How I Play my Shadow Priest in a Raid.

I posted this on my guild's site www.escalationguild.info - I wrote this so I could help fellow Shadow Priests out there, that want to just attain a bit more from the class.

Alot of guides have been written, alot of guides have stated how a shadowpriest works, operates, preforms, or how to play one. This isn't a guide on how to play one, this is a post about what how I play a Shadowpriest in raids, which might help some people better grasp the class, or just improve some things. I've left out the basic stuff, and some other information, as it wasnt needed deemed by me. Any questions, or additions, please post, and continue it!

Glossary of Terms:
VE - Vampiric Embrace
VT - Vampiric Touch
SPWR - Spell Power
SWD - Shadow Word:Death
SWP - Shadow Word:Pain
MB - Mind Blast
MF - Mind Flay
IF - Inner Focus
DP - Devouring Plague
CD - CoolDown(s)

Spec and Glyphs

I simply juggle between 2 specs. One is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuZZG ... zAo:aqhzV0 - I Currently use this spec, as IF is great for popping it before a huge AOE spam fest, and also helping out with heals with Divine Hymn if the healers are behind. I'll go into this more later. The other spec I joggle is the cookie cutter http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xm ... 3152301351 - Neither is wrong, but i prefer to have a spell that gives me a chance to do a crit and is mana free. There's other specs for certain fights like a General Hardmode Spec or Freya Hardmode with Improved VE and go into holy and get spell warding. When these fights were first introduced, these helped a ton in learning the encounter. But as of 09/15/09 - those specs are pretty much worthless now. Due to Blizzard nerfing the encounters, it's doable now without going down those roads.

Glyphs are pretty Standard - Majors: Shadow, MF, SWP. SWD is useless, as you won't get any benefit from it, as the spell has too long of a CD. Minors are pretty much up to you, but i always get Levitate, ShadowFiend, Fade. Again you do what you want here.

Gear - Hit Rating - Gems - Enchants

Gear: I tend to pick my gear choices on alot of Spell Power, alot of Crit, and Some Haste. Why I don't like alot of haste, because we as a Shadow Priest don't scale well with it. Our dots aren't effected by it, and MB is very useful if we can get 2 MF in per MB off Global Cooldown. This is how I personally rate my haste rating to be at. 2 MF per MB. If MB comes off GCD too early, it will usually keep me from reapplying dots, which I aim to have 100% uptime on, and keeps me from getting constant MB casts. However you can work this in, by 4piece t8 or just having a butt load of haste, work in it. This will help you, tremendously, try it out. I tend to get alot of crit gear, because it scales with us very good, and our bread and butter spells rely on it. So don't gimp your Crit too much. I also tend to not go for every single slot with best in slot gear, i like to use what is useful for me, not what some spreadsheet thinks i should get. With not having any knowing of my Latency to the server, Other stats.

Hit Rating - Pretty easy here. 289 for Horde - 263 Ally with a Draeni in raid. Always be at the hit cap, it's the single most important DPS boost you'll ever have in this game. I don't need to go any further.

Gems - I use 2 Gems - Spell Power and Spell Power Crit. I use Spell Power/Crit gems when the slot is yellow and either brings more crit rating, or more than 5 spell power. You can't go wrong in gemming for pure Spell Power, but 10 crit rating is very nice, and we scale well with it.

Enchants - It's very simple here. 10stats to chest - Spell Power to Gloves/Bracers. Spell Power to MaindHand - Legs - I personally juggle between Spell Power/Stamina for fights that my guild is learning on - And Spell Power/Spirit when we do farm mode content. Feet - Personally, I like tuskarr's - you can't go wrong with increased moving speed, as this enchants is helpful for the people with piss-poor reaction times, and sometimes blizzard wants you to move faster out of shit. Icewalker I currently use, because I like the crit, and I dont have a problem moving out of shit, you'll find what's best for you. Head - Kirin Tor Exalted - Shoulder - Inscription/Sons of Hodir. Cloak - Tailor/LightWeave - Haste if not.

