Hello guys. It’s Librarian Husky here today, going to World of Warcraft here. We will discuss Shadowlands and dive into talents, PvP talents, legendaries, covenants, soul binds, conduits, and stat priority. As always, I will do my best to keep this guide as short as possible. Let’s get busy!
Talent
There are, of course, some variations. For Tier 25, we can pick Masochism if we know we will get trained, as this talent will boost our survivability. The third option is Angelic Feather for some extra mobility at no extra mana cost. Remember, Angelic Feather does not cost mana. Although it costs you an extra global cooldown, this talent is your best option if you aim for maximum mana efficiency without losing mobility. Starting with talents, our default talent build should look like this:
- Castigation.
- Body and Soul.
- Power Word: Solace.
- Psychic Voice.
- Sins of the Many.
- Purge the Wicked.
- Lenience.
Tier-30 Shield Discipline
For Tier 30, Shield Discipline is only viable in battlegrounds. Mindbender is a viable option when you know you won’t be able to use Solace on cooldown. However, Mindbender can be crowd controlled, punishing your mana gains. Overall you’re better off playing with Power Word: Solace.
Tier-35 Shining Force
For Tier 35, you could pick Shining Force if you’re playing on Z-axis maps like Blade’s Edge Arena or if you already have too many disorienting effects in your team. If you’re mostly playing from a defensive position and can’t afford to push for fears, you will not get total value out of Psychic Voice. For the other tiers, nothing changes, and you should always lock in the talents mentioned earlier. With that being said, we can move to PvP talents.
PvP Talents
My default PvP talents throughout Shadowlands have been: Dome of Light, Trinity, and Ultimate Radiance. Trinity is getting some changes by default. This will again force you or give you the freedom to pick something else to help you more for certain specific fights. Blaze of Light looks exciting, but I don’t think we have room for it, especially since it will still be a bursty meta.
- Atonement gets buffed by 20% in PvP, while Trinity’s critical strike chance bonus gets to 30%. This means Trinity will lose much value in 2v2 but will still be necessary for 3v3.
- Dark Archangel is also one of the best PvP talents.
However, you’re better off sticking to more defensive options if you’re not playing heavy setup compositions. In my opinion, Ultimate Radiance is mandatory for emergency healing. However, you must avoid using radiance as much as possible, as it will drain your mana very fast. It’s better to have it and not need it than the other way around. If you are fighting against teams with one or more knockback effects like a ring of peace, death grip, or thunderstorm, you may not get total value from Dome of Light.
Improved mass dispel
The same goes for Improved mass dispel. It looks lovely, but it can only be used in very niche situations, and I honestly don’t think it’s worth sacrificing a PvP talent slot. Inner Light and Shadow look very, very good to me. Depending on composition and enemy teams, we can replace it with Trinity or Dome of Light.
- For example, let’s say we’re playing 3s and facing death knight and Monk. I would pick Inner Light and Shadow, Trinity, and Ultimate Radiance.
- Remember that PvP talents are not carved in stone and should be changed to adapt to any situation.
- Now that we’ve covered talents and PvP talents, we can talk about legendaries.
- Legendaries.
Covenant legendaries
I will try to cover the important ones and then talk about my favorite one, which I’ve already tested. As you know, we have the new covenant legendaries, and to be honest, I don’t like any of them, and I think none of them change or improve the covenant abilities in a game-breaking way. Sephuz’s Proclamation has been the best legendary for disciplining priests throughout most of the shadowlands so far.
- Extra stats and 10% crowd control reduction while using medallion and will to survive as a human every 90 seconds is pretty good.
- However, this legendary still gives only 80 secondary stats, and once we get more and more gear, those secondary stats will become less impactful.
Other honorable mentions are Crystalline Reflection and Twins of the Sun Priestess, both decent options. However, I don’t think anyone settles for decent.
The Penitent One
My favorite, which I have already tested, is The Penitent One. Seven bolts of penance are just crazy, and it does decent damage but insane amounts of healing. Keep in mind that penance is your most efficient healing. This legendary gets stronger and stronger as you move into dampening, and you are forced to start using radiance.
- After radiance, you don’t have to use penance immediately, as the buff lasts for 20 seconds.
- If you use it while having Power of the Dark Side buff, penance becomes lay on hands with no mana cost. I recommend trying it. Coming up next, Covenants.
Covenants
Long story short, we have two covenant options. Ventnor and Night Fae. I know many of you will still play venthyr for the Mindgames. However, with the increased number of ways to dispel Mindgames, I plan to play Night Fae and become immortal.
- Dreamweaver had a broken soulbond trait, Waking Dream, which did any damage below 80% hp and applied a 30% absorb based on the damage taken. Sadly it got nerfed.
- Because of that, I chose to pick Niya as I think it scales better with discipline priests. Default Soulbind traits are Grove Invigoration, Run Without Tiring, Nature’s Splendor, Niya’s Tools: Burrs, Survivor’s Rally, and Bonded Hearts. We’re going with Fae Fermata, Clear Mind, Translucent Image, Light’s Inspiration, Shining Radiance, and Move With Grace for Conduits. As for Venthyr, I think Nadja will be better than Theater.
- Default Soulbinds should look like this: Thrill Seeker, Agent of Chaos, Friends in Low Places, Familiar Predicaments, Nimble Steps, and Fatal Flaw. For Conduits, the best options are Shattered Perceptions, Clear Mind, Translucent Image, Shining Radiance, Exaltation, and Light’s Inspiration.
That said, we pretty much-covered covenants, and we can start talking about stat priority.
Stats
Regardless of our specialty or class, versatility is our vital secondary stat. However, try at least reaching a haste soft cap.
- I recommend getting at least 21% haste, although depending on gear, we can go further and probably reach 31%. But until we get more gear, we can focus on reaching 21% as it is doable.
- The reason we want 21% haste or more is that our gcd will be 1.2 seconds, Shadow Mend cast time reaches 1.2 seconds, Mind Blast and Power Word: Solace has 12 seconds cooldown; penance has its channel reduced to 1.6 seconds, and last but not least, shadow word: death gets its cooldown reduced to 16 seconds.
- Get haste trinkets, socket haste gems, and even enchant for haste where possible to get to this point, but don’t invest more than 21% unless you can reach new haste breakpoints.
Final words
So unless you can further reduce your cast time, or your gcd haste won’t change much, it’s best to focus on versatility. After Versatility and Haste, Mastery comes third, and you can stay away from the critical strike. With all of that being said, we covered almost everything. Thank you for reading this guide. My name is Librarian Husky – I am your faithful companion in the world of Warcraft. Please check our World Of Warcraft Guides main mage for more valuable articles.