A Preliminary Discussion of Shadow Priest Talents in WotLK - Page 12

Mokhtar · 08/11/08, 11:22 AM

Well, glyphs are pretty underwhelming from a PvE shadowpriest perspective :
- MF : I certainly hope that removing snare component also removes the related nerf to +dmg coefficient on MF, I would trade appropriate MF scaling for the range change if it wasn't the case... There are barely any fights where short range is a problem (Prince, maybe Leo, Azgalor...), range extension would be comfortable but I kinda like the fact that I have to move around more than the typical pewpew towers out there...
- SW

: needs to be either much more that 5% or to be applied to more than just a 12 sec cooldown spell... Crittable dots under 35%, accross the board 5% more damage would be funnier / make more sense
- SW:P : nothing here, it's either a PvP talent, a *very* situationally useful glyph for PvE (tab-dots mob with more than 20 sec life expectancy, although why we would do that now that we have an AE...) or maybe something a holy priest would take for levelling... I haven't done the math but I really think the difference the Glyph would make is too small to be a factor in allowing you to shave one talent point from P&S...

mako · 08/11/08, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by tedv

For those not in the know, Vampiric Embrace doesn't get any threat reduction from Shadow Affinity, only from Blessing of Salvation. And mana regen effects (like Vampiric Touch) never modify threat for any reason. If you've seen your threat climb during Gurtogg Bloodboil's fel rage phase, that's why. It's mana regen threat and there's nothing you can do about it.

I think you're underestimating the value of having all other spells having a 36 yard range. While 24 yards is something we've learned to live with, 29 is just amazingly better and well worth the talent points. I also contend that spending 3 talent points for 12 spell damage is a poor trade, and talents like improved Vampiric Embrace would help a lot more. I'd probably run something like this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Note the trimmed point in Pain and Suffering, as a 66% refresh chance should be sufficient, especially with the +3 second to Shadow Word Pain glyph. The glyph is terrible but we'll use it because we have no other options.

The driving reason for full pain and suffering is not the refresh chance since 66% is ample. It's the SWD backlash reduction that makes it worth the full 3/3.

As for glyphs, the SWP one is a novelty, but not useful for raids based on current perspective. +5yds mindflay is pleasant, but needs a serious buff to be more than a "we use it because there's nothing else". The SWD glyph would be better reworked as giving priests an execute range, nearly identical to mage's molten fury. Something along the lines of "Targets under 20% hp take 10% more damage", making it powerful, but still inferior to mage's talents so they shouldn't be upset.

tedv · 08/11/08, 1:25 PM

Originally Posted by mako

The driving reason for full pain and suffering is not the refresh chance since 66% is ample. It's the SWD backlash reduction that makes it worth the full 3/3.

As for glyphs, the SWP one is a novelty, but not useful for raids based on current perspective. +5yds mindflay is pleasant, but needs a serious buff to be more than a "we use it because there's nothing else". The SWD glyph would be better reworked as giving priests an execute range, nearly identical to mage's molten fury. Something along the lines of "Targets under 20% hp take 10% more damage", making it powerful, but still inferior to mage's talents so they shouldn't be upset.

I've never found the Death backlash to be anything to worry about. I stop using it during the last 8 seconds of Burn on Brutallus, and sometimes during the Eredar Twins (phase 1) to be nice to healers, but that's about it. From the spec I posted, where would you trim a point for the third point in Pain and Suffering?

Regarding scaling versus mages, the preliminary theorycrafting puts mages at 50% more damage than priests. So if we do 2k damage, they do 3k. I'll note that to be "fair", we would get exactly the same percentage scaling. If they magically gave priests a 10% damage talent and mages a 20% damage talent, mages would then be doing ever more than 50% more.

DeeNogger · 08/11/08, 1:32 PM

With SW:D crits getting a 50% modifier now they should be more spikey, by at least a little, than we get now. Although it is certainly rare to get that perfect ISB + Trinket SW:D crit, you cant have the wheels falling off every time it happens. Basically, weather that 3rd point in back last reduction is needed is something you'll have to judge based largely on the encounter/instance.

But I like your build better than my 'lol inner fire' build. I was just bored as hell.

tedv · 08/11/08, 1:54 PM

Originally Posted by DeeNogger

With SW

crits getting a 50% modifier now they should be more spikey, by at least a little, than we get now. Although it is certainly rare to get that perfect ISB + Trinket SW

crit, you cant have the wheels falling off every time it happens. Basically, weather that 3rd point in back last reduction is needed is something you'll have to judge based largely on the encounter/instance.

