[7.2] Legion Shadow Priest Guide and Discussion

[Palaryel]

Chipped soul prism, reawer piston, repudiation of War (on pure single target), heirloom caster trinket (can't recall name)

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[Djriff]

heirloom caster trinket (can't recall name)

Orb of Voidsight.

[Nicklas]

I absolutely love what they have done with Shadow it is just right up my alley.

I'm somewhat in shamble over what to choose as Tier 75 Talent to choose.

Here is what I did, first time Shadow for a very long time: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=10
(looking at the Archimonde kill)

San'layn - (3.78M x 1,2 = 4.536M) 4.536M - 3.78M = 756K damage 0 Insanity
AS = 514K damage 320 (17wasted) Insanity
SI - (378 ticks of SW:P) = 38 resets, which in theory would get translated to (43K * 38 = 1.63M, 38 * 12 = 456) = 1.63M damage and 456 (some would be wasted in the grand scheme)

Hope this math is right

Wouldn't this in my case make SI more than double as good as the other two talents with my gear level, or is there somethings I'm greatly overseeing ?

[Ryeshot]

I remember someone saying that they were able to get MI unlocked right around 110. Is this not still the case? They went the long route too.

Do you mean MH? There's no way this is possible with the amount of AP you can gain during questing (something like 6840 for the rank alone). That being said I'm almost positive I'm going to be going Sinister Thoughts > CttV > UtS and To the Pain. I forego MH for quite a while, but TB does way more damage at low ilvl and haste, so it will be the best for soloing and starting mythics. Also you can just reset your artifact which is a small loss during the low ranks of it.

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SI doesn't grant double the costs of MB for two reasons. 1) depending on when it procs you only get the remaining time as a gain, and 2) you need to sacrifice other costs like MF (while low DPC), still does damage. San'layn and AS both do damage without sacrificing those opportunity costs. If you were to look at an x minute fight using SI and not, you would only gain about 25%-30% more MBs, which cuts the effective damage and insanity gain down a lot from what you would expect.

[Nicklas]

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SI doesn't grant double the costs of MB for two reasons. 1) depending on when it procs you only get the remaining time as a gain, and 2) you need to sacrifice other costs like MF (while low DPC), still does damage. San'layn and AS both do damage without sacrificing those opportunity costs. If you were to look at an x minute fight using SI and not, you would only gain about 25%-30% more MBs, which cuts the effective damage and insanity gain down a lot from what you would expect.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification, then it looks like AS is the way to go, even with low levels of crit 18%, atm.

[KingdomOblivion]

I remember someone saying that they were able to get MI unlocked right around 110. Is this not still the case? They went the long route too.

MI? or do you mean MH? It's no longer possible to reach MH going the long route shortly after hitting 110 due to blizz increasing the amount of AP needed going from the 12th trait to the 13th (6840 AP). This was back in one of the early beta builds if im not mistaken.

[Djriff]

MI? or do you mean MH? It's no longer possible to reach MH going the long route shortly after hitting 110 due to blizz increasing the amount of AP needed going from the 12th trait to the 13th (6840 AP). This was back in one of the early beta builds if im not mistaken.

I meant MH, my bad that was a typo.

[Ilir]

yeah previously you were able to get your first golden trait before reaching 110. But that way waaaaaay back, you didn't have your access yet Djriff

[Djriff]

yeah previously you were able to get your first golden trait before reaching 110. But that way waaaaaay back, you didn't have your access yet Djriff

Ah, well damn. I haven't leveled another toon and hoenstly stopped on beta. Don't want to burn out too early. If they make any more major changes (doubtful) i'll play again but for now i'm good waiting.

[N1gh7h4wk]

???

I LITERALLY said why one would go the short route vs. the long route(AP Cost), can you not read? Assuming raids open within 2-4 weeks, AP gains are gonna be SLOW as all hell. It is extremely tedious and ridiculous to try and farm AP with low Artifact Knowledge. Blizzard's system is currently 5 days for 1 artifact knowledge gain then 4 ish for the next and it's probably gonna stay that way for the first few Artifact Knowledge levels. Unless I'm reading into MH wrong, It provides the same buff the 'To the Pain' does at just 8 stacks of Voidform and further increasing it the longer you stay in it. Short way or Long way, you don't miss out on the dispersion CD reduction trait so idk why you even mentioned that. And you're reiterating what I've been stating with your last sentence(traits getting expensive)..

