nataku

Removed my post in response to tedv's post since it was deemed an infraction.

 

tanja123

Hm i've read nearly the hole thread now and i don't find an answer to my question.
perhaps you can help me a bit. mb should be cast first when its not on cd AND swp is going to expire. but what about swd?
should i cast swd first and wait a gcd for the swp refresh to reach max dps?

sorry for the grammar

edit:
now im really confused. this guy wrote that mb is also on lower priority than swp ....
help

 

Brekk

That sounds backwards. Do you mean 32.7% chance with a 3/5 shadow weaving. 5/5 Shadow weaving is guarenteed 5/5 stack on the fifth cast, dont even need 8.

I personally dropped a point out of focussed mind to get 5/5 Shadow Weaving. Its amazing how quickly not having 100% will hurt you in any fight without chain casting.

I've had it happen where my last cast before having to move around and not be able to cast didn't refresh the shadow weaving stack, meaning ~3-4 less seconds before it fades and you have to start over. For me alone this isn't a big deal but when youre the only spriest on a raid, and your two top DPS are Destro Locks, that can have a big impact on overall DPS. Between the lost DPS from me and the two warlocks I wouldn't doubt that 15% from shadow weaving being worth well over 100 dps.

edit: nm misread the quote.

 

tanja123

Hi
I'm a bit confused again. If I have MB on CD for .5 1,5 seconds, should i cast a 1 tick MF or wait that time for the MB? If have this calculus:

MB is ready in .5 Secs => MF 1.5 Secs (GCD) for 1 Tick. So MB is cast 1 Sec later.
In a 2 minutes fight (120secs) I could cast with IMB 21,8 MBs, but if I delay them everytime by 1 second there are just 18,5 MBs. So there are ~3 MBs lost. This is ~6600DMG but I have at the same time 18 MF ticks which are ~12000DMG assuming they tick for 700 at least.

I know that this maths isn't correct so please help me to find an answer or a correct calculus

 

Crepusculu

@DeeNogger's binomial distribution probability

You don't need to use the full binomial distribution for SW maintenance. You need at least one successful application to keep your stack within 15 seconds of the last refresh. That probability's negation is the chance that all spell casts are unsuccessful. If you fit 'n' spells within the last SW refresh with 4/5, you are looking at

1 - 0.20^n = success probability for refresh
Solve for 99% success rate
n = 2.861
Solve for 99.9% success rate
n = 4.292

So do 3 casts and you are pretty much set


@Brekk
Shadow Weaving is not 15% anymore. It's 10%, and often people will incorrectly add it with 5% of misery. Even then, there is only a fraction of time where 4/5 will fail where 5/5 would not.

Say your warlocks are doing 2k each, and you are doing a modest 1400. 5400 dps from shadow damage. 491 dps from SW contribution. Lets say you are doing the Twins and get conflagged twice, so you stop dps run to your spot. So you are burning while your 4/5 SW gets an unlucky failure and SW falls off. So perhaps for 10 seconds in the whole fight, you will lose your 10% stack. For a 4 minute fight, that's about 4% downtime for an unlikely scenario, meaning you lost at worst 20 dps total.

Dropping to 4/5 just says free "talent point" to me, unless you are trying to multidot everything (and only two fights the come to mind are KJ's reflections and KT's weapons)


@tanja123
Using a GCD on mind flay will give you 1.5 ticks, which is rounded down to 1. Hense, the last 0.5 of GCD mindflay is just as worthless as waiting for the 0.5 seconds to cast mind blast, except its worst since you increased the mindblast cooldown. So just wait 0.5 seconds to mindblast. If you happen to be casting back-to-back mindflays, supposely you can recast the second one early, but that takes foresight and I assume is a rare occurance.

Also, your armory link is pointing to a level 17 warlock

Addons
http://www.wowinterface.com/list.php?skinnerid=35267

 

tanja123

Regarding clipping your MF's for other spells, do you all wait for the next tick of MF (even if it means you lapse your VT uptime by a split second), or do you just immediately cast the higher priority spell regardless of where in MF you are.

I've been experimenting with occasionally pausing a split second, or letting MF tick again before I recast and can't seem to get the results looking much different either way.

 

immortalix

Hi guys, I'm a macro newbie so I don't understand what this macro does. Does this prevent me from cancelling a mind flay until its full duration has expired?

What if I want to intentionally cancel my mind flay after its second tick? I've read that (with GCD and cooldowns permitting) this will increase my DPS more than if I waited for 3 ticks or even just 1 tick of mind flay before I cast my next highest priority spell.

Does that mean I need to make another macro to intentionally clip? On that note, how are people timing their clips? I've got the quartz bar texture that divides the castbar into 3, but I've found that it isn't very accurate especially if you have fluctuating pings. Seems the only best way for me is for me is to watch the combat text and cancel when I see the 2nd flay message appear on my screen. But with multiple dots on the target, looking for that message can be somewhat chaotic.

 

• DeeNogger

Your assumptions are correct, you cannot use that macro if you are going to clip your MFs. The macro prevents you from casting a spell while MF is channeling.

Clipping after the 2nd tick is something you'll just have to practice to get used to, but there are no tricks to it. Take a look at the red part at the end of your cast bar (which is quartz showing your latency) and about that distance away from the 2nd tick mark on your bar, start mashing your next button. Ideally this will have your next spell clip the MF cast right at the 2nd tick goes off. Like I said, it takes practice.