Ignoring gimmick situations like Shade of Akama and Essence of Anger, the biggest Shadow Word: Death crits I've gotten have been just shy of 4.5k (3k max non-crit), and I'm certainly one of the best geared priests out there. Even with the extra crit damage, at level 70 this brings the spell up to 5.25k. With only 2 points in Pain and Suffering, the backlash damage is 3.15k, less than the 4.5k I would occasionally get when all the stars aligned. And 4.5k is still less than half my health bar. The backlash is absolutely nothing to worry about, and trimming another 20% will only be useful in PvP.

mako · 08/11/08, 4:52 PM

Originally Posted by tedv

I've never found the Death backlash to be anything to worry about. I stop using it during the last 8 seconds of Burn on Brutallus, and sometimes during the Eredar Twins (phase 1) to be nice to healers, but that's about it. From the spec I posted, where would you trim a point for the third point in Pain and Suffering?

Regarding scaling versus mages, the preliminary theorycrafting puts mages at 50% more damage than priests. So if we do 2k damage, they do 3k. I'll note that to be "fair", we would get exactly the same percentage scaling. If they magically gave priests a 10% damage talent and mages a 20% damage talent, mages would then be doing ever more than 50% more.

Probably focused mind, if you're set on having imp ve for early raids (still tbd if it's necessary).

Depending on the caliber of healers you play with, critting yourself for nearly half your life could send a couple into panic mode, drawing their attention away from more important targets in an attempt to heal you. Although perhaps the difference between 3k and 2k backlash won't be as significant.

Althor · 08/12/08, 12:44 AM

Here's the result of some testing on beta:

1) Dispersion can't be cast while stunned (this is of course expected).
2) Dispersion *can* be cast while counter-spelled in Shadow. (Or at least Kicked).

3) The AoE damage cap I saw as a level 75 Shadow Priest using Rank 1 Mind Sear was around 11082 damage.
That was testing on 29 mobs, hitting them for around 382-383 each on the first tick.
Shadowform didn't change the result. More ticks of Shadowweaving, as expected, didn't count towards the cap and so boosted the damage done.

Ptoleman · 08/12/08, 11:09 AM

Koraa finally posts and makes some clarifications on the status of Shadow Priests.

In response to VT being a raidwide buff, he confirms that, as of right now, it is not, but they are thinking about it:

We're still in talks about how to consolidate buffs/debuffs between classes. Making VT raidwide is a possibility, but yes it would mean the value of multiple Shadow Priests in a raid is somewhat diminished. In a lot of ways we're okay with that (you shouldn't *have* to have multiple specs of one class in a raid), but there are a lot of other side effects we're not sure about right now. (src)

This quote immediately follows and is far more interesting/encouraging:

To be honest, 2.5% still might be too high. In our tests, Shadow Priests were still providing around the same amount of mana to their party (if not more) than before because of their increased damage output. Not to mention the Priest wasn't going out of mana at all because of Spirit/Improved Spirit Tap. You guys aren't testing enough

.

We can draw several conclusions from this paragraph:

VT mana returns in Beta are (or are meant to be) 2.5%, not 2%.
VT mana return, according to Blizzard's internal testing, is still quite sufficient to warrant S-Priests in raids.
Our DPS is increasing dramatically compared to BC: a 200% DPS increase, going on basic math.
The VT Nerf was rather thought out, as opposed to being a knee-jerk reaction.

If this is the case, then much my fears about the spec's viability have been allayed. We'll have to wait for further confirmation from players once they reach 80 and start forming raids, but I think I can stand firm in believing that Blizzard knows what it's doing.

Caligula · 08/12/08, 11:34 AM

I'm not sure why any Shadow Priest would have any fears about viability. Until they either a) nerf Misery and Shadow Weaving to the point of uselessness or b) nerf casters to the point where no one brings any to a raid, there will always be a spot for a minimum of 1. The nerf to VT is expected and needed. Without it, classes would need to be balanced around having the Shadow Priest in their group. That's OK to an extent, but here at the end of TBC we have specs that are made or broken depending on whether there is a Shadow Priest in party (Arcane Mage for example). Encounters are being designed assuming you'll bring at least one, if not two or three to a raid. This is wrong. Looking forward to WotLK, Blizzard seems to be putting more and more synergy in groups in an attempt to bring more diverse raids (every class with 3 viable talent trees) rather than the current trend of stacking 4-6 Shaman, 2-3 Shadow Priests, etc. etc. This is a good thing.

I have a feeling the mana return will be cut down even more, especially if they make VT raid-wide.

deadjon · 08/12/08, 11:37 AM

I few thoughts from my own beta exp on Deadjon (my shadow priest, 5/8 T6 2.0 goggles etc...) He's only level 76 at the moment, close to 77 (current cap)

Mind Sear is hitting for 700 - 800 and critting up to 1500. Testing has been done on up to 5 mobs. No damage on target, mana cost is quite high (1/4 of my 10k mana pool.) But its shadow priest AoE, and that's awesome. I've been enjoying tossing up VT and SWP on several mobs then dumping Mind Sear. Always have to drink afterward tho...

