Shadow Priests and Endgame Preparedness

I mentioned yesterday that I had doubts about shadow priest raid utility these days. Our guild went to Heroic Naxxramus last night and my damage was actually not too shabby considering I'm still in mostly blues (still carrying green trinkets, ew). Basically I've come to the conclusion that a shadow priest's ability to hold his or her own in a raid is dependent FIRST on spec, SECOND on spell rotation, and THIRD on gear.

1. The spec is easy. There are tons of theorycrafting sites out there that tell you the why, but generally speaking this is the WotLK raid spec of choice.
2. Spell rotation is hotly debated and depends quite a bit on gear and on the kind of fight you're in.
• For soloing, I like to use Vampiric Touch (VT) - Mind Blast (MB) - Devouring Plague (DP) - Mind Flay (MF) or Mind Sear (MS) x 2 - MB if needed, or repeat previous sequence - Shadow Word: Death (SWD) to finish.
• For 5-man heroics, I use MB - DP - SWD - VT - Shadow Word: Pain (SWP) - MF or MS - repeat. I drop Vampiric Embrace (VE) in there if the healing is shoddy.
• For most boss fights, I use VT - MB - DP - SWD - SWP - MF - VT - trinkets - Inner Focus (IF) - MB - SWD - DP - SWP
  


3. Gear is where the fun starts, because it is all about what your goal is. If you're going for a coveted raid spot, my impression is that +spellpower and +hit are tops, followed by +crit and +haste, though the topic is debated. The hit cap is 290, and to be honest, I'm having a hell of a time gearing for that and not losing too many points in other places. I find a +hit weapon, but I lose other stats in the process. Still working out the details on the gear issue. Ugh.
• Example 1: At my current gear level, I could use Flameheart Spell Scalpel + Telestra's Journal, or I could use Staff of Draconic Combat. Quick comparison tells you that the staff is better on Int, Spellpower, and Haste but the dagger+book is better on Crit and Hit. I technically only lose a little bit of spell power, I lose quite a bit on the other stats (I prefer haste to crit for now. Please argue against.)
• Example 2: Rings! I could go Signet of the Malevolent + The Prospector's Prize or Band of Guile + Annhylde's Ring. Both options are fine, but one is hit heavy with way less spellpower and one has no hit at all.

So you can see wherein the problem lies. Next time, I'll go into more detail about exactly why you should put a shadow priest in your raid.