Thanks for the screenshots. What you're noticing is a point of infinite sustainability. Once the values turn negative (as indicated by the color red in the spreadsheet) the formula used for the calculation breaks down. It's at this point you are regenerating more mana than you can spend given the current rotation. The spreadsheet doesn't know how to account for this and begins to calculate a seemingly contrary prediction.

The value fluxuation you're noticing is actually irrelevant since the end result is infinity. Once you drop below the breakpoint of infinite mana reserves the formula will restore itself.

NOTE: The use of multiple VT priests in a group very quickly drives us over that threshold.

I don't know if it's possible to model, but the use of multiple shadow priests in a group has big impact over the TPS generation. One grossly inaccurate way (or correct if you assume they all have the same dps) would be to divide the threat generated from VE with the number of shadow priests in the group since they all contribute with the party healing.

It's very interesting to understand just how long I can sustain myself, in a fight, and in what ways I can tweak my spell rotation to increase my longevity. It's also useful to see just how much of a healing impact I'm causing when I add SWeath to my rotation - that's a nice touch.

The only minor nitpick I have is that you spell "infinitely" as "infinately" several times, which obviously has nothing to do with the numbers, but does draw my eye from time to time.

Damnit, thanks for drawing my eye to that. It's an old typing habit that's easy to forget when there's no active spell check running.

It's difficult to gather detailed information on shadowfiend so I used assumed values. Once I get some more time on my hands I'll work on banging out the real numbers. At this time I have no idea how to account for its miss/block/crit/etc factors.

Pungent, this is a phenemonal spreadsheet. I thought I was well informed as to the workings of a priest build, and a spell rotation, but the numbers and forumlas that you crunch here really show me that I have a lot to learn, and this is the single best place to get that information.

1 thing I would like to know is, why do you not include Blessing of Kings (+10% stats), Arcane Intellect and Mark of the Wild in your available options or calculations since they all increase stats and thus increase your crit% and mana regen even if only slightly. Is it possible to include those into the spreadsheet, even if just to make it more comprehensive.

This is a wonderful spreadsheet and everyone's insight into the theorycraft of Priests/ shadowpriests and the like on these forums are outstanding.

Ohh one last thing? Why not include Spell Penetration? It is my understanding that Spell Penetration modifies the amount of damage done? or am I totally off base on that.

thanks again for all your hard work, and everyones valuable input!

Tacklberie
Shadow Priest
Dark Portal Syndicate
Kael'Thas Server (Horde)

It would boost your damage if there was anything that had resists that it could lower, but in raids there isn't.

Thanks for catching this. I was assuming a pre-cast before the duration had ended but forgot the formula would already take this into account. In any case, it's been fixed if you'd like to download a new copy.

Also, I'm on a bit of a hiatus from WoW at the moment so in-game numbers for shadowfiend are still on the backburner. This will be corrected when time allows.

I've left this functionality out because it's easier to pull the necessary data directly off the character sheet than inputting each one manually and then running the calculations. Most likely this won't be added. Feel free to modify the sheet to include this if you like though.

As always, thanks for all the feedback.

Not exactly on the topic of the spreadsheet, but since I have a shadow priest DPS question and there appear to be some experts here, it seemed close enough.

We recently had one of our priests respec shadow for raids. He's been holy for all of our pre-BC 40-mans, so this is a bit of a new experience for him. Anywise, he's been asking questions of me lately since (1) I'm the GM and (2) he sees me posting big numbers on the DPS charts.

Our last discussion of the importance of +dmg versus +crit. My limited understanding of shadow priest DPS in a raid boss setting is that when you're not reapplying Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch/Embrace, you're Mind Flaying. As such, crit isn't of much use compared to raw +dmg.

However, he was extolling to me the virtues of Mind Blast via the crit talents and reduced cooldowns, so therefore +crit wasn't a wasted stat on him. My impression was that Mind Blast wasn't terribly mana efficient for a long boss fight. Moreover, I thought that it's cooldown precluded you from spamming it, so therefore it was used too sparingly in a long fight to justify stacking +crit. However, I haven't followed priest mechanics much in the BC age, so perhaps things are different at 70. I also know that Shadow Word: Death has a strong crit component and I've heard that Vampiric Embrace mitigates the self-inflicted damage it does to a priest casting it mid-fight on a boss. So maybe this priest's interest in +crit is justified.

What do the experts have to say?

Well from my experience, for fights where dps is important, MindBlast and Shadow word: Death are important for our overall dps.

Typically, I prioritize how I cast my spells, first I make sure my dots are up. If my dots are up, then I will Mindblast, SWD. If Mindblast and SWD are on cooldown and my dots are up, I mindflay. To be able to keep this up for fights like Gruul etc, you have to use your mana fiend wisely and additionally use a punch of pots and demonic runes etc.

With that said, crit still isnt as important to us compared to other dps casters. In a nutshell, we do not get anybonuses whatsoever when we have a spell crit, ie we just get the base bonus 50% damage. Mages, warlocks and even elemental shaman have something that is triggered on a crit whether it be ignite, improved shadowbolt, or rune etc that increases the damage beyond the base 50% bonus. On top of that, we have 2 spells that can crit, while the rest of our damage comes from sources that can not crit. Looking at even the most aggressive damage cycles we have, at most 40% of our damge comes from spells that can crit.

Caster items are itemized around the bonuses that a mage or a warlock get to their dps in my opinion. Because of this, we are better off focusing on items that maximize our plus damage, which benefits all of our spells, instead of only a fraction of the spells that we use.

Overall you will see bigger dps gains focusing on + damage then you will by focusing on +crit.

In the best light I can give crit, 5 crit rating is about the same dps increase as 1 +dmg.

I remember coming up with something like... for an item to be optimized for a shadow priest and have 5 crit rating on it.. it'd have to have something ridiculous like 100 +dmg on it.

On the other hand, raid itemization is pretty poor, so we're often forced to take many items with crit, simply because there's few or no alternatives.