Spriest PVE build?

[frozenshade]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbkhxZZG0fVRfzciqczi

can someone rate this build and please go ahead and give any other idea's

[Akita]

For PvE get dispersion, and max Pain and Suffering. dont need the points in the imp shield.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcdzhoZZG0fVRfzciqfzAo

Thats the build i made. You dont need imp shadow form if you dont want it and you can put a few points in Mental Agi if you want.

[frozenshade]

why do you need to max out pain and suffering? i thought 66% is more than enough to keep up what you want? maybe im wrong i guess. and the point in the sheild is only a point to get down to mental agility

[Kelesti]

For PvE get dispersion, and max Pain and Suffering. dont need the points in the imp shield.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcdzhoZZG0fVRfzciqfzAo

Thats the build i made. You dont need imp shadow form if you dont want it and you can put a few points in Mental Agi if you want.

Personally, as a Raid Leader, I've been sneaking my Shadow Priests into the MT's group for some group wide faux-HoT action, seeing as Vampiric Touch is Raid-wide but VE isn't.

Regarding Improved Shadowform, Improved Concentration Aura (55%) doesn't stack with your 70, so that's 2 talent points that give you a 15% reduction on first two hits of a spell. With the new mechanic changes, that's barely a tick of mindflay now, not really worth it unless you're PvP'ing.

If your raid leader's smart (like putting your utility to "heal" stuff while you do your dps job) then Imp VE isn't all that bad.

[Grath]

mental agility? the only instant cast spells are SWP , SWD and DP.... SWP u cast once since mf refreshes it, DP has 30 second CD and SWD is something not used all the time since it can get u killed when ure bad with luck, 5 points spent into 3 spells that really dont get used often seems a waste, id preffer to get silence and i still have 2 points to spend, remember also that mindflay isnt a instant cast its a channel, 2 different things so it wont get affected.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbzhZZG0fVofzciqczAo heres the basics, the must gets as i say, the 5 points is really up to u, i didnt get veiled shadows because shadow fiend seems to be only good soloing, ive noticed mine die every time i pop it in about 5 seconds during raids, and that screws me over alot sometimes since right now i dont have meditation, and since when it hits it does the same ammount of mana return it kinda sucks, i liked having that big jump of mana when it crit

anywho this is probly what ill do

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbzhZZGofiofkciqfzAo

with those 6 more points i went and got silence, it can be handy in raids such as BT where those dragons are in the air and u can pull em down for the tanks for instance, but not that bt really matters anymore since its gonna be old soon but who knows what it can do for wotlk, besides its better than anythin else u can get, for the last 3 points i got imp shadowform, kelesti made a very good point about concentration aura that i never thought about, but i still consider this to get out of shares in raids and since ure never gonna have concentration all the time its good for the soloing/lvling too, the last point is really whatever u want lol i just chucked it in blackout for the stun

@Frozenshade yes its true maxing out pain and suffering isnt a must but really when it comes down to it there isnt much better to spend that 1 point on, just get it to save the stress if that 66% doesnt proc when u need it to proc most, besides the 10% more dmg less will make SWD alot more confident to use

any questions about the spec id love to hear about

ooh btw about VE, i didnt bother improving since the nerf

[Yoshihiko_Lightbringer]

I was raiding with http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVZZGzfVofzfiqfzAo up till this past monday. Imp shadowform saved me NUMEROUS times on KJ.

[AetherMcLoud]

mental agility? the only instant cast spells are SWP , SWD and DP....

Mind Flay is instant too. Sounds strange seeing as it is channeled but it benefits from all talents that benefit instants. Twin Disciplines, Mental Agility, etc. Dunno if only Mind Flay internally counts as an instant or if all channeled spells do, but MF definately counts as an instant.

[Hotchocolate]

not spending the _ONE_ point in dispersion ist just rofl
noone needs mental agility
14/0/57 is the best choice!

[Lostprophet]

Mind Flay IS NOT AN INSTANT SPELL , its a channeled Spell. Thats a huge difference in case of MA

Mind flay doesnt benefit from MA, and first it didnt from Twin Disciplines but then Blizz changed that. So the tooltip isnt 100% right there.


Other Question : How cares about a PvE lvl 70 Talent build 1 Day before LK release?

Second Question: Im pretty sure that Conc Aura stacks with Talents, with my shaman (70% Spellbushback talented) and Conc i didnt loose castingtime and so i believe its same for imp SF and Conc...like it worked for mages / warlocks too . (RoS for example )

[AetherMcLoud]

Note that channeled spells are actually considered two casts by the event engine: first, the preceding component spellcast, then channeling component itself. For clarity, consider Mind Control. The preceding component is the 3-second cast before the spell takes effect, and the channeling component is the actual mind control portion of the spell. Note that every channeled spell has a preceding component, though many of them are instant.

