Amonra

Haste is pretty reasonable for shadow priests, although certainly it's a lot better for, say, a fire mage.

Typically a shadowpriest will spend about half their time casting mindflay and mindflay will do about 800 dps on a raid. Getting enough spell haste to reduce the cast time to 2.75 seconds will therefore increase the dps to 872. So given that mindflay takes up half of the cast time, thats a 41 dps increase overall for 143 haste rating. To get a 41dps increase through +damage would require about 70 +damage. So 2 points of haste are worth about 1 point of damage.

I don't really know what this fascination with the mystical 2.75 second mindflay is about. Yes I realise that 2.75s x 2 = 5.5s = cooldown of 5/5 MB. But outside of theorycraft a rotation is never going to work out this well due to latency, use of /stopcasting not withstanding. Plus a sequence of MB, MF, MF, MB is pretty rare in practice because very often VT, SWP or SWD need to be cast somewhere in the middle.

 

tedv

I have a 2.72 second mind flay, and over half of my casts between mind blasts are two mind flays. It really does happen a lot. Now with latency, I'd be fine with a 5.7 second mind blast cooldown, but 6 seconds is too slow. There is a tangible increase in DPS from the spec as well. It's not all kinds of amazing, but it's definitely good.

 

Caligula

Speaking of the MSD, has anyone done the math for the new 2.3 one (with cooldown) versus the new [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond]? Not that I really have any doubts that MSD is still superior, but had anyone actually done a comparison? I haven't come across any yet.

 

Beatus

Just a quick and dirty calculation:

A WWS from Gorefiend shows that out the 294,864 dmg I have done, 110,263 dmg came from MB and SW-D, out of which 50,209 from crits.
Upping the damage from crits by 3% would mean 1506 more damage over that fight (I'm ignoring the 12 crit rating here), in other words a damage increase of 0.5%.


The MSD is now going to proc once a minute on average, am I right? So on a 4 minute Teron that is 2 extra mindflays? (ideally) My average tick was 819, so 6x819 means roughly 5k more damage, a 1,6% damage increase.

Not really scientific proof, but I am guessing the MSD will still be better.

 

PeteyBoy23

Good afternoon all...

I've read this, and every bit of information I can find on the web regarding shadow priesting. I just don't understand why I'm unable to push myself past 700 dps in a raid.

Armory Profile: The World of Warcraft Armory
Fully buffed: 1343 shadow damage, 11.83% crit, 77 hit rating.
Normal rotation: VT, SW:P, VE, MB, SW, MF MF (then keep dots up using Classtimer, casting MF only when MB and SW aren't on CD)
WWS: http://www.revelationguild.info/WWS/Magtheridon's%20Lair%202007-11-12/cocomama.html

This isn't the greatest example, because of the moving around so much, but I think you get the idea. I am looking for any way I can up my DPS, and would really appreciate any advice anyone could offer. Thank you all in advance.

 

Caligula

WWS that aren't posted on their site are really hard to read.

Are your warlocks keeping CoS up 100% it looks like your dot ticks are a bit low for your spell damage. You can also work on VT uptime a bit, especially on the Mag fight, it's worth refreshing before you go to cube duty as it will continue to tic.

Are you using /stopcasting macros?

Your talent spec is also a bit weird. Are you running OOM on a long fight like Mag?

 

tedv

At first glance I'm guessing you run out of mana from 5/5 improved mind blast and 0/3 meditation, which causes your overall DPS to drop when you run out of mana. Just do an efficiency cycle for the first 60% of the fight and then blow mind blast every cooldown when you're certain you won't run out of mana before the fight ends. You should really move 3 points from improved mind blast into meditation.

The other possibility-- and I can't confirm this without a very detailed look at the WWS combat log-- is that you are refreshing your DoTs before the last tick expires and/or casting a new spell before the third tick of mind flay lands. These things can cost you up to 30% of your damage, depending on how often they occur.

 

Ceran

Has anyone done the theorycrafting for star shards for night elves yet? Where does it fit into the shadow priest spell rotation?

Thanks, Ceran.

 

◊ Kalman

Above MF, below everything else.

edit: Don't sign your posts.

 

PeteyBoy23

Thank you both for the response

I'll have to find out if there is a warlock assigned to CoS.

I do run low on mana, and burn through it quickly, but I drop super mana pots, and use my shadow fiend to make it up. Do you have a recommendation for how to modify my spec?

I *was* using stopcasting macros previously, but not on this fight (although I hear with 2.3 that they are not necessary anymore).

I don't run out of mana, but it is a struggle to keep an eye on pot and shadowfiend CDs, that's for sure.

Ok, so efficiency cycle in my mind is VT, VE, SW:P, and MF. Is this your thinking as well?

