Shadow Priest haste

[konway]

I know there was also a lot of talk about crit vs mastery and mastery vs haste. This should help people out a bit.

http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2411

My good sir, methinks thou dost rely a bit too heavily upon the results of thy beloved simulator. Surely thou must applyeth a most judicious degree of skepticism, wherefore the skirmishes therein are merely suppositious. 'Twould be madness to apply these endorsements with the utmost expedience, presuming thus spaketh the Lords of Warcraft.

Let us not praise the simulator deity too hastily.

Adieu

Hay guyz I spent all night plugging numbers into my machine because it's so hard to think for myself. U can haz results, they only show a marginal difference on imaginary fights, but I think we should interpret these as the infallible word of the WoW Gods and immediately equip ourselves in a way that most pleases them.

All bow to the holy sim.

Amen

Please post constructively.

Happy to oblige

[Burchoid]

The mocking continues.

Numbers and math don't lie.

[Deleted]

Hay guyz I spent all night plugging numbers into my machine because it's so hard to think for myself. U can haz results, they only show a marginal difference on imaginary fights, but I think we should interpret these as the infallible word of the WoW Gods and immediately equip ourselves in a way that most pleases them.

All bow to the holy sim.

Amen

Please post constructively.

What's the alternative? Gear random stats because it feels right?

cheers for the H2P link, I was recently doing a similar thing playing with talent setups for multi target fights, it seems that at a certain amount of targets it becomes beneficial to drop back to mindbender instead of FDCL. I can only assume this is because you reach a limit to the dots you can cast so the procs would never get used. I seemed to be finding this to happen at around 6-8 mobs depending if I had also taken DI - also seems to mimic what I see in practise on fights such as wind lord.

[konway]

What's the alternative? Gear random stats because it feels right?

Get in touch with your spirit animal and beg for its advice. If your spirit animal isn't answering, you could try flipping a coin or rolling some dice. Logic, deduction and other pseudo-scientific hokum are absolute last resorts.
[Posting positively seems to be your last resort, unfortunately --Kel]

cheers for the H2P link, I was recently doing a similar thing playing with talent setups for multi target fights, it seems that at a certain amount of targets it becomes beneficial to drop back to mindbender instead of FDCL. I can only assume this is because you reach a limit to the dots you can cast so the procs would never get used. I seemed to be finding this to happen at around 6-8 mobs depending if I had also taken DI - also seems to mimic what I see in practise on fights such as wind lord.

That makes no sense. If your DPS is dropping because you're DoTing too many targets, stop DoTing after 3-4 and focus on higher priority spells. FDCL will obviously cap out at some point, but Mindbender has no way to "catch up" on multi-target fights because it only damages a single target.

The only way I can imagine Mindbender coming out on top would be when there are enough mobs grouped together that Mind Sear is your top priority by a large margin. In that case, the single GCD required for Mindbender would probably be a small DPS gain, but any GCDs spent on DoTs or other single-target spells would all be a waste. I'm not sure where you'd encounter that sort of thing in a boss fight though...

[Aica]

That makes no sense. If your DPS is dropping because you're DoTing too many targets, stop DoTing after 3-4 and focus on higher priority spells. FDCL will obviously cap out at some point, but Mindbender has no way to "catch up" on multi-target fights because it only damages a single target.

The only way I can imagine Mindbender coming out on top would be when there are enough mobs grouped together that Mind Sear is your top priority by a large margin. In that case, the single GCD required for Mindbender would probably be a small DPS gain, but any GCDs spent on DoTs or other single-target spells would all be a waste. I'm not sure where you'd encounter that sort of thing in a boss fight though...

Get in touch with your inner math nerd, and discover that SoD Mind Spike does less damage per GCD than either VT or SW:P. You can and will reach a number of targets where casting dots is still better than casting Mind Sear, but you have enough targets that you will do nothing but cast dots (and Mind Blast and Devouring Plague). In this range, there's no place for casting Mind Spike at all, and Mindbender comes out ahead.

Since you're so good at logic and math, I'll leave you to figure out what you should be casting at which numbers of targets.

[Deleted]

Get in touch with your spirit animal and beg for its advice. If your spirit animal isn't answering, you could try flipping a coin or rolling some dice. Logic, deduction and other pseudo-scientific hokum are absolute last resorts.

That makes no sense. If your DPS is dropping because you're DoTing too many targets, stop DoTing after 3-4 and focus on higher priority spells. FDCL will obviously cap out at some point, but Mindbender has no way to "catch up" on multi-target fights because it only damages a single target.

