PvE gear as possible because it has higher ilvl and more stats but PvE gear doesn't have resilience which leads to this balancing act of trying to get as many PvE pieces as possible while maintaining healthy resilience. 2p x2 facilitates this very well because it allows you to get 100 more resilience without any extra PvP pieces, which opens up the possibility for you to wear an extra 1 or 2 PvE pieces, thus allowing you to get higher ilvl and thus more overall stats. If you're already at 1414 soft cap without the 2p x2, you need to ask yourself what you're actually sacrificing for it and if it's worth sacrificing over a little bit of crit or spirit.

ilvl PvE offsets are a luxury only horde priests can afford. As humans give up their MOTA for an even superior stat bonus. Running pve offsets will most likely be too costly in resi if you are not a MOTA user.

So because humans want more resilience from their gear, getting more resilience from their gear is somehow less desirable? Genius.

I'm saying 4p is definitively better. Years of experimenting with both.

And I'm saying both excel in different situations, years of common sense.

[Paperlolz]

Anything with offensive dispels will just dispel/steal your early shield and just **** on you during its cd. That's bad play. You want to time your shield during their burst so they either break it on accident or have to waste globals dispelling and in situations like that, the 4p doesn't do much. I don't know what you mean by different mechanics that differ depending on whether the hit is absorbed or not because there's only one such mechanic, that's ret's judgements of the wise and rets are a complete joke to a shadow priest.

Sorry to say you couldn’t be more wrong mate. Don’t cast important spells because of potential dispels/spellsteal? Funny ****. Don’t talk of bad play when you come out with things like this..

You want to time your shield during their burst so they either break it on accident or have to waste globals dispelling and in situations like that.

Wrong again. So you play without a shield applied until you need it? And then when they start bursting you use a global cooldown to shield during that window? Seems kind of dumb.

You do not get any benefit on your first cast of PW:S with 4p because until you manage to land the second PW:S

Well obviously, it effectively reduces the cooldown of the spell. Which is a huge benefit to a skilled player. Less capable shadow priests won’t be able to use this benefit properly so tend to take flat dmg reduction instead.. as I said earlier this is a noob trap.

If at any point you take longer than 2 seconds, this resets and you have to do it again.

Wrong again… wait wtf.. what resets? Nothing resets, the weakened soul debuff simply lasts 2 sec shorter, meaning you can repeatedly shield the same targets 13.3% more often.

IfJust like with anything that reduces the cooldown on an ability, if you wait for the ability's original cooldown anyway, it's not doing anything and with 4p that's very easy to do because the time frame where you can get value from it is less than 2 global cooldowns that might be taken by something else in that time.

It’s funny how you perceive it. “This is just CDR, how will it actually help me!? I can just wait for my spells what’s the difference!?” Like I said earlier, you vastly underestimate the importance of PW:S nevermind the effectiveness of the 4p bonus. Every single global matters, but your shield is your strongest low CD instant spell.

If You don't get 88 SP, you get 59 because the 2p will get you 29 SP x 2. 100 resilience stats - 59 SP stats = 41 more overall stats and it's resilience which is harder to get than SP.

Wrong. You get 29+88 SP. You can get the resilience from others sources if you itemize correctly. I can link you a build if you want.

What if you're in a hammer of justice? Your bonus now does nothing if you die within the stun while the resilience can help you live long enough to get out and have the opportunity to shield yourself.

A good player with either be shielded or have the weakened soul debuff up during HoJ, so that they can reapply the shield again ASAP. Also.. the priest isn’t likely to be HoJ’d anyway for various reasons I won’t get into.

You can handpick any amount of situations that make one set look better than the other, only thing that proves is that both have their uses.

Sorry to say that’s not the case. One is clearly the correct choice and the other.. is a noob trap. It’s perfectly acceptable to mix sets if you don’t have the gear needed to hit a certain resilience target but otherwise not.

