Missa

Apologies about the wrong thread. I was under the impression the ratio swings in haste's favor around the mid to upper 1500s. I'd like to see a graph as well if anyone has, so I can double check how I did my calculations for my DPS program.

 

tedv

My memory said that the 1:1 trade off was around 1500, but the spinel to pyrestone trade is still 6 damage for 5 haste. Theoretically haste doesn't overtake damage on gems until we have enough spell damage that our DPS increase by 20% over the DPS of 1500 spell damage. That's roughly 250 DPS more, which requires (again roughly) 500 spell damage. So I estimate the simulators will say 1 haste = 1.2 spell damage when we hit 2000 spell damage buffed, or at the very least 1800. But even then, spell damage would be preferred because haste only increase damage per second while spell damage also increases damage per mana.

Oh, and general theorycrafting questions are fine here, like "when do pyrestones beat spinels?" It's just the "how can I improve my rotation?" questions that are better in the other thread.

EDIT: After looking over the WWS parse, I confess that the post strikes me as a veiled opportunity to brag about a high DPS and not an actual request for help. Nevertheless, I've compared your parse to our latest Brutallus parse:

Wow Web Stats

The fight lengths were almost identical. You scored 20 DPS more than me. Here are the primary differences:

- You got 5 more drums than I did. Over a 5:40 fight, this works out to a bonus 35 haste rating
- You have 5 warlocks and we had 2. You can see the improved shadow bolt uptime from your higher average mind flay tick.
- You used 3 destruction potions. Using one every cooldown will give an average of 16 extra spell damage.
- You have Improved Divine Spirit. This is another 35 spell damage.
- You have better gear for a bonus of 5 damage, 51 haste.

So overall you had 56 extra spell damage, 86 haste, and scored 20 DPS higher. Given that much extra damage and haste, your total DPS should have been around 1750 DPS or more, and that's not taking into account the better improved shadow bolt uptime. At any rate, if you want to improve your DPS, get out of the soak group. Someone needs to not soak-- it might as well be the people with a lot of spell pushback.

Also, the WWS isn't matching the shadow fiends with their owners, but only one shadow fiend got Vampiric Touch mana returns and there were two shadow priests in the raid. So one priest is missing the one cooldown = 3000 damage from shadow fiend.

 

Missa

Obviously the slashing hurts SW:D time between the 2nd and the 3rd, but is there any easy way to justify not soaking? I've been informed my primary reason for being in the raid is to make sure the people in my group don't mana pot for Brut, and obviously the DPS increase isn't significant for them. Oh, and it wasn't a "brag" post, I was actually meaning to ask (using the last WWS because it was the easiest to access). Thanks for the feedback, and we hardly ever get imp DS so that was a treat (that, and 5 locks vs 2-3 is nifty).

So, then, would it be better to fully spinel my robe and gloves?

It was a question about gemming and then about the soaking, I'd guess. Any other comments about gearing/gemming for me would be welcomed.

That is Fonz's shadowfiend because of the paladin auras, thus my fiend damage isn't added in. The guy doing the WWS is on the opposite side of the map from me, so I guess that would be why. That would also be why the WWS was a good bit under recount.

 

• Althor

The general consensus from dedmon's simulator on shadowpriest.com is that the 1:1 break even point is around 1400 buffed +spelldmg.

The 1.2:1 ratio would be at around 1600 buffed.

As to how this applies in practice, who knows, but generally the rule of thumb is to assume 1:1 if you're at the 1400 buffed mark at least and to socket all red and blue sockets with spinels, and only socket yellow sockets with pyrestones if there are no blue sockets on the item and the set bonus is at least 1dmg + 1dmg per yellow socket, otherwise use another spinel.

 

Missa

You also need to remember that as you stack haste it has more value (with some exceptions) and that more damage affects how much the haste helps you. I'm still not 100% convinced that the haste isn't far superior to the dmg at this point. I hate these situations. I'm at approximately 1657 shadow w/ WoA and Flask/Oil/Food.

 

tedv

I think this is bad math. A 20% increase in spell damage will always give a less than 20% increase in DPS. You only get a 20% increase if 100% of your damage comes from spell damage. As it stands, spells do a base damage even if you have zero spell damage. If you would do 600 DPS with 0 spell damage on a fully raid buffed target and 1200 damage with your normal amount of spell damage, then 50% of your damage comes from the base spell values and 50% comes from your spell damage attribute. Since the base damage of 50% is fixed, you won't deal 120% of your current damage until your spell damage contribution goes from 50% to 70%, which means your spell damage must be 40% higher.

