Again, we regularly raid with 3-4 spriests. If we only have 2, we don't double them. We also don't currently have an elemental shaman at all, and typically run with 1 shaman, who goes to melee. So doubling is a function of raid makeup as much as anything else, and ours is a little bit off from the norm.

Our group makeups generally make the most sense with a double spriest except on fights that tax healer mana. I'm not saying it's *optimal* overall, but given the choice between 2spriest/3mage, spriest/mage/3lock, and a healer group with no spriest, vs. spriest/3mage/healer, spriest/mage/3lock, spriest/healers, we generally choose the former, unless healers are running out of mana in the first place. It's the same as the old "How many healers?" question - sure, the DPS gain may be minimal from doing it, but if you have *enough* healing, why would you give your healers an spriest vs. giving your DPS more mana to burn?

I'm not saying it's something to aim for, but neither is it necessarily a bad idea in all circumstances, particularly in T5 where the fights tend more towards length. There is a benefit associated, and it depends on the raid makeup whether that benefit is worth the tradeoff of losing an spriest in another group.

I still don't see why you would double up shadow priests when you have 3. Do you hate hunters and/or bring excessive melee (compared to what I see others doing) to your raids?
I even doubt it's really worth it to bring a 4th shadow priest over another class considering the raid DPS he brings VS the raid DPS you lose by not bringing him. Any less than 3 shadow priests though and you have groups without one, meaning when you run with 2 you're losing healing power (which is very manageable on probably most fights but just doesn't seem to be optimal), or if you really need the healing power you're losing a lot of DPS it's just not worth running with 2 when you can run with 3.

If you can convince me otherwise that there is reason to raid with either more or less than 3 shadowpriests (except attendance issues of course, but we all know it's not optimal to have attendance issues ) I would love to hear it. Preferably backed up by "this gives X DPS while that gives Y DPS". Only reasoning I could come up with is fights where healing is easy enough for then to not need a shadow priest, yet another shadow priest wouldn't be able to let you run with 1 less healer.

We bring what we have. I've never said anything other than "based on our raid comp, we sometimes double up, and it does have some benefits, albeit not incredible ones." Maybe you should pay attention to what I say rather than just responding to the first line?

Yes, we hate hunters (not really, we tend to only have 3 mages and bring a hunter into the 2s/2m group rather than 2s/3m) and bring lots of melee. We tend to only have one pure caster group. For OUR RAID COMP doubling up makes sense. It doesn't for everyone, or even for us all the time. However, it absolutely has a measurable benefit. Up to the raid leader, raid group, and raid comp whether that benefit is sufficient to justify it over giving the healers an spriest.

I write this knowing that in the back of my mind the question is stupid, but alas i forge ahead.

I understand why it is important to make sure the dots are always applied to the boss to ensure dps. What I don't get is why clipping the last tick or so results in decrease of dps. I know it results in decrease in dpm (reapplying dots before they are up means wasted mana), but why would it affect dps? I know lock dots scale up per tick, but i thought SWP and VT (our dots) are a consistent tick. Am i incorrect?

Put another way, if mana isn't an issue, why not apply VT and SWP up even when there are 3-4 seconds left on the timer? I am frustrated that with my gear, i am still usually stuck in sub 800 dps land, when i have close to +1200 Shadow dmg unbuffed.

Tick isn't a global timer, it's derived from DoT application time. Since a DoT doesn't tick until 3 seconds after it's been applied, reapplying before the last tick actually loses several seconds of DPS time. Pretend it's a 9s dot, to minimize the amount of typing I have to do, ticks every 3s.

Apply at T=0.

Tick at 3, 6, 9. Right?

Let's say you reapply at T=8.9, though. Now your ticks go:

3,6,11.9,14.9,17.9.

That's why clipping dots is a bad idea.

Clipping the last tick results in lost dot damage. The only way you can ensure you dont lose that damage is to make sure you re-apply your dots once they fade. Losing that extra tick here and there adds up to some odd few thousand damage, and is a loss in damage and mana. Also, generally when you are reapplying dots too early, you tend to lose out on dot uptime, not that your dots aren't there, but you apply in between ticks, you just lost 1.5 seconds of dot ticking time, and then you have to wait an extra couple seconds for it to start ticking again. So the loss in damage is rather impressive.

This is true assuming your next cast is also mind flay, otherwise it is dpm loss and not a dps loss. Canceling a flay imediately after a tick for something more dps effective like MB (to max the cooldown) can be a dps gain.

The previous points made were true only because they involved clipping by applying the same DoT.

If we had some sort of special DoT on a cooldown that did more damage, but could not have SW:P up while it was up, it would likely be a dps gain to clip SW:P for it. Again, paying a dpm loss for it.

