I've recently seen a couple of Naxx guilds with progression as far along as Thaddius being down having a decked out shadow priest in their raid force. I'm assuming that the shadow priest takes one of the dps slots, and not a healing slot, but is also meant to basically keep his group healed on fights such as faerlina, maexxna, and possibly loatheb. With 727 spell power, how viable is a shadow priest in a dps role? After some calculations, it seemed like with flasks, shadow power pots, etc, a shadow priest should sustain just over 800 dps until he runs oom, just using shadow word pain and mindflay. Any ideas on how long that would take and whether or not it would be viable to replace a mage or warlock with a shadow priest?
Shadow priests use quite a bit of mana, really - They tend to be more viable for Alliance than Horde in my experience (purely because of JoW/BoK/BoW/BoS).
My gut feeling says no, but others who have experience with being Shadow Priest in Naxx might be able to offer better insight - I've only played shadow priest up to the end of BWL.
As far as healing on Loatheb - No. First tick of Vamp. Embrace = Silenced.
800 dps seems like a crazy high number. i have dps'd in full shadow spec in MC and ZG before. granted i did not have 727 spell power, but with the mechanics of DoTs getting damage from +spell stuff (which both SW:P and mindflay are considered) i dont think those numbers are possible.
for the record i did SW:P, mindflay x2, mind blast, rinse repeat. (pulling aggro was never a problem).
The number 800 seems completely out of context to me. We do field a spriest (mostly for our warlocks, of which we carry more than average really) and I've never ever had any competition from him as a 17/3/31 mage over the course of a run or any fight of value. He is quite useful though and I do think there is a spot for a competant one in any raid. It is partially the mana issue of course but even in ideal situations a good spriest will still be below equally geared pure classes in my experience. As Horde we do like our 4Lock/1Spriest mana-battery/weaving group though and I will admit that he does pretty nice damage on certain fights. It's not enough for me to get my epeen out of joint though.
EDIT: They do also seem to consume valued debuff slots more than I'd like.
Speaking as a former shadowpriest who ran that way all the way through Nef on Horde side, I didn't find mana to be too much a problem as long as you're willing to use consumables liberally. On Nef you've gotta use major mana pots, demonic runes, mageblood potions, nightfin soup, etc in order to keep your DPS up there.
The point about debuff slots is a good one though. You're using 1/4th of the debuff slots by yourself:
Mind Flay
SW:P
Shadow Weaving
Vampiric Embrace
In practice, I found myself not using SW:P that much anymore because chances are it would get knocked off before the full 8 ticks. In longevity fights (and most are) I didn't use mind blast... mind flay is more efficient for mana. I sacrificed some immediate DPS to trade off for lasting longer down the road.
800 DPS seems way too high though. I could see a shadowpriest sustaining a 450 mind flay or so completely buffed, with a 20% bonus from Improved Shadow Bolt from time to time thrown in as well. SW:P would probably add another 150 DPS or so there. I would be surprised even on a fight like Patchwerk if a shadowpriest could come in at 600 DPS.... well I suppose on Alliance side they could with BoW/JoW to be able to toss in a mind blast.
I don't have the numbers in front of me, as we totaled this up at my friends house, but the gear set that we put together was something in the 700 range of spellpower. With all the damage consumables up (assuming a fight like patchwerk or loatheb where you would use at least some consumables every time) the spellpower was just over 1k... after darkness and shadow form, and curse of shadows and shadow weaving, our total for mindflay was something to the tune of 680 per tick. Assuming that imp shadow bolt would be active for about 25% of his spells, and with shadowword pain dps thrown in, the number we had reached was just over 800, I think about 803. It's all theory craft of course, but if you do the math on the spell power numbers, it seemed to add up.
Mind flay you get 19% of that bonus applied on each tick. So that's +190 dmg per sec.
Mind flay base dmg is 142 a tick, bumped up to 156 with 5/5 darkness. 156 + 190 = 346 per sec.
346 * (1 + 0.15 (sform) + 0.15 (5/5 sweaving) + 0.10 (CoS) ) = 484 per sec.
Imp shadowbolt is dependant on how many warlocks you bring. I definitely do not see how you were getting 680 per tick on mind flay unless you were unaware that it does not scale fully with +dmg gear.
I don't have the numbers in front of me, as we totaled this up at my friends house, but the gear set that we put together was something in the 700 range of spellpower. With all the damage consumables up (assuming a fight like patchwerk or loatheb where you would use at least some consumables every time) the spellpower was just over 1k... after darkness and shadow form, and curse of shadows and shadow weaving, our total for mindflay was something to the tune of 680 per tick. Assuming that imp shadow bolt would be active for about 25% of his spells, and with shadowword pain dps thrown in, the number we had reached was just over 800, I think about 803. It's all theory craft of course, but if you do the math on the spell power numbers, it seemed to add up.
