Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by 10811

Adding another 5 minute cooldown mana regen spell is gonna create some mana dump problems with shadowpriests.
Looking at other caster classes, the mana management will remain pretty much the same, but spriest is getting another 5 minute cooldown "innervate-like" spell next to Shadowfiend
Next to Pain and Suffering talent, spriests are now gonna have to cast the SW:P only on fight start, since it is gonna be refreshed by each mind flay, and SW:P is one of most mana-consuming spells.
I am raiding a shadowpriest now, and i know what I am talking when saying spriest even now don't have big mana issues like some other classes. Maybe Blizz is planning on making fights longer and more mana-demanding, but i don't see other caster classes getting their mana management buffed...
Anyway, in my opinion there will be alot more work on this before WotLK hit the stores

Comment by 22744

On a side note, if you use a Nighmare Seed, a Heroic Potion and a Battlemaster's Trinket, and you buff yourself with a PW:Fort(untalented) because yours already got dispelled, immediately before you use this ability, you will regen more then just 36% of your health after the 4 other effects are gone:

Lets say you have 18,000 health in pvp gear at lv80, 36% of your health is 6480.

but 36% of 24,100 health is 8676, netting you an extra 2196 health after 30 seconds. (If you dont even retain the PW:F b/c it got dispelled again.)

And 8676 is 48.2% of your total health at lv80 with 18,000 health.

Edit: for some clarifications.

Comment by Archdmon

This is the answer to shadow priests being squishy in PvP and so fragile in PvE when Fade(lol) wont cut it. It will also allow shadow priests to be more aggressive with their casts at the same time giving the raid more mana/health regeneration. Im just hoping priests get some sort of spammable shadow spell.

Comment by abluecardigan

The healing on this is affected by Mortal Strike and other healing reduction effects.

Comment by 182512

With the recent nerf to potion use (potion sickness) and the hit to our VT, it seems that we will need this ability to offset the fact that we cannot chain-chug potions anymore. In essence, it is a rejuvenation pot on a 3-minute cooldown (in the last beta build) coupled with 90% damage reduction.

For PvE, this is certainly useful.

It is debatable whether this warrants being a 51-point talent, or whether we should not get someting a bit more exciting (such as Warlocks' demon form/anti-immunity chaos bolt, BM hunter's exotic pets or the rogues' dance of death) but if we get it, we will use it.

That's just being practical.

In PvP, it will give you 6 seconds of additional survival. You can still be silenced, trapped, feared, stunned, and the like, and rogues and druids have 6 seconds to get 5 combo points on you. So expect no survival after Dispersion wears off.

Even so, it might just be enough time for a friendly player to come and help you.
Or they might lose interest allowing you to heal up.

Comment by 180962

Hopefully this gets modified by resilience like a much hated rogue talent. I can see alot of rage in the future over this talent.

Comment by 79477

Shadow Priest Ice Block + Evocation rolled in to one.

The VT "nerf" might not really be a nerf, or might not be as bad as it looks. Mana pools and mana costs don't seem to be scaling at nearly the same rate as health bars. (These numbers are completely made up, but illustrative) If we get a 500% increase to health and by extension DPS, and only a 100% increase in mana pool and cost, we'd be dealing 5 times the shadow damage 1/2 as effectively as now, and regenning 2/5ths as much mana. This yields 5*1/2*2/5 = 100% the benefit VT gives us now.

More realistic numbers are probably a 100% health increase, 50% mana increase, making VT 2*1/1.5*2/5 = 53% as effective as it currently is (scaled to level 80). On the surface it looks like VT is 2/5 = 40% as effective, which is misleadingly low.

Personally I'm hoping shadow priest regen allows us to save this spell as an ice block on most fights.

Comment by 194667

Not sure if this has been answered clearly before, but is this spell considered a "buff"? Can it be dispelled / purged.... this is pretty critical lol.

