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Anathema: The complete Shadow Priest guide. v1.3

Post by 325233

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by cloudp

Level 75: Mind Sear -- An important note about your beloved AoE: Don't use it to AoE farm. It isn't very efficient. It's more efficient and in general actually quicker to DoT up a mob with both VT and SW: P, then massacre it with a Mind Blast and a couple of Mind Flays, than it is to round up lots of mobs and cast Mind Sear while suffering a fair amount of pushback.

An interesting way of using Mind Sear to grind, however, is to gather a very huge amount of mobs, debuffing all of them with Vampiric Embrace, than fire Mind Sear. If the number of mobs is big, be sure - this is a very, very efficient method of grinding. I've taken arround 10-15 mobs through this method.

(note. I only tried this at 80. May be a bit hard to pull off such a big number of mobs with lower gear. If you're farming lower level mobs (for Cloth, for example), however, and are not in an imminent danger of death, this is very nice to try. It also requires the mobs are many and relatively close, but not in a massive pack. The place i use is a cave in Storm Peaks, near K3. Mobs are very fast respawning and are beautifully easy to grind this way.)

Post by Aldones

You talked about the mathmatical formual for spell haste being at 291 to fit 2 MFs inbetween MB CDs and if you don't take latenancy into acount and you're perfect with your casts, this would be the case. However, from what I've read on shadowpriest.com, the recommended haste is 328 (10%), but with higher amounts of latenancy, you're goint to want more.

You also mention that more haste is always a good thing. That's true, but 328 is considered our soft cap. With that being said, going beyond the number is still useful, but not as usefiul.

When talking about gems, you say that you should only gem orange or purple gems when the socket bonus gives sp or is required for a meta. However, I disagree, you should only gem those if the bonus gives a "damage increaser" or required for a meta. This would include haste and crit. I'm not going to forgo an 8 crit socket bonus (giving me a total of 9 sp and 16 crit) for 10 more sp; that's 20.36 PP vs 19 PP.

When mentioning BGs, you said you didn't have much to say about SotA for spriests. While I do all my PvP as a disc healer, I still throw both my instant cast DoTs on a tank when I'm chasing it. How much more effect would an spriests be! When defending, the goal of that BG is to destroy the tanks asap b/c they're required to progress. I'm not positive since I don't PvP as shadow, but if MF slows the tanks down, this would be VITAL in winning. Keeping the tanks out of range longer not only would burn time, but allow other dps more time to destroy the tank. I'll have to try this theory out since I just thought of it.

Post by Sinespe

Zerul: I'd appreciate you sticking around a bit; I've spotted you posting in other threads on PvP issues, with useful information, and you over-flatter me by telling me I know what I'm doing. My theory is still TBC-centric, with the premise in place that, since not much has changed in the way of our skillset, not much should have changed in the way we operate.

I'm about to try the "Gearing" section of the PvP guide, so any changes you could suggest to that once it's written would be greatly valued.

cloudp: Thanks for the idea on Mind Sear grinding. Out of curiosity, you say that you grind in a specific cave -- are you, then, grinding for a specific item, or ..?

Aldones: I updated the PvE Gem guide, making it far more precise in terms of the advice it offers -- encouraging people to do the maths and showing them how it should be ideally done. I ripped it from the old one without much adjustment; you're right, it was in need of an overhaul. I'll include your little bit about haste as an alternative theory on how that should work.

Post by cloudp

cloudp: Thanks for the idea on Mind Sear grinding. Out of curiosity, you say that you grind in a specific cave -- are you, then, grinding for a specific item, or ..?

General grinding. The caverns offers cloth (mobs are humanoid), drop greens and trash vendor loot for extra gold. I use it to get mats for both my professions and some spare gold. Maybe it is not the best place - i didn't really dig the information - but it suits me, and the method i stated works like a charm.

There are probably more places that work. Only has to meet the requirements: That you don't die of damage (can be solved by pulling less), that you are fast targetting for Embrace, that mobs are very close and in considerable (5-15 is ideal) packs. This is the main reason i use the cave - not for particular items, but for the prime positioning of the mobs for the method.

This cave, to be more precise.

Post by Maliander

A few questions about the builds you suggest:

I notice you skip Improved Shadowform for the shadow leveling build. To me, 70% pushback protection while leveling (and thus taking repeated blows from mobs) seems nearly mandatory, both for DPS (Mind Blast / Vampiric Touch) and DPM (Mind Flay).
With leveling gear, I have so far (level 60) not seen my crit% exceed 10% (including talents). As a result, the value of Shadow Power seems limited while leveling. Perhaps math disagrees with me though :)
I found out that 2/3 in Pain and Suffering was indeed quite annoying, but while leveling with 2/3 in Shadow Weaving I got to a full stack in no-time. For end-game raiding I can see the advantage of 3/3 to ensure your first SW:P is always cast with a full stack, but wasn't that bug fixed in the latest (PTR?) patch?

