tedv

Maximize Spell Damage + Haste + (Crit/6).
If you are around 1000 buffed or less, I'd use Damage + Haste*0.8 + (Crit/8)

 

rooj

I think i may still be clipping the last tick off of my SWPs. I was wondering, for those of you with dot timers, do you cst SWP after the dot completely ticks off, or do you try and get it at the end of it and use the spell queue?

 

tedv

Always wait for it to completely tick off. If you try and get it at the end, you are almost certainly overwriting the dot. But check the combat log to make sure.

 

• Snowy

I always wait until my bar for SWP disappears. Clipping it by .1 sec is a lot worse than delaying it by 1 second.

 

dyelynn

I've found, after mind numbingly long stares at my dot bars, that there is a certain amount of exploitable lag, between the time the dot dissapeares off the mob and your timer. I assume this is the same mechanic that addons like quartz use. At any rate, the short of it is, as you expect SW:P to reach 0 on your dot timer, the time it takes you to click the button or press the key is enough to allow the dot to fall off and hit it's final tick, and reapply the new dot.

As I've recently spent quite a bit of time trying to get better at dot uptime and not clipping either vt or swp, I've had quite a bit of practice and this seems to work just fine.

 

Matarael

Hi there, I'm a holy priest in a BT/Hyjal guild (currently 6/9 and 5/5). We have a lack of shadow priest since the beginning of TBC, so I respec quite often when we have enough healers. I only get the stuff that nobody wants (as I'm primary a healer), and I try to do as many ZA as I can to gather a haste stuff.

Due to incredibly bad luck on loot, i only have 3 pieces with haste ([Bracers of Nimble Thought], [Waistwrap of Infinity] and [Brooch of Nature's Mercy]). Right now i have the choice between:

Max spell damage set : about 1290 shadow spell damage raid buffed (neither including the 80 from the [Darkmoon Card: Crusade], nor WoA totem) and 0 haste
Or
Haste set : about 1230 shadow spell damage raid buffed (same as above) and 93 haste.

It's a trade of 60 spell damage for 93 haste, or 1 haste for 1.5 spell damage. After reading several threads about haste at shadowpriest.com • Index page, and the http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t16977-s...s_effectively/ , I thought i should choose the haste set to increase my dps.

After having tested both sets in raids and practicing a lot on Dr. Boom, I found that I usually do less dps with haste than without (on Dr. Boom, about 950 dps in spell damage set, and 900 dps with haste, in raids about 1130 dps with spell damage and 1060 with haste). I don't understand. Am I doing something wrong? Or maybe I don't have enough haste ?
What should I do to increase further my dps (except changing my crappy robe )?

 

Balkoth

Likely you're not actually using the haste, so to speak. If you're delaying 0.5 seconds and not casting to refresh SW:P that is going to end in 0.5 seconds, you're wasting the benefit of haste and thus your DPS *will* be lower. Make sure you continuously cast, period. If you delay by 0.1 seconds here and there, you eliminate the value of haste eventually leading to more casts, basically.

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

 

Matarael

If my SW: P is going to end in 0.5 seconds, isn't it better to wait to refresh it rather than start a MF and clipping it right after the GCD?

 

Tymir

Also it's important to note that on Dr. Boom not full raid buffs and target debuffs causes haste to have a lower dps increase when compared to spell damage.

 

Althor

You have +1290 damage.
Assuming CoS is up and 5 stacks of Shadowweaving on average (and non-crit) your spells will be doing the following:
1 tick of Mind Flay = 676.7 dmg
1 tick of SW:P = 711.2 dmg

If you cast the Mind Flay and clip it straight after the GCD then over the next 25.5 seconds (1 GCD + 8 ticks of SW:P) you've added 676.7+8*711.2 = 6366.3 damage. Or a DPS of 6366.3/25.5 = 249.6

If you wait 0.5 seconds then cast the SW:P you've done 8*711.2 damage over 24.5 seconds == 5689.6 / 24.5 = 232.2 DPS.

