That and the numbers work out so neatly when you look at different caster's cycles, that it makes me think think that one of their developers has a spreadsheet somewhere where he figured it out.
Presumably, some designer started with the cast-time rule as a guideline and starting point. He then started tweaking individual spells as necessary. Some got changed and some didn't.
Undoubtedly, the list just exists as a lookup table somewhere in the game; there's no meaningful general formula.
Definitely. Looking back, I maybe was unclear.
It looks to me like spell coefficients were set based on calculations designed to give similar composite benefits to the different classes/specs rather than sticking strictly to a coefficient relative to 3.5 second cast, single target nukes. In that context, a 0.45 coefficient for mindflay is pretty consistent with what you'd expect.
I went ahead and experimented, blowing a respec for this. I only put points in the shadow tree up to Mind Flay.
Mind Flay Rank 6 lists as doing 426 over 3 sec, or 142 per tick.
With +100 dmg, it was 157 per tick, or +15 per tick, or +45 overall. (45% factor)
With +530 dmg, it was 223 per tick, or +81 per tick, or +243 overall. (45.8% factor)
Just from that we can tell that it gets an overall bonus of somewhere between 45-46%.
Just to confirm what others have said, the shadow priest talents add after +dmg gear.
With my +530 damage:
MF6 alone is 223 per tick
MF6 with 5/5 shadow weaving is +256 per tick (15% increase from 223)
MF6 with 5/5 shadow weaving and 5/5 Darkness is 282 per tick (10% increase from 256)
MF6 with 5/5 shadow weaving, 5/5 Darkness and Shadowform is 324 per tick. (15% increase from 282)
I went ahead and experimented, blowing a respec for this. I only put points in the shadow tree up to Mind Flay.
Mind Flay Rank 6 lists as doing 426 over 3 sec, or 142 per tick.
With +100 dmg, it was 157 per tick, or +15 per tick, or +45 overall. (45% factor)
With +530 dmg, it was 223 per tick, or +81 per tick, or +243 overall. (45.8% factor)
Just from that we can tell that it gets an overall bonus of somewhere between 45-46%.
Just to confirm what others have said, the shadow priest talents add after +dmg gear.
With my +530 damage:
MF6 alone is 223 per tick
MF6 with 5/5 shadow weaving is +256 per tick (15% increase from 223)
MF6 with 5/5 shadow weaving and 5/5 Darkness is 282 per tick (10% increase from 256)
MF6 with 5/5 shadow weaving, 5/5 Darkness and Shadowform is 324 per tick. (15% increase from 282)
The difference between 324 per tick and 142 per tick is almost exactly 530 (a tad higher, actually). So, does that mean that MindFlay, once it is fully talented, gets essentially 100% of damage gear contribution, but without talents, is less that 50% ?
If so, that sounds pretty ok to me. Once you are in Shadowform, you get the slow and the stun proc for free (from a dmg gear perspective).
And yes, I know that you can crank up a Frostbolt much higher than it's contribution from dmg gear would allow. But that's a mage, not an off-spec priest.
The problem is a mage can spend 5 talent points (imp frosbolt/fireball) and out gain per spell damage a priest spends 31+ points at. Meanwhile the shadow tree offers no cross-tree synergy with holy, making those particular skills very weak.
Edit: I suppose I should clarify. The gain of -.1 cast time on a spell is huge. The shaman talent Lightning Mastery, makes lightning bolt the best scaling spell in the game.
The difference between 324 per tick and 142 per tick is almost exactly 530 (a tad higher, actually). So, does that mean that MindFlay, once it is fully talented, gets essentially 100% of damage gear contribution, but without talents, is less that 50% ?
That isn't a very meaningful comparison, as the pre-gear damage of the mind flays producing the 324 and 142 ticks is different. It's like comparing nude rank 1 and geared rank 6 and concluding that the scaling is fine.
With max darkness, shadow weaving and shadowform, mind flay gets 76% of the "base" dps boost from gear (fully talented frostbolt gets 120%). While this looks terrible at first, SW:P adds an additional 28%, bring a shadow priests's sustained dps benefit from gear up to 87% of that of a frost mage's. When you consider that they're also healing for up to 1.5 times as much damage as they do, it's pretty reasonable assuming the debuff slots are availible.
Basically, Mind Flay's scaling sucks, but that's not why shadow priests aren't that great of dpsers.
It's 45%. Due to the large number of people that didn't know what it was or falsely claimed it was some other value I went and FRAPS'd me testing it.
For Mind Flay and SW:P our talents apply after +dmg is added.
For Mind Blast however Darkness only applies before +dmg is added. The other talents still apply after +dmg.
Jaerel gave numbers for our scaling with a SW:P, Blast, Flay, Flay, Blast, Flay, Flay, Blast, Flay, Flay etc. combo.
However this is by no means our most efficient method of doing DPS (in pve).