Post by Sinespe

A few questions about the builds you suggest:

I notice you skip Improved Shadowform for the shadow leveling build. To me, 70% pushback protection while leveling (and thus taking repeated blows from mobs) seems nearly mandatory, both for DPS (Mind Blast / Vampiric Touch) and DPM (Mind Flay).
With leveling gear, I have so far (level 60) not seen my crit% exceed 10% (including talents). As a result, the value of Shadow Power seems limited while leveling. Perhaps math disagrees with me though :)
I found out that 2/3 in Pain and Suffering was indeed quite annoying, but while leveling with 2/3 in Shadow Weaving I got to a full stack in no-time. For end-game raiding I can see the advantage of 3/3 to ensure your first SW:P is always cast with a full stack, but wasn't that bug fixed in the latest (PTR?) patch?

Intelligent disagreement; I appreciate that. I will explain.

Improved Shadowform looks good on paper, but consider this: VT and MB will be cast before the mobs reaches you; so, for those spells, no real problem. Now, the mob reaches you, and you Mind Flay. You can only get interrupted for 1 tick's worth (0.5 seconds on the first hit, 0.5 seconds on the second hit, 0 thereafter -- and the amount interrupted scales with your haste -- it goes down as your haste goes up). Whether you get pushed back (Or, pushed forward, in the case of a channeling spell) by 0.1 seconds or 1.0 seconds, you will still lose that one tick of Mind Flay. So, if you know you're going to be pushed back, it's actually better to be pushed back for more: as soon as you're pushed back, your third tick disappears off the end of the table. If you only get hit once, thus reducing your cast time by 0.5-0.1 seconds (0.5 without ISF, 0.1 with ISF), you will be channeling for an additional 0.5-0.9 seconds at no additional benefit. That extra casting time won't result in the third tick going off.

TL;DR: ISF won't affect VT and MB, and it does more harm than good for Mind Flay if you don't have 100% pushback resistance
You are forgetting one thing when you take into account your crit chance: Mind Melt. As you say, 10% isn't that much -- so, adding 4% and 6% on to that is quite a big deal. Additionally, on Shadow Power's tier, there are few other places where you can put the points to such good use
I fear you are being overly charitable towards Blizzard in hoping that the Shadow Weaving bug has been fixed. However, I will test it on a dummy. And, again, as with Shadow Power, there's not much else you can do with the points at the time, except maybe stick them into Improved Mind Blast -- but I've found that 2 points in there is sufficient until you get haste gear (Which only starts to happen in Howling Fjord/Borean Tundra, if you solo all the way up).

EDIT: I checked Shadow Weaving once more. I applied SW: P to the heroic dummy and let it tick a few to get an idea of the numbers, then I refreshed it with Mind Flay (To four stacks) and let it tick a few more times. Then, I Mind Flayed some more to get it up to full stacks. I ensured I had taken off my Sundial of the Exiled first, so that the extra spellpower proc couldn't interfere.
Shadow Weaving x1: 812-813 ticks
Refresh with Mind Flay: 812-813
Refresh with Mind Flay, Shadow Weaving x4:812-813
Refresh, Shadow Weaving x5: 812-813
Recast SW: P with SW x5: 903 ticks.

It's still broken, I'm afraid.

Post by Maliander

TL;DR: ISF won't affect VT and MB, and it does more harm than good for Mind Flay if you don't have 100% pushback resistance.

I can see the MF point, but tend to pull two mobs at a time (guess leveling that DK made me a bit overconfident) so I can get twice the DoT DPS:
VT DP SW:P MB VE on target one, then move over to target two and pull with VT SW:P VE, back to 1 for MF, back to 2 for MB and whatever else is needed to finish it while 1 drops down dead. Mana returns from Life Tap are less then with a single target approach, but I feel that is made up by killing the two mobs faster. And even if it isn't, it's just more fun for me :)

Even with this rotation I guess the advantage of Imp SF is limited. My mage mindset must be affecting my appreciation of pushback protection.

Post by Sinespe

If you do multipull then I can see the appeal of it. I'm boring -- I just single-pull most of the time.

Post by cloudp

Oh, and just noticed it, you dindn't say Mass Dispel melts ice.

Post by Sinespe

Oh, and just noticed it, you dindn't say Mass Dispel melts ice.

Good point. Thanks.

Post by razzem

Really nice guide and discussion Valandilv and spriest community... I really learned a lot, so Kudos to all of you contributing, and all of your hard work Valandilv.

Post by Sinespe

Post by 200565

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Sinespe

stnly: I'm sure that rotation is equally as workable. The reason I go with VT --> DP is because I like to stick to the priority list, and 100% DoT uptime is first there. However, an argument can be made, definitely, that getting full Shadow Weaving will benefit one's first DP more than a first MB. You're not missing any secret reason at all. Indeed, another advantage I can see to VT --> MB is that you proc Replenishment within 3 seconds of the pull.

However, one advantage of DP is its gradual damage. The high burst of an early Mind Blast could cause your raid leaders to go a bit crazy on your ass for going to 90% of tank's threat in 3 seconds -- certainly in PuGs, at least, it can be relied upon slightly more where you can't rely on Rogues and Hunters popping their Misdirection abilities. (I think many Rogues are unaware they even have Tricks of the Trade. Last time I was in Naxx25, one pulled aggro on 4h and died "because there wasn't a Misdirection" ...)