You said the short route would be faster to get both golden dragons, i said you can get both via long route and don't fuck yourself up in the long run.

When i got to 110 i could reach MH after 2 days iirc and the second golden dragon is literally 7 traits away from that. You are able to reach that even within the first two levels of AK coz you got 2-3 weeks of time. Also you should consider going call of the void first, Kaesebrezen and Isentropy favor this one a lot for the pre raid content. just don't run the short toute to MH its ridiculos.

[Ryeshot]

If you go the long way, you can easily get MH within a week, so 1 week before raids come out. AP cost doesn't start truly creeping until lvl 18 or so. Also it requires 17 stacks in VF with MH to beat both Touch of Darkness and To the Pain for average dot damage. This is only inside VF though so it might be more like 1/.7 (70% of the time in VF) * 17 = 24 stacks in VF. To be honest, MH is only super good with StM, CttV should actually be a damage gain over it with low average VF stacks. Plus it can have ridiculous RNG, which MH does not have independent from crit.

[Kasoy]

If you go the long way, you can easily get MH within a week, so 1 week before raids come out. AP cost doesn't start truly creeping until lvl 18 or so. Also it requires 17 stacks in VF with MH to beat both Touch of Darkness and To the Pain for average dot damage. This is only inside VF though so it might be more like 1/.7 (70% of the time in VF) * 17 = 24 stacks in VF. To be honest, MH is only super good with StM, CttV should actually be a damage gain over it with low average VF stacks. Plus it can have ridiculous RNG, which MH does not have independent from crit.

That's one way of looking at it I suppose. I don't think I'll be using StM initially when raids roll out so MH may not be as valuable. Hmm, gonna have to think about this. :O

[Arazen]

Can somebody please explain the priority list?

According to tool tips, the priority should be Vampiric Touch > Shadow Word: Pain > Mind Blast, but according to the guide it's exactly the other way around.

How gear dependant is Shadow? I can get around ~13-18 stacks during Void Form only (on dummies) while others say they get 30+. My item level is 665 and I have 14% Haste.

[Gorsameth]

Can somebody please explain the priority list?

According to tool tips, the priority should be Vampiric Touch > Shadow Word: Pain > Mind Blast, but according to the guide it's exactly the other way around.

How gear dependant is Shadow? I can get around ~13-18 stacks during Void Form only (on dummies) while others say they get 30+. My item level is 665 and I have 14% Haste.

Shadow is very gear dependent. If you up your haste to 30% you will get the high stack count people are reporting.

Mind blast has a cd and is your main insanity generator outside of voidform (and 2nd inside voidform) so you want to use it as often and as soon as possible. hence why you open with MB on the pull and then apply VT and SW:P.

[Nicklas]

Can somebody please explain the priority list?

According to tool tips, the priority should be Vampiric Touch > Shadow Word: Pain > Mind Blast, but according to the guide it's exactly the other way around.

How gear dependant is Shadow? I can get around ~13-18 stacks during Void Form only (on dummies) while others say they get 30+. My item level is 665 and I have 14% Haste.

Most people that get around 30+ is almost 100 ilvl higher than you, with both 30% crit and 30% haste. So gear makes a difference.

[N1gh7h4wk]

Most people that get around 30+ is almost 100 ilvl higher than you, with both 30% crit and 30% haste. So gear makes a difference.

Also the T18 setbonus gives a huge advantage, because you almost consistently have the mindbender up, which is our biggest source of insanity so far in the prepatch.

[Deleted]

How does Void torrent exactly interacts with haste? I thought I've read somewhere, it's always 4 sec and therefore, the more haste, the more ticks you get when casting. Is this correct?

[Ilir]

How does Void torrent exactly interacts with haste? I thought I've read somewhere, it's always 4 sec and therefore, the more haste, the more ticks you get when casting. Is this correct?

Yeah... it's pretty silly when you get haste proc + vf stacks + heroism + troll racial

[Ryeshot]

VTor works the same way dots do. Just think of it like a channeled dot that makes you want to kill yourself because the second you start casting it you get targeted by a mechanic.

[Fleckens]

Yeah... it's pretty silly when you get haste proc + vf stacks + heroism + troll racial

Not quite as big a deal as before it was nerfed though, was really insane back then.