Even if you're recasting Mind Flay it's bad. Suppose at 2.8 seconds you cast a second mind flay. The timeline looks like this:

0.0: Start first Mind Flay (0 ticks)
1.0: Tick (1)
2.0: Tick (2)
2.8: Start second Mind Flay
3.8: Tick (3)
4.8: Tick (4)
5.8: Tick (5), end of Mind Flay

So you still get 5 ticks in 5.8 seconds. If you refreshed at 3.2 seconds instead of 2.8, you'd have 6 ticks in 6.2 seconds, which is clearly superior DPS.

I think you misunderstood what he meant. Clipping a MF to get an early MB/SW: D out is a dps increase at the cost of a momentarily lower dpm.

The problem is clipping MF at the right time. Clipping it at 1.01 seconds to cast something better is a good thing. Clipping it at 1.99 seconds is a bad thing.

Personally, with my relatively high latency (200-300) it is pretty much a lottery whether I clip it just before a tick or just after one. So I tend to just leave MF to run for the full duration..

Certainly feel your pain there...

I'm usually at 165ms, but alas, blizzard's "upgrade" in dual processor performance has had a VERY negative effect on my frame rate, most noticable on Vashj/Kael...or on the waves in Hyjal. Basically anytime I really need it to perform.

As a result my DPS has dropped off nearly 100 since 2.3 due to clipping and all the guess work on my cast times.

Regarding clipping MF too early accidently.

I'm using quartz and I'm affraid I too often accidently clip mind flays at the end of their cast. While I'm chanelling mind flay I press down the key of my next spell, and release the key (remove my finger from it) when quartz shows I'm entering the red area of the bar.

I'm wondering if everyone is doing this? Pressing the key of their next spell during mind flay channel, but not releasing it untill they want to cast. And I'm wondering if this is clipping my mind flay too often (ie. not getting the final tick) accidently?

I've done some tests on Dr. Boom. And if I release the key before the red area I won't get the final tick. So.. how does everyone else handle that? Only mindflay has this mechanic where you can interupt it during the channel by just pressing another spell. I play at sub 6fps usually, and the exact timing is quite tricky.

I wrote up a post on my raiding community forum comparing Shadoweave robe and shoulders, Hood of Hexing and Trousers of the Astromancer with Avatar, it might be useful here too.

Avatar has more stamina, int, spirit and spellhit.

* More stamina is great, but it's easy to get to the point where you have enough for everyday use, especially with honor and arena gear that's also very good for spellpower. Upgrading just [Bracers of Havok] to [Vindicator's Dreadweave Cuffs] is a larger stamina increase. Or even swapping in I-killed-Prince-Malchezar-and-all-I-got-was-this-lousy-trinket or an Of Stamina green for the few special fights.

* Int is utterly insignificant for any class in a raid setting. Base regen gives about 50 mp5 and VT from a very conservative 600 dps gives 150 mp5 = 200mp5 over an 8 minute fight = 19200 mana regenerated, more than twice your entire mana pool. (And that's not counting raid buffs, potions or the shadowfiend.)

* Spirit is a lot better with the new Meditation, and very useful for grinding.

* An average set of Karazhan/Spellstrikeish epics will already have spellhit coming out your ears, and it only gets worse as you get better gear, to the point of going 3/5 or 4/5 Shadow Focus in Black Temple simply because there's so much of it.

* The metagem slot basically means Mystical Skyfire Diamond, which gives you an extra half a mind flay every minute or so after the nerf. If mind flay does 2000 damage, that's an extra 2000/2/60= 17 dps. I have no idea how shadowpriest.com gets it to count for 44 dps. I think (but I'm not quite sure) that 2 spellpower adds about 1 dps when everything is counted in.

* Assuming the set bonuses don't have a hidden cooldown, the t5 2-piece is about 150/((1/(34/75))*100/6)*5= 20 mp5 and the 4-piece about 100/((34/75)*7.5)= 29 spellpower. The Shadoweave 3-piece isn't really worth anything in a raid. (34/75 is 34 spells cast in 75 seconds, taken from shadowpriest.com's spellpower to mp5 topic.)

So in total the four pieces of Avatar is 11 spellpower and 34 mp5 better.

They don't count it for 44 DPS. They counted it as about 44 DAMAGE. With the nerf, they now count it as about 32-34 damage...which would be about a 17 DPS difference, no?

The internal cooldown is 45 seconds and your assumption of 2000 damage on a MF is a bit low for the t5 damage level with full raid buffs. It should be closer to 2300 or 2400 average (assuming some ISB and proper debuffing). Still not quite 44 as shadowpriest.com lists but higher than 17. Although I haven't accounted for any downtime waiting for the proc either so this is more like perfect conditions.

Edit: nevermind you're assuming PPM.

