Eh, I can't say we have aggro issues, but I think that we could do a bit more, our tanks are pretty conservative for most fights and prefer mitigation gear vs theat gear. It should also be noted that we are still rather new to most of bt, and are on reliquary now, so we should start seeing a progressive threat increase on our tanks, and a healthy dps increase. As it is with my gear, pulling 1300 dps would be really lucky, but that would probably get me killed. Generally pulling 1300 or so dps for that fight requires deathing each time the CD is up, but last week I got hit with that 60% shadow damage debuff 3-4 times. With the looming threat of his flame attack nearly insta-gibbing me its a rather risky route to take. By the way, 1545 dps is pretty insane, but you had a 44% mindblast crit rate while rocking the 4 set bonus (and a 36% death crit rate) - also you didnt get a single flame debuff, and only one shadow debuff - [jealous].

When under heroism, do you just spam mindflay or is it worth to use swd? Mindblast is obviously not worth using with heroism, what about the other spells?

Mindblast and Death are still worth it even through heroism/bloodlust. Though they are bound to the 1.5 second gcd (vt, SW:P, and ve included) they are still higher dps I believe, unless they dont hit any ISB and each of your mindflay's manage to.

Easy to figure out. For example, on Council last week, I cast 39 MBs for a total of 112637 damage. So I averaged 2888 per MB, or 2888/1.5 = 1925 DPS. Mind Flay was 850 DPS, which would go to roughly 1100 DPS while lusted.

So in fact not only is Mindblast still worth using, it's by far still superior to Mind Flay. SWD follows the same logic.

Good point, I just absolutely hate casting spells with the GCD staying untouched, in this case it is absolutely worth it though.

Do you actually use SW:D a lot in Hyjal/BT? I think I have had SW:D kill me in pretty much every fight there.

I have died to SW:D+spine+his icebolt thing at naj'entus, died to SW:D at teron giving me his shadow vulnerability thingy and a shadowbolt just as I used SW:D, I won't even mention gurtogg, SW:D at ros has killed me after taking 2 soul drains ticks+crit SW:D (before the soul drains obviously), I really don't want to risk it in p.3 with all the damage going around. FA after SW:D was also fun even if I guess it's less dangerous now our healers are quicker, Illidari council just ave a truckton of abilities waiting to gank you after an SW:D. Illidan I could use it in human phase, but I am too afraid in p.2 both for aggro and health issues. I am using it on demons in p.4 though.

In Hyjal, I have died to icebolt right after SW:D (really split seconds later), I use it at anetheron when an infernal landing isn't close, I use it on kaz anyway, SW:D+rof on azgalor is really fun and SW:D on Archimonde, brrrrr, I don't even want to take much lower risks there.

Contrary to that I was using SW:D a lot more on ssc/tk, damage taken felt a lot more predictable/sporadic/avoidable there. Also with my +damage reaching the higher 1200's I have crit myself for 4600 or so with SW:D and pretty much something sneezing on me would kill me. I don't really feel that safe using it a lot.

Now the healers have managed to save me in a lot of those situations but have failed as well (or in some of those they couldn't do much objectively). Due to that I have grown a dislike for SW:D as in a lot of those fights my potential death could lead to much bigger problems than x more dps I would do with SW:D. I understand it's a theorycraft thread, but are people actually using SW:D to such an extent, especially on fights they aren't very comfortable with yet?

I don't use SWD very often at all in hyjal/BT and of course it is fight specific. I also don't have imp VE, so take that for what its worth. The result is that I'd rather stay full health and not distract a healer on a fight like Council (and other fights like gurtogg where threat is an issue) than go for that extra bit of dps to put me higher on the meters. When you couple that with the fact that so many BT/hyjal fights are about survival first and foremost, SWD is really a liability. In the vein of "dead mages do no dps", my mantra is more like "dead shadow priests return no mana"

I'm much the same way with regards to death usage. I'll use it all the time at Rage though, because the pvp trinket is a free icebolt removal. But in a fight like Council, I probably only use it a quarter of the time -- usually right after I see a flamestrike land somewhere. Some of it in other fights depends on your HP pool, I run at or over 10k buffed, so I can death with impunity at Najentus and not really worry about gibbing. Teron, I use it all the time unless I have the Crushing Shadows debuff. The point about not distracting your healers on some fights is a very good one, especially if your healers are very good at just playing whack a mole with Grid. That's why I'm conservative with it on Council, there's already enough raid damage being thrown around as it is without having someone toss me a heal because they see me 3k hp down.

