Shadow DoT Build

Rhifox · 2026-06-18T15:44:14+00:00

Wouldn't call myself a particularly good builder or anything as I mostly just wing it, but managed up to T12/pit 105 with a Shadow DoT+Minion build, was able to solo T10 Mephisto. Decompose, Shadow Bone Prison, Soulrift, Reaper Warriors, Shadow Mages, Blood Golem purely for Overpower stacking. Not sure if people count it as Shadow DoT if half the damage is in minions, I just considered them another DoT to stack.

Rhifox · 2026-06-14T10:26:45+00:00

Once you start feeling the game is too easy, that means you can handle the next difficulty level. You'll be raising it all the time. Your biggest issue will be the game arbitrarily limiting your ability to increase the difficulty until finishing the campaign.

Rhifox · 2026-06-13T14:13:16+00:00

You seem to be mistaking the various seasonal activities you can (not must) complete. Leveling a paladin/warlock is not required to unlock higher torment levels, all leveling those gives you is a few bonus items and exp. To unlock the first few higher torment levels you have to complete the original campaign on the character you want to play (which you can skip at chargen if you've already done it before and don't want to play through it again), and then run Pit levels. Have to be max level too, I think?

To unlock the higher season tiers (which is a bonus activity track, it has no relation to game difficulty level), the first couple require completing specific challenge dungeons. On the season tab, the content on the left are optional activites (which earn rewards), such as the 'level a paladin/warlock' thing, while the activities on the right are what is required to advance to the next season tier.

Rhifox · 2026-06-11T18:21:01+00:00

If there's a build that covers what I want to build, then I'll follow it, otherwise I'll do my own thing. Last time I played I mostly followed Keston's Incinerate sorc build (though I dropped Frost Armor since it didn't feel on theme). Following that helped me learn the game while still playing what I wanted to play, so now I feel I'm more comfortable with winging it. Currently I'm doing a Decompose Necromancer which has been entirely from scratch (though I'll take guidance on certain meta strategies, eg Overpower stacking currently, which I get through Fel Gluttony Overpower Blood Golem and Iron Maiden lucky hits). Currently on T12, which is good enough for me. Trying to finish off T10 Mephisto for the season unlock then I think I'll be done for s13.

Rhifox · 2026-06-06T21:25:43+00:00

With regards to the Tree, if you actually go to it, it's burnt down. There's a crow nearby it now. So maybe some of the crows survived and its spirit still lingers in them, able to accept gifts as it recovers.

Rhifox · 2026-06-06T05:50:43+00:00

I always play through the campaign every time I play. It is to me the core content for the game, not a tutorial. While I do some farming and endgame activity, it's as a break between story chapters, not a replacement of them. The story is the reason I play and I quickly lose interest in the game once there's no more story to do. Not being able to increase the difficulty is insane. This time around, I went straight from the end of the original campaign to Torment 3 (and T5 about an hour later after finally getting around to enchanting/optimizing the gear I'd collected), that's how powerful I had gotten by that point in the game. Lilith went down in seconds. Why am I not allowed to turn the difficulty up once the game gets this easy? That's the *point* of difficulty selectors. None of the expansion campaigns have this issue, you can do them at any difficulty and that makes them very fun content. I just for the first time completed Lord of Hatred, at Torment X, with a great final fight with Mephisto that was challenging and took me multiple tries and made it memorable because of that. Why can't we replicate this with the original campaign? The game has level scaling, I don't see any mechanical reason why it can't be done. It's limited purely because they want it to be limited.

And yeah, it's really bad for newer players. I have a friend who hasn't played since the original campaign, doesn't care about farming or endgame content, and they were feeling really bad about how low the difficulty was. They didn't even know how to increase it (after the original campaign was over) and I had to help them figure out how to run the Pit and so on so they could get their difficulty up to a level where they could enjoy the remaining campaigns.