The only way I can imagine Mindbender coming out on top would be when there are enough mobs grouped together that Mind Sear is your top priority by a large margin. In that case, the single GCD required for Mindbender would probably be a small DPS gain, but any GCDs spent on DoTs or other single-target spells would all be a waste. I'm not sure where you'd encounter that sort of thing in a boss fight though...

well dots have a higher DPET than mind spike. and mind bender has a higher DPET than dots.
so when you get to the point where you constantly are casting dots and not using any mind spike procs (which is more dps than only Dotting 3-4 and using spike procs) then fdcl adds nothing, mind bender however would still be worth using on CD over casting dots for that 1 gcd.
I didn't see mind sear being worth casting over dots ever, seems mind sear has a niche of being used as a filler when everything has a dot on it and you have nothing else to cast. I have no idea how many targets would be worth casting mind sear at the expense of dots but I'm talking about a situation with less mobs than that.

[konway]

Get in touch with your inner math nerd, and discover that SoD Mind Spike does less damage per GCD than either VT or SW:P. You can and will reach a number of targets where casting dots is still better than casting Mind Sear, but you have enough targets that you will do nothing but cast dots (and Mind Blast and Devouring Plague). In this range, there's no place for casting Mind Spike at all, and Mindbender comes out ahead.

Since you're so good at logic and math, I'll leave you to figure out what you should be casting at which numbers of targets.

Damage isn't the only value, it can also be cast while moving and costs zero mana. SW:P and VT can each only claim one of those benefits -- not to mention synergy with the glyph.

Will of the Emperor is the only fight I've seen so far where you could potentially have 5+ targets for any significant portion of the fight, and it requires a lot of movement. Not to mention the fact that the adds will often die before your DoTs have done their full damage.

I'm sure the sim is perfectly tuned for all those factors when you set it to Will of the Emper... oh, what's that? It doesn't have a setting for Will of the Emperor? What a shame. I guess you can just pick something similar and assume the results are 100% accurate.

---------- Post added 2012-11-14 at 08:38 PM ----------

well dots have a higher DPET than mind spike. and mind bender has a higher DPET than dots.
so when you get to the point where you constantly are casting dots and not using any mind spike procs (which is more dps than only Dotting 3-4 and using spike procs) then fdcl adds nothing, mind bender however would still be worth using on CD over casting dots for that 1 gcd.
I didn't see mind sear being worth casting over dots ever, seems mind sear has a niche of being used as a filler when everything has a dot on it and you have nothing else to cast. I have no idea how many targets would be worth casting mind sear at the expense of dots but I'm talking about a situation with less mobs than that.

The DPET value of a DoT is based on the expectation that the mob won't die before the DoT expires, whereas Mind Spike realizes its full damage potential instantly. This can be a huge factor if you're talking about a fight where lots of low health adds are spawned throughout the fight.

I'm not familiar with heroic modes at all, so I don't know if there's a fight with several persistent adds... in that case I could see Mindbender coming out on top if there isn't heavy movement.

[Aica]

Damage isn't the only value, it can also be cast while moving and costs zero mana. SW:P and VT can each only claim one of those benefits -- not to mention synergy with the glyph.

Will of the Emperor is the only fight I've seen so far where you could potentially have 5+ targets for any significant portion of the fight, and it requires a lot of movement. Not to mention the fact that the adds will often die before your DoTs have done their full damage.

I'm sure the sim is perfectly tuned for all those factors when you set it to Will of the Emper... oh, what's that? It doesn't have a setting for Will of the Emperor? What a shame. I guess you can just pick something similar and assume the results are 100% accurate.

---------- Post added 2012-11-14 at 08:38 PM ----------

The DPET value of a DoT is based on the expectation that the mob won't die before the DoT expires, whereas Mind Spike realizes its full damage potential instantly. This can be a huge factor if you're talking about a fight where lots of low health adds are spawned throughout the fight.

I'm not familiar with heroic modes at all, so I don't know if there's a fight with several persistent adds... in that case I could see Mindbender coming out on top if there isn't heavy movement.

You don't need a simulator to discover when Mindbender is appropriate. Figure out how long SW:P/VT needs to last before Mind Spike becomes worse than the dots. Discover when casting Mind Blast and DP is worse than casting DoTs. Do an encounter or 3 that you might need to make a decision like this on (hint, there are a couple this tier). You're a big proponent of using logic and math that relies only on how stuff works in the game. I know you can do it!

Or, I guess you could make wide sweeping statements in the same manner that you accuse others of doing. That'll convince people, especially since you've shown a lack of understanding of spell mechanics in the recent past.

[Arlee]

I'm sure the sim is perfectly tuned for all those factors when you set it to Will of the Emper... oh, what's that? It doesn't have a setting for Will of the Emperor? What a shame. I guess you can just pick something similar and assume the results are 100% accurate.

Actually it does have settings you can set to mimic that fight.

[Drye]

There really isn't a point to argue with this kid. He's just arguing to argue moot points that doesn't make any sense. Just let him sit in his corner of ignorance away from everyone, wearing a hat of shame. He's shown that he has no understanding of logic or basic understand of class mechanics. People have tried to teach him, showing him math and information backing it up. Just let him be in his corner away from everyone wanting to learn and get better.