It would be more correct do instead look at: SW:P, Flay*8
For this our scaling with dmg is: (8*0.45 + 8/6)/25.5 * 1.1 * 1.15 * 1.15 == 0.2814 DPS/dmg.
As he mentioned a Frost Mage gets 0.3453 DPS/dmg before crits. Crits however are rather important for the Frost mage as they get 2*dmg on them. What's more their gear tends to have crit and on a lot of non-boss mobs they can freeze targets which can send their crit rate through the roof. With 20% crit they're at 0.4143 DPS/dmg. 40% crit is 0.4834 DPS/dmg. 60% crit is 0.552 DPS/dmg.
Now yes, a Shadow Priest that spends another 2 talent points can get Imp. VE. and heal 30% of their dmg done to each person in their party. And yes, this is one of the reasons why a Shadow Priest shouldn't be matching a Mage 1:1 in DPS.
Each point of DPS gives a Shadow Priest with Imp. VE 0.3 heal/second (in practise less due to overheal, but it is true that these heals can crit). So in terms of (DMG+HEAL)/second a Shadow Priest (given a situation with lots of AoE hitting the ranged DPS or whatever so the heals aren't just overheal) a Shadow Priest has (0.2814 + X*0.0844) per point of dmg. Where X is the number of people being healed.
To match a Frostie with 0% crit X == 0.7571 (i.e. if a Mage has 0% crit then the Shadow Priest will beat the Mage on dmg+healing even if the Shadow Priest is alone in his group).
A Mage with 20% crit X = 1.575. So 2 people in need of healing the Shadow Priests's group is needed to come out ahead.
Mage with 40% crit, X = 2.39
Mage with 60% crit, X = 3.21
In terms of pure DPS scaling a Shadow Priest is lacking. On the right encounters however where your group is taking lots of dmg (say a Warlock group for LTing, Rogue group with cleaves, or just mobs with constant AoE's (Firemaw, Vael etc), then a Shadow Priest can do very well on Dmg+Healing.
Mind you, this is just comparing a Shadow Priest with a Frost Mage.
It's ignoring Fire Mages (go go rolling ignites).
It's ignoring Elemental Shaman, Moonkin Druids and Disc/Holy DPS Priests.
Elemental Shaman for example...Ignoring their other talents (+100% dmg on crits, more crit%, increased base dmg from Concussion) and just looking at Lightning Mastery on Lightning Bolt. 3 second cast spell by default. 2 seconds with the talent.
That's a DPS/dmg of 0.4286 right there before crits. Get a 20% crit rate and it's 0.514.
Chain Ligtning? 2.5 second base, 1.5 with talents. That's a 0.4762 DPS/dmg before crits. With 20% crit it's 0.5714 DPS/dmg.
Of course for the Shadow Priest numbers I didn't take into account the global cooldown of casting VE. Nor the time spent building up to 5/5 Shadowweaving (takes at least 5 more global cooldowns to achieve this). Also if the Shadow Priest is taking damage their Mind Flay will be interrupted rather than just delayed.
ahhh, i always swore that Darkness was applied BEFORE +dmg, but that was because i only tested using mindblast (very easy to test, as you'd imagine). But with so many people saying it's applied AFTER, i was very worried.
Why on earth would blizz have a talent increase the damage AFTER +dmg gear for some spells, and PRE +dmg gear on others?
With max darkness, shadow weaving and shadowform, mind flay gets 76% of the "base" dps boost from gear (fully talented frostbolt gets 120%).
45% * 1.1 * 1.15 * 1.15 == 65.46375%
I thought Darkness was before +dmg. I remember someone tested it on the SA forums.
Originally Posted by Jaerel
The ~0.45 figure is correct.
The reasoning, I'd assume would be to balance the scaling with other casters.
In a mindblast/MF/MF cycle with SW:P ticking, a shadowpriest gets
2* 0.45 = 0.90 of his +dmg contributed from MF (6 seconds)
1* 0.43 = 0.43 of his +dmg contributed from mindblast (1.5 seconds)
and
8.2*1/18 = .45 of his +dmg contributed from SW:P (0.7 seconds -> 1.5 seconds for gcd every 18 seconds, so 8.3% of his time is spent refreshing it).
for a total of 1.78 of his +dmg applied every 8.2 seconds.
With the shadow multipliers, he gets 145% of that (1.1*1.15*1.15) ~145.5, so 2.59 every 8.2 seconds for an avg +dmg:dps conversion of .316.. Only mindblast can crit, and only at 50% bonus, so the contribution from a shadowpriest's crit is minimal (est. 8 crit for a 1% increase to cycle damage).
With VE active he sees a .095 * X conversion of +dmg:hps in the form of healing, where X is the number of damaged party members.
Even healing only himself (say in PvP), his return from +dmg is 0.414 per second (healing + damage).
