[7.2] Legion Shadow Priest Guide and Discussion

[davesignal]

That's not a reasonable offer, that is pure madness. Reasonable offer is removing absurd death tax from stm. Reasonable offer is finally making the fucking tof baseline, which it should became years ago. Reasonable offer is buffing LotV, removing mspike nonsense and giving real talent in its place, preferably burst aoe one. Castrating the spec even further so we could die even more looks beyond idiotic to me.

Also, existence of synergy between talents is why talents should exist in the first place...

Then you should design a MMO, because the developers who make this one clearly do not agree with you.

[Baelic]

Then you should design a MMO, because the developers who make this one clearly do not agree with you.

New LI Talent + LotV, ToF + Reaper of Soul + S2M, and ToF with nearly Anything (which is a big reason why it should be baseline) would all like to have a word with you.

Also, has anyone noticed that some of the Honor Talents for Shadow could have been MUCH more useful or interesting as PvE talents? Mind Trauma, Edge of Insanity, and Fleeting Embrace being three that instantly come to mind.

[l33t]

Also, has anyone noticed that some of the Honor Talents for Shadow could have been MUCH more useful or interesting as PvE talents? Mind Trauma, Edge of Insanity, and Fleeting Embrace being three that instantly come to mind.

Yeah we discussed that during beta for like half a year...

[Baelic]

Yeah we discussed that during beta for like half a year...

Lol, I'm a little late to the community discussions this expac it seems.

[davesignal]

New LI Talent + LotV, ToF + Reaper of Soul + S2M, and ToF with nearly Anything (which is a big reason why it should be baseline) would all like to have a word with you.

They don't agree with him that a "reasonable offer" is removing the death penalty from S2M. Every time it comes up, Ion Hazzikostas, the director of the the entire game, absolutely gushes about how it's so flavorful and iconic and how much class fantasy there is in dying for ultimate power.

If the game director loves to watch you die, guess what: you're going to be dying for a long time.

[Baelic]

They don't agree with him that a "reasonable offer" is removing the death penalty from S2M. Every time it comes up, Ion Hazzikostas, the director of the the entire game, absolutely gushes about how it's so flavorful and iconic and how much class fantasy there is in dying for ultimate power.

If the game director loves to watch you die, guess what: you're going to be dying for a long time.

Not gonna lie, I do like the feel of giving it your all until your last dying breath. I think it's quite reasonable to keep that death penalty in for those who want the adrenaline rush while allowing viable options for those who don't. Maybe it's just a game designer thing /shurg

[Thra]

Hoping someone can offer me some guidance with this question. Basically been contemplating a class change to disc priest as our raid team is losing our priest soon and I feel priest offers more than monk atm. Anyway, so I have been playing the priest a bit and last night went shadow for a +7 MoS. I understand the priority list etc and I use S2M and follow DJriff's guide for when to use S2M etc.

What I am more after is some information about a set rotation for S2M/Voidform. I have read around H2P and places looking for answers and gotten some differing views. The highest stacks I have gotten to in my whole 6 uses of S2M is 73 stacks.

My question is this:

When do I VoiT, PI, Disperse & Fiend.

I have seen two differing answers here mainly in regards to VoiT.

VE>VoiT>VB>MB>Filler>VB .......>priority -F

The other is

VE>VB>VoiT>VB>MB>Filler>VB .......>priority

and when to PI/Fiend/Disperse?

Seen PI at 15 stacks also read PI at 90 stacks....

Fiend off the bat or Fiend after 10 stacks

Disperse after VoiT>VB or Disperse to hold onto VF for next VoiT if close

tl:dr format:

VoiT right after VE or after first VB?

[Romanticide]

@Thra it's best to VE > VoiT > VB > Dispersion, imo. The sooner you use VoiT, the better. Using Dispersion early is also good. Just make sure your dots won't fall during VoiT/during VB travel time.

Hold PI as much as you can (use it past 85 stacks) and use Shadowfiend during it. When not in S2M, use PI around 18 stacks --> this will get you a 40+ normal Voidform :33

[Thra]

@Thra it's best to VE > VoiT > VB > Dispersion, imo. The sooner you use VoiT, the better. Using Dispersion early is also good. Just make sure your dots won't fall during VoiT/during VB travel time.

