Tymir

At Kalman's gear level mana becomes infinite, therefore the only benefit of having Inner Focus and Meditation is the extra crit chance on Mind Blast, 10% less damage taken from spell damage (including SWD backlash) is much better in comparison. Also with that build you end up with an extra three (four if you dont spec Holy Nova) talent points which allows you to get Improved Vampiric Embrace and go 5/5 on both Shadow Focus and Shadow Weaving.

 

• DeeNogger

Devouring Plague.

I write things The word of DeeNogger -- New Blog Post November Something

 

◊ Kalman

Is 1k mana every 180 seconds, or 2k mana over the course of Brutallus.

I'm draenei, so the delta is further increased by 1k mana every 300 seconds, or 2k mana over the course of Brutallus, with a total delta of 4k mana across the 6 minute encounter (mana on Felmyst is basically meaningless because of air phase, Kalecgos has enough downtime to allow for reasonable regen as well, in addition to being usually similar in length to Brut). Running 0/11/50, I typically end Brut with >4k mana. Yes, the build returns us to the *possibility* of having to use a mana pot, but oh well, that's why I have a bunch of them, right?

Like Tymir said, the key benefit is the 10% reduction in incoming spell damage (of which there is a fairly massive amount in SWP) as well as the ability to fill out the shadow tree completely.

 

Reverance

Recently I've gone from raiding as my priest (which has been holy not shadow as of late due to flakey healers) to being asked to gear up and play a mage. My mage had T5 gear and we are currently on the first boss of Sunwell so I had a lot of work to do. After doing what I could to gear her up, badge stuff, running pug SSC / TK for Vashj/Kael loot and other things I took my mage to a raid and was appauled by something I had not noticed while playing as a holy priest. We have a warlock deeply ensconced in the Spriest group, which normally wouldnt be a problem, except for the fact that we have 3 mages and only 2 "mage slots" in the Spriest group. I get stuck with the healers or with a mixed group because the warlock says he needs to be in the Spriest group to dps. This has caused small amounts of arguements between mages and said warlock, but I didn't want to bring anything up until I had researched it myself and/or talked about it with other mages and Spriests. Here is the arguement.

I would like to be in the group with a shadowpriest and our guild only has 1 reliable Spriest at the moment. The warlock would like to be there as well. His reasoning behind being in that group is that he will not have to lifetap as much, or at all, and can thus put out more dps and that I, as a slightly undergeared fire mage, should be able to life without a Spriest in my group. Afterall he forced another fire mage in our guild to raid without a SPriest for a long time, so why can't I? My point is that when I go Oom I'm oom. I can evocate, but a lot of times I'm still going to be running dry at the end of the fight where I have the greatest capability to do damage.

My question is this: As a shadow priest do you think you would be more beneficial to be in with a mage or a warlock?

 

tedv

This question has been brought up numerous times in the past, but here's the basic conclusion:

Mages have priority

Search the thread if you're looking for more information on why this is, but the basic reason is that warlocks have no limits to the amount of mana they can regen (due to lifetap not having a cooldown), while a mage really can run bone dry. And if a mage runs out of mana, their DPS essentially goes to zero. That will never happen to a warlock.

 

Reverance

Thanks, I'm still reading through the thread, its a lot of stuff to go over, I was trying to find some sort of statistical evidence behind it because the counter to that was "Well you should be better about your mana, Destro lock is the least effecient specc/class in the game so I need to be here". It doesn't help that I'm a member and he is an officer either :-P.

 

Ntrails

Bear in mind that if you agree in adavance you can always be swapped into the SP group once you are getting seriously low (i.e. when having to evocate). You can switch groups mid combat and that way the warlock still gets most of the DPS boost he is chasing.

 

tedv

Sounds like the type of warlock who casts Curse of Doom instead of Recklessness or Shadows. Check the parses to see if he's using mana potions on cooldown. If not, that's a sure sign he's just lazy and wants to top damage meters.

Basically he will never run out of mana because he has lifetap, but a mage can, since all you have a mana gems (which prevent the use of healthstones), mana potions and evocation. Once you've used those, there is literally nothing you can do if you run out of mana. A warlock can never be in that situation. In other words, the raid DPS loss a mage running out of mana is far greater than a warlock needing to life tap 15 more times throughout the fight.

 

rooj

Has anyone ever found any uses for the BE racial for PvE for Shadow priests? (touch of weakness, mana tap, arcane torrent).

Compared to the draenai, i feel gimped. I don't get and extra huge boost in +hit, and i don't get a racial that actually does and can return mana in a meaningful way.