So in terms of just Mind Flay and SW:P at least it's pretty clear cut that you don't hold back.

 

Matarael

Thanks for the answers, I'll try a more agressive cycle tonight if I stay shadow speced. I will also use Althor's example to calculate when it is better to cast/clip MF, and when it is not ( MB being up in 0.5 seconds, with all others spells on CD often happens to me due to 5/5 Imp. MB when I don't use haste).

@Tymir : What suprised me was that even in a raid situation, using haste decreased my dps. I hope I will perform better now

 

tedv

No, that is horrible. It means you waited 2.5 seconds of not doing DoT damage, and when you refresh, there will be another 3 seconds before the first tick of the refreshed Pain goes off. So you have a 5.5 second period of time with only one DoT tick. This is an enormous DPS loss.

You should just cast some other spell, like Mind Blast or Touch (if it's time to cast those). If everything is really on cooldown, refresh Vampiric Embrace if it will wear off in the next 15 seconds or so. If that's not the case, the best choice is to cast nothing for .5 seconds. I'm not kidding. That's better than refreshing pain early and it's better than a 2 second clipped mind flay (and much better than a 1.5 second clipped mind flay).

Also, looking at your armory, your bracers of nimble thought aren't enchanted and it's listing you at around 1060 damage unbuffed. Perhaps you have lost more spell damage in you gear swaps than you claimed, if your main set bracers have 20 spell damage on them?

 

Noxana

After reading the last few posts, I believe I may also not be utilizing haste appropriately either. Pre-haste, I was usually behind Coercion (see WWS) but only by 50 DPS or so; it's now jumped to 100 dps or more. In the below report, he did have more drum users, an ele shaman and a boomkin, but I would hope to put out at least 1400 dps when taking into account my gear. Again, the only thing I can think is that I'm not a fast enough "clicker" and am not using haste appropriately. I'm considering going for more of a pure damage build as my playstyle really isn't suited for keypounding. Any advice is appreciated.

Wow Web Stats

 

rooj

Nox-

I am a gear level below you, so I am just going to point out what I see in WWS with no intepretation.

Coercion's crit rate on both MB and SWD seem to be 20% higher than yours. You actually got more hits off MB, and had a higher average hit, but he critted 43% of his while you only critted 26%.. so despite having a higher average and 1 more hit than coercion, he did nearly 30K more MB dmg then you.

Now what i was most surprised about was the difference in dmg on MF. With haste I would expect you to have a higher dmg amount from MF than coercion, but it turns out the opposite. Coercion had nearly 50k more dmg, and that is because he got 211 ticks of MF compared to your 161.

If i were to guess, there was too much clipping with MF, or a bad clipping with MF.

 

Noxana

He's always had WAY more MF ticks and I've always had more MB/SW casts. The tooltip on my MF says a 2.66 cast time while the quartz bar shows 2.7. I thought that clipping may have been the problem, so I stopped and tried very hard to wait until it ended. However, this does not seem to have helped. His extra crit was likely luck, the boomkin aura and the shaman. Some of the extra MF ticks are likely due to two bloodlusts and three drums in his party. Any suggestions or mods to help with MF clipping - ie not doing it? Lastly, I think I'm just not hitting the keys fast enough. Coercion pounds on the keys, like I hear a lot of DPS doing over vent, and I just click when the GCD is up. Not accounting for latency, I'm guessing the GCD is up before I'm clicking and I'm "wasting" haste/cast time.

Note: Coercion also has slightly more haste than I do, but less straight +damage.

Edit: Face Melter | World of Warcraft Addons | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com This is Face Melter. It may do what I need for not clipping MF, but the priority list does feel like cheating.