Lately, I've heard Excel calling to me to try out this stuff, but it's so much of a hassle to input all the data. Ultimately, I don't think it matters too much, since over the course of a long fight it's probably only worth 0.3% DPS. However, I invite people to try it and give me their findings. I'm so set in my ways of pressing Q --> V that I'll probably find it a difficult habit to break, but I might try it myself.

Post by Sinespe

The Facemelter II: Electric Boogaloo.

Thank you to CaseyTheRetard for contributions to this section.

This is a supplementary section to my PvE guide. It includes specific pointers for boss fights, as well as useful little tricks to watch out for in general.

Before I launch into this, it's very vital to understand how vast is the gap between Naxxramas and Ulduar. Naxxramas was an undertuned instance -- it was designed to be zerged by people fresh in their Level 70 T6.5 gear, since with mechanic changes allowed every DPS class to reach the DPS threshold for Patchwerk and Thaddius in this gear, regemmed, plus whatever Heroic gear they may have picked up. Ulduar, on the other hand, is tuned properly for people in appropriate level 80 gear.

I speak all this from the experience of someone who had never set foot in Ulduar until about a week ago, after having been facerolling through Naxx10 and 25 pugs, topping the uncompetitive charts. Whereas Naxx has Patch and Thadd to test your DPS, Ulduar has Vezax to test your DPM -- murdering you if you try to DPS normally. Whereas Naxx has Mind Sear fests between bosses, Ulduar will leave you drinking after every trash pull from a ridiculous frequency of DoT reapplication.

It is very easy to go into Naxxramas in full epics, clip your VT ticks, leave half-second gaps between your casts, and generally be half asleep, and still come out with plausible DPS to clear the 2.5k Patchwerk Threshold. That will not cut it in Ulduar. Even with all the nerfs, it is still a very challenging instance, and some of the hard modes boggle my mind as to how they are even possible. (Again, just look at Vezax. I mean, what the hell?)

So, here's an Ulduar benchmark for you: With a minimum of full Heroic-level blues and epics, hitcapped, go into Naxxramas25. Make sure you have a Moonkin and an Elemental Shaman in the raid with you -- this will give you an excellent base of raid buffs. (You're also assured to have a mage in there, if for no other reason than that people are lazy and do not like drinking vendor-bought water. This translates into an extra 5% crit, and another 3% if you're the lucky one who gets Focus Magic)

On Patchwerk, aim to clear 4k DPS (with Heroism/Bloodlust). If you get close to it/clear it, you are doing everything right in terms of your rotation. Similarly, with Thaddius, you should be getting between 6k and 7k depending on how often you have to move around the boss and how many people die, lowering your total damage gain. These thresholds are demanding, and they show that you're capable of focusing wholly on doing good DPS.
On Grobbulus, Heigan, etc. (I.e., movement-based fights): aim for at least 3.2k-3.5k DPS without dying -- Heigan should be in the lower end of this band, and Grobbulus the higher. This may not sound as demanding as 4k/7k, but, given that movement is involved, it's still a difficult threshold to pass. You have to be capable of still focusing on your DPS rotations while also bearing in mind positioning and bomb-like effects on yourself and others.
On Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad: Disable your damage meter. If you are interested to know why, then read the specific sections dedicated to them. If you must know, though, you should still pull at least 3k DPS on both, in addition to performing certain special tasks.

If you get all of this right, then you're going to be flying through Ulduar without any difficulties. If you get most of it, you're going to be fine and Ulduar will test you healthily -- it will cause you to improve as you go, such that if you were to go back to Naxx after a couple of gruelling weeks in Ulduar, you'll wonder how you ever found it hard.

If this stuff is very challenging for you to do ... well, I'm not going to stop you going into Ulduar, but your guild might. Hopefully the Naxxramas section of this guide will help you, if truly you're sure that you're following the main guide to the letter.

Post by Sinespe

General Advanced Tips

A.B.C.: Always. Be. Casting. Even when moving around to get to somewhere, try to be using instant-casts or just hitting Mind Flay for half a second to keep SW: P up. Obviously, there is only so much you can do, but there is also only so far you need to run to at any given moment, after which time you're surely going to be standing and nuking again.

Damage Meters Are Not the Voice of God: Recount is useful. It tells you lots of stuff. It tells you who dispelled most, it tells you who spent the most of their time doing their assigned role, it tells you the events which caused people to die. Were you aware of those functionalities? Do you link DPS and Damage after every fight? Do you glance down at the DPS meter whenever you cast Mind Flay, because you have gained a spare moment to do so? Then uninstall it. Re-discover the 95% of your screen not occupied by class-coloured bars. Most good guilds these days use WWS reports or World of Log reports. You can look up your performance there at the end.

Double Potions: Coordinate with your tanks. Tell them to broadcast a raid warning when they are about to pull a boss. This will allow you to pop an extra Potion of Wild Magic before the fight starts, which in turn starts the potion cooldown, but for the first 15 seconds of the fight (Minus the delay between you drinking the potion and the pull commencing), you will have gained a free buff.

