[Priest] Shadow DPS Guide

[Arlee]

Shadow has been that way for months and months now, do you two even Shadow?!

/Sunrise kick

(for people who don't know monk that's "Foot to the face!")

I agree it sucks when an item drops and is covered in stats that nobody cares about - but the best solution to fix that IMO is to allow greater reforge customization.

But with reforging going away and only Primary stats changing based on your spec (ie it won't be useful for us because Int is the only primary that we use and crit, haste, mastery are all secondary) that will probably still be a problem. But I agree with the thought they likely won't go live with Readiness.

(coming from someone whose highest item level set currently puts me at 17% hit, despite my best efforts to get it lower)

Clearly you should try harder

[Emophia]

Um, if you don't need the healing, on single target do you still use Dark Star? On CD? Prio above mindflay?

Cheers.

[Nestar]

Um, if you don't need the healing, on single target do you still use Dark Star? On CD? Prio above mindflay?

Cheers.

Yes, Above mindflay only. Remember to watch your distance to target and direction. If its at the peak distance/strange angle and will only get hit by Divine Star once, or wont get hit at all then leave it till you get a chance later to do so. There's also several bugs with that talent relating to platforms. The one that comes to mind is Primordious (this may be a heroic only problem, not sure) to do with standing on the area that has the stairs down to Ra-Den's room. If you cast while standing on that platform, your Divine Star will go behind you, instead of infront.

[Aeriel]

Overall, I don't feel they are going to go live with the Readiness stat - even when they toyed with the idea through the CDR reduction trinkets in SoO - they found it super problematic balancing it - particularly for casters - and particularly for Shadow amongst casters - so casters didnt even get a CDR trinket.

I can see it being better for skills over a certain cooldown. Say 30-60s or so. Less than that, the reduction would be almost pointlessly minuscule. That said, the cooldown reduction to MB in the DoT-less talent (name escaping me sorry) would lead to serious double dipping issues if readiness also affected it.

[Overdispersion]

Hey guys.

I can't find any suitable guilds that are in need of a disc priest atm so I've reluctantly moved on to shadow but my self esteem is really low at the moment. My ilvl is 536 and I'm only doing 120k dps on dummies. The problem is that I have no idea how to improve my dps because my gear is optimised (my one trinket is shit but I haven't found a replacement for it yet) and frankly simcraft is terrible. It tells me I should be doing 113465.6 dps with 100k iterations on a target dummy but I can't find anything in the simulation profile about refreshing dots on certain procs. So how do I move on from here? Can it really be that the legendary cloak and meta gem would increase my dps by 50k?

[Zoulis]

Meta gem and Cloak are probably more than a 50k DPS increase especially at your gear level ... Also simcraft's estimate counts halo hitting only 1 target (I think) when you have your halo hitting all the dummies around at optimal range (if u're positioned correctly) s.so the DPS difference is prolly that and the fact that you refresh your dots on certain procc, It does count SW dmg though so it should prolly even that out. Now I can't really say much w/o seeing your gear... I'd talk about WoL reports also but since it's dummy DPS they can't really exist :P I'd say that you shouldn't rely on dummy DPS too much though. Try giving a look at the "Fix my DPS" thread also were more people give their opinions.
So if you could provide an armory link I'd be able to help more :P

[Emophia]

Yes, Above mindflay only. Remember to watch your distance to target and direction. If its at the peak distance/strange angle and will only get hit by Divine Star once, or wont get hit at all then leave it till you get a chance later to do so. There's also several bugs with that talent relating to platforms. The one that comes to mind is Primordious (this may be a heroic only problem, not sure) to do with standing on the area that has the stairs down to Ra-Den's room. If you cast while standing on that platform, your Divine Star will go behind you, instead of infront.

Cool, cheers for the in depth answer.

[Deleted]

Yvaelle,

Once again I have to congratulate you on a wonderfull guide. This has helped me upon my return to azeroth the last few weeks after an absence of 1.5 years. I was actually bumping up against a "learning curve" with Pandaria and now I feel I can grow again in my role of Shadowpriest

Thanks a million!

Vampy

[Volitar]

Soooooooooooooo I just started playing again but I have no weak auras. Can someone give me their SWD aura, the one that showed the ICD of it giving a shadow orb.

(I know that we double tap SWD in all situations because they buffed the damage but I really liked the aura.)

[Nestar]

Soooooooooooooo I just started playing again but I have no weak auras. Can someone give me their SWD aura, the one that showed the ICD of it giving a shadow orb.

(I know that we double tap SWD in all situations because they buffed the damage but I really liked the aura.)

Here's mine, Basically the same as the old version but adjusts for the increased ICD.
http://pastebin.com/vZNJ6u3E

[Aica]

(I know that we double tap SWD in all situations because they buffed the damage but I really liked the aura.)

Sometimes you're just casting SW:D to get an orb, and its damage doesn't actually matter. This takes the guesswork out of when it's safe to cast it for more orbs!

[kpii]

Quick question, for multiple targets e.g. 3-4 targets that will live for a while whats the optimal priority? Dots, MB, 3DP, Insanity?

[Zoulis]

Quick question, for multiple targets e.g. 3-4 targets that will live for a while whats the optimal priority? Dots, MB, 3DP, Insanity?

MB > 3orb DP > MFI > Keep dots up

[FluFF]

When I get in Shadow Word Death range aka execute phase on a boss I find myself spending more time in getting MB's and 2x SWD's + 3 orb DP off than I find myself having time to refresh dots on time or cast Mind Flay Insanity while DP is ticking...

Am I assuming this as the correct playstyle under 20% or am I doing something wrong ( mind you im only lvl 90 for about a week and got shit gear which is a bunch of timeless isle stuff and old LFR gear.

Does my ''problem'' go away in good gear and haste levels or is my priest life below 20% hp just spamming MB's + 3 orb DP's + 2xSWD and refreshing dots in between and hoping that I get the time to get MFInsanity in there once and a while ?

The issue I have is that if I do 2x SWD + MB + dot refresh + 3orb DP I got no time to cast MFInsanity cause it's time to SWD and MB again, and as far as I can see this doesn't look like it changes with higher gear ?

[Ilir]

^^^^^ I feel the same... it made me hate MF:I 'cause I just don't like to have to stop casting it to cast something else. It should give an ORB if we cast it at full duration. D:

[Clrg]

What trinket should i use? i have heroic kardris totem and warforged BBY, armory http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ouldmas/simple, using bby allow me to change all these haste gem for something else but im not sure if the totem multistrike worth more.

[Zoulis]

NM WF BBoY is sth like 60dps above HC KTT. That is because of the power of the dot though not just the extra stats. If you are confident in your snapshotting ability then go BBoY with eyes closed

[kpii]

Is it worth waiting a few seconds from mb'ing to sw:death first with a 4p proc?

[Yvaelle]

Is it worth waiting a few seconds from mb'ing to sw:death first with a 4p proc?

While the damage is nice, delaying orb generators is almost never worth it for anything (except DP obviously) - some quick napkin math says the permissible delay is...

less than a GCD!

So ya, don't delay - if it lines up with Death that's nice, but not necessary

[Clrg]

NM WF BBoY is sth like 60dps above HC KTT. That is because of the power of the dot though not just the extra stats. If you are confident in your snapshotting ability then go BBoY with eyes closed

its seem like the totem is the winner http://www.howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=5766 RIP 500vp.

edit:im not convinced yet