Spiritual Guidance: Playing catch up with shadow priests
by Fox Van Allen 
Jan 13th 2010 at 2:00PM
Fox Van Allen steps out of the shadows every Wednesday to take control of Spiritual Guidance, telling you all you need to know to melt faces with expert precision.
The era of patch 3.2 held some dark days for a shadow priest. The fights in Trial of the Crusader were definitely not built for shadow priests, especially in heroic mode. We scaled terribly with new gear. Our tier 9 gear was questionably designed. Every class has their own problems, but the problems that besieged shadow priests were bad enough to negatively effect raid performance. It wasn't hard for shadow priests to get left behind.
Patch 3.3, though -- this is our time. The changes to the spec have already been detailed: buffs to our glyphs, talents, and haste-affected DoTs gave us a ten-to-twenty percent boost to our damage right off the bat. Our tier 10 gear gives powerful two- and four-piece bonuses. And best yet, the fights in the new Icecrown Citadel five-man dungeons and raids seem as if they were built for us. We add tremendous value to an ICC raid in almost every fight.
Actually seeing those fights, though -- that can be a challenge. Patch 3.2 did a lot of damage to the shadow priest class's reputation. An increased emphasis on "gear score" in the game can (unfairly) get an average-geared shadow priest written off. We can't just take playing for granted -- past problems with the spec means there's a higher bar for us.
If you got left behind in the last patch or even if you're a newly minted level 80, don't worry -- you can catch up quick. Here's how.The release of every major patch coincides with a soft gear reset. Every random heroic dungeon you run earns you a slew of Emblems of Triumph, redeemable for level 245 epic gear, the same quality of items that drop from the 25-man version of Trial of the Crusader. You can also buy tier 9 armor, which come with desirable multi-piece bonuses.
If you're starting from scratch, your first order of business should be to put together a two-piece tier set. The easiest and quickest route is to pick up Velen's Handwraps of Conquest and Velen's Mantle of Conquest, each of which cost 30 emblems. The two-piece tier 9 bonus, a longer lasting Vampiric Touch, is especially friendly to newer players who have trouble juggling their DoTs.
When putting together the rest of your Icecrown-ready gear set, keep the basics in mind. The shadow priest hit cap is 289, so aim to get your hit rating as close to that number as possible (for Draenei, the hit cap is 263). Spellpower is the best stat for shadow priests, but haste is very close behind. Critical strike rating is our third best stat, making gear with all three ideal. Continue enchanting for spellpower if you can.
Head
Those who need a new, "grindable" helmet should take a look at the Helm of Clouded Sight, available for 75 emblems. Fill that yellow gem slot with a Reckless Ametrine, which is the new yellow gem slot filler of choice for shadow priests. The meta gem of choice remains the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond -- make sure you have at least two Purified Dreadstones on hand to activate the meta bonus.
Chest
There are a handful of chest pieces to collect in the new five-man heroics, but you're better off working toward the four-piece tier 9 bonus with the Velen's Raiments of Conquest. Tailors will probably find more benefit from crafting a Merlin's Robe. With the changes to stat scaling in the latest patch, Major Spirit is now the best enchant for your chest piece in terms of maximizing DPS. Seriously.
Neck
Once you've filled a number of your gear slots with Emblem of Triumph pieces, you should try venturing into the new Icecrown five-man instances. The Devourer of Souls, the end boss of the The Forge of Souls (heroic), drops an excellent neck piece for shadow priests, the Arcane Loops of Anger.
Wrist
If your shadow priest still needs hit to get to the magical 289 number, the Bracer of Worn Molars from heroic Halls of Reflection can help. Otherwise, spend those Emblems of Triumph on Crusader Orbs and have a tailor craft a pair of Bejeweled Wizard Bracers, which still outshine virtually every ICC drop available.
Waist
The Strip of Remorse, available from the Captain's Chest at the end of the instance, makes an excellent belt if you're in need of one -- just don't forget to maximize the benefit from it by picking up an Eternal Belt Buckle off the auction house and filling it with a Runed Cardinal Ruby.