Rotation

My personal starting rotation is: VT, MB, SWD, DP, MF1 (which means I let MF tick 1x)SWP. This personally gives me the best DMG/Replinshment uptime I can provide, with misery being up immediately. I've personally tried alot of combos, but to me this what gets me 5/5 Shadow Weaving stacks quick, plus allow my dots to tick and start of my MB priority to go into effect. Now this next statement alot of fellow Shadow Priests disagree with me on, but if you take a look at my parses, i'm no slouch in terms of DMG/DPS and I've even have some top world listed parses in the world according to WMO (and it wasn't just mind-sear spamming either!) I clip mind-flays. I give a priority spell rotation to MB and my reapplying of Dots. I have a mod called Quartz Latency MF2 - http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/i ... cyMF2.html
This mod allows you to predict when the 2nd tick of your MF will be applied. This goes back to my earlier statement of haste and how I like to have 2 MF for every MB. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way, but usually it does. To me MF is a filler, not a main DMG spell. Alot of people again disagree, but up-time on your VT/DP and not missing a MB cast is what gives SP high dmg, not channeling 3 ticks of a spell that mainly does 3-6k depending on your gear/trinkets procced etc.. I also use SWD alot for when I have to Move, or when I have a gap between my MB coming off cool-down and a MF i just finished channeling. Again, alot of fellow SPs don't do it, but i personally find it to be worth-while and sometimes necessary to do.

Tab Dotting is if multiple mobs are present, is going to improve your dmg greatly. On any fight that has adds involved, that I cannot mindsear - I throw up VT and SWP - and reapply when needed. Get a good multi-target dot mod, so you know when you need to reapply. If the fight is going to be a huge AOE dmg fest, i also put up VE on every single mob i can find, it's not much but helps.

AOE with more than 3 MOBs - This is when you sit back and cast MindSear and watch the dmg roll in. This is truly our bread and butter spell, and should always be used when the fight allows it. Popping IF and MindSear and watch your dmg go thru the roof.

Healing and Singing Mana for your healers - Yes you can do it.

Just because we're Shadow, doesn't mean we dont use the tools we have available to us in the holy tree, cannot be used in a raid. If you see the raid is taking massive amounts of dmg, popping out and casting Divine Hymn with a POM can save a raid. Casting Hymn of Hope to help your healers/fellow casters who are OOM or Low on Mana can save a raid. You have to think outside of the box, and not tunnel on 1 aspect of the game. You have tools available to you as shadow, there's nothing wrong in using them. Healers in my guild(s) will always tell you, i'm always willing to 'sing' for them, and help heal when needed. You all should be as well!


Mods

I use Quartz, Quartz LatencyMF2, ForteXorcist, Power Auras, Grid, Omen. Big Wigs or DBM Is fine, its personal choice. I don't use a dmg meter because it takes up too much CPU cycles, and i rather have them going to the game. World of Logs have a great real time session logger if you need to see it asap. It doesnt use at all the amount of memory/CPU cycles as Recount/Skada or any other dmg meter uses.


8 things to keep in mind

1. Dont die to stupid shit. Crap that is ticking under your feet, is there for you to move out from, not stand in.
2. Always apply SWP after you have 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving.
3. Keep and Reapply your Dots always. Dont channel MF to the end if your VT/DP is failing off.
4. Never miss a Mindblast Cool Down. Make sure this spell is always casted, never miss if you can.
5. If you need to move, pre-emptive know where you're going to move to. too much moving = less dps time, which = less dmg.
6. Never out range totems. Everything helps us, totems help us alot - don't move out of range of such.
7. If there are adds being off-tanked - dotting them up with VT/SWP will improve your overall dmg. This is the only way we can stay competitive, as we're not a single target dps class.
8. Know your class limitations, and your raid leader should know as well. We'll always be behind other dps classes on XT heart dmg - we're going to be behind on alot of single target bosses. It's the nature of our class, and hopefully blizzard will fix it, which i hope.


I'll add more to this when I can, but this is just a quick jotting down of how I play my class. Mind the grammar/spelling - I'm from brooklyn NY and I'm italian, so i type the way i sound!