 

Matarael

My bracers aren' t enchanted yet because I found no enchanter (just found one when I was writing this post ). You saw my "haste gear", I usually use PvP bracers (s3) with 15 spell damage, Kara neck and [Anetheron's Noose]. 1060 unbuffed spell damage + 23 from [Blackened Basilisk], +42 from wizard oil, and +80 from [Flask of Pure Death] puts me at 1205, account 25 from IDS and we're at 1230.

Also, I think you misunderstood what I said. If I wait, it's only 0.5 seconds for SW: P to get its last tick and refresh it immediatly to have maximum uptime. Otherwise I MF and clip it after the GCD which leads to 4 seconds with no SW: P tick, not 5.5 seconds.

I know dot clipping is a big dps decrease, since i used to do it and a saw the change after trying to improve this point.

 

Balkoth

Is it, though? You have two scenarios (assuming MB/SW:D/VT/VE don't need to be refreshed):

1, wait 0.5 seconds, refresh SW:P, and keep going.

2, clip a MF after two seconds and lose 1.5 seconds of SW:P uptime in exchange for 2 MF ticks.

Now, the GCD method doesn't work here because MF doesn't have a cooldown, so to speak, and would always end up higher than any other spell using that method, which we know isn't true because the other spells have DPS per casting time. However, we do know this: assuming you're dealing 1500 DPS, not casting for that 0.5 seconds will cost you 750 damage, on average. So the question is, is750 damage + 2 MF ticks > 1.5 seconds of SW:P uptime? Going to see if I can figure out a way to evaluate that using MF, it would be simple with VT/SW:D/MB. Hmm...

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

 

rooj

nox,

I suspect the 2 BLs to your 0 makes a HUGE difference. You have 3 Drums of Battle procs he has 9.

I suspect that the BLs and the 6 extra Drums procs are what is putting him over the top. Just as an example, a couple of nights ago on Kazrogal, i happened to get an extra drummer (i usually am the only drummer in my party) and an extra BL (the RL rotated a shammy in midfight), and I got a 1450 dps for that fight. On Teron, I usually only get about 1300 or so. As i mentioned before, my gear level is a tier below yours (i am still using SS, FSW chest and boots).

I am not surprised if the BLs and the drum procs is what made all the difference. Bloodlusts on their own represents a huge increase and i wonder since it is a 30% gain, whether having more haste increses the effects even more.

 

◊ Kalman

Can't say "1500 DPS, waiting 0.5 seconds costs you 750 damage" because the higher damage components of your rotation are assumed on cooldown (MB/SWD).

Here is a graph showing how varying "willingness" to wait affects your DPS alongside scaling haste. Essentially, the simulator (in the same directory if you want to poke at it) would be willing to wait X seconds if a cooldown or DoT would be coming up in that timeframe, and would flay otherwise. Note that the simulator used to generate it didn't model clipping flay, so the results are not 100% applicable; however, they do serve to show that sometimes waiting will generate a DPS increase. Clipping is *always* going to be a damage loss, unless you're clipping at 3 seconds (if VT would drop in those 3 seconds and MB *and* SWD are coming off of cooldown such that you'd have to postpone SWD or MB in order to reapply VT, it *may* be worth reapplying VT first, but that's a very rare situation and it may not even be a net DPS benefit), since clipping at 0.5 left is equivalent to letting SWP drop off and reapplying 2.5 seconds later (either case gives you a 5.5 second span between ticks). The real question is between waiting 0.5 second and reapplying, or MFing, clipping at 2, and letting SWP be down for 1.5 seconds. And the answer is haste-dependent, I suspect.

 

slob

i'd say a combination of things more haste requires faster reaction times and lower ping to utilize, also....

