[Priest] Shadow DPS Guide

[Frmercury]

I guess for me the fun in Shadow has never been in micro-managing buffs.

For me it's always been finding the the best way to use all the strengths of Shadow in every encounter and executing that as close to perfection as I could. This involves maximizing my potential DPS and utility as well as performing raid assignments as they were doled out. If anything things have become much, much MORE complex with the change to talents and glyph and utility there will be even more nuances and ability to optimize than there ever has been before.

I guess that's why I reacted the way I did. People are focusing too much on the smallest things that we're losing when at the same time we're gaining so much... I just don't understand the attachment people seem to have with those buffs.

[Celentes]

I guess for me the fun in Shadow has never been in micro-managing buffs.

For me it's always been finding the the best way to use all the strengths of Shadow in every encounter and executing that as close to perfection as I could. This involves maximizing my potential DPS and utility as well as performing raid assignments as they were doled out. If anything things have become much, much MORE complex with the change to talents and glyph and utility there will be even more nuances and ability to optimize than there ever has been before.

I guess that's why I reacted the way I did. People are focusing too much on the smallest things that we're losing when at the same time we're gaining so much... I just don't understand the attachment people seem to have with those buffs.

Except talents don't give you things to micromanage, and what stuff we had to micromanage is now gone. It's not the smallest things that are gone, those are essentially the very idea of synergies that you could lose or abuse. If you were sticking to normal rotation in difficult (and interesting) scenarios, you were not using the class to its fullest. If you were not, you were risking to drop synergies. The point in maximizing your potential was to maximize how much you can squeeze out without losing the benefits that are considered 'passive' here. Kaes may argue that you didn't have to, but that differs greatly from my experience.

I like the new mobility. I like the new vampiric embrace. I like halo (very much so), it actually is very interesting, although limiting. But working on your dps in difficult (and interesting) scenarios will now be effectively gone. We'll do what Kaes did - stick to the book and determined priorities, all 'nuances' are gone. Enlighten me what 'complexity' that mop brings you're talking about.

[Frmercury]

Well on Utility alone:

Baseline you have LoF. With Symbiosis we have Tranquility. You have the ability to Void Shift. Depending on your spec you have Angelic Feather or possibly Body and Soul for times of movement. You may also have Void Tendrils. In a pinch you can always Psychic Scream (but be careful!). You can Silence / Interrupt casting mobs. You have Psychic Horror to Disarm enemies. You can drop Shadowform and heal to cover when a healer goes down (if you have FDCL you can even do ok at it). You can toss out regular PoMs if you're glyphed. You have VE for times of high raid-wide damage. You can survive unbelievable damage and flat out ignore some mechanics with Dispersion. You can Hymn of Hope to help out low mana healers. You can Mass Dispel to remove several Debuffs all at once, or you can just Dispel a buff off an enemy target.

For DPS:

You can snipe SW: D on adds to gain ToF procs and generate a SO. Prioritize multi-DoTing to advance your single target DPS based on what talents you have selected. PI based on fights if they have conducive burn phases. Depending on your glyphs and spec you have a number of increased run speed options which increase stationary DPS time. I actually cannot think of all the implications that different Talent / Glyph combos can produce. I mean someone pointed out that you can PoM with GoDB to proc ToF! I mean c'mon, you cannot tell me that's not interesting as hell.

[Deleted]

Upon gaining buffs, trinket procs etc... are we still required to reapply dots to get the benefits? Namely VT / SW: P

[Kaesebrezen]

Upon gaining buffs, trinket procs etc... are we still required to reapply dots to get the benefits? Namely VT / SW: P

Yes. You still have to reapply them.

[Aica]

FDCL + Glyph of Mind Spike creates micro-management. You now have the chance for an reduced/instant mind blast, which shortens your MB cooldown by effectively 0.75 or 1.5 seconds. This could create anywhere in between 0-4.5 seconds decrease in time between DP casts. Micromanaging the Surge of Darkness buffs (generally trying to stack it up to two, then cast two mind spikes before the mind blast CD comes off, but you may need to cast MSp with 1 stack if your Surge of Darkness buff is about to fall off, or Mind Blast is about to come off CD.

