Spiritual Guidance: Spring cleaning your talent tree
by Fox Van Allen 
May 19th 2010 at 8:00PM
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. Electric word, life. It means forever and that's a mighty long time. But I'm here to tell you -- there's something else. The World of Warcraft. A world of never-ending gnome corpses. You can always see the shadows, day or night. So when you call up that Spiritual Guidance columnist in Beverly Hills -- you know the one, Dr. Fox Van Allen -- instead of asking him how much of your time is left, ask him how much of your mind, baby. Cause he's going to flay it into effing oblivion every Wednesday.
Ladies and gentlemen, my first car ever was my grandmother's old 1986 Ford Taurus. It had a digital speedometer and a pretty kicking tape deck. I even got the sample cassette tape that came with the car. I spent some of the best years of my life cruising the Garden State while listening to Neil Diamond's Heartlight and the theme to Cats. (Before you judge, most of you were listening to Sugar Ray and the theme to Friends instead at the time.)
What in the hell does that have to deal with shadow priesting? The car was the right fit for me a decade ago, but it's just not right for me anymore. In Warcraft, just as in life, the right choices change over time. I mean, what the hell am I going to do without an iPod connection in my car? And Ford Tauruses -- do they still even make those?
When I applied for a new raid team a few months ago, I went to my class trainer and put together a pretty good build for my shadow priest. It worked great then for the content I was working on. After re-examining my build, I realize that times have changed, and so should my talent tree.
Psychic Horror was a great ability during Trial of the Grand Crusader progression. It's useless in Icecrown. And it's not the only talent that has outlived its usefulness. Shifting around a few points can have a very noticeable effect on your DPS, mana regen, and survivability.
The price to respec varies -- it could cost you as much as 50 gold depending on how many times you've done it recently. Still, when you compare that to the amount you spend twice that on a single epic gem and even more on high-end enchants, respecing gives you one of the best returns on investment in the game.
Ladies and gentlemen, my first car ever was my grandmother's old 1986 Ford Taurus. It had a digital speedometer and a pretty kicking tape deck. I even got the sample cassette tape that came with the car. I spent some of the best years of my life cruising the Garden State while listening to Neil Diamond's Heartlight and the theme to Cats. (Before you judge, most of you were listening to Sugar Ray and the theme to Friends instead at the time.)
What in the hell does that have to deal with shadow priesting? The car was the right fit for me a decade ago, but it's just not right for me anymore. In Warcraft, just as in life, the right choices change over time. I mean, what the hell am I going to do without an iPod connection in my car? And Ford Tauruses -- do they still even make those?
When I applied for a new raid team a few months ago, I went to my class trainer and put together a pretty good build for my shadow priest. It worked great then for the content I was working on. After re-examining my build, I realize that times have changed, and so should my talent tree.
Psychic Horror was a great ability during Trial of the Grand Crusader progression. It's useless in Icecrown. And it's not the only talent that has outlived its usefulness. Shifting around a few points can have a very noticeable effect on your DPS, mana regen, and survivability.
The price to respec varies -- it could cost you as much as 50 gold depending on how many times you've done it recently. Still, when you compare that to the amount you spend twice that on a single epic gem and even more on high-end enchants, respecing gives you one of the best returns on investment in the game.
Taking my own advice to heart, I took a portal to Ironforge last night and wiped my talents clean so I could rebuild from scratch. (Don't be afraid to do the same!) After pondering my build for a good while, I came up with some advice for the rest of you.
Let's get the easy part out of the way -- there are a bunch of talents that you don't have any business missing out on.
That which makes us shadow priests
You are not a valid shadow priest if you do not spend the talent points to grab Mind Flay, Vampiric Touch, and Shadowform, and Vampiric Embrace. You should also be going 2/2 in Improved Vampiric Embrace. In ICC fights of consequence, your raid will be taking periodic ticks of atmospheric damage. Every little bit of healing helps, especially against the Lich King's Infest attack and during Putricide's third phase. There's simply no better place for those talent points.
Moar Dee-pee-ess
Moar Dee-pee-ess
We're not running as shadow priests because we want to hug gnomes and plant flowers. We're running as shadow priests because we want to melt dudes' faces off. As such, the next priority in your talent build should be including the talents that result in the most noticeable DPS increases. Darkness, Shadow Focus, Improved Shadow Word: Pain, Shadow Weaving, Veiled Shadows, Mind Melt, Improved Devouring Plague, Shadow Power, Misery, and Twisted Faith, along with Twin Disciplines and Improved Inner Fire in the Discipline tree, are all primarily about boosting the amount of damage you deal. Max out each and every one when you're at level 80, no matter how you play. Throw Shadow Reach in there too as an indirect boost to your DPS.
