Shadow Priest DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Dragonflight 10.2.7
On this page, you will find the best gear and best in slot items for your Shadow Priest in World of Warcraft Dragonflight 10.2.7.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Shadow Priest gear and best in slot.
Gearing a Shadow Priest
Welcome to our Gearing Page for Shadow Priest. This section will cover everything you need to know about equipping your character correctly.
If you have a new piece of gear for which you need gems and enchant advice, you can find everything on our dedicated page below.
While gearing, item level is rather important, mainly due to the relative value increase of primary stats. In the case of Shadow, this means we want to prioritize Intellect first over any other stat; in other words, the item level of gear will generally be the most important factor when looking at replacing something. Secondary stats are still important as well, however, and currently, Shadow wants to focus on acquiring as much Haste and Mastery as possible. Critical Strike and Versatility are both lower in value. If it is not an obvious choice, sim your character to find out. For a more detailed explanation, you can read the Simulations page.
Simming your character is far and beyond the best way to determine if a piece of gear is, in fact, an upgrade. The trick is knowing how to do it in a way that produces reliable results. If you follow the Simulations guide page, you can use this to have a more practical gearing guide than simply following a BiS list.
BiS Gear for Shadow Priest
Overall BiS List for Shadow Priest
The below list is meant to give you a goal, not the end all be all. You can tweak various pieces depending on your exact stats or setup. You should always sim yourself on various settings to determine if something is an upgrade rather than mindlessly following this list.
Many of the items in this list have equally powerful alternatives; do not turn down an upgrade just because this is not mentioned here. This list is an example of a well-put-together Shadow Priest build that balances gear from Raids and Mythic+.
While this list does include crafted items where it makes sense from a secondary stat perspective, you should note that there are several viable setups of crafted embellished items. Check out the crafted section below to see how to tweak this depending on what you want to optimize for.
Gearing is a journey, and there are multiple ways to outfit your character with optimal gear. and there are several item sets that are considered BiS. Whenever there are more than one options, I will list them, but even some outside the list might be better for your character and your gearing setup. It is crucial that you sim your character to know for sure.
Be sure to check out the stats page to understand our goals with each secondary stat.
Slot | Item | Source/Note |
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One Hand | Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno | Fyrakk, the Blazing in Amirdrassil |
Off-hand | Echo's Maddening Volume | Echo of Neltharion in Aberrus |
Head |
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Neck |
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Shoulder | Devotion of the Furnace Seraph (TIER SET) | |
Cloak |
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Chest | Vesture of the Smoldering Serpent | Volcoross in Amirdrassil |
Wrist |
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Tailoring |
Hands | Grasp of the Furnace Seraph (TIER SET) | |
Waist |
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Legs | Breeches of the Furnace Seraph (TIER SET) | |
Feet |
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Ring #1 | Seal of Diurna's Chosen | Eranog in Vault of the Incarnates |
Ring #2 | Seal of Filial Duty | Broodkeeper in Vault of the Incarnates |
Top Trinkets |
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For your embellishments, I would suggest using two Blue Silken Lining items. These can be crafted in whichever slots you are hurting for upgrades the most. Best slots will end up being Wrists, Waist, or Feet in most setups. You can also swap one of these out for Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation if you want something that is sort of a hybrid defensive option, especially for progression content. In Mythic+, you can also consider using Hood of Surging Time for more trash-focused damage, especially if you are at lower Haste levels.
Mythic+ Gear BiS List for Shadow Priest
THIS LIST IS NOT BIS FOR DOING MYTHIC+. If you want the best gear setup to do Mythic+ content, you should use the Overall BiS List. This list is specifically showcasing the best drops when only looking at Mythic+ gear. Optimal setups will always include some raid items, especially trinkets.
In Dragonflight Season 4, you can get gear from the following dungeons:
- Algeth'ar Academy
- Brackenhide Hollow
- Halls of Infusion
- Neltharus
- Ruby Life Pools
- The Azure Vault
- The Nokhud Offensive
- Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr
Use the following list to help you target items to drop in Mythic+ Season 4 dungeons that have more ideal stats. This does not mean these are the only upgrades you can get from the dungeons, but just the notable ones. You should augment this gear with crafted pieces where possible to get the extra gain from 522 to 525 item level.
With the Revival Catalyst, even if an item has bad stats, you might be able to catalyst it into Tier or better secondaries. Do not get rid of a piece of gear before checking! You do have limited charges of the catalyst that recharge over time, so be sure to prioritize getting your set bonus with Head, Shoulders, Hands, and Legs before using charges on other slots.
Gearing is a journey, and there are multiple ways to outfit your character with optimal gear. and there are several item sets that are considered BiS. Whenever there are more than one options, I will list them, but even some outside the list might be better for your character and your gearing setup. It is crucial that you sim your character to know for sure.
Be sure to check out the stats page to understand our goals with each secondary stat.
Slot | Item | Source/Note |
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Weapons |
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Head |
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Neck |
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Shoulder |
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Cloak | Fireproof Drape | Ruby Life Pools |
Chest |
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Wrist | Animated Shackles | Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr |
Hands |
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Waist |
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Legs |
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Feet |
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Ring #1 | Unstable Arcane Loop | The Azure Vault |
Ring #2 | Circle of Ascended Frost | Halls of Infusion |
Top Trinkets |
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Raid Gear BiS List for Shadow Priest
THIS LIST IS NOT BIS FOR RAIDING. If you want the best gear setup to do Raiding content for, you should use the Overall BiS List. This list is specifically showcasing the best drops when only looking at gear from Vault of the Incarnates, Aberrus, and Amirdrassil. Optimal setups will include items outside of raiding.
Use the following list to help you target items to drop in raids that have more ideal stats. This does not mean these are the only upgrades you can get from the Raid, but just the notable ones. You should augment this gear with crafted pieces where possible, especially rings.