On the same note, can this be Cycloned off? If the person using dispersion gets cycloned, can she still benefit from the regeneration effect. I'm expecting a negative answer.... but who knows, somebody in Beta must know! :D

Comment by Calidus

The whole Vampiric Touch debate might be redundant, according to Zarhym:

In addition to this change, we also needed to address the "mana battery" roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

~~As well, the Replenishment buff will not stack and consequently the raid won't benefit from taking additional Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.~~

Edit: Seems I forgot about redundancy and player death.

Comment by 64407

I made a test. Tester character: Draenai Shadow Priest level 70.
test: get myself oom, using mass dispell, then use the symbol of hope / dispersion / shadowfiend combo.
When I started the test, I had 164 mana.
I clicked Symbol of Hope, imideatly after Shadowfiend and then Dispertion.
I ended with 6539 mana.
That means that once every 5 mins, the draenai priests can get 6539 mana back, ammount of mana which a carefull shadow priest doesent consume in 5 mins, meaning draenai shadow priests = 0 downtime!

Comment by 205065

This spell will be very useful for raiders, and even more useful for the people in the BG's. even if this spell might get purged, spellstealed etc, it's a very good emergency spell, the 90% damage reduce from all types of damage will come very handy fighting classes than can burst out immense damage (like mages using instant pyroblast). Using this can prevent you from a certain death and on the top of it, you will regenerate more health and mana than your enemey can take out.
I really hope this spell will live until the release.

Comment by 15688

Just a quick clarification, since many people seem to be missing it:

Dispel type n/a

Means it cannot be dispelled by any means.

Comment by 115953

What the heck is up with this nerf? As of 14 Sept, it no longer regenerates health, just mana, and only reduces 60% of damage taken. And still we can't cast spells. I think this is absolute crap now if you look at other classes' 51 pointers.

Blizzard better change this back, or at least allow spells to be cast during this...

Comment by Hoshi

Useful against rogues I guess, make them waste their CoS and while they stunlock you fire this off, mashing your fear button.

Comment by 171615

I definately has use...

It works like an on-the-go evocation in PvE (albeit quite ineffective in comparison). every two or so pulls in an instance and its ready to use. Pop this and you have enough mana for the next pull easily.

In PvP, although i have not tested it in arena, in BG's it allows you to easilly retreat into your allies and get a heal. For example, if you are in AV and at the other end of the BG you dont want to die and restart at your end of the map. Pop dispersion when your in trouble and retreat. as for no defense when you exit well maybe you shouldnt use it like a paladin bubble then. Try poping it while you have a good chunck of hps left especially if want to be able to bubble and heal after its done.

In any case, the mana regen is quite good. Maybe not as good of a 51 talent as others but still good. If you cant find a use for it, try harder.

Comment by 223475

6 secs pass by very quickly in pvp, result is your sp dies, for example compare a warlock =>duration of metamorfosis with this skill,

for pve it is a must! if you take aggro you can protect yourself until some1 else takes aggro, BUT the main issue is that
for pve all priests that want to be healers are going to specc disc or holy! you don't choose shadow for that!

reevaluation of things just keep me think SP talent tree is somewhat bad

I tested this talent much, it is almost useless for pvp, it is almost useless for pve cause healers will select other specc, too bad it is in the highest tier

you can't cast spells
you aren't immune to damage
you regenerate about 3k mana after 6 secs!

so you can enjoy a somewhat evocation priest spell costing 51 points...

is it worth it ? I really don't think so

Comment by MischievousLoki

This spell is very situational, which is unfortunate because it's visuals are freaking sweet looking.

Comment by 157377

Holy nova Spam, this spell, then holy nova spam again is win in lowbie instances :) Also for elite mobs with more burst dmg then HP :)

Comment by 239699

As an aside, this does not seem to negate fall damage.

