Hey I've been playing a raiding shadowpriest for a while now, having cleared up to domo in Mc and downing Hakkar in zg. So far I have found it to be a great and effective manner of dealing dps, I am often one of the top dpsers in the raid. I have top notch gear for my guilds current progression.

Well I find a shadow spec definately very viable in my current stage of raiding how does shadow fare in Bwl and more importantly Aq40. For instance, if my guild was fighting Chthun in the future is there a place for a well geared shadowpriest or is such a role pointless?

While I thoughly enjoy my spec now I worry about its future validty :P

Heres my spec, any improvements for its pve effetiveness are welcome.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?bqx0scZZVGxzcxRt

And if you curious my current profile
http://ctprofiles.net/946055
Recently got cloak of consumption off hakkar but cant seem to update profile...

It's not said to be effective horde side but vaguely for applying debuffs. I'm told it's alright alliance side, but I'm not alliance. You get poor scaling from +damage on your main spells, no real benefit from crit, better than usual benefit from +hit assuming you're not capped.

I loved leveling shadow but shadow at sixty really didn't seem to increase my dps. Even with the talent deaggros and TA I still had problems with mind blast pulling aggro onto me. Your effectiveness may vary.

You're going to get the same answer here that you do everywhere else on somewhat rational forums:

Yes you can win fights with shadowpriests, but they're sure as hell not optimal.

There are very few (ok one) fights in AQ40 which are flat out dpsfests. The only real advantage to having a shadpriest over another dps is shadowweaving, and with the way fights work, either aggro or control reasons prevent people from outright spam nuking shadowbolts like you can vs. say Golemagg or Ragnaros.

Your target healer composition is going to be 14-15 healers on most fights, which means either a) you will be healing thus rendering your spec worthless, or b) you will be dpsing at lower effectiveness than a mage or lock or rogue or hunter.

So can you take shadowpriests and win? Yes. Is it effective? No.

There are two fights in AQ40 where shadowpriests can be useful. Ouro (depending on tactics) and C'thun, especially phase 2.

Shadow priests are inferior to mages/warlocks mainly due to:
- lack of durability through stuff like evocation and life tap
- dependance on a single school of damage
- lack of AoE effects
- lack of extremely short term burst dps
- inferior gear selection due to class sets being hybrid sets at best
- worse +damage returns and virtually no crit returns
In addition, you have the less tangible effect of class drama when one member of the class is allowed to play different, (subjectively more entertaining) role.

They have the advantages of:
- Shadow Weaving being a nice bonus if you have a large warlock crew, but this is often irrelevant due to locks being threat limited.
- versatility through being able to shift to healing if you are low on healers, though not on the fly (in any efficient matter)

In a perfect world where everyone turns up every night and no one is affected by class drama/envy, having your 15th healer be a damage geared shadow priest might not be a bad idea due to versatility. A shadow priest will never ruin your chances of doing an encounter. In the end though, it's not optimal, so you're usually better off letting your mages and warlocks get that uber damage gear, and relegating priests to picking up the crumbs.

As for your spec, it looks pretty much optimal for a dedicated PvE shadow approach. I would consider distributing the Mental Agility points into Imp Mind Blast or Silence, which will very slightly decrease your durability, but increase your versatility a bit.

whoa it's Bill :o

You mention C'thun, where the biggest advantage of being a Shadow Priest is probably Silence. As Elerion said, it's a pretty good idea to get it.

damn :/

My guild is happy giving me any dps item i want if I have enough Dkp for it, so getting those bwl items you mention woulnt be a problem.

But I'm not alliance...

I guess I might aswell respec soon to a good old faishoned healer :P

Maybe one day horde will get eqivalent to BoW. Until then I'l pack my shadow gear in the bank I guess.

I do regually farm manapots/oils ect for pve effectiveness but I guess in late game raids everyone is using that anyways.

To Fogbug : Yes its Bill!!!!!! Wait.... who am i? :P

The problem isn't BoW, though BoW is quite nice. It's JoW. Because the judgment can proc on every tick of mind flay, it ends up effectively massively reducing the cost of your mind flays. There simply is no Horde equivalent, and it returns a tremendous amount of mana over a long fight.

Ah I see, I can imagine that being quite wonderful for mindflay specificly.

Well, I'd rather be a healer on horde than a shadowmage on alliance :>

Thanks for the input even though you've spoiled all my fun, much appriciated, I'd hate to be a burden to my guild later on.

Ah, hmm, that's what I get for speaking without firsthand experience. I figured it was like AM -- any Alliance shadowmages out there to weigh in?