The new spirit tap is good. I never have to drink if I'm soloing and not AoEing or multi-dotting more than 3 mobs.

Imp Shadow Form is amazing. 70% pushback protection is just godly for Mind Flay. Not sure if it's gonna be a huge lvl 80 raid tallent, but if there's much raid damage I believe it will be.

VT mana returns are a little "meh" at the moment, at least it feels that way. It could be that I just trained a lot of new skills w/o new gear to back them up. I'm also a little confused where to put my next tallent point and the points I'll get up to 80. Imp VE? Perhaps meditation?

rooj · 08/12/08, 4:40 PM

I have run a few of the early instances in Beta (Nexus and Uthgarde Keep) and found that while I had no mana issues soloing, multi mob dotting was draining my mana much faster and it was hard to go without drinking on nearly 1 or 2 pulls. (I went with a 5/0/56 build).

That said, it is very difficult for me to really make an accurate observation, since personal mana regen for SPs I suspect will depend much more on spirit than just on VT mana return alone. I just don't have enough spirit on my gear as of yet to see how much more of an impact it will be. I suspect that it will be significant, as Spirit tap even with low spirit gear, is incredible when it comes to soloing and grinding. I am going to try and use some of my heal gear and resocket them for dps and try and see some difference.

I will install Recount on Beta and post some results soon to give people a baseline comparison for level 70 right now. And hopefully, when I get to 75+ with new gear as well.

Ptoleman · 08/12/08, 4:53 PM

Try not to cling too heavily to whatever gear you currently have. T6/Sunwell gear is nice, but it's not Northrend gear, and all we should care about in our experiments is Northrend gear, especially when you factor in Twisted Faith. Blues and Greens in Northrend have incredible amounts of spirit on them, or so say the reports. One of the posters reminded everyone that Improved Spirit Tap is tuned around your having lots of spirit. Go figure.

It's pretty safe to say that Northrend gear is going to be much better itemized than Outland gear. Spirit isn't the red-headed stepchild of stats any longer, thankfully. The improvement may warrant dumping high-end BC gear early. It really doesn't make sense to extrapolate DPS or viability off gear you'll replace anyway the moment you hit the level cap. Level 79 is as irrelevant to Level 80 as Level 70.

Jubling · 08/12/08, 5:16 PM

Most Outland quest greens aren't very good (from a t6 shadowpriest perspective), the majority seem to be itemized by randomly picking equal amounts of three stats from int, sta, spi, spellpower, crit and haste. Compare this with epic gemmed and enchanted t6 that has more spellpower before sockets and always both spellpower, haste and no crit (hopefully

).
The best I've seen so far is sacrificing an equal amount of haste for spirit, for example [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] to Ring of Decimation (the auto-item-linker doesn't like Wrath items).

mako · 08/12/08, 5:20 PM

Originally Posted by Ptoleman

Try not to cling too heavily to whatever gear you currently have. T6/Sunwell gear is nice, but it's not Northrend gear, and all we should care about in our experiments is Northrend gear, especially when you factor in Twisted Faith. Blues and Greens in Northrend have incredible amounts of spirit on them, or so say the reports. One of the posters reminded everyone that Improved Spirit Tap is tuned around your having lots of spirit. Go figure.

It's pretty safe to say that Northrend gear is going to be much better itemized than Outland gear. Spirit isn't the red-headed stepchild of stats any longer, thankfully. The improvement may warrant dumping high-end BC gear early. It really doesn't make sense to extrapolate DPS or viability off gear you'll replace anyway the moment you hit the level cap. Level 79 is as irrelevant to Level 80 as Level 70.

Early northrend gear is still trash, as early tbc gear was for those in aq40/naxx gear.

rooj · 08/12/08, 5:44 PM

I am a bit confused by the developer's assertion that raid-wide VT would mean less stacking of Shadow priests. If VT returns did in fact go raid-wide, it seems to me it would increase rather than decrease the incentive to bring multiple SPs.

VT mana returns stacked within groups from my understanding. If it went raidwide, (and kept the same mechanic) it would mean that we would return to TBC mana return rates with 2 SPs and go beyond by stacking, and not just for a single group, but for the entire raid. Am I missing something here?

The group restriction limited the use of VT and VE stacking, and besides, people were already unable to go OOM with a single SP. But if it went raid-wide...

Althor · 08/12/08, 8:36 PM

It's definitely at 2% on beta, not 2.5%. Maybe they were trying it out at 2.5% on an internal build.

And yeah, despite the various assertions by the Blizzard crowd, it's not like those of us interested in this stuff haven't thought about using "Northrend itemised" gear instead of TBC gear. It's not rocket science.

