Confused about stat priority as shadow.

[chazus]

Trying to help a friend out.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...aylle/advanced

As shadow, SimC shows Mastery being significantly the best stat (3.0) with everything lagging behind (2.3 or lower). I know sims aren't always the best way to go about finding stats, but I was hoping to figure out why that was the case.

Most guides and tutorials show Mastery as middle at best, if not lower.

[bicycle]

Trying to help a friend out.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...aylle/advanced

As shadow, SimC shows Mastery being significantly the best stat (3.0) with everything lagging behind (2.3 or lower). I know sims aren't always the best way to go about finding stats, but I was hoping to figure out why that was the case.

Most guides and tutorials show Mastery as middle at best, if not lower.

Your friend has the Clarity of Power talent, and you're probably simming the default patchwerk single target. In that specific scenario, mastery is king.

As soon as there's movement or extra targets, the power of mastery falls off rapidly, because you can't stand and mind spike or mind flay, and especially in the case of extra targets you take Auspicious Spirits, where crit becomes almost as valuable as intellect, and mastery becomes your worst stat (yes, it's below that versatility stat that so many players like to treat as a null value). So if you're going for the overall best build, you take a crit/haste build, because it's still pretty good for COP and it's massively superior for AS.

[chazus]

Huh. I was under the impression that CoP was the bees knees. She actually switched from AS to CoP because her AS damage was so low (She's been doing that rotation for years and never had any problems until 6.0). Switched to CoP and DPS increased significantly. Has something changed in between 6.0 and 6.2?

[bicycle]

Huh. I was under the impression that CoP was the bees knees. She actually switched from AS to CoP because her AS damage was so low (She's been doing that rotation for years and never had any problems until 6.0). Switched to CoP and DPS increased significantly. Has something changed in between 6.0 and 6.2?

AS was buffed in 6.1, but mostly it was just the fight design in Highmaul that made COP better. Once BRF came out and multi-target fights became the norm, and players were able to get 25% or more crit on their gear plus the Oregorger trinket, AS pulled ahead on lots of fights. COP is still better on fights where you don't have adds you can dot up.

[SteveRocks]

IMO CoP is still better even on fights with adds. You can still dot up all the adds and do your normal CoP dot weave rotation on your main target. AS is good for council fights when you know the adds will be up for a good chunk of time.

[Riotcat]

Her damage as AS would have been low because she has geared primarily for pre-brf, where CoP and Mastery were king. And then, they were really only the winners because the level of crit needed just wasn't available on the gear.

If she's not raiding too much in current content - a handful of Baleful pieces - either Decimator or Fireflash - should make up the difference. Depending on how she plays - I might suggest she tries running Twist of Fate instead of Power Infusion - the number of fights with multiple adds means a pretty significant uptime on the damage buff, and otherwise it's a solid bonus to the execute phase.

[AllieCetra]

CoP was originally the best talent at the start of WoD since AS took away damage from your and instead granted a shadow orb upon contact with an enemy. In 6.1 AS was drastically buffed to provide double damage from your apparitions AND grant a shadow orb. Since apparitions are spawned from SWP crit ticks then crit becomes your best stat with haste being second.

All that said my shadow priest was my first ever char and my main from BC until WoD so I enjoyed the change in playstyle brought by CoP so I don't really switch to AS. Also She's now less often played chars since I now main a monk. It all comes down to what you enjoy and what content youre trying to down.

Whether your friend wants to raid end game (mythic) or is more casual (normal/LFR) I would strongly suggest visiting
http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=7411

It is by far the best resource site out there these days for all things priest.

- - - Updated - - -

CoP was originally the best talent at the start of WoD since AS took away damage from your and instead granted a shadow orb upon contact with an enemy. In 6.1 AS was drastically buffed to provide double damage from your apparitions AND grant a shadow orb. Since apparitions are spawned from SWP crit ticks then crit becomes your best stat with haste being second.

All that said my shadow priest was my first ever char and my main from BC until WoD so I enjoyed the change in playstyle brought by CoP so I don't really switch to AS. Also She's now less often played chars since I now main a monk. It all comes down to what you enjoy and what content youre trying to down.

Whether your friend wants to raid end game (mythic) or is more casual (normal/LFR) I would strongly suggest visiting
http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=7411

It is by far the best resource site out there these days for all things priest.

[bicycle]

IMO CoP is still better even on fights with adds. You can still dot up all the adds and do your normal CoP dot weave rotation on your main target. AS is good for council fights when you know the adds will be up for a good chunk of time.

I figure if the add will survive most of a shadow word pain, it's worth dotting, and if there are adds like that up for enough of the fight, it's worth going AS. I'm going AS for everything except Reaver, Kormrok, Kilrogg, Gorefiend, and Zakuun. All normal/heroic, so far.

[Clrg]

Read this guy guide FAQ about stats http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-CoP-only-6-2)

[Dierdre]

Huh. I was under the impression that CoP was the bees knees.

It is, except when it isn't. There is no cookie cutter build for shadow, you'll be swapping talents depending on the fight. Same goes for stat weights, since different stats affect different spells, each fight will have different stat weights. Even for the same fight you'll likely have different talents / stat weights depending on roles and strategy.

I made a post about this a while ago, it still holds though. A safe way to gear overall is to go crit > haste > mastery, trying to keep healthy amounts of each stat.

[Tojara]

You literally swap between so many talents. Overall AS is better in HFC, but you will be playing CoP on at least a couple of encounters, more depending on how quick adds die. AS is pretty nice on Heroic Gorefiend, but only, and only if adds live awhile, which they shouldn't. Same goes for Kilrogg and a few other encounters.