Dropping Shadowform Does Not Make You a Bad Shadow Priest: Some fights need extra healing. That's all there is to it. If anything, the reverse is true, thus:
If You Do Something Wrong, Drop Shadowform: If you stand in a fire for way too long, make up for your own mistake and heal -- either yourself or the people who took damage as a result of your error.

Flask: Look at your leggings. 113 spellpower is a lot, isn't it? That's roughly how much you get from a Flask. You grow another pair of legs (this guy is very jealous of you). Use them wisely.

Omen Is the Voice of God: Threat is not an issue. That is nearly always true, but some mechanics cause you to gain a boost to your damage for which the tank might not be able to compensate. At these times, you have to be prepared to slow down.

Overlapping DoTs will hurt your DPS: It is better to refresh a DoT 1.5 seconds after it has expired than 1.5 seconds before it expires. You miss out on a tick of damage if you refresh a DoT too early, and this is very bad. DPS/DPM plummets by 20% of Vampiric Touch if you do this on that spell.

Spell Priorities Are Not the Voice of God: A good shadow priest will not mindlessly refresh VT when a mob is going to conceivably die 4 seconds after the start of the cast. Sometimes the worst thing you can do is apply your DoTs. On single-target boss fights we are masters of *steady* DPS, and the steadiness comes from our DoTs and our constant stream of damage. But on short-lived (5 seconds or less) mobs, your dots are wasted GCDs. Make sure you're always casting what it is appropriate to cast, even if that's a Mind Flay unbuffed by SW: P.

~~~~

Tier 10, 4-piece set bonus

Pending.

Post by Sinespe

Naxxramas

Trash

Mind Sear. Lol.

Anub'Rekhan:

Stay planted firmly in the middle. Be ready to DoT up and nuke down the Crypt Guards as soon as a tank has picked them up. In general, don't bother nuking the Scarabs: Your lack of PBAoE and their tendency to scatter all over the place makes you inefficient for this role. Stay on the boss when you're not on the adds; keep DoTs up as close to 100% of the time on Add and Boss whenever both are up together.
Heroic Supplement: Ignore your opening rotation. VT --> SW: P both initial Crypt Guards, then DoT up the Boss, then nuke each of the Crypt Guards in the order assigned. Instants while you get into range of the boss!

Grand Widow Faerlina:

Not much to report here. Stay out of fire, nuke the adds when necessary.
Heroic Supplement: Focus on doing as much DPS as you can to Faerlina while at the same time keeping in the back of your mind the fact that you will need to MC when your Boss Mod tells you that you have 10-5 seconds left. As with Anub'Rekhan, VT --> SW: P the two big adds and then DoT Faerlina.

Maexxna:

Cast Mind Sear on Maexxna 2 seconds before the Spiders appear; and make sure that Mind Flay is the last thing you cast before her Web Spray activates.

Noth the Plaguebringer:

Nuke him hard, then Mind Sear the adds that he summons during Phase 1 when he teleports onto the balcony. Single-target the adds summoned during phase 2, since they will unlikely be in an ideal Mind Sear position.
Heroic Supplement: Do not cast Fade immediately when he blinks away. If he gets within Melee range of you, then Fade, but leaving Fade as late as possible allows the tank time to taunt based on your threat, if you are the one who has pulled aggro.

Heigan the Unclean:

When walking onto the platform, use Instants. Make sure to stand at the back of the platform to avoid Spell Disruption, moving forward if the tanks are conscientious of distance and kite Heigan in a wide path.
When Dancing, use Instants and completely-clipped Mind Flays when running on 2 and 3. Cast VT or MB when at positions 1 and 4 -- just one of them per brief pause!
Cast Abolish Disease on yourself when you run up to the platform again. (If it's not on your bars, shame on you.)
If the unthinkable happens and all your healers die, take over. Heigan's hits are as weak as Bon Jovi's. You can heal for a long time on just Prayer of Mending, Renew and Shield -- 5-man instance healing!

Loatheb:

Recast SW: P when Fungal Creep becomes active. Keep Fungal Creep up 100% of the time, even if that means moving to intercept spores from the far side of the room. Also consider taking the time to run back the other way to rejoin your healers.
Normal Supplement: Creeps are less frequent than on Heroic (every 30 seconds as opposed to every 15). Make sure the buff doesn't run dry!

Instructor Razuvious:

Heroic Supplement: This is your fight. This fight is the reason why terribad Shadow Priests are put up with in PuGs. You dictate everything. You tell the tanks to offtank the spare adds. You instruct the DPS not to kill the spare adds, in case they are needed in an emergency. You dictate the pace of the pull.
Before the Pull: Mark up all the adds. Make sure you have "Target of target" as an active component of your unit frames, and that it is somewhere you can see it easily.
The Pull: Mind Soothe the two students at the front. They will aggro before you get into Mind Control range if you do not do this. Only move foward to pull when Razuvious is walking towards the rear of the room, since he, too, will pull aggro if he is at the front, and he cannot be Mind Soothed. Make sure you communicate with your partner during Military Trash so that you are sorted by the time you get to the pull. Sort out sides (left or right add), sort out taunt order (First or second), make sure you both know what you're doing.
