Shadow Priest Patch 8.2 FAQs

Check out the following resources:

• WarcraftPriest's Shadow Guide
  
• Wowhead's Shadow Guide
• The WarcraftPriest #shadow-faq channel

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the Discord!

You want to benefit from the Critical Strike given by Chorus of Insanity when using the Cyclotronic Blast since it can Critically Strike. Therefore you want to use it after a long Voidform with large Chorus of Insanity stacks. More specifically, it goes like this
Long Voidform (with help of lucid) > Drop out, have insanity stacks > Get into Voidform > Void Bolt > Cyclotronic > Second Void Bolt

Unbridled Fury for everything

The benthic effects you want are listed under #shadow-faq, you don't focus on the stats at all, it's all about getting the right effect and socket.
Crit Boots, Wrists and Belt are our BiS for 8.2 if have them at ilvl 425 with socket (disregarding titanforged socketed mythic gear).
The gloves are also decent (Poen's) and Legs and Cloak can be good if you just want easily socketed gear.

Therefore we recommend going Boots > Wrists > Belt
You don't want to spend your main characters pearls on rolling pieces, the gear tokens are BoA, so run alts through nazjatar, buy tokens with their pearls and send the tokens to main. Only use your main pearls to buy essences and upgrade benthic, it's a valuable resource, don't waste it!

For raids, go Lucid Major and BOTE/Iris minor.
For M+ go Iris major and Lucid/BOTE/Puri minor.
For more info, check the top parses

• Commander Shivara:
• Blackwater Behemoth:
• Radiance of Azshara:
• Lady Ashvane:
• Orgozoa:
• Queen's Court:
• Za'qul:
• Queen Azshara:

- both AS and SC can be used
For more info, check the top parses

Sim it through raidbots. There are way too many variables for us to be able to say.

Depends what your team needs, you can run 3x Searing Dialogue and 1x Thought Harvester for AOE, or you can run raid build (3x CoI, 2x SA, 1x WOTD) for more singletarget focus, it depends on your team.

Easy answer? 20-25 stacks without Bloodlust, 25-30 with Bloodlust
Longer answer? You want to use it before you are about to drop out, keep an eye on your insanity and see how long u can push, you obviously want to delay it as long as possible. Once you start dipping below 50% Insanity you can use it, whether that be at 20 stacks or 30 stacks, doesn't matter. Use it as late as possible.

You want to use it on cooldown.
You could delay it to use 2-4 VF stacks before popping lucid, but it's not a huge gain, and if by doing that u lose a cast on shadowfiend for the fight you should not do it.

Unless you are 145%+ haste, there is always 2 GCDs in between Void Bolts, or you should always fit 2 GCDs in between Void Bolts.
So you want to do Void Bolt > GCD > GCD > Void Bolt
I know that it might SEEM like there is less than a gcd left when u finish a SWV, and thats because of blizzards UI problems with updating GCDs with dynamic haste and stuff.
Examples here.

For 8.2 you want 3x Chorus of Insanity, 2x Spiteful Apparations, 1 Whispers of the damned and 2x Overwhelming Power
Head with SA, CoI and OP from Radiance of Azshara
Shoulders with CoI and SA from Titanium Residuum vendor
Chest with CoI, WoTD and OP from Za'Qul

There is no BIS list due to titanforging/sockets messing everything up. The closest you'll get to bis gear is
The known good benthic pieces I recommend above
The known good azerite trait pieces + combo I recommend above
Rest of the pieces is just haste/crit gear u can get ur hands on.
SIM EVERYTHING TO MAKE SURE =)
You can sim gear you don't have in Raidbots Gear Compare mode.

A quick way to compare your play against another ones is to find a high parsing Shadowpriest on the same fight, with about same ilvl, then you compare
Vampiric Touch Uptime %
Shadow Word: Pain Uptime %
Voidform Uptime %
Shado Word: Void Casts Per Minute
Void Bolt Casts Per Minute

This will give you a quick (but far from perfect) idea of what you might be getting wrong. For better analysis I recommend posting logs here on a fight like Abyssal Commander Shivara, Lady Ashvane or Grong (Some sort of Patchwerk-like fight) so we can take a look!

Use it on 5 stacks first use, and on CD after. The only thing worth delaying for is AOE

Go set up your sim as normal, scroll to bottom and click the "show simc input". Copy that code.
Go to Raidbots > Advanced. Add the code there, and under #Simulation Configs you add a line with the text "target_race=aberration"
and then u run it.
Now compare that with a normal sim, they should differ if you are wearing the 2% Aberration dmg belt.

If you have atleast 1x Searing Dialogue you use the full channel, preferebly after a Voidbolt.

No, only during procc. Theres some people who argue that very early in voidform it doesnt matter (before 5-10 stacks), sims says otherwise but its very close either way.
So either only use it over flay under 5-10 stacks, or only use it during TH procc.
Unless you are 145%+ haste, there is always 2 gcds inbetween voidbolts, or you should always fit 2 gcds in between voidbolts.
I know that it might SEEM like there is less than a gcd left when u finish a SWV, and thats because of blizzards UI problems with updating GCDs with dynamic haste and stuff.

Once upon a time, in a land far far away! When spiteful was introduced, blizzard added a hidden buff to the trait, that makes it do 75% increased damage when you DO NOT have AS talented.
This was done so that the trait wouldnt influence talent choices.
Now that AS is nerfed to 50% but the hidden buff still being 75% - and since AS increases base damage + trait, but at a lower value. The more traits u have the smaller the gap on apparition damage is.
At 1 Spiteful traits, ghosts still do more damage with AS, at 2 traits they do about equal damage, but at 3 traits they do more damage if you do NOT have a talent at all.
Because the 75% added damage from the trait starts outweighing the basedamage buff from AS.

There is no correct answer, it depends on your raids, your gear, your goals, your progress,you, you, you. We can not answer that, be a big boy and make a decision

You should use "rock boy" basically on cooldown. You can think of it as using at similar times as shadowfiend (maybe a bit earlier).