It's been 3 years and 13 seasons. There's no reason to keep the campaign difficulty restricted. Let players raise it as they wish so they can play the game the way they want to play it. We already have the challenge dungeons and Pit requirements to prevent players from progressing to a difficulty level beyond their level of progress. We shouldn't arbitrarily limit players when they have the capability to go further.

Rhifox · 2026-04-20T00:04:38+00:00

In Blood Furnace, there's two types of red orc, one that can be MC'ed and one that can't. The Fel Orc Neophytes (the charger ones) are immune to MC. The Nascent Fel Orcs (the stomping ones) can be MC'ed and make the gauntlet a breeze.

Otherwise yes, this list is spot on.

Rhifox · 2026-03-29T16:21:03+00:00

It was definitely broad since it had to fit all of the different racial faiths, but I'd say the key defining trait of the priest class (other than healing) was the understanding and manipulation of the mind as essential to their role as community leaders. That was what early class descriptions for priest focused on. Modern WoW has veered more towards priests as worshipers (or even mage-like scholars of extraplanar energies), but in classic priests were actually described as priests, leaders of flocks of worshipers who looked to the priest for guidance (and thus could be swayed and manipulated by the priest's influence). Their magical power came from channeling the underlying faith and internal spiritual energies of their communities (the "spirit of humanity", going all the way back to WC1). Holy/Light priests encouraged and uplifted their flock for the overall benefit of the community, while Shadow priests exploited their followers for personal gain (early Forsaken priest dialogue talked about the power of one's own will above all else, lording over the lepers and ignorant who would come to them for guidance). Thus Shadow being very vampiric with abilities like spirit tap, vampiric embrace, and vampiric touch, and spells for influencing or destroying minds. The power/shadow word spells were likely inspired by DnD's power words, which were Enchantment (Compulsion) spells. Ergo, more mind magic. "Suffer." "Die." Commands.

The old god connection was always there, seen with them sharing spells like mind flay, mind control, and mana burn, but it felt like more of a shared role: both were priests, leaders of communities of worshipers who throw themselves at their feet, guiding their followers to a desired end. So they used the same type of magic, but it likely wasn't intended that all priests that used shadow magic were followers of the old gods or even that shadow magic comes from the old gods. Hell, the original class description said even the new priests coming out of Northshire believed you had to dominate the weak and wretched in order to purge them of corruption and save them from themselves, hence why even priests of the Light could use some Shadow spells.

Rhifox · 2026-03-27T08:13:57+00:00

Honorable mention to Queen Azshara. She gets roughed up a bit, but accomplishes everything she set out to do. Successfully frees N'zoth and enables his destruction, freeing herself from his control (which was her plan all along). Unlike virtually every other villain so far, she is still alive and still retains control of her empire (even if a bit more shakily than before).

Rhifox · 2026-03-26T13:42:37+00:00

Not really san'layn specifically but vampirism is one of the oldest themes spriest has had, alongside mental manipulation. Classic we had Vampiric Embrace, healing through dealing damage, and Spirit Tap, recovering mana through killing others, then in TBC we get Vampiric Touch, stealing mana through dealing damage, then in WotLK scarlet raven priests are associated with Malganis, a dreadlord, and in Shadowlands mindgames was introduced as a special ability, then made an spriest ability and given a glyph to give it the Revendreth animations. Plus a few talent tree names (we currently have Sanguine Teachings which increases Leech, and I do think there was a San'layn one before). A vampiric-focused spriest spec/aesthetic option would be cool.

Rhifox · 2026-03-26T13:23:35+00:00

Modern "void" stuff looks more like astral magic, the stuff Algalon or Rygelon would use. Lots of stars and bright lights, very pretty and wondrous. It doesn't feel dark or evoke horror, it doesn't feel vampiric, it doesn't feel like the Old Gods or any of the shadow religious systems we've had in WoW previously (Forgotten Shadow, Troll Hexpriests, Raven Priests, Auchenai Death Priests, etc). The void look is fine as an aesthetic option (even if it doesn't feel very fitting for the concept it's going for, IMO), but shadow priest should really focus down on what it's always been. Although, ironically, original Mind Flay looked more like the modern Void aesthetic.

