Ayr

1. You miss out on 10% hit from Shadow Focus, so you have an additional 6% hit to itemize.
2. The odds of a lock doing CoS are much higher than that of a Ret. Paladin being in the raid.
3. DPM is inherently lower than shadow.
4. There are few items with +holy dmg, but there are quite a few top notch quality +shadow items, which tend to be far better than generic +dmg equivalents.
5. Only 1 DoT to put up alongside Smite spam, and one that doesn't benefit from +holy talents.
6. Little to no raid utility.

 

Sapphidia

Thanks a lot for testing that. If the 760 seemed more likely than the 705 then it's perhaps not too bad. Good point about the +hit too, though I was planning on Draenei that would give a 1% hit passive in an attempt to help that. The mana regen racial might help too, I think it works out at about 20mp5 for the group at 70 and believe it's been buffed in 2.10.

One thing though - you say that getting SoL you give up quite a bit of damage? Could I ask what build you tested with? What I thought the "optimal" smite build was was a 32/28/1 build that did -not- include power infusion (as Power infusion seems quite a low boost for sustained dps - 20% dps for 15 seconds every 3 minutes is only 1.66% total dps increase over time and that costs mana to sustain, compared to the other flat damage boosts). I'd be curious what build you'd selected though, as I found I couldnt easily get Power Infusion with SoL without dropping some top end Disc talents, mostly due to having to work Mental Strength in somehow.

 

KarlThePagan

Here's my tested build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=dxxzzhGtdtZbxtcbbq

there are a lot of tradeoffs you can have here:

1) Surge of Light vs Imp DS or 2 points in Force of Will or Focused Power or Power Infusion & Mental Strength
2) Spirit of Redemption (5% spirit boost for regen and dmg) vs 1 point in the above discipline talents


Spirit of Redemption gives 5% spirit or 17 from my t5 outfit, +6 dmg and ~2.5 mp5 while casting/~17 mp5 not casitng (ok this is going to go... not really worth 1% dmg)

Power Infusion gives 20% dps boost for 8.3% of the time, but also extends your mana longevity by the same amount (I try to sneak in 2 swp's and a chain of smites in during my PI, so it could be slightly more), however that's also 1% of your mana pool after the 1st point - so 2.7% +dmg is the tradeoff effect

Force of Will is worth 1.5% damage PER point, so 3% for the tradeoff.

Surge of Light gives at best +20%*crit dps or 4% dmg boost at 20% crit

Focused Power is worth 4% damage on raid bosses unless you're differently itemized (likely giving up +dmg)


considering it this way I'll respec on the PTR again and have at Dr. Boom with this radical non-PI build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxxzzhGprxZbxtcbbVb


edit: hey when you respec out of an aura you cast on yourself (divine spirit) you lose that ability... no more 50g to hax up your warlock auras

 

KarlThePagan

I peaked at around 792 dps without PI

swp almost lowers my dps, but i'm hemorraging mana so i keep it up just to even things out

in an offensive role i really miss silence badly, with out it i'm still too easy for a mage to kill

 

Yeonora

I actually have a lvl70 Priest alt with decent, but not "good for SSC" equipment. Including all talents, I reach around 800 spelldmg selfbuffed and around 970 spelldmg with spirit tap up.
Yes, spirit tap. Embrace it. It's the only way this kind of build ever is going to rock, even if it's in a very limited set of situations.
The actual build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxgozhxzbhZfxt0bbqbZx
My equipment concentrating very heavily on +spirit and even socketing +8 spirit gems etc, I reach almost exactly 500 spirit selfbuffed and 1000 with spirit tap up. The synergy is massive: 15% spirit regeneration while casting from meditation, 65% spirit regeneration while casting from spirit tap, 35% of those 1000 spirit transforming into +350 spelldmg.
It is actually useless for any bosses without adds you can kill for spirit tap. Where this build excels is farming (I actually farm mobs better with this smite-spec priest than with my +1100 spelldmg 30% crit arcane/frost mage), running 5man-instances, trying to get every killing blow with swd for spirit tap, and killing bosses with adds, like the skeletons at Nightbane. I didn't take my priest any further than that, but he sure is great fun farming or always being #1 on damagemeters for any 5man. The others always are quite incredulous about a holy priest dominating them in that respect *g*.
Also, I would like to add that imo Surge of Light is the single best return for 2 talent points. Aside from Meditation and Inner Focus, this is your talent for improving dpm, plus in *most* situations it actually also improves your dps, because if it procs, you have 1.5 free seconds to reposition, activate trinkets / consumables, check swp on targets etc. In most situations you can use those 1.5 seconds of free time to do something useful.

