Kilee’s “Old Man” Guide to CoP Shadowpriest (PVE, CoP only, 6.2.3)

[Hankmarvin]

Table above your post, shows what you'll need outside of raid/food.

Oh, there was no need for that (for me, anyway)... I did the math for myself back in December when he first posted the mastery ratings.

[Deleted]

Hey guys... I'm thinking of switching from 35% haste build to mastery... I know this has been asked many times but, is it really worth it?
I'm 744 and right now most bosses (except assault) die in less than 2 minutes, few under 2'30 and velhari in 4. Problem is... the only bosses that really matter now are last 2: manno and archi. I only care about these 2 pretty much... and both take about 5 minutes and half. I read at the start of this thread that with that timing mastery and haste build are exactly the same... and actually haste is a little better if you switch (and sometimes I do have to switch on infernals on archi). Can you all confirm this? I really would gain nothing from last 2 bosses if i switched? I really dont care to gain few dps for a minute kormrok or a 1minute 10sec reaver kill... I want to give the best for manno and archi since they are the only 2 bosses that we still wipe on few times... but what i dont understand is why so many priests in high end guilds that only farm last 2 bosses are using a mastery set then... whats the point?

[Kilee25]

The tide starts turning towards mastery as you progress through Mythic. During normal and heroic progression, haste is still the best. By the time you get mythic RoW, you should definitely be swapping over, as the mastery multiplier from the trinket is just too strong. I have an update I'm planning to make to the guide, with a few more graphs showing this more clearly than the current ones does. I've just been really lazy and burned out lately...

Haste is still best if you are following add priorities and doing a variety of tasks, and it always will be in that situation. But you should be in a position after you kill archi to start slowly handing that job over to classes that don't lose as much DPS when switching. This should make the bosses die faster, which ultimately is better for everyone.

[Deleted]

The tide starts turning towards mastery as you progress through Mythic. During normal and heroic progression, haste is still the best. By the time you get mythic RoW, you should definitely be swapping over, as the mastery multiplier from the trinket is just too strong. I have an update I'm planning to make to the guide, with a few more graphs showing this more clearly than the current ones does. I've just been really lazy and burned out lately...

Haste is still best if you are following add priorities and doing a variety of tasks, and it always will be in that situation. But you should be in a position after you kill archi to start slowly handing that job over to classes that don't lose as much DPS when switching. This should make the bosses die faster, which ultimately is better for everyone.

Well, we cleared mythic content about 5 months ago... :P I usually just cascade and throw some mind blast/swd here and there on infernals tho just to make sure, and focus some the 3rd wave since it's the most annoying one. That said, I never really tried a mastery build because so many on here said it doesnt really give better results on long fights and plus its more complex... kinda like dotwaveing vs non dotweaving in HM... dotweaving was just slightly better but if not perfect executed it would make it worse...
I'm sure mastery build would raise my dps on these 9-10 bosses that we usually kill between under a minute and 2minutes and 30 seconds... but as I said only last 2 matter to me. Being full mythic (I'm 744 with like 6 sockets and 5 WF pieces) makes it worth to use mastery build even on archi/manno or since they are 5/5.30 minutes long fights its better to stick haste?

[Seriv]

If you manage the rotation then mastery will yield slightly better results on those two bosses. To be honest you rarely have to switch targets anyway (other than the occasional DP), on Mannoroth never and on Archimonde maybe once.

but what i dont understand is why so many priests in high end guilds that only farm last 2 bosses are using a mastery set then... whats the point?

Most high end guilds clear everything since it doesn't require much time anyway while people still need warforged/socket upgrades. Also there are rankings.

[Deleted]

Well I guess it depends on the setup... in a perfect world, yes, on farm, the SP can just focus archimonde and ignore void stars/source/infernals. In the real world, if you have 2 SPs in raid you cant just have both of them ignore everything, or if you have locks affli instead of destro, or arcane mages that rather dps the crystal/pof procs, or balance druids that dont wanna risk a 2sec starfire that wont land fast enough on an infernal and rather stick to their target, and so on. Personally I killed archi mythic about 20 times and as many I've killed it with my 2 alts and I can say that very few times I've found a setup where myself (or the shadow in raid with me) could just avoid everything on archimonde without issues (and usually I'm always in top 5 on dmg on infernals... clearly not a good sign that makes me think i can just start ignoring them).

Anyway, this is the mastery rotation?