Now, from here on out, the choices get a bit more optional. There are no absolute right or wrong answer that works for everybody -- different goals; different talent builds.
Improved Mind Blast
Now, from here on out, the choices get a bit more optional. There are no absolute right or wrong answer that works for everybody -- different goals; different talent builds.
Improved Mind Blast
I got an e-mail this week from a reader who was grouped up with another shadow priest in a heroic. The reader paid attention to the other shadow priest's play style, and noticed that he wasn't using Mind Blast in his rotation.
You see, Mind Blast is a great spell, and it does more damage per second cast than Mind Flay in most situations. When you get your four-piece tier 10 bonus, they wind up being near equal in terms of DPS -- at least to the point where theory crafting is within the margin of error. Because of this, a lot of people just drop Mind Blast entirely.
If you like numbers (and I know you do), Dusknoir has an excellent post this week about Mind Blast and whether or not you should keep it in your rotation once you get the four-piece bonus. The most important takeaway from the article is how little impact the decision on whether to keep Mind Blast has on your DPS -- we're talking fractions of a fraction.
What does this mean for your talent tree? If you're leveling or raiding without the full four-piece tier 10, Mind Blast is definitely stronger than Mind Flay, so you'll want to stay 5/5 in Improved Mind Blast. If you're enjoying the shorter Mind Flay channel from a four-piece tier 10 bonus, you're probably not going to miss dropping down to 0/5 in Improved Mind Blast.
If you're planning on dropping Mind Blast in its entirety, though, consider this: Replenishment is likely a large reason why you were invited to your raid. Every time you hit an enemy with Mind Blast (provided they're already inflicted with Vampiric Touch), you're giving your team a valuable 15 second mana regen boost. Don't be a jerk for the sake of padding the meters. Make sure to cast a Mind Blast at least once every fourteen seconds.
Spirit Taps
You see, Mind Blast is a great spell, and it does more damage per second cast than Mind Flay in most situations. When you get your four-piece tier 10 bonus, they wind up being near equal in terms of DPS -- at least to the point where theory crafting is within the margin of error. Because of this, a lot of people just drop Mind Blast entirely.
If you like numbers (and I know you do), Dusknoir has an excellent post this week about Mind Blast and whether or not you should keep it in your rotation once you get the four-piece bonus. The most important takeaway from the article is how little impact the decision on whether to keep Mind Blast has on your DPS -- we're talking fractions of a fraction.
What does this mean for your talent tree? If you're leveling or raiding without the full four-piece tier 10, Mind Blast is definitely stronger than Mind Flay, so you'll want to stay 5/5 in Improved Mind Blast. If you're enjoying the shorter Mind Flay channel from a four-piece tier 10 bonus, you're probably not going to miss dropping down to 0/5 in Improved Mind Blast.
If you're planning on dropping Mind Blast in its entirety, though, consider this: Replenishment is likely a large reason why you were invited to your raid. Every time you hit an enemy with Mind Blast (provided they're already inflicted with Vampiric Touch), you're giving your team a valuable 15 second mana regen boost. Don't be a jerk for the sake of padding the meters. Make sure to cast a Mind Blast at least once every fourteen seconds.
Spirit Taps
The way our talent tree is set up, if you don't take Improved Mind Blast, you're going to need to pick a replacement from the earlier talent tiers. Spirit Tap and Improved Spirit Tap are the way to go. Spirit Tap is pretty useless in raiding, but it does provide access to Improved Spirit Tap. The latter provides a small increase to your DPS (not much, but at least as much as you'd get from Improved Mind Blast) and helps with mana regen as well.
Improved Shadow Form
Improved Shadow FormIn my old ICC builds, I passed on taking Improved Shadow Form -- it was the right choice for me at the time. You suffer constant raid-wide damage during Putricide and Festergut, but they're not accompanied by push back effects. For the most part, the only fights in Icecrown where push back is a problem are trash pulls.
The only fights, that is, until you reach the Lich King. There are repeated push back effects during the phase transitions due to his Pain and Suffering attack. Since churning out DPS is your top priority during the phase transition, Improved Shadow Form will prove to be a great benefit in the fight.
It's not the right talent for everyone, but if you're taking on the Lich King -- or even if you just spend a lot of time doing dailies -- the two points you put here will provide you with some great returns.
Shadow Affinity
The threat-reducing Shadow Affinity talent is another great example of a talent that's useful to some, but worthless to others. If you run a lot of heroics or raid with newer or undergeared tanks, this will hold a lot more value for you. If you're part of a hardcore raid team, it's an awful lot harder to grab aggro.
