Maxing Shadow Priest DPS (with weak auras exports!)

[Burchoid]

I made little videos like this on my warrior during DS and people liked them. Even though I am still somewhat newer to shadow priesting, I thought I'd share some of the key things I've learned so far, as well as show my weak auras with exports. I uploaded it in 1080p in case you want make it big.

I managed to pull about 50K dps unbuffed, but I would argue Halo hitting all the dummies helped out a bit Either way, I've ranked top 100 on a few mogu raids so far so I figure I must be some things right. Feel free to correct me or ask questions

[edit]
Old video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mB6HWbluYI

New video:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...est-Raid-Guide




Weak Aura exports[updated for 5.1]:
http://shadow-raid.blogspot.com/2012...a-exports.html

[Pontificate]

Really cool, thanks for posting this.

[Melancolie]

Inner Sanctum and Dark Binding glyphs and no Mind Flay?

That is... Not maxing dps, thats maxing survivability


Rest is pretty good, however i dont agree with absolutely HAVING to insta-spam DP after a 3rd-orbing MB if you dont have DI and something else is worth more - like if Halo is rdy or a dot is falling off, then DP can wait 2 gcds since you're 8 secs away from next MB anyways.

[Burchoid]

Inner Sanctum and Dark Binding glyphs and no Mind Flay?

That is... Not maxing dps, thats maxing survivability


Rest is pretty good, however i dont agree with absolutely HAVING to insta-spam DP after a 3rd-orbing MB if you dont have DI and something else is worth more - like if Halo is rdy or a dot is falling off, then DP can wait 2 gcds since you're 8 secs away from next MB anyways.

I find the 'body and soul' talent better than glyph of mindflay. Do they even stack? Either way, both are speed boosts and have little to do with DPS, as you suggest. I think you maybe meant glyph of mindspike which I have.

I think its good practice to use your DP right away, unless you see a more opportune time coming up to use it (i.e. trinket about to proc, an add to nuke is about to become targetable, etc).

[Segen92]

I find the 'body and soul' talent better than glyph of mindflay. Do they even stack? Either way, both are speed boosts and have little to do with DPS, as you suggest. I think you maybe meant glyph of mindspike which I have.

I think its good practice to use your DP right away, unless you see a more opportune time coming up to use it (i.e. trinket about to proc, an add to nuke is about to become targetable, etc).

Have you ever been in a raid? there are a large number of things to move in/out of that moving faster would help with. the faster you get to your next spot, the more time you have to dps. Body and soul is a waste of a gcd if you're talking about pure dps, where as mindflay is pretty much always up (if not, you THEN use body to move out, if needed) in place of casing PWS cast a SW:P.

[Drye]

the faster you get to your next spot, the more time you have to dps. Body and soul is a waste of a gcd if you're talking about pure dps, where as mindflay is pretty much always up (if not, you THEN use body to move out, if needed) in place of casing PWS cast a SW:P.

For some reason people never understand that faster movement speed is a dps increase. The mf glyph allows us to take ire haste enchant on boots over the mastery/ms enchant.

[Burchoid]

For some reason people never understand that faster movement speed is a dps increase. The mf glyph allows us to take ire haste enchant on boots over the mastery/ms enchant.

I have been using body and soul as my speed boost. 60% run speed boost and a damage shield at the same time is pretty slick. I use it every time I need to move quick.

Do you think its worth dropping a survivability glyph in order to have a passive speed boost from mindflay? Inner Sanctum is pretty OP, and being able to toss a heal during high damage is kinda nice for activating Twist of Fate and/or helping out during downtime. I don't think I would want to lose either of those two when I feel Body and Soul has me covered for my increased movement needs while providing more utility and survivability.

I know 'having' to use your power word shield to move quick uses mana while glyph of mindflay doesn't, but most of the times you would want to move quick you have a chance of taking some damage it seems.

---------- Post added 2012-10-14 at 04:23 PM ----------

Have you ever been in a raid? there are a large number of things to move in/out of that moving faster would help with. the faster you get to your next spot, the more time you have to dps. Body and soul is a waste of a gcd if you're talking about pure dps, where as mindflay is pretty much always up (if not, you THEN use body to move out, if needed) in place of casing PWS cast a SW:P.

