Shadow Priest Talent Guide - Updated for patch 5.1

I wrote a Shadow Priest Talent guide a couple months ago and I wanted to update it for you guys now. After getting to know Mists of Pandaria a little better and seeing some of the changes that are coming, I have some new opinions on some of the talents. I wont go too in depth with all of them, I'll just share my new thoughts on each tier of abilities.

This first tier is one of debate among the shadow community. There are people that say Psyfiend is a must and people who say Void Tendrils can't be beat. Most people don't bother much with Dominate Mind unless they just want a bit of fun. What ever your opinion, this tier is very much up to you. Play style will dictate what works best for you and that may not be the same as someone else. My initial thought was that Psyfiend was great and Void Tendrils had some bug issues. Over time I've come to really enjoy Void Tendrils though. That's not to say that Psyfiend isn't good, but there are some nerfs coming.

As of now Void Tendrils is my favorite just based on play style. There is nothing better for getting a train of melee off of you in a battleground. Psyfiend is great against a single target or a caster, where Void Tendril is kind of useless against casters. Blizzard is going to be changing Psyfiend in the upcoming patch 5.1. The cast time of the pets fear will become a 2 second cast meaning you get less fears during it's duration. They are also lowering the pets health. Rather than 30% of your max health, the pet now only gets 10% of your max health. This will make it extremely easy to kill and could cause it to be very ineffective.

A common tactic I've seen to combat Psyfiend recently is warriors using mass spell reflect when they see one. This way the pet will fear itself. Once your Psyfiend is feared it's as good as dead. Also, in patch 5.1, warlocks and paladin's will be able to cc your psyfiend. Paladin's can use Turn Evil on them and Warlocks can use Banish. This along with the pets lowered health pool will greatly drop it's effectiveness in the next patch which is why I think I'll be sticking with Void Tendrils.

The second tier is a bit more clear. Once again you have a play style choice to make, but it's an easier one. Some people like to use the speed buffs from the first two talents while most players prefer the trinket like effects of Phantasm. This removes all movement impairing effects and makes you untargetable by ranged attacks.

While the speed can be nice, Phantasm is useful in far too many situations to pass up. It's great against melee who are slowing you and it's great against casters. You can use it as an interrupt to stop casters from being able to hit you. This is far to useful to miss in my opinion so I say use Phantasm hands down.

This tier has uses for different specs and situations in my opinion. For the battlegrounds, "From Darkness, Comes Light" is amazing. The procs you get allow you to deal large amounts of damage. You can also use it in arena but you may not get as many procs. This is dependent on being able to use Vampiric Touch a lot.

Mindbender is great for arena. With a 1 minute cooldown, you get a nice mana regen as well as help with your burst from a pet that does decent damage. This can really help in smaller fights when your not able to get many procs from your Vampiric Touch.

Power Word: Insanity (shadow version) is great in duels. You'll get a guaranteed big hit every time your shdow word pain gets below 5 seconds. This is not good in battlegrounds because you can only use it on the target with the 5 seconds remaining. When you're dotting multiple targets, it can be hard to keep track and find that target again. However, in a duel when there is only one target, this can be great.

From left to right on this tier you're going from large battles to smaller battles, battlegrounds to duels. Keep that in mind when deciding what to use here.

I'll keep this one quick because once again it's a play style choice you have to make. All of these are great abilities and all of them will work in multiple situations. My choice for this is Angelic Bulwark because of it's passive nature. I love anything passive because you don't have to think about it, it just works. Again, any of these will work well so just find what works best for you.

This is also a quick one for a shadow priest. Twist of Fate is too difficult to manage most of the time and Power Infusion can work but is better geared toward healers. As a shadow priest, Divine Insight is the only way to go.

Your most important spell as a shadow priest is Devouring Plague which uses shadow orbs to cast. Mind Blast generates shadow orbs so, the more Mind Blasts you can cast the more Devouring Plague's you can cast. This makes Divine Insight crucial to success as a shadow priest.

