Lolpriest inspired me to make a post for people who are just new to pvp in general and are trying to pvp as shadow priest. If you want to know about how to win duels, what comps are viable, what general strats are for viable comps, look up his post... it's very good.

You're new to PvP, do these things

1. Unbind a bunch of keys around asdw such as r, t, g, v, c, x, z at least. Instead, bind these to Bottomleft Actionbar 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc. Figure out another button to use to reply to someone. I use ctrl+r to reply. Now use your mouse to move around by right+clicking and holding it down and use your left hand to pick what spells to cast. Practice your usual DPS rotation. Never keyboard turn again - we can see you doing that and we laugh at you.

2. Get the addon Gladius - it will show you your enemies' healthbars and you can set it up so that right-clicking them makes them your focus target. Also, set it so that trinket is set to "big icon" so you know when someone already used trinket.

3. Get one or more of the following addons: interrupt bar (lightweight, shows you when you can be counterspelled, spellocked, mind freezed etc., afflicted (shows cooldowns and durations of spells you pick), drtracker (shows you when you can fear again or tell your rogue to blind)

4. Get a silence macro. It looks like this:
/cast [nomodifier:alt] Silence
/cast [modifier:alt,target=focus] Silence
Now, when you alt+click that button, you'll silence your focus target.

5. Learn other macros that work for you... you might want to put more than one DPS spell on one button with a modifier. You probably need a dispel macro so that you don't have to target your teammate to dispel CC off him. If you have battlemasters trinket, macro that in with your dispersion with a modifier... or make a macro so you can automatically use your DPS trinket along with a Mind Blast when you need extra burst for a kill. If you need help with a macro, just say what you want it to do on here and we'll help you.

6. Either play disc for a while or go to a BG and heal it spec'd as shadow. Your ability to heal sets you apart from some other DPS classes... the problem is it makes you OOM or makes you more vulnerable to burst (because of the lack of shadowform). Still, people who say they just get trained and die are often not doing enough to keep themselves alive. For instance, never run in without a shield rolling on yourself... because if you're the burn, you can cast another shield soon after they hit you, when weakened soul wears off. You can do that without leaving shadowform.

7. Once you have these addons set up and you've practiced survival, learn how to fake cast those interrupts. Use your abilities that have short cooldowns (PW:S, fear, silence) earlier, and use abilities that have a long CD (PH stun, Divine Hymn) later unless you can use them to get a kill or keep the team from losing a player.

8. Getting a kill is usually about offensively dispelling while moving in for a fear + silence + PH meanwhile bursting. That means practicing the art of positioning and still using every GCD. If you're the burn target and they're ranged, be ready to LOS. If your buddy is getting killed you might need to silence a caster DPS or fear the melee off him, which means you need to be a little closer. When your positioning needs to change, make sure you have SW:P, DP and VE on someone... after that you can just shield your teammate taking damage and spam dispel your burn target. All that can be done while moving toward healers or away from LOS to survive. So practice that.

9. As Lolpriest already said, you should think about the kind of damage your team needs. Against a holy paly, I like to get all my magic dots up 1st. If he wants to spam cleanse, he's not going to get 2 spells off at once and negate that mana/GCD I spent. Instead, I'll keep VT, SW:P and VE up and keep doing more VE's to f up his cleanses. Against rogues you want a dot rolling, but if they're going to cloak soon, get your damage in early with like 1 dot and right into MB/MF. If you're DPSing the same no matter who you're on, you're doing it wrong.

10. When you're playing defense, you need to learn how to space out your defensive CDs. When on offense, you need to learn how to chain together your offensive CDs. For instance - 2 melee are on you. Don't disperse right away. Shield, then maybe abolish disease if it's a DK, then call for big heals, then fear and fade to get a few steps of range, then silence the DK so he can't ice spam you or DG you, then disarm the warrior, then after all that, use dispersion and ask for a peel and get around a corner or over to a healer for your next fear. On offense, don't just randomly silence something - get some burst in and then silence and burst more and after that use your PH stun so the burn can't use defensive CDs and then preemptively spam dispel him while you go for a fear on the healer and then burst him again. Try to think a few steps ahead and call out when you're going to need peels, heals or when you might get a kill. This all depends on whether you can be interrupted and whether your opponent has defensive CDs... which is why you need afflicted, drtracker and interruptbar.

Do those 10 things and see if you don't change your mind about spriest pvp.... it's hella fun for me - just ask my 701 spellpower weap that my guild is jealous of

Meanie