I write things The word of DeeNogger

 

Closer

That macro prevents to cast a channeled spell while MF is channeling, in short terms you cant cast MF while you're casting MF.
So you can use it to clip your MFs with other spells like MB and SWD.

 

Madlax

I came across an interesting statement for endgame raiding spriests which said:
Unless you suffere severe mana problems and therefore require 3 additional points in Focused Mind and/or one in Inner Focus, you would only want to acquire gear with spell hit rating over gear with no spell hit rating if the raw stats are better in total.

I found that interesting, can any spriest give me a thought on that?

 

tedv

This statement is mostly true, although I'd probably make the point from a different angle. Think about it like this...

In the endgame, mana returns are so ridiculous that you don't need any points in Focused Mind. (And I assume no one gets Inner Focus, as that's only useful to Undead Priests in pre-T6 raiding.) That means you have enough points for 5/5 Shadow Focus and 5/5 Weaving. Given that you only need 76 points to hitcap (63 for Draenei cheaters), it is very easy to get hit capped with gear that's best in slot even without the hit rating. So this isn't a new point. It's just "if you're hit capped, ignore hit rating" combined with "5/5 shadow focus is probably worth it unless you have hit rating flowing out of your ears".

However this still isn't a hard rule. It is possible to have problems with hit rating depending on what drops you do and don't get. For example, if the Twins neck never dropped and you never got Skull of Gul'dan, you're just naturally lower on hit and this will affect your gearing choices.

 

tanja123

What should I cast, if MB cooldown will finish in 0,5 to 1,5 seconds?
Should I wait that time or cast a MF instead? And if I cast MF, should I interrupt it immediately after the GCD for the MB or wait for the second tick?

Another question is, that the priority for T6/SW gear is MB SW:P SW VT MF right?
But if I'll take my average VT ticks (~800) and compare those to my average SW nukes (~2650), then VT does more damage than the SWD nukes or am I wrong?

Experiment:

SWD = 2650 á 12 seconds
VT 4*800 = 3200 á 12 seconds

Conclusion:

MB > SWP > VT > SWD > MF

 

tedv

That's not the right way to think about the math. If both Touch and Death need to be refreshed, then obviously you cast one and then the other. Deferring a Death will cost you 1.5 seconds on all future death cooldowns, meaning you lose damage equal to 1.5/12 * 3000 = 375. Deferring Touch will cost you half a tick, which is 400 damage. (I used 3k for death damage instead of your estimate because you need to take into account average damage including crits.) So Touch is slightly better.

In this situation, of course, you always cast Touch first because if you aren't returning mana, you aren't doing your job. But you can apply the same math for any other pair of damage abilities. With DoTs you could lost ticks and with damage spells you count lost portions of future casts. The damage priority you've listed is correct other than Touch, although not at all for the math you posted.

By the way, if Mind Blast refreshes in more than 1 second, cast a mind flay and clip it at the 2 second mark. (Never clip at 1.5 seconds.) If it refreshes in less than one second, just wait for it to come off cooldown and cast as soon as it does.

 

tanja123

This also concerns to SWD, SWP and all the other spells that have a higher priority than MF, right?

 

tedv

The break even points change. This is because Mind Blast is a high damage spell with a fast cooldown, so there is a very high cost for deferring Mind Blast by even half a second. (Around 250 damage.) The deferment penalty goes down as the cooldown increases (and, of course as the damage decreases). I'll work through the math on relative deferment costs when I get a chance later. In general it's worth waiting on any cooldown that's up in less than half a second though.

 

tanja123

First of all. Thanks for your great help.
But if VT does more DMG than SW, the advice on EJ in the "Shadow Priest Thread" isn't correct?

Mind Blast
Shadow Word: Pain
Shadow Word: Death
Shadowguard
Vampiric Touch
Devouring Plague
Starshards
Mind Flay

How did they get to this opinion?


EDIT: How can I calculate the MF damage? If I'll take your formula, then MF would tick once in that 1.5 seconds (850~).

2nd EDIT: I uploaded a screenshot of a situation, where I can't make a decision.
Should I wait here for the 2nd MF tick, or cast immediately MB instead? There is no GCD penalty at this screenshot.
http://www.abload.de/img/testiwa.jpg

I would be really thankful if you could help me annoying fool a last time

 

tedv

I think that's my post. I guess I was wrong about Touch, nothing too complicated. It's also possible that these rankings change based on how much spell damage you have. And I was just using your off-the-cuff damage numbers.

 

Tymir

Tanja -

In that situation it would be best to Mind Blast so long as you have enough longevity to support flay clipping.

 

Koralath

^^ This being true, what is the Estimated Points Value of +Shadow Damage when compared to the baseline of Spell Damage = 1.

 

mako

1... The only difference is it's (lower) cost in item budget.

 

Koralath

I think I butchered the wording of what I asked. I understand it would still be 1, I guess what I meant is would you prioritize it higher than Spell Damage.

And I've figured it out. So disregard XD

 

Brekk

WOW! So VT is completely changed, Misery is now +3% hit, and Shadow Weaving effects self only.

Spriests are getting reworked from the ground up.

 

mako

Yes, they are. Discussion of it can be found in this thread.

Should 3.0 include the buff/debuff changes when it goes live, TBC raiding will see drastic changes, including a lowered necessity for shadow priests.

 

Atemporal

It's a bit early for statements such as this when the beta servers aren't even up at the moment. Nobody knows the specifics of how replenishment is going to function, and while these changes do spread out our utility they simultaneously open up the possibility for a massive shadow priest damage buff now that the two are no longer linked. Wait and see.

 

Efigenio