Shadow Priest raid importance

[Shapeshiftr]

If she isn't topping the meters with that gear and spec I don't know what she does wrong.

[Thielwin]

From what I can tell, her DPS is right where it should be given her gear level and raid buffs etc. I'm assuming she's using a Frost Wyrm Flask and some 46 spell dmg food as well. I noticed her haste is a bit low, but her crit is a bit higher than mine. Strange choice of gems, 2 with spell pen. on them. But I suppose you need 2 blues somewhere for the meta.. and last I checked those two that were recommended on shadowpriest.com to fill the 2 blue gem role weren't even implemented in the game yet. There were uncommon varieties of them, just not rares. Oh well, probably doesn't make too much of a difference.

Here's the thing. She's topping the meter, with or without misery bug, because the rest of the raids DPS is VERY low. Honestly if the mages, locks, hunters, fury warriors, any kind of DPS shaman (post patch of course) can't beat her hands down, they don't know what they are doing with their respective rotations or are not gemming/enchanting/speccing/gearing themselves properly.

Here's what a patchwerk fight should look like: Shadowpriests somewhere down in 12th or 13th place usually.

Here is one of me, a couple weeks back before some upgrades and before the "Misery bug":

http://wowwebstats.com/mnkiacilqxk3s?s=322865-353399

armory me here:
http://us.wowarmory.com/character-sh...ogg&n=Thielwin
P.S. Just noticed I only have one blue gem equipped.. dont know how I missed that, will have to fix later

[Nezoia]

She could replace her purple gems with a Purified Twilight Opal or Misty Forest Emerald as said on Shadowpriest.com.

Those two gems don't exist. Why do you do such lame suggestions?

Here's what a patchwerk fight should look like: Shadowpriests somewhere down in 12th or 13th place usually.

Here is one of me, a couple weeks back before some upgrades and before the "Misery bug":

http://wowwebstats.com/mnkiacilqxk3s?s=322865-353399

HaT rogues?

Also, that's not the best dps a priest can do. Shadowpriests can easily pull off 4500, and 5000 with the right gear and raid setup.

[Necothian]

He also mentions this WWS was during the misery bug. So that would mean that she is sitting below 4500 with her current gear quality. Which seems relatively below average given other posts on this forum where priest spoke about hitting 4500 with less gear then she and without the bug.

[Nezoia]

True, and running around in 5 pieces of Tier 7 is just the dumbest I've ever seen. I'd never use more than two pieces.

So well, to sum it up:

- Terrible refreshing of DoTs
- Mind Flaying to much
- Poor gemming
- Very bad gear setup

Use following gems

Red: [item=39998]
Yellow: [item=40048]
Blue: [item=41457]

[Worshaka]

My girlfriend is a little distraught. She plays a shadow priest, and until the recent bug with misery, she could never top the charts. We're in a top end guild, she's one of the better geared members we've got.. and her DPS isn't really "up there."

Now, this isn't a post to complain about DPS, but a post to question why most of the shadow priest buffs have been given to other classes in the raid now. If i'm wrong, please tell me:

Misery is identical to, if not less powerful than, Improved Fairy Fire.
Replenishment was given to Paladins and Hunters.
Shadow Weaving became a self only buff.
Vampiric Embrace has become more of a threat issue than a group heal, especially in fights where it's applicable.

Shadow priests were never a top DPS class, but have always been one of the most essential. It seems now that buffs have completely been re-written that they lost their "mana battery" title, and with it, alot of their respect as far as raid spots are concerned.

Are there any upcoming plans on shadowpriests to make them a much better raid viable class, and give them an identity?

You obviously haven't been reading any blues leading into and after LK was released.

The number one thing you're not getting is the fact the philosophy behind LK is completely different to BC in that no class brings such a unique or powerful buff they becomes 'required' to the raid. This is why there are alternatives to Misery and Replenishment and why Shadowweaving became a self buff.

