Shadow priest - impossible to get more haste at my gear level?

[Gaeral]

Hey guys.

So, I recently decided to gear my priest for shadow. So I ventured into FL a couple of times (my main is a hunter so that made it a bit easier when it came to the mechanics, having done 7/7) and cleared 7/7 as well. I got quite lucky winning the shoulder token, the Rhyo head etc.

However, my DPS isn't where it should be in my opinion. With avg ilvl 373 I pushed 21.5k on Baleroc. I think that's quite low for my gear. I haven't got the rotation down exactly and I make some mistakes in dotting etc, but I'm still learning. I'm also aware of my gloves and legs (they are healing legs atm) but I got the legs from BH and they have a lot of haste so I figured why not, since I had 359s before. Some of my enchants are also wrong (see: 50 spirit on wrists) and I'm working on my Therazane rep on this one.

I've reforged everything to haste while keeping at 17.00% hit exactly. Is it normal that I can only reach 1960 haste rating with this gear? I will get DMC:V soon so I'll sacrifice some int for mastery and haste. But even so, I hear people talking about 30% haste etc and I have no clue on how I should ever reach that.

Any other hints you can give me in regards to my gear/DPS/spec? Here's my armory link: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...tdotcom/simple

Cheers,

Dotdot

[Crummy]

I would reforge the crit on shoulders to Mastery, and buy the Trail of embers wand.
And ofc, when you replaced those healing items you'll increase your haste.

The people talking about 30% haste are the ones wearing a few 391 items So that will come along with your progress.

[Gaeral]

But even so how come my haste levels are really that low?

And I'm quite afraid to drop below the hit cap, since hit is so important for most classes. How important is hit really (or spirit)?

[zakaluka]

Because of crit/mastery synergy and the sheer importance of haste, hit cap isn't essential for spriest. In theory, hit values lower pp than all 3. However, being significantly below hitcap raises some RNG troubles and can cause difficulty with execution, ie you will make more mistakes.

Even one mistake will negate any 'gain' you get by shifting hit->haste.

Basically, it's worth dropping some hit to reach any important haste threshold. Beyond that, it might be worthwhile to hit cap or not, depending on how good at spriest you are.

[Gaeral]

Thanks for the answer how would you translate that to my current gear though. Are there any pieces I should definitely get (bar FL drops, since RNG is not on my side most of the times) or any chant/gem setups I should work on in my current gear to get a haste plateau? I don't even know how I should balance my current stats..

Cheers.

[Archermit]

I would reforge the crit on shoulders to Mastery, and buy the Trail of embers wand.
And ofc, when you replaced those healing items you'll increase your haste.

The people talking about 30% haste are the ones wearing a few 391 items So that will come along with your progress.

my priest has maybe a 372? item level ( I have a full set of PvP gear so item level shows as 380 not sure what PvE score is) and im on 29.82% haste with hit cap

[Gaeral]

Please link me your armory then so I can have a look at what I'm doing wrong (logged out in pve gear ofc)

[xMuse]

You should use the hit/haste rep cloak instead of the spirit/mastery one.
Would also be good to get the hit/haste VP wand instead of the spirit/mastery one.
You have two int/mastery gems you could replace with int/haste and could always enchant for another 150 haste instead of spirit, greater mastery and lavawalker.
With all that an DMC:V you'd be at 2432 and if you bought/got the shadow tier gloves from BH you'd be at 2581 which is alllmost there
Shoulder enchant would push you over.

[Worshaka]

xMuse is pretty much on the ball.

Here is stuff you can fix immediately:
* No shoulder enchant
* Get the other rep cloak
* Bracers should have +50 Int enchant
* I think it's worth going with +50 haste to gloves until you reach 2589, but that is my opinion and not definitive but you could get more haste here if you were concerned about it.
* Legs should have 20int/20haste in them
* Feet should hae 20int/20haste in them
* Change the leg enchant to the 95int/55spirit version.


This is what you can do in the short to medium term:
* DMC:V to replace Theralon's Mirror, just depends how badly you want to optimise your gear.
* BoE 2H Staff is purchasable on the AH (between 14k - 20k on my server).
* Level your enchanting/Tailoring to get access to 80int and the Lightweave cloak enchant.
* Pick up the shadow gloves/legs.
* Get the other valor point wand.
* Pick up the soothing brimstone circle (ring) with valor points.

[Gaeral]

xMuse is pretty much on the ball.

Here is stuff you can fix immediately:
* No shoulder enchant
* Get the other rep cloak
* Bracers should have +50 Int enchant
* I think it's worth going with +50 haste to gloves until you reach 2589, but that is my opinion and not definitive but you could get more haste here if you were concerned about it.
* Legs should have 20int/20haste in them
* Feet should hae 20int/20haste in them
* Change the leg enchant to the 95int/55spirit version.


This is what you can do in the short to medium term:
* DMC:V to replace Theralon's Mirror, just depends how badly you want to optimise your gear.
* BoE 2H Staff is purchasable on the AH (between 14k - 20k on my server).
* Level your enchanting/Tailoring to get access to 80int and the Lightweave cloak enchant.
* Pick up the shadow gloves/legs.
* Get the other valor point wand.
* Pick up the soothing brimstone circle (ring) with valor points.