What Scaling factor were you using for mind flay? Your numbers seem a ways off.
Mind flay you get 19% of that bonus applied on each tick. So that's +190 dmg per sec.
I believe 19% is the benefit after Darkness/Shadowform, as I'm pretty sure the total benefit is in the range of 45% (and 15 * 1.15 * 1.10 = 18.975), meaning you're doubling the SF bonus to +damage.
If that's so, the final ticks are only 467 damage.
Ah, alright, I had assumed mind flay got the same benefit from spellpower as any other 3 second spell, being 86% spread over the duration of the dot. Thanks for clearing up my numbers. :)
Created a shadow profile @ http://ctprofiles.net/1066304 and assuming 998 +shadow dmg (Brilliant Wizard Oil, Shadow Power, Flask of Supreme Power) and assuming a damage cycle of 24s (1 x SWP, 1 x mind blast, 2x mind flay, 1 x mind blast, 2 x mind flay, 1 x mind blast, 2 x mind flay), a shadow priest with full shadow weaving/Curse of Shadows could put out about 700 DPS with a 98% chance to hit vs a lvl 63 mob.
That said, they'd have burned 2750 mana or so. From what I can understand, each of the spells would have had 3 chances to proc a Judgement of Wisdom (Shadow Weaving, damage, Blackout) so you're looking @ what? (Statistics is a weak area for me). A 75% chance to proc 59 mana per cast? Call it a 44 mana reduction per spell. 10 casts. 440 mana back. Mana usage is ~5775 a minute?
What about regen? Give them BoW, Nightfin, Mageblood, 1 x MMP (+1800 mana), 1 x demonic rune (1200 mana). I can't be arsed to be exact but in my head, they'd last just over 2 mins.
Now I've sat down and thought about this, I've realised the figure would be SLIGHTLY higher versus Patchwerk because they could use Rune of Dawn / the UD oil from the Invasion. It sort of goes without saying that they'd last many times longer through downranking on spells...
Created a shadow profile @
That said, they'd have burned 2750 mana or so. From what I can understand, each of the spells would have had 3 chances to proc a Judgement of Wisdom (Shadow Weaving, damage, Blackout) so you're looking @ what? (Statistics is a weak area for me). A 75% chance to proc 59 mana per cast? Call it a 44 mana reduction per spell. 10 casts. 440 mana back. Mana usage is ~5775 a minute?
JoW is a 50% proc rate and was fixed to not trigger off practically every seperate combat log entry sometimes in 1.8 I believe. Activated, targetted parent spells only.
If you just chained mind flay with the occasional SWP and 3 Inner Focus MB's , I think you would end up with better DPS due to much greater longevity. Doing mind blasts that often is going to run you OOM very quickly, and OOM = no DPS.
I still think you'd have to take one break in the middle for a Greater Dreamless Sleep pot.
Your mp/5 is really low too, my gut feeling tells me that changing some of that stuff to Oracle would help more. Shard of the Scale might actually be better than Briarwood Reed. With your gear, you'll do a hell of a lot of damage for about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes, then you will have shot your wad and sit around watching your place on the damage meters sink like the Titantic. Longer as Alliance of course.
Ah, alright, I had assumed mind flay got the same benefit from spellpower as any other 3 second spell, being 86% spread over the duration of the dot. Thanks for clearing up my numbers. :)
The general idea of a shadow priest's benefit to a raid is greater warlock damage from shadow weaving plus providing warlock healing with vampiric embrace. With the changes to life tap in 1.12 this may be more practical of an option, but still probably won't be ideal
We have a damn good shadow priest. He was never a healer,he was always a Damage dealer. On Nax bosses(we have killed 5 so far) he is always on top 5 dmg done. This is ofcourse our only shadow priests, all others are heal bots.
I've recently seen a couple of Naxx guilds with progression as far along as Thaddius being down having a decked out shadow priest in their raid force. I'm assuming that the shadow priest takes one of the dps slots, and not a healing slot, but is also meant to basically keep his group healed on fights such as faerlina, maexxna, and possibly loatheb. With 727 spell power, how viable is a shadow priest in a dps role? After some calculations, it seemed like with flasks, shadow power pots, etc, a shadow priest should sustain just over 800 dps until he runs oom, just using shadow word pain and mindflay. Any ideas on how long that would take and whether or not it would be viable to replace a mage or warlock with a shadow priest?
If a mage is getting beaten by a shadow priest in raids, the mage is either severely undergeared or is just down right terrible. 800dps also sounds very high unless of course you're speaking of your Thaddius kills.