Tanking: Use Bone Shield first, then immediately hit Taunt to start tanking. Your partner should take over (I.e., you, when you need to take over) when Bone Shield has 5 second or less on it. When you see that Razuvious has changed to the other tank (This is why you have "Show target of target", see? The marks are the differentiating factor), immediately dismiss your pet. In the delay between clicking "Dismiss" and your pet dismissing, target your mob (Or have it set to "Focus" so you can target it easily). Then, re-Mind Control and wait for your turn to taunt again. Never taunt too early.

Gothik the Harvester:

A yawnfest. Just Mind Blast and Mind Flay. DoT up the Riders if you get a chance, but apart from that there is no point in applying DoTs to adds that die so fast, nor is there any point in Mind Searing because they are always so spread out.

The Four Horsemen

Tanking the Back: You may be asked to do this, especially in 10-man. All you have to do is coordinate with your partner about when to swap over sides. The inactive teleport circle on the ground between the two bosses indicates a midpoint, so make sure you both cross over at the same time when you are both ready. Do not focus on pushing Max DPS on this if you are tanking as Shadow. Just do your standard thing, and make sure VE is up to help with healing. Cast Dispersion if you get into trouble!

Patchwerk:

Double-pot, tunnel-vision DPS. Collect loot.

Grobbulus

Keep DoTs up as much as possible and make sure to keep up with your rotation. Move forward enough so that you spend as little time as possible pressing WASD (I.e., when you need to, move a long way forward). Shield yourself when you get Mutating Injection -- and consider dispelling it early if you find you get into a good position to drop it and still have a lot of time left on the debuff.

Gluth

As soon as your add-ons tell you that Decimate will be activated very shortly, make sure you're looking at the back for the most concentrated clump of zombies. When Decimate goes off, target them with Mind Sear. Make sure VE is up on this boss, because the healing will help when Decimate hits.

Thaddius

Refresh SW: P the very first time Polarity Shift occurs, since if people die after that point you will no longer have as high a stack of the damage buff as you do when everyone's alive. Pay attention to your debuff on Shifts. Never attempt to get in one last spell before switching: As soon as your debuff changes, you have to be on the move. When the adds fall, use Dispersion (After using Levitate!) since you will not be casting in the time it takes you to get down to Thaddius' platform anyway. Use instants (I.e., SW: D) when switching from one side to the other. While shifting polarity, you don't have any insane damage buff, so the backlash just gets healed by VE.
Levitate Supplement: On Heroic, just cast Levitate on yourself when moving from the upper platform to Thaddius'. (Casting Levitate and walking off that ledge will get you safely over). On Normal, however, there is no excuse not to Levitate everyone on your side of the room when Stalagg and Feugen fall. Take the time to do it, because you will not have any time problems getting to Thaddius before he activates. Be kind to your fellow raiders, and your fellow raiders will buff your damage just by their very presence!

Sapphiron

Unless you are incredibly confident of your healers, and/or know that the whole raid is wearing some Frost Resistance gear, the following rule applies: when he goes into the air, you cast Prayer of Mending. Twice. Then you re-enter Shadowform and resume nuking when he's back on the ground. If you are confident of your healers, then keep nuking him while he's in the air. Use instants when the final ice block forms so that you can run towards it, and only stop nuking and duck behind the ice block a few seconds before Deep Breath hits the ground -- keep up your Shadow Weaving stacks etc.

Kel'Thuzad:

SW: D (normal) and Mind Flay and are useful for the Skeletons. Focus on the Soul Weavers when you see one, but if you see lots of Skeletons then rely on the other DPS to take care of the Soul Weaver as you go Mind Flay spamming. The Skeletons either are bugged, or are programmed to react negatively to snares. Even when glyphed, Mind Flay will slow them down a lot, so you are perfect for taking them down. They all die in one channel, excluding the extra damage from crits.

On KT himself, use Dispersion if you get Ice Tombed. Pop Shadowfiend if you get hit with an early Mana Detonation, or otherwise whenever you need it. Other than that, be wary of your range and make sure to get back into position if you get Mind Controlled (Heroic)

Post by Sinespe

Ulduar

I only have experience of Ulduar10, and I am likely only going to have experience of Ulduar10 (And the same will apply for the Argent Arena and Icecrown). If anyone wants to contribute Heroic Supplements for these tips, please feel free to leave a message.

Trash

You're unlikely to be asked to Mind Control anything, so just follow instructions for specific packs, and single-target DPS mobs down unless a pack is clearly AoE-based.

Ignis the Furnace Master:

If you get thrown into the Slag Pot, consider using Binding Heal and Prayer of Mending on the tank for the duration. Your healers will thank you for doing it, and you get a 100% haste buff when you leave, anyway, so you get plenty of opportunity to make up for the loss in DPS. Alternatively, nuke your heart out, and then nuke your heart out some more when you get thrown away. Dispersion does not reduce the damage taken while in the Slag Pot, so only use it if you want to gain mana during this time. When Ignis casts Flame Jets, time a SW: D so that you do damage and stop yourself from casting anything with a cast time just before he activates the ability.

