Shadow Priest pre-potting on Heroic Halfus

[HeatM1ser]

I was just wondering what your thoughts were. I've been prepotting every boss fight, but the one fight where we pop heroism/bloodlust at the beginning is heroic Halfus. The reason why I present this question is because the drakes take about 10 seconds to become active once the pull is made, and thats when heroism is cast. So, essentially the volcanic potion is already halfway through its duration when heroism is cast.

Do you think it would be a DPS increase to not prepot for that one encounter and instead use a potion when heroism is cast? Or, is getting half of a potion for heroism and being able to pot again when 4 drakes are downed for the damage increase better?

My guess is to still prepot, but I didnt know if any has tried it the other way and what their results were.

[Deleted]

I haven't done any in-depth looking into the subject, so feel free to take my opinions with a pinch of salt.

I'd say still pre-pot. The main reason for this is, the biggest part of your DPS comes from when all drakes are down and halfus has a 400% damage taken buff - if you look at your DPS just after drakes dies, and then again when Halfus goes down - you'll see it's higher at the end. Also, bear in mind that you do still get some use out of volcanic potion even if only half of it is available when hero/drakes are up.

[implicationmmo]

I haven't done any in-depth looking into the subject, so feel free to take my opinions with a pinch of salt.

I'd say still pre-pot. The main reason for this is, the biggest part of your DPS comes from when all drakes are down and halfus has a 400% damage taken buff - if you look at your DPS just after drakes dies, and then again when Halfus goes down - you'll see it's higher at the end. Also, bear in mind that you do still get some use out of volcanic potion even if only half of it is available when hero/drakes are up.

I would agree with this.

The fight has a "weird" machanic and hence BL/Hero isn't the phase where you dps the most

[HeatM1ser]

Yeah, i figured that pre-potting was still advisable since Halfus takes a 400% increase in damage when all 4 drakes are down, but i know there are a lot of enthusiasts out there that experiment. I'd still enjoy the benefits of prepotting because I'd still be applying my DoTs to halfus until the drakes become active.

I was just too afraid to experiment myself and see a major DPS loss by only using 1 pot during the fight instead of prepotting an using another later int he fight....lol

[rhyliss]

When in doubt, pre-pot. The new pots in Cata have a rather long duration and, as the others said, it's not a fight where Bloodlust/Heroism is your greatest damage phase.

[lovecraft]

I have to agree with priestlyone here. You should be pre-potting at the pull, and pot again after the 4th drake dies.

[Vuhdoo]

IMO you should still prepot mainly because your multi dotting so much at the start your getting enough cast off with the buff that it's efficient and as well potting after the first furious roar which is at 50%, after the drakes are dead halfus is taking increased damage and it increases the bonus of that pot even further. But if you are looking for other scenarios you can just go to WoL and see what other spriest are doing.