Shadow Priest leveling build (10–60)

How to play it

• Spirit Tap first: mana after every kill is what makes Shadow level. Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Blast, wand. Wand Specialization at 44 is 25% wand damage; wands fire while moving in Forever.
• Mind Flay at 20, Vampiric Embrace at 30 for free healing, Devouring Plague (trainable for every race now) with Devouring Contagion spreading it on kills.
• Shadowform at 40. Shadow Word: Death (baseline at 32) finishes targets but costs 30% of your health if it fails to kill: use it only under 20% with Early Demise.
• Fear Ward and Devouring Plague are trainable at 20 for all races in Forever.

Talents taken

Discipline (17)

• Wand Specialization 2/2: Increases your damage with Wands by 25%.
• Twin Disciplines 3/5: Increases the damage and healing of your instant cast spells by 3%.
• Mental Strength 5/5: Increases your total Intellect by 10%.
• Martyrdom 2/2: Gives you a 100% chance to gain Focused Casting for 6 sec after being the victim of a melee or ranged critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents you from losing casting time when taking damage and increases your resistance to Interrupt effects by 20%.
• Mental Agility 1/3: Reduces the mana cost of your Smite, Holy Fire, and instant cast spells by 3%.
• Inner Focus 1/1: When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is a non-periodic spell and capable of a critical effect.
• Meditation 3/3: Allows 50% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.

Shadow (34)

• Shadow Focus 3/5: Improves your chance to hit with Shadow spells by 3%.
• Blackout 5/5: Gives your Shadow damage spells a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 sec.
• Spirit Tap 5/5: Gives you a 100% chance to increase your Spirit by 100% for 15 sec after killing a non-trivial target or when an enemy afflicted by your Vampiric Embrace dies. For the duration, 50% of your Mana regeneration will continue while casting.
• Improved Shadow Word: Pain 2/2: Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 6 sec.
• Mind Flay 1/1: Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 63 Shadow damage over 3 sec and slowing their movement speed by 50%.
• Improved Mind Flay 2/2: Each instance of damage of Mind Flay deals 20% more damage than its previous instance of damage.
• Dark Inspiration 1/5: Your Mind Blast and fully channeled Mind Flay causes Dark Inspiration, increasing yours and your party's Spirit by 3% for 10 sec.
• Vampiric Embrace 1/1: Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 20% of any Shadow spell damage you deal for 30 sec.
• Shadow Weaving 3/3: Your Shadow damage spells have a 100% chance to increase the Shadow damage the target takes from you by 2% for 15 sec, stacking up to 5 times.
• Silence 1/1: Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 sec and interrupting their spellcasts for 3 sec.
• Devouring Contagion 2/2: Reduces the mana cost of your Devouring Plague by 50%. Targets that die while Devouring Plague is active spreads it, jumping to 2 nearby enemies within 10 yds for the remaining duration.
• Early Demise 2/2: Increases Shadow Word: Death's critical strike chance on targets at or below 20% health by 30%.
• Darkness 5/5: Increases your Shadow damage done by 10%.
• Shadowform 1/1: Assume Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 10%, reducing the Mana cost of all Shadow spells by 50%, increasing the critical strike damage bonus of your Shadow spells by 100%, and reducing Physical damage taken by you by 15%. However, you may not cast healing spells while in this form.

Point order by level

First point at level 10 (set the Talented perk in the calculator if you start earlier).