A frost mage with WC, PI, Ice shards, imp. frostbolt, and 10% crit from gear/int (ignoring hit, though shadowmages get 10%, frosties get 6%, the return varies based on the target) gets:
.814 /2.5 = 0.326 +dmg: dps due to imp. frostbolt.
With crit, and pierciing ice, he gets 127% of that (1.06*1.20), so .41 per second (damage only).
That's really interesting that +dmg coefficient is worked out as "the effect it creates in seperating the value of your HP from the value of your target's HP". I wonder what you would get if you did Deathcoil or some AoE spells.
Darkness applies after +dmg for Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Pain. It applies before +dmg for Mind Blast.
No idea why. That's just how it is.
I'd guess that it's due to PVP balance. MB does already insane amounts of damage with +500shadowdamage to be 1.5sec cast, and shadowpriest are anyway pretty strong class in pvp. If they'd let MB scale better, shadow priests would just pwn even more in 1v1's.
The reasoning, I'd assume would be to balance the scaling with other casters.
In a mindblast/MF/MF cycle with SW:P ticking, a shadowpriest gets
2* 0.45 = 0.90 of his +dmg contributed from MF (6 seconds)
1* 0.43 = 0.43 of his +dmg contributed from mindblast (1.5 seconds)
and
8.2*1/18 = .45 of his +dmg contributed from SW:P (0.7 seconds -> 1.5 seconds for gcd every 18 seconds, so 8.3% of his time is spent refreshing it).
for a total of 1.78 of his +dmg applied every 8.2 seconds.
With the shadow multipliers, he gets 145% of that (1.1*1.15*1.15) ~145.5, so 2.59 every 8.2 seconds for an avg +dmg:dps conversion of .316.. Only mindblast can crit, and only at 50% bonus, so the contribution from a shadowpriest's crit is minimal (est. 8 crit for a 1% increase to cycle damage).
With VE active he sees a .095 * X conversion of +dmg:hps in the form of healing, where X is the number of damaged party members.
Even healing only himself (say in PvP), his return from +dmg is 0.414 per second (healing + damage).
A frost mage with WC, PI, Ice shards, imp. frostbolt, and 10% crit from gear/int (ignoring hit, though shadowmages get 10%, frosties get 6%, the return varies based on the target) gets:
.814 /2.5 = 0.326 +dmg: dps due to imp. frostbolt.
With crit, and pierciing ice, he gets 127% of that (1.06*1.20), so .41 per second (damage only).
for MB darkness only applies on the base dmg, your calculation assumes it applies after gear.
also in actaul raid scenarios spriests have mana issues and thus they have to resort to the best dpm when going for raids(mainly MF+pain).
Also, gotta love the multiplicative nature of shadow priests. As your gear improves, you start seeing larger jumps -- especially from things like Power Infusion, Curse of Shadows, Improved Shadowbolt, Nightfall.. I can easily hit for near 600/tick on mind flays with Curse of Shadows and Improved Shadowbolt up on a mob when my ToEP is off cooldown. I think my current 'max' is around 588 or so, might be 590. All for around 200 mana, too. That's a fair trade.
23:40:55> [Illidan Stormrage's] [Shear] was blocked by [Castille].
Chain Ligtning? 2.5 second base, 1.5 with talents. That's a 0.4762 DPS/dmg before crits. With 20% crit it's 0.5714 DPS/dmg.
Chain lightning is actually another anomaly. For whatever reason it gets very close to 90% of your +dmg applied, despite the fact that it hits multiple targets and is only a 2.5 second base cast.
For the first target, chain lightning with lightning mastery and 0 crit is ~0.60 +dmg:DPS.
Counting the 2nd and 3rd targets with 0 crit it's ~1.31 +dmg:DPS
Throwing on 20% crit (easy as a shaman since you get 11% crit from talents, and a favorable int->crit conversion) and you're at 1.58 +dmg:DPS counting all targets.
With full out talents, an elemental mastery CL on a target with the stormstrike debuff (need an friendly enhancement shaman for that): 1.5 +dmg:DPS to a single target. For 0 mana. It's hot :)
Overall an ele shaman in full burn mode (CL, LB, LB, LB...) gets
.894 from CL - 1.5 seconds
3*.857 from LB - 2 seconds
multiplied by 1.05
and crit (~16% naked)
.563 +dmg:dps.
Their main problem is they can only get +3% to hit with spells from talents, and it generally requires them to either sacrifice crit or really hamstring their healing ability to get both. Oh...that and an ele shaman in full-burn can only sustain for a brief time (due also to lightning mastery...50% dps boost, but at 50% higher mana consumption rate). They are pretty ridiculous for short duration/high output situations though.
for MB darkness only applies on the base dmg, your calculation assumes it applies after gear.
also in actaul raid scenarios spriests have mana issues and thus they have to resort to the best dpm when going for raids(mainly MF+pain).