This is interesting to hear your thoughts (woob and hope) on dot refreshing. Typically I try to start casting my VT with 1.5 seconds left on the duration, going for the perfect refresh at the exact moment it falls off (which I'm sure in reality doesnt happen). But with SW:P I would usually try and refresh the dot when I am moving, figuring that I might as well cast the instant cast now when its otherwise wasted down time. Would it be better to not do this? Does the advantage of using a GCD when moving get undone by the loss of a tick? What about when I go a full SW:P time without needing to move, should I refresh after the last dot ticks? Usually I just refresh it when its close to falling off, but rarely do I let it fall off all the way. If I understand the above math correctly, and I think that I do, its better to let the last tick go off than to refresh too early.

Ah, read that wrong, it does seem to match their numbers yes.

15% proc chance per cast at 34 casts in 75 seconds is roughly a proc every 15 seconds on average, plus the 45 second cooldown. Assuming you get to haste a mind flay every time with no badly timed procs. The best way to count the effective ppm (ie. procs that actually help you) would be a WWS parse I guess, or running a mod that records it for every combat. Unfortunately I don't have an MSD to check it myself.

With 2400 damage mind flays it becomes 40 spellpower.

There's also the damage from the Spirit and crit from the Int too.

In my situation, I won't ever see the Hood of Hexing because it has crit on it. I've picked up the Avatar shoulders and am hoping for the head and the Trousers of the Astromancer. So in my case for the shoulders, head and legs, it would be:

A difference of 15.56 damage and 33.3 mp5.

And +36 stam and +61 int.

It really doesn't seem like it's worth it to go for all 4 pieces.

Fantastic post by the way...

I regards to hidden CD's on T5 I don't believe there is one.

* Relentlessness (2 peice proc) goes off for me every other spell in my rotation at times, some times much slower, but "feels" very similar to set PPM proc along the lines of Crusader or SoC.

*Sadist (4 piece) has a rediculous proc rate, I see it on my combat text a LOT. Of course I only go to 4 peice Avatar last night so this is primarily on dalies and one trip through AV.

I'll post a WWS as soon as I can find one wear I'm employing both set bonuses.

The T5 4 piece bonus (100 dmg proc off SW:P) has no hidden cooldown and will proc more frequently the more SW:P's you have up. If you have a second rank 1 SW:P ticking on some other mob (hello Illidari Council) the 100 dmg buff will be up more or less constantly. If you use power auras or some other mod to track it, it's fun to watch how often it really does proc compared to every other proc in the game. Thus, benefit you get from it can scale. That said, it can make your life a little difficult when you're trying to micro manage lots of other things, and switching targets to keep a 2nd dot going automatically means less time spent focusing on your primary damage target.

I did a little more checking into the 2 spellpower = 1 dps ratio. Casting only VT/SW:P/Flay on Dr. Boom for one minute (I'd test with Blast and SW: D too, but then I run out of mana too soon), I can do 330 dps with 0 spellpower, and 850 dps with 1278 spellpower. Assuming 15% more damage in a raid setting from CoS and ISB that's 1278/(850*1.15-330*1.15) = 2.1 spellpower/dps.

The Absolution 2-piece bonus lets you cast 8 SW:Ps in 216 seconds instead of 9. So you save 575 mana and have time for another half a Mind Flay, making the bonus worth about 575/216*5 = 13 mp5 and 2500/2/216*2.1 = 12 spellpower.

The Absolution 4-piece bonus essentially gets you a free Mind Blast for every 10 you cast, so assuming you cast it every 7.5 seconds for 2500 average damage, it's worth about 2500/75*2.1 = 70 spellpower.

It depends on how much time is left on Shadow Word Pain and how soon after the last damage tick you refresh it. In my experience, a Pain tick is roughly 85% the damage of a Mind Flay tick. So mindflay has M DPS and Shadow Word Pain ticks deal .85 * M damage. Now the best case is that you save a full GCD (if you refresh just as pain falls off) and the worst case is no GCD saved (if you refresh right after you cast pain). So the proportion of extra GCDs is equal to the percent of shadow word pain that has expired. If you refresh it when the time is half gone, you gain half a GCD.

One GCD is as valuable as half a mindflay, or 1.5 M damage. However, you lose damage when you delay the next pain tick. If you cast pain right as the next tick was about to occur, you'll lose a full .85 * M damage. So the formula for damage gained from refreshing pain should be:

T = Time that current pain has been up when you refresh the next
P = Duration of Shadow word Pain (24 unless you have the T6 set bonus)
Damage gained = M * 1.5 * T / P
Damage lost = M * .85 * (T mod 3)
Net Damage = M * (1.5 * T / P - .8 * (T mod 3))

So you want to refresh when the net damage is positive. That function is roughly:

2 * T/P - (T mod 3)

Anyone have a program that can graph this function so we can see exactly when it's worth doing this?