1 haste = 1 SD in terms of dps output at ~1400SD, on boom you will do similar damage with 1230 + 93 haste since even with dm card stacked your at 1310SD at which point 1haste = ~0.85 SD so you only get 0.85 * 93 = 79 psuedo SD dmg out of the haste, 1370 (1290 + 80dmc) vs 1389 (1230 +80dmc + 79haste).....very close...all of this assumes your fully utilizing the added haste which i've found depends on the amount of haste.....

if you have enough haste / low enough ping that the added haste is letting you get off that last tick of mindflay before casting some other spell instead of cutting that tick then its an advantage, if your not then the haste hurts because your getting off the same ticks but doing less damage in those ticks....best way to check this is to use WWS or recount to look at your data, if your getting off more mindflay ticks and MB's per fight then the haste is doing its job, if your getting the same number of ticks you are hurting your dps going with haste. (your gonna got OOM faster with haste on boom so you need to look at spells landed over time)

a lot of it is timing, with the extra haste, just like when you have drums active you have to time your spells differently, for example, if you are used to starting your VT cast when there is 1.4sec left on the current VT dot with no haste then stack haste and then still start to cast at 1.4sec then you will hurt yourself because not only are your ticks doing less dmg but your going to clip the last tick of the VT not to mention that you may have cut off a mindflay to cast VT at that time that may otherwise have landed another tick if you had started casting VT at 1.25 sec left....

above example if a 1 spell example but spriest is a hard one to model for this because there are so many spells that overlap in constantly changing patterns, the haste changes to GCD allow you to "cut it closer" thus getting off more spells if timed correctly. haste can be the difference in getting in a SW: D right on cool down followed by a SW: P and a VT all right on dot downing where without the haste you couldn't have fit in the SW: D before refreshing the SW: P/VT on time and would have wasted several seconds of SW: D cool down costing you dmg.

With 125haste my mindblast cast is 1.39 instead of 1.5, not much difference, but remember that the key is working in more spells overall so the real time savings is a sum of the time saved on all spells/GCD, from there its a matter of cast timing to properly utilize that extra time.

-slob

 

Balkoth

Well, yeah, technically it's costing you less, but I was aiming for the general idea. Aka, in general, not casting hurts more than casting *something.*

Edit: Specifically, it would cost you half a mind flay tick, I suppose. Since we're assuming VT/SW/MB are on "cooldown."

Is it, though? Even if you have 25% passive haste, that's 1.6 seconds to clip MF at two ticks. Versus 2 seconds. So time frame A is: MF for two ticks and reapply SW:P at 1.5 seconds after its final tick, and time frame B is two ticks and reapply SW:P 1.1 seconds after its final tick. If option B is better than waiting, and option A isn't, what would the ideal haste be for casting to be worth more than waiting?

I'm not so sure it *will* be haste, though. We also can't just make two frames with one 27.5 seconds (waiting 0.5 seconds) and the other with 29 seconds (2 MF ticks) because obviously MF is higher DPS than SW:P over time, but the DPS per cast time is far higher for SW:P. Hmm...

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

 

Acu

Hello I am new here and posted initially on the origial thread "How to melt faces". Since it's not the appropriate place, I am reposting here.

So, tonight I had a trial run with a guild and thanks to some feedback I got with my original post, I payed very close attention to not dot clip.

I managed to output 716 damage on first boss in BT. Compared to some reports I read in "How to melt faces", it still seems kind of low (although much better than low 500's from before - thank god!)

Here is the link to WWS from tonight: Wow Web Stats

What else can I do to improve my dps? In that particular fight I had to be very carefull with SWD, so didnt use in every cd. Besides that factor, what else could I do to improve my dps output?

Armory link: The World of Warcraft Armory


I just swap 9 gems slots around (exchanged 9 + damage for haste gems). That was before I knew something as dot clipping even existed and how bad it was...so I am not sure If I should remain with the spell haste gems or just go back to plus damage (12 this time).


Any feedback/advice would be greatly appreciated

 

Tymir

Using Face Melter is likely the root of your problem. Not to say that it is a poorly coded mod or anything of the sort but indicators require you to react to visual stimulus.

Human Benchmark - Reaction Time

You can use the above link to test your reaction time combined with input lag from your monitor and human input devices.

