Shadow - PVP - Advice Wanted!

[Ashenz]

Hi everyone.

I am currently gearing my priest with the standard set of gear and working my way to the conquest gear.

However at this stage i am literally looking for any advice available that may help me with survivability / gems / re-forging / game play / macros / tips.

I have obviously checked you tube / noxxic but only found the same sort of basic guide that is available no in depth information that may give me the edge and the position to get myself into a highly rated RBG team in the future.

Any advice welcome!

Regards.

Bóombreedx

[Tobbx]

It would take a while to write a proper guide, and I don't got time currently. So ill try be short, precise and yet cover as much as possible.

Gems:
Yellow slot: Mystic Sun's Radiance - 360 resi
Blue slot: Vivid Wild Jade - 160 pp/160 resi
Red slot: Willful Vermilion Onyx 80 int/160 resi
Meta: Burning Primal Diamond 216int/+3% critt effect increase

Resi seems to be the best alternative in arena currently, espacially considering all the burst.

Reforge:
I always get the 6% hitcap, it is just way to frustrating missing the last fear to score a kill or the DP missing.
After that go all out haste, you want your spells cast as fast as possible and reduce the global cooldown in general, since you will be using a lot of instant casts. After haste I prefer critt.

Talents worth discussing:
*Psyfiend or Void Tendrils? - I use them both a lot, I often find it good against rshammy/warrior setups, because of tremor and the lack of possibilitys to fear a warrior. If you meet a paladin with perhaps a (feral) druid, I would prefer psyfiend due to the fact that druids can form shift out the root, and pallys got freedom for every void tendril, and they both are very fearable I always consider the comp I am playing myself and the comp I am up against.
*I feel Phantasm is a must!
*I feel From Darkness, Comes Light is a must!
*Desperate prayer, spectral guise or angelic bulwark? - Against melee cleaves I do without doubt prefer Angelic Bulwark, since it will keep you over the execute range while stunned for small window of time. I love Spectral Guise, it can be used offensively to get out casts against melee's or to get a easier fear, or if you find yourself in a bad position, you will most of the time be able to escape it. Desperate Prayer is the talent I do not use as often, it can be macroed into Void Shift, makin it more "safe" to void shift a friendly player in trouble. But I do not use it often if I assume I got to use void shift to save my own skin.
*Power Infusion or Divine Insight - depends what you are doing at playing. Let say in rbg power infusion will make you do more overall dmg, but Divine Insight will give you better single target burst, since you will get unlimited proccs. For arena I find both very iable, it depends on the comp you are running and your opponents. If you assume you are going to be trained, Divine Insight for sure, if you think you will be able to freecast a lot, PI could be a strong choice with teammates that got high singletarget burst.
*Divine Star or Halo? - I find myself using Divine Star most of the time, since it heal's me more than halo does, and halo seems to be a bit odd in arenas sometimes due to a lot of movement. Against rogue teams, I prefer halo because of the aoe stealth, to prevent a strong opener.

Macro's:
This is tricky, is it any spesific macro's you want? I would suggest /target arena1, /target arena2 and /target arena3 for arenas, for the simple fact that I find it a lot faster to dot up multiple target's as fast as possible, and gives me more control overall. Void Shift macro is great, mouseover or spesific target is awesome: /cast [target=@mouseover] Void Shift or /cast [target=insertnamehere] Void Shift.

Mouseover power word: shield maybe aswell? (just copy pase the void shift), and the rest of your heals.
/cancelaura Dispersion is also great. If you choose power infusion, a cd macro with pvp dmg trinket and power infusion? Can be used for the pvp dmg trinket without the power infusion aswell. Mouseover or spesific target leap of faith

It's a lot of possibilitys, I just mentioned a few important macro's.


If you got more questions, or want me to be more spesific, just ask

Best of regards
Tobbx

[Ashenz]

Fantastic advice thank very much for that i will take it on board and head forth. I have not used divine star though ever so i really do not know how it works =P! Anymore advice is most welcome. I dont do arena i am going to be doing only RBG full time so any additions there would be fantastic!

[Tobbx]

In RBG as shadow it depends on your setup and tactics your group is using, but in most cases you wil use a lot of time to dot up and dispeling your kill target.