This tier is a mix of play style and game type. When in arena, Halo is a great choice for getting rouges out of stealth. This can be game changing by not allowing them to have an opener. Halo also does great damage but only if the target is at max range and at a huge mana cost. This is also what makes it not as useful in my opinion for battlegrounds.

In battlegrounds Cascade is my choice. You get nice damage, a short cooldown and low mana cost. This makes it a great ability to use on cooldown, but it does have a draw back. You can't control where it bounces. This means you could break important cc in a fight and make things far more difficult on yourself.

Divine Star is similar to Cascade but does not do as much damage. That's not to say the damage is bad, it's still decent. This decent damage along with very low mana cost and a super fast cooldown make it great for constant use. Another perk to this is that you control where it goes, meaning you can avoid breaking cc with it.

This is a hard one to call. In the arena, go with Halo. When you're in the battlegrounds either Cascade or Divine Star will work. Just find what works best for you and what you find the most fun. I personally enjoy Cascade but I do change it up from time to time and use Divine Star.

I hope this guide was able to help you make some decisions on what to do with your shadow priest. Please leave a comment with any other suggestions you may have and want to share with everyone. Also, be sure to check out my YouTube channel for more Shadow Priest PvP info.

World of Warcraft Battle Ground Strategies for Solo Players

I often play battle grounds as a solo player as I'm sure most people do. In battle grounds there is always an objective of some kind that your team needs to control in order to win. This can sometimes be difficult when there is no verbal communication or teamwork on your side. I'd like to talk about a few tips that can help you be a key contributor to your teams victory even when you're playing solo.

The first thing to keep in mind is true no matter what you're doing. Always remember that you're never actually playing solo. Even when you que up and join alone, once you get into the battle ground you're part of a team. This is something so simple and yet so many people play as if no one else was around. When you're in a battle ground make sure to keep an eye on the objectives and where your team is. When you see a weak spot go check it out. Please don't mindlessly run around just focusing on killing everything you see. Lets talk about some more specific things you can do to help your team to victory.

The two main mechanics for objective based battle grounds are capture the flag and a sort of king of the hill. Capture the flag refers to Warsong Gultch and Twin Peaks while king of the hill refers to Arathi Basin and Battle for Gilneas. When doing either one, always be mindful of what the objective is. With capture the flag, you always want to be doing one of two things. Make sure you're either supporting your flag carrier or attacking the enemy teams flag carrier. People who run around in the middle in of the field don't typically help the team in any way, however that is not always true. There are times when you can hold an enemy team in their spawn, not allowing them to assist their objectives. This is a truly rare thing so don't attempt to do it, just take advantage when the opportunity arises. Also, you never want to attack the enemy flag carrier alone. They will usually have other people in the room helping them and you don't stand a very good chance trying to fight 3v1. Don't be afraid to call for help and just wait a minute for your team to come assist you. If played correctly you can get the upper hand on the enemy by going in as a group.

Now on to king of the hill. In this game type you're fighting over key points on the map. Your team gains points by controlling these areas. The key to these is very similar to capture the flag. Always make sure you understand what the objective is. The goal is to always control more points on the map than the enemy team does. Once you've accomplished this, stay put. The reason most teams fail to win is because they get greedy and try to capture everything. Don't make this mistake. When you're team controls the majority of the points you should go into defensive mode. Stay near a flag and make sure the enemy team doesn't take control of it. If you see that the other team is sending more people at you than you can handle, just call for help and hold them away from the flag as long as you can.

There is also one last game type that is a combination of both capture the flag and king of the hill. This game type refers to Eye of the Storm. In here you want to make sure that your team is in control of the majority of the points once again. You can do this by either holding more bases than the other team or by holding the bases on your side of the map and controlling the center flag that you need to capture. You can use the tips from the previous game types to help in this battle ground so I wont get into any more detail.

I hope that this quick guide is able to help you. Make sure you keep an eye out for some upcoming videos that will show the different battle grounds and how to be effective using the tips provided here. Please let me know in the comments if there is anything that I may have missed or anything you liked about this. Again, I hope this guide helps you win more games when playing solo.