And frankly the numbers don't really support the case of our DPS increasing by a factor of 2 from what we've seen in level 80 raid gear (from our estimates of ilvl and stat spread) compared to level 70 high end raid gear.

It's possible of course that they're not comparing Naxx level gear with Sunwell gear though. They might be comparing Naxx gear with Kara gear and seeing a doubling of DPS there.

But that's hardly encouraging for the high end raiders in my opinion.

And it also doesn't change the fact that no matter what our DPS is, our scaling will remain poor enough that our relative strength will continue to slide.

As for the stacking comment....again, the only way their comment makes sense if they're looking at changing the spell to not stack. Which if they did would totally remove *any* desire to have more than 1 Shadow Priest in a raid or even a party. You'd gain zero extra utility and just be left with the lowest performing DPS class.

There are also other concerns with going raid wide, which I can only assume they're working on. Namely threat generation. VT (and possibly VE) as raid wide would generate some pretty insane threat generation for the Shadow Priest.

Ptoleman · 08/12/08, 8:44 PM

Early northrend gear is still trash, as early tbc gear was for those in aq40/naxx gear.

In terms of raw damage stats, no doubt. However, testing the effectiveness of Twisted Faith/Improved Spirit Tap with low Spirit T6/Sunwell gear is not good testing, pure and simple. If the level 77 greens/blues around get you 700-800 spirit easily, but your Sunwell gear has half that amount, it makes no sense for testing purposes to use the Sunwell gear over the Northrend gear. If you want to use it for soloing/instancing/leveling, that's perfectly fine.

The point is that at Level 80 you're going to replace all your gear. Therefore if you want to test the effectiveness of Wrath talents, then don't use BC gear. Use something that lines up more with Wrath itemization.

The group restriction limited the use of VT and VE stacking, and besides, people were already unable to go OOM with a single SP. But if it went raid-wide...

You just answered your own question. :P

Althor · 08/13/08, 1:07 AM

Spirit is going to help for our personal regen, no doubt about it, and I don't think anything would argue much differently.

But how much of a boost is it for our DPS (and thus by extension our VE and VT returns. i.e. our raid utility)?

In endgame raiding in SWP you might have say 350 buffed spirit (being somewhat generous hear).
Let's say in Northrend end-game raiding we're rocking 2000 spirit (tbh, I doubt it's going to be this high but hey, let's aim high).

Let's also assume we're going to have a 30% crit rate on Mind Blast and SW

.

Ok, so 2000 spirit alone is worth +720 damage with Twisted Faith and Imp. DS.

That extra 720 damage translates into (with all relevant talents + CoEl, but no totems etc):
Mind Blasts hitting for an extra 638 (averaging in crit damage) per MB (or 91 DPS over the casttime+cooldown)
Shadow Word: Death also hitting for an extra 638 each (or 53 DPS over the cooldown)
SW:P ticking for an extra 223 (74 DPS)
VT ticking for an extra 243 (81 DPS)
Mind Flay ticking for an extra 231 DPS.

Assuming a perfect (and pretty much impossible) no-collisions rotation where we can just add up the DPS's that's an extra 530 DPS from that 2000 spirit.
In practice it'd be less as you'd be having overlaps and collisions between spells.

530 DPS is 10.6 mana/second from VT which is 53 mp5.

What about Improved Spirit Tap?

Let's see how much of a damage boost it would give while procced:
It's 50% more spirit so we can just scale things up by 50%.
That 530 DPS becomes 795 DPS for the duration.

In 84 seconds you can cast 7 SW

's and 12 MB's. So that's 19 chances to proc Imp ST in 84 seconds.
It's been a while since I've done serious math so let's say that's an average chance to proc once every 4.42seconds, with a 30% proc rate (the crit rate). According to a quick C simulator I wrote, that comes to around a 47.5% uptime (I'm guessing with non-evenly spaced spells it'd be lower but let's go with this).

So 795 DPS 47.5% of the time and 530 DPS 52.5% of the time.

That's 656 DPS on average.

So 656 DPS from 2000 spirit. Which is 13.1 mana/second = 65.6 mp5 via VT from 2000 spirit.
And that's under ideal conditions. Actual numbers will be lower.

How much +dmg do we need in TBC to get 65.6 mp5?
Well we'd need 262.35 DPS and going by a roughly generally accepted DPS -> Dmg conversion of 0.55 DPS per +dmg for a Shadow Priest and you're at +477 dmg.

So 2000 spirit in WotLK would be roughly equivalent to say +477 dmg in TBC when it comes to returns from Vampiric Touch. In WotLK with Twin Disciplines it's worth around +454 dmg. (Assuming the scalings on TBC and Beta).

So is spirit going to be the saviour of the Shadowpriest? Is this going to suddenly fix all of our scaling issues?
I dunno....I have my own opinion, and I crunch the numbers....but you can all form your own.