Here is stuff you can fix immediately:
* No shoulder enchant will do once I farm Therazane rep
* Get the other rep cloak Done
* Bracers should have +50 Int enchant Done
* I think it's worth going with +50 haste to gloves until you reach 2589, but that is my opinion and not definitive but you could get more haste here if you were concerned about it. Done
* Legs should have 20int/20haste in them Done
* Feet should hae 20int/20haste in them Done
* Change the leg enchant to the 95int/55spirit version. Done


This is what you can do in the short to medium term:
* DMC:V to replace Theralon's Mirror, just depends how badly you want to optimise your gear. Bought the deck, so done next week
* BoE 2H Staff is purchasable on the AH (between 14k - 20k on my server). No money income atm so that'll have to wait or I'll have to get lucky in FL runs coming weeks
* Level your enchanting/Tailoring to get access to 80int and the Lightweave cloak enchant. On the tailoring part, enchanting is again not really possible atm due to lack of gold
* Pick up the shadow gloves/legs. Will do in coming weeks
* Get the other valor point wand. Same as above
* Pick up the soothing brimstone circle (ring) with valor points. Same as above


Conclusion: tried testing my DPS on OS10 3D fight. Other classes were hunter, blood nfrost DK and a paladin, so no useful buffs for me. However, I only did 16k DPS without getting much of the 'prio' system wrong. What else could be the cause of this? Armory link again: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...tdotcom/simple

Cheers

[hikamiro]

Can you log your next raid?

make an account at worldoflogs.com

and record your next raid by typing /combatlog before you start, then upload it using the launcher program.

Gear optimization aside, it's probably just rotational issues limiting your dps.

You can also use simcraft to see where your dps 'should be' on a completely standstill fight (There are none of these in firelands, closest is baleroc, but you'll probably be on shard duty thus moving)

[Gaeral]

Well, I don't really know how to simcraft or how to put my character into such a sim. Have never done that before so could use some help. My next FL will most likely be somewhere after weds (reset). Will keep you updated on how I did then.

Self buffed on a dummy I tend to get 15k DPS atm when maintaining my rotation.

Cheers,

Dotdot

[Zuziza]

Dummies typically suck to reflect your actual DPS as shadow; for us, they're a better tool to practice your timing for refreshes and MF clipping. If you don't have WoL link, do you recall your DPS on a particular fight (non-Alysrazor preferably) and what your job for the fight was?

As others mentioned, a lot of the gear you have is healing gear. You should never be gemming for Mastery over Haste, and having Haste as a base stat on you gear is preferable. The gem in your boots isn't worth it unless it's the last thing to get you over 30% haste (the bump is worth just enough to be worth a socket or enchant). You really need separate gear sets for Disc and Shadow, as that will fix most of your issues without sacrificing heal ability in your other spec (such as switching your meta gem).

If you could log out in your Shadow set up (as I'm not entirely sure), that'd be best.

[Worshaka]

Dummies typically suck to reflect your actual DPS as shadow; for us, they're a better tool to practice your timing for refreshes and MF clipping. If you don't have WoL link, do you recall your DPS on a particular fight (non-Alysrazor preferably) and what your job for the fight was?

As others mentioned, a lot of the gear you have is healing gear. You should never be gemming for Mastery over Haste, and having Haste as a base stat on you gear is preferable. The gem in your boots isn't worth it unless it's the last thing to get you over 30% haste (the bump is worth just enough to be worth a socket or enchant). You really need separate gear sets for Disc and Shadow, as that will fix most of your issues without sacrificing heal ability in your other spec (such as switching your meta gem).

If you could log out in your Shadow set up (as I'm not entirely sure), that'd be best.

The thing I like about dummies is they provide a level playing field to see if you are casting the correct spells. If for some reason your dot uptime is 70% on a dummy then you can identify that issue, you can then investigate if it's due to a poor UI (which it almost always is) and you can rectify it. If you can only achieve 70% uptime on a dummy when you are standing still, then you're not going to achieve a decent uptime in an encounter where you have movement and other considerations.

My advice is to go test your spell rotation on a dummy and then compare what you are able to do with the theoretical maximum. The idea is to ignore the dps figure and concentrate on your actual casts. You can use SW:P ticks as a baseline for the max possible dot ticks. If you maintain a high VT/DP uptime you will see VT/DP & SW:P all have the same amount of ticks. You can then take the length of time of the dummy parse (in seconds) and divide it by the number of MB casts. If you don't get a figure close to 1 MB every 7.5 seconds you are not casting MB on CD and missing out on possible MB casts. Lastly you can look at the % of damage MF accounted for. If its not 30 to 32% then you are missing MF ticks.

I'd do a lot of those parses and get a picture on what it is you are not doing correctly. You can then evaluate your UI. Lets say your dot ticks are low for VT. Where is my DoT timer in my UI. Is it in a position I can see easily. If I focus on my dot timer can I see if my character is standing in fire easily. Where do I need to put my dot timer so I don't get tunnel vision. Lets say MB isn't cast enough times, how is my UI telling me MB is about to come off CD? Do i need to create some kind of indicator?

Unfortunately this part of the discussion (what corrective measures you shoudl employ) is pretty much just guessing until you get some data showing you what you are not casting correctly. Get that data to me and I can tell you how to correct it.