With the Revival Catalyst, even if an item has bad stats, you might be able to catalyst it into Tier or better secondaries. Do not get rid of a piece of gear before checking! You do have limited charges of the catalyst that recharge over time, so be sure to prioritize getting your set bonus with Head, Shoulders, Hands, and Legs before using charges on other slots.
Gearing is a journey, and there are multiple ways to outfit your character with optimal gear. and there are several item sets that are considered BiS. Whenever there are more than one options, I will list them, but even some outside the list might be better for your character and your gearing setup. It is crucial that you sim your character to know for sure.
Be sure to check out the stats page to understand our goals with each secondary stat.
Slot | Item | Source/Note |
---|---|---|
One Hand | Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno | Fyrakk, the Blazing in Amirdrassil |
Off-hand | Echo's Maddening Volume | Echo of Neltharion in Aberrus |
Head | Mask of the Furnace Seraph (TIER SET) | |
Neck |
|
|
Shoulder | Devotion of the Furnace Seraph (TIER SET) | |
Cloak |
|
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Chest | Vesture of the Smoldering Serpent | Volcoross in Amirdrassil |
Wrist | Fading Flame Wristbands | Smolderon in Amirdrassil |
Hands | Grasp of the Furnace Seraph (TIER SET) | |
Waist | Blooming Redeemer's Sash | Fyrakk, the Blazing in Amirdrassil |
Legs | Breeches of the Furnace Seraph (TIER SET) | |
Feet | Sandals of the Wild Sovereign | Raszageth in Vault of the Incarnates |
Ring #1 | Seal of Diurna's Chosen | Eranog in Vault of the Incarnates |
Ring #2 | Seal of Filial Duty | Broodkeeper in Vault of the Incarnates |
Top Trinkets |
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Raid BoE Trash Drops in Season 4
In Season 4 you will have access to three raids that drop items from trash. For Vault of the Incarnates and Amirdrassil these items will be Bind-on-Equip, and for Aberrus they will be Bind-on-Pickup. This means you will only be able to buy and sell trash drops from Vault or Amirdrassil.
The following is the list of items that drop from trash as a Shadow Priest:
- Emissary's Flamewrought Seal — Vault of the Incarnates
- Primal Seeker's Leggings — Vault of the Incarnates
- Woven Stone Bracelets — Vault of the Incarnates
- Crucible Curator's Wingspan — Aberrus
- Bands of Purified Purpose — Aberrus
- Lost Scholar's Temporal Shoulderdials — Amirdrassil
- Whispering Fanged Cord — Amirdrassil
- Daydreamer's Glimmering Ring — Amirdrassil
Fire-Damage Proc Effects in Season 4
In Season 4 Shadow Priest has several items that can proc off of dealing fire damage:
- Ouroboreal Necklet — Volcoross in Amirdrassil
- Seal of Diurna's Chosen — Eranog in Vault of the Incarnates
- Seal of Filial Duty — Broodkeeper in Vault of the Incarnates
As a Shadow Priest we have no way baseline to proc these effects, however the following additional items or effects do happen enough to proc them. They are roughly listed in order of strength.
- Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno
- Incandescent Essence (Helm Enchant)
- Vessel of Searing Shadow
- Belor'relos, the Suncaller
- Igneous Flowstone
- Augury of the Primal Flame
- Erupting Spear Fragment
- Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch
In the best setups, you will want at least 2 of the three of these to saturate the proc chance enough to make it worth using over normal rings. Generally, you will prefer running Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno anyways, and you will always have the helm enchant. These two sources will be enough to make the rings worth using, although the throughput gained will be minor, but still worth it. Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch is not good enough to use over Blue Silken Lining, even though it would increase the proc rate.
Vessel of Searing Shadow is extremely good at proccing these effects as the self-DoT on the player counts towards proccing these effects. This makes this item extremely strong, or even Best-In-Slot in certain cases, particularly in Raid. When using this item you are effectively maxing out the procs of these items, making them even more powerful.
Shadow Priest Gear Upgrades in Dragonflight Season 4
In Season 4, you are able to upgrade gear from a variety of sources to get more item level. You will use Flightstones and Crests to upgrade items. You will naturally obtain these currencies from all forms of content in the game. These allow you to upgrade pieces depending on the track they drop in. This also lets you make crafted items up to 525 item level, which is 3 item levels lower than top-end Mythic raid gear.
For more information on the new Gear Upgrades system, check out our dedicated page below.
Note: the cost to upgrade items differs per slot but increases quickly as item levels go up.
With any season, there will be several different ways to build out your character optimally. Use this page as a tool with suggestions, but do not just look at the list at the bottom for the only way to gear up. There are plenty of ways to build your character correctly, depending on which pieces you get when. This page is designed to help make those decisions easier.
Best Items to Upgrade for Shadow Priest in Dragonflight Season 4
In this section, I am going to list the pieces of gear that I would focus on upgrading. This is generic advice and should be supplementary to you running your sims. Figuring out the best upgrade based on your character's current gear is always ideal.
- Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno
- Any Helm item to scale Incandescent Essence
- Seal of Diurna's Chosen
- Voice of the Silent Star
- Neltharion's Call to Suffering
- Vessel of Searing Shadow
- Spoils of Neltharus
- Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
- Ashes of the Embersoul
- Tome of Unstable Power
- Ominous Chromatic Essence
- Whispering Incarnate Icon
Check each section for more details on the various slots.
Best Gear To Spend Bullions On For Shadow Priest
Season 4 offers a way to target specific, powerful raid items with the new Antique Bronze Bullion. These are particularly useful for filling up slots if you get unlucky with certain drops in raid, especially for highly contentious items.
Outside of these lists, you should keep in mind that you should buy the pieces that your character needs. All of these can naturally drop from raiding, you just use the Antique Bronze Bullion to supplement those raid drops. You should particularly prioritize the pieces that might be popular amongst other raiders.
