1rst I'm currently packing 1160 +dmg how much more do I need to actually have MF return mana.... it seems many people talk about this but I may have missed it on previous posts. How much +dmg do you need to actually have MF return more mana than it uses?

2nd I'm having a great deal of problems managing my CDs it seems I tend to miss the perfect cicle do to lag, over here I play with around 300 ms usually, any macros that could help me improve on keeping a decent cicle I don't how much dps I should be providing but I know its defenetly more than 800.

thx

Mind flay costs 195 mana. At 5% returns, you need flay to deal 3900 damage to break even. In general this is not remotely possible with even the best gear, although fight specific mechanics can do this. (For example, Essence of Anger and Gurtogg Bloodboil.)

There is no perfect cycle. Use the following sequence:

1. VT
2. SW:P
3. MB
4. SW:D
5. MF

Only cast 2 if 1 is fine. Only case 3 if 1 and 2 are fine. Etc.

First, you'll want to clean up your post a bit, use proper punctuation and the like.

Secondly, that depends on many factors. Are you getting CoS? Do you have several warlocks that keep a good ISB uptime? Do you have a shaman in your group for WoA? What about raid buffs, do you have Divine Spirit, do you have BoW, do you have mana spring totem, do you have good mp/5 and/or spirit on your gear? (T6 of course covers both)

For example, on a random BT run I looked at, my average MF tick was for ~800. That's 40 mana back each tick, or 120 total. MF is 196 mana to cast, properly talented. So if I can regen 76 mana every 3 seconds while casting, I'll be mana-neutral while casting it. That's the same as having 127 mp/5 while casting on your character screen. Completely unbuffed, I have 80 mp/5 while casting, so a simple talented BoW would put me up to almost 130 mp/5 while casting. Hence I'd be able to cast MF and actually come out slightly ahead in mana at the end, on average. In boss fights my average actually comes out to be slightly higher on MF, I usually see +44 or +45 mana gained ticks scroll by on my SCT.

Hopefully that answers your question -- you can't really say there's a certain amount of +dmg that you need because that's only part of the equation. But for what it's worth I usually run with +1318 damage in most fights. (wtb Nethervoid Cloak)

In fact you have to time your next spell after mindflay well regardless of if you cut it short or not. It's either trying to do it close to the 2nd tick or the 3rd tick, it's really just as difficult when you think about it. If you cut out the last tick you'll have some delay of safety (as you definitely don't want to interrupt MF 0.1s before it ticks, better to do it 0.3s after the tick), but you would get the same kind of delay if you cast another spell *after* the last tick as you need to take the same safety measure to not interrupt MF 0.1s before the 3rd tick.
Bottom line - casting the MB/SW when they come up mid-MF right after a tick instead of after the MF should increase your DPS regardless of your ability to time it well.
Your DPM will go down though, as you're cutting a spell short after paying the mana for it AND you're doing it for a less mana-efficient spell. If you have any kind of mana problems this is most definitely out of question. However to maximize DPS I see no reason not to get used to doing it.

And yet you're not the only single target dps class in your raid (most likely). Sure you have a nice burst combo, but so do other classes and they might get the killing blow as well. Just because I haven't been into Hyjal doesn't mean I couldn't possibly understand how this concept works in practice (because I've never done a gauntlet type encounter before *coughsupressionroomcough*), except in this case each mob has significantly more life overall than aoeing a dozen small mobs.

You're more likely to get spirit tap procs from a trash wave, but you're still relying on something you can only merely hope to get (you're not the only one who can burst for a killing blow). Unless you somehow manage to talk your raiders into not attacking your targeted mob during an AoE phase, I don't see spirit tap going off often enough and reliably enough to justify its benefit in a raid.

Just thought I'd add this little tidbit since it makes the tier 1 discipline talent a no-brainer.

• Creature AI has been changed to no longer prioritize attacking unfeared targets over feared targets.

i was curious about the change. Does this mean that we no longer want to be feared during dragon encounters? (think Nightbane; before when the fear hits, we don't want it resisted or we risk going to the top of the threat list).

It means the boss will attack the target with the most threat even if feared.

In other words, it doesn't matter if the tank gets feared, the boss won't go after someone who ISN'T feared.

This change does seem to indicate that Unbreakable Will does jump in terms of usefulness. This drastically changes the use of Fear Ward. IF MTs can hold aggro during fears, than perhaps the most utility for fear wards would be healers rather than tanks? Though, i guess on position sensitive encounters not having the MT run around the room getting chased is desirable.

The dragons that tend to fear also tend to breath in a cone of fire in front of them, though, so I'd still fear ward the tank. It just means a tremor totem can work fine too.

You really dont want the tank missing a fear anyways, since his avoidance likely drops to 0 while fleeing.

I think the issue is getting into Beserker Stance but not being able to hit Beserker Rage for another 0.5 seconds. This will keep the boss on the tank in those scenarios.

About the Hunter > Warlock in a shadow priest group. When I was raiding I would have been slightly annoyed if a hunter got put in a shadow priest group over me because of a few reasons.

1. Lifetap is a loss of dps, a lot more than most people realise. (And also ISB uptime I guess which = less dps for the shadow damage dealers.)
2. We had an elemental shaman in the group aswell and WoA and ToW mean nothing to a hunter. Even if it was a resto shaman I'd still probably be missing WoA.
3. I'm not too sure on hunter mechanics but the hunters in our guild never seemed to run out of mana, they guzzled fel mana potions like no tomorrow though.
4. Even when I do need to life tap, vampiric embrace heals a hell of a lot and less pressure on healers is a good thing.