Razorscale:

In Phase 1, there are lots of adds. Position yourself so that you are in range of many of them, and VT --> SW: P them. Refresh SW: P with Mind Flay if you have a sophisticated DoT timer to show you multiple mobs' debuff times left. Focus your main nuking on one of the adds that has high tank threat on it -- preferably a Watcher or a Guardian, because they kinda hurt. Mind Sear them if lots of them are grouped together. When Razorscale lands for the first time, use Shadowfiend on her.

In Phase 2, just position yourself well and you should be able to stand and nuke, since flame patches only occur on the tank at this point.

XT-002 Deconstructor

If it comes down to a choice between DPSing the Heart for bonus damage and AoEing scrapbots, you AoE the scrapbots. They are a top priority and you are an excellent AoE class for this fight because of the way in which they spawn. Naturally, you may DoT up the Heart and keep those DoTs refreshed, but if you see Scrapbots within 50 yards of the boss and in your immediate vicinity (As you are positioned, you should be roughly between one of the scrap piles and Deconstructor himself, so one of them will go past you), Mind Sear them. Additionally, take time to notice Bomb Bots when they show themselves and take steps to stop them blowing up your lovely companions. VE on this fight, since Tantrum causes problems on healing. Speaking of Tantrum, it's another one of these annoying mechanics whose damage doesn't get reduced by Dispersion.

Hard Mode supplement: Ignore all adds during the heart phase. Burn it down hard. Have a /tar Life Spark macro and be prepared to fade often to remove yourself from Life Sparks' aggro tables. They melee for a lot of damage.
25-man Hard Mode supplement: Tell your Raid Leader to get better ranged DPS if he has to rely on you for Life Spark duty. With that many people, there are better people to be spared for the job. In 10-man, you'll want all of your ranged DPS attacking them to get them down ASAP; but, in 25-man, there is a larger pool of people to pick from. Given our low burst damage, we should be the last choice for killing Life Sparks.

Assembly of Iron

Only stand in Runes of Power if you're not in danger of being hit with Brundir's Overload. Recast SW: P if you do get an opportunity to stand in one of them.

Kologarn

I'm not entirely sure yet of the viability of applying DoTs to multiple bodyparts and keeping them up -- but I know that, unless you plan on killing the left arm, there's no point in attacking that one, since damage on arms is only applied to Kologarn once they are fully destroyed. Stone Grip (The Right Arm's ability) will not have its damage reduced by Dispersion. If you do intend to DoT up both the Right Arm and the torso, make sure you are religious about keeping SW: P up with Mind Flay so that it doesn't drop off. If Rubble is positioned well, you should be able to use Mind Sear on Kologarn's torso -- it should hit both his arms and all the rubble.

Auriaya

DoT up both Sentries, but be careful of threat at the start because your tanks may take a while to build aggro. If you are targetted by the Defender when he is on low health, move away from Auriaya into the middle of a platform so that the void zone which spawns is in a harmless place. When you see Auriaya casting her Swarming Guardians ability, use Mind Sear.

Crazy Cat Lady Supplement: Don't use Mind Sear.

Mimiron:

Phase 3: Keep DoTs up on Mimiron's head from the start, but focus the rest of your attention on the Assault bots. This way, you can be sure that your ranged tank will have enough aggro over you. MB/SW: D Bomb Bots as soon as they appear -- reserve these cooldowns specifically for bomb bots, if your raid requires you in particular or "you" as "all ranged DPS" to attack it, because the burst is vitally important

Phase 4: This is where having a DoT Timer like ForteXorsist is, I will admit, better than Quartz. Multiple-target DoT tracking will allow you to keep all three sections up with SW: P (use a Wild Magic potion for these SW: Ps) and VT, while you focus on nuking (DP, MB) whichever section has the most health left. Put VE up on all three sections, too. The extra healing is vital.

Hodir

Storm Clouds: A 135% bonus to crits. This, potentially, is like other damage bonuses, and could apply to Shadow Word: Pain crits for the entire fight. So, when you get this, hard-refresh SW: P.

Your priority of buffs is Storm Cloud --> Starlight --> Toasty Fire. Always aim to have Storm Cloud, because 135% bonus damage to crits results in >25K Mind Blast crits.

Freya

There's not a lot of extra stuff you can do to boost your DPS to silly levels here. You have to AoE the exploding plants sensibly then single-target them down (Don't bother dotting them). I guess you could keep DoTs up on Freya at all time just to cheat the meters, but there's not a lot of point in doing that other than to e-peen -- it's wasted mana. Lifebinder's Gifts give Pheremones, the same buff as the mushrooms that spawn with the Ancient Conservator -- consider standing nearby Lifebinder's Gifts while nuking them down during phase 2 for extra damage on Freya in the meantime.

Be prepared to allow DoTs to dissipate on any Elemental add (Among the group of three) if it is much lower in health than the others. Focus your direct damage spells on the adds with higher health -- remember, they don't all have the same amount of health.

Thorim

Tunnel advice: DoTs aren't great because of the mobs' low health. On the minibosses, of course, DoT away. Kill Acolytes first, since they heal.