Of course, this interaction scales negatively with haste =\

[Brusalk]

Well on Utility alone:

Baseline you have LoF. With Symbiosis we have Tranquility. You have the ability to Void Shift. Depending on your spec you have Angelic Feather or possibly Body and Soul for times of movement. You may also have Void Tendrils. In a pinch you can always Psychic Scream (but be careful!). You can Silence / Interrupt casting mobs. You have Psychic Horror to Disarm enemies. You can drop Shadowform and heal to cover when a healer goes down (if you have FDCL you can even do ok at it). You can toss out regular PoMs if you're glyphed. You have VE for times of high raid-wide damage. You can survive unbelievable damage and flat out ignore some mechanics with Dispersion. You can Hymn of Hope to help out low mana healers. You can Mass Dispel to remove several Debuffs all at once, or you can just Dispel a buff off an enemy target.

For DPS:

You can snipe SW: D on adds to gain ToF procs and generate a SO. Prioritize multi-DoTing to advance your single target DPS based on what talents you have selected. PI based on fights if they have conducive burn phases. Depending on your glyphs and spec you have a number of increased run speed options which increase stationary DPS time. I actually cannot think of all the implications that different Talent / Glyph combos can produce. I mean someone pointed out that you can PoM with GoDB to proc ToF! I mean c'mon, you cannot tell me that's not interesting as hell.

That's all superfluous. Are those things which can increase damage if controlled correctly? Sure. But the point people are making about the spec is that the normal rotation/priority has very, very little variation and never actually changes. There's no buffs to watch besides Glyph of MS if you have that talent/glyph. You have 1(2)(3) CDs to watch depending on if you actually take PI and/or Halo. Secondary resource generation allows very little optimization beyond attempting to cast Mind Blast as fast as possible.

The only time attempting to heal to get ToF to proc to be useful is if there's nothing else for you to damage and all you can do is heal.

SW: D has an activation time before you can actually use it on an add as the game has to register that you're looking at a target under 20% and send a notification back to you before you can cast it. (In practice it depends greatly on your latency, but even on my ~70ms connection to the beta server it routinely takes somewhere between 0.5secs and 1.5 seconds). As a result if you attempt to SWD something under 20% you're having to wait on that activation to happen before you can cast it.


On live we have 2-3 buffs to watch, 2 CDs to manage, one of which has a variable CD. The priority changes all the time based on the duration/stacks of those buffs. On beta we don't have any of that and the rotation is exceptionally static (and in my opinion rather boring)

[Deleted]

Well on Utility alone:

Baseline you have LoF. With Symbiosis we have Tranquility. You have the ability to Void Shift. Depending on your spec you have Angelic Feather or possibly Body and Soul for times of movement. You may also have Void Tendrils. In a pinch you can always Psychic Scream (but be careful!). You can Silence / Interrupt casting mobs. You have Psychic Horror to Disarm enemies. You can drop Shadowform and heal to cover when a healer goes down (if you have FDCL you can even do ok at it). You can toss out regular PoMs if you're glyphed. You have VE for times of high raid-wide damage. You can survive unbelievable damage and flat out ignore some mechanics with Dispersion. You can Hymn of Hope to help out low mana healers. You can Mass Dispel to remove several Debuffs all at once, or you can just Dispel a buff off an enemy target.

I agree, when I first joined the beta I loved how the mobility has improved as a spriest. The glyph of MF is probably one of the best additions to the priest. You can hardly ever die while questing as such because of it. Not forgetting void tendrils and void shift there is a very small window where you cannot do anything to snare/root or heal yourself. Add in VE and you go some serious pvp fun, I will try it out for sure!
This is what we needed, a pvp edge that we didnt have in cata.

