The basics to shadowpriest

Your role is to give mana to others through your damage.
your main goal stat wise in gear is +damage and spell Hit rating with crit being least important for a while.

Your main convern is to keep Vampiric Touch (VT) up all the time, i use DOTtimer to check when its up but there are many out there so choose which one suits you.
I cast VT again at 1second before it expires so it gets its last tick and becomes as mana efficent as possible
Also you keep SW:P up as much as possible with Mind Flays in between these two DOTs
Make sure you don't cast too early as you waste these the last ticks and it becomes mana inefficent to do so.
Avoid using Mindblast and SW:P in your spell rotations because of its inefficenty and poor mana return.


When you get above 1000+spell damage unbuffed it is no longer inefficent to leave Mindblast and SW:death out of your spell rotation.
You can cast these as soon as they are off of cooldown just remember to watch your threat.
(SW:Death is best left alone unless healing isn't a problem or you have Vampiric Embrace up)

another important aspect for priests is hit rating, we can get 10% of our hit rating from talents (shadow focus) this makes it very easy to be hit capped for bosses.
after that talented 10% we need only 76 hit rating to be as efficent as possible and avoid any wasted mana on resisted spells.


Its perfectly possible to get over 1050 Shadow damage unbuffed without ever going into a raid instance, for ideas ask me or just check my armory, i have nothing but heroic and crafted items as i was Holy when i used to raid with my old guilds.


The best spec i've found is
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMRzhZZxGgzMtohtEo
but silence is optional and some people put the three talent points in improved Mind Blast (but only when you have over 1000+ shadow damage.
Meditation is very handy as an extra 20 MP5 etc is still better then the other talents availible, and after 2.3 patch it will be even more.
I didn't choose improved VE as it creates far too much threat to be of much use and it isn't used that much to be worth 2 talent points.

Another powerful ability of the shadowpriests is the shadowweaving buff which increases all shadow damage by 10% for yourself,other shadowpriests, warlocks and even your own shadowfiends.
also keeping Misery up effects ALL spellcasters is very powerful.

mind blast AND sw death both give a good amount of dmg, if i'm running low on mana i often use symbol of hope or shadow fiend... sometimes a mana pot. Most of the time it works out on bosses. So mana management isnt ALWAYS a prob. but i agree. for smaller mobs/weak enemies.

yeah they give good damage but in comparison to mind flay before 1000 shadow damage. it makes you last a lot longer and creates more mana.