Mind Spike as a part of the rotation?

[Deleted]

Any reason why an SPriest was weaving Mind Spike into his rotation? It was his third most damaged attack and his DoTs only had about 75% uptime, yet his DPS was over 32k. He had 4 piece t13. I'm wondering if I'm missing something here...

Edit: This was on Ultraxion on LFR.

[sp2danny]

I can see it being used together with fiend. When You have 4p, your shadowfiends each attack give you
3 orbs, and spike increases MB's crit chance. During fiend the rotation could very well be (spike x3, blast, SWD) repeat

[Stormwaterdrain]

That would be an incredibly stupid idea, not only having to spend the time reapplying the dots frequents, but also the mana....

No I think they were doing something wrong, and probably would have gotten much higher dps otherwise.

Although the thought just occurred to me, what fight was it? There are some where mind spiking adds (for instance) would be acceptable.

Edit: I should add that i'm very ignorant where shadow priests are concerned!

[zakaluka]

Have a look at Kilee's guide, it's updated for 4.3. You can trust pretty much anything Kilee puts in her guide, she thinks it out pretty thoroughly and takes plenty of community feedback before ever putting stuff up there.

Or, see the thread here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...vs-Mind-Spike). Be sure you read the whole thing, all the way down to kilee's most recent sims. OP missed a few things and came to a hasty conclusion.

Short answer: using 4p with spikespam during fiend is a dps gain, even after the loss you take ramping up again afterwards. It's even better on fights where you DON'T lose ramp-up (ex: spine)

[Viggers]

what zakaluka said. also, mana really isnt an issue for us at higher gear levels.

[rekinash]

try it yourself on dummy, u`ll see the difference in dps if you`re using spike spike spike blast when fiend is up

[Drye]

There is a really big discussion going on on h2p about using a different rotation with 4 pc t13


http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1176

[Deleted]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOfz9t199kI

It definately works. I was able to pull around 46k in LFR when I had DI. You get some huge burst at the start and SF and AA usually line up quite nicely.

[Deleted]

You still want to have a MF2 in there I think, so your MB can receive your orbs as well and you get evangelism up for when you start to apply dots. Guess the opener would be ...
Pot -> MF3 -> MF1(MF2 here if it is needed to get 5 evang) -> SF -> AA -> MB -> MS -> MS -> MS -> MF3 -> MB -> MS -> MS -> MS -> MF3 -> MB then start dotting.

[nadrii]

It's the new single target rotation! I like it a lot.

[Kulpajr]

From my personal testing and from other what the spriests of EJ have seen.. its a wonderful burst opener and if he aligns his DAA up with his fiend you can see an increase in DPS if the spriest is using a Mind Melt cancel macro.

[Forian]

That would be an incredibly stupid idea, not only having to spend the time reapplying the dots frequents, but also the mana....

No I think they were doing something wrong, and probably would have gotten much higher dps otherwise.

Although the thought just occurred to me, what fight was it? There are some where mind spiking adds (for instance) would be acceptable.

Edit: I should add that i'm very ignorant where shadow priests are concerned!

Mind spiking is not incredibly stupid:

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-o0...=10166&e=10526

[Deleted]

That would be an incredibly stupid idea, not only having to spend the time reapplying the dots frequents, but also the mana....

No I think they were doing something wrong, and probably would have gotten much higher dps otherwise.

Although the thought just occurred to me, what fight was it? There are some where mind spiking adds (for instance) would be acceptable.

Edit: I should add that i'm very ignorant where shadow priests are concerned!

Agreed with that.

[Arlee]

That would be an incredibly stupid idea, not only having to spend the time reapplying the dots frequents, but also the mana....

No I think they were doing something wrong, and probably would have gotten much higher dps otherwise.

Although the thought just occurred to me, what fight was it? There are some where mind spiking adds (for instance) would be acceptable.

Edit: I should add that i'm very ignorant where shadow priests are concerned!

Your points would be correct without the T13 4pc bonus. It is only viable because of that and only when used in a specific way. If you screw it up you won't see as much (if any of a dps increase). It has been discussed and tried and tested by many many spriests and it's not a random idea someone just threw together and was like "hey gaiz this wuld be kool".

Both links that have been linked in this thread have more information (the one Drye linked to H2P has slightly more indepth info). I would definitely suggest you read those if you want to understand how this works.

[Vampiroth]

Mind spike spam is only viable on zon'ozz, hagara, ultraxion, and spine. Otherwise it is a DPS loss to do it. Generally you will time shadow fiend and arch angel together. You will probably want to have some mastery items to switch out, or reforge to mastery for those fights to min/max if you want to do that.