There are many items that the Antique Bronze Bullion vendor sells that might be useful to purchase depending on the content you are looking to accomplish, use the below lists as a starting point.
NOTE: you should only purchase fire-damage proc items like Seal of Diurna's Chosen, Seal of Filial Duty, or Ouroboreal Necklet if you already have a few items that can proc these effects.
Raid Ranking
Here are the best items to spend your Bullions on in Dragonflight Season 4 for Raiding as a Shadow Priest.
- Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno
- Seal of Diurna's Chosen
- Vessel of Searing Shadow
- Neltharion's Call to Suffering
- Whispering Incarnate Icon
- Voice of the Silent Star
- Ominous Chromatic Essence
- Seal of Filial Duty
Note that you might get more or less value out of purchasing Whispering Incarnate Icon or Ominous Chromatic Essence based on your group members. These trinkets are top-tier if and only if you have others in your raid also using them to maximize their effects, without allies you are usually better off using other trinkets.
Mythic+ Ranking
Here are the best items to spend your Bullions on in Dragonflight Season 4 for Mythic+ as a Shadow Priest.
- Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno
- Seal of Diurna's Chosen
- Seal of Filial Duty
- Vessel of Searing Shadow
- Whispering Incarnate Icon
- Ominous Chromatic Essence
- Neltharion's Call to Suffering
- Ouroboreal Necklet
For prioritizing Mythic+ you should consider not focusing as much on trinkets. Tome of Unstable Power and Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart are both extremely competitive trinkets and only drop from The Azure Vault. You can also use Spoils of Neltharus as well which is quite powerful. The gain from these trinkets to a purchased one is likely quite minimal, but later on in the season might be worth.
You can also consider getting more defensive options like Ward of Faceless Ire for living high keys. Check out the Mythic+ guide under the defensives section to learn more.
Voice of the Silent Star is not a great item for Mythic+ content, both due to the low-proc rate and the loss in Stamina for pushing higher keys.
Early Purchases
Since you will only be able to purchase an item every 2 weeks you could consider spending your Antique Bronze Bullion on Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle. Strictly speaking, this weapon is not best-in-slot, but since it also costs 2 bullions, it might be an efficient way to spend your tokens early on if you are trying to gain power quickly and you are struggling to find an off-hand.
This is only advantageous early if you are struggling to get a competitive off-hand to pair with Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno, but there are several good farmable options. The other reason getting Dreambinder early might not make sense for you is it also restricts your purchases of fire-damage proc items.
Note that currently there is a bug with Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle that can cause the mob you cast it on to break its aggro table temporarily and start meleeing other DPS players in range.
For most people, I would consider prioritizing the list above and purchase Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno first, and focus your energy on getting a competitive off-hand from Raid or Mythic+.
Trinkets
Here are the top trinkets to target as a Shadow Priest. Check out the sims below for more details about which trinkets to use and when. These are generic suggestions of what to target, but anything that is a big item-level jump might be an upgrade, even if it is not on this list.
When looking at trinkets, I wanted to specifically call out Nymue's Unraveling Spindle. This trinket has an interesting effect that buffs the damage it deals when a target is Immobilized. This can happen if a mob is stunned or rooted, but this is not possible for boss enemies. However, this also counts stationary targets such as Target Dummies as being immobilized. This same effect applies to bosses that like Target Dummies are immobile. For example, in Amirdrassil you get this increase from Volcoross and Nymue since those bosses are locked in place. On those encounters, this trinket is one of our best options.
Top Trinkets for Shadow Priest
Top Trinkets for Raiding
In a raiding environment, trinkets are prioritized for their consistent single-target damage while also being able to take into account average fight durations for certain on-use trinkets.
NOTE: To keep things brief, not every trinket is listed below, only ones that are particularly relevant or popular. If a trinket is excluded from this list, it is likely well below D-Tier.
Tier | Trinkets |
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S-Tier |
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A-Tier |
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B-Tier |
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C-Tier |
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D-Tier |
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Note that certain trinkets like Iceblood Deathsnare could be quite valuable or near BiS in stacked cleave fights, but for most fights they will not perform well. For these encounters check out the Mythic+ rankings.
For Ominous Chromatic Essence you can generally use any of the stat increases depending on what stat you particularly need. Typically Emerald or Bronze will be the top-performing options.
Top Trinkets for Mythic+
Inside of Mythic+ dungeons you typically want to use trinkets that are good for maximizing overall dungeon damage. This is not always just slamming full AoE trinkets as even on Fortified weeks Bosses will still take up a significant portion of the key.
NOTE: To keep things brief, not every trinket is listed below, only ones that are particularly relevant or popular. If a trinket is excluded from this list, it is likely well below D-Tier.
In Mythic+ you often want to use a combination of one passive trinket and one on-use trinket. We have extremely strong passive trinket options this tier, and having one on use helps out with our burst in AoE packs, particularly with Void Eruption as you push high keys.
Tier | Trinkets |
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S-Tier |
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A-Tier |
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B-Tier |
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C-Tier |
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D-Tier |
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For Ominous Chromatic Essence you can generally use any of the stat increases depending on what stat you particularly need. Typically Emerald or Bronze will be the top-performing options.
Note that for Mythic+ environments Whispering Incarnate Icon should perform very well, even if it is just you that is using it.
Based on the tier list above, there are a lot of competitive A and S tier trinkets, below is more breakdown of these top trinkets and where they make sense, along with a few example combinations.
- Tome of Unstable Power - Mass AoE trinket, great for Fortified
- Vessel of Searing Shadow - Single Target/Priority Target damage + Procs the Fire-Damage rings considerably more often (+Damage and +Shield).
- Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart - If you are the only person with this trinket in the group, the execute value can be massive. Also a reasonably good single target trinket for Tyrannical weeks.
