Kilee’s “Old Man” Guide to CoP Shadowpriest (PVE, CoP only, 6.2.3)

[Kilee25]

Switching targets hurts when using RoW. It doesn't matter if you're using haste or mastery. It hurts, period. You take a 10-15% hit to your damage every time you switch, so if you do it often, that's how much DPS you'll lose over the course of the fight. I've been getting questions like this for months, and I feel like it's a loaded question. Like people are searching for a specific answer. What answer are you hoping to hear? RoW sucks for switching targets, there's no magic gear combination that's going to make it suck less.

Haste is more forgiving than mastery. It's a better stat when glass chewing, and it's a better stat if your skill-level is low or average.

Mastery has a higher skill cap. It's more punishing if you handle it poorly, or you just aren't good at sniping Deaths and maintaining RoW stacks. However, it's very good with short fights where Heroism and execute make up a large percentage of the fight.

If you're bad at managing stacks, or you can't get the Haste rotation working, I really don't think switching to mastery is going to help you, because both methods take a great amount of effort and skill to use. There's no magic combination of stats or play style that's going to make this trinket any less of a pain in the butt. Excepting the aforementioned haste build, which I really do feel is the best build for "most players" because it requires the least awareness and attention.

[Kreeshak]

Kilee25 (or anyone) if I may ask, we are currently 5/13 Mythic. Where should I spend my 3 bonus rolls per week at? (is archi heroic worth it?)
I am posting masked armory because of the countless trolls I've encountered: http://www.maskedarmory.com/anonymou...le-324352.html

[Kilee25]

Make a BIS list for yourself using the stat weights in my guide and using Ask Mr. Robot, then bonus roll on any boss that drops a BIS item on the list. Once you've got all of those, use bonus rolls on any boss that drops a BIS item that isn't at least warforged or socketed. That is the strategy that I use. It looks like you're building a mastery set, so as an example, I would save a bonus roll for Gorefiend each week at the very least.

I would not use coins on heroic bosses, unless you feel like trying to get a warforged RoW. That's about the only reason you'd want to use a coin there.

Oh, and also if you're missing a tier piece, like the chest. It could be worth picking that up in case you get a nice replacement item in another tier slot.

[crv33]

Hello, I'm relatively new to priest and I have a few questions about spell priority when using RoW. First off, I have about 1900 haste rating unbuffed, with mostly heroic and a couple mythic pieces of gear. I think my mid-term goal will be to reach the ~2600 or so recommended for a haste build before I think about going full mastery. I've read through a lot, but not all, of the guide and thread, so I apologize if these questions were already covered somewhere.

My first question is: does Shadowfiend have the same priority as Mindbender when not using the class trinket? That is, as far as I understand, in place of a Mind Spike as soon as it's off cooldown?

My second question isn't so much a question, but more of a problem I'm constantly running in to. I think it's due to my low haste but I'm not sure. The RoW debuff is always expiring at bad times, such as at the stage of the rotation where you do MB, MS, DP, Insanity. If I cast that Mind Spike, it'll be too late to DP+Insanity. So if I skip the MS and do DP+Insanity, my MB comes off at a strange time in the middle of Insanity where I don't have enough time to continue the Insanity after MB. The alternative is using Mind Flay instead to keep RoW up, but that isn't always an option when I'm at 5 orbs since I don't want to waste an orb by using MB at 5. Is this hiccup in the rotation just something I have to deal with until I get more haste? Which leads me to my last question...

If that weird cast order is what I'm supposed to deal with, the concept of "orb building" and "orb spending" kind of falls apart to me. And I feel like I should look at it more like I'm trying to maximize my usage of DP+Insanity as opposed to Mind Flay, even if it's at times that cause strangeness in the rotation. For example, sometimes I'll spend 3 orbs and then "build" up to 4 and then use DP+Insanity at 4 instead of waiting to 5 or spending right away at 3 again, because it seems like it'd fit better than trying to wait to 5 or spend all the way down to 0. Keeping RoW up as it's about to expire with random Mind Flays in between. My hangup with that is that I feel like I'm sitting on orbs too long sometimes. Maybe I'm just looking at it the wrong way, since it seems like eventually I'd spend them and be down to 0.

I'm sorry if that last question is confusing to read, it's confusing for me to think about, haha.

I really appreciate any help with these questions.

[Kilee25]

Hi crv33,

1) Yes Shadowfiend still has the same priority. You could break out of an Insanity early if you wanted, but bare in mind this will cost you an extra Mind Flay at some point. It's a trade off that doesn't have a clear benefit either way you look at it. Keep RoW stacks up at all costs - don't let that fall off. Don't worry about Shadowfiend. There's some minor DPS gains to be had from tinkering with your rotation to make sure it's cast on CD, but the reward is not worth the effort. It's only a problem if you're consistently holding Shadowfiend back frequently. During a normal fight, the 'out of sync Shadowfiend' phenomenon happens far less than some people try to play it up. Keep RoW stacks up above all else. Use Shadowfiend as soon as you can, but behind MB and Insanity. You'll be fine.