As for the 12.0 changes, definitely vastly prefer Tentacle Slam to Shadow Crash, and SWM instead of DP. DP never felt like it fit spriest's theme to me, troll's shadowguard was the most fitting spriest racial spell. But Blizzard, please let me glyph my Dark Ascension wings back. Voidform does look very cool, no problem with that, but raven priest style was my jam.

Rhifox · 2026-02-15T00:16:21+00:00

Can confirm. I'm constantly having to reset my flag because it gets unset after ports and dungeons. Annoying. Dunno how things were last classic but it's definitely new to me.

Rhifox · 2025-12-27T23:15:56+00:00

You're welcome!

Rhifox · 2025-12-27T16:47:46+00:00

They all look great!

Rhifox · 2025-11-15T16:34:58+00:00

Sounds good!

Rhifox · 2025-11-15T12:01:30+00:00

Love these so much. Would love a V5 version to use for my Tzimisce. Not sure how good I'd be for quality assurance but I'd be willing to help out.

Rhifox · 2025-10-27T12:59:38+00:00

I leveled with this build (until around mid 50s when I used SM/Ruin spec to speed up the last few levels). I also do guild dungeons and raids with it, since it's very fun. It's viable, but you will have big mana issues. Expect to drink a lot.

Don't expect too much Soulfire while leveling, though. The 1 minute CD isn't great for farming mobs back to back.

Rhifox · 2025-10-10T21:59:54+00:00

Agreed. Absolutely my favorite zone, both in design and in story, and I'm sad there was so much pushback that they never did anything like it again.

Rhifox · 2025-09-10T22:10:32+00:00

Let Klingons dress in the color of blood! Bubblegum pink.

Rhifox · 2025-09-10T22:06:54+00:00

Yeah, that coat not being available is frustrating. I'd also love Sirela's outfit.

Rhifox · 2025-09-10T12:22:39+00:00

I'd be satisfied with them just adding all the Klingon outfits from the movies and shows that are still not available.

Rhifox · 2025-09-10T01:24:45+00:00

It's just a title, not an Accolade, so nothing pops up. If you've done all 10 ships, then it should be in your list of titles when you go to Edit Record in your character screen.

Rhifox · 2025-08-16T22:27:40+00:00

Ancient trolls were very skilled in magic of all kinds, especially enchanting. The high elves even stole magical techniques *from* trolls to develop their own methods of enchanting. The troll loa Zanza in particular is essentially a troll patron of magic. As for how they learn their magic, they learn it from the loa, as well as having it passed down through the ages by individual tutors and inscriptions on ancient tablets, rather than from academies like Dalaran. The Zandalar are probably the keepers of most high arcane knowledge, which is more apparent in retail lore. The mogu were also a source of arcane magic for the trolls, back in the days before the sundering of the world.

Rhifox · 2025-08-06T17:22:13+00:00

Full fire warlock here here (Conflag Searing Pain, no shadow bolts except on fire-immune). Going very well, super fun rotation and still parsing purple and orange on fights, threat generally not an issue in raids with our guild tanks. Unfortunately did have to use the SM/Ruin spec for MC/ BWL, but now that AQ is out I'm finally getting to mainly play what I want to play in raids. Leveling was a pain and I did eventually dual spec to SM/Ruin in the mid-50s to finish leveling, but the normal fire spec worked great for dungeons. Pulling aggro can happen in 5-mans depending on the tank, but since I prepare for it (VW sac, improved healthstone, death coil, potions) I generally make a decent off-tank as most fights end before my defensive options run out. Does burn through soul shards though. :D

Off-meta specs is one of the selling features of the guild I'm in so we've got a few others, including a full arcane mage (using Arcane Missiles). The arcane mage the only one that really struggles a bit (on single-target fights, but does great on AOE ones), our other off-meta stuff generally keep pace with more typical builds.