Summary: A smite spec is great with spirit tap and lots of spirit on gear for farming, 5 mans and, to a limited extend, bosses with adds. You can do good dps with terrible dpm. With spirit tap, your dps and sustainability skyrockets, without, you're bunked.
It's a great hybrid spec that can heal and dps very sufficiently everywhere up to, and maybe including, Karazhan, but there it ends.
No reason for Blizzard to include crit and spirit into the tiered priest damage sets, as on that level you certainly are shadow or healer.

 

Chardonnay

Interesting topic!

I levelled my priest from 64 to 70 on a smite holy-DPS build, with spirit tap added. It was amazing. Lacking any hit talents and gear I only killed mobs above me 2 levels at most, I usually aimed 1-2 levels below. It absolutely rocked. I felt like I could even farm/grind with this build without wanting to /wrist.
I completed several 5mans as DPS/offheal, rivalling mage damage (except the aoe parts) while preventing lots of wipes at the same time. DPS/offheal role was very fun for me. Using the regular healing gear I could heal just as well as if I was full holy. Fast gheals, cheap aoe heal, Imp DS, Spirit of Redemption, Inspiration, cheap dispel, etc... Probably it would be insufficient to mainheal a heroic or heal in raids.

The downsides:
- Mana regen while casting is only 15% and it is very hard to find crit/dmg gear with decent spirit and/or mp5. (I've yet to see a crit/dmg gear with mp5 on it) Even then, spirit is a very bad way to boost incombat regen. To sum it all up: regen during casting is close to zero unless you have a spirit tap ticking.
- Smite DPM IS CRAP. It's the 30-50% of what a firemage could achieve and even that is lacking in BC raids.
- Surge of Light is bugged and it's able to chain proc via chain crits. It's just soo fun chain critting for 1600+ with a holy priest I got myself killed several times by pulling things off the tank
- Total lack of active aggro management (fade will rarely save you from damage aggro)
- Total lack of active escape mechanisms (fear is not always usable in instances, shield/heal is insufficient)

My spell usage patterns:
- Solo: holy fire, smite until mob is near. If there is room, I use r1 scream and keep smiting, finishing off with SW: D. If no room, I just tank the mob and occasionally pop a renew. If the mob hits fast causing too much pushback, I pop a shield. If spirit tap is available and mana is low, wand to finish off the mob.
- Solo multimob: holy fire, then dot all mobs. Stay focused on the holy fired mob, scream to scatter them. Finish the mob with smite/SW: D. Repeat until all mobs are dead, you can use heals if needed.
- Instances: SW:P all the stuff that moves, then smite spam the DPS target. Attempt to get killing blows with SW: D regardless of spirit tap Keep an eye of others health, especially the mainhealer. Dotting can be skipped imho.

A sample DPS chart for you: (full underbog normal)
#1 lvl70 arms warrior, well geared
#2 my lvl65 holy DPS priest in mostly greens
#3 lvl65+ lock in blues


My conclusion: any smite DPS build is very very fine and fun for soloing, grinding and normal 5 mans either in DPS, mainheal or DPS/offheal role. It's probably viable for heroics aswell. No way it is viable for raids as a DPS and gimped as heal. I simply love holy DPS, it was one of the most entertaining things I've done in wow. Looking forward to respec to it again

Finally, let me link my dream holyDPS/offheal build (30/31)

 

Ramalama

Since there are so few numbers in this thread yet and most posters haven't included the presence of a Ret paladin I will post some of my personal notes on Smite DPS. I apologize if it's not formatted as well as it could be for the forums.

The most notable thing here is that no one has yet treated Surge of Light even close to correctly. I think I have done so, carrying only the assumption that every Surge of Light proc hits. Even for someone that isn't hit capped, this should only change the crit coefficient by a few percent.

The main problem with the previous treatments of SoL is that the 1.42 number everyone kicks around assumes that if SoL didn't proc, the caster's normal smite would have crit (EDIT - after a second reading, I actually have no clue how people come up with 1.42 or 2.00). Clearly this isn't always the case, and it also reveals that SoL's effect on the crit coefficient is itself a function of crit%. You can see in my calculations that the coefficient it is nonlinear in crit%.