Legs
If you've made the decision to build a four-piece tier 9 set, then Velen's Pants of Conquest is your best best. If you don't need the hit, you'll get better DPS (ironically!) by spending your tokens on the healing tier 9 pants, Velen's Leggings of Conquest.
Feet Slot
You can grab the Prelate's Snowshoes off Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron.
Rings
If you can get into a reputation run of the ICC raid, you can get the Ashen Band of Destruction as a reward for grinding your way to "friendly" with the Ashen Verdict. Even if your DPS isn't quite ready for taking ICC raid bosses, you should be able to put up convincing enough AoE numbers to take on the trash and earn the rep you need for the ring. For the other slot, the Band of the Invoker is available for 35 Triumph Emblems.
Trinkets
First of all, let's get something straight: The Talisman of Resurgence is really easy to obtain through Emblems of Triumph. It's also a really terrible trinket for shadow priests. We get almost no benefit from intellect. You're better off with the Abyssal Rune, found in the non-heroic version of the five-man Trial of the Champion.
To fill the second trinket slot, try to pick up the Nevermelting Ice Crystal from Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron. Its on-use proc can raise your critical strike percentage as high as 50% for a short period of time. Better yet, if you cast Shadow Word: Pain immediately after using the the Nevermelting Ice Crystal, the DoT will keep its 50% critical strike rate for as long as it stay auto-refreshed by Mind Flay. That nice little feature will keep the Nevermelting Ice Crystal relevant well into Icecrown.
Weapon
Once you've got a solid base of higher-end epic gear, you can start exploring the Icecrown Citadel five-man dungeons. In the heroic version of Pit of Saron, Forgemaster Garfrost drops the Surgeon's Needle, which is a great weapon for DPS shadow priests despite the attached MP5. Better yet, if you're lucky enough to find a Battered Hilt, you can complete the quest chain to get the amazing Hammer of Purified Flame.
Off-hand
If you're using a one-handed weapon, be sure to pick up the Shriveled Heart out of the Halls of Reflection. It's a great off-hand, and definitely worth the grind.
Wand
The Brimstone Igniter wand is still the most easily accessable wand in 3.3, available for only 25 Triumph Emblems. The Coffin Nail, a bind-on-pickup trash drop off
The list above is, of course, incomplete. Not all gear is created equal, and you can get some nice upgrades over what's presented here by running a 10- or 25-man version of Trial of the Crusader. But for someone with limited time and limited access to raids, emblems and heroics will get your foot in the door.
As you get geared, remember that the duration of your damage-over-time spells will change with each piece of gear that has haste attached. If you notice a marked change in your haste rating, spend a few moments getting used to the new timing before heading into a raid.
Remember, good gear is only the first step. The second and most important step is your own performance once you have the gear. We'll cover much more on that, starting next week. In the mean time, practice your rotations and give us a good name -- shadow priests need all the good PR we can get.
Hunger for more information about bending the light to your advantage? More interested in watching health bars go down than watching them bounce back up? Think it's neat to dissolve into a ball of pure shadow every few minutes? The darker, shadowy side of Spiritual Guidance has you covered.Filed under: (Priest) Spiritual Guidance, Priest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
jdhorner Jan 13th 2010 2:02PM
Love you Fox! This is such a great starting article to the face melting side of Spiritual Guidance. I'm honored to be a fellow shadow priest with ya!
Great tips and well-written! :D
Zalvi24 Jan 13th 2010 3:28PM
i would level a shadow priest just to so i can come and read your column, and your name is just too awesome
Josh Warner Jan 13th 2010 3:31PM
If you're grinding out heroics for badges, perhaps aren't hitcapped (or are using some high-hit pieces to get there you'd like to drop), I'd strongly recommend going for t9 hands and legs to get the 2 piece rather than the shoulders. Yes, the legs cost a little extra - but if you can use the hit they're vastly better than the other pieces in our t9, and for 45 more emblems of triumph you can get the ilvl 245 spirit/haste shoulders which are considerably better than the t9 232s with spirit/crit.
