STM Question

[Deleted]

Hi there, i am a new rolled Shadow priest, after 10 years of hunter playing, due to my guild really was in need of one, so i am very new to Spriest.

I see many high geared, or skilled should i call it Spriest running STM, i run LOTV instead, cause i suck and can not make it work in Mythic.

I have not been able to play with another Spriest who have ran it aswell, does it work in dungeons like Mythic? I feel like when there is the slighest movement, you'll die for not being able to cast spells. I know Dispersion stops the insanity, but in alot of bosses like last boss in Neltharions lair, it's impossible to keep it up.
So my question is, does it work? And how to do make it work if it does?

Best regards.

[Dawnrage]

It works, and I can't think of a boss where it will be bad to use on in heroics (maybe inquisitor in VoW, definitely cordana), but there really isn't a point to use S2M in dungeons. The cooldown is way too high to be effective, and the boss fights aren't nearly long enough (about 1 min~ if you have good DPS) for it to be a substantial gain over LotV. LotV doesn't really give you a big damage boost, but it lets you be more versatile and gives you more leeway on when to enter voidform, so it's nice to have in multiple situations in heroics - trash and bosses.

I guess if you wanted to be a one trick pony on one or two bosses per instance, and suffer in every other aspect, you would use S2M.

[Deleted]

you certainly always run better with LOTV in Mythic Dungeons, most of the time you aren't even able to use the full strength of S2M due to fight length issues. However you can still make it easily work on mostly ANY fight (besides some stupid ones like Cordana or Ularogg) if your group has DPS struggles. The Issues you're pointing out with movement heavy fights gets compeletely negated by the fact that you're able to move while casting for the duration of S2M.

[Deleted]

you certainly always run better with LOTV in Mythic Dungeons, most of the time you aren't even able to use the full strength of S2M due to fight length issues. However you can still make it easily work on mostly ANY fight (besides some stupid ones like Cordana or Ularogg) if your group has DPS struggles. The Issues you're pointing out with movement heavy fights gets compeletely negated by the fact that you're able to move while casting for the duration of S2M.

oooooh yeah thats right, i forgot you can move meanwhile in that stage. I'll suppose i stick to LOTV so far. Ty

[Djriff]

One of my guildies and I ran together last night in mythic, he ran StM and I didn't. I kept up fairly well and there was an obvious difference in boss fights, however when StM was on CD he wasn't doing a whole lot during it.

That aside, it is pretty fun to pump out some big numbers on some bosses, although i still wish they disabled the death mechanic if the boss dies.

[Ocedic]

Boss mechanics that S2M doesn't work on or you have to be very mindful of when you pop it:

- Long distance teleportation of the boss, such as the Executioner in Violet Hold, or to a lesser extent the Inquisitor in VoW.
- Boss disappearing and being untargetable. Last boss of Warden, Nelth's Lair boss where he turns into stone, etc.
- Lots of stuns/disables.

Knowing the encounters is half of S2M use, and knowing the optimal time to pop it is something you need to feel out.

The other consideration is that LotV offers a nominal increase (although I will admit it's kind of nice to have on trash) and Mind Spike is plain awful. So to me I just take S2M by default because... why not? LotV is a small QoL, which hardly compares to having S2M when I want it. Even if I use it one time in a Mythic that's more useful than LotV to me.

[GT4]

There's no real point in running S2M for currently available content. In any decent group, even mythic bosses will die in barely over a minute of which you can be in voidform for around 50 seconds (depending on gear and talents) even without S2M. The fact that you need to be resurrected afterwards (and lose a bit of DPS from LotV overall) means that you'll more likely than not just slow down your party speccing S2M at the moment.

[Ocedic]

There's no real point in running S2M for currently available content. In any decent group, even mythic bosses will die in barely over a minute of which you can be in voidform for around 50 seconds (depending on gear and talents) even without S2M. The fact that you need to be resurrected afterwards (and lose a bit of DPS from LotV overall) means that you'll more likely than not just slow down your party speccing S2M at the moment.