No, see this is why resilience is more valuable than SP in this meta. You want to wear as much PvE gear as possible because it has higher ilvl and more stats but PvE gear doesn't have resilience which leads to this balancing act of trying to get as many PvE pieces as possible while maintaining healthy resilience. 2p x2 facilitates this very well because it allows you to get 100 more resilience without any extra PvP pieces, which opens up the possibility for you to wear an extra 1 or 2 PvE pieces, thus allowing you to get higher ilvl and thus more overall stats. If you're already at 1414 soft cap without the 2p x2, you need to ask yourself what you're actually sacrificing for it and if it's worth sacrificing over a little bit of crit or spirit.

Your 2nd valid point. Resilience is more important to priests, but even if it wasn’t the 4p bonus is STILL better. Which is why the best option is to get the 4p bonus while having the resi soft cap.

Sacrificing your 4p bonus, mixing spirit and crit is not an optimal way to wear more PvE gear.

[DamnOriginal]

Sorry to say you couldn’t be more wrong mate. Don’t cast important spells because of potential dispels/spellsteal? Funny ****. Don’t talk of bad play when you come out with things like this..

Wrong again. So you play without a shield applied until you need it? And then when they start bursting you use a global cooldown to shield during that window? Seems kind of dumb.

What is so difficult for you to understand? If you pre-shield vs dispels, you give them opportunity to dispel early and then kill you. If you shield during burst, you make them waste time and reduce their damage. Timing your shield let's you get full or at least partial value instead of doing nothing but wasting mana.

Well obviously, it effectively reduces the cooldown of the spell. Which is a huge benefit to a skilled player. Less capable shadow priests won’t be able to use this benefit properly so tend to take flat dmg reduction instead.. as I said earlier this is a noob trap.

That's pretty funny coming from someone who spams PW:S regardless of circumstance or what it actually achieves.

Wrong again… wait wtf.. what resets? Nothing resets, the weakened soul debuff simply lasts 2 sec shorter, meaning you can repeatedly shield the same targets 13.3% more often.

And if at any point you don't land your PW:S within those 13.33%, you're back to waiting 13 secs until you have the opportunity to make use of it, thus reset.

It’s funny how you perceive it. “This is just CDR, how will it actually help me!? I can just wait for my spells what’s the difference!?” Like I said earlier, you vastly underestimate the importance of PW:S nevermind the effectiveness of the 4p bonus. Every single global matters, but your shield is your strongest low CD instant spell.

Once again, you're confusing the usefulness of PW:S with the usefulness of the 4p. PW:S is great but you don't need the 4p to make great use of it, it's cd is plenty low already and because every single global matters, you wont always prioritize casting it within that 2 sec time frame.

Wrong. You get 29+88 SP. You can get the resilience from others sources if you itemize correctly. I can link you a build if you want.

Get out of this habit of telling people they're wrong without actually understanding what is even being talked about. It may inflate your pee pee for a little while but it also gives me the opportunity to circle around and get free reign over your overconfident buttcheeks which I will stuff with facts until wrongs turn to rights. 2px2 gives you 258 stats (200 resilience and 58 SP) while 4p gives you 217 stats (100 resilience and 117 SP). 258 - 217 = 41 more stats with 2px2 or exactly what I said.

A good player with either be shielded or have the weakened soul debuff up during HoJ, so that they can reapply the shield again ASAP. Also.. the priest isn’t likely to be HoJ’d anyway for various reasons I won’t get into.

If anyone is going to be HoJ'd, it's going to be the priest. A HoJ on his partner just gets dispelled, unless you're too busy spamming PW:S to dispel, then I guess it makes sense in your world.

Sorry to say that’s not the case. One is clearly the correct choice and the other.. is a noob trap. It’s perfectly acceptable to mix sets if you don’t have the gear needed to hit a certain resilience target but otherwise not.

I have presented the numbers and my reasoning. Anyone going through this thread in search of help can form their own conclusions. Continue screeching "noob trap" and "wrong" all you want, it doesn't make for a compelling argument.

