Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Fade

Fade
3.5% of base mana

Instant	30 sec cooldown

Requires Priest
Requires level 24

Fade out, temporarily removing all your threat for 10 sec.

Buff

Spell Details

Duration

10 seconds

School

Shadow

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

n/a

Cost

3.5% of base mana

Range

0 yards (Self)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

30 seconds

GCD

0 seconds

Effect #1

Apply Aura: Mod Threat Flat - Temporary
Value: -90000000

Effect #2

Apply Aura: Mod % Damage Taken (Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Physical, Shadow)

Flags

Guides

Healing Priest Guide (Disc/Holy)

Ranged DPS
Overview -
Tips and Specs

Shadow Priest Guide

Warlords of Draenor
Priest Changes

Comments

Comment by oellawappa

Fade. As the description says, this skill is meant for when you over heal (or cast too many heals too fast, thus aggravating a mob so that it attacks you). If this is the case, this is your "get-out-of-jail-free" card. Use it wisely though, as it won't always help you due to it's cooldown.

Comment by Lucavious

One important thing to note about this spell is the misleading tooltip; one might assume it would prevent enemies from attacking you when you walk into their aggrovation range. Unfortunately this is not so. Fade will not reduce the range from which you are attacked, nor will it stop an enemy from attacking you if there is nobody to attack in your stead.

Comment by Novawolf

I would really love if healers used this more. In my experience, it -does- reduce threat, even if by a minimal chance. That minimal chance may be all that a group needs to stop a wipe.

Comment by KerwinJones

Something important about this spell is that (as said above) it will reduce your level of threat for a certain amount of time, and once you've exceeded the threat barrier for that rank of fade, you will return to your previous amount of threat.
Keeping that in mind, you can do what is called "pre-fading" and cast fade and then cast your heals/dots. When you've exceeded the threat barrier of fade, you will return back to the threat you started at... 0.
As a holy priest, I love this technique, since the very beginning of the fight, or at an aggro dump is the only time that threat is an issue for me.

Comment by POINGjam

Improved Shadowform has made Fade wonderful for PvP. Fade will lift all movement impairing effects when you use it, acting the same as the gnome racial Escape Artist, but usable every 30 seconds (or 24 with improved Fade).

Comment by drdoom5081

Casting fade doesn't do anything unless there is some other person (ie. a Tank) to take the aggro back. My personal experience suggests that it is best to have some sort of indication that you are under attack. This is usually not from pulling aggro from the tank (if that is the case you need to find a new tank), but rather from healing before the tank can establish aggro on a target.

I use this macro:
/say (Something here to indicate I am under attack)
/cast Fade

Any nearby tanks, or even a rogue or a hunter will usually go into "protect the healer" mode and try to do something to save you. The mobs run back to the tank, they do their AoE, and get aggro on the mob. You can avoid the situation entirely by waiting for the tank to do something to get aggro before casting renew or flash heal (this is why nub resto druid die a lot, from HoTs).

Comment by SenthaiOverlord

We fade to grey.

Comment by Lillfot

It should rather say "Fade out, SOMETIMES reducing all your threat for 10 sec".
Bugged piece of sh-t skill.

Comment by Iroared

I used this while wiping to mimiron and he despawned without killing me. Does it mean it gets you out of combat like feign death?

Comment by jermius

From reading all these comments, it's literally impossible for a healer to out-threat a tank who is not a total failure. Every tank class has some way of grabbing aggro from a bunch of mobs. If your tank is letting aggro get on the healer, find a new tank and /ignore the guy, plox.

Comment by Cannabalism

currently, the fade ability is bugged for shadow priests. The CD on it is reset when struck by a melee ability

Comment by Sarkis

Do not underestimate this ability! No other healing class receives a 'threat-deferral' mechanism like this.

With the current state of affairs it should be nigh on impossible to steal aggro from tanks. You simply won't generate the threat required. However, there are plenty of situations that can occur where a mob has yet to be hit or picked up by a tank, and as a healer, it's likely that the mob is going to come for you. Being as you're a clothie and it's entirely possible to get one shot by most mobs, Fade becomes a great 'clutch' ability for heroics and raids.

As already mentioned, Fade also becomes Escape Artist on crack if you are an appropriately specced shadow priest. This can be very useful for PvP.