The time it takes to Rez (which should be happening while people are looting anyway) is NOT shorter than the time shaved off from your damage increase. If it is then your S2M gearing/rotation needs to be corrected, your healer needs to rez faster, or your damage in general is so bad that it doesn't matter what you do. However, a properly geared and competent priest player will be able to make use of S2M to significantly reduce a boss's active time.

And again, even if you do think S2M is meaningless (you would need some amazing hard numbers to dispute sims,) then LotV is DEFINITELY useless in comparison so it makes it a moot point - you might as well take S2M to have the option then.

[Sxq]

Most bosses in mythics right now are dying fast enough in my groups that I actually wouldn't get much benefit from StM

[kalaratic]

since this thread popped up i figure i'd add my question in as well:

what is the best way to utilize S2M during a progression fight? do you just pop it at 35% if you know for sure that for that nothing will pop up that prevents you from getting casts off, or is it just a trial and error process until you find what works the best with your comp?

[Ocedic]

since this thread popped up i figure i'd add my question in as well:

what is the best way to utilize S2M during a progression fight? do you just pop it at 35% if you know for sure that for that nothing will pop up that prevents you from getting casts off, or is it just a trial and error process until you find what works the best with your comp?

Depends on your group's DPS. I usually wait until about 70% and after a previous void form ends. If your group struggles then you want to wait a bit longer. 35% is definitely too late because you have to remember there is ramp up time on the degen, so at the very least 50% or so is fine and should carry you to 35%.

[GT4]

The time it takes to Rez (which should be happening while people are looting anyway) is NOT shorter than the time shaved off from your damage increase. If it is then your S2M gearing/rotation needs to be corrected, your healer needs to rez faster, or your damage in general is so bad that it doesn't matter what you do. However, a properly geared and competent priest player will be able to make use of S2M to significantly reduce a boss's active time.

And again, even if you do think S2M is meaningless (you would need some amazing hard numbers to dispute sims,) then LotV is DEFINITELY useless in comparison so it makes it a moot point - you might as well take S2M to have the option then.

Gotta love how ironic this post is. You imply I am bad or my group is bad when all the claims you make about S2M being optimal only apply to a bad group to begin with. If your group takes long enough to loot for the healer to rez you, your group is simply slacking. If the boss lives long enough for S2M to grant you any significant amount of bonus void form uptime, your group has low boss DPS. This claim can easily be proven with simc as well (how ironic that you mention simc even though it basically disproves your own point, guess you haven't even bothered properly setting it up) where you get almost exactly the same DPS for a typical LotV and a typical S2M build when fight duration is set to 60 seconds (+-20%).

In addition to that, you're not taking into account that you lose all void form stacks when dying (and thus will have lower DPS for the next trash pack) and that LotV is actually a decent talent for trash where your insanity regeneration skyrockets with SA procs.

tl;dr: Maybe look at yourself first before implying others are bad.

[Deleted]

since this thread popped up i figure i'd add my question in as well:

what is the best way to utilize S2M during a progression fight? do you just pop it at 35% if you know for sure that for that nothing will pop up that prevents you from getting casts off, or is it just a trial and error process until you find what works the best with your comp?

This is the main thing, it varies from fight to fight definitely and it may not even work on some bosses. I havnt looked at this tier yet. But the idea is to pop for as long as your current gear allows - 1 minute up to 3 minutes before the end.
However if you can hold 3 minutes without swd then you can be combat rezed for damage

[TheSerialSniper]

This is the main thing, it varies from fight to fight definitely and it may not even work on some bosses. I havnt looked at this tier yet. But the idea is to pop for as long as your current gear allows - 1 minute up to 3 minutes before the end.
However if you can hold 3 minutes without swd then you can be combat rezed for damage

s2m prevents being combat rezed.