I find that the SoL induced crit coefficient only falls below the non-SoL value of (1+0.5*crit%) when crit% exceeds 2/3, which is never the case in practice. As a result, SoL represents both an increase in DPS and a very substantial increase in DPM. I don't yet have any calculations such as crit% to mp5 conversion, but to do so would be straightforward and I may include it in a follow-up.

Finally, the intent of this post is not to imply that Smite can provide viable raid DPS. As others have pointed out, it's clear from the get-go that you don't want a smite priest in your raid even if it can do comparable or better damage to a mage. Lack of utility, buffs and AoE already remove the smite priest from an optimal raid setup even before the calculators are turned on.

Instead, the intended audience are those who have fun exploring or playing unusual specs and those priests who wish to learn something new about their class.

 

Ramalama

Relevant Bonuses:
10% - Searing Light
13% - Sanctity Aura (Improved)
05% - Misery
05% - Force of Will
+190 damage from Judgement of the Crusader

Smite hit damage:
hitdmg=(578+(spldmg+190)*2.5/3.5)*1.10*1.13*1.05*1.05

Damage/Crit/Hit Comparison:

Surge of Light:
A Surge of Light proc will cause the next smite to cost only 1.5 seconds
instead of 2.0 seconds, but will remove its ability to crit.
During sustained smite spam this results in a gain of 0.25*avgdmg but a
loss equal to the potential crit damage. This gives a slight modification
to the standard 0.5*crit% modifier on average damage.

Average damage per smite including chance to crit and Surge of Light
talent. Assumes that the proc from Surge of Light always hits. This
figure should be equal to twice the average dps, unless I've confused myself.

avgdmg=hitdmg*(1+0.5*crit%)+0.5*crit%*(0.25*avgdmg-0.5*hitdmg*crit%)
avgdmg*(1-0.125*crit%)=hitdmg*(1+0.5*crit%*(1-0.5*crit%))
avgdmg=hitdmg*(1+0.5*crit%*(1-0.5*crit%))/(1-0.125*crit%)

Define gamma=(1+0.5*crit%*(1-0.5*crit%))/(1-0.125*crit%)

Surge of Light represents a reduction in damage only if crit% exceeds 2/3.
It substantially increases mana efficiency.

Benchmarks for +damage:
00% crit:
gamma=1.0
1 spell damage ~ 0.979 damage per smite.

20% crit:
gamma=1.1179
1 spell damage ~ 1.094 damage per smite.

30% crit:
gamma=1.1490
1 spell damage ~ 1.125 damage per smite.

40% crit:
gamma=1.1897
1 spell damage ~ 1.165 damage per smite.

Benchmarks for hit/crit:
+1000 spell damage:
Average smite hit is 1957.
1 hit rating ~ 1.66 damage per smite.
1 crit rating ~ 0.49 damage per smite (without Surge of Light).

+1200 spell damage:
Average smite hit is 2153.
1 hit rating ~ 1.79 damage per smite.
1 crit rating ~ 0.54 damage per smite.

+1400 spell damage:
Average smite hit is 2348.
1 hit rating ~ 1.96 damage per smite.
1 crit rating ~ 0.59 damage per smite.

Due to lack of multiplicative modifiers, it's clear that hit rating is
the best effect per itemization point a smite priest can get unless already
capped. Gemming order is clear in 8 hit > 5/4 dmg/hit > 9 dmg. The
15 hit glove enchant is better than 20 spell damage, but only marginally so.

Theoretical Sustained DPS Benchmarks:
+1000 damage 20% crit ~ 1094 DPS
+1200 damage 30% crit ~ 1237 DPS
+1400 damage 40% crit ~ 1397 DPS

 

miyago

looking at the talent build
power infusion vs surge of light
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
vs
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
ramalam said that surge of light decreases your damage if you got more then 33% crit, correct? so the question is, would it be better to have the power infusion spec(first one) instead of surge of light? theorycrafting is new to me so maybe someone would be so kind to crunch the numbers of a skill with 3 min cooldown 20% spelldamage increase (not damage) for 15 sec, dps increase numbers percentage etc.

 

Jayde

Interesting topic. Actually resonably curious to try this out someday...