You should know better than anyone else whether you need to put a point or two here. If you ever find yourself having to slow down DPS to keep from building too much threat, you will definitely want to take a good look at this one as a DPS-boosting (and survival-boosting) talent.
Mana regen
The only fights, that is, until you reach the Lich King. There are repeated push back effects during the phase transitions due to his Pain and Suffering attack. Since churning out DPS is your top priority during the phase transition, Improved Shadow Form will prove to be a great benefit in the fight.
It's not the right talent for everyone, but if you're taking on the Lich King -- or even if you just spend a lot of time doing dailies -- the two points you put here will provide you with some great returns.
Shadow Affinity
The threat-reducing Shadow Affinity talent is another great example of a talent that's useful to some, but worthless to others. If you run a lot of heroics or raid with newer or undergeared tanks, this will hold a lot more value for you. If you're part of a hardcore raid team, it's an awful lot harder to grab aggro.
You should know better than anyone else whether you need to put a point or two here. If you ever find yourself having to slow down DPS to keep from building too much threat, you will definitely want to take a good look at this one as a DPS-boosting (and survival-boosting) talent.
Mana regen
Repeat after me: Dispersion is a survivability talent, not a mana regen talent.
Here's my issue with Dispersion: A lot of people use it primarily to restore their blue mana bar. While it's effective at doing that, each second you stay dispersed is a second you're not actually DPSing your target. If our goal is maximize our DPS, then we want to get our mana regen elsewhere.
Ideally, you want to have just enough mana regen so you have just enough to last through the lengthiest, mana intensive fight without having to resort to Dispersion. When evaluating your new talent build, ask yourself the following questions:
Here's my issue with Dispersion: A lot of people use it primarily to restore their blue mana bar. While it's effective at doing that, each second you stay dispersed is a second you're not actually DPSing your target. If our goal is maximize our DPS, then we want to get our mana regen elsewhere.
Ideally, you want to have just enough mana regen so you have just enough to last through the lengthiest, mana intensive fight without having to resort to Dispersion. When evaluating your new talent build, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I ever go out of mana (or have to rely on Dispersion) during prolonged raid fights? If so, you need to readjust your tree to include more mana-saving talents.
- Do you have too much mana regen? If you still have a sizable portion of your mana left after the most grueling raid fight (for me, that's Putricide hard mode), then you may be able to use one of those mana regen talent points elsewhere.
Be sure to grab Dispersion for your build, of course. Just don't use it as your mana regen crutch.
Pain and Suffering: Two or three?
Pain and Suffering is a required talent, hands down. But can you get away with putting only two of three points here? Is it okay to settle for a 67% chance to refresh Shadow Word: Pain on a successful Mind Flay hit, especially if you're casting Mind Flay to the exclusion of Mind Blast?
Personally, I recommend maxing this out at 3/3. There are plenty of fights where you'll be able to get away with 2/3. But to keep our maximum DPS, we need to make sure that our initial blast of Shadow Word: Pain (ideally done under the effect of a Wild Magic Potion at the start of the fight) never drops off. In a fights involving target switching, such as Saurfang or Putricide, I frequently find myself refreshing SW:P at the last possible second after spending a solid chunk of time on an add.
Without maxing the talent out, I'd be rolling the dice. No thanks.
Rolling out the new build
So, what did I come up with in the end for my new heroic ICC build? I jettisoned Improved Mind Blast for to take more mana cost reducing talents (even delving into Mental Agility), which will allow me to be more aggressive in spamming Devouring Plague when a fight calls for a lot of movement. And I put Improved Shadowform back into the mix after a long hiatus, so I can boost my DPS on the Lich King fight. In the end, I wound up with this 16/0/55 build.
Is it the right build for me? Time will tell as I put it into action this week. But if it doesn't work out, that's cool -- I love playing around with talent points. And I love taking a look at other people's talent trees and seeing if I can't gather some new ideas or strategies from them.
I'll close out this column with few questions to the audience: Aside from the obvious, where do you invest your more marginal talent points? How does your talent build reflect your individual play style?
And, of course, if you've got a great spriest talent build to show off, I'd love to see it. (And so would the rest of the class.)
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? Hate gnomes? The darker, shadowy side of Spiritual Guidance has you covered. Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
benedikto May 19th 2010 8:06PM
been playing shadow for 2 years now and I ve NEVER been able to run out of mana
theRaptor May 19th 2010 8:49PM
Not even during the replenishment nerf around 3.2? I had to chain darksquid/dispersion/pot to maintain my mana just on target dummies when they did that. I then spent about six months playing enhancement shaman because I found it ridiculous what shadow priests had been reduced to (rubbish DPS and not worth taking over any other replenishment build).
