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07-12-07, 03:32 PM   #1
Geboran
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Level 45+ Shadow Priest

Ok.... so my shadow priest just recently hit level 46 and I am enjoying her more and more.

I was wondering though.... when questing and I need to "kill xx" number of mobs or whatever (similar to grinding), what spell combinations are the best to use for doing these sorts of quests?

Typically, I will open with:

Vampiric Embrace ==> Mind Blast ==> Shadow Word: Pain ==> Mind Flay

Then either do another Mind Flay followed by wanding till dead, or will put up a Power Word: Shield, Mind Flay, Mind Blast, then wand down to death for the tougher mobs.

Is this basically what I should be doing, or is there a better way of going about doing this?

Any advice / suggestions welcome. Thanks.
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07-16-07, 07:47 AM   #2
Geboran
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Shameless *bump*
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07-16-07, 08:40 AM   #3
MidgetMage55
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I didnt lvl as a shadow priest but played as one for a few months to quest/rep grind after hitting 70 and id have to say your:
Vampiric Embrace ==> Mind Blast ==> Shadow Word: Pain ==> Mind Flay was basically all i did. i just spammed mindflay for shadowweaving stacking and made sure my wand (if possible) was shadow dmg. Before the wand action toss up a shield if needed.

That seemed to work well for pretty much all situations and while didnt always keep me full on mana it certainly had longer spans between downtimes (went as long as 45 minutes with only one mana break) then when i was specced holy.

After having played purely holy for 70 lvls (mostly because i wanted to do it differently then what people were telling me ><) id have to say I more then likely would be doing it as shadow should i lvl another priest, until 60 at the very least.
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07-16-07, 08:45 AM   #4
Geboran
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Cool.

I haven't looked that much further into the Shadow tree, but I know that there are some upcoming talents / spells that should make leveling a little easier well.

Vampiric Touch (isn't that the mana regen one?)
Shadow Word: Death (the mob is at 20% or less, you can kill it instantly with this spell, right? Sort of like a warrior's Execute ability)

I'm not sure if a wand that does shadow damage stacks with the priest's debuff on a mob... can anyone confirm this or not? I think it should -- truly -- but I've heard conflicting information regarding that.
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07-16-07, 09:16 AM   #5
Balsta
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If you are serious about playing your SP to its fullest I recomend checking out www.shadowpriest.com. Huge amounts of information there.
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07-16-07, 10:51 AM   #6
Geboran
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I've looked a bit through that site, but didn't really find anything all that helpful regarding talents that really differed from what I already do.

I guess what I would like to see is what talents to take at what level from level 45-70 to be most effective in leveling faster.

What talents I should have at level 45, then what talents to take (in order) would be most helpful.
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07-16-07, 11:04 AM   #7
Noisia
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spell rotation

I'm currently lvl 64 shadow priest and my rotation is as follows when im grinding solo:

Vampiric Touch - SW: Pain - Vamp Embrace - Mind Blast - Mind Flay until Mind Blast is ready again - SW:death when they are low enough.


For your level i would suggest -

Mind Blast - SW: Pain - Vamp Embrace - Flay until Blast is ready again, repeat.

This is because you gain nothing from casting VE 1st and it pulls aggro to you. Instead open with blast to get the initial damage off, then use SW: Pain because it is instant, then VE because you have time to get VE off before SW:Pain ticks for the first time, meaning the first tick of SW:Pain will then give you back life.

Last edited by Noisia : 07-16-07 at 11:07 AM.
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07-16-07, 11:27 AM   #8
Kaomie
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It also depends on your built, but I agree with Noisia.

If you have 5/5 Spirit Tap (a must have for grinding) and a decent amount of spirit you should have enough mana regen to never have to bother with Vampiric Touch. I do not think I ever used it in world PvE. You want to use it in instances on long boss fights to help with the group mana regen, especially the healers if they are running low (makes a Black Morass run really easy).

Definitely open the fight with a long cast like Mind Blast rather than an instant cast. That's always a few second you save without having the mob agroed (same as holy open with Holy Fire which is the slowest cast even compared to Smite). Also if you have Blackout and it procs you may be able to change the Mind Flay / Mind Blast sequence depending on the cooldown.

Depending on your spec and the mobs you are fighting you may want to consider not using PW:S as Vampiric Embrace should provide enough healing to keep you topped and it might even cost less mana to use a fear with Mind Flays behind.
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07-16-07, 03:50 PM   #9
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I have to disagree with Kaomie and Noisia a bit on the spell rotation.

First off every spell rotation is situational. Are you in a party? Are you trying for max damage? etc.