2) The answer is that it's different for everyone depending on their haste levels and play styles, so I can't give you a static rotation. You say that it feels like 4 orbs is a better cut-off, so I would try that instead. You're going to have to play around with it until you find something that works for you.

Servi found a rotation that starts off as "DP -> MB -> Insx6" (ie. delays DP by one GCD in order to get one more GCD use out of the previous Mind Flay). That might be worth trying too.

[Deleted]

Thank you for keeping this post going! I'm gathering loads of good stuff in here!
Shadow Priest Community > all, weeehhhhh!!

[Kilee25]

Your welcome!

[crv33]

Hi crv33,

1) Yes Shadowfiend still has the same priority. You could break out of an Insanity early if you wanted, but bare in mind this will cost you an extra Mind Flay at some point. It's a trade off that doesn't have a clear benefit either way you look at it. Keep RoW stacks up at all costs - don't let that fall off. Don't worry about Shadowfiend. There's some minor DPS gains to be had from tinkering with your rotation to make sure it's cast on CD, but the reward is not worth the effort. It's only a problem if you're consistently holding Shadowfiend back frequently. During a normal fight, the 'out of sync Shadowfiend' phenomenon happens far less than some people try to play it up. Keep RoW stacks up above all else. Use Shadowfiend as soon as you can, but behind MB and Insanity. You'll be fine.

2) The answer is that it's different for everyone depending on their haste levels and play styles, so I can't give you a static rotation. You say that it feels like 4 orbs is a better cut-off, so I would try that instead. You're going to have to play around with it until you find something that works for you.

Servi found a rotation that starts off as "DP -> MB -> Insx6" (ie. delays DP by one GCD in order to get one more GCD use out of the previous Mind Flay). That might be worth trying too.

Thanks for your answers. One other quick question. Do you think it would be a big loss to use Iron Reaver Piston instead of DSI (both mythic) with RoW to make up some haste until I can fill in the rest of my gear?

[Kilee25]

Hi crv33,

No it is not a big loss. Just be looking to replace it as soon as you can.

[Deleted]

Is 110k dps on myth zakuun at 735 severely underperforming? Certainly feels that way id like to post logs but at work and have no clue how to copy paste on a phone

[Djriff]

Without looking at your armory/logs I can't really give you an accurate answer. DPS parses can swing wildly depending on the strat and your personal RNG.

[Kilee25]

It's good, not "great". A "perfect" run would be in the 120s, meaning you start with orbs, don't get targetted by abilities, and they hero at 35%, and your trinket procs between then an 0, and you line up a potion with it.

110k means you did everything technically right, but didn't get any god-stacking on buffs.

Depending on how your guild does the fight, and how quickly they kill it, I could be completely wrong. I'm going off of my own parses and how my guild did while we were working on it "normal" gear.

[Deleted]

It's good, not "great". A "perfect" run would be in the 120s, meaning you start with orbs, don't get targetted by abilities, and they hero at 35%, and your trinket procs between then an 0, and you line up a potion with it.

110k means you did everything technically right, but didn't get any god-stacking on buffs.

Depending on how your guild does the fight, and how quickly they kill it, I could be completely wrong. I'm going off of my own parses and how my guild did while we were working on it "normal" gear.

finally back from work

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

Technically I'm like 733 cause the orb of voidsight wouldve gimped my ilvl, also i had the crappy archimonde belt at the time.

[Kilee25]

You did great for your iLevel, as noted by your bracket ranking. 90%+ is very good.

Also, it's annoying as all get out, but starting with 4-5 orbs has an incredible impact on your DPS on short fights like this.

[Isentropy]

You did pretty well. Few notes after looking through your logs. The first and easiest one to fix is you used your second pot a bit too early. Try and line it up with the ring and Bloodlust next time.

Now a few more nitpicky things:

- You didn't precast Mind Spike
- You had one tick too much of Mind Flay at the start of the fight
- According to the logs there's about a 3 second period where you don't do anything; according to the replay you weren't moving either
- Because of this you have to refresh with Mind Flay since you didn't have 3 orbs
- Sometimes you cast DP straight after a Mind Blast which means you get less ticks of Insanity
- You delay Mind Blast in favor of Insanity because of this; Mind Blast before anything else!

That's the gist of what you could be doing better. Try and practice the mastery rotation on a dummy and get into the flow. The mastery rotation is as follows, implying you start the fight with 0 orbs. There's always room for improvisation but this is the basic rotation that shouldn't change that much on a fight like Fel Lord.