At the 1400 spell damage level, I believe base damage accounts for around 45% of damage and spell damage accounts for 55%. To get an overall 20% increase in damage, you'll need 1400 * 75/55 spell damage, which is 1910. I stand by my 1800 to 2000 spell damage estimate for the break even point on spinels versus pyrestones.

 

Walkingdead

Iam wondering if someone has a reliable macro for dispelling Shadow fiends on Mu'ru.

/target shadow fiend
/cast dispel magic

seems weak, anyone got some more advanced macros going on?

 

Graze

They're called Dark Fiends

I'm a shaman, a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. A master of the elements, except fire, water or earth really... nor do I have any REAL control of nature. But I do hurl bolts of lightning!

 

Burps

Hello all... I am quite new to this site, although i have been following some threads for quite some while now.

As I play my SP for quite some time now and moving deeper and deeper in the more difficult instances, we landed now at the T6 instances. My gear is quite ok for that level and my fellow SP`s mateys from the guild have the same or just a tick better gear level.

As her gear is greater part items with haste (around 120) and 1260-1280 +dmg unbuffed, my gear is raw +dmg 1320-1340 unbuffed depending if i need stam or not. She is really convinced from the haste gear (as of 1400 buffed 1dmg=1haste principal), while I am skeptical still on some specific fights. The principal of haste, to put it crude, is packing as many MF between your cooldowns to improve your dps. (where she begs to differ, as it is a benefit for all spells... indeed it is, but in the end everything does the same dmg, except for the MF increase). I have read lately quite some threads on various sides about stacking haste, what is the benefit etc. and I am convinced on static targets (as many bosses are) haste is definetely the better alternative in our gear league. However, we are raiding MH lately a lot and there my skeptism comes back with a vengeance. Looking at WWS stats we always come to the conclusion that I always top her in dps on the trash waves (she has a bit of extra latency there, but not enough to prove my wrong) and she kicks my dps butt on the bosses. These differences can be actually quite high. As I understand, my gear is for bosses definetly worse as hers, due to the haste. On the trash we use both priority of just Dotting as many mobs, using MB, SWD when on CD. Both we hardly clip dots. My theory is that in this case, my raw damage makes the difference. As haste will only benefit you, when you have the possibility to squeeze in extra MF, which we both hardly do during trash, due to the many targets who have to be kept dotted.

My question to you guys, has there been some research on multiple targets (5+) in Haste vs +dmg using mainly DOTS and an occasional MB/SWP? Has someone experienced the same or can define an answer to convince her that haste is not always the optimal solution? Or any other feedback that can help me prove if im right or not. Thanks all

 

Walkingdead

dark or shadow fiends, either way anyone know a better way to macro it in?

 

• Nurru

Your target won't change and you won't spend any GCs if none exist, so a simple /target macro is all you need. Some people add /target Entropius to the end though.

19:31 <@Zyla> I fuck like a gorilla
19:31 <@Zyla> wait
19:31 <@Zyla> wrong chat room

 

tedv

/targetexact Dark Fiend
/cast Dispel Magic
/targetexact Entropius

First, let me answer the question. She is correct. Maximizing haste plus spell damage is the correct gearing choice.

Now that said, haste still helps on trash. It reduces the global cooldown, letting her cast 9 dots in the time it takes you to cast 8 of them. Your DoTs hit for more but she still has more of them. By the way, I don't buy the argument that her damage is worse because of latency but then she kicks your ass on bosses. She's probably just slacking off on trash. If latency were that big of a deal, it would more than eat up any haste advantage she has on bosses and you should beat her on those too. What's really going on is that you are casting more dots than she is during trash, irregardless of you relative spell damage or haste values. Check total DoT ticks on trash from a WWS if you want to check this. If she has less than you, she's AFK for part of the trash.

Also, we tend not to theorycraft trash that much because it's essentially a solved problem. The bosses are supposed to be the hard part. So even if spell damage were unequivocally better than haste, it's not worth mentioning unless you're really going to remember to switch suits between bosses.

 

Missa

Is it unusual for my SW:D crit to be higher than MB on almost every fight where I get to actually DPS (as in, not fights like Fel Myst)? My MB is usually 35-38 whereas SW:D is almost always 40+%? Is this just a result of the Retadin/ToW and some RNG love or is this not as uncommon as I suspect?

 

tedv

Well you cast twice as many Mind Blasts as Shadow Word: Death, so you'll have smaller variance on Mind Blast. The difference between 15 casts and 30 casts is significant. It's probably just the random number generator.

 

CaseyTheRetard

/cast [pet] Dispel Magic

 

Xtoforas

Oh the irony. I know this has definitely been said in the past but within the M'uru encounter the mobs that need to be dispelled are called Dark Fiends. I have 2 macros that I keep handy (one for phase 1, and one for phase 2)

They're identical except for the last line

I found without /targetexact I wouldn't get reliable targeting function. And even then there appears to be a range limitation on the /targetexact method itself that is less than the 30 yards for dispel magic so even then I don't find it that useful in phase 1 where a resisted Dark Fiend can be on the other side of the room. In phase 2 there are more people focusing on dispelling the Dark Fiends so the range limitation isn't as obvious.