Tymir · 08/13/08, 5:19 AM

Althor,
Your post got me into thinking about mana efficiency at level 80.

I added the level 80 spells into the latest version of my WotLK updated spreadsheet, which was a change in my methodology since up to this point I had mainly been trying to keep everything relevant to level 70 (gear, rating conversions, et cetera) in an attempt to see how the class fares in comparison to pre-WotLK levels. Needless to say I found that net mana out was a mere 84 mana per 5 without updating any of the following to level 80 versions:

Blessing of Wisdom, Mana Spring Totem, account for multiple Mana Tides or Glyph of Mana Tide, Improved Water Elemental, the new Judgement of Wisdom, the increased mana pool from leveling to 80, or the many other factors that would further increase longevity.

Just about the only mana changes I did account for was the 43% Improved Spirit Tap uptime I reverse engineered out of a recent Teron parse and the new 18 second Shadow Fiend duration. The gear utilized was TBC best in slot Sunwell gear that with WotLK raid buffs was far over the haste cap. Even without using any potions at all (rather than the allowed one per fight) the -84 mana per 5 allowed for 12 minutes of continuous maximal DPS casting.

Given the circumstances I find it pretty unlikely that spirit will be a coveted stat in WotLK. Sure it's going to be slightly more effective than Spell Crit Rating for increasing DPS, with a tertiary benefit of increasing endurance, but it simply is not the most effective stat.

Althor · 08/13/08, 5:52 AM

Yeah, to be honest given Improved Spirit Tap I haven't been *too* concerned with personal longevity on single target fights.

The character I'm playing on the beta is still pretty much just in full T4 and while I haven't instanced yet, I only rarely have downtime while solo pulling. And that's without using Shadowfiend or Dispersion.

That said, I haven't experienced instancing and obviously haven't experienced raiding on beta yet. Solo leveling can happen at a fairly relaxed pace and you're not straining to get every last ounce of DPS out.

Where the extra regen from lots of spirit might help more however is with Mind Sear where an Imp Spirit Tap proc or a normal Spirit Tap proc could significantly change the mana/sec drain.

But yes, you'd stack spirit until mana isn't an issue for the length of the fights and then you'd mostly ignore it as in TBC and stack +dmg.

Ptoleman · 08/13/08, 10:24 AM

Spirit is going to help for our personal regen, no doubt about it, and I don't think anything would argue much differently.

But how much of a boost is it for our DPS (and thus by extension our VE and VT returns. i.e. our raid utility)?

In endgame raiding in SWP you might have say 350 buffed spirit (being somewhat generous hear).
Let's say in Northrend end-game raiding we're rocking 2000 spirit (tbh, I doubt it's going to be this high but hey, let's aim high).

Let's also assume we're going to have a 30% crit rate on Mind Blast and SW.

Ok, so 2000 spirit alone is worth +720 damage with Twisted Faith and Imp. DS.

That extra 720 damage translates into (with all relevant talents + CoEl, but no totems etc):
Mind Blasts hitting for an extra 638 (averaging in crit damage) per MB (or 91 DPS over the casttime+cooldown)
Shadow Word: Death also hitting for an extra 638 each (or 53 DPS over the cooldown)
SW:P ticking for an extra 223 (74 DPS)
VT ticking for an extra 243 (81 DPS)
Mind Flay ticking for an extra 231 DPS.

Assuming a perfect (and pretty much impossible) no-collisions rotation where we can just add up the DPS's that's an extra 530 DPS from that 2000 spirit.
In practice it'd be less as you'd be having overlaps and collisions between spells.

530 DPS is 10.6 mana/second from VT which is 53 mp5.

What about Improved Spirit Tap?

Let's see how much of a damage boost it would give while procced:
It's 50% more spirit so we can just scale things up by 50%.
That 530 DPS becomes 795 DPS for the duration.

In 84 seconds you can cast 7 SW's and 12 MB's. So that's 19 chances to proc Imp ST in 84 seconds.
It's been a while since I've done serious math so let's say that's an average chance to proc once every 4.42seconds, with a 30% proc rate (the crit rate). According to a quick C simulator I wrote, that comes to around a 47.5% uptime (I'm guessing with non-evenly spaced spells it'd be lower but let's go with this).

So 795 DPS 47.5% of the time and 530 DPS 52.5% of the time.

That's 656 DPS on average.

So 656 DPS from 2000 spirit. Which is 13.1 mana/second = 65.6 mp5 via VT from 2000 spirit.
And that's under ideal conditions. Actual numbers will be lower.

How much +dmg do we need in TBC to get 65.6 mp5?
Well we'd need 262.35 DPS and going by a roughly generally accepted DPS -> Dmg conversion of 0.55 DPS per +dmg for a Shadow Priest and you're at +477 dmg.