As far as the DoTs, yes I most certainly could be refreshing them before they are about to expire. I use Classtimers, but I'm still trying to find something better, or perhaps my rotation could use some work so that it just "works" that I cast VT, for example, in just enough time so that it hits as the previous version expires.

As far as meditation, my mana regen is pretty poor. What returns should I expect to see on 3/3 Meditation?

Thank you all once again.

 

Caligula

As of 2.3 every point of spirit gives 0.1876 MP/5. (someone correct me if I'm wrong here I think I did the calculations properly)

So assuming 200 or so raid buffed spirit (really low estimate) that would equate to 37.52 mp/5 or almost another BoW. Assuming your Magtheridon fight lasted 10 minutes you would gain another 4502 mana back with 3 talent points (yes, prior to the patch this would have been halved but that's moot at this point).

Basically if you're 11 points deep in Disc you really should get Meditation. It will help your sustained dps in a full rotation.

 

tedv

Has anyone noticed an extreme increase in longevity this patch? I normally have around 250 spirit raid buffed, which is now 56.25 mana while casting, up 28.125 since the patch. I believe the mana spring totem changes are an extra 8 m/5. And while we now have a ret paladin, the judgement of wisdom uptime was pretty good even before the patch.

Yet in Black Temple yesterday, I was literally unable to run out of mana on any fight. I ended Naj'entus at 60% mana in the full burn cycle, using only a shadow fiend (and that primarily for extra damage). The mana stability on bosses was better than trash (since I can count on wisdom and curse of shadows), but both seem improved to the point that mana potions are generally a thing of the past.

So my questions are:

#1) Has anyone else had similar experiences? I'd like to pinpoint the primary factor that's removed the mana issues.

#2) What things can I do to increase my mana burn rate and DPS? I already have 5/5 Improved Mind Blast, so there are no more DPS talents to take. Even if 1 spell haste is worth roughly 1 spell damage, I don't think I can get enough spell haste gear to credibly increase the total damage output. I'm not expecting [The Skull of Gul'dan] to incur that much extra mana.

 

Caligula

We did ZA yesterday with a ret paladin and I had to try really hard to use mana. Literally doing completely inefficient things like throwing only a SWP up on the eagle spawns on the eagle boss and forgetting to maintain VT on the boss while doing it, etc. Even then I just had to pot normally.

I guess this frees us up to use destruction potions instead of chain chugging manas?

Did you guys do Shahraz and Council? Those are the two most mana intensive fights in BT for me. Even before though, on Council trading out a trinket for the Mark of Defiance made mana a non-issue.

I'm almost certain that a lot of it has to do with the Meditation changes. Seeing almost 100 mp/5 on the character sheet, not even fully raid buffed, was nice. Over the course of a fight that change alone ends up being a full mana pot or two worth of mana. One of our holy priests was saying in guild chat today, that with the healing=spell damage changes, and the new meditation, he was literally farming without drinking at something like 950 + damage and ~270 mp/5.

I remember something similar happening when I got my 3pc Trans. All of a sudden, mana issues seemed to lessen a lot.

Having said all that. I like the new changes.

 

◊ Kalman

Cautious clipping of flays is about the only potentially DPS-increasing thing I can think of if you're keeping MB and SWD as close to cooldown as possible. I think you're basically hitting the cap at the point you're at where nothing is left to improve upon.

Arguably, you could drop Meditation points to boost Weaving for faster stacking or to pick up Scream/Silence, but I think you're simply running into the point where there's nothing else that *can* be done.

Other thing to remember is that as you approach infinite mana sustainability, the same amount of MP5 shows longer and longer extension of DPS. If you're spending 160mp5 and regenning 130mp5, you burn through 30 mp5. If you add 10mp5 to that, you'll run out of mana in 150% the timespan. But another 10 mp5 is worth a 200% boost in DPS time, and another 10 beyond that you go infinite.

 

tedv

I've already been doing that on fights like Gurtogg. I guess I'll start doing that on more Bloodlusts.

No, we stopped before reliquary. We probably had time to kill Shahraz, but I think they didn't want to clear trash and only have time for one attempt (not that we would have needed much more). On Council I usually start out in efficiency mode and see how my first shadow fiend goes, and then plan the rest of the fight accordingly, but it's often 3 or 4 mana potions. I'll see how it goes tonight-- I'm expecting one or two potions with a heavier burn cycle.

I'm not convinced my reflexes and latency are enough to make this a DPS increase but I did think about it. Maybe I can toss around shields whenever I can't DPS.

That's very true, and it would explain why an extra 36 m/5 could have such a dramatic impact on longevity.