If i am missing something with those racials, could someone point it out?

 

Antiphonal

Mage jumping in here - For mages this is very spec-dependent. Some specs (like 18/0/43 Frost Meditation) are extraordinarily mana-efficient and can probably run independent of a spriest or mana totems for over 10 minutes at a time. It does about 150 dps less than the fire specs all other things being equal, but it has close to half the mana expenditure over time. I currently use this spec because my raid is recruiting shadow priests atm and I don't always have access to one. This is a way for me to hedge my bets.

Most mages (and there are notable exceptions) will go with either 2/48/11 (Deep Fire) or depending on if they have 2pc Tier5 set bonus (and aren't giving up too much), they will go 40/0/21 (Arcane Frost). Both are fairly dependent on shadow priests since Fire would rather use FlameCaps (but this prevents them from using their mana gems) and Arcane simply converts mana into damage. The more mana, the more damage they do. It is uncommon, but not inappropriate, to save an innervate for an Arcane mage for continuous burn fights.

So, while a warlock definitely will benefit from a shadow priest in his group, it is a matter of math if the benefit to the raid supports him getting the spot over a mage. Generally, but not always, it is not in the raid's benefit.

Also, Arcane mages have the least efficiency and highest damage of all specs and classes so far, not destruction warlocks. He may be misinformed there.

 

ZoFu

I think its more situational if a mage would be in the spriest group over a warlock. I play a spriest and for instance on council a long drawn out fight I was able to keep good mana throughout the whole entire fight, keeping my VT up and potting and using demonic runes when ever they wern't on cool down and timing my shadowfiend out so I got it off twice. Not to mention I did get 1 innervate from a druid. Pretty much if its a long drawn out fight I would say the mage has priority over the warlock.

 

Balkoth

It's worth noting the length of a fight as well. If it's a short fight, the destruction warlock gets the group. Medium length, it's debatable. Only on a long fight should get mage get absolute priority on a shadow priest. Before that, they have their mana pots/mana gems/evocate. Gorefiend would be a short fight, Council would obviously be a long fight. I don't have a solid answer on the exact crossover point where mages should get the spriest over the warlock.

One other thing to consider is player skill/gear. Yes, if you're in Sunwell content you probably have very good players all around who are relatively equally geared and fully consumabled. That often won't be the case in lower tiers. So if he's convinced he's just a better player than you are...good luck.

Oh, this is assuming he's destruction. If he's affliction, then he can just shove off.

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

 

◊ Kalman

Mages get spriests over locks if they will run dry of mana during the fight without one (evocation not included - if you start including evoc, the math gets a bit more complex). Otherwise, locks get them.

 

Ntrails

Using touch of weakness you can kill an alliance guard without ever being PvP flagged. (not PvE but fun :p)

Using consume magic* is often a very good way to make mana (yes you may consume sta buff - at worst you have to recast it when IF becomes available but at least you got through the rough patch without having to wand) when things have gone wrong and/or you have failed to resist a single mark of kaz'rogal. It is probably the most useful. To lower the chances of hitting a 'real buff' I tend to make sure I buff all 4 of my own priest buffs, inner fire, shad, sta, ToW.

Arcane torrent can be useful as a silence (vs necros in hyjal for example) but is mainly a bit meh since it is 4 GCDs to make 5-600 mana. Times I think it shines are if you can stack the taps on trash (again on necros pre kaz'rogal for example) to have an extra early mana source.

Each racial has a place, some more useful than others. According to other folks as you get higher gear the mana becomes less useful - which is all belfs really get.

*you did not mention this, but it is a Belf racial.

 

Tharia

If you want to see it like that, warlocks can use manapots too. they could farm dark runes as they can't use flame caps anyway. evocation is not more effective than life tap and evocation gets interrupted regularly on a fight like teron.

Mages WILL run dry in a 3-4 min fight without their mana consumables, evo or mage armor, who all cost more or less dps. I don't know who actually gains more because it's quite hard to calculate all the factors. But "mages can use potions" is not a real argument except if the mages in your guild are too cheap to use destro pots/flame caps but then probably your warlocks are too cheap to use mana potions too. Shadow priest should go to the tanks or the rogues in this case :x

 

Balkoth

Weren't we just talking about how fire mages are more efficient than destruction warlocks and would thus get more use out of that mana potion?

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

 

Tharia

The same is true for the mana from Spriest, isn't it?

 

◊ Kalman

Not exactly. Mages sacrifice a certain amount of DPS for using mana over destro and gems over caps. Locks sacrifice a certain amount of DPS to taps.

