This.

I chose to take the Hatefury Mantle and I'm going for the other 4 pieces of T6 first (just got 2pc last night!). The shoulders aren't a huge upgrade over FSW but they do look AMAZING in shadowform. It was the first BT/Hyjal upgrade that dropped for me (so I was pretty excited to finally upgrade some items that I'd been using for 7-8 months) and I saw our mages drooling over the Kaz pants so I've passed on them multiple times and took the T6 pants instead.

We also use a loot council system (mostly based on attendance and recently won loot) so we don't have to worry about DKP bidding and items getting sharded. The only time something is turned into a crystal is if everyone in the raid that can use it, has it.

Also, as much as the "Maximize + damage at all costs" mantra goes. I don't really abide by it too strictly. I'm happy to take a 30 stamina/int, 8 mp/5, etc. upgrade on the t6 pants even though the Kaz pants would be a bit higher for my damage. As people have been noting, a dead player does no dps... and neither does an OOM player either.

@ Crepusculu:

I'll just answer you in a list to make it easier for both of us ^^

1. I just got my Icon and haven't had an on-use trinket for months, so I think I just haven't conditioned myself to use it every chance I get. As for IF the numbers are fairly close (4 use difference), so I may not have used it on every CD, but I do remember to use it as often as possible. I think I will give the trinket-binding-to-VT thing a shot until I get used to it (I also trigger it manually).

2. I didn't notice it falling off a lot, to be honest. I wasn't running out of targets--we were on channeler duty. Not sure why the discrepancy there, but I'll try to take note of it next raid.

3. I think he was dotting the channelers before the rest of us even got to the next one. Often when one was about to die we would switch to the next and Pain/VT would already be on it. Assuming he got in a full duration, that's what, 8 ticks x 6 mobs x number of attempts? I'm assuming you're looking at the full report, since the numbers you're mentioning are rather high. I would switch targets when the mob was at about 10%~ to begin DPS on the next channeler. To be quite honest I've never had an issue with dots since I learned to let them tick to their full duration. I think the multi-target nature of this fight is what's accounting for the gap. (I hope. o.O)

4. I never get a shaman in raids (though I've managed to place ahead of him on some fights without one) anymore, and I'm also not an enchanter. I should be breaking the 1200 damage benchmark soon, though. ._.v

I appreciate the advice a great deal. I think Akama was probably not the best measure of it--I do wish I'd gotten a WWS of our Rage kill this week where I did well (even by my standards), despite spazzing out and not putting on Wizard Oil or eating spell food. There's always the chance that I'm blowing this out of proportion, but still, I wanted to make sure I'm not missing something. :/

A really big mistake, like pulling aggro will certainly get me one shotted and no amount of stamina will help. These are very rare though.

But beyond that I guess it depends what you consider them bad luck and what you consider small mistakes - I regard small mistakes as things like taking a little too long to move out of a dot/AE.

As an example I died on Supremus last night. I didn't realise there was a volcano behind me until slightly later than I should have. By the time I ran out of it I had taken a tick more damage than I needed to, and then had another volcano spawn underneath me which then killed me.

The second volcano was bad luck, but if I had been quicker to move out of the first volcano I probably wouldn't have died, or if I had been quick enough to use healthstone, pot and PW:S I would probably not have died (all I managed to use was a healthstone). Was that bad luck, or a mistake? A bit of both really.

I don't regard this as having made a terrible mistake, just not being quite as sharp as the very best players. And because of these kinds of issue I realise that I'm just not one of these very best players and am never likely to be. You may say l2playbetternoob but honestly I don't have the time or inclination to practice enough to be perfect. However, if I had more stamina I probably would have survived both volcanoes despite my mistake.

If you are indeed one of the tiny minority of players who play almost perfectly and these small mistakes never happens then great, you need less stamina than me and can maximise your damage that bit more. But for the rest of us mere mortals, stamina is a good thing and worth trading damage for. After all, what really matters is the total damage for the fight, and surviving to the end is likely to result in much more damage than an early death,

This is your problem on this fight. If you are on channeler killing duty you should trying to keep up dots (SWP and VT) on every channeler and sorceror. On this fight I hardly find myself needing to cast MB, MF or SWD until we get to Akama. Just keep tabbing between the mobs and throw SWP and VT on any which don't already have it from you. By the time you have cycled through all of the mobs, the dots on the early ones will have probably worn off.

