Shadowpriest FAQ for 4.0 - Page 9

Bowchikabow · 11/03/10, 5:59 PM

Recount will list apparitions as "pets", and most times it will separate between your shadowfiend pet damage, and your apparition pet damage. My combat log does not list apparitions by player, but instead treats them as their own damage source. For example, when I go to the training dummy in Ironforge I get the following text in my combat log:

"Shadowy Apparition's Shadowy Apparition hits Master's Training Dummy for 1 Shadow.(3575 Overkill)"

It makes no reference to whom the apparition came from, but instead, considers the apparition a character, and considers the damage it deals when reaching the dummy as an attack initiated from the apparition rather than a result of the apparition being cast.

I hope this helps.

Sigmundfreud · 11/04/10, 8:39 AM

I pulled this from MMO-Champion this morning. I am i reading this wrong or what? Bliz is making mastery, our crappiest stat even worse?? Down from 4.3% to 1.25%?

Shadow

* Mastery: Shadow Orb has been renamed to Mastery: Shadow Orb Power - Increases the damage done by your Shadow Orbs. Each point of Mastery increases damage by an additional 1.25%
* Shadow Orbs *New* - You have a 10% chance for your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Flay spells to grant you a Shadow Orb each time they deal damage. Casting your Mind Blast or Mind Spike spell consumes all Shadow Orbs, increasing damage of that spell by 0% per Shadow Orb, and granting 0% increased damage on your periodic Shadow spells for until cancelled. You can have up to a maximum of 3 orbs.
* Mind Spike now stacks up to 3 times (Tooltip fix)

Karbonyte · 11/04/10, 9:35 AM

Originally Posted by Sigmundfreud

I pulled this from MMO-Champion this morning. I am i reading this wrong or what? Bliz is making mastery, our crappiest stat even worse?? Down from 4.3% to 1.25%?

Shadow

* Mastery: Shadow Orb has been renamed to Mastery: Shadow Orb Power - Increases the damage done by your Shadow Orbs. Each point of Mastery increases damage by an additional 1.25%
* Shadow Orbs *New* - You have a 10% chance for your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Flay spells to grant you a Shadow Orb each time they deal damage. Casting your Mind Blast or Mind Spike spell consumes all Shadow Orbs, increasing damage of that spell by 0% per Shadow Orb, and granting 0% increased damage on your periodic Shadow spells for until cancelled. You can have up to a maximum of 3 orbs.
* Mind Spike now stacks up to 3 times (Tooltip fix)

You're reading it wrong. It's a buff. How big of a buff is yet to be determined. They have to drop the damage-increase-per-mastery-point to balance the stat now that it affects periodic spells.

and granting 0% increased damage on your periodic Shadow spells for until cancelled

ildon · 11/04/10, 11:20 AM

With the version of Recount I've been using, it will add all shadowy apparition damage for all shadow priests to your own damage if you have merge pets enabled (giving each player a version of the damage meter with themselves having a significant lead over the others). Obviously this isn't a problem if you're the only shadow priest, but my raid typically has 2-3.

Annue · 11/04/10, 3:38 PM

It`s a flat 13% damage for 15 seconds increase on ALL our dots once you cast MB ( or Mind Spike ) with AT LEAST 1 ( one ) orb up.
And to answer your follow up question which will surely come - More orbs = more damage bonus ? No. We get same 13% weather we have 1 or 3 orbs affecting MB ( MS ).
Dots will indeed need to be reapplied once you gain the buff ( named Empowering shadow`s I think ), sans SW: P ofc, since it will we refreshed using MF anyway.

Nyalria · 11/04/10, 7:24 PM

Don't DOTs take current effects in account now, thus no sort of refresh needed and you'd see the effects on the very next tick?

Annue · 11/04/10, 7:50 PM

I think that there was a post by GC stating that dots should be auto-updated , however, and this is my own observation :

VT - no haste in affect other then passive haste from gear - 8 ticks
Haste pot, gloves - VT - 9 ticks
VT - Haste pot, gloves - 8 ticks.

Just go to the nearest dummie and check for yourself. While they should be auto updated ( i think ), for reasons unknown to me they still are not, hence the need for manual refresh.

