[Priest] Shadow Fiend Mechanics
 

Has anyone done a rigorous analysis of Shadow Fiend mechanics?

If so, can someone point me in the general direction?

If not..........

Known:
(1) Pet does shadow dmg and is enhanced by shadow target debuffs
(2) Pet returns mana at 2.5x dmg done

Easy to figure out:
(1) How many "swings" per pet lifetime

Hard to figure out:
(1) How does pet dmg scale on target mobs from 68 thru 73?
(2) What percentage of player shadow damage benefits the pet?
(3) What is the crit pct?

The 5min cooldown on the spell makes it very difficult to exhaustively test by yourself.

Is there any interest out there in a group effort?

If we share enough data points (target level, min/max crit/non-crit, player +shadow) we should be able to figure it out.....

I'd be happy to help out, as I'm curious myself. One clarification: the cooldown is 6 minutes. There's one thing that really annoys me about Shadowfiend: it seems to spend a significant amount of time moving when cast on a really big mob (Gruul). It seems to appear near the middle of Gruul's model, then move to the outside before it starts attacking. That's probably 500-800 mana lost while it moves.

Excellent. (And thanks for cooldown catch.)

And yeah..... it is quite painful watching the fiend slither around.... Get to work already!

I guess we need a little more info:

Target Level
Target Debuffs: CoS, SW stack, Misery
Num Attacks
Num Crits
Min/Max for both Non-Crit and Crit
Player Shadow +Dmg

Am I missing anything?

Actually, the cooldown is 5 minutes.

This is a shameless bump to see if any other mechanics have been discovered about this elusive beast.

As stated, it is commonly known that the fiend is most effective against a debuffed mob, while an 'on use' trinket is active.

Anecdotally, I can get a full mana bar (9kish) back from my fiend if I pop Icon and have the mob fully debuffed ... But only if I stay outside the 5sr ... if I keep casting, I lose out about 1k mana in addition to the mana I spend immediately it is restored.

I believe that the fiend gains +hit from your spell hit, as I have not seen a reduction in the amount of mana regained from hitting on (say) vashj compared to a debuffed heroic boss ... given a warlock is present of course.

All anecdotal ... fishing for something more concrete.

I have a random assortment of Shadow Fiend tricks, although none of the hard numbers you are looking for.

A) The fiend's damage is shadow aligned physical damage. This means it benefits both from curse of recklessness AND curse of shadows style effects. Wait to have all the goodies up before using him.

B) Because he does melee attacks, it's crucial that he is behind the the target. This prevents both parries (a minor loss in mana) and cleaves (a major loss in mana). Most of the time someone says, "I use my shadow fiend and he just died", they released him to the front and he got cleaved.

C) The other easy way to kill your shadow fiend is to release him right before some AoE damage. Watch boss timers and only use him when he'll have 15 seconds of safe time.

D) You shadow fiend loves bloodlust! But only if he was out BEFORE the shaman uses bloodlust. Ask your shaman to give you a 5 second warning on bloodlust. Having a bloodlust give you 30% extra mana back, which is generally enough to go from a completely empty mana bar to completely full.

Basically the difference between a successful and failed shadow fiend is huge, so take some time to make sure everything is just right before using him.

In the realm of Stupid Shadowfiend Tricks...we were working on Al'ar last night. One of our tanks for phase 1 dropped early and we were getting Flame Buffeted while the other tanks were scrambling to position, when the Buffeting stopped. One of our priests popped a fiend, which proceeded to tank Al'ar for a good 10-12 seconds. We did this at least two or three times during the wipe just for the amusement factor, but this could be a potential wipe-saver on fights that have a "kill raid if someone's not in melee range" mechanic.

I actually remember an Al'ar where my shadowfiend tanked him in phase one due to a tanking mishap, and it kept the raid alive long enough that a tank was able to get back in position and continue the fight. I really have no idea why sometime he seems invincible and other times he gets one shotted.