Comment by 7371

i think this ability is bugged. i haven't done extensive testing but from my experience with the spell, the damage it reduces is not remotely 90% and when i am stunlocked by a rogue i am unable to cast the spell even though the tooltip explicitly states "Dispersion can be cast while stunned, feared or silenced".

they really need to make it either last longer than 6 seconds or include 6% health per tick as well as mana.

Comment by 241456

Imagine you are a SP and got like 3k hp left and you see a mage just fiers off a POM pyro if it hits you, you'll probably be toast or you can think fast and pop Dispersion and survive the blast and hopefully a healer will show up and heal you up =)

Comment by PreyingDantis

This should make you turn invisible for .5 seconds after the full duration. This would be a boon for PVP and PVE as a dropped target and an aggro-wipe, while not being OP.

Comment by 245256

This spell has saved my bacon in PvE more times than I care to admit. In essence, this lets a Shadow Priest tank nearly anything for 6 seconds.
Did Supremus wall you in with Volcanoes and catch up to you? Disperse!
Did a patrol ambush your 5-man instance while the tank was busy elsewhere? Grab aggro and Disperse to buy time!
Did you sneeze and hit autorun, thus pulling Void Reaver? Disperse and save your raid a wipe (this one actually happened to me).
True, Dispersion can be seen as a "get out of jail free card" for stupid mistakes. But it functions very well for its intended uses: reducing a large unavoidable amount of damage, and significant mana returns.

Comment by 280134

How does this go down in WSG? If you're carrying the flag, does it drop the flag upon cast? It would be moderately helpful if it worked...

Comment by Beboshi

Warlocks can Chaos Bolt through it :]

Comment by KillerKcore

Can any one confirm if this spell makes you immune to melee damage if used while in shadowform?

It would seem logical since 15% physical damage decrease plus a 90% decrease from any source (105%?).

Thanks in advance.

Comment by SeraphX

well it almost does, but you have to calculate the 15 before the 80 - meaning if you have as example 1k dmg inc from a melee swing

you would have in shadowform 850 - now you use dispersion - reduce by another 90% - meaning you'll end up getting 85 dmg instead of the 1k inc.

Calcus:

Incoming Meleeswing for 1000: 1000/100*85 = 850 (Dmg taken in Shadowform)
Dispersion: 850/100*10 = 85 Dmg Taken while in Shadowform and using Dispersion.

Why am I using 85 instead of 15 // 10 instead of 90. To show what's left, not absorbed. So basically you absorb 150 dmg with shadowform - and another 765 with Dispersion.

Edit: Forgot something useful - if you activate your shield before using dispersion - you'll not get any inc damage - as this is considered "the last line of defense" - the shield get's the hit of 85 (which obviously will be absorbed) - Invurnability - for 6 seconds xD
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

now to what I wanted to mention

I don't know if you guys know the "Potion of Nightmares". But with Dispersion this Potion is actually pretty useful (except the part, that you cannot move while using the Potion). So it's perfect in fights where you use a lot of mana and won't move too much (Patchwerk, KT, etc).

So what does the Potion do? http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40081

-> Duration:
Nightmare Slumber
Dreamless Sleep.
6 seconds remaining

What a coincidence - Dispersion & Nightmares = 6 Seconds.. combining the both is a huge amount of mana boost.

The Macro I use for this:

#showicon Dispersion
/use Potion of Nightmares
/cast Dispersion

If you have a fight where the combination isn't as good, just remove the /use Potion .... line.

Recommenended for example at Thaddius - where "standing still" could be deadly for those around you xD

Also I recommend using this combination if you are at about 25% of your mana - meaning all out of luck - almost (using shadowfriend doesn't take you out of actual damagedealing for 6 seconds). So this spell is like the manasafer of the day. Usually used at 25% you will regain FULL mana ;x

Comment by 104588

I don't know whether this has any synergy with Spirit Tap, or it is the cumulative effect, but when I use Dispersion with it I can go from about 25% to full mana.