On heroic anyway I go CoP on Iron Reaver, Kormrok, Fel Lord Zakuun, Kilrogg and Gorefiend. Both Kilrogg/Gorefiend can go either way though.

Halo/Cascade change on a few encounters, as does the choice between mindbender and insanity.

Crit isn't the best for CoP, but it's still pretty high on stat priority, which is why I just mash crit into everything because it's probably the safest way to gear. Always nice to keep a few high mastery pieces around just in case though.

[Naux]

IMO CoP is still better even on fights with adds. You can still dot up all the adds and do your normal CoP dot weave rotation on your main target. AS is good for council fights when you know the adds will be up for a good chunk of time.

CoP is not better than AS on add fights.

[Dierdre]

CoP is not better than AS on add fights.

Not always, it depends on the fight. For instance, you want CoP's reliable small bursts for Kil'rogg, even if it's a fight with adds. As a rule of thumb, if you have adds where you expect SWP to roll for its full duration or more (e.g. Iskar), you'll want to go AS, otherwise you might as well go CoP.

[Deja Thoris]

IMO CoP is still better even on fights with adds. You can still dot up all the adds and do your normal CoP dot weave rotation on your main target. AS is good for council fights when you know the adds will be up for a good chunk of time.

AS is hands down better for fights where adds are up long enough for SW:P to tick for more than half of its duration. The whole point is crits give you orbs which you can use to pump into DP's.

You are wrong. This isn't even a point for discussion.

[Deleted]

There are realistically only 3 fights where you will use CoP:
- Iron Reaver
- Kormrok
- Fel Lord Zakuun

Iron Reaver since its mostly ST. For mythic, AS can work as well but most of your bomb damage comes from cascade and they die pretty quick anyway. My guild runs 3-4 hunters on our fights so CoP becomes more favorable.
Kormrok since its mostly ST again with a quick burst on adds. For mythic, AS can also work due to the high movement on the fight but CoP might be more favorable due to the execute phase.
Fel Lord Zakuun is pure ST with little movement. Not there yet on mythic.

On any fight where you have adds up where they don't die instantly, AS far outweighs CoP to the point where its not even close. Even on Gorefiend and Kilrogg where they die fairly quick, you always have a tougher add to dot up and on mythic, even more adds.

[Kilee25]

I think it's important to point out that while this is true for Mythic level raiding, you can play CoP in Heroic and below and still pull enough weight to not be a carry. I feel like every time these conversations come up, there's a divide between what level of raiding people are in, which determines their opinion on how well the different level 100 talents perform on each fight. Keep in mind that everything you said about AS on most of those fights is predicated on adds living at least 10 seconds. I can confirm that in my guild, on Heroic difficulty, adds are not living this long. And it's been about a month? Something like that.. adds are living shorter and shorter each week as our raid gets stronger. I can barely get two spells off on Gorefiend adds before hunters or some other ranged class snipes the kill. Same thing is happening on Kilrogg.

[Deleted]

I think it's important to point out that while this is true for Mythic level raiding, you can play CoP in Heroic and below and still pull enough weight to not be a carry. I feel like every time these conversations come up, there's a divide between what level of raiding people are in, which determines their opinion on how well the different level 100 talents perform on each fight. Keep in mind that everything you said about AS on most of those fights is predicated on adds living at least 10 seconds. I can confirm that in my guild, on Heroic difficulty, adds are not living this long. And it's been about a month? Something like that.. adds are living shorter and shorter each week as our raid gets stronger. I can barely get two spells off on Gorefiend adds before hunters or some other ranged class snipes the kill. Same thing is happening on Kilrogg.

With a well geared group sure but who cares about clears and dps when the content is already on farm unless you're really going for ranks in heroic for some reason. In a situation where a group is progressing on heroic, the adds likely live long enough for AS to work anyway + on those two fights, you have one big add alive for quite awhile compared to the others.

I consider the approach to which talent you should take based on progression, not farm, anything goes on farmed content.

[Kilee25]

On "progression", we 1 or 2-shot kormrok, council, and kilrogg. We are currently "progressing" on Gorefiend, and the adds are dying faster than dots can tick on them. I'm consistently in the top 3 in dps as well, playing CoP. Frankly, if the rest of the DPS could come close to matching me, we probably would've beaten Archimonde by now. Spec is not a concern at this level of play. You just have to learn the fight and not stand in the fire.

Note: I am not saying CoP > AS. I'm just saying it's good enough for Heroic and below, and there's no reason to tell people playing at that level that they can't play it.

[bicycle]

On "progression", we 1 or 2-shot kormrok, council, and kilrogg. We are currently "progressing" on Gorefiend, and the adds are dying faster than dots can tick on them. I'm consistently in the top 3 in dps as well, playing CoP. Frankly, if the rest of the DPS could come close to matching me, we probably would've beaten Archimonde by now. Spec is not a concern at this level of play. You just have to learn the fight and not stand in the fire.

Note: I am not saying CoP > AS. I'm just saying it's good enough for Heroic and below, and there's no reason to tell people playing at that level that they can't play it.

This was my experience as well. Playing shadow, consistently on top of DPS, and especially on top of DPS to targets like Bloodthirsters and Gorefiend stomach adds. Either I'd get help and the adds would die too fast for AS to be useful, or other ranged would go temporarily blind to the existence of adds and Glyphed mind blast with the COP cooldown would get a clutch snare for a save.

With a melee heavy comp, I also rarely felt like I had the luxury of being able to bank 5 orbs before the soul sucking phase on Gorefiend, which I would've wanted for AS to compete with COP single target for that phase.