Gothia May 20th 2010 3:53AM
@theraptor
Stick to Shaman man because you haven't a clue how to play a Shadow Priest. Even without the glyph of shadow word pain, http://www.wowhead.com/spell=57192 impossible to burn your mana, I still don't even come close to running out of mana. If anything Shadow Priest should feel guilty about our mana regen abilities. I know i do, I still can't get my damn'd mana bar to move during burn phases. We need more nukes.
theRaptor May 20th 2010 4:41AM
@Gothia
Right, because during the replenishment nerf G:SWP gave mana regen. /sarcasm
If you knew as much about shadow priests as you think you do you would know that the replenishment change affected our regen to the point where, in combination with our terrible DPS, they had to give shadow priests a mini-review. You need to stick to trolling the WoW forums if you can't tell I was referring to a specific time period where, without top end gear, it was possible to OOM as a shadow priest (particularly if you needed to do anything but DPS). The fact that they changed G:SWP to give mana regen should hit you with the clue stick that mana regen was a problem at the time.
And no Shadow priests shouldn't feel guilty about their mana regen as it is the whole concept behind the spec.
Adeany May 19th 2010 8:13PM
Personally, I go through 2/2 Improved Psychic Scream to pick up Silence, and the ranged interrupt has been pretty useful in ICC.
Also, Dusknoir is one word.
Spazmoose May 19th 2010 8:47PM
The problem with Silence, as was experienced way back in Tempest Keep (though I will be honest that I haven't tried it out recently), is that a lot of mobs, particularly in raids, are actually immune to Silence, making it unreliable.
Also, because Psychic Scream has extremely limited use, especially in a raid environment, due to its tendency to simply pull more mobs, resulting in more harm than good, I would actually steer people away from these two talents.
Adeany May 19th 2010 11:24PM
I guess I was kind of unclear. I'll agree that Psychic Scream is basically useless in a raid environment, but the only way to get to Silence is to talent into 2/2 Imp. Psychic Scream.
All raid bosses are still immune to casting lockout component of the spell, but the interrupt component is still effective, and 3 talent points for a ranged interrupt is a pretty good deal, considering there honestly isn't anywhere else to put them.
Dusknoir May 20th 2010 12:29AM
I agree on all accounts. ;)
visitingl337n00b May 20th 2010 9:59AM
I'd say silence has saved my raid from wiping three times in ICC (twice to pull in Plague Scientists so we wouldn't accidentally pull a dog when we didn't want to, once on a Deathwhisper frost bolt), and saved us some inconvenience against paladin severed essences when we pull both Val'kyrs at once. That's is more than any alternative I can come up for those three points would have done.
Lightfall May 19th 2010 8:37PM
Can I buy your Taurus? Lol.
Inversion May 19th 2010 8:43PM
For the record, the Prince intro was epic. Shadow priests go CRAZY!
icepyro May 19th 2010 9:59PM
Aha! Thanks! I read it correctly with the organs and all in my mind, but just couldn't quite place it until your comment jump started my brain.
Good intro.
GerardthePriest May 19th 2010 8:45PM
Good column, got me thinking about changing my spec, which I haven't done in a long while. I dual-purpose my shadow spec for both PvE and PvP, so my priorities aren't just 100% DPS and longevity, like they would be for PvE alone. But until this column I had never even _thought_ about dropping the spirit tap talents, so basic do they seem to me since leveling shadow. But you've talked me into the usefulness of Improved Shadowform and Improved Vampiric Embrace for PvE and they both have clear PvP utility. So I'm dropping the spirit taps and picking those up.
So thanks for the thoughtful analysis!
One question: you say "dispersion is a survivability talent," which I agree with. But in PvE, as DPS, there should never be a situation where you need a 90% damage reduction for 6 seconds at the expense of your DPS for that period. It's just one talent point - I'm not arguing against it, and obviously as someone who PvPs I take it. But how do you justify including a survivability talent when that's clearly not even a remote consideration in the rest of your analysis and you reject its use as mana regen?
Chuie May 19th 2010 9:26PM
There is a few. Sindragosa's Unchained Magic is the obvious one that came to mind. If you use someone to eat up all the vile spirits in the LK fights it's another time where dispersion shines.
My question is though I do go through some fights when I run out of mana if I don't use dispersion (Heroic deathwishper), I just assume that was normal because I cast so many VT during the fight (do mix with mind blast as well). Is that actually not normal?