Hold PI as much as you can (use it past 85 stacks) and use Shadowfiend during it. When not in S2M, use PI around 18 stacks --> this will get you a 40+ normal Voidform :33

Alright, cheers. Ill give it a shot tonight

[RsinRC]

In the ptr got a 54s regular void form earlier lol I know I can get to 60. Had a priest randomly there 2s away from getting that 3rd VT. But he had all decked out gear with the set bonuses and 2 legendaries. The cape and the belt. He got capped doing 2million dps on dummies.

[Deleted]

Hey all, this guide says haste is the best stat but all the highest parsin sps are taking crit enchants / gems. Is there softcap for haste or am I missing something? It looks like most of the sps I checked out aim for 30% crit/haste. Is this correct? Im new sp and just curious

[Deleted]

Hey all, this guide says haste is the best stat but all the highest parsin sps are taking crit enchants / gems. Is there softcap for haste or am I missing something? It looks like most of the sps I checked out aim for 30% crit/haste. Is this correct? Im new sp and just curious

Yes, you want to aim for 9.5k haste which is where crit starts giving more value up to 9k crit after that you stack mastery. The guide on howtopriest covers it more indepth

[worcester]

@Thra it's best to VE > VoiT > VB > Dispersion, imo. The sooner you use VoiT, the better. Using Dispersion early is also good. Just make sure your dots won't fall during VoiT/during VB travel time.

Hold PI as much as you can (use it past 85 stacks) and use Shadowfiend during it. When not in S2M, use PI around 18 stacks --> this will get you a 40+ normal Voidform :33

How does dispersion help when you can generate insanity greater than the actual drain so early on. Dispersion doesn't pause the increase in drain per second; so you only gain something from dispersion when the net drain is negative - which is towards the end of the cycle.

[eMan5]

How does dispersion help when you can generate insanity greater than the actual drain so early on. Dispersion doesn't pause the increase in drain per second; so you only gain something from dispersion when the net drain is negative - which is towards the end of the cycle.

From what I know Dispersion pauses stack AND drain gains during its channel. Correct me if I am wrong.
If that is true, the main reason to use it early after first Void Torrent is that you basically just buy some time and make it through your second Void Torrent with less drain stacks in play. By using it early you also get it off CD later on in your StM so you can use it again after the 100 second mark when you see yourself in a "die without it" situation. It will then hopefully let you get a SW: Death charge and Void Bolt off cooldown so you can go on a little longer and hopefully get to the 3rd Void Torrent.

[Djriff]

Currently on live it's Belt > Shoulders > Ring > Wrist > Everything Else.

[Fleckens]

Shoulders should still be quite decent, it's only 1-2 less stacks, and in the situations where you would get less or even no stacks(like at pull) It's better than on live.

Also you can't really rank ring as it's amazing in some situations and useless in others.

[Djriff]

Too early to say for certain.

Belt >>>>>>>>> Wrists > Ring > Shoudlers > Everything else at the moment. Belt is insanely good.

[Fleckens]

Yeah belt became a lot better with patch, pretty annoying how the patch made the gap between good and bad legendaries even worse. Sucks being stuck at 4 legendaries with only 1 useful one as it still seems extremely rare for anyone to get above 4.

[GT4]

I don't get why you'd think shoulders are bad now. They're roughly equivalent to 5% haste in void form. If you take the new lingering insanity talent, they'll also still add 5% for a duration that depends on your previous void form (and can easily go into the next void form).

Did a quick test and with belt + shoulders + 2pc I'm consistently taking 20+ stacks of lingering insanity into the next void form. With cooldowns I've seen up to 40 stacks remaining at the next void form (getting ~50 stacks with PI/Berserking/VT then using that haste to get into the next void form ASAP). Under those circumstances, the shoulders average more than 5% haste for the whole duration of the fight.

It'd most likely be even better if I wasn't having a 200-300ms ping that screws over my void form rotation somewhat.

[Fleckens]

Wait, what? I see no changes on the Belt in PTR.

More insanity on mind blast, so an indirect buff to the belt.