For DPS:

You can snipe SW: D on adds to gain ToF procs and generate a SO. Prioritize multi-DoTing to advance your single target DPS based on what talents you have selected. PI based on fights if they have conducive burn phases. Depending on your glyphs and spec you have a number of increased run speed options which increase stationary DPS time. I actually cannot think of all the implications that different Talent / Glyph combos can produce. I mean someone pointed out that you can PoM with GoDB to proc ToF! I mean c'mon, you cannot tell me that's not interesting as hell.

This is just scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
Youre talking about talents alone and not even the ones that have the most problems. The main problem that many spriests see is the fact that the core rotation is totally uninteresting and boring. Without picking the "whack-a-mole" talents you could do the rotation with your eyes closed and I'm sorry but to me it is halfhearted, lazy and neglegent design. And honestly its very frustrating as they could have just tweaked a few things with the Live spec and added the utility they brought in MoP. The live spec is brilliant and you will all miss it, I can guarantee.

[Frmercury]

Alright, how about the fact that there's 6 or more Rotational Priorities based on the fight type and Tier 3 and 5 talents you take. How simple is that?

[Deleted]

Alright, how about the fact that there's 6 or more Rotational Priorities based on the fight type and Tier 3 and 5 talents you take. How simple is that?

What? The procs you just smash as soon as they light up, prioritizing MB over MS. Smash DP as soon as it lights up. Keep dots on the target. If you have Mindbender, use it on cooldown. If you have PI, use it on cooldown and refresh dots upon the effect. Twist of Fate is currently the best 75 talent by far anyway and SW:I really pales in comparison to Mindbender and FDCL.

The rotation has been dumbed down and our Cataclysm rotation was identically transferred over to the affliction warlock.

I would also like to comment on the ridiculousness of proc-smashing on multitarget fights with FDCL and DI (and those talents are the best by far on these types of fights). It is as if they purposefully designed these talents with such humorous scenarios in mind. It is pathetic really.

[Deleted]

One could argue that the spec is still fun, but it was obviously dumbed down. The complexity gap from t13 to t14 is huge.
I have to agree that it'll be boring as hell if the proc talents are not the ones that produce more dps.

[NickCageFanatic]

When 5.0.4 goes live, go and try blackthorn with the new build, sure its still engaging and fun to dot everything and hit MB off CD but there is no real test of the players skill aside from targeting several mobs and pushing two dots...

Another example; If you want your shadowfiend off CD for spine or something you HAVE to mindflay, you have to go out of your way to mindflay. This was, for me, a lot of fun. Sometimes it's not about over all dps (like spine isnt really) its about being intelligent about how you can play to make sure you get what you need when you need it most.
Sure in the new build it will be a 1min cd if you take MBe so it would be up every time but I dont find that as fun or rewarding. There is no skill or pre-planning involved in pushing Mbe every 1 min.

I've said this time and time again. To play a shadow priest on live it really isnt that hard but to be a great shadow priest and squeeze every last part of dps out of your character then its becomes quite difficult, engaging and ultimately fun and rewarding. The learning of BETA shadow is so rediculously easy and it doesnt take much more effort to play it theoretically perfectly.

I love the whole 2nd half of Dragon Soul, each boss is so mechanically different all 4 test your skills at different angles. I can say that as a Shadow Priest, how you preform in the 2nd half of Dragon Soul (Ultraxion, Blackhorn, Spine, Madness) is what really proves how good you are at playing Shadow.

With that said there are some points you mention I do not agree with, in Blackhorn you say the new rotation will just be targeting several mobs and refreshing DoTs. So how is that any different than what you are doing now? Blackhorn is a fight that as a Shadow Priest, you just dot everything until its dead, yes you still have to cast mind blast and mind flay along with CDs but again how will 5.0.4 make you do anything different than what you are doing now?