 

Woozle

I agree mana management is much easier post patch. My benchmark was on Teron. Pre-patch I would have anywhere from 1/4 - 1/3 mana left as soon as my Icon was off cooldown (using a full burn rotation 3 secs after pull). At that point I would use shadowfiend and usually hit full from that. Post patch, I was at roughly 50% when the Icon came off cooldown. Thats a huge boost.

One other question, for the Skull of Gul'dan, I've noticed that when I single click it, the fire debuff on my feet stays on the entire time. When I put it in a macro like

/use The Skull of Gul'dan
/cast [nochanneling:Mind Flay] Mind Flay

The fire disappears from my feet after about 2 seconds. Maybe this is just vanity, but I'd kinda like to keep the fire there for duration without having to bind it to another key. Anyone know a way I can prevent this macro from canceling the effect?

 

Swazzy

Has anyone here tried the chaotic diamond yet? I'm not entirely convinced that based on the math above that it is better, or at least a full percentage better. So if anyone has any feedback I'd be happy to check it out.

Edit:
In response to the post about longevity. I was aware of the meditation buff, and thought it would only be mediocre since we tend to lack spirit, however last night in BT we did Naj->Mother, and I was amazed at how much mana I had after trash pulls ended, as well as on bosses. I looked at WWS last week and I potted 12 times throughout the night, on the exact same clear, last night I potted only 2x. This is a tremendous difference.

 

◊ Kalman

Er, I think you misread the math. MSD came out ahead of CSD, even with MSD's new cooldown, which makes sense, given crit's relatively poor value for spriests.

The only realistic option I've seen proposed other than MSD is the healing/threat gem for fights where threat capping is an issue, since it works out to 9 +dmg, -2% threat, and has manageable gem reqs.

I guess the BEM event gem (14 dmg, 5% stun resist, 3 yellow gem req) might be an option, or Swift Starfire (spirit shard gem), but neither is really *good*; the MSD sits nicely for spriests. It isn't as good as it was, but it's by no means bad.

 

Metrosexuelf

Even before 2.3, the only fight (post majority Tier 6 gear) I have ever really needed to use a pot on was Council. I have 5/5 Blast but I don't cast SWeath that often. As far as what you can do to make use of that mana pool -- nothing really other than the afformentioned use of Destruction pots. I have a decent amount of them but I won't be using them until Sunwell on a regular basis.

 

Beatus

Well it was just a ballpark figure. But since the difference seems pretty big (on a MB/SW-D friendly fight) I'd dare to conclude MSD still wins by a margin yes. (And the chaotic also has tougher requirements for us, 2 blues instead of 1, basically)

 

• Snowy

As an anecdote, I used more mana potions in ZA tonight than I used in BT for the last several weeks combined. That's something to keep in mind for people who are lesser geared and perhaps just entering T6 content or ZA.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

Amonra

There are a lot of factors which will affect the usefulness of the crit gem. In particular it becomes more useful as crit rating increases, whether 5/5 shadow power is taken, and how much MB/SWD are used.

Personally I tend to get about 40% of my damage from MB/SWD if I use them on cooldown, so your figures of 37.4% seem pretty reasonable.

However, looking at your maths I can't really understand where your figure of 1,506 extra damage comes from.

I'm going to assume that after shadow power your have a crit percentage of 30% (could be wildly off, but thats about what mine is and I don't have any better data). 30% crit rate means 15% extra damage, so on MB/SWD you did 95,881 of normal damage and 14,382 of extra crit damage.

The extra crit damage is going up from 50% to 53%, which is a 6% increase. So with the new gem you would get an extra 14,382 x 0.06 = 863 damage. That's an even less impressive 0.3% damage increase overall unless I'm missing something somewhere.

 

Beatus

Here's the WWS, to make things easier.
Beatus - WWS
Yes, MB and SWD on practically every CD (there's no fight where I stick as much to this rotation as Teron, so it seemed the right example), 5/5 Shadow Power, crit 32% on MB and 37% on SWD for this fight.

Seems I made an error, and yes it only makes it less impressive.

50,209 damage came from crits.
Crit bonus goes from 1,50 to 1,53. So the damage from spells that have critted goes up: 153/150 = 2%! (The error I made is that ofcourse crits don't do 3% more damage but their bonus damage goes up by 3%)
So, instead of ~1500 it is ~1000 damage. 0,3% damage increase indeed.

Can anyone tell me if my assumption for MSD is correct? I assumed 1 PPM correctly?And this boils down to half an extra MF a minute, yes? (if you don't waste procs ofcourse)

 

tedv

The solution for burning extra mana was to swap my slot in the mage/shaman group with a lesser geared shadow priest. I ended up doing mana for the healers, so the swap seemed to help everyone.

 

Metrosexuelf

Haha, so did I. Maybe it's just me, but the fights seem much longer than Karazhan fights. Of course I didn't have a Shaman or Blessing of Wisdom, either.