So 2000 spirit in WotLK would be roughly equivalent to say +477 dmg in TBC when it comes to returns from Vampiric Touch. In WotLK with Twin Disciplines it's worth around +454 dmg. (Assuming the scalings on TBC and Beta).

So is spirit going to be the saviour of the Shadowpriest? Is this going to suddenly fix all of our scaling issues?
I dunno....I have my own opinion, and I crunch the numbers....but you can all form your own.

Numbers are fun. Bad assumptions and narrow-minded crunching make them more fun.

All your data is based on a 2% VT. If you want to test Blizzard's claims, then do it on the basis they stated, i.e., a 2.5% VT. How exactly is it fair to take whatever gear we have, test it on a lower VT, and then whine in Blizzard's face that our damage isn't enough? The difference between a 2% VT and a 2.5% VT is incredibly significant. Simple calculations indicate that at a 2% VT we need to put out around 4100 DPS to make up for the nerf, but at 2.5% it's only around 3200.

530 DPS on 2.5% VT = 13.25 mps = 66.25 MP5.

656 DPS on 2.5% VT = 16.4 mps = 82 MP5.

This means that, according to your own specifications, this damage equates to 596.36 damage in TBC.

I, however, don't understand the scale of .55 DPS = 1 dmg at all. That says DPS = dmg/.55. I have 1252 + Shadow Damage and 217 +haste currently, and I put out around 1300-1400 DPS. A Shadow Priest with 1000-1100 +damage should be putting out at least 1000 DPS. Explain to me how .55 DPS/dmg works is derived, because if it's true with my stats I should be putting out 2300+ DPS. That's, um, obviously not right.

But it's meaningless to quote how much of an increase in DPS spirit gives us. How much is our total DPS once all of this is taken into account? From what I've seen, most tests don't take Twisted Faith into account. They've got a smattering of some Northrend stuff and a whole lot of Sunwell-level gear, none of which plays to our strengths in the expansion.

Assuming at Level 80 the average Shadow Priest has easily around the Sunwell level of damage, so they're capping out...without taking any of the natural and enormous DPS increases from 70/80 into account, at around 1700 DPS. This is a stupid assumption, to be sure, as Shadow Priest DPS will be increasing beyond 1700 easily. But let's assume that there isn't one.

Somehow a 600-700 damage from nothing but spirit, putting us to about 2300 damage, is insignificant, completely ignoring the increase in the base values of our damage, +crit, +damage, etc.

Using Tymir's S-Priest DPS spreadsheet, merely increasing our +damage to 2800 with 20% haste reaches, buffed with level 70 consumables (ha!), 3171 DPS. This, again, completely disregards the increase to our base values of damage and what not. This is exactly where we need to be to reach parity with the current VT. Of course, Tymir's S-Priest spreadsheet is all based on current gear levels and stats, but that's exactly the point. If all we need to roughly reach regen parity with current circumstances is 2800 +damage, how exactly is it somehow impractical to think that, with Inner Fire, Twin Disciplines, Twisted Faith, the base increase in +damage availability on gear, etc., that we won't reach or exceed that point?

You do not seem to understand the amount of damage we'll practically have at 80 is going to be dramatically inflated, but our scaling based on that amount will remain about the same. I say "about" because with SW:P being constantly refreshed, along with +10% MB and +10-15% MF damage, our scaling might be a bit higher. Our spell rotations are going to be cleaner, meaning significantly increased mana return. Right now we scale roughly 1 DPS to 1 with damage. If Blizzard refuses to play with our coefficients for inner consistency, then the next logical step is to greatly increase the amount of our best damage stat we can get. Since Northrend gear tends to be loaded with spirit, Blizzard might as well have increased the spell damage coefficient on all our spells by 30%.

You can crunch the numbers all you want. All of this is napkin math, and it's not meant to be 100% accurate. It's only meant to show that Blizzard's way of thinking can be reasonably justified. Math isn't everything. It has to be put into the proper context. If you keep clinging to a Level 70 outlook with Level 70 gear and Level 70 itemization, Level 80 seems pretty disappointing.

As for stacking +dmg over spirit, you might as well have said you're going to stack +dmg over intellect in TBC or +dmg over stamina. In case you didn't notice, Northrend caster DPS items tend to have very large amounts of spirit in addition to high amounts of damage. The two stats are not mutually exclusive, especially when 1 spirit roughly equals .4 damage (taking into account Divine Spirit and the Improved Spirit Tap proc).

tedv · 08/13/08, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by Ptoleman

I, however, don't understand the scale of .55 DPS = 1 dmg at all. That says DPS = dmg/.55. I have 1252 + Shadow Damage and 217 +haste currently, and I put out around 1300-1400 DPS. A Shadow Priest with 1000-1100 +damage should be putting out at least 1000 DPS. Explain to me how .55 DPS/dmg works is derived, because if it's true with my stats I should be putting out 2300+ DPS. That's, um, obviously not right.