Arena advice: In 25-man, mind control this and keep it MC'd. Make sure you are standing on the stairs that lead to the Tunnel, so that you don't get hit with Lightning AoE in phase 2 (see here for details about Mind Controlling). That's pretty much it. Be aware of your surroundings, of course, and make sure the offtank in phase 2 is able to pick up the add if you need to break MC to move out of lightning-based nastiness. In 10-man, you can do this, too, but the DPS increase isn't necessarily so good as you just DPSing yourself. In general, not much point in Dotting up adds in phase 1, because they die fast. Then Thorim is just a standard burn.

General Vezax

If you're very serious about raiding as Shadow in PvE, you'll want to spend 1000 gold on Dual Spec just for this fight; because you, like me, will get very annoyed after your first night of attempts when you find how easily you get threatcapped, what with the insane boost to your DPS that you get through Shadow Crash. You'll want to Dual Spec PvE Shadow / PvE Shadow. The second build should include Shadow Affinity. Mine is this. You may, of course, decide on something a bit different; you most definitely want to include Shadow Affinity and Imp. VE, though. You may even consider, as I have done, making this "Vezax build" your standard Ulduar build, because Spirit Tap is rather underwhelming.

Saronite Vapours do not have their damage reduced by Dispersion.

Apart from that, you should only be using Mind Flay outside of Shadow Crash. My opening rotation is MF --> MF --> SW: P (Five stacks of Shadow Weaving) --> Mind Flay spam. When I get a Shadow Crash, I unleash everything else and Hard Refresh SW: P, keeping up the boosted version for the rest of the fight if at all possible. If you use the Hard Mode strategy, of course, you will just want to DPS while in Shadow Crash, which will be 90% of the time. Nevertheless, watch your threat deadly close and stop at 100-110% of tank's threat.

Hard Mode: Cast zero spells outside of Shadow Crash, with the exception of VE and Shadowfiend, which cost zero mana.

Yogg-Saron

Phase 1: Careful about using Mind Blast and SW: D when the Guardians are on low health. You don't want them to die too far away from Sara.

Phase 2:
Tentacle Realm: Focus on Crushers. DoT up Constrictors and Corruptors if you find yourself with a spare moment to do so.

Brain Realm: The tentacles you find in the brain realm have very little health, and do not warrant DoTing up at all. Just Mind Blast and Mind Flay them. (Don't SW: D -- the damage aura hurts a fair bit). Do use VE, too, for the small amount of bonus healing it provides. Make sure you travel to Yogg Saron's brain very quickly when the last tentacle falls, so that you apply DoTs before your five stacks of Shadow Weaving, accrued from killing tentacles, does not fade. Re-apply DoTs before leaving the brain room, just to squeeze out that little bit of extra damage. Assist on tentacles when you get outside between portals.

Phase 3:
Mind Flay can be cast and then you can turn away from Yogg by right-clicking on your mouse and having your camera face the opposite direction. This is useful for when he casts Lunatic Gaze. DoTs, of course, don't require you to be facing the target to cast, so this is useful too. DoT up Immortal Guardians once they have been held effectively by a tank, and burn down anything with Shadow Beacon on it -- if you're assigned to do so, of course.

Phase 2 and 3: If you need to use a Sanity Well, you have failed. Below 40% Sanity (For the Tentacle realm), none of the sanity-reduction you take should be unavoidable. For the brain room, Yogg Saron's brain should fall before the skulls have a chance to lower your Sanity by a significant amount. In phase 3, you'll occasionally lose 4% sanity from a chance tick of Lunatic Gaze. This is fine, because he should fall before you do. If you find yourself on less than 10% sanity, stay turned away and turn around for the sole purpose of Mind Blasting something with Vampiric Touch on it, once a Lunatic Gaze cast has finished.

Algalon the Observer

This fight is brutal. There truly is no way to describe how horrible it is. You can look at all the videos you like, but until you personally go up against the fight you won't really know how much Algalon punishes you for making mistakes.

And guess what? You have an important job! So make me proud and don't screw it up!

Big Bang. You are the ideal candidate to eat it, every single time. All you have to do is switch your Mind Flay glyph (Don't worry. Range isn't a problem.) for Dispersion. Take it from your guild bank funds. This brings Dispersion down to a 75-second cooldown, where Big Bang is only cast every 90 seconds. You are perfect for the role because it means that the tanks don't have to use their tanking cooldowns on it -- so if a Cosmic Smash lands on their heads they can, instead, worry about using Shield Wall to survive through that instead.
So, what you do is, when everyone else goes into a Black Hole, you stay out. You run to the edge of the room furthest away from Algalon and with 1 second left on Big Bang, you activate Dispersion. You survive, and then you just stay where you are, Dispersed. As soon as Big Bang ends, it brings everyone back in. If the tank isn't fast on taunting Algalon off you, then it is their failure and not yours.

Aside from this: Be aware of Cosmic Smashes, and don't stand next to any of the Collapsing Stars. If they get killed while standing on top of you, they'll port you directly into the Shadow zone and that will inevitably kill you. And if anyone dies on an Algalon attempt, it's pretty much a wipe. You can maybe afford to lose one DPS and Heroism might just see you through to the end, but one death usually leads to more, because it means that several small things have gone wrong at the same time.