I did want to chime in on one potential point--in the Holy Priest Theorycrafting thread, the biggest single debate has always been "Imp. DS vs. Circle of Healing" and all the associated pros and cons thereof. While many in this thread have made the claim that bringing a Smite Priest would offer "no utility" even if they could pump out Mage-level DPS, that isn't particularly true.

After all, every "viable" Smite build has Imp. DS, and thus would free up all/any healing Priests to spec more "pure" Empowered Healing/Circle of Healing builds in the event they had an active Smite DPS Priest in the raid-group.

Perhaps not a "huge" issue, but bringing the utility of the large raid buff without having to sacrifice CoH on one or more Priests is probably significantly more useful than a random Mage being in the group.

 

Amonra

Going back to SoL and its effect on dps, by my maths it increases your dps up until you get 67% crit chance. Ramalama calculated this, but I struggled a bit to follow his maths to had to convince myself that it was correct.

Taking a 1,000 damage non-crit smite as the standard, essentially SoL turns a half of your crits from something doing 1,500 damage in 2 seconds to something doing 2,500 damage in 3.5 seconds.

This reduces your crits from 750 dps to 714 dps. At first glance this seems like a reduction in dps, however SoL effectively increases the time you spend doing higher dps from 2 seconds to 3.5 seconds.

Assuming a crit rate of C, you will spend your time as follows:
And the DPS rates for each of these are 500, 750 and 714 respectively.

Running the numbers on this means that total DPS varies with crit rates as follows:

So basically, from a damage perspective alone, SoL is a good talent as it will increase your overall dps right up until you get a 67% crit rate, and it seems pretty unlikely that anyone will get that high. SoL also of course reduces mana usage considerably making it even more beneficial.

 

Zure

You simply must include latency/full resists in all theorycraft calculations. It's just a bad habit not to, and needlessly fractures from reality. Since most players cannot reliably get below 0.2 latency for a sustained period of time without clipping, running numbers without latency is akin to arbitrarily granting players a large amount of passive spell hate. If anyone did that, they'd be laughed out of the metaphorical building. Partial resists can, fortunately, be safely ignored.

For example:

Assuming 0.2 latency and 10% miss rate, 1 roll system, the dps break even point for SoL is ~53.0% crit.

Assuming 0.2 latency and 1% miss rate, 1 roll system, the dps break even point for SoL is ~58.3% crit.

Assuming 0.3 latency and 10% miss rate, 1 roll system, the dps break even point for SoL is 47.4% crit.

Assuming 0.3 latency and 1% miss rate, 1 roll system, the dps break even point for SoL is 52.1% crit.

I'm curious to know if non-binary offensive holy spells receive partial resists against boss level mobs in the same manner as do spells of other schools. Since as far as I know there is not holy resist in the game, this could potentially answer a few questions about how partial spell resists will scale into TBC (i.e., are bosses given a fixed amount of resists or are they simply given a percent-based chance to produce a "glancing" spell partial resist).

 

prorsus

Amonra you made a mistake here.

 

Baconslicer

My suspicion is that getting the 10% Sanctity Aura bonus is not going to be worth it from a raid DPS standpoint.

About the best group setup I can see that gets a Smite priest and a Ret paladin in the same group is to have the other three as Prot paladin, Shadow priest and Moonkin. That's 3/5 getting benefit from sanctity aura, 5/5 getting benefit from VE/VT, 4/5 getting benefit from moonkin aura, ~10% higher threat cap for everyone on whatever the prot paladin's tanking...

...but you've got a melee DPSer who's running without battle shout or windfury.

EDIT: Obviously in a 5-man context, things are different. A party like tank, healer, dps'er with CC, smite priest, ret paladin is pretty reasonable.

 

Amonra

Other than the fact that I have assumed 0 latency and 0 resist rate, I don't see what my mistake is?

 

Amonra

I don't really understand what difference hit rates will make because they will affect all damage aspects equally (unless I am misunderstanding something).

Latency has an impact, but I don't think it's that big.

I don't come up with the same numbers as you, but I don't know whether this means that your calculations are wrong or mine are (I suspect the latter).

My calculations are as follows:

Any idea what I am missing in this analysis?

 

Zure

HIT

Hit rates matter if we assume a 1 roll system. You didn't in your calculations. A 1 roll system, in WoW vernacular, means that crits, hits, and misses are determined simultaneously, and so crits cannot be resisted except where crit+resist > 100%.

