EDIT: Months later, with a lot of BC raid experience, I can now pretty safely say "depends on the encounter". Any encounter where JoW can be kept up, a hunter does *not* need a SP. Sure its nice, sure it means we can use multi/arcane, and our dps increases a hell of a lot. But not as much as a mage, probably on par with locks.

Just killed Mother Shahraz with pally OTs, so JoL/JoW was up most the time, and mana was not a large issue at all (steady/auto) with pots and a mana tide (3 hunter shaman lock group). Topped dps as BM, a couple rogues behind, mages and warlocks almost beat the tank/pets.

Then there are fights like Vashj, where you can put a hunter in a SP group and he solos the entire west side elementals. Or shaman/spriest/hunter/hunter/hunter for Teron/Najentus type fights for super dps and pet survivability. Or fights like Archi where it doesnt really matter where you put your SPs.

But for an indefinite tank/spank without JoW... although mages can last longer than hunters, their dps loss is so great once oom, its worth throwing them a SP simply to make sure that doesnt happen.
end edit

original post:

Short Answer: depends on the encounter. Healing intensive fight, AoE fight, etc. What about relative 'stand and nuke' fights?


Long Answer(well, question):

Being a hunter, I obviously make great use out of a SP in any fight that goes for longer than 5 or so minutes (or 2 minutes if I'm not chain potting...but I'm a sucker for dps and still chain pot on things like Gruul). Any fight where my pet is in danger of dying is also welcomed by a SP. Being BM only emphasizes this, VE greatly increases my pets survivability, and BM typically burns through mana faster than other Hunter specs.

[My little story that sparked the post]
So I rock up for Void Reaver in 2.1, enjoying my increased damage as a BM hunter. I notice by swapping me with a mage in a SP group, I would give that party (SP, lock, mage, mage, me) 3% damage from Ferocious Inspiration, and the mage that swapped with me would get Wrath of Air in the group I was in (lock, healer, healer, swapped mage, shaman).

And more importantly to me: I would not have to call my pet in and out when Mend Pet simply cant keep up the HPS, and I would have mana to dps for longer than 4 minutes chain casting mend pet and chugging Super Mana and some Dark Runes (fel's for new content for me usually).

I thought to myself, surely the benefit of my buff to the caster dps group, and the buff the swapping mage gets from Wrath of Air, *and* the mammoth dps increase I would gain from the shadowpriest would outway one mage having to Gem + pot? The response from the raid leader was "sorry our mages will go oom and have to wand ". I copped it on the chin and ended up topping raid dps anyway, only just behind two warlocks. But I feel the raid could of done so much better.
[End story]

So my question is, how much does a Mage (fire or arcane, or warlock?) benefit from a shadowpriest in a ~7-10 minute fight? That length seems to be about the norm for any half important encounter. Would Wrath of Air be more beneficial to them over a shadowpriest if they couldn't have both?

- How long can a mage sustain damage when they Gem, Pot and Evoc? Some of my guilds mages replies were "we'd do pretty much zero damage without a SP by comparison", and "anything longer than a 5 minutes kills us".
- When they do go OOM, what is your dps loss? Do you simply have to wand, or do you chaincast scorch once you're at around 10% waiting for the next pot cooldown?


Am I being selfish thinking that (when group compositions allow, other variables such as GoA/WoA not included), hunters should really be getting a shadowpriest in long dps focused fights? Especially when pet health is in danger.

Mages, raid leaders, hunters, anyone!.. please shed some light on this if you can! Thanks.

Fire mages and elemental shaman for DPS classes.

Healers for healing intensive fights (pretty much morogrim is the only fight where our healers will get a shadowpriest).

You meantioned locks in passing so I figured I'd chime in. For us it really comes down to spec, if a lock is speced for affliction they should be able to sustain their own dps indefinitly with careful use of LT, DP, and pots. I'm sure other affliction locks will claim that having a shadow priest improves their DPS by allowing to waste GCDs on tapping and pacting all the time but I think if they were honest with themselves they'd have to admit that even with the hassle of sustaining your own mana an affliction lock is looking a pretty small loss compared to a hunter or mage going oom and droping to auto-shot/wand dps.

Destruction is completely different, however, because they have no way to cover the health costs of lifetapping without taking a DPS hit on a very inferior untalented life drain and no access to dark pact. Destruction locks still have to option of creating mana from health that isn't open to other caster classes when they run OOM but this isn't always an option unless you have healers toss them some heals. We can also use both VT and VE to generate mana from which allows us to double dip on mana regeneration, so to speak. With no healing sources a destruction lock OOM is also limited to wanding. Given these facts I'd say destruction locks get at least as much out of a shadow priest, if not more, than a mage.

as a warlock, I have no doubt that the raid gains more dps by putting a hunter with a shadowpriest than they do by putting me with a shadowpriest. especially in the situation you're talking about where I would gain wrath of air when I lose VT mana. the added damage from WoA should balance out the increased use of GCD on tap/pact.

if a warlock insists that they gain more from being in a shadowpriest group than (especially a beast master) hunter does, they are most likely just being selfish. even on some of the most healing intensive fights healers should always be able to spare a downranked HoT or two for you when you need it. or, if all else fails, drain life.

as an affliction warlock I don't even bring mana potions to raids, unless I have extras for some reason in which case I give them to healers. pre 2.10 I mostly saved my potion cooldown for limited invulnerability potions. now I use it for health pots when I'm in trouble.

Yeah, without spriest support 5 minutes is about all a fire mage can sustain (when it's spent mostly chain-casting). Any fight with a regen phase they'll go longer. Frost can go a bit longer and the arcane builds as well.

Yes, 5 mins seems about right.

Less than five minutes would be standard if you incorporate spell haste through bloodlust and potential gear selections. I do like your line of thinking though and we definitely like to use hunters in spriest groups when possible. We still don't have a BM hunter yet though.

A Destruction lock is limited to lifetapping to a certain extent, since he can't heal himself up like an Affliction Warlock can. And in what fight can you limitless lifetap nowadays? None to very little. Being low on health means you will die shortly after on an AoE.

Destruction locks can still bandage themselves to fuel lifetapping, more than what a mage can do.

We have the luxury of running with more than one shadowpriest anyway, so both usually get one :P

The more shadowpriests, the better!

We have 3 shadowpriests but run with 2. We generally have 4 mages in every raid and they're in their own group with a shaman for mana spring (+tide, when available) and Wrath of Air. One of our shadowpriests is almost always in a hunter group (2 hunters, spriest, 2 paladins or 3 hunters, spriest, paladin) and the other is in another group full of healers.

When I get a shaman for WoA I generally don't even need to pot as long as I use inner focus and shadowfiend whenever cooldowns are up. The DPS increase from the totem more or less keeps me full or atleast above 50% mana. Having a shaman I also consistently stay in 1-3 spot on DM, without shaman since the patch I've bumped down to around the 5th spot.

On longer fights our hunters always get a spriest (no BM hunters so they only buff themselves), the difference is significant looking at damage meters between fights they had a VT battery and fights they did not. Mages used to get shadowpriests but now they feel that shaman totem + mage atiesh buff is better for them than a shadowpriest. I disagree, but they rarely go OOM and bosses die so there's really no point in arguing.