---
title: '12.1 Shadow Priest: They Cooked With This One!'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ukez0aqmZ34'
video_id: 'Ukez0aqmZ34'
date: 2026-08-03
duration_sec: 778
---

# 12.1 Shadow Priest: They Cooked With This One!

> Source: [12.1 Shadow Priest: They Cooked With This One!](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ukez0aqmZ34)

## Summary

The video reviews the Shadow Priest specialization in World of Warcraft's Midnight expansion, focusing on the 12.1 PTR changes. The author praises the reworked talents and tier set bonuses, highlighting the engaging gameplay and the improved design philosophy behind the new talent choices. They also discuss the spec's performance, survivability issues, and mobility drawbacks.

### Key Points

- **Most Fun DPS Spec** [00:53] — The author states that Shadow Priest in 12.1 is the most fun DPS spec they have played in Midnight, due to reworked talents and a strong tier set.
- **Two-Set Bonus Details** [01:22] — The two-set bonus reduces Tentacle Slam cooldown by 3 seconds and increases its damage by 100%, making Tentacle DPS talents viable.
- **Four-Set Bonus Details** [01:35] — The four-set makes Tentacle Slam buff your next Vampiric Touch to be instant, generate 4 more insanity, and conjure shadowy apparitions that deal 200% more damage.
- **New Talent: Shade Burst** [02:05] — Shade Burst replaces Phantom Menace, giving shadowy apparitions an AoE effect soft capped at five targets.
- **Void Form Rework** [02:22] — Void Form is replaced by Void Volley with a cooldown, granting three charges to use whenever you want, giving more control over burst.
- **Improved Void Form** [02:36] — Improved Void Form now gives 5% extra spell damage and two additional Void Volley charges (total five) instead of insanity reward.
- **Ancient Madness Rework** [02:50] — During Void Form, Shadow Word Madness increases haste by 2% and extends Void Form by 1.5 seconds, stacking up to five times; haste decays over 10 seconds after Void Form ends.
- **Focused Outburst Rework** [03:18] — Focused Outburst gives Void Volley 15% more damage and makes Shadow Word Madness launch another Void Volley during Void Form.
- **Resonant Energy Change** [03:45] — Resonant Energy now increases spell damage by 2% for 10 seconds, stacking four times, instead of increasing damage to enemies hit, providing more consistency.
- **PTR Tuning** [04:14] — Shadow received an 8% damage increase and a 25% Power Word Shield absorb buff to adjust for higher health levels in season 2.
- **PTR Performance** [04:41] — Shadow's performance is average on PTR, but the author warns against taking PTR numbers seriously due to many factors like player skill and lag.
- **Playstyle Comparison** [05:27] — The author tried both Void Weaver and Archon builds, finding them sufficiently different but similar enough to not feel like relearning the spec.
- **Archon Popularity** [06:09] — Archon with Ancient Madness is more popular and easier to play due to fewer procs and charges of Void Volley.
- **Void Weaver Engagement** [06:23] — Void Weaver feels engaging due to managing procs, Void Blasts, Insanity, and Void Volleys, though it may not be for everyone.
- **Resource Management** [07:15] — The author prefers having agency over resources rather than a rotation that is mostly decided by the game, though it's getting close to being too much.
- **Tier Set Synergy** [07:41] — The two-set is very good, and the tentacle buffing talents are appreciated for changing the focus of Tentacle Slam into a damage ability.
- **Four-Set Criticism** [08:10] — The four-set's Vampiric Touch buff seems redundant since Tentacle Slam already applies it, though there might be niche uses.
- **Class Design Philosophy** [09:07] — The author criticizes the trend of classes playing themselves and choosing targets, reducing player agency, and praises Improved Void Form and Ancient Madness as perfect examples of talent diversity.
- **Damage Profile Versatility** [09:49] — Improved Void Form provides front-loaded damage for low-level content, while Ancient Madness offers sustained damage for higher keys and longer fights.
- **Survivability Issues** [11:00] — Shadow Priest is consistently squishy, lacking interaction with poisons, bleeds, and curses, and has poor mobility, making it the least mobile spec.
- **Mobility Problems** [12:12] — Priests need babysitting with stampeding roars and wind rush totems to dodge mechanics, and the new dungeon pool attacks immobility.

### Conclusion

Shadow Priest in 12.1 offers engaging and fun gameplay with well-designed talent choices, but its survivability and mobility issues remain significant drawbacks. The author recommends checking out Outlaw Rogue as an alternative for player agency.