[Paperlolz]

What is so difficult for you to understand? If you pre-shield vs dispels, you give them opportunity to dispel early and then kill you. If you shield during burst, you make them waste time and reduce their damage. Timing your shield let's you get full or at least partial value instead of doing nothing but wasting mana.

It is difficult to understand because it is a totally illogical way of looking at the situation. I’m curious to see your priest now if you honestly really do play like this..

Let them spam dispel/spellsteal. You have dispel protection. You can use this time to cast literally anything else. During this time your weakened soul debuff is fading and shield is practically ready again. Your rotations probably don’t even consider the weakened soul debuff at all, which explains your mentality regarding the 4p bonus.

Once again, you're confusing the usefulness of PW:S with the usefulness of the 4p. PW:S is great but you don't need the 4p to make great use of it, it's cd is plenty low already and because every single global matters, you wont always prioritize casting it within that 2 sec time frame.

Again displaying that you don’t even really consider the effectiveness of a reduced CD on weakened soul.

“It’s plenty low already” – And therein lies the fault in your thought process. The cooldown on this spell can never be too low!

Get out of this habit of telling people they're wrong without actually understanding what is even being talked about. It may inflate your pee pee for a little while but it also gives me the opportunity to circle around and get free reign over your overconfident buttcheeks which I will stuff with facts until wrongs turn to rights.

But you were wrong… on multiple counts. And you are still wrong.. why are we going down this path!? Dude do you really think the 4piece bonus is such trash and you are the first to discover the value of mixing spirit/crit sets? Regardless of this innovation I stand by my previous statement. It IS a noob trap, which you fell for. Hook, line and sinker.

If anyone is going to be HoJ'd, it's going to be the priest. A HoJ on his partner just gets dispelled, unless you're too busy spamming PW:S to dispel, then I guess it makes sense in your world.

Yeah that’s what you would do right. Run right into fear range to HoJ the priest. Awesome.

2px2 gives you 258 stats (200 resilience and 58 SP) while 4p gives you 217 stats (100 resilience and 117 SP). 258 - 217 = 41 more stats with 2px2 or exactly what I said.

268 STATS! Wow. No you said the 4p bonus did NOT give 88 SP. Which was demonstrably wrong. But anyway, ignoring that. According to your calculation you get 41 more STATS by mixing spirit and crit sets… So the question is – Is this 41 STATS worth trading for the 4piece bonus by itself? The answer is no.

I have presented the numbers and my reasoning. Anyone going through this thread in search of help can form their own conclusions. Continue screeching "noob trap" and "wrong" all you want, it doesn't make for a compelling argument.

Well you told me you would “get free reign over your overconfident buttcheeks which I will stuff with facts until wrongs turn to rights.” Colourful language. But sadly it didn’t improve your argument. I thought I was doing the courtesy by explaining my reasoning to you, but when you called it “bad play” then I saw no reason to be nice about it anymore. When you know somebody is being wilfully ignorant, or obtuse in their views the needed for etiquette goes out the window.

[DamnOriginal]

But you were wrong… on multiple counts. And you are still wrong.. why are we going down this path!? Dude do you really think the 4piece bonus is such trash and you are the first to discover the value of mixing spirit/crit sets?

Quote me where I said 4p was trash. You can't. Come back when you get some basic reading comprehension so we can actually have a proper discussion without strawmans like this, until then I will only address numbers.

268 STATS! Wow. No you said the 4p bonus did NOT give 88 SP. Which was demonstrably wrong. But anyway, ignoring that. According to your calculation you get 41 more STATS by mixing spirit and crit sets… So the question is – Is this 41 STATS worth trading for the 4piece bonus by itself? The answer is no.