- Spoils of Neltharus - Particularly shines if you can pull big packs of mobs around your 2-minute cooldowns, especially at 10+ targets.
- Ashes of the Embersoul - Similar to Spoils of Neltharus but also includes an extra passive effect that can proc when you are in dire circumstances (i.e. tank dies). If this proc happens, this trinket is extremely powerful/best-in-slot contention.
- Neltharion's Call to Suffering - This trinket has extremely high damage opportunity, but comes at a price of being very RNG. Average uptime is 20%, getting that makes it quite competitive, but anything worse makes it a terrible trinket. Getting procs inside of your cooldowns will make you feel like an Old God in terms of power, but not getting any procs when you want them will leave you incredibly frustrated.
- Ominous Chromatic Essence - If you are in a group where everyone else is also using this trinket to spread the buffs around it can be extremely powerful, but with how many good competitive trinkets are available, this is not a likely scenario.
- Whispering Incarnate Icon - Similar to Ominous Chromatic Essence if you are in a group with a Tank or Healer that is also using this trinket it is a great passive option, and very top-tier if both are using the trinket. This is an unlikely scenario though, especially for Tanks using the trinket.
Knowing this information, here are a few trinket combinations that perform well given the various situations you want to optimize for. With the availability of competitive trinkets this is something you can evaluate on a per-key basis to optimize the damage your group needs. These are not the only combinations, just a few examples.
- Pulling Big around CDs - ( Spoils of Neltharus or Ashes of the Embersoul) + Tome of Unstable Power
- No Umbrel in Group - Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart + Tome of Unstable Power
- Maximizing Fire Ring Procs - Vessel of Searing Shadow + Tome of Unstable Power
- More Single Target - Vessel of Searing Shadow + ( Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart, Spoils of Neltharus or Ashes of the Embersoul)
- RNG Max Damage - Neltharion's Call to Suffering + Tome of Unstable Power
- Consistent Single Target + RNG Burst - Vessel of Searing Shadow + Neltharion's Call to Suffering
Trinkets Explained
Trinkets Explained
The following section will go over specific notes on the various trinkets to consider as a Shadow Priest. Not every trinket is listed, only ones that have interactions worth discussing.
Whispering Incarnate Icon
Whispering Incarnate Icon is a powerful secondary stat boosting that becomes near Best in Slot if you are in a group with a Tank and a Healer that is also using it. If you are just using it by yourself without either of those it can still be a solid trinket, and one of the better fully passive options.
In the tier list sections I roughly denote the strength of the trinket based on if a Tank and Healer both have it, only one of them do, or just yourself is using this trinket. If you can get at least a Tank or Healer to use this trinket, it will be considered a top trinket for Shadow Priests.
Neltharion's Call to Suffering
Neltharion's Call to Suffering is the class trinket available for Rogues, Death Knights, Druids, and Priests. It gives static Versatility , which is nice for defensive value, and has a powerful main stat proc effect. This effect can be a bit inconsistent to proc, but because of the extra item level it can be upgraded to it remains one of our top tier trinkets. On top of that the visual is top tier making it a fun trinket to see proc!
Note that while this trinket can sim well and have great top-end damage, the proc rate itself is quite low, so it can be difficult to get good value of this trinket in short-lived environments like Mythic+ dungeons. This trinket will be the one to use when you want to gamble getting lucky procs to parse well, but not something you can rely on with the average 20% uptime.
Spoils of Neltharus
Spoils of Neltharus is a secondary stat on use trinket that cycles through 4 buffs as you are casting spells in combat. As a Shadow Priest, this is not something you should feel the need to play around, you can just use it when you would normally press cooldowns, any buff you get is good for us.
This trinket is particularly strong in Mythic+ dungeons when you are pulling a large amount of mobs around your 2-minute cooldowns to stack more burst damage.
Furious Ragefeather
Furious Ragefeather is a decent trinket that is farmable in Mythic+ that can produce good results in AoE situations. In order to get great results with this trinket, you will need a combination of luck and good positioning to ensure the Soulseeker Arrow that procs hits as many targets as possible.
Ominous Chromatic Essence
Ominous Chromatic Essence is a top-tier secondary stat trinket that becomes our Best-In-Slot trinket if enough people in your group are running it. Each player using it can attune themselves with a particular dragonflight, granting a corresponding secondary stat. A portion of those stats is also granted to allies that are using the trinket, a unique application per type. This means if your group has 5 people with the trinket equipped, each with a different dragonflight you will get the maximum potential output.
These are the corresponding dragonflights. They are roughly listed in order of how strong they are for Shadow Priests, but this can largely depend on the exact gear of your character and what secondary stats you are in particular need of.
- Emerald Resonance - Critical Strike
- Ruby Resonance - Versatility
- Obsidian Resonance - Splits the amount across all 4 stats
- Bronze Resonance - Haste
- Azure Resonance - Mastery
The main reason Emerald and Ruby are at the top of the list is because of secondary stat DR effects. With Season 4 levels of gear you will likely have plenty of Haste and Mastery, reducing the value this trinket provides those stats because of that DR. Check out the stats page to learn more. Note that Void Eruption builds will typically prefer Bronze Resonance much more than Dark Ascension builds.
Iceblood Deathsnare
Iceblood Deathsnare can be a great on-use option for multi-target scenarios, but really struggles in lower target counts. For this reason you typically would only consider this trinket in stacked cleave council raid encounters.
Vessel of Searing Shadow
Vessel of Searing Shadow is actually a very powerful trinket, and will likely sim well for most people, however it is somewhat annoying to use in Mythic+, particularly if you need to do any Invisibility skips as the DoT can break you out of stealth. You can always use this macro to make sure this does not happen:
- #showtooltip Potion of the Hushed Zephyr
- /cancelaura Unstable Flames
- /use Potion of the Hushed Zephyr
In raiding environments, this is quite great, especially when using any of the fire-damage proc items since it can proc it from the DoT on the player. Proccing these effects more is also extremely valuable in Mythic+, particularly with the defensive value from Seal of Filial Duty.
Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart is a reworked trinket for Season 4 that is quite competitive in a sustained single target environment. While it is not Best-In-Slot in pure single target, it excels in cases where the fight is mostly single target where adds will occasionally spawn. This is because the secondary effect will execute up to 3 enemies per combat cycle once they fall below 5% health and the effect is active. This is a powerful execute that is not reported in Details or Warcraftlogs currently, but you can get this WeakAura to integrate it into the Details Addon.
While the execute effect is extremely strong in Mythic+, the actual damage pattern can be a bit undesirable if you are looking for a consistent trinket since targets can die with the DoT active after the 3 enemies are executed. That being said, this should still be a very strong trinket in Mythic+, especially if your group currently does not have one at all.
Tome of Unstable Power
Tome of Unstable Power is a very powerful passive AoE trinket. This trinket is far and beyond your best trinket to run in AoE scenarios such as Mythic+ or even stacked council encounters. Typically speaking , the AoE damage will make this worth running for every dungeon you run for overall damage, but strictly speaking, for Boss damage, there will be better trinkets to run.
Belor'relos, the Suncaller
Belor'relos, the Suncaller is a strong on-use damage trinket. Particularly at lower target counts, this can be a strong option if and only if you can consistently stand in melee. This trinket has a 10-yard range so should only be used when you do not need to stand at max-range.
This trinket is the ideal pairing if you are trying to run two on-use trinkets. Belor'relos, the Suncaller is not affected by any of our spell modifier increases, so we are free to use this anywhere in our rotation. Typically, when paired with another on-use trinket, you will use your other option (like Spoils of Neltharus) with Power Infusion, and then follow that up with Belor'relos, the Suncaller when it comes back on cooldown.
Pip's Emerald Friendship Badge
Pip's Emerald Friendship Badge is a relatively standard passive trinket. You will randomly proc Mastery, Versatility, or Critical Strike.
Nymue's Unraveling Spindle
Nymue's Unraveling Spindle is another casted trinket, but unlike Belor'relos, the Suncaller this is a lengthy 3-second channel. The longer you channel, the more damage it deals and the more Mastery you get after the channel ends.
This trinket is a sort of hybrid damage trinket that also gives you a sizable Mastery buff that pairs well with our cooldowns. Due to the cast time and the fact that our cooldowns do not buff the trinkets damage , you should aim to use this trinket before you go into your cooldowns. In the opener, this means you use this just before you cast Mindbender or Shadowfiend.
Another important part of this trinket is the increased damage dealt towards targets that are Immobilized. Normally this is something that will not be relevant inside of Raid, since boss targets cannot be stunned from spells like Psychic Horror. However, any bosses that are stationary also are counted as being Immobilized. This means there are several fights where this trinket gets more value than usual and will do more damage than what it strictly sims for by default in the following encounters:
- Eranog — Intermission Phase (Vault of the Incarnates)
- Terros (Vault of the Incarnates)
- Dathea (Vault of the Incarnates)
- Rashok — Intermission Phase (Aberrus)
- Gnarlroot — Intermission Phase (Amirdrassil)
- Volcoross (Amirdrassil)
- Nymue, Weaver of the Cycle (Amirdrassil)
Augury of the Primal Flame
Augury of the Primal Flame is a unique trinket that thrives on scaling with Critical Strike, Versatility, and number of targets. While this trinket can have good results in Mythic+, it can also be quite RNG enough to make it not worth it.
Ashes of the Embersoul
Ashes of the Embersoul opts to give us more damage during our 20-second burst window and sacrificing the base Haste after your cooldowns expire. Effectively, this means after the buff expires, it is as if you have no trinket equipped for 60 seconds afterward.
This trinket is particularly strong in Mythic+ dungeons when you are pulling a large amount of mobs around your 2-minute cooldowns to stack more burst damage.
Notably, this downside can be somewhat undesirable depending on the encounter. However, if you are in a progression-raiding environment and your group members are getting into dire circumstances, you can get an extra buff out of the trinket for free that does not decay. This will not trigger from you simply taking a lot of damage in a raid environment; it needs your Raid to be in significant peril to trigger. The exact parameters are a bit unclear, but it's meant to help you clutch out a boss kill when you otherwise might not get enough damage. The proc is not something you should strictly rely on, but if it happens, you will love to have this trinket.
Timewalking Trinkets
In addition to the trinkets above, I wanted to highlight some options from Timewalking Raids. Due to general trinket scaling and the 515 item level, the following options are quite competitive in all forms of content. While they are not strictly BiS, they could certainly help as you are gearing up if they are active.
These are roughly ranked in order of strength for Void Eruption builds, but be sure to sim them to know if they are worth using for your character.
- Energy Siphon — Ulduar Timewalking
- Eye of the Broodmother — Ulduar Timewalking
- Scale of Fates — Ulduar Timewalking
- Living Flame — Ulduar Timewalking
- Pandora's Plea — Ulduar Timewalking
- Flare of the Heavens — Ulduar Timewalking
- Elemental Focus Stone — Ulduar Timewalking
- Necromantic Focus — Firelands Timewalking
- The Skull of Gul'dan — Black Temple Timewalking
Single Target Trinket Rankings
- Dark Ascension + Idol of C'Thun
- Void Eruption + Triple Idol + Distorted Reality
- Void Eruption + Triple Idol + Mind's Eye
Dungeon Trinket Rankings
- Dark Ascension + Idol of C'Thun
- Void Eruption + Triple Idol + Distorted Reality
- Void Eruption + Triple Idol + Mind's Eye
Stats
Many people overthink the distribution of their secondary stats. An important thing to remember is that a higher quantity of stats is nearly always better than a better quality of stats. Because of this, wearing higher item-level gear with worse stats tends to be better than lower item-level gear with great stats. Keep this in mind when considering gear. For more stats information, please refer to our dedicated page.