There is simply no reason not to do this. There is no benefit to focusing one channeler down because they aren't doing any damage and all that matters is getting all (or almost all) of them dead. Only when there are 3 left does there become a slight benefit to focusing one down first.

Done right you should be approaching the damage on the rogues (beats me how they manage so much single target damage - I guess those channelers must have pretty much no armor.

Quick question about early gearing priests (Kara and blues level gear).

Say you're going with a typical 14/2/45 talent distribution.

Is it worthwhile to stack spell hit (robe of crimson order, Starkiller's Bauble, gems), so you can spec out of Shadow Focus, leaving you with talent points to spend in Disc or marginal talents like Shadow Power?

First, that talent spec is not typical. The points in holy are wasted. Second, Shadow Power, while not amazing, is certainly not marginal either. It's better than Improved Mind Blast by far. Third, you should stack your gear for spell damage as much as possible. I have best in slot or comperable for 75% of my gear, and I'm still only barely over the hit cap. If you are just starting out, you will give up way too much spell damage in exchange for hit gear. Only spec out of focus once your ideal gear set naturally puts you well over the hit cap.

Shadow focus (and similar Mage/Warlock talents) gives 2% to spell hit to that area, in this case shadow spells. So with 5 points you only need 6% spell hit to reach the boss cap.

The wording should be fixed, but the devs have bigger things to worry about.

Wondering what choices others made for their T6 Bracers?

Curious how [Focused Mana Bindings] hold up vs [Bracers of Nimble Thought] or [Cuffs of Devastation]. Focused Mana Bindings aren't even included on Shadowpriest.com's best Wrist list from what I've seen. While the Bracers of Nimble Thought have more pure dmg if you include the Haste conversion, I'm not too sold on it yet, and could potentially save the Hearts by picking up the Bindings off Akama. The Bindings also give you a bit of extra hit to take points out of Shadow Focus even more.

Any thoughts? What choices did you guys make for your Wrist slot for your final upgrade?

Depends if you have the ability to farm Hearts outside of raids (which will be harder to do post-2.3), whether you choose to build in such a way that you can take points out of shadow focus, and whether you've got competition for the Cuffs of Devastation from other classes.

For these reasons, I chose to take them. At the time, I valued having my own SR crafted early as opposed to having to draw off the guild bank for SR for Mother, so taking the bracers off Akama made more sense in that respect as well. Since we now have surplus hearts, I expect I will be making the nimble thought bracers soon.

Which is "better" assuming you have access to all three I think is relative to your needs for hit. I think in an ideal world though, where I had all my hit (and talent points) from other gear, I'd choose the nimble thought bracers above all.

Very, very arguable. Assuming you keep MB on cooldown as much as possible, MB cycle times are 9.5, 9, 8.5, 8, 7.5, and 7 seconds. Assume a 10% base crit rate. Call base mindblast damage 1.

1/9.5*(.9 + .1*1.5) (0,0)
1/7.5*(.9 + .1*1.5) = 0.14 (4,0)
1/9.5*(.78 + .22*1.5) = 0.1168 (0,4)

If you're keeping MB on cooldown, IMB yields more DPS for the same amount of points, although it also increases MPS burn. Shadow Power boosts DPM and DPS, but it doesn't boost DPS as much as IMB.

If you aren't keeping MB on cooldown, of course, IMB really doesn't provide that much benefit to you.

As an above poster said, that talent spec is by far 'typical'. 14/0/47 is the norm, with points shifted around in shadow based on your gear. If you're in blues/kara, a spec to consider is the basic:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

There are a bunch of heavily debated talent selections, but at that level of gear you shouldn't really be using mindblast a lot (exceptions like curator's evocate ARE there), while shadow power helps you solo (and silence is very useful for heroics/kara trash/soloing). Once you get familiar with the spec you should be able to see what you use/don't use and move the points in shadow around to suit your playstyle.

Secondly, no, speccing out of shadow focus is the last thing that you do to increase your DPS. What you want is as much +shadow as possible to begin with. Once you hit a decently high level of +shadow (aim for around 900-1k), your mana usage becomes easier to deal with. Gear for +dmg, and more +dmg. Use your gem slots to make up for hit rating because when you get raid gear that has innate hit rating you can replace the gems for +dmg, which is simpler than replacing an actual piece of gear.