Oh, and don't expect to kill him in the first hour of training him. It won't happen. If you get him to 50%, you're making excellent progress.

Post by Sinespe

Trial of the Crusader

Trash

What's trash?

The Northrend Beasts

Goremok the Impaler:

If you get a Snobold on your back, you can target it with instant-cast spells to assist your other DPS in taking it down. Mind Flay should be castable inasmuch as it is castable while you're stuck in a Vortex on Malygos. General tactic for being Snobolled is to move into melee until it dies, so you might just want to stick with using instant-cast spells, what few you have.

When nuking others' snobolds, either focus down the snobold and keep DoTs up on Gormok, or vice-versa.

Fun fact about Fire Bomb: If you have Levitate on you, the flame patch spawned after a Fire Bomb hits you ... doesn't spawn. It's worth keeping Levitate on everyone at range for the sake of minimising the number of flame patches that spawn, and thus minimising the damage taken from said fire. This has been fixed in 3.3 to be no longer true.

Heroic: Move around whenever you cast an instant spell, on the off-chance that you're able to miss a Fire Bomb.

Acidmaw and Dreadscale:

DoT both up, if you like, but focus nuking on whichever one specified by your Raid Leader. When one dies, the other gains a 50% damage buff, so don't keep DoTs up on both when one falls below 10% in the event that your raid wants to kill them close together.

Icehowl:

Icehowl takes extra damage when he smashes into the wall after a failed Charge. Take advantage of this as much as you can.

Lord Jaraxxus

This is quite a long fight. Use Shadowfiend as soon as you dip below 60% mana and then cycle your Dispersion/Shadowfiend cooldowns regularly to keep yourself topped up. If you don't have (m)any Mages in your group, you will need to keep an eye on Jaraxxus to dispel the 5/10-stacked Magic damage buff he gets. It can very quickly kill people when combined with Fel Lightning.

Keep DoTs up on Jaraxxus while you kill the Mistresses of Pain. For the Infernals, it rather depends on your group -- as with our DPS on 5-man Heroic Trash, our DPS on low-health mobs goes up if others' is low, and vice-versa. On 10-man, they have 80k health; on 25-man, 230k. This is juuust about worthy of DoTs. If you feel they're dying too quickly, though, don't bother putting up DoTs on them -- either focus-nuke Jaraxxus during Infernal phases, or just Mind Blast/Mind Flay them.

Heroic: Spam a /tar Nether Portal macro as soon as Deadly Boss Mods tells you it's about to spawn. It has to die. It is the whole of the fight. If you get hit with Mistress's Kiss, you might actually get lucky -- If you're hit with it in the middle of a Mind Flay, that Mind Flay will be interrupted and the debuff will disappear, but you won't be spell locked. If not, just cast Flash Heal and then hop back into Shadowform.

Faction Champions

Aside from DoTing up multiple targets (but coordinate with your raid group so that you don't break Polymorph or something), keep an eye on things like Bloodlust, Earth Shield, Divine Shield and ProM to dispel/mass dispel off targets. As Shadow, you should be focusing on offensive dispelling. If you're the only class capable of dispelling, though, keep an eye on your raid frames and get rid of any unwanted stuff there, too. The best people on this fight are the ones who can keep an eye on everything, which is really hard to do. On this fight, too, your Vampiric Touch might get dispelled, so you get biggah numbaz.

Twin Val'kyr

There is one key thing you have to be aware of in this fight for your DPS, and that's the Vortices. I'll explain:

Let's say you're killing Darkbane -- so, by default, you're attuned to Light. You've built up about 70 of the "Powering Up" buff. But then, Darkbane starts to unleash Dark Vortex. You have to switch to Dark. The damage you absorb while attuned to Dark will spill over and cause you to gain Empowering Shadows. If this happens, switch to killing Lightbane for the duration of the buff, because it is a waste not to use the extra damage.

DO NOT multi-DoT, unless you're sure you won't go OOM by doing so or unless Misery must be kept up on both targets. The DPS gain is a mere 300, if that, because the GCDs you spend on putting up non-aligned DoTs result in lost GCDs on your aligned mob.

Try to Empower yourself twice (unless the fight is under 3 minutes). Take baby steps all the time. If you see a delicious orb nearby, move a bit, nuke a bit, move a bit, nuke a bit. Stick to your spell priorities with small, half-second gaps of movement in between.

Heroic: If you happen to be positioned near to your opposite-aligned portal, and the same-aligned Twin uses Pact, switch portals to help nuke it down. Otherwise, just focus on nuking it -- maybe pre-empt it by DoTing up a few seconds before DBM tells you that a special ability is incoming.

Anub'arak

Phase 1: Make sure you multi-DoT the spawned adds at the very least.
Phase 2 10-man: Mind Flay adds that are chasing yourself or your healers, though be aware of Anub'arak's spikes.
Phase 2 25-man: From what I understand, the small adds here are AoE'd over frost because there are so many of them, so enjoy Mind Searing.
Phase 3: VE should be up.

Heroic:
Phase 3: VE must be up.

Anathema: The complete Shadow Priest guide. v1.3

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