Tifi

A lot of shadow priests never use VT when soloing, and pull with Mind Blast. I was just wondering if it wouldn't be better to pull with VT, I kinda liked it more. So I did a few calculations...

Finding the best rotation/priority list for boss fights is pretty straightforward: DPS=damage/cast time; for DoTs pretend them to have a cooldown of their duration; choose whatever spell has the most DPS.

For solo purposes, you want to think about downtime, too. Doesn't matter whether you want to maximize XP/h or Marks of Sargeras/h, you still have to deal damage. So what I do is compute damage/(cast time+regen time) for every spell, where regen time is the time necessary to regenerate the mana by drinking. For lack of a better name, I call this solo-DPS or SPDS. For example, on my lvl 56 priest twink, Mind Blast averages 743.3 dmg, and costs about 262.5 mana, which takes 2.07s to regenerate. That's 495.5 DPS, and 743.3/(1.5+2.07) = 208.2 SDPS. Mind Flay has 157.2 DPS, that's about a third, but still only 115.6 SDPS, more than half. (Just to show that DPS and SDPS are not necessarily the same.)

The important thing is: Unless you're very short on drinks, you don't want to minimize downtime, you want to maximize kills/time. While MF is way more mana efficient than MB, you should still use MB, because it has more SDPS.

Unfortunately things get nasty when dealing with DoTs, because mobs die so fast, so you have to incorporate the time spent fighting, too. I did calculations for different rotations, and for different combat lengths. I won't post the calculations themselves here, only the results. Note that I didn't incorporate Shadow Weaving into the calculations.

Meaning of the column headers:
Damage = max. damage dealt if all DoT ticks count.
mana = mana spent, ignoring mana returns from VT.
regen = time spent drinking to regenerate the mana spent.
time = cast+regen
SDPS = Damage/time, which doesn't matter most of the time since mobs die early.
9,12,15,18 = damage dealt after that much seconds.
SDPS9, SPDS12, ... = SDPS for the corresponding fight length. The time used to calculate it is max(cast time, fight length). Includes mana returns from VT.
Anyway, to choose a rotation, I would look at the mob's health, and choose whatever rotation dealing that much damage has the highest SDPS. That'd be VT,SWP,MF,MB for low HP mobs, and VT,SWP,MB,Fear,MF,MF,MB for everyone else. The interesting thing is that starting with MB always loses.

Disclaimer: I'm not sure if anyone here is that interested in solo stuff. However, I feel that these calculations also apply to trash mobs in a group or raid setting, especially when a mob's life span is very short, and when your group does lots of chain pulls (i.e. you have to be concerned about time spent regenerating). And I think the concept of SPDS is kind of interesting by itself.

 

moowalk

You haven't considered not using SWP in your rotation.

When soloing bashir's landing mobs my rotation is VT-VE-MF-MB-SWD. This seems to be just enough dps to finish them off and I lose very little health and mana overall with fiend/IF+DP usage. Even if my SWD doesn't quite kill the mob and I have to wait for a VT tick, the health return from VE makes this sutainable.

 

Crepusculu

I also forgo the use of SWP. Its a waste of damage and mana if its not going to run the duration. From a casual observation of when things die, its often during the 12 second tick from VT, so you should see why I won't SWP

Usually I start with VT, use MB (flay is out of range), then flay. By the time it reaches me, I either fear if it needs more work, or watch my VT timer and death at the 3 second interval. VE is a waste of a GCD unless I need health.

Addons
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Jubling

I do VT, SW:P, Flay, Psychic Scream, Flay, Flay on tough monsters, like Elemental Plateau elementals back when they were plentiful enough to farm. For weaker enemies like the Kirin Var elementals I do Blast, Flay, Flay, SW: D.
Scream (particularly rank 1) is cheaper than PW:S, stops them from casting any annoying spells or debuffs, and generally doesn't pull adds when used with Flay.

 

Constie

I usually farm the elementals in Kirin Var or ethereals outside Area 52. VT, SWP, VE and SWD while running away, then one MF and wand. According to Violation, I normally average 750-800 DPS (while in combat, of course) without drinking or any other real downtime, aside from when I use my Shadowfriend and have to let mobs live a little while to get any mana back. Early SWD is safe because of Imp. VE.

I'm wondering, though, if I shouldn't replace SWP with MB. I think it might be roughly as or even more efficient considering that I never get close to SWP's full duration, but I don't know how much it's going to mess up my Flaying and such afterwards.

Come on, die young.

 

Beatus

The -only- spells I use when soloing are:
- VT
- SW:P
- VE
and the occasional SWD if those dot's don't finish em, but they usually do.

When I;m done applying dot's, ideally on 3ish mobs, I wand.

 

Hidden

You need to add +Spelldamage and rotations without SW:P. +Spelldamage should have a pretty large influence as the coefficients are very different from eachother. VT for example gains more than double as much from +Spelldamage as Mind Blast while not nearly having double the mana cost of it.

 

Meyla

When im soloing on priest SWP is a rare spell to me. Mostly VE/MB/MF and ofc SWD, sometimes VT if mob isnt too much 'one-shot' kind. Anyway SWP is just a waste of mana for soloing.

 

• mutagen

Like Beatus, I've started soloing Warlock style. VT, SW:P, VE and move to the next mob. After 2 or 3 are beating on me I fear them off and find more mobs to DoT. I use the Oculus of the Hidden Eye and the Power Infused Mushroom to reduce downtime, I can go without stopping unless no one else is farming and I get real agressive about finding targets.