The average Human reaction time is 190ms for visual stimuli, and that's when you are 100% focusing on only one task. While raiding I would conservatively estimate that the average person is going to have a reaction time of at least 225ms since your focus is divided. When you factor in monitor refresh rate, monitor input lag, keyboard/mouse input lag, you're looking at having 250-300 ms delay (more if you use wireless human interface devices) before you even factor in the latency from your internet connection. All this makes for a large DPS loss when you rely on REACTING to visual indicators rather than ACTING once your Quartz bar hits red.

 

Kairu

Hey I'm also fairly new to being a shadow priest, While I'm not quite up to T5-T6 gear level yet, I do have a decent starter set from Kara/ZA/Badges. I've read all the threads and wound up changing my spell rotation around to get the most damage out and the most out of my DoTs. VE, SW: P, VT, MB, SW: D, MF, refresh. And I was quite amazed at how much my damage output turned around compared to the damage I was doing before.

Kairu - WWS
World of Warcraft Armory - Kairu

I used to be at the bottom of the dps charts and it seemed like I wasn't contributing anything to my group health/mana regen wise like I SHOULD have been. But recently in the Gruul's and Magtheridon's raids I was in, I came out on top for a total of 6th place for both raids on the damage chart and during both raids I felt like I was actually making a difference in my group. But as far as gear goes and to even further maximize my damage output, I'd like some advice.

And also on a side note, even though I'm 1.10% over my spell hit cap(I have even removed some of the spell hit talent points to bring this down as it was previously 7.10%), I can't seem to understand why my spells are more often than not "resisted" - While a fellow shadow priest from my server told me that I should try getting my cloak enchanted with spell penetration to help with that, I'm wondering if this would actually help as I've been told by countless people that spell penetration is purely PvP.

 

Tymir

Kairu

Looking at your Gruul WWS

45'54.812 SWP lands
45'56.312 GCD is over
45'56.765 You start casting VT <----- 0.453 sec wasted
45'58.265 VT lands
45'58.703 You start casting MB <----- 0.438 sec wasted
46'00.203 MB lands
46'00.781 SWD lands <----- 0.578 sec wasted
46'02.281 GCD is over
46'02.281 You start casting MF <----- 0 sec wasted (should be like this always)
46'05.281 MF finishes
46'13.140 VT expires
46'13.953 SWD lands <----- 8.672 sec wasted and you should have reapplied VT
46'15.453 GCD is over
46'16.218 You start casting MB <----- 0.765 sec wasted and Should have casted VT
46'17.718 MB lands
46'18.453 SWP expires
46'19.000 You start casting MF <----- 1.218 sec wasted and should have casted VT or SWP
46'21.000 MF finishes
46'21.656 Ground Slam
46'30.843 Shatter
46'35.593 SWP applied <----- 14.539 sec (kind of) wasted since its an instant cast you could have casted it even while avoiding encounter specific mechanics
46'43.106 You start casting VT <----- 7.516 sec wasted
46'44.606 VT lands
46'44.606 You start casting MF
46'46.687 2nd tick of MF
46'46.890 You start casting MB <----- Clipped MF probably unintentionally, luckily it was only .203 sec after the 2nd tick so this wasn't that bad
46'48.390 MB lands
46'48.703 SWD lands <----- 0.313 sec wasted
46'50.203 GCD is over
46'50.468 You start casting MF <----- 0.265 sec wasted
46'50.468 MF finishes
46'53.968 You start casting MF <----- 3.50 sec wasted
46'56.968 You finish casting MF
46'57.593 You start casting MB <----- 0.625 sec wasted
46'59.093 MB lands
46'59.093 You start casting MF <----- should have casted VT then SWP
46'59.593 SWP epires
46'59.606 VT expires
47'01.828 MF finishes
47'03.234 You start casting MF <----- 1.406 sec wasted

Hopefully thats enough for you to see where you're going wrong.