I can't tell what's worse, the fact that you turned 258 into 268 while it's right in front of your face for some reason or your inability to still comprehend what I wrote. I didn't say 4p didn't give 88 SP, I said the end gain in spell power when compared to 2px2 is 59, not 88 because the 2px2 gives you 29 SP twice, so how much is (88+29) - (29+29)? It's 59, wow. I then subtracted 59 from the 100 extra resilience you would get with 2px2 to show that you gain 41 more overall stats this way. In reality, the gain in stats is actually higher because of the fact that you have more resilience from your baseline PvP set, giving you 100 resilience worth of PvP gear that you can replace with higher Ilvl PvE gear and get more stats overall. A single BiS PvE offset that replaces a PvP one gets you between 13 and 20 Ilvls worth of extra stats this way.

[Paperlolz]

You're getting a bit pedantic.

I said "Nevermind the 88 spell power you get from 4 piece and not having to mix spirit and crit." To which you responded:

You don't get 88 SP, you get 59 because the 2p will get you 29 SP x 2. 100 resilience stats - 59 SP stats = 41 more overall stats and it's resilience which is harder to get than SP.

You can understand how this statement is confusing.. You get 59? With 4 piece? No whatever point you were trying to make you failed.

We were talking about the useful of mixing spirit and crit sets vs the 4 piece bonus. Yes.. we did finally reach the conclusion the stat difference of 41 remains.

In reality, the gain in stats is actually higher because of the fact that you have more resilience from your baseline PvP set, giving you 100 resilience worth of PvP gear that you can replace with higher Ilvl PvE gear and get more stats overall. A single BiS PvE offset that replaces a PvP one gets you between 13 and 20 Ilvls worth of extra stats this way.

Resilience is harder to get, but that depends on how you set up your shadow priest. It still is quite possible to reach the resi soft cap with having to mix spirit and crit sets. If you were building spirit that crit is literally wasted and vice versa. Getting to wear 1 more pve item won't offset this loss.. never mind the damn 4 piece bonus which is super important. There is no overall gains with your method, it is a net loss in combat effectiveness. You sacrifice too much. Once you get over your own ego maybe you might learn something.

[keke]

yo, he gave links to openwow which doesnt work anymore. could someone update it?

[d00m]

My favorite thing is Warmane guides where every piece of information is behind broken links to Wowhead

[LuisLaik]

all links are corrupted

[Climbatize]

Should update this guide, links broken like my relationship status

[toniplavna]

Pretty much useless now cuz all of the links are broken

[dolcokidol]

Pretty much useless now cuz all of the links are broken

How hard is it? Srsly, here you go.

Spoiler: Show

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS AN END GAME GUIDE AND IS MADE WITH A PURPOSE TO PREPARE A PLAYER FOR PVP COMBAT AND IMPROVE HIS SKILL AND AWARENESS IN HIS SURROUNDINGS AND GET BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THIS PARTICULAR CLASS. THIS GUIDE IS NO WAY "ONE & ONLY" WAY OF PLAYING A SHADOW PRIEST, AND IS COMPLETELY MADE FROM MY OWN AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. THERE ARE WAY BETTER PLAYERS THAN MYSELF WHO CAN PROVIDE A BETTER INPUT ON THIS CLASS, AND IF THEY HAPPEN TO STUMBLE UPON THIS GUIDE FEEL FREE TO MAKE YOUR OWN. WITH BLACKJACK AND HOOKERS.





I've been lurking these forums and came to realization that there are no proper guides for Shadow Priests, so I've decided to fix that. Welcome to my own very fabulous guide to this class.
Here you will find all the required information on how to gear up and gem/enchant your priest, cookie-cutter builds, macros & add-ons, various tips and descriptions as well as an advanced guide on how to make proper keybindings and become an #mlg hero.