Jewelry
For neck and ring pieces, you can drop 5-10 ilevels in most cases to get our preferred stats: Haste and Mastery. That said, you should always sim yourself to see what is better as the secondary stat diminishing returns can still change your ideal setup.
Overall Top Necks
- Eye of the Rising Flame
- Bromach's Disentombed Locket
- Ukhel Ancestry Beads
- Eye of the Vengeful Hurricane
- Ouroboreal Necklet
Make sure to use Tiered Medallion Setting to add 3 sockets up to your neck item.
Overall Top Rings
- Seal of Diurna's Chosen
- Seal of Filial Duty
- Band of Burning Thorns
- Unstable Arcane Loop
- Circle of Ascended Frost
- Signet of Titanic Insight
- Ring-Bound Hourglass
Weapons
This is a rough guide of what weapons to aim for. It is not an end-all-be-all list, and depending on your gear, you might find something that is even better. Be sure to sim your upgrades to know for sure, but you can use this list to help target things that will likely be strong.
Due to the strength of weapon item level I would strongly suggest not crafting weapons unless you have plenty of Sparks to spare.
Top Main Hand Weapons
For your main hand, you should try and get Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno as soon as possible; it will handily beat out all other options this season. Paired with a similar item level off-hand, this will be roughly 1% better than Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle, not including the value you get from procs like Seal of Diurna's Chosen.
- Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno
- Iridal, the Earth's Master (Hard-mode Dawn of the Infinite)
- Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle
Iridal, the Earth's Master can be a good thing to pick up early, but you will eventually want to swap over to a higher item level Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno so that you can also proc the ring effects.
Top Off-hand Weapons
This season you have plenty of string off-hands to choose from to pair with Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno. Any of the following will be a great choice.
- Echo's Maddening Volume
- Thadrion's Erratic Arcanotrode
- Scripture of Primal Devotion
- Icewrath's Channeling Conduit
- Trickster's Captivating Chime
- Rod of Perfect Order
Tier Set Bonus
With Season 4, we have a returned version of the Season 2 set bonus.
- 2-piece set bonus: Priest Shadow 10.1 Class Set 2pc
- 4-piece set bonus: Priest Shadow 10.1 Class Set 4pc
Based on the stats on these pieces and the pieces that drop across season 4 content, you should drop either the Chest or the Gloves. Which one to drop depends highly on your current gear and when you get the Tier set to drop. Vesture of the Smoldering Serpent is a decent chest while gearing up that drops early on in Amirdrassil, so most people will probably use Chest as the off-piece. That being said, you want to use Head, Shoulders, and Legs, ideally all the time.
Tier Set Power Level
Here are rough numbers for how strong the bonuses themselves are. This is not taking into account the actual gear pieces, just the bonuses themselves.
Due to the drastic increase in item level with this Tier, you will likely replace the previous Season 3 set bonus relatively quickly, but be sure to sim these changes to know for sure. Since the power of the Season 3 set bonus is mostly in the 2-piece bonus you might run 2-piece from both season for a while when you are first gearing up. You will not change talent builds until you completely drop the Season 3 set bonus.
For most people, the gain from going from Season 3 4-set bonus to running 2-set from Season 3 and Season 4 is quite small or even a DPS loss. Before making this swap, be sure to sim the items you get, as this is a question of how much item level you are gaining before you start swapping out tier items.
Single Target
- 2-piece set bonus: ~4.07%
- 2-piece and 4-piece set bonus: ~10.89%
Average Overall in Mythic+
- 2-piece set bonus: ~2.24%
- 2-piece and 4-piece set bonus: ~6.90%
When to replace Season 3 Tier?
Transitioning from Season 3 to Season 4, you will notice a larger-than-usual shift in item level corresponding to the increased difficulty.
While gearing, you will be prioritizing keeping the Season 3 set bonus until you get higher item level pieces, or enough to go all the way to the new Season 4 4-piece. This is due to the strength of the Season 3 2-piece specifically.
It is critical that you sim your character in order to determine when to swap out tier set pieces. You should always have a plan in mind and do not just swap gear out because it has a higher item level blindly.
Revival Catalyst
At the start of Season 4, the Revival Catalyst will be available. This allows you to convert a valid Season 4 item into a tier-set item. When doing this, the secondary stats will change to static stats you can see below:
- Head — Mask of the Furnace Seraph(TIER SET BONUS)
- Shoulders — Devotion of the Furnace Seraph(TIER SET BONUS)
- Back — Shroud of the Furnace Seraph
- Chest — Command of the Furnace Seraph(TIER SET BONUS)
- Wrists — Cuffs of the Furnace Seraph
- Hands — Grasp of the Furnace Seraph (TIER SET BONUS)
- Waist — Sash of the Furnace Seraph
- Legs — Breeches of the Furnace Seraph (TIER SET BONUS)
- Feet — Sabatons of the Furnace Seraph
Crafted Profession Gear
In Dragonflight you can further push your characters strength by utilizing your 2 embellishment professional crafted gear items. You can equip as many pieces as you want, but if they use embellishments, then you are limited to 2.
Embellished Items
As a Shadow Priest in Season 4, you have a few options for your two embellished slots, depending on what you want to optimize for. The below list is the suggested options for embellished items ranked in order of overall power in Raid and Mythic+.
Check out the individual sections below to learn more about the top options.
If it was not clear, you can stack two of Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch Blue Silken Lining, Dreamtender's Charm, or Verdant Conduit which doubles the effects.
If you can afford to add it, use the Alchemical Flavor Pocket on one of your items. This optional crafting reagent can be added to an embellished slot. The key here is that even though it fits into an embellished slot, it does NOT take up one of your two embellished items, meaning you can have 2 embellished pieces AND a 3rd one with the flavor pocket. This can be a solid DPS increase in Mythic+ dungeons any time you die and do not have time to eat food again.