The problem is that lock regen requires GCDs, while mage regen doesn't. As a result of this, it's not as simple as who can convert mana into damage more efficiently - both of them can do the mana<->destro conversion, but every GCD a lock isn't using to tap is an extra ~2.2k damage, while the mage conversions are less problematic to lose. Yes, mages *like* flame caps, but a cap is worth ~4k damage. If the difference is 3 caps vs. 14 taps...

 

tedv

Having respecced into Spell Warding (11/0/50), I thought I'd give a counterpoint update to Kalman. I'll remind everyone that he plays a Draenei (+2000 mana in a typical 6 minute fight, 1% extra hit) while I play an undead (-2000 mana in a typical 6 minute fight, -3000 in an 8 minute fight). For those who don't like reading long explanations, I'll skip to the conclusions based on gearing and race:

People who still need a reasonable number of BT drops: 13/0/47+1
Draenei: 0/11/50
Undead: 13/0/47+1 unless you can guarantee exceptional raid mana support
Everyone else: 10/0/50+1 for progression unless your typical raid mana support is poor

First, it's abundantly clear just how much mana you lose from speccing out of Meditation. If you got close to drinking a mana potion on some fights before, expect to drink three on those fights after speccing spell warding. This actually is a bit of a liability because it's really handy to keep a potion cooldown ready for a healing potion instead, and speccing out of spell warding removes that option on some fights. We don't have Ice Block like mages or the naturally high stamina of warlocks, and healing ourselves is usually not going to save us fast enough if things go wrong. It's not a huge loss but it's real. On our quick clear of black temple last night, for example, I found myself needing to downgrade my cycle on Shahraz and Council because I underestimated how rough mana would get.

Second, Spell Warding WILL save your ass at least once every 4 hours, and a lot of times that's the difference between a win and a wipe. Since I effectively gained 11% to total health, I felt much more comfortable using Shadow Word: Death even in situations with a lot of AoE damage.

The loss of Meditation is far more noticeable on trash and fights with multiple targets, since the target is rarely debuffed with judgement of wisdom. On bosses it's not as bad as long as you have Blessing of Wisdom, Judgement of Wisdom, and Mana Stream totem. If you have two of three and aren't undead, the spell warding spec will work as well. If you can only guarantee one of these, stick with meditation.

The spell warding spec has a few other perks, such as more points in shadow focus and weaving, and optionally holy nova. Having 5/5 weaving is not strictly speaking a requirement, but it matters more than you would think in multitarget fights, since dot juggling is much harder when you have to break up your cycles to keep shadow weaving stacked. It's also a bummer when you miss an early stack, since it's essentially free damage gone.

Holy Nova is complete and total trash. It's really hard to express how unbelievably bad this spell is. Even when I'm in an AoE situation, I'm pretty confident that a single target DPS cycle is more DPS than spamming max rank Holy Nova (which has a pathetic AoE cap of 5000 damage). But Holy Nova is still better than getting 2% hit that you don't need. I recommend 5/5 Weaving always, and the get Holy Nova if you are hit capped with 4/5 Shadow Focus. This spell will never make the difference in a fight, but.... I guess if you are really threat capped the ability is useful.

The other big loss is Improved Fortitude. Basically all the other priests have to fort things. The number of complaints about people in my raid not having fort have gone up by roughly 5x since I specced out of this, which I think just shows what a buff nazi I am, and how other priests have been slacking. There is also the problem that when someone gets combat ressed, you can't fort them. Not only does your fort blow, but you probably don't have the mana to spare (whereas before a shadow priest was the natural choice to buff them).

Also on the subject of rebirths, if *you* die in the fight, you are in a lot of trouble. Your mana pool simply won't be that great after getting a rebirth if you don't have meditation. It is harder to die with spell warding but the penalty for death is worse.

To conclude, I think the spec is slightly better if you can afford the mana loss. Some things become a greater liability (your mana) while others become a lesser liability (your health). Ultimately it depends on whether or not you can afford the loss of mana most of the time. For Draenei, it's clearly a yes. For Undead, it's no under most circumstances. For other races it depends heavily on raid composition.

For my part, I'm going to stick with this spec for a few weeks just to really try it out. I also need to see if Spirit Tap is better or worse than Blackout for M'uru, and if Holy Nova has any use at all on the fight (I'm guessing not), and then respec as needed. I'll probably go back to Meditation though.

 

• Snowy

Tedv, don't forget about the discussion that dropping a point from Focused Mind is actually better than dropping a point from Meditation. I grabbed [Robes of Ghostly Hatred] last night and my unbuffed spirit is all the way up to 308. Meditation is even stronger in my case now.