Obviously success with this depends on how much spell damage you have. When I first started it worked best on the Ogres in Nagrand. After an upgrade or two higher level mobs started consistently dying without SW or wanding.

 

Crusnik

Maybe you could take into account varying amounts of +damage? My holy priest has a mostly green some-blues soloing set, with only 400 +damage. Occasionally I'll respec shadow for pvp or some 5mans.

Since I have so little damage, I generally open with SWP, then MB whenever the cooldown is up and MF between. Shadow Word: Death whenever the CD is up too.

Where is the breakpoint in your view, where you have enough +damage to make VT worth casting? If I cast VT on my priest, it always seems like a net loss, as it costs a lot of mana, and I barely get any mana back due to my poor damage.

 

Beatus

It's not a waste of mana if you let it run for the full duration. Why the hurry?
Like posted before, SWP and SWD scale way better with +dmg then your other spells. With my 1100+ dmg, applying my two dot's (for about 7k dmg combined) is the way to go.
An advantage that goes with it, is that I spend a lot of time outside the FSR, allowing for a lot of regen.
And yet another advantage is that VT obviously also gives me mana back. The two dot's are exactly 1000 mana combined. Having VT up means that I'm getting about 350 mana back from that, resulting in 650 mana used per mob. I;m pretty sure you won't do better with MB/MF/SWD.

 

Tifi

Thanks for the replies, good to know I'm not the only one using VT.

Spell damage: While I do consider stats like +spell in the calculations (using Formulas:Plus damage and Plus healing - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki), I didn't write about it because I only had a lousy value of 164. There's a lot of factors like spell damage, crit, # ticks of the DoTs, MP/5, spirit, the water you're drinking... Listing all combinations would be just impossible, so I just assume that priest spells scale uniformly with level and gear, which indeed is an oversimplification.

As I said, my priest is not 70 yet (I don't even have SWD). Which also means that warlock style is just not possible for me yet, given mob health and my current gear. But it's most likely the way to go if possible, just look at the values of SWP with 8 ticks.

Here's a quick SDPS comparison, given my stats (lvl 59, 194 +spell, 7.7% crit, 6 MP5, 650 MP5 while drinking w/o Spirit Tap):
SWP, 8 ticks: 361.8
MB: 222.2
VT: 209.9 (ignoring mana returns)
SWP, 4 ticks: 180.9
VT, 4 ticks: 167.9 (ignoring mana returns)
MF: 118.3

VT and SWP become worse than MF only if you get 2(!) ticks or less. That's pretty much the reason for me not to consider rotations without SWP. Note that VT becomes better SDPS wise if you also consider mana returns. Hard to quantify though.

Another reasoning for VT,SWP,MB,Fear,MF,MF,MB might go like this: If I could, I would only use MB, because it has the most SDPS. I can't do that because of the cd, so I also use SWP, because even with only 4 ticks it has the second most SDPS. I have to pretend SWP has a cooldown of 18-24s, so I also use VT (3rd most), then MF. If, however, I'm using all these spells, I get the most out of them if the order is VT, SWP, then MB, because of VT&SWP being DoTs, because of the mana returns of VT, and also because of Shadow Weaving.

When I change the level to 70, spell damage to 400 it's
SWP, 8 ticks: 491.4
VT, 5 ticks: 286.9 (ignoring mana returns)
SWD: 285.9
MB: 284.0
SWP, 4 ticks: 245.7
VT, 4 ticks: 229.5 (ignoring mana returns)
MF: 176.2

Following the same reasoning, you should definitely use SWD, but considering it has a 12s cooldown, it doesn't really matter when.

As you can see, MB went from #2 to #4. Interestingly, when I also change the drinks from 2934 to 7200 mana/30s, MB is back again:
SWP, 8 ticks: 805.4
MB: 434.0
VT, 5 ticks: 420.3 (ignoring mana returns)
SWD: 420.3
SWP, 4 ticks: 402.7
VT, 4 ticks: 357.3 (ignoring mana returns)
MF: 213.1

SWD, higher spell ranks, all nice and dandy. But what I'm looking forward to the most right now is lvl 60 water.

Edit: Even though I still think you should maximize SDPS, there's another reason for being more mana-efficient: Drinking is very boring.

 

crimsonsentinel

One thing i used to do when farming average to low health mobs would be to pull them warlock style. That is, VT+SW:P 4 or 5 mobs at a time, and AOE fear. It makes the most use out of our efficient DOTS. Of course, this only works if VT+SW:P would actually kill the mobs.

Another thing is, most of the time you dont take enough damage to warrant putting VE on every mob. Just use it when you need healing. That extra 1.5 second global can be enough to squeeze in an extra mind flay before the mob can walk to you.

 

Meyla

Well it's really for me depends on 'what' im soloing, if a mob/s are too easy to kill i wouldnt waste my time on some spells, but if you look for effecitive, always with mana, average fast solo casting then yes, you'r 100% sure (VT/SWP). My MB/MF and for the end SWD was mostly ref. to situations like I get when Im soloing now (only herbing): mob which i must kill fast. In such ways its just faster and mana regen when im getting to next herb spot.

ending; if you soloing on some rep mobs, primal fires etc your rotation with VT/SWP is way better.