Build Guides/Pure Shadow

Introduction

For this particular Shadow based build, we'll be focusing our attention towards the Pure Shadow Random Enchant, this allows us to maintain an increased Critical Strike Chance along with an incredible amount of wide area damage.

We'll be combining the Pure Shadow with Dusk Till Dawn and Mindburn, both of these Random Enchants work in synergy with Shadowburn, allowing us to hit up to 5 targets and applying Corruption to them at once, giving us higher uptime on both Molten Core (Damage & Crit Chance) and Eradication (Haste).

With all of this in mind, let's go into the full guide, keep in mind that this guide was made based on a Spirit version of a caster build.

Pros

• Strong Single-Target and Cleave damage
• Strong Cleave Burst
• Easy to learn, high skill ceiling for room to improve.
• Great at killing low percentage targets.
• Simple to roll on Draft / Wildcard.
• Steady Damage Output
• Potential to be at the top.

Cons

• Long build-up.
• No way to stop doing spread target damage
• Weak Single-Target burst
• Must maintains stacks of Pure Shadow to be competitive.
• A lot of stacks / buffs to maintain.
• Hits limits with Ahn'Qiraj Warlock Set Bonuses (Implements of Unspoken Names / Doomcaller's Attire)

Leveling

For leveling, I'd recommend watching this YouTube video and following along with the path, it's quick & easy and avoids going into Dungeons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAMLzcincS8

Starting Skills

1. Shadow Bolt
2. Corruption
3. Shadow Word: Pain

Generally you'll want to have your 3 core abilities at level 1, although you could ignore Shadow Word: Pain for now.

Mandatory Skills

These are abilities that you'll absolutely need for this build to function.

• Shadow Bolt
• Corruption
• Mind Blast
• Shadowburn
• Shadowfury
• Shadowform

Recommended Skill Cards

If you're able to, I'd suggest getting at least Shadowform and Shadowfury skill carded, and if you're balling I'd recommend;

1. Shadowfury
2. Shadowform
3. Molten Armor
4. Fel Armor

Molten Armor and Fel Armor synergizes really well with our build, as we will be stacking a lot of Spirit for the maximum value on the new High-Risk Enchants

Leveling Talents

If you're not one of the people, who'll be using Soul of the Warden while leveling, I'd recommended these talents for leveling with these starting abilities.

Ascension Build Calculator

The order is not too important, but I'd recommend starting with Bane in Destruction Warlock, then moving onto Raze in Elemental Shaman, from there, you can do any order you desire.

Full Build

Skills

• Shadow Bolt - This is your main damaging ability.
• Corruption - Keep this up on your main target, it is used to proc Molten Core and Eradication.
• Shadow Word: Pain - Used only in emergencies where you would otherwise loose your Shadow Weaving stacks.
• Mind Blast - Used to trigger Backdraft and Shadow Weaving.
• Shadowburn - Combined with Dusk Till Dawn, this will hit 5 Targets and apply Corruption to all of them if you have 5 stacks of Dusk Till Dawn.
• Shadowfury - This is your primary Multi-Target Ability, with Pure Shadow at 10 Stacks, it will send a massive Shadow Crash into the enemies at the targeted location.
• Shadowform - increases your Shadow Damage by 10% permanently.
• Molten Armor - Provides passive Critical Strike Rating from Spirit
• Fel Armor - Provides passive Spell Hit Rating from Spirit

Talents

Ascension Build Calculator

Mystic Enchants

• Pure Shadow - Legendary (1/1)
• Mindburn - Epic (1/1)
• Dusk Till Dawn - Epic (1/1)
• Pendulum - Epic (1/1)
• Celestial Focus - Rare (1/1)
• Balance of Power - Rare (1/1)
• Precision - Rare (1/1)
• Darkness - Rare (1/1)
• Dark Embrace - Rare (3/3)
• Death's Embrace - Rare (3/3)
• Fierce Mind - Rare (3/3)

If you're using a Staff, avoid Celestial Focus.

Stats

Ideally, you'll want the following stats, however, always prioritize getting Hit Capped, remember that Hit Rating is different from Melee to Casters.

(Stat Priority: Spell Power > Spirit = Crit Chance > Haste)

• Hit : 17% (8 Rating = 1%)
• Crit Chance: 25% (14 Rating = 1%)
• Haste Rating: 17.5% (10 Rating = 1%)

Hit Cap for casters is 17%, so we always aim to hit this, no matter what our other stats are.

Crit Chance we want to aim to get about 25%, as we're getting the rest almost for free, using Spirit Stacking we're essentially converting 40% of our Spirit, into Crit Rating. Assuming that we have 500 Spirit un-buffed, we'd get an extra 30% Spirit from Spirit Tap, which would put us at 650 Spirit, where that Spirit then converts to 260 Crit Rating (18.57%). Aside from these stats, we're also getting an extra 10% from Pure Shadow, in addition to 30% from Molten Core.

Haste Rating is a hard one to math out, but essentially we want to get "GCD Capped" which means that by the time we've finished a cast, it lines up exactly with when we're able to cast another one. And we're already gaining a lot of Haste from Eradication and Backdraft.

Items

It's very hard to create a Best-in-Slot list of items on Ascension, as the progression is pretty fast and missing an item in one place, means we'll have to supplement the missing stats somewhere else, and it leads to a mess.