The build above certainly isn't typical either. Why would you waste 3 points to get silence? It is a useless PVE talent, and the two points needed in improved fear make it even more so. Although nice to have for PVP, if you are primarily rading you are much better off getting imp VE.
A typical kara build would be:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

For the most part in early Kara/Gruul/Mag ect, if you are looking to maximize spell damage like you should be, crit gear is hard to come by so it is debatable whether or not using mind blast is advantageous. If you are looking to maximize DPS you need to work MB into your rotation. SWD also helps however there are many situations where using SWD regularly may not be in your best interest. The problem with mind blast is that it requires significantly more mana than MF and without it critting very often you are likely to run into mana issues even if you are chain chugging super mana potions. Sitting there oom wanding is certainly less dps than if you had stuck to mind flaying. There are ways around this for example you could stack two shadow priests in one group, however most guilds that run with two shadow priests will most likely want to split them up to help more people with mana regen.

If you need 5 points in shadow focus there are ways to get the typical 4 points in imp MB. One way would be to lose imp VE and lose 1 point in shadow reach. Some people say shadow reach is a necessity, however I disagree. One point is two yards on MF. This is about the same distance as you would cover by tapping the "W" key. Although I have two points in it now, I cleared nearly all of BT and Hyjal with only one point in it and never felt gimped at any point in time, with the only exception being phase 4 of Illidan. Really phase 4 isn't very shadow priest friendly with or without the two points so the point is moot.

Better to lose 1 point from Shadow Weaving than from Shadow Reach.

I agree with losing a point in shadow weaving being better than losing range. Remember having more movement flexibility increases your dps. And once you someone naturally have 8% hit on your gear while trying to stack max spell damage drop a point from shadow focus and put it back in weaving. However that last point in weaving is definitely not worth anywhere near the amount of spell damage you need to lose if you actively try to up your hit from 6% to 8%.

My point was that at Kara gear levels, you won't even have enough mana to keep Mind Blast on cooldown with 0/5 Improved Mind Blast, so the extra talent points are wasted. At least +15% crit helps you the few times you do choose to cast Mind Blast. And it helps Shadow Word: Death too.

If you can farm Hearts outside of raids, and your guild allows you to keep them (ie doesn't make you use them to make your own SR) then it seems like the nimble thought bracers are the best choice.

If you do not have access to Hearts from your own farming, then you either 1) take from the guild bank, slowing down the farm for Mother SR, or 2) take either the akama or rage bracers.

So when "Depends" I say it in reference to the fact that different guilds have different priorities for the use of their Hearts of Darkness, especially at the point in BT / Hyjal when you're still gearing up for Mother. Obviously if caster bracers drop every week, then your situation is different from a situation where RNG decides that no caster bracers will drop at all for you off any boss.

edit: Answering the question of why it will be harder: You will no longer be able to 2-man teron trash for easy Hearts drops, limiting your options to actual legitimate clears of said trash, or by soloing the aoe packs pre-mother. This limits access to hearts that you might be able to farm in off-hours, making it more difficult to craft the haste bracers.

For 2 months I ran Kara for that neck alone. I actually think it's better than the Reliquary of souls neck. I'm not sure if it's worth the time, but I'm glad I have it. It's the only truly good neck in the game for priests.

It depends on what zones you are raiding. The trash drop mace from Hjyal is excellent, even better than S3 gear. In general you want 1h + offhand instead of staff. This is because staves have extra itemization points spent on stamina and int while offhands generally spend stat points on spell damage.

At Kara gear levels, you absolutely have enough mana to keep IMB on cooldown if you're willing to chain mana pots on any fight that isn't excessively long (i.e. you can't do it on Alar, you probably can't do it on Morogrim, arguably Malchezaar). Given that I have a grand total of one piece of gear that can't be obtained by a player at Karazhan levels of gear, I feel quite comfortable making this statement.

I was using a full MB/SWD rotation with 5/5 MB the moment I hit 70 and crafted gear. Like Kalman said, you just need to be willing to use consumables.

The list was of pre-raid items, hence why you did not see the neck mentioned. In addition, I'm fairly sure it's the best neck, period.

It's mentioned, between the boots and weapon enchant.

1. Maelstrom's Fury and the Hammer of Judgement are both better than the arena weapons.

2. Dagger/Mace with Orb of the Soul-Eater, hands down. It shouldn't even be a question.

- Hope

I think you got a tad excited there, buddy. The season 3 mace (247dmg 17hit) is far better than the trash drop mace (236dmg 22 hit). It is, however, marginally better than the season 2 mace.

I actually just misremembered the spell damage stat. I thought the S3 weapons had 236 spell damage on them.