(precast) MS -> MB -> Shadowfiend -> MF (5 ticks, clip after the first global and interrupt when 5 stacks are up; watch your castbar) -> MB -> MS x3 -> MB -> MS -> DP -> Insanity -> MB -> Insanity (6 ticks in total if done right) -> MS (after Insanity fully channeled) -> MB -> MS -> Shadowfiend -> MS -> MB -> MS -> MF (1 global) - > MS -> MB -> MS x2 -> DP -> MB -> Insanity (clip after first global, make sure you get 6 ticks) -> MB - > MS x2 -> Shadowfiend -> MB -> MS -> DP -> Insanity (clip after first global) -> MB - > Insanity -> MS -> MB

Seems very complicated written down like this, but once you get used to it you won't even think about what you have to do next. You can add my battletag if you have any further questions (isentropy#2927). Also, remember during Bloodlust you can sustain the 35% haste rotation without any problems.

Edit: A good rule of thumb: if you can cast Mind Blast when the debuff of the class trinket has ~5 seconds remaining, it's safe to do Mind Spike -> DP -> Insanity -> MB -> Insanity; if not you either use (after you just refreshed) 2x Mind Spike ->DP -> MB -> Insanity -> Insanity OR 3x Mind Spike -> MB -> Mind Spike -> Mind Flay

The latter you only have to use like 1 in 3 cycles (depending on orbs) or you can choose to use it to save orbs for an add/ring.

[Deleted]

One question... how do you guys start at pull with 0 orbs and with 3 orbs? Pot, precast spike, blast, then flay 2x up till 5 stacks or you interrupt it to cast blast and then flay again up to 5? And when you do use mindbender?

[Isentropy]

What I wrote down in the post above you is a 0 orb mastery opener rotation, Kilee has the opener rotation for the haste build in his guide. There are differences in how to play each rotation so it depends on what you prefer playing. The mastery rotation I would consider to be a bit more complex as you don't keep casting the same spell sequences constantly, the haste rotation is a bit more static in that sense.

For 3 orbs the opener rotation is basically MS (precast) > MB > Shadowfiend > DP > Insanity (2 ticks) > MB > Insanity (4 ticks) > MS > MB ; then play out the rotation of the build you've chosen. You use Shadowfiend (not Mindbender when playing CoP with class trinket) over Mind Spike only pretty much. Don't interrupt an Insanity cast in order to get your Shadowfiend out quicker as that messes up with the timing of your stacks.

[Kilee25]

One question... how do you guys start at pull with 0 orbs and with 3 orbs? Pot, precast spike, blast, then flay 2x up till 5 stacks or you interrupt it to cast blast and then flay again up to 5? And when you do use mindbender?

Hi rinelki, here is a chart for opening rotations with RoW.

RoW Opening Rotation

For all of the below, start the fight with a precast at 1 second (usually Mind Spike).

Insanity

0-1 orb

Mind Blast
Shadowfiend
Mind Flay (1 GCD)
Mind Flay (1.5 GCD)
Mind Blast

2-4 orbs
Mind Blast
Shadowfiend
Devouring Plague
Insanity (1 GCD)
Mind Blast
Insanity (2 GCDs)

5 orbs

Shadowfiend
Devouring Plague
Mind Blast
Insanity (1 GCD)
Insanity (2 GCDs)
Mind Blast

I will add this to the guide. I should have done it a while ago. Sorry, I kept forgetting.

[Plasmaxyz]

If you're starting the fight with 5 orbs will the 5 orb opener provide any more dps than a 4 orb opener beginning with mind blast? Or is it best to just do the 4 orb opener with 5 orbs anyway.

[Kilee25]

I believe 5 is better than 2-4, to the point that I might consider using that version for 2-5... but I think there is room to talk about all of the openers, with the exception of 0-1, which I think is pretty steady with few options for alternatives.

In general we are only really concerned about when the Legendary ring is popped and how many mind Blasts and Insanity ticks we can fit into that 15 second window. If we wanted to do a fair analysis, we would plot out a few different options and account for 15 seconds of GCDs, and try to find whether or not differen sequences of spells and orb counts might generate higher damage on average.

In particular I'd be concerned with:

1) number of mind blasts. Is delaying MB by 1 GCD going to affect the number of mind blasts that can be used?

2) number of Insanity ticks. Is it possible to get more Insanity ticks doing it a different way, especially if we waste an orb?

3) Strength of the second mind Blast. the 2-4 robation only has 2 stacks of RoW for the second Mind Blast. Is this a DPS loss versus some variation of the 5 orb starter? (Or in other words, is it better to start out any combination of 2+ orbs with shadowfiend?)

.....

However.... the more I think about it, even trying to plot around the legendary ring has has limited value, because it is difficult to reliably predict when some other person will hit the ring anyway.

I do think it would be worth mapping out the predicted damage of the first 10-15 seconds. In particular I'd be curious whether building stacks before casting the second Mind Blast would result in more damage.

Also, if we're talking about wasting an orb and using Mind Blast before casting DP, I think that's going to be a clear loss and I'm not sure it's worth even putting time into. But I could be wrong.