Whats a raid?

http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/10...kings/players/

[Segen92]

I use PWS in raids mostly when i NEED to help heal the raid (or myself) but if you're 100% pusing a berserk timer don't use the healing in shadowform glyph, hopefully your healers are capable of healing the raid with just your divine star / halo / vamp embrace to help them. That's all down to personal preference, I'd prefer to just manage those. If you can beat your healers by sniping for TOF go for it. but the use of a GCD to *maybe* get a buff isn't worth it, especially if your healers are quick draws.

For the record, i'm not against off healing, but i'd rather use my gcd's for what i'm in the raid for. Dps.

[danightryder]

i gotta agree with everyone here, I prefer mind flay glyph over PW:S just because you don't have to do anything or use a GCD. Set it and forget it, I'll PW:S myself when i feel im taking to much damage or i'll pop Vampiric Embrace with the Vampiric embrace glyph and halo on CD to help out. Of course if push comes to shove i'll toss out heals.

[Naelynwins]

very nice tips , grats , ill try your exports

[Nestar]

I've found PW:S on movement incredibly valuable, (I actually run the MFlay glyph as well)
it lets you move 1.45x faster to your destination, assuming I can get there in 3 seconds normally, I'll get there 1 second sooner.
Using it effectively cancels one SWP cast (which is likely already at full duration prior to the movement. So really all I lose is one tick, so like 20-40k at best depending on the fight. But it allows me to get back to my normal rotation 1 gcd sooner, which is potentially as valuable as 3 Mind Flay ticks (assuming all dot's have more than 1gcd left on duration) which is worth more like 80k. Providing a considerable dps increase when moving.
I generally use this off the start of Feng, and going into each epicenter. As well as moving to the focus' on Elegon.

[Deleted]

I just think your Weak Auras are not... efficient? Like, what is the deal with the large globes to track DoTs? And I also don't see how the progress texture on them really is helpful. All you basically needed was 1/10 of that globe and then display a text when about to expire like you are doinig now and you achieve the same thing.

You do sometimes have an incredible precision with your DoT refreshes but sometimes you don't and it makes me wonder if you are just lucky with the GCDs aligning or if it is planned.

I would also love to see that UI and how you perform with it in an actual raid environment.

[Burchoid]

I just think your Weak Auras are not... efficient? Like, what is the deal with the large globes to track DoTs? And I also don't see how the progress texture on them really is helpful. All you basically needed was 1/10 of that globe and then display a text when about to expire like you are doinig now and you achieve the same thing.

You do sometimes have an incredible precision with your DoT refreshes but sometimes you don't and it makes me wonder if you are just lucky with the GCDs aligning or if it is planned.

I would also love to see that UI and how you perform with it in an actual raid environment.

I will record some raids next week. We'll be working on a couple heroics and I think we're in a position to get 1 or 2 of them, we'll see.

The globes are awesome for quickly checking whether or not to re-app a dot in relation to what procs are up or about to come up. Know what I mean? Works well on multiple targets that may not be in front of you too, being that you can cast dots in any direction and sometimes need to have the camera pointed somewhere else. I also use Tidy Plates to help watch dots on multiple targets that are stacked.

Also, I think its VERY important to track your procs, especially when some of them stack. The moment something stronger than my current dot comes up, I instantly prioritize re-apping dot to take advantage of the extra dot DPS asap. Continue rotation. As some of the stacked procs are about to fall off, boom, re-apply again so that the dots last as long as possible with the higher spellpower/haste or whatever from the procs. Resume rotation. Leave the boosted dots alone until they are about to fall off. You can also delay a DP if you see that a trinket internal cooldown is up and about to proc for that extra boost in damage. I just couldn't do all this effectively without having these particular Weak Auras setup.

I think tracking all procs and icd's is crucial to pushing your DPS over the top. Its definitely more important than mindflay glyph vs body and soul speed boost. Do you need to be this anal with your dots to have fun and kill raid bosses? Hell no. But it will increase your damage a good bit!

You will see what I mean when I get some raid videos up next week.

I used to use ElvUI, until I customized it too much that I didn't really need/want it any more lol Glad I got rid of it ><

[danightryder]

why r u glad u got rid of it? Im using that with ForteXorsist

[Burchoid]

why r u glad u got rid of it? Im using that with ForteXorsist

Because I wanted more options for target frames, trinket ICDs, etc. Plus I kept having buggy chat windows that wouldn't save their resize. I wound up having to disable most of elvui's options to use tidy plates, vuhdo, razer action bars, etc. It got to the point where all I was using it for was layout. I don't need elvui to place things where I want them on my screen.

Its still definitely the best packaged UI out there.