Assume 90% crit, 10% resist: Here you do 135 dmg per cast assuming 100 damage base spells.
90% hit, 10% resist: 90 dmg/cast

A SoL smite does 90/135 = 66.67% of a normal smite

90% crit, 10% hit: 145 dmg/cast.
100% hit: 100

A SoL smite does 68.97% of a smite.


LATENCY

Latency lengthens the cast time of SoL and normal Smite by the same absolute amount. So with 0.2 you go from 1.5/2.0 to 1.7/2.2 or from a 33.33% haste to a 29.41% haste.

Just like resists, it has a smallish effect in making SoL less attractive. Add them all up though, and your numbers can change by a large percentage. I should have included in my post that it doesn't really matter much: SoL doesn't decrease dps at any reasonable crit %. It's just a bad habit to use cast times without latency, since we know that everyone is near or above 0.2. Adding latency can never make the numbers less accurate.

As to the specific numbers, eyeballing the numbers, it seems I used 0.4 second latency instead of 0.3. That would neatly explain why your 50% crit rate diverged from my 47.4% crit rate. Run your numbers at 0.2 latency and I imagine our results would more or less agree.

Regardless, our numbers show that even with all of the factors operating against SoL included in the calculations, at any realistic crit rate, SoL is a DPS increase.

 

Hodan

Improved seal of the crusader will bump up that +190 spell damage to 218 (190+28.5 rounded down). Since you're theorycrafting smite priests you're going to need all the help you can get.

 

PSGarak

Sanctity aura is 10% to holy damage and 2% to other sources of damage, unless the tooltip is misleading in which case it's 12% to holy/2% to other. But... that's it. That's all you have. While smite priests have a lot of internal modifiers (zomg cast time reduction), they have a distinct lack of raid buffs they can benefit from. Shadow gets CoS, SW, and ImpSB. Fire gets imp scorch and CoE. Frost even gets CoE and winter's chill. Nature damage even gets stormstrike. Holy damage gets sanctity aura, and no curse. Compared to other damage types, it's seeing around a 15% defecit in a raid situation, more like 25% if you don't have a retadin.

This doesn't mean holy pew pew is entirely unviable... it means it's a 5-man, soloing, or PvP spec. Live the dream!~

 

prorsus

You mistaken C to 1-C. So the result is still 33.3%.

Non critting smites is (1-C)*2 not C*2.

 

Lam

In case you wanted a little more input from a long-time smite priest..

My guild isn't big enough to run anything bigger than Kazakstan, so that's the limit of my experience in the pve field. In pvp, arenas are 50-50. If you're hanging around a 1500 rating and the other team doesn't have the sense to shut you down, you can be devastating. but as you'd guess, after you get a decent rating, people know to shut you down. Game over.

I have about a 95% chance of leading damage in any battleground I join. Blow your wad, suicide, and respawn with full mana. Repeat. This comes from there being no trail from your casts, so people don't see where the hurt is coming from, as someone previously said.

A well-geared smite priest will hit like a well-geared frost mage. Pretty much a rule of thumb, there. I have gone into a heroic as the only nuker, had two hunters kiting adds, a healer and a tank, and personally laid waste to the entire instance myself. Probably the most beautiful thing about the spec is that you can simply change gear and main-heal anything including Kara. My heal set is 2000 +heal. If I'm on offense, I run with 1100 +damage.

You cannot do both at once, because I daresay it is the most gear-dependent class/spec in the game.

Biggest cons:
1. Mana efficiency sucks.
2. No way to escape pvp, and if you're getting wailed on, you can't get a smite off, which is what you use to kill. :p

Biggest pros:
1. Hit like a mage
2. Take the roll of healer OR dps'r for anything Kara and under, so it's easy to find a group.

Keep in mind you need to carry more potions than the auction house. You also have to time your mana-returning jobs. On boss fights in Kara or heroics: use a potion when you are 50% mana. When you are next at 25% mana, use (i only play undead*) Power Infuse > trinket > SW:Pain > Shadowfiend > Inner Focus > Devouring Plague* > Mindblast.. Wand or continue Smiting/Holy Firing. In that order. Next time you're low on mana, your potion will be up. If the boss is still up after that, your raid is lacking dps as a whole.

The Armory

That's my toon and spec. Little bit of pve talents there because I still do a bit.

It's a lot of fun, actually.

 

Proeliata

That's probably a good thing considering just how bogged down the Soviets got in Afghanistan, which is even smaller...


(Was your shift key the first POW?)