## Transcript

Make room for the new king, or rather, void lord.
guys see that? Oh. Delicious. Delicious. The delicious animation. The delicious animation. Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Oh my god, look at look at uh look at look at uh
of me playing wow this expansion. Xal'atath has nothing on Shadow Priest in 12.1. This is, to this day, the most fun DPS spec I have played so far in Midnight, period. A lot of it has to do with the
reworked talents going into season 2, as well as the tier set being a legit well as the tier set being a legit banger. Let's get into it.
The two-set bonus reduces the cooldown of your Tentacle Slam by 3 seconds and increases its damage by 100%. This is a perfect example of what a two-set bonus that is mostly passive can be and should [music] do. As it stands, this bonus
pushes Tentacle DPS talents as viable on the 12.1 PTR right now. The four-set makes casting Tentacle Slam buff your next Vampiric Touch to be instant, generate four more insanity, and conjure shadowy apparitions that
deal 200% more damage. This is where most people have an issue with it, which and will elaborate towards the end of the video. Suffice to say the gameplay effect at the very least is really cool and engaging. We have new talents. Shade
burst will replace Phantom Menace in the talent tree and give shadowy apparitions an AoE effect that is soft capped at five targets. Void form received a replaced by void volley with a cool down once used, it gives you three charges of
void volley to use whenever you want. This change is massive and something I 100% support. You have more control over your burst and ability usage giving you freedom and flexibility in your rotation.
Additionally, improved void form now will give you 5% extra spell damage as before, but instead of the insanity reward, it gives you two additional uses of void volley bringing the total count up to five that can be used right away.
Ancient madness was also reworked. Now during void form when you use shadow word madness, your haste is increased by 2% and the duration of void form extended by 1.5 seconds. This can stack five times and when your void form ends,
the haste starts to decay over the course of 10 seconds. These two are choice nodes and are perfectly designed choice nodes for any DPS class and will explain why again later into the video. Another important rework was made to
Arcan talent. Focused outburst will now give void volley a 15% more damage increase and will also buff shadow word madness cast during void form to launch another void volley at your enemy. So now shadow word madness conjures shadowy
apparitions and void volley when in void form, making this feel like an actual powerful spender. Resonant energy was also changed slightly to make halo increase your spell damage by 2% for 10
seconds stacking four times instead of increasing damage dealt to enemies hit. This way the bonus damage does not fluctuate when new enemies spawn during or right at the end of your Halo cycle, giving this talent more consistency, but
giving this talent more consistency, but also more strength overall. slightly earlier than when you see it, Shadow has received minimal tuning. We
have an all ability damage done increased by 8% and a Power Word shield absorb buff by 25%. The damage increase is just a tuning knob to keep Shadow good, while the Power Word shield is to adjust for the
higher health levels that we will have in season 2. Currently on the PTR, Shadow's performance is just about average, and looking at this graph, we can clearly see how chaotic the representation of spec DPS is. This is a
good example of why not to take PTR numbers seriously, because there are way too many factors influencing the data. Data is already not 100% reliable on live servers, let alone on testing servers where people either don't know
how to properly play the new class in the new content, either have lag or performance issues, either are in sub-optimal groups with sub-optimal sub-optimal groups with sub-optimal combat strategies, or any combinations
of the above. It is important, however, to recognize the vast differences, which thankfully doesn't seem to affect Shadow Priest at all. Sorry, Devastation of Priest at all. Sorry, Devastation of Evokers, you are a meme. Good luck.
first time on the PTR was definitely an experience I was not ready for. I am a DPS hoe, and someone that likes to min-max my performance. This, unfortunately, pushes me to play the best builds, leaving me with little
gameplay variety. I have tried both Void Weaver and Arcan, both improved Void Weaver and Arcan, both improved Void form and Ancient Madness, and honestly, I absolutely love both play styles. They are sufficiently different from each
other to keep the spec fresh, and yet still mostly similar as to not feel that you are relearning your spec a second time. Currently, it seems Archon with Ancient Madness is the more popular build on the PTR, and honestly, a little
easier to play, mostly because of the reduced amount of procs and charges of Void Volley. However, you could argue the Mindful Insanity proc adds enough extra juice in your rotation to not feel that far away from Void Weaver. Speaking
of, maybe it's the honeymoon phase for me, but coming from specs that are very linear in their gameplay with the procs and spell usage mostly decided by Blizzard, playing Void Weaver with an influx of procs that need to be managed
influx of procs that need to be managed felt very engaging for me, at least. Having to cycle between Void Blasts, consuming Insanity, consuming my Void Volleys, and not capping Tentacle Slams has been challenging in a fun way. I