TrlstanC · 11/05/10, 9:10 AM

I was under the impression that dots updated for everything except for haste. I haven't done serious testing, but that's what seemed to be happening. It could also be the case that the additional haste is only applied to the remain ticks, so while a haste pot might be enough to to get an extra tick from a full VT, it's not enough after it's been cast (but 2 haste buffs might be).

Annue · 11/05/10, 10:33 AM

Like I said earlier, when in doubt - test it.

Naked testing:

1. No buffs - VT cast - VT ticks for 257-258
2. No buffs - VT cast - using Wild Magic potion, flask, Inner Fire (all together 445 SP increase) - ALL USED AFTER VT CAST - VT ticks for 257-258
3. Flask active, as well as inner fire ( had no Wild magic pots left ) - VT cast - VT ticks for 410-411.

Dots are not auto updated. Like I said eariler, they should be, however they are not, on live at least. Rather busy atm, when I have a little bit more time I`ll log on beta and see there, but if memory serves me right dots need to be manually refreshed on beta as well.

Edit #1 - Thought of a much better example ( since so far I`ve been talking about Spellpower / Haste ) . Shadowform is basicly what should have done from the start so here it goes :

1. VT - without shadowform - ticks for 356-357 - still had flask / inner fire on from previous attempts
2. VT - cast without shadowform, then activating it as soon as VT has landed - ticks for 356-357
3. VT - cast while in shadowform - ticks for 410

Elimbras · 11/05/10, 10:41 AM

Well, the question is mainly for auto-refreshing dots. Even if you loose one tick, it's not worth to recast early VT, because you loose that casting time (or the remaining duration, minus one tick). For SW:P, however, we need to know when we have to recast it.

Annue · 11/05/10, 10:51 AM

Well I never argued that reapplying dots as soon as we get buff is a smart or desirable thing to do, I only said that they wont take any sort of buff into account if you don't re apply them ( I`m really not a math kinda guy, therefore leaving this to people who actually know and can be bothered to answer it).

And as far as SW: P is concerned based on my observations it is auto updating via P&S, therefore no need to even bother thinking about manually re applying it once certain buff is in affect.

draxius · 11/05/10, 11:54 AM

Damage over Time spells do not recalculate when the player receives a buff, but they do as soon as a DoT is refreshed. For Shadowpriests, that means Pain and Suffering or a recast.

I can't find the quote at the moment, but Ghostcrawler made it pretty clear that the design intent was to make other DoT refreshes work like Pain and Suffering did in WotLK, not that DoTs auto-updated themselves as soon as buffs were applied (or wore off).

Believe me, the alternative could be a huge pain for us - Dark Archangel, for example, would be much harder to manage.

Bristine · 11/05/10, 11:43 PM

Originally Posted by draxius

Damage over Time spells do not recalculate when the player receives a buff, but they do as soon as a DoT is refreshed. For Shadowpriests, that means Pain and Suffering or a recast.

I can't find the quote at the moment, but Ghostcrawler made it pretty clear that the design intent was to make other DoT refreshes work like Pain and Suffering did in WotLK, not that DoTs auto-updated themselves as soon as buffs were applied (or wore off).

Believe me, the alternative could be a huge pain for us - Dark Archangel, for example, would be much harder to manage.

I'm sorry, but please explain how the alternative could be a pain? If I'm not mistaken then the alternative would be that DoTs update with the buffs we receive automatically so that we can macro trinkets into each spell and not worry about DoT's being optimized, as they'd gain the bonus anyways, whereas now we must wait to trinket to apply our DoT's (because if we trinket right after the application it only counts for MF, MB and SWD damage).

This seems like a huge hit against SP's and Warlocks, we are severely limited in the manner that we must hold of on our buffs untill just before we apply DoT's, essentially adding up to ~ten seconds to the CD of each ability.

As for dark archangel, I fail to see how it is beneficial this way. In my prior understanding it could be used as a minor mana regeneration tool as well as a damage boost on a ninety second cooldown. As it stands with this "nerf"it must be needlessly micromanaged to precede a DoT application. I'm not sure if it is on the global CD or not, but if it is, then I don't even know how it could be added into a macro (whereas I would prefer to add it as a modifier cast preceding my DoT's).

