Shadowpriest Theory Craft - 3.2.2 Edition! - Page 29

ildon · 05/08/09, 12:12 AM

Originally Posted by Incenerate

Just a quick question on the SW:P damage bonus from raid debuffs that other classes throw. Would it matter if we opened with our SW:P considering it will tick a good 3-5 times depending on the time it takes for the other classes to throw thier debuffs; then just reapplying it when we notice all the dubuffs have been applied to the boss? Wouldn't that also apply the shadow weaving talents with the intial SW:P which would take away the time it takes us to apply all 5 charges of it.

Wouldn't our mind flay proc that reapplies our SW: P come under the effect of the debuffs applied between the intial cast and the refresh of our mind flay talent? Just wondering.

That's what I've already been doing the last few months, especially because it's instant, can be cast while getting into position, and puts Misery up, which DP does not (and resisted DP sucks because of the cooldown).

EmeraldArcana · 05/08/09, 8:06 PM

Originally Posted by tedv

Apologies, I meant Focused Mind. The mana reduction talent on Mind Flay and Mind Blast. It's a good talent that you can steal points from if necessary.

Looks to me that Improved Spirit Tap may actually be better than Focused Mind as far as mana return goes. The build on the top page has about 2 miscellaneous points (1 point in Imp PW: Shield, 1 point in Psychic Horror) and 3 points in Focused Mind.

You could take those points, put them all in Spirit Tap, and gain ~20-28 mana/sec rather than ~14-17 mana/sec, as well as the 5 or 6 on-proc spell damage due to spirit, right? It's less a matter of Imp Spirit Tap needing to be 33% better than Focused Mind, but more that you don't have anywhere else to put those 5 points.

Luthi · 05/09/09, 2:22 AM

Originally Posted by goulatek

Not even close to any mana issues on Council, Kolo, Auriaya, Hodir, or Thorim. I think I only dispersed on Hodir out of the bunch. The true test will be on later bosses i'm sure, hopefully i can make it there soon to test!

I find that I get only get low on yogg-saron, two or three keepers in particular. On any other fights, fiend is enough to get me by, but I'm spamming dispersion on cooldown for yogg, which ends up being 4ish of them.

Krakkle · 05/10/09, 7:26 PM

I've found it best to do:
VE (optional) > DP > VT > SW:P > MB > MF > SW:P (since now you'll have 5 SW stacks) > SW

I also have a mod called ShadowGreenLight that helps letting me know when to put up a new SW:P.
I use that rotation because MB and MF do additional damage with SW:P up. I also keep an eye out for when Dying Curse procs so I can refresh my SW:P.
Sadly, Blizzard fixed the bug that allowed Mind Flay to apply 2 stacks of SW instantly, but oh well.
That's my boss/Ulduar non-AoE trash rotation, and I pull roughly 3400 DPS which I know could be better. I actually think damage is more important than DPS, but each to their own.
Let me know if anyone has a better rotation I could use to up my DPS.
ALSO, all shadow priests should really get ShadowGreenLight. It keeps track of your SW stacks, Imp Scorch, and other class spells which benefit your damage as well.

Edit: My priest's name is Healzfound now after a realm transfer. Gotta love the irony

Luthi · 05/11/09, 5:23 AM

Originally Posted by Krakkle

I've found it best to do:
VE (optional) > DP > VT > SW:P > MB > MF > SW:P (since now you'll have 5 SW stacks) > SW

I also have a mod called ShadowGreenLight that helps letting me know when to put up a new SW:P.
I use that rotation because MB and MF do additional damage with SW:P up. I also keep an eye out for when Dying Curse procs so I can refresh my SW:P.
Sadly, Blizzard fixed the bug that allowed Mind Flay to apply 2 stacks of SW instantly, but oh well.
That's my boss/Ulduar non-AoE trash rotation, and I pull roughly 3400 DPS which I know could be better. I actually think damage is more important than DPS, but each to their own.
Let me know if anyone has a better rotation I could use to up my DPS.
ALSO, all shadow priests should really get ShadowGreenLight. It keeps track of your SW stacks, Imp Scorch, and other class spells which benefit your damage as well.

Edit: My priest's name is Healzfound now after a realm transfer. Gotta love the irony

I highly doubt the two stacks of shadow weaving from mind flay was a bug, considering on the same patch that it appeared, the double stack from SWD was removed, and now that you don't instantly get two stacks of it from the initial cast, you get three stacks of it over the entire duration.

borisson_ · 05/11/09, 8:03 AM

Originally Posted by Krakkle

I've found it best to do:
VE (optional) > DP > VT > SW:P > MB > MF > SW:P (since now you'll have 5 SW stacks) > SW

I also have a mod called ShadowGreenLight that helps letting me know when to put up a new SW:P.
I use that rotation because MB and MF do additional damage with SW:P up. I also keep an eye out for when Dying Curse procs so I can refresh my SW:P.
-snip-

Pain and Suffering refreshes spellpower on SW:Pain. You don't have to keep an eye out for Trinket / Lightweave procs to re-apply SW:Pain. I doubt that using DP that early is a good idea because the 5stack of weaving is very useful for DP as well.
If I read well what you posted; you are refreshing SW:Pain every 18 seconds? If that is true then you should really stop doing that. You will see a nice damage (and DPS) increase by doing just that.

jra101 · 05/11/09, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by Mearis

That is an excellent suggestion. A bit difficult to implement since it requires the rogue to vanish+tricks you, but well done.