You have the equation flipped. The estimated DPS increase from X spell damage is X * k, where k is at least .45. (You were using .55, but it depends on how much haste you have.) You were computing X / k.

Of course, that doesn't mean you should be doing 600 DPS with 1200 spell damage. That's because spells have a base damage. A shadow priest with 0 spell damage doesn't do 0 DPS. They probably do around 600 DPS. It's also worth noting that there's a feedback loop between spell damage and spell haste. The more haste you have, the better the spell damage to DPS conversion. (This is in fact the only purpose of spell haste.) And of course that means the more spell damage you have, the better haste is because each point of haste is modifying more spell damage.

dedmonwakeen · 08/13/08, 11:35 AM

Regarding Spirit vs Spell Power.....

This is level 80 players with level 80 talents using level 80 spells against level 83 target.......

A snippet of raid_wotlk.txt

#
# Shadow Priest
#
# (1) The "trigger=3500" option to mana_potion represents the mana gained and the amount below max required to trigger
# (2) The "trigger=6000" option to shadow_fiend represents the amount below max mana required to trigger
#
priest=Priest_Shadow
level=80
talents=http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priest/talents2.html?tal=05023001300000000000000000000000000000000000000000000320023051025012305152501351
actions=flask,type=pure_death/inner_fire/shadow_form/mana_potion,trigger=3500/shadow_fiend,trigger=6000/dispersion/vampiric_touch/inner_focus,shadow_word_pain/shadow_word_pain/mind_blast/shadow_word_death/mind_flay
gear_stamina=600
gear_intellect=600
gear_spirit=600
gear_spell_power=2500
gear_spell_crit_rating=200
gear_spell_hit_rating=200
gear_haste_rating=500
glyph_shadow_word_death=1
pet=shadow_fiend
main_hand=beast,damage=110,speed=1.5,school=shadow
quiet=1
active=owner
# Throw in a pair of Paladins.......  Eventually these static parms will be replaced with real actors.
blessing_of_kings=1
blessing_of_wisdom=1
sanctified_retribution=1
swift_retribution=1

A snippet of the results from: ./simcraft input=raid_wotlk.txt

Player=Priest_Shadow DPS=3316.9 DPM=15.2 MPS=218.0/213.9 
  Core Stats:  strength=44  agility=50  stamina=726  intellect=820  spirit=831  health=9800  mana=13515
  Spell Stats:  power=2749  hit=7.6%  crit=10.5%  penetration=0  haste=13.2%  mp5=91
  Attack Stats:  power=34  hit=0.0%  crit=4.0%  expertise=0.0  penetration=0  haste=13.2%
  Actions:
    mind_blast            Count= 35.9| 8.1sec  DPS=4150.5  DPE=5639|21%  DPET=4151  Miss=0.5%  Hit=4621  CritHit=8699|8927|25.5%
    mind_flay             Count= 75.5| 3.9sec  DPS=2208.5  DPE=5150|40%  DPET=2208  Miss=0.5%  Tick=1733
    shadow_word_death     Count= 19.1|15.2sec  DPS=3521.7  DPE=4757| 9%  DPET=3522  Miss=0.4%  Hit=3893  CritHit=7315|7769|25.7%
    shadow_word_pain      Count=  1.1|276.5sec  DPS= 535.2  DPE=145423|16%  DPET=562895  Miss=0.4%  Tick=1607
    vampiric_touch        Count= 19.5|14.9sec  DPS= 428.6  DPE=6424|13%  DPET=4673  Miss=0.6%  Tick=1416
    shadow_fiend-melee    Count= 11.0|26.5sec  DPS= 271.6  DPE= 407| 0%  DPET= 272  Miss=6.3%  Hit= 485  CritHit= 975| 998|5.2%

A snippet of the results from: ./simcraft input=raid_wotlk.txt active=Priest_Shadow enchant_spirit=500