Lets start with talents, imho you should be dropping every talent point you have into the shadow tree. Something like this.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...10241103051400

Spirit tap when soloing is kind of useless because we spend too much time inside the Five Second Rule for it to be effective. And yes it does help regen mana between fights but so does a drink and a heck of allot quicker, plus it allows those points to be put into something that effects your combat. Blackout on the other hand gives you a good chance to kill your target before it even gets to you. A SP's job is damage so make sure your build will give you max dmg. Improved VE will only generate another 5 - 10 hp per tick and those points could be used elsewhere as well. Once you real start grouping and doing instances I recommend the threat reduction talent Shadow Affinity but when your soloing you already have all the aggro so why bother.

Now to spell rotation I would never recommend starting with Mind Blast as it will only get you into bad habits when it comes time to start doing instances plus you are not taking full advantage of its damage capabilities.

The bad habit part is when you start with Mindblast you have a chance for a big crit and in a group that is very bad. Can you say instant aggro, dead priest. For the damage part you are missing out on a good 10-15% damage increase from Shadow Weaving and that could be a huge chunk of dps when it crits.

Try to get into the habit of ramping up damage other wise you'll get in the habit of dieing. VE should only be used in a group that has a tank that knows how to hold aggro because your threat per second is going to out pace theirs quickly if they don't know what they are doing.

Try a rotation like this when soloing SW:P, MF, MF again if they still haven't reached you otherwise drop a Fear here, MF to try to limit their range,MB, MF, MF, SW:P if needed,MB etc. Keep in mind you have to be aware of your surroundings before you pop a fear you don't want adds and you want to try to limit the range of their run with terrain if you can. You have to find what works for your play style. Myself I have no problems tossing up a shield and letting them hit me while I drop the final bits of damage. I'll even toss a shield before I start so the cooldown is ready mid fight. Once you get SWeath this all changes again.

As far as www.shadowpriest.com if you didn't find info on talents, gear, spell rotations etc you weren't looking. There are whole sections of the forums dedicated to this stuff.

Take more than 'a bit' and read. Lots and lots to learn from the people on there.

Hope I didn't ramble on too much and I made some sense. I am by no means the best SP out there, but I have been playing mine for quite a long time now. And this train of thought works for me.

Here is my current build

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...10240103051551
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07-16-07, 04:00 PM   #10
Geboran
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Actually, I've been reading up on the forums over the last couple of hours, off and on, and have found some pretty useful posts with some really good information in them.

There are a lot of varying opinions on what seems to work "best" as a shadowpriest in varying situations, so I've been trying to do some "research" and try to formulate my own opinion based on what seems to make the most sense.

I'll take a look at the build you suggested for me and your current build.

What would you emphasize putting your talent points in at my level and beyond to 70? In what order?
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07-16-07, 07:00 PM   #11
Balsta
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I built my Shadow tree first pretty much as you see it now. I have respeced a couple times moving a point or two around but nothing major. I then moved down the Disc tree to get meditation.
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07-17-07, 09:23 AM   #12
MidgetMage55
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Originally Posted by Geboran

I'm not sure if a wand that does shadow damage stacks with the priest's debuff on a mob... can anyone confirm this or not? I think it should -- truly -- but I've heard conflicting information regarding that.
I noticed a large increase in my wand dmg (im still using the same one now as a holy spec) as well as some rather hefty criticals that i have yet to get close to, the highest being over 500. I still have my Gear that i used as a shadow priest (all +dmg gear) that i use when i solo . So as far as my experience tells me all the increases in shadow dmg from the tree seems to add to the wands shadow dmg. Same gear specced holy has definitely seen a drop in dmg purly from my wand.
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07-17-07, 10:28 AM   #13
Geboran
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Very nice!!

So now that I pretty much have my talent points lined out until level 70, I need to work on putting together some handy macros. Does anyone have any really good macros for a Shadowpriest?
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07-17-07, 11:26 AM   #14
Balsta
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LOL Once again www.shadowpriest.com I have posted a great shackle macro using focus it also has an announce function to it. The post is under my priests name Balrost.
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07-17-07, 11:59 AM   #15
Geboran
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Ahhh, yes. The problem: they are not consolidated in a more "user-friendly" manner.

I do like that Shackle one, though. ^_^

I was surprised when I was asked to shackle an undead mob in Razorfen Kraul one time... I was like "Priests do that?" (Nub me had forgotten that I had trained for it way back when)

After that run, I went and found the nice shackle undead macro. Though yours seems to be really well-rounded (for all situations).
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WoWInterface » General Discussion » Class Discussions » Level 45+ Shadow Priest

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