You *probably* wont find either Spirit Tap or Blackout useful on M'uru, but ultimately it depends what role you're assigned to. I'd be surprised if it wasn't mine though. Having said that, once I got comfortable with the fight and getting a resto shaman in my group, I very very rarely had to drink a mana potion. I'll probably just drop 1 point from Focused Mind to make up the hit that I lost on my robes, and call it a day. I almost always have a resto shaman though, and it makes a huge difference. At M'uru the resto shaman was responsible for almost 10k mana returned. If I don't have that, I'm definitely chain potting. If I don't have that, and don't have any in meditation, I may be in a world of hurt.

Also for M'uru we couldn't go Spell Warding even if we wanted to, since we had no healing priests in the raid. I think I prefer to keep my IF+DP macro anyways.

 

Balkoth

Small typo you may want to correct:

0/11/50 is Spell Warding, since Holy is the middle tree. 13/0/47 is meditation. Might confuse some people.

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

 

Sui-san

Hookay. So in advance; thank you so much for making this guide, it's helped me out so very very much and I'm no longer being out dps'd by my guildie's alts who are still in greens (in Kara too...)

Now, going off the information on spell hit, I ran some numbers and this is what I found

(really sorry if this has already been posted: feel free to delete this post if it has been.)

I'm assuming that the spell hit you gain from SF is not shown.

SF/Spell Hit mechanics (Draenei)

63 spell hit: 5/5 SF

88 spell hit: 4/5 SF

103 spell hit: 3/5 SF

128 spell hit: 2/5 SF

153 spell hit: 1/5 SF

188 spell hit: 0/5 SF


SF/Spell Hit mechanics (Non-Daenei)

75 spell hit: 5/5 SF

100 spell hit: 4/5 SF

125 spell hit: 3/5 SF

150 spell hit: 2/5 SF

175 spell hit: 1/5 SF

200 spell hit: 0/5 SF


I'm approximating because I'm lazy about decimals, making every 1% = 13 spell hit. Considering you get enough spell hit, then you could potentially put your tallents into something more useful.

Supposing a 14/0/47 spriest, you could take the points from SF, and put them into one potpourri Disc tallent then pile the rest into Mental Agility to make your already cheap spells even CHEAPER. Albeit, this will require quite a bit of sacrificed Spell dmg for the spell hit needed. I guess it's up to the player. I can't vouch for myself because I'm still stuck back at 93 (Draenei) so I've still got 4/5 in SF, but you guys run the numbers.

 

heel

I found Spirit Tap very useful on M'uru. Besides lucky kills on Sentinels, it's not too hard to death a low-health spawn to get the buff on demand.

 

Brekk

On any fight where there are easy to kill adds SW: Death makes Spirit Tap amazing.

 

Evidicus

As a destro lock I'd have to agree that the DPS we lose burning GCDs for Lifetap can be significant, making a shadow priest a welcome addition to my group. Not only that, but people tend to forget that on fights were you take a lot of raid damage, tapping isn't always such a good idea to begin with. You can do it, but you have to be smart about timing it and you need to really trust your healers. Personally I chug not only mana pots but super rejuvs as well. A tap or two plus a rejuvination potion means I can get almost double the mana benefit while making up for the cost in health. Lifetap + Healtstones can do the same thing to a lesser degree, and I usually do this late in fights where healers are more concerned about prioritizing their dwindling mana pool than they are in topping off someone who is intentionally lowering his health just to pewpew. If your destros aren't already chugging pots (even with a spriest), then they should be.

That aside, I think the discussion about mage v warlock should be left to the WWS meters, the boss you are currently on, and individual raid compositions. To generalize too much on class alone is pointless. Both classes benefit, and I have no problem sitting out of the uber caster group (spreist + ele shaman) if I am lower DPS than every other caster who gets to go in (regardless of class). If I am one of the highest however, then I feel I've earned that spot. I certainly wouldn't enjoy the idea of sitting out for a mage who puts out lower DPS than I do even when she has a spriest and I do not.

Bottom line for me: If you can boost the DPS of a few of your consistently higher DPSers by a % (w/e % a spriest is worth), then it will mean a lot more raid DPS overall than if you boost the DPS of a few of your consistently lower DPSers by that same %.

That simple logic works for me, and it makes "earning" a shadow priest group the responsibility of the individual casters. I've found that once people adopt that mindset, they do everything in their power to improve their own performance first, rather than just expecting the spriest to be a crutch so they can be lazy about their mana pool.

Oh and from all of us locks out here, thank you shadow priests. We appeciate you!