Shadow Priest Spells: Mind Flay

Mind Flay

Mind Flay (MF) is a channeled damage spell. It requires 10 points spent in the Shadow tree (i.e. you must be level 20), and is an absolute MUST HAVE for leveling, farming, endgame raiding, and pvp. Unless all you are doing is fishing, you will want this spell.

This is, for almost every situation, your high-damage-output spell. In its basic form, it reduces target's movement speed by 50%, and does damage as follows:

Rank	Level	Mana Cost	Damage (over 3 sec)
1	20	10% of base mana	45
2	28	10% of base mana	108
3	36	10% of base mana	159
4	44	10% of base mana	222
5	52	10% of base mana	282
6	60	10% of base mana	363
7	68	9% of base mana	450
8	74	9% of base mana	492
9	80	9% of base mana	588

The first one at level 20 is, of course, the talented spell, but you train up through rank 9 after that. There is a Mind Flay glyph that increases the spell's range and removes the movement speed effect There is some argument about the usefulness of the glyph, but if you ask me, an additional 10 yards to do damage is better than 3 seconds of slow movement. In raids, this glyph is essential if you want to move around less. MF is also boosted by the following talents (as listed by WoWwiki):

• Blackout, Darkness, Martyrdom, Shadow Affinity, Shadow Focus, Shadow Reach, Shadow Weaving, Shadowform, Vampiric Embrace, Focused Mind, Mind Melt, Shadow Power, Misery, Pain and Suffering, Twisted Faith, Focused Power

So, even though the base damage chart looks somewhat sad and pathetic, keep in mind how much damage you can do with all your talents/stats. I've seen Mind Flay hit for 5k each tick. That's 15,000 damage over 3 seconds, and that, my darlings, is nothing short of fantastic. MF is perfect for pretty much every situation, and should be your main spell cast in between cooldowns. Figuring out when to leave it for a full cast versus when to cut it short is tricky, but my general rule is to use a full cast when there are no pressing DoT refreshes coming up in the next few seconds, and cut it short when there are.

This little thing comes in at number 5 on my opening rotation, which brings our Shadow Weaving stacks right on up to five. Now we can REALLY bring the pain.

Next time, we'll do more boss fight strategies for my lovely priesties!