It seems that DoT's not receiving buffs as they are applied to one's character is arbitrary and a nerf to the DoT classes that hurts their performance and how they scale with group buffs (since heroism doesn't proc out DoT's till we reapply which may mean it only helps half out damage output) and our ability to gear with trinkets, since the "chance on cast" proc ones will be all but an RNG game, if it happens to proc before our DoT's, great, if not, well, we're SOL.

Althor · 11/06/10, 11:38 PM

I've got some initial SimulationCraft results for Shadow Priests in the epic pre-made gear (i.e. ilvl 359).
The command line I used was:

simc patch=4.0.3 optimal_raid=1 input=Priest_Shadow_T11_359.simc iterations=100000 vary_combat_length=0.3 calculate_scale_factors=1 normalize_scale_factors=1 html=Priest_Shadow_T11_359.html wiki=priest_shadow_t11_359 threads=4

The profile used is here: Priest_Shadow_T11_359.simc - simulationcraft - Project Hosting on Google Code

#!./simc 

priest=Priest_Shadow_T11_359
#bugs=0
level=85
race=night_elf
use_pre_potion=1
talents=http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=5&tal=03221200000000000000000000000000000000000322032210201222100231
glyphs=shadow_word_death/mind_flay/shadow_word_pain/inner_fire/spirit_tap/fortitude/fading/levitate
actions=flask,type=draconic_mind
actions+=/food,type=seafood_magnifique_feast
actions+=/fortitude
actions+=/inner_fire
actions+=/shadow_form
actions+=/vampiric_embrace
actions+=/snapshot_stats
actions+=/volcanic_potion,if=!in_combat
actions+=/volcanic_potion,if=buff.bloodlust.react|target.time_to_die<=40
actions+=/shadow_fiend
actions+=/mind_blast,if=buff.shadow_orb.stack>=1&buff.empowered_shadow.remains<=gcd+0.5
actions+=/cancelaura_shadow_orbs,if=buff.empowered_shadow.remains<=gcd+0.5
actions+=/shadow_word_pain,if=!ticking|dot.shadow_word_pain.remains<gcd+0.5
actions+=/stop_moving,health_percentage<=25,if=cooldown.shadow_word_death.remains>=0.2|dot.vampiric_touch.remains<cast_time+0.5
actions+=/vampiric_touch,if=!ticking|dot.vampiric_touch.remains<cast_time+0.5
actions+=/start_moving,health_percentage<=25,if=cooldown.shadow_word_death.remains<=0.1
actions+=/devouring_plague,if=!ticking|dot.devouring_plague.remains<gcd+0.5
actions+=/dark_archangel,if=buff.dark_evangelism.stack>=5&dot.vampiric_touch.remains>5&dot.devouring_plague.remains>5
actions+=/shadow_word_death,health_percentage<=25
actions+=/mind_blast
actions+=/mind_flay
actions+=/devouring_plague,moving=1
actions+=/shadow_word_death,moving=1
actions+=/dispersion
head=mercurial_hood,type=cloth,stats=281int_512sta_208mastery_188haste_1016armor,reforge=mastery_spirit,gems=ember_shadowspirit_20int_20spi_30crit,enchant=60int_35crit
neck=wyrmbreakers_amulet,stats=190int_286sta_127spi_127crit
shoulders=mercurial_shoulderwraps,type=cloth,stats=233int_380sta_149spi_169haste_938armor,gems=67int_10haste,enchant=50int_25haste
chest=mercurial_robes,type=cloth,stats=301int_512sta_198spi_218crit_1251armor,gems=67int_20int_20haste_20spi,enchant=20all
waist=belt_of_arcane_storms,type=cloth,stats=233int_380sta_169haste_149crit_704armor,gems=20int_20haste_40int_20haste
legs=mercurial_leggings,type=cloth,stats=301int_512sta_188spi_228haste_1094armor,gems=20int_20haste_40int_20int,enchant=95int_55spi
feet=slippers_of_moving_waters,type=cloth,stats=233int_380sta_169spi_149haste_860armor,gems=40int,enchant=50hit
wrists=bracers_of_the_burningeye,type=cloth,stats=190int_286sta_127spi_127haste_547armor,enchant=65haste
hands=mercurial_gloves,type=cloth,stats=233int_380sta_149crit_169mastery_782armor,reforge=mastery_spi,gems=67int,enchant=65mastery
finger1=signet_of_the_fifth_circle,stats=190int_286sta_127mastery_127haste,reforge=mastery_spi,enchant=40int
finger2=security_measure_alpha,stats=190int_286sta_127spi_127crit,reforge=crit_hit,enchant=40int
trinket1=theralions_mirror,stats=321int,equip=onspelldirecthit_1926mastery_10%_45cd
trinket2=heart_of_ignacious,equip=267.5haste_onspelldirecthit_77sp_5stack_15dur
back=haunt_of_flies,stats=190int_286sta_127crit_127haste_625armor,enchant=50int
main_hand=incineratus,stats=146int_219sta_97mastery_97haste_1954sp,reforge=mastery_spi,enchant=power_torrent
off_hand=book_of_binding_will,stats=190int_286sta_127haste_127hit,enchant=100int
ranged=finkles_mixer_upper,stats=107int_161sta_72spi_72mastery,reforge=mastery_hit
# Gear Summary
# gear_strength=20
# gear_agility=20
# gear_stamina=5172
# gear_intellect=4459
# gear_spirit=1510
# gear_spell_power=1954
# gear_hit_rating=255
# gear_crit_rating=912
# gear_haste_rating=1688
# gear_mastery_rating=472
# gear_armor=7817
# meta_gem=ember_shadowspirit
# tier11_2pc_caster=1
# tier11_4pc_caster=1
# main_hand=incineratus,enchant=power_torrent