[kalaratic]

Depends on your group's DPS. I usually wait until about 70% and after a previous void form ends. If your group struggles then you want to wait a bit longer. 35% is definitely too late because you have to remember there is ramp up time on the degen, so at the very least 50% or so is fine and should carry you to 35%.

makes sense, thanks for the percentages as well. i don't have much experience with the spell so popping at it 70% would probably get me killed early but it's good to know i shouldn't wait until the execute phase either. it's pretty cool that you can improve as a player with this talent by pushing how early you can pop it without dying before the boss does.

[Deleted]

s2m prevents being combat rezed.

No this is a common mistake I'm hearing a lot, S2M gives you a debuff for three minutes that prevents you from being combat rezed, that debuff runs off after three minutes even if you survive the full duration of shadow madness which is also 3 minutes. After three minutes you instantly die, you can be combat rezed and continue on your way with s2m being at 7 minutes cd from that point on.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm sure you are all also aware that bosses have frequently contained multiple execute phases and exceeded 13 minutes in the past

[Woop Woop]

No this is a common mistake I'm hearing a lot, S2M gives you a debuff for three minutes that prevents you from being combat rezed, that debuff runs off after three minutes even if you survive the full duration of shadow madness which is also 3 minutes. After three minutes you instantly die, you can be combat rezed and continue on your way with s2m being at 7 minutes cd from that point on.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm sure you are all also aware that bosses have frequently contained multiple execute phases and exceeded 13 minutes in the past

Okay, but why would you want to use it during start, die, wait until you can be rezzed? You would lose so much dps by dying, I can't see any fight where this would be good. And staying in voidform for 3 minutes with current ilvl isnt going to happen.
Not to mention that a brez is often saved for tanks/healers.

[Deleted]

Okay, but why would you want to use it during start, die, wait until you can be rezzed? You would lose so much dps by dying, I can't see any fight where this would be good. And staying in voidform for 3 minutes with current ilvl isnt going to happen.
Not to mention that a brez is often saved for tanks/healers.

Ok so you're completely correct, I also can not see this tier allowing for three minute stm and most of the time a fight doesn't exceed ten minutes or has multiple execute phases but fights like Garrosh for example is a great example. Not sure if there will be a fight like that this expansion but they usually come as the final boss.

The dps loss is negligible, fast cr helps reduce and if you were to employ this tactic it would be because you need burst damage at key points.
This isn't a tactic that will be used by average guilds, progression content where you wipe if a tank/healers/dps messes up is common and tactics that allow cr to be used as a massive dps increase will be used as much as virtually possible.
But yes the cr on stm is subjective to the fight and will be extremely uncommon, so subjective that the scenario is could be used in may even allow for the spriest to be afk for 1 min on the debuff and still be a solid option.

[Shyzhi]

One of my guildies and I ran together last night in mythic, he ran StM and I didn't. I kept up fairly well and there was an obvious difference in boss fights, however when StM was on CD he wasn't doing a whole lot during it.

That aside, it is pretty fun to pump out some big numbers on some bosses, although i still wish they disabled the death mechanic if the boss dies.

Oh god yes... disable the death mechanic if the boss dies... its so annoying to kill a boss and then go "poof" and die..


The S2M mechanic tho of bascly going inside and damage ramping up is very very fun. You wont see many useing it in heroics or mythics really... as who can be arsed to die every boss fight? i use it if im with friends as i know i will be ressed after. In a pug im amazed they can even log in. Sadly i can never shadow in pugs as im instantly declined.. so pugs im healing, friends im DPSing.

[Relapses]

Oh god yes... disable the death mechanic if the boss dies... its so annoying to kill a boss and then go "poof" and die..


The S2M mechanic tho of bascly going inside and damage ramping up is very very fun. You wont see many useing it in heroics or mythics really... as who can be arsed to die every boss fight? i use it if im with friends as i know i will be ressed after. In a pug im amazed they can even log in. Sadly i can never shadow in pugs as im instantly declined.. so pugs im healing, friends im DPSing.

You haven't lived until you've been kicked from a group because you used S2M on a boss and had to run back to the group since they didn't want to wait for you.