You can also use the bottled wishes trinket for spine and time that on use with tendons. reforge the haste to mastery.

[Worshaka]

Mind spike spam is only viable on zon'ozz, hagara, ultraxion, and spine. Otherwise it is a DPS loss to do it. Generally you will time shadow fiend and arch angel together. You will probably want to have some mastery items to switch out, or reforge to mastery for those fights to min/max if you want to do that.

You can also use the bottled wishes trinket for spine and time that on use with tendons. reforge the haste to mastery.

I don't know how people can say its only viable on certain encounters. It's viable on any encounter providing you use it when fiend and AA can be used in conjunction and you are not under the effect of large haste buffs, such as Bloodlust/Heroism and its not sub 25% as trying to weave in SW becomes difficult.

If those conditions exist for Morchock, or Blackhorn for example, then you can use it and get a DPS increase. It's just that for some encounters you might not use it more than once.

[Yvaelle]

Just to be clear to anyone who doesn't know how this burst actually works, there are a few rules to consider here (all assume like 400 item level and 4pT13)

1) Saving Wings and Fiend just to sync them with an MS rotation is a dps loss over using them on cooldown
2) If maximizing dps during a specific phase of the fight is critical, this is the highest burst dps over a ~20 second time frame (such as Tendon DPS on Spine)
3) It is only remotely worthwhile if you have 4pT13, if you do not - do Not do this under any circumstance (you can still save cooldowns and even mind spike during short burst target, but the sole reason this is viable is the set bonus)
4) If you can, you should wait until you have 3 orbs before starting this burst - then open with Fiend, Wings, MB, MSx3, MF, MB, MSx3, MF, MB - the Mind Flays can and should be clipped once you gain three orbs, but they exist to allow a gap between the third MS and the MB to make sure you get triple orbs on each of the 3 MB's you get, if you don't MF the third MS will consume all orbs and your MB's will never have any orbs.

[Vampiroth]

I don't know how people can say its only viable on certain encounters. It's viable on any encounter providing you use it when fiend and AA can be used in conjunction and you are not under the effect of large haste buffs, such as Bloodlust/Heroism and its not sub 25% as trying to weave in SW becomes difficult.

If those conditions exist for Morchock, or Blackhorn for example, then you can use it and get a DPS increase. It's just that for some encounters you might not use it more than once.

well for mind spike spamming to be a DPS increase ideally you need to switch your haste over to mastery. When you switch haste over to mastery you lose dot damage. When you are fights that require heavy movement like Yorsahj, warmaster, and even morchok you will lose damage. Warmaster is completely ruled out simply due to the fact that you will do more damage multidotting than you will mind spiking a single target. On Yorsahj when you aren't moving to an add you could be having to aoe. There are a ton of reasons why people aren't doing it on those fights. If you can't think of them than I am sorry.

Also, I would disregard SkillOverKill's post. You should not wait for orbs to mind blast, and you should not mind flay at all while shadowfiend is up.

[Worshaka]

Correct me if I'm wrong but this line in the simcraft action list that shows using MS as a 1k DPS increase will delay fiend by up to 35 seconds in order to wait for archangel.

actions+=/shadow_fiend,if=(buff.dark_evangelism.stack>=5&cooldown.archangel.remains<=0.1)|cooldown.a rchangel.remains>=35|target.time_to_die<=20

Now I'm not suggesting simcraft is 100% accurate but it does highlight the fact that there is some number for which delaying one of the CD's (in this case fiend) is still ok. Simcraft seems to think its 35 seconds.

You don't have to reforge all your haste to mastery to make it viable either. I have 2589 haste and run simcraft with a normal action list and one using MS and the one with MS shows to be 1K higher. That's not to say if you did invest heavily in mastery that you wouldn't get more benefit but the benefit still exists in a standard gear setup. Unless you wanted to min/max to the extreme for heroic spine, I think going with a gear set of VT+2 and investing in mastery will give you good DPS on all encounters while allowing you to mind spike when it makes sense.

[Yvaelle]

Also, I would disregard SkillOverKill's post. You should not wait for orbs to mind blast, and you should not mind flay at all while shadowfiend is up.

Clipping after a tick of flay (which also gains the 20% bonus from wings) is worth getting 3 orbs on your mind blasts, you could alternately not bother to cast and wait for the next Fiend attack however, but you definitely need 3 orb blasts. You explained reforging mastery for MS burst adequately though.