[Keosen]

I think tracking all procs and icd's is crucial to pushing your DPS over the top. Its definitely more important than mindflay glyph vs body and soul speed boost. Do you need to be this anal with your dots to have fun and kill raid bosses? Hell no. But it will increase your damage a good bit!

Well it really depends, delaying -much- a DP/MB/VT to cast it buffed maybe after all hurt your dps instead of boosting it.
Overall i got the feeling that tracking your icds won't make any good by long shot, i could be wrong ofcourse.

[Deleted]

Getting top rankings has nothing to do with how you set up your UI. It has everything to do with your gear, who you compete with it (amount of other spriests who have killed said 10/25man normal/heroic boss), how abusive you are in raids, and if the kill time (depends on raid dps) maxizime your cooldowns/proc uptime. And of course how lucky you are with the new talent procs.
As long as you have fortexorcist, are able to see your dots visually on your target, and you can track your procs you should be completely fine. I'm inclined to say that ICD doesn't matter, because once you've done a heroic fight enough times (assuming that you wont do normal more than a handful of times) you will get used to the interval of time your procs will appear again.

Edit: And the mind flay glyph is really a no-brainer. Anyone who's been raiding as a shadow priest in Tbc, Wotlk and Cataclysm could tell you how depressing shadow priest mobility have been beforehand, and how amazing a change this glyph is.

[Burchoid]

Overall i got the feeling that tracking your icds won't make any good by long shot, i could be wrong ofcourse.

You could be... you could always try for yourself and see It improved my numbers by a good margin which is why I shared.

I am very surprised at all the proc-tracking nay-sayers tbh! I'd be curious if any of you progression raid, what your damage in raid looks like, and whether or not you are ranking.

Not sure if people don't know what they are talking about/too lazy or if I am the crazy one I am willing to accept all possibilities here

[Melancolie]

I find the 'body and soul' talent better than glyph of mindflay. Do they even stack? Either way, both are speed boosts and have little to do with DPS, as you suggest. I think you maybe meant glyph of mindspike which I have.

I think its good practice to use your DP right away, unless you see a more opportune time coming up to use it (i.e. trinket about to proc, an add to nuke is about to become targetable, etc).

I dont get what you're saying at all, it completely baffles me oO

Body and Soul = 1 gcd. If you do 100K dps, doing 1 body and soul will have lost you 100k dmg. Do that 10 times in a fight and you'll do 1 million less dmg than without.

I didnt say inner sanctum or dark binding are bad glyphs, but your thread hols the very ominous title "MAXING shadowpriest dps". You could also pop a healing pot to up survivability, but we can all agree that a dps pot is better.

If we're going for maxing our dps, mind flay glyph wins, as you pretty much never have to think about the smaller things like fire at feng, dropping stacks at elegon, getting to a spirit totem at gara'jal or whatever - lots of it can even be anticipated and timed with an instant mb/ms, dp, renewing swp or similar.

[Deleted]

You could be... you could always try for yourself and see It improved my numbers by a good margin which is why I shared.

I am very surprised at all the proc-tracking nay-sayers tbh! I'd be curious if any of you progression raid, what your damage in raid looks like, and whether or not you are ranking.

Not sure if people don't know what they are talking about/too lazy or if I am the crazy one I am willing to accept all possibilities here

You don't understand. Those things don't matter that much for most players out there because if they would ever try to track those things they would lose DPS on other things. It is just too much for most people and it ends up hurting them more than helping them. Shifting your focus on the more fundamental stuff will probably net you more of a DPS gain, it is that simple. Tracking ICDs doesn't make a noticeable difference.

If you ever raided with really good players you can tell that the fights that require a lot of individual skill will make for the biggest DPS gaps between players of the same class. On fights like Feng and Spiritbinder, the single target DPS between players of the the same class won't differ much even though one player might be much better than the other. This is simply because there isn't much the better player can do that will make a huge DPS gain. Sure, you can track ICDs, but it won't be noticeable. Sure, you can be better at keeping DoTs up, Mind Blasting more often but it still won't matter much on straight single-target fights.

That is why, in my guild at least, on Elegon, Will of the Emperor and Stone Gaurd the difference in skill and damage between some players of the same classes really shows even though they were close on fights like Feng and Spiritbinder (sometimes the "better" players were even below the worse ones).

I am not saying that tracking ICDs is a DPS loss for all players, but the players able to track ICDs and use them to their near maximum potential are already insane players and don't need any guide to tell them that.