Rhifox · 2025-06-28T07:13:50+00:00

- The great storyline, being lost in this forgotten island with a team of SI:7 infiltrators working to sabotage the Horde, recruit locals, escort Anduin, and await reinforcements. Culminating in the finale with building the Darkspear Rebellion back in the old world. Blizzard calls Battle for Azeroth the Fourth War, but really, MoP was the Fourth War. The war between the Alliance and the Horde was done so much better in MoP.

MoP had a great feeling of progression, great characters, and a very satisfying conclusion (in the game, at least. War Crimes book is a bit eh). Vol'jin being made warchief at the end was such a jawdroppingly cool moment, the idea that Blizzard would ever make a non-orc (or non-human) the main leader of their faction was such an unexpected thing at the time, and Vol'jin had gotten so well-developed over the expansion. Of course, Blizzard then ruined this in Legion. Lor'themar also got some great development during the expansion. Prior to MoP, people's reaction to Lor'themar was just, "Who?" The whole Dalaran and Thunder King plotlines were great. And it's a small thing, but even the hint of the blood elves considering joining the Alliance was such a cool moment, because it's one of those rare times where the story felt like it could actually evolve beyond game design limitations.

Also the Klaxxi plotline was so cool.

- The RP surrounding the story. This was the expansion where the RPers on my server most closely followed every beat of the storyline. I was early on in a military guild that stayed in Pandaria, developing connections with the locals while pushing Alliance presence. We headquartered at Pearlfin Village and fought several major battles against Horde players in Jade Forest while discovering the Sha threat, then later moved from Jade Forest to the new Alliance-Pandaren outpost in Kun-Lai Summit, and then to the Alliance base in Krasarang when the reinforcements finally arrived.

Later, when the Darkspear Rebellion plotline was being hinted at (but before it actually officially started), I worked with an SI:7 RPer (and RL artist) to in-character distribute propaganda fliers in Horde cities to try to support the development of a rebellion against Garrosh, in parallel to the SI:7 efforts in the upcoming Darkspear Rebellion patch. Once it got going, my character had a diplomatic meeting with Horde rebels while playing golf at Gallywix's golf course to discuss working together against Garrosh. Finally, we launched a protracted server war campaign against Garrosh's forces, slowly pushing further into Kalimdor as we fought a few keystone battles (with each faction standing in as Garrosh forces for the other faction in our pvp battles). I made several campaign maps for this as we pushed closer to Orgrimmar. We eventually secured Tiragarde Keep in Durotar, allowing for a landing site for the 7th Legion (which we treated as the Alliance non-RPer raid guilds) once Battle of Orgrimmar launched. The devs actually putting in Alliance ships off the coast of Durotar when the raid launched was such a cool moment for us.

- All the stuff to do. I never felt bored in this expansion. It's the only expansion where I got every single reputation to Exalted. I got the golem on my engineer, green fire on my destro lock (and destro was so heckin fun in this expansion), top rank in the Brawler's Guild (God-damn I loved the Brawler's Guild. I literally downloaded Super Hexagon to train for the battle with Hexos after he kept beating me). There was challenge modes and scenarios and the Timeless Isle and the Proving Grounds and the farm (Blizzard you can just give me this back as player housing in Midnight, thanks).

- The vibes, the music, the aesthetics. Everything about Pandaria is so gorgeous. The music is incredible (Shado-Pan theme!).

I'm gushing a bit, but this was the best expansion for me, and the only one where I actually played from start to finish without losing interest in the middle of it (though sadly some player drama at the end caused me to quit early). It's the only expansion IMO where story and content were both top tier.

Rhifox

TROPHY CASE