Mind Blast (1 orb)
Shadowfiend
Mind Flay (2 ticks)
Mind Flay (3 ticks)
Mind Blast (2 orbs)
Mind Spike x3
Mind Blast (3 orbs)
Mind Flay (2 ticks)
Mind Spike x2
Mind Blast (4 orbs)
Mind Spike
Devouring Plague
Insanity (2 ticks)
Mind Blast (2 orbs)
Insanity (4 ticks)
Mind Spike
Mind Blast (3 orbs)
Mind Spike
Devouring Plague
Insanity (2 ticks)
Mind Blast (1 orb, the sequence starts to repeat here)
Insanity (4 ticks)

[Seriv]

That's what I meant with "maybe once", there is one infernal spawn that might require your attention, the other ones are safe due to ring or balance druid cooldowns.

Mastery rotation: If you end up with more than 1100 - 1300 haste you can also do a longer rotation (four DP instead of two between two MF): http://i.imgur.com/XHfstqk.jpg
The one you wrote down works everytime and assumes you start without any orbs, but honestly if you don't start with five orbs the mastery setup wont give you much benefit since your opener ring is bad anyway.

[Deleted]

tbh the difference on those killtimes between mastery and haste is so little that it really doesn't matter. Just pick whatever you like best. Switching to one or the other won't magically make you jump tons of dps

[Deleted]

That's what I meant with "maybe once", there is one infernal spawn that might require your attention, the other ones are safe due to ring or balance druid cooldowns.

Mastery rotation: If you end up with more than 1100 - 1300 haste you can also do a longer rotation (four DP instead of two between two MF): http://i.imgur.com/XHfstqk.jpg
The one you wrote down works everytime and assumes you start without any orbs, but honestly if you don't start with five orbs the mastery setup wont give you much benefit since your opener ring is bad anyway.

Holy shit! That rotation seems really hard to learn... is it really hard or it looks harder than it is? I'm thinking maybe I should stay haste and forget it... If I go all mastery I'll have about 1400 haste and about 3700 mastery unbuffed... one thing I didnt mention is that i would lose about 0.5 itemlevel... since id switch tier head for archi one (741->745) but lose on legs for tier ones (746->735).
@Hankstar
Thing is... I never tried a mastery rotation so I dont really know what I like best. I'm not sure it's worth tho, see above. :P It seems, or actually i should say looks since i never tried it, easier to recover from a mistake with a haste one than with the mastery one.

[Isentropy]

The haste rotation is a lot less forgiving towards mistakes. Any Mind Flays you cast are either you making a mistake or prepping for a mechanic (Mannoroth). This means that movement can screw you over big time. Not maintaining the perfect rotation on some fights is often inevitable.

The mastery rotation on the other hand is much more forgiving, as casting Mind Flay is inevitable and a part of the rotation. Therefore, you can choose to take a Mind Flay earlier than you need to in theory and it won't affect your DPS at all. It may look daunting, and it is a bit harder to learn than the haste rotation, but it's not that bad once you play around with it. It's three spell sequences, two of which simply alternate between each other until you run out of orbs, and then you use the third spell sequence which has Mind Flay in it. Try and understand why the rotation is the way it is and watch the timings of your spells in relation to the class trinket debuff.

[Kilee25]

I will say, in general, this has been one of the most daunting cast styles I've learned in WoW. I prefer to have a flexible rotation built upon a priority list. one that I can break whenever I want so that I can do something else like AE, or save orbs for specific moments in the fight. I find both the haste and the mastery rotations extremely confining, and it ends up pushing some bad gameplay habits onto you, even if you are concious of it and trying not to.

The haste build is only as difficult as you make it, based on the amount of haste you try to run with. The trap most people fall into is going too low. Around 38%, the rotation becomes so easy that it's difficult to make mistakes, and going a bit past that actually gives you so much leeway you can afford to run around a little bit, and switch targets, and still keep it going. My comfort zone is around 38%. Sometimes if I'm pushing a single target fight really hard, I'll drop down to 36%, but that's bout as low as I can go and maintain the debuff. Even then, it's basically only for a pure ST burn style fight, like fel lord.

Having said that, I agree that the mastery rotation is generally easier to pull off, and has more room for error.