Originally Posted by Jaerel
In a mindblast/MF/MF cycle with SW:P ticking, a shadowpriest gets
2* 0.45 = 0.90 of his +dmg contributed from MF (6 seconds)
1* 0.43 = 0.43 of his +dmg contributed from mindblast (1.5 seconds)
and
8.2*1/18 = .45 of his +dmg contributed from SW:P (0.7 seconds -> 1.5 seconds for gcd every 18 seconds, so 8.3% of his time is spent refreshing it).
Recalculating for darkness not applying on MB
SW:P-MB/MF/MF
.90 * 1.45 (mindflay, 6 seconds) - 1.305
0.43 * 1.32 (mindblast, 1.5 seconds) - .568
.45 * 1.45 (SW:P, 0.7 seconds) - .653
2.53 / 8.2 seconds = .308 +dmg:DPS
with .092 +dmg:HPS per target so ~0.400 in a solo situation.
SW:P-MF cycles
.45* 1.45 (mindflay, 3 seconds) - .652
3.3 * 1/18 * 1.45 (SW:P, .3 seconds) - .266
.918 / 3.3 seconds = .278 +dmg:dps
with .083 +dmg:HPS per target so ~.361 in a solo situation.
ahhh, i always swore that Darkness was applied BEFORE +dmg, but that was because i only tested using mindblast (very easy to test, as you'd imagine). But with so many people saying it's applied AFTER, i was very worried.
Why on earth would blizz have a talent increase the damage AFTER +dmg gear for some spells, and PRE +dmg gear on others?
Is it a balancing thing? Ugh, that's annoying.
LOL. Warlock spells.
Shadow Mastery affects these -before- gear:
drain life
sihpon life
curse of agony
and these -after- gear:
shadow bolt
deathcoil
corruption
Yay for blizzard programmers.
Its all terribly inconsistent if you start examining it for all classes and spell types. Its as if they program each one as a special case and don't have any shared code.
Darkness applies after +dmg for Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Pain. It applies before +dmg for Mind Blast.
No idea why. That's just how it is.
I'd guess that it's due to PVP balance. MB does already insane amounts of damage with +500shadowdamage to be 1.5sec cast, and shadowpriest are anyway pretty strong class in pvp. If they'd let MB scale better, shadow priests would just pwn even more in 1v1's.
No its just an accident. It has been inconsistent for varioius spells in various classes since the very beginning of the + damage mechanic, when you couldn't get enough of it for the difference of applying talents before or after gear to matter.
Also, gotta love the multiplicative nature of shadow priests. As your gear improves, you start seeing larger jumps -- especially from things like Power Infusion, Curse of Shadows, Improved Shadowbolt, Nightfall.. I can easily hit for near 600/tick on mind flays with Curse of Shadows and Improved Shadowbolt up on a mob when my ToEP is off cooldown. I think my current 'max' is around 588 or so, might be 590. All for around 200 mana, too. That's a fair trade.
nightfal has no effect on shadow dmg.
what you mentioned has nothing to do with dmg scaling of gear or shadowpriest scaling, its all to do with the buffs from external sources(warlock, a diff priest).
with PI(from another priest), sform, full weaving and darkness, impr sbolt, COS.
it will take about +760 dmg, to get 600 dmg per tick on MF.
edit: the calculation:
((452+760*.45)*1.15*1.15*1.1*1.1*1.2*1.2)/3 = 609 dmg per tick
a warlock with the same things(minus sform/darkness) can get a sbolt to crit for 4276 dmg.
I believe he's referring to the debuff of the axe Nightfall, not the Warlock talent.
The buffs and debuffs he mentions are relevant because of the nature of percentage increases. The more percentage increases you pack on, the more noticeable each point of damage becomes. A naked Mage without CoE loses a lot less than a Frostfire Mage without CoE, neh? Now imagine that instead of a simple 10% increase you're looking at a 20% increase (imp ShB) of a 15% increase (Shadow Weaving) of a 10% increase (CoS) of a 20% increase (PI) of a 15% increase (Shadowform) of a 10% increase (Darkness). Each multiplier amplifies the effect of a single point of +damage. That is what he meant when he referred to "larger jumps:" the more +damage you have, the more there is for all these effects to -- dare I say it? -- increase.
I never said there is no buff, clearly I calculated the exact dmg with those buffs to get the 600 tick, which means I know theres an increase, but it isnt unique to shadow priests as he was implying.
PI and other buffs from many sources will improve all players dmg by alot, thats what im trying to show.
thats why I gave a warlock example.
also a shadow priest needs roughly +100% modification to MF to get its modifier to be the same as shadowbolt base modifier, so even if a spriest can get more modifiers from a lock than a mage can, it still doesnt mean spriests have it better.
09/19/06, 2:44 PM
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