With this new philosophy in mind, the raw dps numbers of each dps class became a lot more important and thus spriest dps was boosted significantly... I for one can top dps in all of the current raid content in most encounters. The last 25man Patchwerk I did I managed 5.1K dps (and from the data I collected this wasn't due to the misery bug). Spriest dps is very decent and while I will concede that some other classes (if geared and played well) will outdo us on dps it's not by an amount that makes spriests undesirable. There is the occasional WWS of 7K dps rogues and 6K dps mages but apparently they were due to bugs and blizzard is always making changes to bring the classes into balance... in any case seeing these types of numbers is pretty rare and i'm sure you haven't seen them in your guild either. Perhaps we should just concede some people are extremly good at the game and thus can make any class seem OP.

So to your question about viability... spriests are plenty viable... if the person in question can't keep up with dps it has nothing to do with the class. It will have to do with their gear or how they are being played. They should probably start reading the WWS spriest thread at www.elitistjerks.com and work out where they are going wrong. My guess is they aren't achieveing 90% dot uptime and their MB isn't being cast every 7.5 to 8seconds... again this is speculation but there is where most spriests go wrong. The spriest class isn't an easy class to squeeze dps out of so there is always something to work on.

Lastly... I just have to point out... VE a threat issue... you must be kidding... the only time VE might be a slight issue is on Sapphiron but even with major dps time while Sapph is untanked and the entire party is taking regular damage I can't even pull aggro doing 4 to 4.5K dps... I dont have any points in Shadow Affinity... threat is a non issue as long as you have a tank that knows what they're doing.

In short, nothing wrong with spriests... the spriest in question needs to lift their game.

[Worshaka]

She is 5/5 valorous, with plenty of best in slot

Here is part of the problem... if she has 5/5 valorous she does not have plenty of best in slot... only the Valorous Hands and arguably the Valorous Shoulders could be considered best in slot... the helm isn't awful but the other 2 pieces are pretty bad.

She should visit www.shadowpriest.com and check the best gear thread... part of playing the game at the level you want to play is to sit down on a spreadsheet and create a gear plan... using 5/5 valorous is one of the worst gear plans you could come up with.

[drohr]

I can't post her armory, blocked at the workplace. And one thing I have noticed is, since wrath, her raid FPS has dropped to about 10-15 on boss fights. I could be wrong, but in the past it wasn't really a huge issue.

http://wowwebstats.com/6xfm6zevtrpse?s=188252-219886

This is last weeks WWS for patch, you can armory her from that info.

Can't check her armory at the moment since its under maintenance. But that wws looked good. Nothing bad on her parts. Doing 4.5k DPS on a 4.40 Patchwerk fight is OK. What the rest of the DPS was doing is not. You know that the achievement is 3min? And most higher end guilds crush that every time. I'm usually at around 5k DPS, while some other classes pull over 6k DPS. Shadow just can't compete in that type of fight normally. Players with good CD and a lot of burst will usually win in fights that are/should be short, and also doesn't require any mobility at all.

The mages should really shine in this fight, and yours seem to have large problems.

[Simulacrum]

It's hard to say what she could be doing wrong to get such low DPS if she, as the OP claims, reads up on the latest theorycrafting. The biggest and probably most common mistake a Spriest could do it to either refresh dots before they've ticked out, or refreshing them long after they've ticked out - both of which will result in significant dps losses.

Target dummy dps, no buffs at all, no lag... Probably around 2300.

2300 DPS on a boss dummy is extremely low, my elemental shaman was doing that 15 minutes after he dinged three weeks ago, using three AH epics and leveling gear...

Those two gems don't exist. Why do you do such lame suggestions?

Uhm, purified twilight opal exists, I have one in my priest's gear right now.

Can't check her armory at the moment since its under maintenance. But that wws looked good. Nothing bad on her parts. Doing 4.5k DPS on a 4.40 Patchwerk fight is OK.

Did you stop reading at this post, or something? He explained later that this was a WWS from when the dps was bugged too high. Though it was avery poor choice of WWS to display by his part.