Raid Ranking
- Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation (Progression Only)
- Blue Silken Lining
- Undulating Sporecloak or Choker of Shielding
Mythic+ Ranking
- Hood of Surging Time (Most Key Levels)
- Blue Silken Lining (Max DMG for High Keys)
- Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation (if not using Overengineered Sleeve Extenders for the battle rez)
- Undulating Sporecloak or Choker of Shielding
Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation
In terms of personal DPS increase, the Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation are quite a weak DPS choice, less than using Blue Silken Lining with only 20% uptime. The difference is that these also provide an increase to Raid Throughput as well. If you take into account the Raid DPS gained for this it is closer to using Blue-Silken Lining with 60-70% uptime, depending on if you give the buff to healers or tanks instead of DPS.
Furthermore, these wrists can be crafted and used by every single armor class type. If you are in a group with others that also have this item (or similar item in a different armor type), the buffs individually apply to each raid member and can overlap (not stack). This means if you have 2 people in your group with this item, you can have 2 of the buffs active at once. If you combine this power with more group members, your Raid will not only get a large increase in damage, but your personal DPS will also get an increase.
Note that while this is a powerful embellishment for your group DPS inside of Mythic+, you may not want to use these, so that you can instead use the Overengineered Sleeve Extenders with the Tinker: Arclight Vital Correctors tinker to add that extra bit of utility for your group.
Finally, because this item is in the wrists slot, there is less of a hit in terms of item level by running a 525 piece. I would strongly consider crafting this item for progression content.
Blue-Silken Lining (BSL)
The Blue Silken Lining embellishment can be applied to various crafted items. This provides you with a flat amount of Mastery if you are above 90% health. At 525 Item Level it gives 1042 Mastery. If you fall below 90%, you will lose the effect until you go back above that threshold. In a perfect scenario, if you can keep this effect up 100% of the time, it will easily beat out every other option, but in reality, almost every encounter or dungeon will cause you to lose uptime of this. Luckily, Shadow does have some options to help here, namely Mental Fortitude. The other positive here is that Mastery as a stat does very well in single target and AoE environments, making it scale well as you add targets. The trick is knowing how much uptime you can expect, making it somewhat inconsistent.
With the scaling of gear in Season 4 this has continued to perform incredibly well, and handily beats other choices as long as you can have 30% average uptime or higher. This gives you a large ceiling of damage and even worst case scenario it should perform very well relative to other choices.
The big caveat here is that you can have 80% uptime, but it is significantly less useful if you do not have it active during your cooldowns. Conversely, if you have this up for your cooldowns, you will get a good chunk of the value.
Use the below list to understand how average uptime of Blue Silken Lining compares to other embellishments.
- Hood of Surging Time — Roughly equivalent to 75% uptime of Blue Silken Lining in a Mythic+ Environment
- Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation — Raid DPS gained is equivalent to 60-70% uptime of Blue Silken Lining
- Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation — Personal DPS gained is equivalent to 10% uptime of Blue Silken Lining
Hood of Surging Time
This is a powerful embellished item that should be considered for Mythic+ environments. It gives you a powerful burst of haste starting off every trash pack but does not provide much benefit in most boss encounters. For this reason, I would strongly consider this item in dungeon scenarios , particularly during Fortified weeks. Generally speaking, this can get worse as you go up in key level as you lower your total buff uptime, but for most groups, this will be a great item.
Note that this does mean you need to use Shoulders, Chest, Gloves, and Legs tier piece items to maintain your 4-piece set bonus.
Defensive Options
Generally speaking, the embellished items are about 1-3% of your DPS each (so up to 6% total). If you are in a position where you are struggling more with surviving compared to dealing damage, I would suggest using Undulating Sporecloak. This option is one of the weakest offensively but does still help out defensively, albeit minor. Alternatively, you can also use Choker of Shielding for an on-use defensive option.
Conclusion
If you are looking to optimize damage on progression content, I would use at least one Blue Silken Lining and choose to use Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation for the raid DPS gain or just run double Blue Silken Lining.
In Mythic+, I would consider using Hood of Surging Time in favor of any of the other options, depending on preference paired with Blue Silken Lining. Alternatively using double Blue Silken Lining is still a great choice, especially for Tyrannical weeks.
If you are looking to instead optimize your character with more defensive power, I would suggest looking at using Undulating Sporecloak and/or Choker of Shielding. These options are DPS losses compared to other choices but could end up saving your life under dire circumstances.
The important thing when gearing up is also to consider the item you are replacing. The above advice is generic for equal opportunity costs, but while gearing, if you are struggling to get an item in a specific slot, you likely want to spend your Spark to replace that ASAP and then match it with the corresponding strong embellishment. For example, if you are struggling to acquire a good Neck, Torc of Passed Time with Blue Silken Lining might be a strong candidate for your Spark craft. On the other hand, if you are struggling to get a good pair of wrists, consider Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation or Vibrant Wildercloth Wristwraps with Blue Silken Lining.
Non-Embellished Items
After crafting your two embellished pieces, I suggest simming your character to see what profession item upgrades are the most DPS for your character. You can craft every slot with the various professions via crafting orders, and filling out your gear with 525 items can be quite lucrative.
If we look at all gear items from the Raid, here are the top slots that will likely be good long-term investments to craft. Keep in mind that simming your character will always be the best; this is just a starting point.
- Vibrant Wildercloth Slippers
- Vibrant Wildercloth Wristwraps
- Vibrant Wildercloth Girdle
- Torc of Passed Time
Other items can definitely still be an upgrade; make sure to sim your current gear setup to see what makes the most sense to craft.
Best Crafted Items for Shadow Priest
Best Crafted Items for Raiding for Shadow Priest
This section is focused on the best crafts in a Raiding environment. These rankings tend to prefer more consistent effects that specialize in single-target damage.