Let's get to the basic starter, open most of the time when you can freecast open with a mind blast, follow up with a shadow word: pain (sw) and then a vampiric touch (VT). I see a lot of people like to first apply VT then SW:P, but thea idea in rbg is to dot up as fast as possible and be smart at the same time. So if you start with sw and follow up with a VT, this gives you time while you cast VT to take a choice, either find a new target to dot up or use some of your procc's (mind blast/mind spike). If you do it the other way arround your only room of thinking would be a global :P

It's not that important, but if you want to maximize your damage output, this is the way to do it. This is the simple part of beeing a shadow, putting out damage. Let say you have dot's at 5 targets and your rbg target caller calls out that you are going to kill the shaman, you got 2 options, 1 you could use a devouring plague (DP), and spam dispel, to try and clean up the target the best you can, or you can use my favourite tact, dot's at 5 targets = shitloads proccs = a lot of dmg.

Also, you got the MOST OP spell for rbg, mass dispel. It removes all magic debuffs from teammates and 1 buff from enemys, extremly strong. But a headsup, if you are facing a affli lock, if you do, I wouldn't suggest mass dispelling, since they will most likely use a glyph that makes Unstable Afflication critt and do damage at the player you dispell and yourself. I dont recall how much damage 1 UA does, but 10 would without doubt instant kill you. The second most important use of mass dispel is to dispel your team when a enemy mage uses ring of frost, since you can free up all of them in just a 0,4 sec cast.

Remember that void shift is AMAZING to save your tank in flag maps, or a healer in a teamfight, or even yourself if you are unlucky with a dk grip or bad posistion. And if you meet a melee heavy group, like feral, rogue, warrior (you rarely do, but IF), they will most likely go for a healer kill (I am not very experienced in high rated rbg, so don't misunderstand, its my own opinion), Void Tendrils will be extremly helpfull. Yes they got freedoms,winwalker totems and other ways to get out of the root, but 1-2 seconds of them beeing stuck is incredible helpfull for your healers, and may even save them time to time. In general psyfiend is op, but if you play a dot cleave dominate mind'ing the tank with full debuffs could also be a gamechanger. This is a rare use of the ability, but worth trying out once or twice. All in all psyfiend is probably the best choice But dont tunnel vision your talents, they can be strong. Even your feathers in rbg can be used extremly well, for catching up, helping out a healer or the tank, so on and so on.

And just to end it, if you ever feel or see a melee is running rambo or got gripped by a dk, use leap of faith and get him back fast as hell

I hope this fills in the gap, anything else?

Best of regards
-Tobbx

[AcrobaticMegalodon]

Reforge:
I always get the 6% hitcap, it is just way to frustrating missing the last fear to score a kill or the DP missing.
After that go all out haste, you want your spells cast as fast as possible and reduce the global cooldown in general, since you will be using a lot of instant casts. After haste I prefer critt.

Looking at different high rating priests in arenas, some go for mastery>crit and others crit>mastery.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...aekyong/simple is going for mastery>crit while
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...albadar/simple is going for crit>mastery

Does it really matter which one you choose? Because to me, it seems like it's just up to the person.

[Ashenz]

I think our mastery % is higher then our crit anyway and if im wrong Mastery gives a chance to grant an extra tick on our dots? Crit just give us the chance to gain extra damage on spells?

[Suneca]

Mastery vs crit is a very big debate. It goes with your playstyle and your comp. In arenas mastery only pays out if you don't get trained and have time to do some decent multi-dotting. In rbgs mastery is a lot better, but in my point of view, still not better than crit. Going full crit I top even more the damage and you can do some huge burst on a quick change of target. Do what I did, try going mastery and then go crit. After that go with the one who feels better. =)

[Yvaelle]

Looking at different high rating priests in arenas, some go for mastery>crit and others crit>mastery.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...aekyong/simple is going for mastery>crit while
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...albadar/simple is going for crit>mastery

Does it really matter which one you choose? Because to me, it seems like it's just up to the person.

I thought about this a lot earlier this season, and the conclusion I came to was this:

Shadow's crit chance is very low, scoring kills are only really secured off a succession of good critical strikes during a burst window - the odds of this are very low with our ~10% crit chance. Now - obviously strong personal play at any skill level will always extend the burst window and/or prevent the opportunity of their healer to respond with healing - but a good crit at the right time wins games where sometimes it just isn't guarenteed. Some classes like Frost Mages and Destro Locks and Warriors (Recklessness) have near-guarenteed crits when they burst: Shadow does not, our crit chance is like 10% at best. Burst scores kills, and this season our mastery does NOTHING for our burst - while it does benefit DP - it doesn't impact the initial hit, or the MB that preceded it, or the Halo if you lined that up, or the Death's that follow it - all our burst window isn't based on mastery - but it all benefits from crit. Because of this, Talbadar and I are both of the Crit > Mastery school of thought on this matter, and I still think that's the right call - but you can't rule out mastery either without understanding it's strengths.