In other words, don't be surprised when the sample code (or any code using this strategy) picks up abilities like Mind Vision or Drain Life as instant. Technically, there is an instant cast spell associated with such abilities.

[Grath]

my spec is for lvl 80 lol, and MA is still a waste of 5 points in my opinion, could use it somewhere else that alot more important, u have 2 mana gaining abilities and u can drink a pot, i still stand by my spec

im also 100% sure that channel and instant are different types but i may research this

[AetherMcLoud]

im also 100% sure that channel and instant are different types but i may research this

They are different types yes, but for the engine a channeled spell is an instant cast + channel, therefore it benefits from instant talents.

[Worshaka]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbkhxZZG0fVRfzciqczi

can someone rate this build and please go ahead and give any other idea's

I think it's a pretty poor build to be frank, here is why.

1. Don't discount the need for some additional threat reduction with shadow affinity.. at first I thought the 30% baked into SF would be enough but I'm finding out it isn't. Mainly because our DPS wasn't up to scratch when 3.0 first came out, with some dps tweaking I've found myself wanting extra points. I also feel that dps threat at lvl 70 isn't what it's going to be at 80. It's a bit hard to say whats going to happen at 80 without experiencing it but i'd be taking at least 2 points to begin with and assessing it from there.

2. Max out P&S, simulations are showing that if you don't you are going to have to recast SW:P even in a perfect environment of no moving, no lag and 100% hit (which you won't have to begin with). Once you add in having to switch targets occasionally, stopping dps during threat sensitive encounters etc etc, you're gonna wish you had it.

3. How can you not take dispersion... don't listen to the garbage on the forums about it being useless... numbers show that dispersion gives more mp/5 than 2 points in veiled shadows and it has the benefit of costing you only 1 talent point, doesnt rely on a pet staying alive and dealing damage to a target and has the added ability of reducing damage by 90% for 6 seconds. There is no question that you take dispersion.

4. Mental Agility is useless... it's a mana effeciency talent... if you were to do the numbers I guarantee 1 point in dispersion is worth more mp/5 than the 5 points you wasted in the disc tree. Someone above already pointed out it will affect a minority of spells, it's a poor choice for a spriest. When you analyse your build mental agility is costing you 6 points because you're wasting a point in Imp PW:S to get that far in the tree... again 1 point in dispersion will save you 5 points for a greater effect on your mana pool.

So I suggest this build http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbzhZZGcfVkfzciqfzAo

1. I didnt take imp VE coz I don't feel you get a lot of value for 2 points increasing healing to your party from 3% to 5%... there is talk that raid damage is being toned down in WotLK, I could be wrong but I don't see imp VE being all that more useful than VE... as our gear scales we're gonna drop SW from the rotation and may do that to begin with anyways (depending on how our mana bars go).

2. Imp SF is a nice utility to have up your sleeve and I think it's a good idea to try it out to start with at the very least. It might be a content specific talent for PvE that you don't bother with for awhile and pick it back up again... i'll have to experience content to see if it is truly worthwhile, if it isn't I'd probably put these 2 points to max out Veiled Shadows and get 1/2 imp VE.

3. Veiled Shadows sounds nice for 3min fiend... but think about what 3min fiend means over 5min. How many encounters do you expect to last more than 10mins? I don't think there will be many to begin with and we'll get a few as we progress... so if the standard encounter is 5-6mins a 3min fiend is no different to a 4 or 5min fiend in that you'll cast it once per encounter... you never cast a fiend until the 2min mark anyways (best to conincide with BL imo) so casting a 2nd fiend when you have the boss nearly dead is pointless anyways... (having said that if mana is really that bad and 3min fiend makes the difference i'll steal a point out of shadow affinity to max it but i suspect its a non issue)

4. I'm gonna start with max shadow affinity, see how my threat goes and steal points out of it when i feel confident that 2/3 or 1/3 is ok.

So basically I might change my points in Shadow Affinity, Imp VE, Imp SF and Veiled Shadows if the content demands it, but this is my best guess at this stage.

[Coupage]

Great build for 80, but....until then? lol...
Most of us are concerned with a great build for 70+
Actually I have tried several, havnt noticed a whole lot of difference in them..lol..
All would be better off, building to suit your playing style.
Just my 2 coppers worth....

[Mataus]

What ever happened to only putting 1 or 4 points in Imp Mind Blast. I remember once upon a time theorycrafting showed that 2, 3, and 5 points ended up being wasted due to rotations and cooldowns until you got enough haste that rotations could work around the cooldown.