Phaelien May 20th 2010 7:05AM
There are many many more places in current content where Dispersion is of great use as a Damage-reduction ability. From the top of my head, here's where I've found it useful:
Lord Marrowgar (H), Bone Spiked during Bone Storm.
Deathbringer Saurfang (H), Focus-fire a Blood Beast, tank it for a few seconds while your DoTs and raidmates kill it.
Sindragosa, gain huge stacks of Unchained Magic, use to reduce the huge backlash.
Lady Deathwhisper, During Bloodbolt Whirl, if you can't get within range of DPSing. You can also use it before biting if you need to bite during Bloodbolt Whirl, or just before being bitten to reduce bite damage.
Rotface: Reduces incoming damage from Mutated Infection / Small Ooze, useful for moving Small Ooze into position.
Festergut: Dispersion becomes the best ability ever. Use it as he's casting Pungent Blight and forget about getting Inoculated ever again... unless you're the target of the spore.
Prof. Putricide: Get yourself stuck between a bunch of Slime Puddles during P3, Dispersion to cross over them to a safe spot in front of the raid.
Lich King: Use during Harvest Soul, make your healers love you long time.
And of course, you can use it in during sections of fights where you can't DPS to regen mana (Phase transition on Putricide is just one example).
Dispersion has never been so useful!
Fox Van Allen May 20th 2010 9:53AM
"But in PvE, as DPS, there should never be a situation where you need a 90% damage reduction for 6 seconds at the expense of your DPS for that period."
I'll echo what the others who responded said -- there are a number of places where Dispersion is a net DPS increase. Notably, during Unchained Magic in Sindragosa and during spores on Festergut. (I'm not so sure I'd play around with it with Blood Beasts, but to each his own.)
The main thing that I have to add is that you can -- and often should -- cancel out of Dispersion before the six seconds is up if it's being used for raw survivability. It's handy to make a simple dispersion macro so you can click in and out of Dispersion with the same button (I just pulled this from Arena Junkies):
#showtooltip Dispersion
/cancelaura [modifier:alt] Dispersion
/cast Dispersion
"But how do you justify including a survivability talent when that's clearly not even a remote consideration in the rest of your analysis and you reject its use as mana regen?"
Oh, survivability is definitely a consideration in the analysis. I admit my main focus is maximizing damage, but I always keep the following in mind: survivability = fewer deaths = more lifetime damage done.
If you want to push survivability a bit further, I'd recommend that a shadow priest who does a lot of 10-man raiding without a disc priest strongly consider the benefit of Improved Power Word: Shield. Self-shielding is very helpful for Saurfang and LK.
GerardthePriest May 20th 2010 11:09AM
Good answers, all. Unfocused magic is clearly an excellent use of Dispersion and I can see where glyphing it just for that fight would even make sense. And I've used Dispersion to save myself in a few situations, and it's a fun talent to play with. I just wanted to know Fox's thoughts on taking it, since survivability was definitely a sort of "distant third" priority in this column. (I'm actually not sure what the second would be, we'll just say that DPS is so important that it's #1 and #2.)
Thanks for the click on click off macro tip, too, Fox - I've previously dealt with a few seconds of frustration as I tried to find the icon to click it off and/or just waited to begin DPSing again.
Naphomci May 20th 2010 12:29PM
A few things people forget about Dispersion.
1. It removes movement reducing effects and makes you immune to them. During heroic rotface, you can sling through a slimed corner of the room and catch/meet the kiter.
2. Living through a hard enrage at 1%. My guilds first heroic beasts (Icehowl enraged before the smash, one shotting everyone in the raid but me, with 300k or something left), our first normal and heroic BQL kills and at least one other fight, I was the only one left standing because of dispserion. Hell the world first 25 man firefighter was won on the back of a shadow priest using dispersion.
3. You can use items while dispersed. The healing trinket from BQL (heroic version has a 2 min cooldown on use 7600-8400 heal) can be used while in dispersion (amazing in PvP) and various other items can be used to be quite helpful and pull some fun little tricks out.
Jonisjalopy May 19th 2010 9:10PM
Just FYI, they do still make the Taurus.
Still a piece of crap, but they make it :D
Spazmoose May 19th 2010 9:21PM
I can honestly say that I have not seen very many on the roads in the past couple years; ever since they introduced the Focus.
Regardless, I feel for you Fox; my first car (that wasn't a "hand-me-down" from my beat-a-car-to-death brothers) was a Taurus. Hideous thing that got horrible gas mileage, had constant electrical problems (at one time I had no power windows, power locks, windshield wipers, or power steering, due to electrical issues) as well as the paint was flaking off when it was barely 5 years old. It really was a PoS, but I had fun in that car...oh, to be back in High School.