First comes first. In order to get the best out of your class you need to have a proper gear setup. As it is well known, Shadow Priests have some mana issues and they tend to go oom quickly if they don't have the right gear with mana regeneration. That's why our main goal is to get the 5/5 spirit Mooncloth Wrathful set to aid us with our mana pool issues. A lot of priests, however, tend to bring an argument about how 5/5 Satin gear is better and that stacking crit is the only way to go. Let me assure you that once you enter arena and face a fairly decent compilation of opponents, you will cry out loud about being oom to your partner within first 5 minutes of a match, cursing the world for picking that "muuh damage" crit gear over the mooncloth one.

Also, there's another argument which exists among priests: getting 2 parts of Satin & 2 parts of Mooncloth for extra resilience bonus. I won't even bring up the discussion on how 4 pieces set bonus outperforms that small amount of gain in your resilience numbers.

So, knowing what mainset pieces we want to get, the question about the off-set arises. We go with haste Neck, Back, Cuffs, Belt & Boots WF pieces. As for Rings I'm willing to suggest Ashen Verdict exalted rep ring with haste & hit rating, or the mp5 one. 2nd ring should be another PvE part with haste & spellpower stats on it. So in ideal this is how our gear is supposed to look:

Main Set Pieces:
Wrathful Gladiator's Mooncloth Hood
Wrathful Gladiator's Mooncloth Mantle
Wrathful Gladiator's Mooncloth Robe
Wrathful Gladiator's Mooncloth Leggings
Wrathful Gladiator's Mooncloth Gloves

Off-set Pieces:
Wrathful Gladiator's Pendant of Subjugation
Wrathful Gladiator's Cloak of Subjugation
Wrathful Gladiator's Cuffs of Alacrity
Wrathful Gladiator's Cord of Alacrity
Wrathful Gladiator's Treads of Alacrity

Rings:
First slot: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction or Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom
Second Slot: Valanar's Other Signet Ring or Memory of Malygos or Ring of Phased Regeneration


Now, talking about which trinkets to use: here it all depends on the playstyle you're going to choose and the comp you will be playing, be it 2's or 3's. You can go either offensive either defensive:

Offensive:
Charred Twilight Scale
Dislodged Foreign Object

Defensive:
Bauble of True Blood
Solace of the Defeated

The offensive playstyle trinkets provide a great amount of haste and spellpower procs for you to tear your enemies in pieces.
The defensive playstyle trinkets give you an astonishing amount of mp5 for your poor mana pool and an extra instant heal which sometimes can be a difference between a win or lose.

Also, please take a look at this particular trinket: Phylactery of the Nameless Lich. Take a really close look to memorize how it looks and never ever buy or wear it.

Weapons:
As for main weapon, once again there are two options: Royal Scepter of Terenas II or Wrathful Gladiator's Blade of Celerity depending on what stats you desire: be it more spellpower or more resilience.

Off-hand:
Wrathful Gladiator's Compendium

Wand:
I prefer having both Wrathful Gladiator's Piercing Touch & Wrathful Gladiator's Wand of Alacrity swapping them for according situations where I require spell penetration cap & where I don't.




So here we are, with best gear possible for our sexy little priestess. It's time to improve it even further by adding proper enchants & gems to it.

Enchants:
Helm: Arcanum of Dominance
Shoulders: Inscription of Dominance
Back: Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Spell Piercing
Chest: Scroll of Enchant Chest - Exceptional Resilience
Wrists: Enchant Bracers - Superior Spellpower
Hands: Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle
Pants: Brilliant Spellthread
Feet: Scroll of Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality
Weapon: Formula: Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower

These are the basic enchants you can take with not much of other options to go from there, unless you're an Engineer. In that case getting Rocket Gloves and Nitro Boots is a better option for world PvP.


Now as for gems to take:

Red Socket: Runed Cardinal Ruby
Yellow Socket: Reckless Ametrine
Blue Socket: Mysterious Dreadstone
Meta Socket: Forlorn Skyflare Diamond Engineers with Nitro Boots use this one instead: Tireless Skyflare Diamond

Congratulations, by this moment your priest is well-geared with rather perfect stats.
Talking about stats: here is some information for advanced players:

Spoiler: Show

Edit: removed information, which was accidentally taken from Cataclysm pre-patch and not WOTLK itself.