Ideally, I'd recommend getting 4-set of either Magister's Regalia or Dreadmist Raiment (Dungeon Tier 1)

Then prioritize getting 17% Hit

Enchants

• Head: Presence of Sight (Obtained through Zul'Gurub with Zandalar Tribe [Friendly])
• Shoulder: Zandalar Signet of Mojo / Zandalar Signet of Serenity (Obtained through Bijous and Zandalar Coins)
• Chest: Yeti Gambeson / Devilsaur Gambeson (Crafted by a Leatherworker)
• Wrist: Enchant Bracer - Healing Power
• Hands: Enchant Gloves - Minor Haste / Enchant Gloves - Shadow Power (Locked until PVP Progression 3)
• Waist: Cleric's Belt Buckle (Crafted by a Blacksmith)
• Legs: Presence of Sight (Obtained through Zul'Gurub with Zandalar Tribe [Friendly])
• Feet: Enchant Boots - Spirit
• Ring 1: Enchant Ring - Lesser Stats (Locked until PVP Progression 3)
• Ring 2: Enchant Ring - Lesser Stats (Locked until PVP Progression 3)
• Weapon (Main-Hand): Enchant Weapon - Grovewarden's Blessing III
• Weapon (Off-Hand): Enchant Weapon - Grovewarden's Blessing II
  • You can use only Enchant Weapon - Grovewarden's Blessing III if you're wielding just a Staff.

Skill Rotations and Priorities

The Basics

At its most basic, the premise of Pure Shadow is to spam Shadow Bolt until you're at 10 stacks of Pure Shadow. Pure Shadow allows you to cast an empowered Shadowfury and gain the benefits of the Critical Strike Chance. Dusk Till Dawn wants you to use a cast time spell, like Shadow Bolt, going into the improved Shadowburn, and then follow up with applying Corruption on up to 5 targets.

This Mind Blast > Shadow Bolt > Shadow Bolt > Shadowburn > Shadow Bolt > Shadow Bolt > Shadow Bolt > combo is the heart of the build, and if you have that committed to memory, then the rest is simple. Anything beyond it is simply cooldown and movement management. The priority lists below will showcase where exactly they are to be used optimally, but as long as they are being used at all, your damage should not suffer too severely.

The Rotation

This is a priority system, not a rotation. This means things higher up have priority over things lower on the list, rather than cast them in this order. You would go down the list until you hit the first thing that is true, cast that spell, then go back to the top and start again. This of course assumes raw single target with no mechanics. Please do not go throwing Shadowfury into an immunity or Mind Control

Single Target

Cast Shadow Word: Pain once on pull.

1. Cast Mind Blast
2. Cast Corruption
3. Cast Power Infusion / Berserking
4. Cast Shadow Bolt until you have 1 remaining stack of Backdraft
5. Cast Shadowburn if you are at 5 stacks of Dusk Till Dawn
6. Cast Shadow Bolt until you have no remaining stacks of Backdraft
7. Cast Arcane Power / Trinkets if you are at 10 stacks of Pure Shadow
8. Cast Shadowfury if you are at 10 stacks of Pure Shadow

Multi-Target

• Cast Mind Blast
• Cast Power Infusion / Berserking
• Cast Shadow Bolt until you have 1 remaining stack of Backdraft
• Cast Arcane Power / Trinkets if you are at 5 stacks of Dusk Till Dawn
• Cast Shadowburn if you are at 5 stacks of Dusk Till Dawn
• Cast Shadow Bolt until you have no remaining stacks of Backdraft
• Cast Shadowfury if you are at 10 stacks of Pure Shadow

Useful WeakAuras

Download WeakAuras Here

Weak Auras is the most important AddOn for players seeking to master their class and take their gameplay to new heights. Weak Auras allows you to display helpful visuals cues anywhere on your screen, which enable you to play better. Most players use it to track their trinket procs, highlight on screen displays of their most important cooldowns, or track the timers of boss mechanics. It is highly customisable and makes keeping track of your procs and cooldowns effortless. The drawback of Weak Auras is that is has a bit of a learning curve and isn't the most user friendly. Weak Auras allows you to import other players data directly into their UI, however, and most players choose to simply import other people's Weak Auras rather than make their own. Weak Auras can be used to create just about anything you can imagine, as it is a LUA scripting tool (essentially an AddOn that creates other AddOns, in-game).

Buff Tracker

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Shadowfury Now!

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Conclusion

This build is always going to be great on performance, but due to certain content having more punishing movement, crowd-control or other distributing abilities, this build can fall really far behind if our buff uptime gets denied.

We're able to push out a lot of cleave damage, making this build superior in Mythic+ Content where we can keep our stacks up throughout the entire dungeon.

This build scales really well with gear, meaning that we'll never be put behind on raw throughput and will always be able to compete with the other builds, with Ahn'Qiraj putting us far above the others during our execute phase (Enemy below 35% Health)

Single Target Dummy Test

Mechanical Issues

Currently there is an "issue" where if there is less than 5 targets, Dusk Till Dawn will hit some targets twice, an example would be, if there are 3 targets, Let's call them Target-A, Target-B & Target-C

If I start casting Shadowburn on Target-B, Target-A and Target-C will take damage twice from Shadowburn, resulting in 5 hits, while only 3 targets are present.

Recent Balance Changes

None. :) (Let's hope it stays that way)