If anything, you will be punished more so for not casting Mind Blast, you'll still have to manage your mana properly so you don't oom while multi-doting. So 5.0.4 may just make things a bit more difficult.

For spine, there is nothing skillfull about Mind Flaying and praying that you crit to reduce the CD on shadowfiend. I've done it myself and there have been times I still don't get Shadowfiend for the 2nd tendon. There is ALWAYS skill in preplanning CDs, as a matter of fact preplanning CDs is what separates the good raiders from the great/best raiders...I don't know why you say different.

As for your final point, if Shadow doesn't take much effort to play theoretically perfectly then I'll be looking for your number 1 ranks on WoL coming October...not like you'd be pulling anything different than the person ranked 200 anyway...

[Deleted]

you'll still have to manage your mana properly so you don't oom while multi-doting. So 5.0.4 may just make things a bit more difficult.

not sure if serious? It is impossible to fall below 95% mana in 5.0.4. Essentially shadow priests almost don't use any mana at all. So forget about watching out for mana.

And all in all, the spec is incredibly simplified and dumbed down. No micromanagement involved anymore. If I want something simple and proc-style, I will roll a mage. Which I actually will.

Hope you enjoy the ruined shadow priest.

[mindp]

not sure if serious? It is impossible to fall below 95% mana in 5.0.4. Essentially shadow priests almost don't use any mana at all. So forget about watching out for mana.

And all in all, the spec is incredibly simplified and dumbed down. No micromanagement involved anymore. If I want something simple and proc-style, I will roll a mage. Which I actually will.

Hope you enjoy the ruined shadow priest.

You should come to my bitch and complain forums, as I love whiny whines.

[Deleted]

You should come to my bitch and complain forums, as I love whiny whines.

My whining is just as atrocious as is what they have done to the spec.

[NickCageFanatic]

It is impossible to fall below 95% mana in 5.0.4. Essentially shadow priests almost don't use any mana at all. So forget about watching out for mana.

And all in all, the spec is incredibly simplified and dumbed down. No micromanagement involved anymore. If I want something simple and proc-style, I will roll a mage. Which I actually will.

Hope you enjoy the ruined shadow priest.

I do stand corrected when it comes to what you say about mana, however to say the spec is dumbed down is very...blunt. The flavor comes from your talents and how you use them to your advantage.

For example, lets say you spec into Power Infusion, well every two minutes you will refresh dots the same way you did with Empowered Shadows. You'd also be wise to time that Power Infusion with your Devouring Plague.

or...

Say you spec FDCL and have the Mind Spike glyph. Do you hit Mind Spike whenever it lights up? Doubtful, idk the numbers exactly but I would figure it would be in your best interest to save that Mind Spike for when Mind Blast is on just less than a 4 sec CD that way you hold that Mind Melt buff (which only lasts 4 seconds). By holding that Mind Spike til 4 secs not only do you hold that Mind Melt buff but you have plenty of time to hit Mind Spike again if it procs a second time to then make Mind Blast insta cast.
Now if you got 2 procs of SoD off the bat and Mind Blast was just cast you'd be a fool to just hit Mind Spike x 2 and let that Mind Melt buff fall...You hit Mind Spike, Mind Flay, Mind Spike, Mind Flay then you hit Mind Blast.

The only time you could freely just hit Mind Spike is if you didn't have the Mind Spike Glyph, which I think works best when you spec into Divine Insight.

So those are two examples of how not so dumb the rotation is once you actually put in effort to see how things work with each other.

[Deleted]

As for your final point, if Shadow doesn't take much effort to play theoretically perfectly then I'll be looking for your number 1 ranks on WoL coming October...not like you'd be pulling anything different than the person ranked 200 anyway...

As always people on the internet twist and manipulate words. Take the meaning from what I said, not the literal. It will be easier to play beta perfectly than on live, that's what I mean. The skill it takes to master beta is far inferior to that of live. I never said I was a perfect or even a great shadow priest, I am a good one and I am not so arrogant to say otherwise just to back my point.