Hit cap:
Not taking 3% from shadow focus into consideration:
4% for any targets
6% for undead or blood elf (not rogues or paladins)
8% for rogues and paladins (not UD or BE)
10% for undead/blood elf rogues or paladins

Spell Penetration:
130 against paladins, priests, druids
140 against mages
160 against felhunters

Basically there are three options to go for and all of them are classic 20/0/51 builds with minor differences:

The Mana Saving one:

Spoiler: Show

The Mind Blast one:

Spoiler: Show

And the Power Word: Shield one:

Spoiler: Show

As you can see, there's not much difference between all of them, except the last one where you take the Improved Power Word: Shield instead of Mental Agility which is not that good. I'd rather have extra mana for 3K more damage than extra ~1K shield absorption.

Also, as you can see in shadow tree you can put 2 points either into Focused Mind for mana, either make 4/5 in Improved Mind Blast or even take a Mind Melt. In the end it all comes to your own personal preference. Experiment!




As for glyphs, there is not much to choose from, really:

Major Glyphs:
Glyph of Dispersion is a must have.
Glyph of Fade is a must have, due our builds being around this ability being able to remove slows.
As for third glyph you can go either Glyph of Power Word: Shield, or Glyph of Inner Fire. Personally I'd choose shield over extra armor.

Minor Glyphs:
Glyph of Fading
Glyph of Levitate
Glyph of Shadowfiend

And that's it. You can look into getting Glyph of Shackle Undead instead of Fading mana reduction one, however.

You have the gear, you've got dem enchants & gems, you've got your talents spec with glyphs and you think that you're ready to get straight in the action. You're right, but there's still a lot up ahead.




Before we start discussing macros, please consider getting BindPad addon here. It is really useful addon to have for both: macros and bindings. We'll discuss addons in the next section, including this one.

As a priest, or pretty much any other class, you need to have various macros for different situations you'll be facing. It is not a must, many people play good without them, but in order to ease your life and improve your playstyle I'd highly suggest to look into them. I will share few basic macros, on part with few advanced ones.





Mind Flay/ Mind Sear: This macro consists of 2 attack spells, one being used on a usual keypress, while second is being used with [shift] modifier. Both macros have [nochanneling] parameter which lets you mash the button without accidentally canceling or interrupting your own spell.

#showtooltip Mind Flay
/cast [mod:shift, nochanneling:Mind Sear] Mind Sear();
/cast [nochanneling:Mind Flay] Mind Flay();

Vampiric Touch/ Mind Blast: just like above, combines two spells in one button with [shift] modifier and a command for your pet to attack, if it exists.

#showtooltip Vampiric Touch
/cast [mod:shift] Mind Blast();
/cast Vampiric Touch();
/petattack

Mashable Shadowform

/cast !Shadowform();

Silence & Focus Silence:: this macro stops your cast to silence either main target, or [@focus] target using [shift] modifier.

/stopcasting
/cast [mod:shift, @focus] Silence();
/cast [nomod] Silence();

Dispel Mouseover & Self

/cast [@mouseover, help] Dispel Magic();
/cast [@player] Dispel Magic();

Dispel Mouseover & Enemy

/cast [@mouseover,help] Dispel Magic(); Dispel Magic();

Mashable Mass Dispel

#showtooltip Mass Dispel
/cast !Mass Dispel();

Power Word: Shield on your partner, if he exists. Else, it shields you.

/cast [target=YOURPARTNERSNAME, exists] Power Word: Shield(); Power Word: Shield();

Engineering Gloves & Wand

/use 10
/cast !Shoot();

Advanced Macros



Pet Macro & Pet Dispel: Summons your pet & uses his attack ability & dispels him if needed on same button.