At least to me it dosnt look to great, and the guy has fairly good gear and a lot of potion buffs. He dosnt seem to have to big mana issues, and if the meter on his screen is right he is doing about 500 dps. 800 seems pretty impossible to do.
As someone who's played a raiding shadow priest and has around +545 spell damage, I can tell you I'm reaching a point where damage gear is just becoming more and more powerful. I can easily top 600, as well, with a Neltharion's Tear, some good boots (Epiphany or Betrayer), and probably a new cloak. Each point of damage at this point is adding 1 damage to mind flay, just about. Every tick of shadow weave is adding 10-11 damage (rounding, yay). Curse of shadows is easily adding another 40 damage to each tick.. The multiplicative nature of shadow priests makes this insane.
However, a long time ago, I also stopped trying to top the damagemeters after proving I could easily get up there, and went back to my 'primary' role as a healer. Nothing teaches you how to anticipate damage like having to time a 1.5s spell to hit, or making sure your dots are up at a specific point.. And having your vampiric embrace crit for what most flash heals hit for is also awesome.
The real mainstay of a shadow priest's arsenal in a raid situation is their vampiric embrace. There are many encounters where that constant, steady stream of healing can really free up the FFA healing needs. I would only suggest having 1 in most situations, they do respectable damage, and can take a healer slot for their party as an FFA healer.
23:40:55> [Illidan Stormrage's] [Shear] was blocked by [Castille].
The real mainstay of a shadow priest's arsenal in a raid situation is their vampiric embrace. There are many encounters where that constant, steady stream of healing can really free up the FFA healing needs. I would only suggest having 1 in most situations, they do respectable damage, and can take a healer slot for their party as an FFA healer.
Exactly. It's a dual-role that works extremely well. I'm also a raiding shadow priest, and I'm often keeping a whole group of rogues alive just with VE healing. 300+ healing, and 1100+ damage every 3 seconds on a whole group is more than enough to keep them alive on Vael, or even Huhuran, while still managing to be in the top 5 or 10 on the charts.
800 DPS? Not likely, even if I had better gear than I do now. I can pull 400-450 DPS in my current gear, but it's not sustainable over a long period of time. I end up using more regen consumables(mageblood, nightfin, mana oil, runes, pots), than I do flasks or damage pots. The other problem is similar to Warlocks; just getting my debuffs knocked off. Losing SWP is a big DPS hit, as well as mana-intensive to keep reapplying it, same with losing Shadow Weaving. There's ways to make it work, but it takes more effort on the part of the Priest than it does for other DPS classes.
Khameir: http://i.imgur.com/J2but.jpg - I feel like I know this scenario all too well senya: Khameir that's me but with video games instead of star wars, and something she mentions social/appstore gaming instead of saying no and either way THAT'S A WRAP senya: and not in the contraceptive sense
Considering we have anywhere between 4 to 8 Warlocks per raid, a Shadow Priest is pretty vital to us. We try to bring one per raid and I was even a bit surprised by their damage output. But, I guess our raids are a special case (we tend to be Warlock and Priest-heavy).
I'm calling BS on some of the figures quoted in this thread. My patchwerk DPS is usually in the 600 range unflasked and I have some of the best gear available. We've had shadow priests on raids before (including last night) and I've been wholly unimpressed by their performance. Between us bringing 1-2 warlocks per raid and given the number of debuff slots we need to give up for this shadow DPS, it's pointless.
I think that 1.11 was a big nerf to the hadow priest :
- mages get tons of gifts, very few of wich were really needed
* Shadow priest DPS drops relative to mage
* Warlocks become even gimper to mages. Having 2 warlocks in many top raids is IMHO a blatant proof of a class balance problem
* Shadow priest utility value declines, as less people gain advantage of shadow weaving.
- mages now take one or 2 additional debuff slots due to fire/ice vulnerability
However I think shadow is a very fun spec to play, and can save many priests (me included) from burnout.
How do you think 25 player raid limit in TBC, combined with warlocks being able to to nuke with fire and moving shammies in more hybrid direction (see thread about new enhancement/elemental tree options) will affect shadow priest viability in raid?
There are 2 mayor arguments for shadow priest in raid:
1) Shadow weaving.
Problem is that in new raids you will see 2-3 warlocks, with good chance that 1-2 of them will be focusing on fire spells (Incinerate spam). So weaving loses its charm...
2) VE.
VE will be probably still valid in TBC - shadow priest can AoE heal his group while DPSing.
I would say shadow priests are in real trouble now in terms of raiding usefulness (unless they recieve something new in TBC that boosts their raid support role).
I see people talking about a 4 lock 1 shadow priest group, but seriously apart from trash when are you not going to need your locks with imps out in tank groups for most of the bosses in naxx?
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08/07/06, 4:21 AM
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