A lot of priests are very in favour of running FDCL+DI right now, mastery gives free DoT ticks and therefore buffs the rate at which you gain FDCL and DI procs. If you are expecting to spend a lot of time tanking your opponents and feel you need a lot of instant casts - Mastery may be better for you - this is skill and comp based. If you are playing with teammates who will peel for you consistently, you lose that benefit of Mastery entirely (ie. good Frost Mages). Mana is a big concern for Shadow in arenas this season, using Mass Dispel to free teammates, Halo for burst, Flash Heals, PW: Shields and covering offensive dispels is incredibly costly - Mastery has the benefit of providing you with more free cast procs, and more VT mana returns: that's the part of the mastery argument I find most convincing.

Lastly, if your team is planning around a burst cycle (ie. 10-30 seconds of massive damage during cooldowns) rather than a burst window (<10 seconds of burst, often just a handful of carefully timed GCDs) then Mastery is better for burst cycle damage than a burst window. In a burst window, you should be casting Halo->MB->DP->Death->Death - so that all your damage begins when that first MB hits (the Halo is still traveling) and suddenly massive burst lands over ~3-4 GCDs (synced up with a Frost Bomb+Shatter Combo or Double Chaos Wave, for example). In a burst window for Shadow, you can do all of the above and add in often multiple DI and FDCL procs to the mix - getting a Silence on the healer during that time will either score a kill or get defensive cooldowns for next time - and this is a perfectly legitimate way to play some comps. It depends on how much Support you are expected to provide and what the burst characteristics of your teammates are - Shadow has the advantage of performing fairly well in either burst windows or cycles - depending on the talents we take.

Generally, the high end arena teams plan around burst windows to score kills, not burst cycles - but its entirely comp dependent - cycles are more likely to get shut down by veteran players - they hear a bunch of damage cooldowns go off (Shadowfiend, Icy Veins, for example) and respond with CC and dispels - while a window can always catch people off guard. Coordinating a window though requires 2-3 classes capable of even viably doing it, and a lot of coordination and past experience with your teammates to know how they play it and how they communicate their burst - a burst cycle is far, far easier to coordinate - you just macro in a /yell into your cooldowns and you don't even need skype/vent (and some comps can actually do that, generally faceroll comps).

There isn't a clear cut answer that is right for everyone. It depends on your comp, how your teammates play their classes, how you play your Spriest, what comp your up against (will they ride you all game or let you cast?). If your team always coordinates burst windows, crit might be the better call - if your team just says when they're going to use cooldowns and hope for a kill or cooldowns, or if you are expected to provide a lot of support healing and dispels - mastery is probably the better call for you.

[Ramaloce]

The info is great the only thing I have to add here that is worth mentioning is that Angelic Bulwark's bubble is dispellable. So just be aware of that if/when you're running that talent.

[stickyjam]

Alots been said and what i didnt notice people mentioning in crit vs mastery

crit effects your heals too!

[Anelyn]

I believe haste is an important stat as well (not as important as crit nor mastery mind you) but speeding up the ticks of your dots (even if you don't get an extra tick) as well as MF ticks and generally faster globals (for dispells or procs etc) is very good. For example RBG wise, when you end up dotting more targets, you will swim in procs, and the faster you can use them, the better.

We are mainly an offensive support class at this point in the game. We don't have the lockdown or offensive cooldowns to make stuff happen on our own, but we are very good in supporting others (be it dpsers or healers or tanks w/e). A leap of faith, void shift, pom, mass dispel, dispel, fear, void roots, are all great utility (while not as devastating as a pom ring or solar beam + tornado thingie).

Regarding halo in RBGs, while is a great dmg / healing aoe, it can also break CC (if you use sheep / hex / sap / blind etc).

[Purpleisbetter]

I'd go with mastery > crit, because of mana mainly.

I spam huge amounts of heals and MDs, i really need the mana to keep up.

Just out of pure curiosity, have ever happend to you those wierd moment were you think the game is just a 25minutes draw and suddenly the dpsyou're focussing is dropping from 65% to 0% in a few casts without no apparent reason?

I guess its because mastery went wild on DP ticks, isn't it?