I'm fairly sure that while haste effects do not lower the GCD in general, Heroism/Bloodlust is a special case and reduces it to 1.15ish seconds.

I've been chanting that "dead shadowpriest don't do dps" mantra for quite some time on these forums, my suggestion would be to just death when it feels right. Most fights in hyjal/bt have some rather impressive splash damage to the group, and the potential insta gib in many as well. On some fights where the burst is predictable e.g. Najentus deathing is no problem at all. However, I think meltface has it right in terms of death simply being a calculated risk.

I myself don't believe death is as much a liability anymore as I once did when I was still green to the endgame encounters, rather, I just use it when the opportunity presents itself. Most fights actually I feel deathing is appropriate at any time, given you don't put yourself at risk of nuking yourself. Every fight in Hyjal except for Azgalor I'm doing my usual buttonmash dps rotation, and I do awesome caster dps, with no problems. Even on Azgalor now I'm starting to death more often, once I see the fire spawn I know I'm free to do a death or two before the next rain of fire comes (shielding before the second death occasionally as well). I think for fights like Gurtogg where unholy amounts of group damage are being taken, deathing is only appropriate during the fel rages, unless you are well topped off (personally, I don't death in the non fel rage phases because I'm horribly threat capped even without improved ve).

This was how it was believed to work via testing but it was later on proved to not work that way via a script.
I think it was Shalas who came up with a script command which would print your GCD.
It made it into the Working Theories of Theorycrafting post under the general section, the script is there too.

Hey again,

I wanna reply too what somebody said a few pages ago about the minimum health requirement for raiding. Personally, I think there is no minimum requirement and I think you should go all out with damage. Even if thats means losing a few hundred hit points. I am currently raiding with about 6.6k unbuffed hp and I get yelled at by my raid leader. It is much more important too counter random aoe damage than too get the boss down as fast as we can he says..

On one side I agree with him, but on the other side I think it's not really realisitic. Why shouldnt I optimize my character for as much dps as possible??

I will give you one example, we were doing a Karazhan run the other day and we killed Maide.

I have the Bracers Of Havok equipped and I am loving them. 39 spelldamage on bracers sure is alot. My raid leader said that I should take the bracers from Maiden since nobody else wanted them. I didnt want too use them because i lose damage but I gain 21 stamina. Stamina I dont think I need alot on the most boss fights.

Am I maybe taking my obsession for pure shadowdamage too far or should I just try too keep up maxing my shadowdamage and sacrifice maybe even more stats?

*Of course I am well aware that there are some fights where there is a base hp required and I have gear too get that but I would sacrifice alot of damage too get there*

6.6k hp UNBUFFED is fine for Karazhan. It's enough for any t4 or t5 content. Losing damage is rarely worth it for a stamina buffer if you know what environment damage is incoming. You shouldn't be getting 2-3 shot at 8kish buffed (which is what you'll have).

Thanks , thats a clear answer finally. Because most of the shadowpriests on my server who have progressed far. They all have +spelldamage and +stam in their gear. One of them even had a +12 stam gem in their gear. So there really isnt anyone on my server too talk too about this kind off stuff.

Why would they use +stam gems in their gear? *confused* and how come they have progressed so far (MH and BT almost cleared) if they gear so awkard?

If you're planning on getting into raid content that will require a base HP threshold, then taking the Nefarious Deed bracers is understandable--they're part of my stam set, with a stam enchant on them.