In reguards to a shadow fiends tanking ability, as it has been mentioned here that the fiend can tank for a short period of time. What stat's are present on the shadow fiend when the little blighter comes out?

I say this, as a rogue, I occasionaly see a shadow priest pop out there little pet when I am dualing waiting for raid to get to the instance. Now, sometimes i can whack the little bugger into a pulp within 2-3 hits, other times i seem to struggle to damage the thing with dodged attacks. Unlucky ? or varations in the stats of the fiends?

Therefore does the stat's of the priest also effect the stat's of the feind in ways which are similar to a hunter and there pet ? Meaning the Shadow fiend recives a % of the preists armour etc. Or is it the case that the feind is really bog standard and varys very little from one priest to another.

In terms of stat's i relate to defence/dodge/health, And if some of these stats are shared with the preist, how much of a % does the shadow fiend inherit from there Priest master ?

Not exactly what the Opening post was requesting to be investigated, but if a thread is to be made relation to the mechanics of the Shadow Fiend, then a fully comprehensive list of all things fiend related might be useful.

The fiend has an extremely high dodge rate (maybe 75%) and a lot of shadow resistance. It might have other resists as well such as fire, which explains how it might tank Al'ar phase 1 for a while.

I'm pretty sure Priests don't get the "Your armour increases your pet's armour by X" or whatever on their character panes while the Shadowfriend is out, at least.

Everyone does seem to get a strong sense right away that it has a high dodge rate. I've had it tank a 70 mob for the full 15s without it getting hit once.

I've heard 40% of +damage and a 2:1 mana returned:damage done ratio, but hearsay is likely to get us nowhere. Who's done some proper testing?

Tanking Al'ar phase 1 is in reference to being in melee range and dodging the attacks so Al'ar doesn't Flame Buffet.

From what I've seen:

1. 10 attacks total
2. 2.5 mana returned per 1 point of damage done
3. 65% coefficient on the fiend (ie +1000 damage is 650 more damage done, or 65 more per attack, and results in an extra 1625 mana returned). This information comes from Nightshroud's testing, if I recall correctly.
4. High avoidance rate for both physical and magical attacks.

My main issue is getting it to spawn behind the boss and/or not having it spawn in something like a cave-in (Hello Gruul).

Like others the exact scaling or determining factors but the shadowfiends do have a very high didge so can survive many abilities they otherwise wouldn't. The may have the highest spell resistance for shadow, but they have significant resist to other schools as well. Repeatedly I've had him survive ticks of Pounding from VR that I thought were arcane based, and similar type aoe from a bad summoning time. From my own experience (>90% of the time but can't always check) the shadowfiend will move to the back of the mob before attacking, even if summoned in the front. There's still a period the fiend can get cleaved or other frontal attacks but it's greatly reduced since he doesn't stand there the whole time.

Anecdotally, I believe his damage is mitigated like physical damage though it's shadow damage that is dealt. Mobs that have significantly lower armor seem to yield more mana than higher armor mobs. The first example that comes to mind is the priest mob on Karathress vs. Karathress himself. This is merely my own gut feeling for how I have or haven't gotten mana back when using it on different mobs though.

With ~1300 raid buffed +dmg I will regularly get 7.5k or more mana from a shadowfiend if it survives the entire duration.

Have any Holy Priests figured out how to make this little bugger be as effective for us as for shadow priests?

They scale with +dmg ... but not with +heal. I watch the shadow priests in our guild use their fiends, and they go from 2000 to 10000 mana. I use mine, and I go from 2000 to 4500. Just annoys me.

And watching the fiend spawn, then run around for 4 seconds before it starts hitting something is equally as annoying. It should just start attacking instantly, and depend on you to recall it and reposition it if necessary. It's on far too long a cooldown to run around stupidly.

In a similar vein, I've noticed that no matter what side of the mob it spawns on, the first attack very often seems to hit for far less than the rest. I'm talking about 50% of the usual hit.

Could this be related to the hunter pet problem where pets take a second or two to gain stats/etc.. from their master on summoning?