Small correction: CoE-type debuffs (generally speaking: % damage taken buffs/debuffs on the target) do not require a recast of SW:P.

It's a %-based damage buff/debuff on the boss. It's always worked this way. You only have to worry about %-based damage increases/decreases on yourself, and the total crit of all modifiers on yourself + debuffs/buffs on the boss.

"Caster's percent damage dealt" and "caster's total current crit percent on the target" are only checked at cast time of a spell, while "target's percent damage taken" modifiers are checked when the damage is actually dealt (not when the spell is cast).

This is why this bug/"feature" annoys me so much.

Yes, only changes in critical strike and %dmg modifiers on yourself such as Tricks will 'need' a new SWPain

Hello all,

On the multidot/mindsear subject, has anyone actually put this into good real wow application? I have tried for example on the trash pulls in ICC10 and can only manage about 7k dps vt'ing all the mobs then rotating mind sear, keeping vt up with the aid of dottimers. But if i just spam mindsear I pull about 11-12k dps

Is this just a learn to play thing or a theory vs real wow application hiccup

Well, I can report about the same. However (and that's a large however), I do not have 2pc T9 as I only recently starting DPSing and mostly using healing gear. The second thing is that VT performance of course depends on how long the adds live. If you run ICC10 with high raid DPS, not all mobs live long enough to see the end of VT. If you start VTing the mobs and the last one to get VT only gets 2 ticks before dying, then that's a wasted VT, of course. The math will depend on the number of mobs and your stats, but VT needs a minimum number of ticks to pull ahead of mind sear.

VT vs mind sear may also scale differently with debuffs on target. If your raid has a main dps target instead of just letting everyone AoE, many mobs won't be fully debuffed, especially in 10 man, where an unholy DK is not a given. In that case, put a VT on the main damage target first - this has made a difference for me (still needing lots of practice, however).

Obviously VTing adds requires a degree of... Consciousness, as you obviously aren't going to want to VT an add that's at 10%. However, assuming your spell choice/rotation is ideal, I'm very much with Sinusoid on this one in that you should absolutely be seeing a dps increase with using VT. However yes, it obviously requires more effort in order to be worthwhile as opposed to simply mashing mind sear.

Are there really fights where one absolutely needs that "oh crap" button every 1m15s rather than 2m? I don't see survivability as being a huge issue for shadow priests anymore. If the other fellow's math is right, SWP does seem more efficient.

@ Frmercury

There is a wonderful post by Griemak over on Sp.com where he did a fair amount of math regarding MB, haste, and when to drop it from the rotation.

shadowpriest.com • View topic - Patch 3.3 Mind Blast, the Definitive Math

While this only applies to having the 4pc set bonus, i think some of this can still apply to the extreme situations like on GV. I recently went back there last week and got to play on that fight. it was an odd night, we had alts and pugs in there, but here is a link to our WMOL.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

I ended the fight averaging over 12K dps with peaks up to 20K. I found that w/ that much haste, i could barely keep up w/ dots in between MF spams, and on the previous attempts that night MB seemed like a waste. the final kill was almost pure MF spam w/ keeping dots up.

hopefully this helps.

Change

actions+=/mind_blast

to

actions+=/mind_blast,if=buff.bloodlust.down

For those of you who are new to multidotting, a good way to quickly put VT on each mob is to click Mob A, start casting VT, then while it is casting, click (or tab to) Mob B. Use the Quartz casting bar addon and start your next VT on Mob B at the precise time to account for lag, then click Mob C and repeat. The goal is of course to never stop casting. Once VT is on every mob, mind sear away. I do this whenever I DPS in heroics and raids for trash packs.

It does take some practice. A good place to practice this is on the Anub'arak 25HM encounter. The four adds come in staggered and it works very well to dot them up as they move in. As discussed previously in this thread, putting SW:Pain on your multidot targets doesn't seem as effective, I know that personally I have seen a DPS decrease when trying to use SWP, VT, and then mind searing on large packs.

I'm curious about what the "standard" is for breaking Mind Flay to re-cast a DoT. For example: Imagine the following situation at 30% Haste.

-Mind Flay channel duration: 2.31 seconds. One tick is *suppossed* to be every 0.77 seconds.
-Time between ticks of Vampiric Touch / Devouring Plague : also 2.31 seconds.
-Cast Time of VT: 1.154 seconds.

Ideally, you would start casting Vampiric Touch 1.2 seconds or so before it expires....but what do you do when your your GCD opens up with like 2 seconds left on Vampiric Touch? Your choices are basically:

a) Mind Flay and try to stop after one tick (0.8 seconds) and then wait a fraction of a second before casting VT. Probably bad, but the first Mind Flay tick is at least somewhat consistent.
b) Wait nearly a second before casting VT. Obviously bad.
c) Mind Flay and try to stop after two ticks (~1.6 seconds) and then cast VT (1.15 seconds). VT isn't on the boss for 0.75 seconds, or 32% of a tick. The problem is that the second Mind Flay tick "seems" to often come 80%+ of the way through the channel, not 66% of the way through the channel like it "should".
d) Mind Flay for the entire duration (2.3 seconds), and then cast VT when your GCD is free (1.15 seconds). VT isn't on the boss for 1.45 seconds, or 64% of a tick.

It seems likely to me that cancelling your Mind Flay after two ticks would be best---but my problem is that I can't reliably time cancelling Mind Flay between ticks. At all. Do most people just generally go through an entire Mind Flay and not bother canceling mid-channel to refresh VT or DP, like I typically do? The difference is fairly small in terms of total dps per incident of this kind of conflict, but it happens enough that the net effect over a fight is probably a few hundred DPS.