On the topic of Naj'entus and SWD, though...We just started him last night and did miserably. I noticed that I'd end up about 20k behind the other shadow priest with no explanation, and I know he doesn't really use Death much at all or even MB on fights where there's no insane raid damage. I was baffled by this, but apparently the shaman in my group was moved over to the other side of Naj's room to keep an eye on the mages--leaving me out of range of his totems, or so he says. Could this account for such a huge damage difference?

I was browsing through the Naj'entus WWS parses on shadowpriest.com and noticed that many priests DO use Death on him. I cut it out of my rotation entirely for that fight. Do any of you use it? I hit about 11.5k HP last night with raid buffs and an imp, but I've never heard the SCT HP warning go off so many times. -.- I was terrified of using Death. :s

Then they're idiots unless they have 1 purple gem to activate the meta. I can understand having a high stamina set, but your main set should be +damage. Period.

Because you can lose 5% damage (pulling that number out of the air) from crappy gem choices and still do decently. It is not optimal, though.

Here is a link to one of our kills: Wow Web Stats

I was above the other shadow priest by 56214 damage and had an average DPS that was 217 above his. If you ended up 20k behind your friend, that means you did about 77 less DPS, judging from my data. The 100 spell damage does not close that gap, though it contributes to it. Nor is it the gap from being threat capped with tranquil air versus threat capped without tranqil air. So I'm not sure what it is. Have a WWS parse?

I ran and cleared kara with 5k unbuffed, only swapping gear for big bad wolf and aran (and netherspite IF you're taking a full 60s blue beam but we didn't really do that until I upgraded a lot of my gear). And that was on a fire mage with no 15% damage reduction and no self-shielding...

hmmmm,
that got me thinking--

Due to mind flay's channeling mechanic, it fails early and only suffers half time penalty. So lets pretend you are attacking Gathios the Shatterer. 250 shadow resist against your level 70 spells will cause ~53% failure on binary and average ~53% damage lost on direct.

Resists with mindblast = 1357 dps (53% loss) = 2888 dps * .47
Resists with mindflay = 543 dps (36% loss) = (850 * .43 *3) / (.47*3+.53*1.5)

Generic formula for MB damage with resistance:
DPS * (1-resist%)
Generic formula for MF damage with resistance:
2 * DPS * (1-resist%) / (2-resist%)

Mind blast is still better (nor does DPM change), but it is interesting to see mind flay improve.

Graph of Mindblast DPS versus Mindflay DPS over resistance (using FNGraph)

I don't have a WWS parse at the moment. I should by Monday, we're going back for more attempts on Naj. I was riding the threat ceiling like crazy on that fight. I think I stopped casting a few times out of fear--since all of VE's heals were effective I was skyrocketing on Omen.

I checked a screenshot I did during trash (to show off my SCT configuration to a guildie) and he wasn't with a paladin at the time. He was with a nearly identical group to mine--we both had a shaman (his was ele, mine resto) and a warlock. Only difference was two mages in his group, 2 holy priests in mine.

Did he have Tranquil Air or Wrath of Air? I ask because of the next quote...

With an elemental shaman, he'll have 3% extra crit and potentially 20 more damage on his Wrath of Air. Adding another 30ish damage would mean he'd have 131 more damage than you. That plus random crit luck or resists could be the 20k difference.

I would honestly have to go ask him. Based on what I was seeing on Omen, though, he most likely had WOA; we were both insanely high on threat.

The ele shaman with him does not have the 4pt4 bonus that grants the +20 damage to WoA (unless there is another bonus that does this that I'm unaware of), but I do know that in my stamina gear, I was at about 62 +hit. In addition I'm specced 4/5 Shadow Focus, because in my regular gear I'm at 118 and could afford to drop the point. I also lost a lot of casting time on MF because of the mad AoE flying around.

Figured as much, if you were both threat capped and he had tranquil air he'd be more than 20k ahead.

Any idea what his hit was, then? I usually exchange my neck, shoulders, chest, bracers, offhand, boots, etc. Namely anything without spell hit so I stay at the cap.