/cast [nopet] Shadowfiend();
/petaggressive
/petattack
/cast [harm, pet] Shadowcrawl(); [target=pettarget, pet] Shadowcrawl();
/cast [target=pet,exists]Dispel Magic();

Shackle Gargoyle Macro

/targetexact [exists,harm] Ebon Gargoyle
/stopmacro [noexists]
/cast [@target,harm] Shackle Undead();
/cast [@arenapet1,exists] Shackle Undead();
/cast [@arenapet2,exists] Shackle Undead();
/targetlasttarget

Abolish Disease & Cure Disease

/castsequence reset=target/combat/8 Abolish Disease, Cure Disease, Cure Disease, Cure Disease, Cure Disease, Cure Disease

Other modifiers you can use:

[@arena1] [@arena2] [@arena3] [@arenapet1] [@arenapet2] [@focus] [@party1] [@party2] [@party3]

These are few examples of macros you can make. If you want more information on how to macro, there's plenty of guides available on wowwiki.






Unless you're arena tournament player, you'd want some pro #mlg addons to ease your life and rise your awareness. But then again, if you were a tournament player you wouldn't be reading this guide.

Like I mentioned earlier, one of the best addons you can get to yourself is BindPad. It is really easy & comfortable to use to store all your beloved keybinds and macros. It even has a feature to let your buttons be triggered on press instead of release. So here's the list of addons I highly recommend trying out:

1. BindPad

2. SnowfallKeyPress. This one lets you use all your spells faster by triggering them on your key press instead of release.

3. Power Auras Classic. A really powerful addon which allows you to create an aura for any buff/debuff/spell/cooldown you're willing to track on yourself or an enemy.

4. Gladius & Gladiminish. A strong combo of unitframes for your daily arenas.

5. Icicle. Keeps track of your enemy cooldowns above their nameplates.

6. Quartz. Highly customizable cast bar unitframes for you, enemy, focus and your pet.

7. shieldwatch. Shows the timer of your shield and the amount it's able to absorb.

8. TidyPlates & CleanPlates skin. Great replacement for original nameplates with class icons, target's hp, ability to show/hide totems, pets, etc.

This part of guide is dedicated to smart keybinding.

By smart keybinding I imply planning your binds ahead and separating them into cluster groups, instead of just having them in chaotic order like Shackle on 1 followed by Renew followed by shadowform. This is an important part in getting yourself set up, especially for a new player. You'd want to be in comfortable and tidy environment while gaming, so you wouldn't have to search for your spells on your bars and remember that particular keybind for your pet.

You'd want to have your offensive spells combined in one group whilst having all your defensive abilities in another. Furthermore, you'd want to have your party1,2,3 macros separated from arena1,2,3 ones and others, so you wouldn't mix everything up. How to achieve that? Well, that's what I'm here for. Please allow me to assist you with it, but first things first.

There are a lot of advertisement about mouses specially made for MMO like Razer Naga for example, with lots of extra side buttons for your bindings, which even come with special addons and software so you could put your macros on it. Myself, I never felt comfortable with those buttons and the fat form of the mouse grip. I am rather satisfied with low profile mouse which has usual two buttons on the side. If you're an owner of such mouse, I have a good advice for you: Those side buttons can be revamped into ctrl & alt modifiers which for some people are really hard/uncomfortable to reach on their keyboard.

Personally I use this software which comes with free 30 days trial, but there's a lot of alternative ones available for free and they all are pretty easy to use.

Now when we sorted this out, I'll give you a few example of layouts you can use/adopt for your personal likings and make those bindings flow.

Like I said, best way is to separate your keybindings into cluster groups is by using modifiers. Let's look at this example of how to sort your offensive spells. Let's start with [nomod] basic offensive & defensive spells.



After setting up your main spells, let's go one level deeper and set up your [shift] modifiers.



And then again, let's go even more deeper, by setting up your [ctrl] modifiers.



Adding one more level to this to complete the sequence with [alt] modifiers.