Player=Priest_Shadow DPS=3477.2 DPM=15.9 MPS=218.3/217.1 
  Core Stats:  strength=44  agility=50  stamina=726  intellect=820  spirit=1380  health=9800  mana=13515
  Spell Stats:  power=2914  hit=7.6%  crit=10.5%  penetration=0  haste=13.2%  mp5=91
  Attack Stats:  power=34  hit=0.0%  crit=4.0%  expertise=0.0  penetration=0  haste=13.2%
  Actions:
    mind_blast            Count= 37.0| 8.1sec  DPS=4328.1  DPE=5879|21%  DPET=4328  Miss=0.5%  Hit=4809  CritHit=9051|9393|25.8%
    mind_flay             Count= 77.8| 3.9sec  DPS=2328.0  DPE=5426|40%  DPET=2328  Miss=0.4%  Tick=1827
    shadow_word_death     Count= 19.8|15.2sec  DPS=3680.5  DPE=4969| 9%  DPET=3680  Miss=0.4%  Hit=4068  CritHit=7644|8213|25.7%
    shadow_word_pain      Count=  1.1|281.2sec  DPS= 558.6  DPE=154065|16%  DPET=559401  Miss=0.6%  Tick=1678
    vampiric_touch        Count= 20.3|14.8sec  DPS= 451.9  DPE=6723|13%  DPET=4895  Miss=0.7%  Tick=1493
    shadow_fiend-melee    Count= 11.0|27.3sec  DPS= 270.4  DPE= 406| 0%  DPET= 270  Miss=6.2%  Hit= 485  CritHit= 972| 998|4.9%

A snippet of the results from: ./simcraft input=raid_wotlk.txt active=Priest_Shadow enchant_spell_power=500

Player=Priest_Shadow DPS=3673.6 DPM=16.8 MPS=218.1/215.3 
  Core Stats:  strength=44  agility=50  stamina=726  intellect=820  spirit=831  health=9800  mana=13515
  Spell Stats:  power=3249  hit=7.6%  crit=10.5%  penetration=0  haste=13.2%  mp5=91
  Attack Stats:  power=34  hit=0.0%  crit=4.0%  expertise=0.0  penetration=0  haste=13.2%
  Actions:
    mind_blast            Count= 35.5| 8.1sec  DPS=4525.8  DPE=6149|21%  DPET=4526  Miss=0.4%  Hit=5037  CritHit=9481|9711|25.5%
    mind_flay             Count= 74.8| 3.9sec  DPS=2457.4  DPE=5730|40%  DPET=2457  Miss=0.5%  Tick=1929
    shadow_word_death     Count= 19.0|15.2sec  DPS=3867.4  DPE=5222| 9%  DPET=3867  Miss=0.5%  Hit=4275  CritHit=8041|8516|25.7%
    shadow_word_pain      Count=  1.1|273.5sec  DPS= 594.4  DPE=159737|16%  DPET=610201  Miss=0.5%  Tick=1785
    vampiric_touch        Count= 19.4|14.9sec  DPS= 481.9  DPE=7215|13%  DPET=5251  Miss=0.5%  Tick=1592
    shadow_fiend-melee    Count= 11.0|26.2sec  DPS= 291.7  DPE= 438| 0%  DPET= 292  Miss=6.2%  Hit= 522  CritHit=1042|1073|4.9%

So.........
3317 baseline DPS
3477 after increasing Spirit by 500
3674 after increasing Spell Power by 500

Given:
(1) The raid composition of raid_wotlk.txt (Boomkin, Ele-Shaman, Enh-Shaman, Shadow Priest, Holy Priest)
(2) The gear point of player Priest_Shadow
(3) Pally buffs as if they were present (static buffs since Pally support has not yet been added to SimulationCraft)

dDPS/dSpirit => 0.320
dDPS/dSpellPower => 0.714

So.....
At this particular gear point and group composition....
1 Spell Power is worth 2.23 Spirit
1 Spirit is worth 0.448 Spell Power

EDIT: No support for Warlocks yet, so no Shadow Vulnerability present in above simulations. Finishing up Mage support at present and will address Warlock support shortly.

EDIT2: For those interested, a snippet from the Up-Time report:
Priest_Shadow:
40.1% : improved_spirit_tap
20.2% : moonkin_haste

rooj · 08/13/08, 11:38 AM

I am curious to see how spirit is treated in terms of item budget. Prior to WotLK, spirit had quite a bit of value on cloth for priest healers. Our holy brethren socketed spirit and many valued it as much as, or more than +healing. But now that spirit is a useable stat for every cloth wearer, I wonder if spirit would just be included on all the cloth gear and its item budget value reduced.

We may not need to choose between high spirit items with lower spellpower and lower spirit items with higher spell power. I suspect the stats we will need to make decisions on will still be haste, crit and possibly spell hit. But I am not sure I wouldn't want the option of putting on "personal regen" gear for long endurance fights. The prominence of spirit in our personal regen for fights may make it more of a choice when we are more concerned with endurance. With the inability to pot more than once, it will be an interesting thing to keep an eye on.

Tymir · 08/13/08, 4:19 PM

Originally Posted by Bornakk

One thing I have been reminding players of is that we don't currently plan to completely redo a statistic this time like we did with stamina. Where in The Burning Crusade players saw items with a ton more stamina that lead to immediate changes to their gear, in Wrath of the Lich King you should more or less be seeing gear that is just higher level.

The stamina change, along with resilience saw an end to the pvp glass cannon. There wouldn't really be any justification for making a similar change to spirit, not since the new regen formula anyways.