Comment by 317226

When using dispersion on a mount, your character dissppears and simply leaves the mount on its own. You don't appear like the shadowy figure you normally would, you totally vanish.

Comment by 225109

Forgot something useful - if you activate your shield before using dispersion - you'll not get any inc damage - as this is considered "the last line of defense" - the shield get's the hit of 85 (which obviously will be absorbed) - Invurnability - for 6 seconds xD

except you can't use PW:S while you're in Shadowform :P

sure, you can use PW:S first and then cast Shadowform and Dispersion but you'll be lucky if you have any shield left considering the global CD

and besides, what are the odds of your being a shadow priest out of Shadowform and low on mana
(after several pulls doing quest maybe, but very slim indeed)

PS. and of course there is a chance that other priest casting shield on you but casting shield to reduce such a relatively small dmg? renew will most likely tick for more

edit: cloudp> thought it might work like that, haven't played priest for years

Comment by 256190

Note that Dispersion does currently not protect against a lot of Ulduar boss abilities' damage, like Light Bomb for example.

Comment by Brutusares

Ummm..... just found out on my Blood Elf female priest that if i go in dispersion and do /lol you hear Night Elf male laugh. Creepy as @#$%. :'(

Comment by Lillfot

Dispersion currently doesn't work against any boss abilities where it would be really useful in Ulduar.
Abilities such as Light Bomb, Gravity Bomb, Slag Pot, Saronite Vapor (jury's still out on that one though), Stone Grip etc..

I'm not the best with words, so I'll just paste this; it sums up my thoughts exactly!

If blizzard intended to not have dispersion work in so many crucial circumstances they should really point that out in the tooltip:

"... reduces damage taken by 90% except anwhere it would actually be useful"

Comment by 38890

A wild Gastly appears!

Comment by 110998

You can cast this while on a Flight Path.

Comment by 357589

/cast power word: shield
/cast (mount)
/cast dispersion

Roll out.

Comment by cawfee

We just affectionately call it the leveling manaball.

Comment by 386345

Okay....

This spell is castable whilst on a mount or a Gryphon or any sort of flying vehicle...(not sure bout flying mounts, but, theoretically,it should work) the animation is really cool, it will make it look as if there is nobody on the mount, thus, a riderless horsie.

Also, it is great for use when you pull some elite while on your mount or a horde attacks you while on your mount, simply disperse and you will most likely be able to get away. Chances are, the horde will not be able to do enough damage with the 90% reduction to make your mount unsummon.

ALSO... my character is a female human, and one day I cast Dispersion, then /laughed with the sound on...the result was a man laugh. Not confirmed, but I think it is the male NE laugh.

EDIT:Since this spell will give you a total of 36% of your mana back ( 6% every 1 sec for 6 sec) if you use Shadowfiend right after Dispersion wears off, you will be able to regain a total of ~76% of your mana back!
I hope you find this info useful/fun,

Banali on the Venture Co.

EDIT AGAIN: Typos and such.

Comment by 386345

QUESTION:

If this spell reduces damage taken by 90 percent....would it also reduce falling damage?

I know Power Word Shield "Abosorbs Damage" but not falling damage (well at least last time I checked it didn't) so it's possible Dispersion works the same way...

Can anyone confirm this?

Comment by Toldry

Cooldown reduced from 3 minutes to 2 minutes in patch 3.2.

Comment by coolcat00011

For herbalist preists, lifeblood works while in dispersion, so it is 6 seconds of health and mana regeneration.

Comment by 375211

This does not, I repeat does NOT, work on General Vezax's Sarnonite Vapour clouds, I learned that the hard way :<

Comment by 385742

Drinking while Dispersion is on, grants you telekenitic powers.

Comment by Myhv

clears all snare and movement impairing effects when cast, and makes you immune to them while dispersed.

As usually, that does not apply to mob-caused daze. You won't clear the effect and you will not be imune to it.