While it's RNG, I also strongly recommend running 10/25 Ony every week for the crit/haste helm. It's better than everything else out of 3.2, topped only by our t10, and even the 10man version is better than the 'grindable' helm listed above because of how good haste is now.
The only thing really missing here is a gemming guide, so here goes:
Red: 23sp, always.
Orange: 12sp/10haste, always.
Blue: 12sp/10spirit IDEALLY ONLY when the socket bonus is at least 7 sp. If it isn't, go 23sp and ignore the bonus - unless you need that blue gem for your socket bonus.
Shadow's fun again, check it out!
Serbeus Jan 13th 2010 2:09PM
awesome article imo. I hope other classes will have articles similar to this one, kind of a fresh 80/getting back in the game guide.
Andrew R. Jan 13th 2010 2:08PM
+1 just for the picture. A dwarf priest!
I don't even play a priest and this article was extremely well written and detailed to the T.
McGuffer Jan 13th 2010 2:10PM
First off welcome to WoW.com and woohoo a shadow priest columnist, considering my main happens to be a shadow priest (yes I did play him through 3.2) this makes me happy and I look forward to reading your columns in the future. This post happens to be an auspicious start and I greatly enjoyed it.
Yogi Jan 13th 2010 2:16PM
Fox, Coffin Nail wand is from normal mode ICC 5-man trash. Otherwise, nice basic article. Looking for more in-depth stuff to come.
Dahk Jan 13th 2010 2:15PM
I think I am going to like this guy!
deathpool1984 Jan 13th 2010 2:23PM
More Pics of Spriests!!! Great article and a breath of fresh air reading a Shadow only column here on WoW.com. I'm with McGuffer, my main is a spriest (Deathpool @ Eitrigg) and think your tips are great for a fresh 80 spriest wanting to learn the ways of melting face. Grats to ya and HORRAY FOR SPRIESTS!
dfgreat1 Jan 13th 2010 2:24PM
Great info! Been looking forward to this :)
Prella Jan 13th 2010 2:27PM
Very good info indeed. It is so hard to find decent shadow priest info out there on the web. My priest has by far been my favorite character to get to level 80 and has actually far surpassed my main character in terms of gear and power. I do have a couple of questions though. Knowing that the hit cap is 289 is it unsafe to have a hit rating of say 450 or is it just a waste of hit rating to have that high? Reason I ask is I have acquired a lot of gear with more and more hit rating on it but have never replaced any hit rating gems I had from early Naxx raiding gear because I haven't had the gold to replace them. My second question is what kind of haste score should I look to have with all of the new shadow priest changes in 3.3? Currently my haste is 333 and I honestly don't know if that is good bad or mediocre. My spell power seems to be decent in the heroics I have been doing including the new Icecrown heroics. I havent had a lot of opportunities to raid but looking to do more of that. If anyone has any constructive advice then I thank you in advance.
Tarannas
Shadow Priest - Aerie Peak U.S.
jdhorner Jan 13th 2010 2:43PM
Any +hit over the 289 that shadow priests need is basically
considered a "waste" because you could have itemized for some OTHER,
beneficial, stat in place of that hit. Always try and be at or +/-
(near) that magic number, and then start stuffing spellpower, haste,
and crit until the murlocs come home.
Keep in mind that the 289 hit he's referencing includes the hit we
shadow priests get from our 3/3 "Shadow Focus" talent. You -could-
drop those talent points, which would increase your required hit
rating to be 368. (Something to consider if all this +hit gear you
have is better than the non +hit gear you have)
If you're short on cash for gems, you can also trade in Stone Keeper
Shards for honor points which lets you buy gems, or use your emblems
of triumph, traded down to heroism, in exchange for gems (20 for
primary color, 10 for secondary).