69 point build, 2 left over

I'd think something like that would be most useful. That left over point could go into Imp MB if I'm wrong on remembering the theorycrafting of s.priest (wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong) and ... whatever else you wanted. If 1/5 or 4/5 Imp MB is "ideal" then those two could go to Imp VE or Veiled Shadows, though I don't think most fights at Naxx level will be long enough to really get much benefit from Veiled Shadows whereas Imp VE will always slightly increase your survivability... and let's not forget Loatheb (boss in Naxx).

Dispersion definitely has a place in a raid build. A lot of bosses do random target/huge damage abilities (Felmyst's encapsulate, final ticks of Burn from brutallus if you have fire debuffs, Fatal attraction from Mother in BT, etc.) and dispersion is like a pseudo iceblock as well as another "oh crap, no mana" button.

The same can be true of Imp Shadowform. Every s.priest I know LOVES it when we do Kil'jaeden. Flame dart is the BIGGEST threat because if you can't make it to a bubble in time, you are most likely dead unless you use dispersion (does 50k+ damage, so dispersion would drop it to 5k+).

Every talent is situational, but 5 points for 10% mana reduction makes you lose a lot of utility from other parts of the shadow tree IMHO.

[Worshaka]

5/5 Imp MB is a must, otherwise you are wasting the effectiveness of haste... if you have 0 haste then 4/5 is all you needed, the moment you add haste and you don't take 5/5 you're losing significant dps.

[Kyzoa]

5/5 Imp MB is a must, otherwise you are wasting the effectiveness of haste... if you have 0 haste then 4/5 is all you needed, the moment you add haste and you don't take 5/5 you're losing significant dps.

However, the problem with haste now is that it doesn't scale with Replenishment. Originally, when Shadowpriests were the only mana battery of the game, haste was incredible. Now it's just a quicker mana pool burn while staying under the same mana regeneration system that everyone else is.

Personally, this will be my build for lvl 80 as shadow:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbzhZZGcfmRfzciqfzAo

This gives pretty much everything we'll ever need. Although some people dispute the validity of Veiled SHadows, sure, an encounter may not last for more than 10 minutes, but that's one extra fiend. Any Shadowpriest worth their salt will go into an encounter specced for the possibility of a healer dying and them having to swap out. Plus, with how much trash the Replenishment system is (In my opinion, mind you. I'd rather have old vampiric touch back, but I digress), it ends up working out a whole lot better mana wise.

Also, to clear something up, Channeled spells still fall under the instant text, since it has no actual cast time, just a channeled time. As such, anything that affects instant spells affects channeled spells, hence why Twin Disciplines and Mental Agility both work on Mind Flay and will work on Mind Sear when we get it.

[Mataus]

I've been going 5/5 Imp MB because I realized I didn't need the points in threat reduction at my gear level anyways.

Now it's just a quicker mana pool burn while staying under the same mana regeneration system that everyone else is.

Well, haste = more dps and sitting at more than 0 mana at the end of a boss fight doesn't make you better. If you aren't pushing yourself to hitting 0 mana when an encounter ends, then you aren't pushing hard enough in my opinion. I think of mana as potential damage, if you can't pump out spells fast enough to do the maximum amount of damage during a fight then there is potential damage loss (or at least that's my take on it).

[Kyzoa]

I've been going 5/5 Imp MB because I realized I didn't need the points in threat reduction at my gear level anyways.

Well, haste = more dps and sitting at more than 0 mana at the end of a boss fight doesn't make you better. If you aren't pushing yourself to hitting 0 mana when an encounter ends, then you aren't pushing hard enough in my opinion. I think of mana as potential damage, if you can't pump out spells fast enough to do the maximum amount of damage during a fight then there is potential damage loss (or at least that's my take on it).

Oh, I fully agree with that. There's just one problem with your logic, and that's WHEN you end up at 0 mana. You're trying to put it to where you're ending up at 0 mana extremely close to when the boss is dead. If you're not out when the boss is dead, you're not doing your maximum output. HOWEVER, if you end up at 0 1-2 minutes before the boss is dead, then you're essentially losing dps until your mana replenishes up enough to start a rotation up again. If haste stacked with Replenishment, then we'd be fine (like old school days), however, it doesn't. I'd rather do my maximum output and be at 0 at the end then blow my capacity early and be sitting there wanding away. I'm not helping the raid with my wand. :P

[Mataus]

I'm not helping the raid with my wand.

I call bologna! :P (obviously a joke)

seriously, I just find between fiend, dispersion, pots, replenishment... mana isn't so much of an issue.