Comment by 282759

It is with great sadness that I announce - DISPERSION NO LONGER MAKES US A SWIRLY MIST BALL. It just makes you sort of transparent and misty. I am deeply disappointed.

Edit (3.3.2) - It's back. YAAAAAAAAAAY!

Comment by Onijitsu

Chaos Bolt cannot be resisted, and pierces through all absorption effects.

Comment by 512393

Patch 3.3.2 seems to have changed the dispersion animation back to the pre-3.3.0 one that resembles Gastly. Also, the Night Elf male laugh is back!

Comment by AusSpyder

If you have Mechano Hog or Mekengineers Chopper and you have a passenger, when you disperse your passenger gets shifted to the very back of the bike, flat on his back dragging along ground behind it. Its pretty amusing

Comment by wazhai

So does it give 36% of total or base mana? I'm still leveling my shadow priest so I can't see it for myself.

Comment by 609943

dispersion also clears stun/fear efects ? and are you imune to stun/fear effect while u are in dispersion ?

Comment by astralol

Check this out. Shadowform -> mount -> dispersion -> drop off shadowform = Invisibility

Comment by undeadzx

Does Dispersion also limit mana burns on you? I know it reduces the damage done from Mana Burn, but does it also reduce the amount burned?

Comment by 630737

I remember using this on my mount it just left the mount and nothing else.
But now it keeps the poofy ball on the mount :C
Either they changed that or I never noticed. Go ahead and downrate if it's just me being ignorant of that.

Comment by coolkingler1

Confirmed that this spell works with the quest Apply Heat and Stir Apply Heat and Stir, when you fail to make a concoction and it explodes. It reduces the explosion damage!

Comment by SgtFrog

It's an interesting "Oh Sh*t" button to press when the tank is temporarily down or you're OOM.

Comment by CircleofHealing

Lifesaver........

Comment by Astrinel

Does it lower fall damage taken?

Edit: After a couple tests, I can confirm IT DOES NOT LOWER FALL DAMAGE.

Comment by ghmaster8

just use levitate, but you cant use levitate while in dispersion so you better cast levitate before you jump out of that cliff :P

Comment by 643036

Can't believe that no one has mentioned this yet, but you can use darkflight while you are dispersed. This is an extremely powerful pvp escape tool.

Comment by 591345

Attention Dwarven Priests.

I was wondering for a while if Dispersion succesfully stacked with and Stoneform. I could not find any information about this so I decided to test it myself.

After some testing I can conclude it does stack, all together but not in the way you probably think. The damage reduction stacks in terms of nullifying damage, but not percentage wise, which means that I will not give you (15%+10%+90%= 115%) damage reduction, wich would be impossible anyways. I know that this will be confusing for some so I'll try to explain it by giving an example:

A mob hits you for 1000 damage if you have no damage reductions on you.

> Shadowform takes away 15% leaving the damage at 850. (1000/100*(100-15))
> Then you activate Stoneform which is going to reduce that 850 damage by 10% leaving you at 765. (850/100*(100-10))
> Quickly you mash your Dispersion button, nullifying 90% of that 765 damage. You end up getting hit for 76. (765/100*(100-90))

Getting hit for 76 damage out of a 1000 means that in total you get a 92,4% Damage reduction.

Calculation and testing was done in patch 4.2 on Live.

Comment by 529539

Is it possible to capture base in BG while Dispersion on priest is active?

Comment by 100536

Another interesting, yet mostly useless bit if information.. you can cast Survey while under the effects of Dispersion.

Comment by 933283

Some useful macros

1) Cancelling the buff

/cancelaura Dispersion

I'm sure that many of you are already familiar with it. This macro is A MUST.

You can merge it with Dispersion itself: (Be sure not to "spam" the button)

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Dispersion
/cast Dispersion

... Or bind into mount macro (as it cannot be used while in combat) in which I found more useful:

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Dispersion
/cast (Mount)

2) Using with items
Many items could be used while dispersed. Some useful examples would be Mythical Healing Potion, Potion of Concentration and Dense Embersilk Bandage. Note that Healthstone cannot be consumed.