The more complex mastery rotation doesn't sit well with me, but I'm curious if it actually will do more DPS. The issue I'm facing these days is that fights are either a) too quick to care much about longer rotations, or b) too frantic to maintain complex spell sequences, because they keep getting interrupted. The thing I like about the 2 DP, 1 flay sequence is that it's pretty static and difficult to mess up. I don't have to think about it too much and it repeats often enough that I know exactly where I am in the sequence. I realize that might peg me as either lazy or bad, but it is what it is. I'd rather not have to work harder unless there's a significant damage gain to be had. I'm not sure that really applies in this case. You're talking about 1-2 extra mind flays over the course of the fight, if even that. The damage difference gets eaten up by trinket RNG.

[Deleted]

Nevermind read id again.

[Djriff]

Something i've been doing since i swap to most adds even on farm, is to just keep an eye on the debuff on the boss and refresh it with mind flay before going back to the add.

[Deleted]

Kilee... got a question about your mastery rotation (i guess it's better if i start with the less complex one).

Mind Blast (1 orb)
Shadowfiend
Mind Flay (2 ticks)
Mind Flay (3 ticks)
Mind Blast (2 orbs)
Mind Spike x3
Mind Blast (3 orbs)
Mind Flay (2 ticks)
Mind Spike x2
Mind Blast (4 orbs)
Mind Spike
Devouring Plague
Insanity (2 ticks)
Mind Blast (2 orbs)
Insanity (4 ticks)
Mind Spike
Mind Blast (3 orbs)
Mind Spike
Devouring Plague
Insanity (2 ticks)
Mind Blast (1 orb, the sequence starts to repeat here)
Insanity (4 ticks)

You say the sequence starts to repeat at 1 orb... but its different than the sequence u use on top with shadowfiend and 5 ticks of flay. So what am i supposed to do after i get 1 orb... insanity 4 ticks then shadowfiend, its up again at that time? Sorry for asking but I'm really having problems to understand this mastery rotation.

[Skylarking]

Something i've been doing since i swap to most adds even on farm, is to just keep an eye on the debuff on the boss and refresh it with mind flay before going back to the add.

This is like number 1 priority anyway isnt it?

[Kilee25]

Kilee... got a question about your mastery rotation (i guess it's better if i start with the less complex one).

Mind Blast (1 orb)
Shadowfiend
Mind Flay (2 ticks)
Mind Flay (3 ticks)
Mind Blast (2 orbs)
Mind Spike x3
Mind Blast (3 orbs)
Mind Flay (2 ticks)
Mind Spike x2
Mind Blast (4 orbs)
Mind Spike
Devouring Plague
Insanity (2 ticks)
Mind Blast (2 orbs)
Insanity (4 ticks)
Mind Spike
Mind Blast (3 orbs)
Mind Spike
Devouring Plague
Insanity (2 ticks)
Mind Blast (1 orb, the sequence starts to repeat here)
Insanity (4 ticks)

You say the sequence starts to repeat at 1 orb... but its different than the sequence u use on top with shadowfiend and 5 ticks of flay. So what am i supposed to do after i get 1 orb... insanity 4 ticks then shadowfiend, its up again at that time? Sorry for asking but I'm really having problems to understand this mastery rotation.

There's a video below that section that shows me doing the rotation.

Anywhere you see Mind Flay, Mind Spike, or Shadowfiend, these are considered a filler and not a "static" rotation. The important bits are the Mind Blasts, Devouring Plagues, and Insanity sequences.

The 2 ticks of Mind Flay just after the Mind Blast that gives 3 orbs is static and never changes, and once you get into the rotation it's the only Mind Flay in the sequence.

[Djriff]

This is like number 1 priority anyway isnt it?

True, but there's a difference between a hard swap and ignore everything except the add, and a semi hard swap. IDK, it doesn't work for everything (Soc, Iskar, Not worth it on tyrant imo).

[Deleted]

What addon do you guys use for mindflay castbar? I mean to make sure you interrupt it after x ticks you want and not before.

[Kilee25]

Gnosis. But in WoD, Mind Flay's ticks were set to the GCD, so it's pretty difficult to actually mess it up. It is possible to clip them, but as for me, my internet connection has been a bit shoddy this expac, and I have noticed that gnosis becomes slightly unreliable out past about 150-200 ms.

In truth, I don't think it would matter if I had it installed or not...

But don't take that as discouragement - use Gnosis. It's the best mod as far as I know.

[Djriff]

Gnosis is beastly. I use to use Quartz, and it was alright, however i love the complete customization of Gnosis.