 

Tymir

Hey, lately I've been trying to generalize the average amount of damage lost from delaying Shadow Priest cooldowns and DoTs by X amount of time. I'd appreciate it if anyone could look over the formulas I've come up with.

Damage loss from delaying by X amount of time:
Vampiric Touch = (vtDamage/15 sec) * (x time)
Shadow Word: Pain = (swpDamage / 27 sec) * (x time) Assuming 2/2 Improved Shadow Word: Pain and 2pt6
Shadow Word: Death = (((swdDamage / 12 sec) - ((swdDamage/ 12 + x time))) * (12 + x time)
Mind Blast = ((mbDamage / 5.5 sec + mbCastTime) - (mbDamage / 5.5 sec + mbCastTime + x time)) * (5.5 sec + mbCastTime + xtime) Assuming 5/5 Improved Mind Blast.

The part I am most concerned about is the "* (12 + x time)" at the end of the SWD formula and the "* (5.5 sec + mbCastTime + X time)" at the end of the MB formula. I wasn't sure if it was correct to multiply by the effective cooldown (cooldown + cast time) or by the effective cooldown in addition to the X time waited.

 

Xtoforas

I began looking at some of the top end shadow priests spec's recently and I've noticed that they have shifted points out of focused mind and meditation to go 4/5 or 5/5 shadow weaving.

I was just wondering what the reasoning behind this was?

Going 3/5 shadow weaving with 2 shadowpriests usually allow for stack applications at a reasonable rate on a single target, and the only reason I could see going 4/5 or 5/5 is for dpsing adds? I could see this might be beneficial for fights like KJ and M'uru. For KJ you want to dot up the sinister reflections and shield orbs as soon as possible and getting 2 guaranteed stacks per spriest with 4/5 or 5/5 shadow weaving is a lot better than the possibility of getting only 1-2 (if RNG hates you). For M'uru I could see getting 2 guaranteed stacks on void sentinels along with misery might help in dpsing them down as well.

Is this the only reason why people are speccing 4/5 or 5/5 into shadow weaving or is it something I'm missing.

 

mako

3/5 is not reliable enough on fights that matter. Maybe in BT it's fine, but 4/5 is much safer and more reliable. 5/5 comes to personal preference, and could depend on availability of other shadow priests on particular raid nights.

In Sunwell gear personal mana regen is a non-issue, so it makes sense to drop excess regen for more beneficial things.

 

• DeeNogger

With 4/5 you have something like a 99% chance to keep the buff up by yourself, assuming a typical dps cycle. With 3/5 that drops down a lot and if by yourself you can easily "drop the stack" which is a fairly enormous dps loss as. I always run 4/5.

I write things The word of DeeNogger

 

Xtoforas

Do you know by how much? I'm just getting aggravated by not seeing stacks being refreshed on every spell cast.

I know mako said that mana isn't an issue, and I know for the most part that is the case with swp gear however I'm still cautious as for fights like M'uru where I'm mass dispelling every darkness that I could run the risk of not chain chugging destro pots (we usually run with 2 resto shaman in my group and even while mass dispelling I don't have mana issues with a well timed shadowfiend, but I do end the fight with 1000ish mana). We're just learning KJ and I find that by the end of p2 I'm at about 30% mana, but I do have shadowfiend and my pot timer still up (not chain chugging on that fight yet). I just don't want to find myself gimped for mana in progression content.

We have M'uru and KJ attempts tonight, so I might give it a try (i.e. drop IF for 4/5 shadow weaving)

 

tedv

With 3/5 Weaving as the only shadow priest, I found I lost the stack roughly once every 2 to 3 minutes even in a chain casting scenario. The loss rate is quite a bit higher if you spend more time casting things like mass dispel or switching targets. 3/5 is simply not sufficient unless you are bringing three shadow priests to the raid, and even then it's debatable.

Given that both M'uru and Kil'jaeden include a lot of time where you can't chain cast on the boss, going with anything under 4/5 is a mistake in my mind. And going with 5/5 is a luxury worth paying for if you can afford dropping those talent points from elsewhere.

Now all that said, Inner Focus is a terrible talent for everyone but Undead, so you should already drop it. Personally, I'm undead and I have neither focused mind nor inner focus and I only require the occasional potion or innervate if my shadow fiend gets ganked. I've been meaning to respec to get 1 or 2 points in focused mind now that I have more hit rating, however.