As you see, everything is in order and easily accessible via modifiers, so it will require some dedication to use arena1 keybind instead of casual renew.
Now this is merely an example of how to set up your keybinds, a layout which will give you a basic understanding of what cluster bindings are.




Now when you are prepared for battle, let's discuss a proper setups to play as Shadow Priest in arena. Shadow Priest is really an amazing class because it can be played in various compilations and can have a big variety of partners, be it a melee or a caster.

Here are the best setups for you to play:

2vs2:

Frost Mage/Shadow Priest - one of the strongest setups there is for this class. It is capable of a a great CC chains, has double silence and both classes have off-heals. Great versatility due peelings a mage can provide, and not to forget to mention free food. And a portal on occasion.

Sub Rogue/Shadow Priest - 2nd strongest setup for this class. Hard counters the setup above. Rogue provides a great opener with the sap on the opponents, posses ability to gouge, blind and disarm the enemy. Stunlocks your tunneling target with ease. Mutilate Rogue is also very viable partner at this point thanks to the Envenom vs Platers, however it loses its mobility by not having a Shadowstep.

Unholy DK/Shadow Priest - Another powerful setup. Hard counters the setup above. This setup is focused around bursting the targets straight at the beginning of the game. DK can grip enemies for you to fear them, provide additional silence and a pet stun. Anti Magic Zone also comes in handy.

Warlock/Shadow Priest - Destro provides a high burst, whilst affliction has great survivability. A very strong compilation due the amount of CC warlock can provide with succubus/felhunter & fears. Can banish druids.


3vs3:

Shatterplay - Frost Mage/Resto Shaman/Shadow Priest - Just like 2vs2 setup, but with great heals, grounding and tremor totems and additional CC in form of hex. Spread dem love for shamen. Don't forget about the bloodlust.

Shatreeplay [God Comp] - Same as above, but replace shaman with a druid. You get a tree with amazing healing powers of HoTs, additional CC in form of cyclone, and "immunity" to polymorphs.

sRMP - Rogue/Mage/Priest - A variety of well known RMP with disc priest, except it's triple damage here we're talking about.

Shadowplay - Warlock/Shaman/Priest - Another great setup.





Let's talk about basic abilities of your class. You posses a great ability to apply damage and kite, use Prayer of Mending and a shield which you can apply every 13 seconds on yourself, considering you have 4 piece set bonus. Your defensive abilities are Psychic Scream and Psychic Horror on part with your Dispersion and Fade. You also posses an ability to silence your opponent every 45 seconds.

Best way to utilize those abilities is by planning their cooldowns ahead and not just using everything straight at start hoping to kill your opponent straightforward, unless you know you can for sure. Here are some basic tips:

1. Always keep your shield up. If you have shieldwatch addon you know exactly how much the shield can absorb, so you won't over-apply it and lose the amount of absorption from previous one.
2. Time your silence right. In Frost Mage/Shadow Priest setup you should be the first one to use it, due its longer cooldown.
3. Save your disarm for warriors bladestorm. It cancels it.
4. Disarm hunters.
5. Use your dispersion as defensive cooldown and not as mana regeneration one.
6. Always dispel stuff and use abolish disease at proper occasions.
7. Keep your Renew and Prayer of Mending up.
8. You have Inner Focus which can be used for Divine Hymn.
9. If possible, use wand and your pet on rogues cloak to prevent them from restealth.
10. Mass Dispel can get you in combat if a stealthed target is in its area. Being in combat prevents you from being sapped.
11. Shadow Word: Death can get you out of polymorph if you use it right before mage's cast end.
12. If the enemy is hiding behind the pillar or obstacle but their pet/totem is standing in your line of sight near them, use Mind Sear on it.
13. Don't dispel Vampiric Touch.
14. If you're playing with a rogue in your team, always shield them up first at the start of the battle.


That's it for now folks. I might update this guide later with some more information.

would be nice if someone copy-pasted this back to the OP so people don't see it right away with working links.

[toniplavna]

Thank you kind sir.