Tricks doesn't require stealth and can be recast every 30 seconds.

Mearis · 05/11/09, 12:02 PM

Originally Posted by jra101

Tricks doesn't require stealth and can be recast every 30 seconds.

Yup, you are right. I did this on raids on Thursday and it was a nice DPS boost except when the rogue decided to get me killed on the opener and after giving me tricks went ahead and dumped a full energy bar on the boss ><

Krakkle · 05/11/09, 5:41 PM

Originally Posted by borisson_

Pain and Suffering refreshes spellpower on SW:Pain. You don't have to keep an eye out for Trinket / Lightweave procs to re-apply SW:Pain. I doubt that using DP that early is a good idea because the 5stack of weaving is very useful for DP as well.
If I read well what you posted; you are refreshing SW:Pain every 18 seconds? If that is true then you should really stop doing that. You will see a nice damage (and DPS) increase by doing just that.

Hmm, I've never seen my SW:Pain change it's damage without me refreshing it. And I wouldn't say every 18 seconds, just when I get the 5 stacks and then when Dying Curse triggers I'll refresh it. Other than those two times I don't change it. Unless, of course, it wears off when switching targets (like in VoA on the new boss).
I didn't know DP was affected by the SW stacks, I'll change my rotation a little then.

Kuosi · 05/11/09, 6:03 PM

Pain and suffering refreshes do count the spelldmg so you're really just wasting global when your trinkets proc.

Incenerate · 05/11/09, 9:54 PM

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...3&version=9889

I honestly don't understand why everyone says that the basic Shadow Priest spec is the classic 17/0/54 when getting the inner focus and the improved PW:S makes no sense as a Spriest. I understand that the maybe 1 our of 10 inner focus succes rate is a nice thing to have every now and then but with the spec i posted above this the spirt tap and improved spirit tap is worth much more then a extra chance to crit. Yes the crit might boost your dps but you won't beable to sustain that dps for much of the fight it will just drop back to the useual numbers. When it would be a much better idea to have the extra spirit and mana regeneration in long fights where large mana pools are needed much more. If someone could please describe the reasoning behind the inner focus and improved shield that would be great. Thanks!

Thheory · 05/12/09, 12:19 AM

Well, you pretty much just linked the cookie cutter shadow spec, so I'm not sure who is suggesting that 17/0/54 is the standard. Certainly no decent raiding shadow priests spec deeper than 14 into disc (and most skip inner focus too).

• Snowy · 05/12/09, 2:36 AM

Yeah, I'm confused. The standard spec is 14/0/57, or 13/0/58 (not taking Inner Focus.) Improved PWS is garbage for any raiding shadowpriest, and I'm really not sure why they would want to go into the 4th tier in Disc. Now I can see a 17/0/54 for PvP, but that's completely different.

Mearis · 05/12/09, 5:11 AM

The 'barebones' spec is this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

and that leaves you 7 left over points - you can then decide how many mana regen talents you want. I really like maxing focused mind and improved vampiric embrace - leaving you with 3 left over points. With the 3 left over points, you can choose to pick up silence (really really useless, nice if you like to spend some time in BGs), psychic horror (randomly useful on trash) + 2 other spare points. If you pick up horror, you have 2 left over points. I really like inner focus as an exclusive oh-shit button with divine hymn, and I think it is an amazing utility that every single shadowpriest should pick up - you can randomly save your raid with it, and not having it is dumb.

That leaves you with 1 point that for PvE has absolutely no distinct use - I put it in imp PW: S as a filler, but really you could spend it in just about anything.

If you really like mana-regen, you can max focused mind AND improved spirit tap - but you give up improved VE. If you AoE incredibly aggressively or you are doing some hardmodes where you are threat capped, shadow affinity can be quite good. For Hodir or Vezax hard modes I'd reccomand it. I am actually quite tempted to give up 1 pt in improved pw: s, 1 pt in psychic horror to pick up 2/3 shadow affinity.

Krakkle · 05/12/09, 4:06 PM

Originally Posted by Incenerate

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...3&version=9889

I honestly don't understand why everyone says that the basic Shadow Priest spec is the classic 17/0/54 when getting the inner focus and the improved PW:S makes no sense as a Spriest. I understand that the maybe 1 our of 10 inner focus succes rate is a nice thing to have every now and then but with the spec i posted above this the spirt tap and improved spirit tap is worth much more then a extra chance to crit. Yes the crit might boost your dps but you won't beable to sustain that dps for much of the fight it will just drop back to the useual numbers. When it would be a much better idea to have the extra spirit and mana regeneration in long fights where large mana pools are needed much more. If someone could please describe the reasoning behind the inner focus and improved shield that would be great. Thanks!

I completely agree. Some other post I looked at said that Spirit Tap and Imp Spirit Tap weren't needed and the points could be put elsewhere. I tried not specc'ing into that, went over to the training dummies and went oom soooo fast, so I went back and paid 50 more gold to get those talents back. Last night in Ulduar we were on Kolo and at like 25% a couple healers were saying they were oom, then I hear in Vent "Wow, Healz has almost full mana." I think the 5 points are completely worth it. I can't see any point in getting Inner Focus as a shadowpriest.