The results can be found here: SampleOutput_Priest_Shadow_T11_359 - simulationcraft - Project Hosting on Google Code

The Scale Factors are:

 	           Int 	        Spi 	SP 	Hit 	Crit 	Haste 	Mastery
Scale Factors 	   2.7950 	1.1149 	2.2604 	1.1160 	1.0350 	1.3126 	0.9295
Normalized 	   1.0000 	0.3989 	0.8087 	0.3993 	0.3703 	0.4696 	0.3326

Notes:
The ICD on Theralion's Mirror isn't yet known but for the purposes of this Sim it has been set to 45seconds.
The Haste on Use Effect of Heart of Ignacious has just been set to a static averaged amount at present. That will be fixed soon.
The gear used is that of the pre-mades on Beta. I make no claim that it's the best-in-slot however it should be a useful point of reference.

Comments:
Mastery is stronger than it used to be but it's still somewhat weak.

Naphomci · 11/08/10, 2:44 AM

Originally Posted by Bristine

I'm sorry, but please explain how the alternative could be a pain? If I'm not mistaken then the alternative would be that DoTs update with the buffs we receive automatically so that we can macro trinkets into each spell and not worry about DoT's being optimized, as they'd gain the bonus anyways, whereas now we must wait to trinket to apply our DoT's (because if we trinket right after the application it only counts for MF, MB and SWD damage).

This seems like a huge hit against SP's and Warlocks, we are severely limited in the manner that we must hold of on our buffs untill just before we apply DoT's, essentially adding up to ~ten seconds to the CD of each ability.

As for dark archangel, I fail to see how it is beneficial this way. In my prior understanding it could be used as a minor mana regeneration tool as well as a damage boost on a ninety second cooldown. As it stands with this "nerf"it must be needlessly micromanaged to precede a DoT application. I'm not sure if it is on the global CD or not, but if it is, then I don't even know how it could be added into a macro (whereas I would prefer to add it as a modifier cast preceding my DoT's).

It seems that DoT's not receiving buffs as they are applied to one's character is arbitrary and a nerf to the DoT classes that hurts their performance and how they scale with group buffs (since heroism doesn't proc out DoT's till we reapply which may mean it only helps half out damage output) and our ability to gear with trinkets, since the "chance on cast" proc ones will be all but an RNG game, if it happens to proc before our DoT's, great, if not, well, we're SOL.

From my understanding, if DoTs auto-updated in the manner you are saying, it would potentially be a dps loss. You would have cases where you could lose a major benefit to a DoT (i.e. you re-apply DP at the end of heroism/bloodlust and so have 24 seconds of the speedy DP). I think in the end it would probably bring down the dps of shadow priest who maximize effects like that. As for the Dark Archangel: The idea would be to consume right after applying VT/DP so that those DoTs keep the Evangelism buff, and you have enough time to rebuild the Evangelism buff for reapplying VT/DP