And you can look for my rankings if you'd like but I will be playing an affliction lock in MoP.

---------- Post added 2012-08-25 at 06:45 PM ----------

My whining is just as atrocious as is what they have done to the spec.

And there has been plenty of constructive posts on the EU and mostly US forums which have been skimmed over by the devs who aren't giving the players what they want. I have seen complaints tenfold over appreciation for the MoP shadow.

[NickCageFanatic]

I've said this time and time again. To play a shadow priest on live it really isnt that hard but to be a great shadow priest and squeeze every last part of dps out of your character then its becomes quite difficult, engaging and ultimately fun and rewarding. The learning of BETA shadow is so rediculously easy and it doesnt take much more effort to play it theoretically perfectly.

Ok you mention here that being great on live requires skill, I know that. Sounds good, but then you say it doesn't take much effort to play the Beta Shadow Priest Theoretically Perfectly. So....if you know that it doesn't take much effort to play spriest perfectly then you must be able to play the class perfectly with little effort, no? If not how else would you know that it takes little effort to play it perfectly to begin with?

You actually answered that question here...

As always people on the internet twist and manipulate words. Take the meaning from what I said, not the literal. It will be easier to play beta perfectly than on live, that's what I mean. The skill it takes to master beta is far inferior to that of live. I never said I was a perfect or even a great shadow priest, I am a good one and I am not so arrogant to say otherwise just to back my point.

But you just did make an arrogant statement...not only arrogant but hypocritical because first you claim playing MoP shadow priest perfectly takes little effort and then you claim you aren't a perfect player....so how did you know playing spriest perfectly requires little effort.

[Deleted]

I do stand corrected when it comes to what you say about mana, however to say the spec is dumbed down is very...blunt. The flavor comes from your talents and how you use them to your advantage.

For example, lets say you spec into Power Infusion, well every two minutes you will refresh dots the same way you did with Empowered Shadows. You'd also be wise to time that Power Infusion with your Devouring Plague.

or...

Say you spec FDCL and have the Mind Spike glyph. Do you hit Mind Spike whenever it lights up? Doubtful, idk the numbers exactly but I would figure it would be in your best interest to save that Mind Spike for when Mind Blast is on just less than a 4 sec CD that way you hold that Mind Melt buff (which only lasts 4 seconds). By holding that Mind Spike til 4 secs not only do you hold that Mind Melt buff but you have plenty of time to hit Mind Spike again if it procs a second time to then make Mind Blast insta cast.
Now if you got 2 procs of SoD off the bat and Mind Blast was just cast you'd be a fool to just hit Mind Spike x 2 and let that Mind Melt buff fall...You hit Mind Spike, Mind Flay, Mind Spike, Mind Flay then you hit Mind Blast.

The only time you could freely just hit Mind Spike is if you didn't have the Mind Spike Glyph, which I think works best when you spec into Divine Insight.

So those are two examples of how not so dumb the rotation is once you actually put in effort to see how things work with each other.

These arguments only hold if they manage to balance the talents so that they are equal and I have actual options. Mindbender is superior to FDCL on single target fights and on multitarget fights FDCL and DI both reign supreme. Both of these facts render your examples invalid.

[NickCageFanatic]

These arguments only hold if they manage to balance the talents so that they are equal and I have actual options. Mindbender is superior to FDCL on single target fights and on multitarget fights FDCL and DI both reign supreme. Both of these facts render your examples invalid.

My examples are perfectly valid because the point of them was to show that the rotation isn't as dumbed down as you claim it is.

You then come back and tell me how other talents pull more dps and therefore my examples are invalid because of it. You would have a point if I was arguing that FDCL was pulling top damage everywhere, but I never said that. I meant to prove that Shadow isn't as dumbed down and provide well thought out way to execute a rotation and all you could up with is...X talent pulls more dmg....