understand this style of playing isn't for everyone, but it is a nice change of pace for me from playing the simpler specs in season 1. Not saying Shadow is complex at all, if anything, its spells are very straightforward and don't have
a lot of depth for you to learn and constantly think about. It's just that you have a lot of shiny buttons that do cool things when you press, and sometimes you just don't know which one to press. This is a good problem to have
to press. This is a good problem to have in Midnight. concept of having an influx of resources that makes you always cap or waste some
of them. This doesn't seem like it's the case for Shadow, but it is getting dangerously close to it. After playing all specs in the game, I have to admit that I'd rather have it this way where I have some form of agency over my spec
rather than having so few procs or resources that my rotation is mostly decided for me already. The two-set is very good. The tentacle buffing talents the Midnight rework, since the synergy they provided was non-existent outside
of just damage increase. I'm not saying they are interesting, but I love talents that slightly change the focus and an ability. Turning Tentacle Slam from a just a dot enabler and maybe extender to an outright damage ability that you want
to use to smash enemies is really cool. I understand that the four-set Vampiric Touch buff can seem redundant. On one hand, Tentacle Slam already applies Vampiric Touch, so getting another free version of it does nothing for the
actual damage over time effect. Maybe there is some niche usage where the instant cast of Vampiric Touch can be used on a mob that wasn't hit by Tentacle Slam. That requires some nameplate management and tracking to see
which one of the enemies doesn't have Vampiric Touch on them, which I don't mind, but I'm 100% sure is not intended. The devs have cracked down hard on the need to tap target for the ideal enemy multiple times in your rotation, to the
point where I wouldn't be surprised if the effect change into something like Vampiric Touch just auto applies itself to a target that is not affected by Vampiric Touch, regardless of your currently selected target. Although this
is an awesome fix for the pain points of the talent and hardly changes its damage output, it edges closely to my main criticism of class design in Midnight, which is around classes playing themselves and choosing their own
targets dealing efficient damage without your input and generally taking away agency from you for the sake of simplifying gameplay. Improved Void Form and Ancient Madness are the perfect philosophy of designing
talent diversity and damage profile versatility. Whenever we are looking at playing a spec differently or adjusting to a type of content that we might be weak in, this is what we want. Improved Void Form gives you access to
front-loaded damage in the five volleys it provides. This is perfect for lower-level content or situations where you need to condense as much damage as possible in as short of a window as possible. Low-level keys, raid fights
where boss adds don't live long or need to be killed quickly, delves, open-world content, all of these make perfect use of this style of damage output. On the other hand, Ancient Madness is playing the long game. In theory, and it looks
like in practice as well, this gives you more overall damage output, but spread over a longer and higher-scaling Void Form. This is perfect for higher keys where stuff lives for a long time. Boss fights where you can stay in your Void
Form without breaking your rotation for a long time, and so on. More specs should have choice notes like these. And choice notes they have to remain, otherwise, if you break them apart, they both become probably mandatory. Yet, if
they can remain choices, they can be easily tuned to reward specific damage profiles and talent diversity. The biggest issue I have with Shadow Priest is the biggest issue I have with Priest in general, which are really two issues.
First of all, it has remained a consistently squishy spec. [music] It's class that does not interact with the worst debuffs in the game at all, that being poison, bleeds, and curses, it feels odd in groups, especially in
season two with 10 million poison dispels everywhere. This issue wouldn't be as big if it wasn't for the second one, its mobility. I think WoW classes need to have one of two designs when it comes to their survivability. They
should either be immobile, but tanky, like Death knights and warlocks, or monks. Unfortunately, priest is neither mobile nor tanky. Priest is actually the least mobile spec in the game to the point
where in certain fights, you had to bring Evokers just to be able to carry them in their arms to dodge mechanics in time. This is the only class that had to go through that. Raid strategy slightly changed to have less quality of life for
every member when a priest is present in a group. Priest needs to be baby sat with stampeding roars and wind rush totems just to be able to do what other specs accomplish with a 30 to 60 second cool down in terms of mobility
abilities. Maybe I make it sound worse than it actually is, but the new season dungeon pool, although shaping up to be better and better from what we expected, definitely attacks the immobility of specs, and you will drastically feel
left behind, especially on fights like King Dazar and Kings' Rest, or second boss in Kings' Rest, or first boss in Kings' Rest, or third boss in Kings' Rest. You know what? Just don't play Kings' Rest at all, okay? Another issue
spec in our book that you should check if you want your options open is outlaw rogue. It's trying to achieve similar things as shadow priest while also being a damage specialization that rewards player agency. So, if you are into that,
check out our video on it, and try something else for once.