1.Shadow Form gives us 15% More damage, and also 15% less Physical damage taken. ( hence we don’t like dropping out of it- and specific damage edited as recommended by Dwarfpriest)
2.We can Mind control humanoids only: and they have a chance to break it and come running straight at us, its a less reliable Crowd control in my opinion, but its still useful, so don’t discount it
3.We can Shackle Undead only – Shackle seems to be a longer lasting cc then Mindcontrol is, and some elites are either immune or break it earlier ( like in Kara)
4.We can Cast Fear Ward as of 2.4 in Shadow form. It protects the caster for one fear, it only lasts 3 minutes, with a 3 min cool down. It used to be a holy spell but now is a Disp trained spell and available to all priests.
5.We have Fortitude buff ( stamina Buff) A single – (personal) or Ghetto buff doesn’t require a reagent, but a group buff requires a Candle.
6.We have Shadow Protection buff – Provides + 70 Shadow Protection – A group Buff will require a Candle as a reagent.
7. Spirit Buff is only available if the priest specs that far into the Discipline tree. Spirit buff increases spirit as well as damage delt as a percentage of the targets spirit.
8. We wear cloth only and therefore have very low armour. ( hence the use of Inner fire, which gives us increased armour for 20 charges, and then after 10 mins or we have been hit 20 times it needs to be renewed.
9. We has Vampiric embrace: VE will return to the Priest and the party for a percentage of their shadow damage as a Heal. This is known as an Agro Bomb – and causes healing agro on top of our damage agro.
10. Vampiric Touch: This returns 5% of our shadow damage as Mana to our Party. This is Great for healers and DPS casters like Warlocks who don’t have Mana regen.
11. Shadow fiend – is a ‘pet’ that we can release and set on a target or it will attack what ever is attacking us. The damage it deals gives Shadow Priests back Mana. It has a cool down and I use it as an emergency ‘pot’
12 We have no Area of effect Damage spells / enough said. /cry
13 Healing: We can still heal, but we need to drop out of Shadow. As we are not specced for healing, we arent as effective as a Holy priest, but we have most of the healing spells and we can use at will. Including a group heal that heals all party members in range, as well as a Prayer of mending heal that Jumps from player to play for 5 times when damage is taken. Healing as shadow can be very mana intensive.. but as a emergency healer most Sp’s are happy to step up.
14 Have shadow Weaving as a talent that stacks and increases shadow damage on a target. This effect is great for Warlocks as well.
15 We can Rez – This takes us out of shadow form, but we can rez only out of combat, and our target will rez with significantly more Health and mana then Pally rez’s
16 We can Mana Burn. Better in PVP – but there is often the odd boss or mob where a mana burn is better then Damage, we suck the mana, and does damage.
17 We can sheild ourselves or others: The sheild protects you for Damage done on it, or for a time period. We can cast this shield on anyone in group/raid.
18 We can Fear a target using Pychic Scream on up to 5 enemies.
19 We have Mass dispell – which while mana intensive, is the only dispell that can dispell a Pally Bubble and a Mage’s Iceblock ( mwhahahahahah )
And last of all….
20. We make any Mount look cool – Whether we are flying or Riding – If we are in shadow form, so is the mount.