Shadow is an upkeep rotation: two dots to keep on the boss, two nukes to cast on cooldown, and a channel for the time in between. Shadowform's half-price spells keep your mana from running out, so the only decision is which ready spell comes first.
Before the pull
- 1At -3 s: Cast
Shadowform - 2At -1.5 s: Cast
Mind Blast
Dark Sacrifice at about 5 seconds, if you are Undead. It trades health for mana over 15 seconds: 1,600, plus your Spirit. The sim doesn't charge the health. Over three minutes that adds 0.6 %.- Shadowform about 3 seconds out. It costs a global cooldown and 40 % of your base mana, and you stay in it all fight. The rest of this page assumes you are in it.
- Mind Blast 1.5 seconds out, timed to land on the pull. That first cast is worth 2.1 %.
Priority
Whenever the global cooldown frees, cast the first spell in this list that is ready. It is a ranking, not a script: the order of your casts follows whatever is ready.
- 1Cast
Eureka! if 
Shadow Word: Pain ticking and fight time ≥ 8 sCast by the Gnome only: the faction's races share this rotation.– - 2Use the other cooldowns as they come up+28 DPS · 3.7 %
- 3Cast Shadow Word: Pain if Shadow Word: Pain not ticking and time remaining ≥ 63.3/min+117 DPS · 15.5 %
- 4Cast
Devouring Plague if time remaining ≥ 121.0/min+31 DPS · 4.1 % - 5Cast
Elune's Light if Elune's Light known and Mind Blast ready and 
Inner Focus ready and 
Shadow Weaving stacks ≥ 5Cast by the Night Elf only: the faction's races share this rotation.1.0/min+3.8 DPS · 0.5 % - 6Strict sequence: Cast Inner Focus, then Cast Mind Blast if Mind Blast ready and Shadow Weaving stacks ≥ 59.0/min+22 DPS · 2.9 %
- 7Cast Mind Blast8.0/min+54 DPS · 7.1 %
- 8Cast
Shadow Word: Death4.0/min+24 DPS · 3.2 % - 9Channel
Mind Flay, interrupt if Mind Blast cooldown ≤ 0 s and time to the next Mind Flay tick ≤ 0.05 s and the GCD is ready, recast allowed15/min+312 DPS · 41.3 %
Why each line sits where it does:
- Shadow Word: Pain whenever it is off the boss, unless the fight has less than 6 seconds left. With Improved Shadow Word: Pain it lasts 24 seconds. Its ticks deal damage on your spell power at the moment they land, so a Talisman stack or a fresh Shadow Weaving stack raises a Shadow Word: Pain that is already running. The line is worth 15.5 %.
- Devouring Plague on cooldown, while at least 12 seconds remain. Every race has it in Forever, on a 1-minute cooldown, and it heals you for all it deals. Worth 4.1 %.
- Inner Focus, then Mind Blast, at five stacks of Shadow Weaving. The Mind Blast is free and gets 25 % more crit chance. It comes up once a fight here: 2.9 %.
- Mind Blast on cooldown. A 1.5-second cast on an 8-second cooldown that Improved Mind Blast cuts by half a second a point, and your biggest hit: 7.1 %.
- Shadow Word: Death on cooldown. Instant, every 15 seconds, worth 3.2 %. Each cast that doesn't kill hits you for 10 % of your maximum health. The sim ignores that, and Devouring Plague heals back more than it costs over a fight.
- Mind Flay in every gap. When Mind Blast comes off cooldown mid-channel, cut Mind Flay right after its next tick and cast Mind Blast. The ticks land a second apart, so cutting just after one wastes none of the channel time you have spent. Worth 41.3 %.
More than one target
With three bosses up, keep Shadow Word: Pain on every one of them and put it back on each boss as it expires, until the fight is nearly over. Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death, Devouring Plague and Mind Flay all stay on one target, and Mind Flay runs its full three ticks. Improved Shadow Word: Pain is worth far more here, because the 6 seconds it adds save a recast on all three bosses. Shadow Word: Pain becomes the main source of damage, 48.2 % on a three-minute fight against three bosses. You cast it 8.2 times a minute there, 2.6 with one boss.
Our three-boss rotations for one and two minutes spend Inner Focus on Devouring Plague, which only saves mana since its crit stopped reaching periodic damage. On Mind Blast it would at least add the crit, though the difference is small either way.
Cooldowns
Use the 
Talisman of Ascendance on the pull and again every minute. Each spell you land after it adds a stack, and the stacks raise your dot ticks too.
Inner Focus goes on the first Mind Blast after Shadow Weaving reaches five stacks, about 14 seconds in. A Night Elf presses Elune's Light with it.
A Troll's Berserking goes out with the other cooldowns.
The sim drinks a mana potion or uses a Demonic Rune only once its full return fits in your mana bar. On one boss they add nothing. Carry them for fights that run longer than three minutes.
| Cooldown | Uses | At |
|---|---|---|
| Talisman of Ascendance | 1 | 0:00 |
| Devouring Plague | 1 | 0:02 |
| Inner Focus | 1 | 0:14 |
 Demonic Rune | 1 | 0:32 |
What your log should show
Put a Warcraft Logs report of your own fight beside these numbers. If you have fewer Mind Blasts a minute than the table, you are probably finishing Mind Flay channels instead of cutting them.
| Ability | Casts per minute | Of damage | Crit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mind Flay | 14.6 | 41.6 % | 20.9 % |
| Mind Blast | 8.0 | 22.2 % | 24.1 % |
| Shadow Word: Pain | 3.3 | 20.7 % | 20.8 % |
| Shadow Word: Death | 4.0 | 9.9 % | 28.1 % |
| Devouring Plague | 1.0 | 5.5 % | 24.4 % |
| Inner Focus | 1.0 | – | – |
| Elune's Light | 1.0 | – | – |
| Talisman of Ascendance | 1.0 | – | – |
| Demonic Rune | 1.0 | – | – |
| Shadowform | 1.0 | – | – |
The numbers to compare: about 8.0 Mind Blasts and 4.0 Shadow Word: Deaths a minute, Mind Flay near 41.6 % of your damage, and Mind Blast critting about 24.1 % of the time.
Uptimes
| Buff or debuff | Uptime | Times per fight |
|---|---|---|
| Shadow Weaving | 100.0 % | 28 |
| Shadow Word: Painon the boss | 95.9 % | 3.0 |
| Mind Flayon the boss | 57.0 % | 13 |
| Devouring Plagueon the boss | 36.1 % | 0.9 |
| Ascendance | 33.8 % | 1.0 |
| Ascendance | 33.3 % | 1.0 |
| Elune's Light | 25.0 % | 1.0 |
| Inner Focus | 2.5 % | 1.0 |
Shadow Word: Pain should be up 95.9 % of the fight and Shadow Weaving 100.0 %. A gap in either costs you damage on every spell after it.