Haste doesn't really stop benefiting us with these new changes. The
more you have, the better, (obviously, though, you can't ignore other
stats -- firing off spells super fast doesn't matter much if they're
not packing any spellpower/crit punch. :)
At current upper levels of gear, I've seen posted on sites like
www.shadowpriest.com that haste values in the 700 - 900 range are
rather optimal.
Finally, don't forget to check sites like http://be.imba.hu for your
toon to see what things you _could_ be forgetting about, like certain
enchants and such, and where you could be raiding to get better,
beneficial gear. Finally, don't be afraid of other spriests. We love
spreading the facemelting love, and the more of us that can pew pew
with the best of 'em, the better!
clevins Jan 13th 2010 2:46PM
Replace the gems. Gold isn't hard to get and you'll be better off with SP gems. Direct answer is that you're gimping yourslef with 450 hit because you're wasting a stat. You can't get a higher chance to hit than 100% so hit over that (over 289/263) is better repurposed to some other stat. If you have hit gems, go buy at least blue spellpower gems (Runed Scarlet Ruby). Sorry, gold is SO easy to get that it's simply not an excuse... do the 2 random dungeons and you'll have 50g in addition to the emblems. Do a few daily quests (the Shadow vault ones are FAST) and you get 13g per... that's an easy 100g per day from 2 instance runs and 10 mins of questing.
Hoddie Jan 13th 2010 2:52PM
Having a higher hit rating won't do you any harm unless you could replace some of it immediately for spellpower/haste (re-gem, check glove enchant, etc). The hit figures included in the article assume you have 3 points in Shadow Focus and 3 points in Misery - most shadow priests do but it's worth checking before you start swapping your hit out for something else.
And yes, great to see a spriest column!
birdtongue Jan 13th 2010 2:53PM
shadowpriest.com *cough*
any hit over your 17% cap (289 for Horde, 263 for Alliance with access to a Draenei) is a waste of stats; it doesn't do you any good above that point.
you want to have at the very least 360 (with shammy totem) or 400 haste, to fit 2 full Mind Flays into a fully-talented, 5.5 second Mind Blast cooldown. the only limit is at 1640 haste, which puts the global cooldown at 1 second, which cannot be reduced further.
Jafari Jan 13th 2010 2:58PM
it is pure waste to have hit that high. you can't benefit from the 103% chance to hit any more than you can a 100% chance to hit. Replace those gems with *anything* and you will benefit.
gôulet Jan 14th 2010 12:54AM
Well not to call you out Tarannas but your gems in your "naxx" gear are epic which means you regemmed them with epic hit gems when 3.2 came out. Were you not at hit cap at the time you did that? Also change out your meta for Ember Skyflare and even blue quality sp gems would be better than your hit and intellect gems. Also spell pen does nothing for us in pve. In addition to this awesome new column an amazing resource for us is www.shadowpriest.com, one of the spec/class sites I have seen.
AutumnBringer Jan 13th 2010 2:31PM
"Tailors will probably find more benefit from crafting a Merlin's Robe. "
Just to clarify in case anyone was confused by this, this item is BoE, so although price-wise, it *might* be better for non-tailors to get something else, if you can find it for a good deal on the AH or know a tailor, anyone can get it.
Jonathan DuPont Jan 13th 2010 2:33PM
Hey Fox, great article. very helpful for new Shadow Priests or Priests looking to try Shadow for the first time. Just wanted to note though that the Nevermelting Ice Crystals only add 920 Crit Rating or about 20% chance to crit. Keep up the good work dude.
foxvanallen Jan 13th 2010 2:58PM
You're right, the trinket boosts crit by about 20%. A raiding shadow priest probably starts with about 20% crit base, maybe 25% with really good gear. Combine that with 2/2 in the Mind Melt talent, raid with a Boomkin, and have the shammy in your raid put down the right totems and you can see the crit rate on Shadow Word: Pain actually go well beyond 50%.