In recent PvE environments, you probably won't have chance to use bandage in almost any circumstances (use holy spells instead if it's really urgent) but dispersed. In that case the following macro would be useful:

#showtooltip
/cast Dispersion
/use Dense Embersilk Bandage

(Don't try this in PvP. This is risky as hell. Mostly the bandage would be canceled right away, leaving debuff only. Yet it is not that serious in most PvE fights.)

Comment by 1017250

Use Dispersion after cast Devouring Plague + Glyph of Dark Archangel and you become a black Snitch

Comment by perculia

In 5.2, Dispersion will belong to the Shadow school, meaning it can be locked out.

Comment by 1124080

This ability is what tempted me to create a shadow priest alt. Transforming into pure shadow energy sounds mystical and cool. Kind of like ascension in many religions, but in a dark and shadowy way.

Comment by NAESSAH

Amazing on Feral Druid with Symbiosis for the Aim of Hisek on Paragons 10HC
You take only ~180k and not the 1M400.
Your mates doesn't need to take the shot with you :)

Comment by Dhavian

since the BfA pre-patch it now also pacifies abilities like Rocket Jump, which it did not do before or during Legion

Comment by Irascebeth

Maybe its just me, but it seems like Dispersion's innate ability to prevent movement speed debuffs after cast isn't working as intended. After casting Dispersion, my priest's movement speed still slows to a crawl if I'm hit with even a basic attack, completing negating the purpose of this spell altogether. It's one of our only mobility abilities when we have to disengage quickly, so its a real bummer when we can't flee an encounter that is otherwise avoidable.

Comment by Klade

This ability is amazing since it won't dismount you if you use it while mounted and also frees you from snares while providing immunity to the same. Say you are being chased by an angry Horde or Alliance player trying to gank you while you are mounted. Just cast dispersion and flee away on your mount. They can't slow you either. Now if your enemy team has a DK, then that's a whole new problem.

Links WeakAuras Export

Dispersion

Dispersion

Instant	2 min cooldown

Disperse into pure shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 75% for 6 sec and healing you for [(25 + 0) * (0 + 6) / 6]% of your maximum health over its duration, but you are unable to attack or cast spells.

Increases movement speed by 50% and makes you immune to all movement impairing effects.

Castable while stunned, feared, or silenced.

Buff

Dispersion

Damage taken reduced by 75%. Healing for [(25 + 0) * (0 + 6) / 6]% of maximum health.

Cannot attack or cast spells.

Movement speed increased by 50% and immune to all movement impairing effects.
6 seconds remaining

Spell Details

Duration

6 seconds

School

Shadow

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

None

Range

0 yards (Self)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

2 minutes

GCD

1.5 seconds

Effect #1

Apply Aura: Mod % Damage Taken (Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Physical, Shadow)
Value: -75%
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #2

Apply Aura: Dummy (23)
Value: 100
PVP Multiplier: 1
Server-side script

Effect #3

Apply Aura: Pacify & Silence (127)
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #4

Apply Aura: Increase Run Speed %
Value: 50%
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #5

Apply Aura: Mod Total Health Regen %
Value: 25% every 1 second
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #6

Apply Aura: Immunity - Mechanic (Rooted)
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #7

Apply Aura: Immunity - Mechanic (Snared)
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #8

Apply Aura: Dummy (23)
Value: 7
PVP Multiplier: 1
Server-side script

Flags

Guides

Shadow Priest Best Covenant Legion Priest Class Changes Raid and Class cooldown list [Archive] Ranged DPS Overview - Tips and Specs Shadow Artifact Guide Shadow Priest PvP Guide Shadow Priest Rotation Guide WoD Inscription Leveling Guide 1-100

Dispersion

Buff

Spell Details

Guides

Related

Contribute