Another interesting use of Fade is in Trial of the Crusader. If Anub'arak is pursuing you, Fade will stop him from following you with his spikes. I'm not entirely certain of this mechanic - it appears that he will go back to pursuing you after Fade ends, and if you don't use it properly you will probably just get somebody else killed (always fun!). Still, it can buy you those few extra seconds you need if you're slow in reaching a frost patch.

Comment by NinaFaithshield

There seems to be some confusion as to how fade works, so allow me to explain.

When you cast fade, your threat level is reduced to 0. Any monsters that were previously aiming for you will now seek out the person who has become highest on their threat list. In the majority of cases, this is usually the tank. However it can also be someone who is AoEing, etc.

Once the duration of fade expires, you regain all the threat you previously held. This means that in some uncommon circumstances, it is possible for monsters to re-aggro you after fade expires, for example if no one built up any threat during this time period.

While you are faded, you can still acquire threat from actions which you take! So please do not assume that while under the effects of fade, you are immune from aggro - you are not.

For example say you are in a 2 man team with a friend. You pull 5 monsters and build up 1000 threat on all of them. Your friend also builds up 500 threat. You then hit fade and lower your threat to 0 and as expected, the monsters will now attack your friend. However your friend has gone afk, and remains at 500 threat. Meanwhile you continue to attack the monsters again and build up another 1000 threat whilst still under the effects of fade. The monsters will now attack you again despite fade because you have reacquired new threat. Fade then expires, and you regain your previously lost threat and so you are now at 2000 threat. Eventually you die, you curse your friend for being afk and curse Fade for not working. However it has worked exactly how it is designed to.

Another circumstance to remember is that if you are the only person on the threat list, despite being in a team, you will not lose aggro when you cast fade - as the monster has no one else on the list to attack so theoretically, despite being at 0 threat you are still the person with the most threat. This can occur if you attack and your 4 allies have not become active in combat yet. This is very unlikely to occur in normal combat because even buffs, procs and heals, will apply a tiny amount of threat to every monster engaged. This tiny amount of threat however, does ensure there is somebody with a threat greater than 0.

The only change with WoTLK, is that fade now removes ALL threat instead of only lowering threat by a specific amount. (Say 450, or 650, or 900 depending on rank used).

I hope this has helped. Unfortunately the wording is somewhat ambiguous and does imply that you will sit at 0 threat for the entire duration.

Comment by Fungalsporebat

um i just started a priest and am reserching it right now but if u read the spell it says it *reduces* threat not elimats it. It might be that the hier you lv and better you gear the worse it gets if your so desprate to have threat reduced i believe theres a Back slot item you can get from teh quarter master of Sporegar that reduces theat...not that much threat but still you can use it with fade mabey it will help...i hope this coment helped

Comment by ilizak

So with 2 point on Veiled Shadows and the glyphs Phade and Phading, the the cooldown of Phade goes from 30 seconds to...?

Comment by Gnoktish

Fade is a very useful spell for saving your head by accidently heealing too soon when tank pulls. Your aggro will refresh, leaving you at ten. This is extremely useful in survival and some vanity purpose of being that silly ghost. Before Cataclysm, you could go at war with the Cenarion Emissary in Orgrimmaar, CC him, then ask some low leveled character to heal you, once the cenarion Emissary started pounding on you again, you can fade and force the level 55 to chase after the low leveled player.
Very evil, and awesome trick to remove gold beggars and simple fools. I am a tad upset they removed him, but all good things must come to an end.

Comment by Jezzibella

Quick question about this one, and some quick background. My main is a priest, focused on PvP and my 2s partner has an alt priest. He claims that while in arena if you are seeking to get out of combat faster to drink, popping fade will in fact get you out of combat faster.

I think this is absolute BS! Nowhere in the spell description or in supplementary data/discussion, like here on wowhead, does it make any mention of that.

So please, can someone put this matter to bed for us and confirm one way or the other?

I've tried testing this and counted off the time in my head from when I last attacked/was attacked in arena, and the same kind of test but using fade at various points. Totally subjective testing as I'm just counting in my head while still in an arena match, but it's always the same 6 seconds.

Comment by sylancer

Hearthstone: Fade

Comment by Azerothi

This is not to be confused with Invisibility

Comment by Azerothi

It's important to note than when you cast fade you should stop healing if it's NOT dangerous as healing can build up more threat.

Fade

Buff

Spell Details

Guides

Related

Contribute