[Priest] Shadow Priest Damage and Spell Rotation
 

I have a shadow priest in our guild with +836 spell damage... so not bad at all for Kara raiding. However, he's been at the bottom of the damage charts every run we've been in, and he's competing against lots of different classes and gear levels (many below his). So I'm not sure on a few things and I was hoping that some shadow priests here can help me answer a few questions:

- When do you use VE?
- Does VT generate threat like VE does? (don't think so, just checking)
- Would you EVER use VE in a 10-man with 3 healers?
- Where should a shadow priest be on the damage charts in Kara (realizing he has to shackle, etc.)?
- What spell rotation do you use? More specifically, what percentage (guess if you don't know) of your damage comes from each spell? (most of his was from SW:P and Mind Blast, I think)

I'm not coming down on him, I think he's a good guy and plays well (he can manage to shackle just fine), but I just can't believe he's at the bottom of the charts over demo locks and such.

Any help/advice is appreciated.

The long answer is wade through the 25 pages of http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9231-shadow_priest_thread/

The short answers are:
-Almost always use VE. If you're only in Karazhan, always use it.
-Last I saw, the consensus was mana return from VT is threatless (or close enough to consider it threatless) but I'm not sure if this has been proven one way or the other.
-All the time
-Depends on group synergy, gear, and spec, but should be competitive with everyone.
-Shadow priests don't have a clean cycle of spells with so many various CDs and DoT times. It's more of a priority system, Cast the highest spell that either is missing like a dot or off of cooldown like Mind Blast. The basic order I use is VE, VT, SW: Pain, SW: Death, Mind Blast, Mind Flay. He'll need to get a feel for when the damage from SW: Death is too likely to cause his death (Curator during evocate, Netherspite with blue beam, etc) but most of the time it's fine to use. The other thing is how long his mana will hold out. For mana concerns only, first drop Mind Blast and then SW: Death from the above priority list to help mana last longer.

For general split of damage, here's my latest Gruul kill with me going all out for damage (and all drunk for other reasons I won't get into so not my best performance.) WWS This is a reasonable % split on the damage.

I'd bet dollars to donuts he isn't doing a good job of refreshing Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch. Over 90% of the WWS parses of under-performing priests I've seen have that issue.

Can you explain this better?

VT and SW:P should always be up (as well as VE). Every shadow priest should have some kind of a DoT timer so VT can be recasted 1.5s before it wears off so it gets reapplied the second it wears off, and that way all your damage always gives mana back. SW:P is huge damage per cast time and therefore should always be refreshed as soon as it wears off as well.

The single best mod for a Shadowpriest will be a DoT timer.

ClassTimer
DotDotDot
DoTimer

DoTs should always be applied upon fade, which for VT often means casting the next VT in the last 1.5 seconds of the current VT application.

Its also difficult to get good DPS since parts of Kara are AoE based, where we just don't do as well. In general, I only look at the boss DPS charts and ignore the trash or zone-in to zone-out DPS charts.

-I always use VE in Karazhan.
-VT threat hasn't been a problem for me, but I'm actually not sure if it does.
-I always use VE, I don't have problems with it in Karazhan.
-This would depend on the fight. Curator/Netherspite I can usually top the damage meter. Prince is much harder due to the fact that shadow priests have to move a bit as you have to be in shadow nova range while DPSing. For Moroes, I don't find shackling to interfere too much with my DPS - usually redo it when Moroes vanishes, or after an add goes down.
-I usually have a spell priority list: VT / SW:P / SW:D / Mind Blast / Mind Flay is my priority to keep up. I throw up VE usually on the pull and refresh when needed. A good DoT timer is essential to good DPS. For example, I will usually refresh VT when it has less than 1.5 seconds and try to avoid clipping the last tick of the DoT while not having it fall off for very long. On fights where I can go all out: 27% Mind Flay, 26% SW:P, 21% VT, 16% Mind Blast, 10% SW:D. However, I do not have the 15% crit talent, or improved Mind Blast, so priests with that will have more damage from Mind Blast/SW:D.

I agree with Thezilch. Bars for stuff is essential.

Another really cool mod that can optimize performance is "coolDown" (found on files.wowace.com), which can display cooldowns on MB, inner focus, trinkets, SW:Death and so on.
Keeping things on CD is essential for shadowpriest dps.

Another hint i have is: Shadow Word: Death.
This is an instant cast, which can crit almost as high as MB. And if you have both dots and VE up then the self-inflicted damage will be healed in no time. Just notify healers that you will be using it.

Basicly just get used to looking at bars and use it to plan your next action.

Shadow Word: Pain lasts for 24 seconds and Vampiric Touch lasts for 15 seconds. A lot of priests waits 30+ seconds between refreshes of Shadow Word: Pain and refresh Touch at the same time. This means Pain will only deal damage 70% of the fight and Touch will deal damage 50% of the time. It's a lot of wasted DPS.

-Always use VE in Karazhan.
-VT generates threat like VE from the maths I have seen on the shadowpriest forums. Thus it generates 0.5 threat per health/mana returned.
-Yes always use VE.
-For karazhan, SP's do a lot of other things along with actually dps/mana returning. If you're tracking just boss fights dmg, then he should place relatively high. Usually around the top 3. However for trash, it's clear with shackles and mobs dying <20 seconds, that he'll place low.
-Most of his dmg should be coming from SWP,Mindflay,VT,MB,SWD usually in that order.


There is no rotation for an SP, as noted in the other EJ topics about SP's. Tell him to get a DoT timer such as DoTimers. They are perfect for helping you keep track of your dots and allowing you to maximize your dps from them.

As for VT's threat, a shadowpriest will generate 50% -- of the mana given -- as threat. For that reason, Blessing of Salvation is the single most important buff, because we have no means of shedding threat permanently.

Afaik 1 point of mana regen generates equal threat to 1 point of HP regened. Since you regen a lot less mana than you regen HPs the threat from VT is hardly noticeable.

No, thats incorrect. Almost always an SP is partied with the mage/hunter group or healer group. They will always need mana and thus you regen their mana more than their health. The VE healing is the one thats negligible.

Getting back to the original concern - Shadow priest at the bottom of the meters - as everyone else has said, make him get a DoT timer. Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain need to be up at all times, ideally refreshed just as they expire. Barring that, there's not that much to it. Something to consider is that your Shadow priest friend's damage potential might not just be that high. I don't know how it is with that level of gear (and without chain-chugging mana pots, I am assuming), but it might be that he's just not capable of beating the other casters.