There are alternative options you can swap these out with depending on your preference; for more detail, check out the section above.
- Craft your first item with Blue Silken Lining
- Craft either your second item with Blue Silken Lining or instead craft Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation for progression content.
- After you have your two Embellished items, you should prioritize crafting items to gain the most item level. Consider adding Alchemical Flavor Pocket to one item you craft, this does not take up an Embellished slot.
I would strongly suggest avoiding crafting any main-hand weapons or rings specifically. Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno is far and beyond our best weapon, especially when paired with the cantrip rings of Seal of Diurna's Chosen and Seal of Filial Duty. All three of these items are top choices for your Antique Bronze Bullion purchases so crafting in these slots early on is not suggested.
Best Crafted Items for Mythic+ for Shadow Priest
This section is focused on the best crafts in a Mythic+ environment. These rankings are aimed at maximizing overall damage inside of Mythic+.
There are alternative options you can swap these out with depending on your preference; for more detail, check out the section above.
- Craft your first item with Blue Silken Lining
- Craft either your second item with Blue Silken Lining or instead craft Hood of Surging Time if you want more trash-focused damage.
- Craft Overengineered Sleeve Extenders to socket in Tinker: Arclight Vital Correctors for the extra utility. Note that this does NOT count as an embellished effect.
- Consider crafting Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation for progression keys instead of Hood of Surging Time or a Blue Silken Lining.
- You should then prioritize crafting items to gain the most item level. Consider adding Alchemical Flavor Pocket to one item you craft, this does not take up an Embellished slot.
Changelog
- 15 May 2024: Put Call to Suffering in S-tier for Mythic+.
- 13 May 2024: Add note about buying defensive trinkets for Mythic+.
- 09 May 2024: More info around Vessel and the Fire damage procs and add trinket combination examples for Mythic+.
- 07 May 2024: Updated for 10.2.7.
- 05 May 2024: Add more detail around Vessel and swap a few rankings around.
- 01 May 2024: Update ranking of Vessel of Searing Shadows since it can help proc the rings.
- 30 Apr. 2024: Add more info on bullion purchases and additional fire damage sources.
- 28 Apr. 2024: Add note about on-use trinkets in Mythic+.
- 25 Apr. 2024: Add bonus IDs to display crafted gear more clearly and add new video for Bullions and split suggestions for Raid and Mythic+.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Update for Season 4 with new gear suggestions.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Update embellishment guidance for high Mythic+ dungeons.
- 13 Feb. 2024: Update dungeon trinket rankings to match the tier list.
- 25 Jan. 2024: Increase rank of Balefire Branch and Ashes of the Embersoul in Mythic+ Rankings.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Clarify usage on Hood of Surging Time in Mythic+.
- 20 Dec. 2023: Lower Nymue in the trinket rankings for Dungeons.
- 19 Dec. 2023: Update gear sets with more Neck options.
- 18 Dec. 2023: Add extra note about Augury of the Primal Flame.
- 13 Dec. 2023: Add note about prioritizing helm upgrades for Incandescent Essence.
- 01 Dec. 2023: Add crafted gear widget.
- 30 Nov. 2023: Add trinket tier lists as well as more detailed info on some options.
- 24 Nov. 2023: Update trinket and weapon rankings/comments.
- 16 Nov. 2023: Update note about Ashes trinket.
- 14 Nov. 2023: Add link to the trinket video.
- 14 Nov. 2023: Add small note about using Iridal in execute.
- 13 Nov. 2023: Update trinket suggestions and add more detail about when to use each one.
- 08 Nov. 2023: Add link to crafted gear video.
- 07 Nov. 2023: Update embellishment suggestions after the Undulating Sporecloak nerf.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Update gear lists and suggestions for Season 3 and Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Add new gear lists.
- 13 Aug. 2023: Add video link.
- 10 Aug. 2023: Add note about Irideus Fragment for Dark Ascension builds.
- 23 Jul. 2023: Reviewed from the recent hotfixes.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updates for Patch 10.1.5 including new items from Dawn of the Infinite.
- 27 Jun. 2023: Clarify a few choices on trinkets and embellished items.
- 07 Jun. 2023: Add note about Beacon to the Beyond in Mythic+.
- 01 Jun. 2023: Clarifying technical note about how the T30 set bonus works and adding rough numbers.
- 31 May 2023: Add a bit more detail on weapon crafting.
- 23 May 2023: Adjust timewalking section from recent changes
- 23 May 2023: Add timewalking section.
- 16 May 2023: Remove reference to Undulating Sporecloak bug as it was fixed.
- 16 May 2023: Add bug to Undulating Sporecloak and remove old Neltharion's Lair items.
- 15 May 2023: Correct Undulating Sporecloak info now that it has fixed stats.
- 06 May 2023: Add note about Ominous Chromatic Essence flight choice.
- 05 May 2023: Update weapon and trinket rankings from recent changes.
- 01 May 2023: Update all gearing suggestions for 10.1 and Season 2.
- 23 Mar. 2023: Update Onyx Annulet suggestions from recent hotfixes.
- 22 Mar. 2023: Update Onyx Annulet suggestions from recent info on Prophetic Twilight Stone interactions.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Update for Patch 10.0.7 with new section on the Onyx Annulet.
- 05 Mar. 2023: Small tweak to Dungeon trinket suggestions.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Update gear suggestions for 10.0.5.
- 24 Dec. 2022: Add Desperate Invokers Codex trinket.
- 21 Dec. 2022: Add some more detail to crafted gear sections.
- 13 Dec. 2022: Add video guide for crafted gear and remove note about having different elements in Elemental Lariat.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Season 1 launch.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Priest Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Publik, Shadow Priest theorycrafter and SimC dev at Warcraft Priests. He currently raids in The Exiled on Arthas-US.
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