I'm not saying it's bad for hunters to be in a shadow priest group, I just think a destro lock benefits more.

Do you still use mana potions on cooldown? I have a lot less issues granting someone access to a shadowpriest if when they don't have one they are using potions every time.

If a warlock asks for a shadowpriest but when he is without one he just sits there lifetapping, it is obvious that he wants a shadowpriest so he can lifetap less, but he isn't willing to use mana potions to lifetap less.

Hello Triza, Good to see Jubie members posting here,

About the hunter vs warlock for the shadow priest group,

Sure warlocks not needing to life tap helps there dps,

But for a Hunter to function they need to be chain potting and even then its normally not enough to keep me going for more than ~6minutes.

I am BM which is considered one of the more mana efficient specs due to the rotation we use,

A MM hunter needs a ShadowPriest the most of any spec but back to the point.

Alot of fights we need a shadow priest to remain competitive damage dealers, fights with alot of AOE even more so, as mend pet is a rather large mana investment, the shadow priest helps by healing the pet and giving me mana to heal it.

I am usually queit the opposite to you, I am annoyed when a Warlock is given a shado priest over me, you are probably the most self sufficient class's in the game, Sure it requires some GCD management to do but in many cases a Shadow Priest is a requirement for hunter dps.

EDIT : The exception is if Judgement of Wisdom is on the mob, then you could pursade me to let you have the shadow priest group, As a hunter the ammount of mana returned by this is phenomenal.

Point number one: Not all warlock specs are as self-sufficient as you think; 0.21.40 destrolocks eat mana like it's going out of fashion, and tapping themselves dry costs them a very signifficant amount of time, leaving them at low HP making more strain on (a) themselves incase they get an environmental effect that kills them (b) the healers who have to chuck them HOTs (c) Their own DPS, as tapped mana only goes so far: Within the next 20sec they'll have to tap again, and again, and again. Theres no point in having a lock in a raid if he spends 15% of his time tapping and costs 10% of a healer's time and mana to keep him from suiciding.

Point number two: You're reffering to Judgement of Wisdom for the 74 mana returned.

Honestly, as far as I'm concerned the most mana regen a hunter should be getting is a manaspring from being in the melee group team, if there is space and if there isn't a windfury down (perish the thought) but rather a GoA.

It's not uncommon to see warlocks do over 1400dps without a shadow priest, just standing there pressing their shadowbolt, curse of choice and lifetap. If they didn't have to lifetap at all, they would probably have to hold back anyway, due to threat...

I would be fine with this argument if I constantly saw warlocks use mana potions to save lifetapping time when they lacked a shadowpriest, but I don't. A shadowpriest isn't there so you can be cheap and avoid drinking potions.

The main reason for warlocks usually getting the shadow priest over a hunter isn't really the fact that they need it more, because imo hunter gets more out of it, especially in a fight with any kind of movement. The reason is that the shadow priest usually has WoA as well with the occasional totem of wrath (mage group), which will not benefit the hunter at all...
If you have 2 shadow priests though and your healers are good you can put the 2nd in the hunter/leftover group isntead of the healer group, but it also pretty much requires that there is no melee DPS in your raid outside of the MT group and windfury group, as that melee DPS would usually be a warrior/druid to be put with the hunter for extra AP/crit and getting trueshot if there's a marksmanship hunter or FI from a BM (or both). Putting a shadow priest in that group just to benefit 2-3 people isn't reasonable unless your healers really totally don't need a shadow priest, or the DPS loss by having the warrior/feral not getting trueshot/FI and the hunters not getting BS/LotP gets more than made up for by giving the hunters a shadow priest.
Overall there are situations where hunters get a shadow priest with 2 shaodw priests in the raid, but they just don't seem to happen all that much with the raid compositions I've been seeing.
Of course when you have 3 shadow priests in the raid every mana user not in the MT/WF groups gets a shadow priest and you have no arguments (except those bitching at being on devo/tree aura or WF duty, but someone needs to do it).

I realise the difference in specs, But we dont raid with any destro locks so I didnt seperate specs which was my fault and I should have made that more clear,

I would consider a destro lock as similar to a mage in mana regen so would take precedence over hunter for the Spriest,

The Judgment was clearly a Typo and I fixed that hours ago =)

Caligula I'm pretty disappointed that you just played the progression card. I think this debate on Spirit Tap vs Black Out has been drawn out far too long, and is no longer constructive, as it seems you gentlemen are beating a dead horse. The same points are getting re-hashed at different stages in the game and the same counterpoints exist. Keep in mind its all up to your own preference at this point. I suggest Black Out since my own experience(s) in hyjal/bt (hyjal in particular) seem to have sloppy trash kills every so often, or trash where me assisting with shackles/occasional B.O. proc saves someone. Not that guilds -should- have that sort of sloppiness, but really when it comes to application, occasional mistakes are made/bad luck can ensue (eg mob dodges/parries everything tank throws at it, or some AoE'er manages to crit that mob, and only that mob).


P.S. Personally, with the gear I have now, I really don't have many mana issues, and I personally use black out. I love having the ability to stun a trash target, and possibly save a guildmate from certain doom. Granted I cant stun any of the bosses, but generally you aren't getting spirit tap either (maybe 3/9 bt bosses [tops], and 0/5 hyjal boss fights?).