[Worshaka]

From the WWS report that was posted...

The encounter lasted 280 seconds... that means the max possible dot ticks for all of the priest dots was 280/3 = 93, and the amount that were recorded was

VT - 79 for a 85% uptime
SW:P - 89 for a 95% uptime
DP - 83 for a 89% uptime

the VT figure isnt' good considering it's the strongest dot we have... that really needs to be above 90% and must be the highest priority in casting. The other figures are pretty good, if anything the SW:P looks too good, was it cast with max SW stacks and the imp scorch buff at max stacks? It's hard to ascertain if this was the case from WWS.

MB was cast 30 times in 280 seconds meaning MB was cast on average every 280/30 = 9.33 seconds. This is a very poor result considering that MB is a 1.5 sec cast time with a 5.5 sec CD (if talented properly)... this means it's theoritcally possible to cast MB every 7 seconds and you should aim to cast MB every 7.5 to 8 seconds (there are obviously times when you want to cast VT the moment MB is off CD etc.)

Lastly MF ticked 137 times in the 280 seconds... this number just seemed low to me... looking at my last WWS i had 125 MF ticks in an encounter that took 185 seconds... that means in 95 more seconds she was only able to get another 12 MF ticks... that seems strange to me and i'm not sure what is causing that.

She only cast SW once... I have a different philosphy and cast it 8 times, it still a spell that should be used as filler for the MB CD.

So as I suspected, she has plenty of room to improve her dps... i've seen some logs where the dots are almost hitting 100% uptime and average MB casts are in the very low 7 seconds... i have Aussie ping so I suspect I won't be able to achieve that but it gives you an idea to what is possible.

[Circumstance]

From the WWS report that was posted...

The encounter lasted 280 seconds... that means the max possible dot ticks for all of the priest dots was 280/3 = 93, and the amount that were recorded was

VT - 79 for a 85% uptime
SW:P - 89 for a 95% uptime
DP - 83 for a 89% uptime

the VT figure isnt' good considering it's the strongest dot we have... that really needs to be above 90% and must be the highest priority in casting. The other figures are pretty good, if anything the SW:P looks too good, was it cast with max SW stacks and the imp scorch buff at max stacks? It's hard to ascertain if this was the case from WWS.

MB was cast 30 times in 280 seconds meaning MB was cast on average every 280/30 = 9.33 seconds. This is a very poor result considering that MB is a 1.5 sec cast time with a 5.5 sec CD (if talented properly)... this means it's theoritcally possible to cast MB every 7 seconds and you should aim to cast MB every 7.5 to 8 seconds (there are obviously times when you want to cast VT the moment MB is off CD etc.)

Lastly MF ticked 137 times in the 280 seconds... this number just seemed low to me... looking at my last WWS i had 125 MF ticks in an encounter that took 185 seconds... that means in 95 more seconds she was only able to get another 12 MF ticks... that seems strange to me and i'm not sure what is causing that.

She only cast SW once... I have a different philosphy and cast it 8 times, it still a spell that should be used as filler for the MB CD.

So as I suspected, she has plenty of room to improve her dps... i've seen some logs where the dots are almost hitting 100% uptime and average MB casts are in the very low 7 seconds... i have Aussie ping so I suspect I won't be able to achieve that but it gives you an idea to what is possible.

It's post like these that help. Thanks to anyone that posted any sort of advice, or constructive criticism. Those of you that brag about your alts dps, or your lack of gear hitting 5k... You are absolutely no help at all. Our problem is she's not getting those numbers, and we're trying to figure out why. Thanks to all that helped. Hopefully this week we can fix this.

[talrob]

Those two gems don't exist. Why do you do such lame suggestions?

Explain my neck then

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...-Nerub&n=Eloro

[Sausagefan]

Just as a quick observation; her trash DPS seems pretty low. With Mind Sear and Devouring Plague, she should be hitting extremely high numbers with even mediocre tanks. This could be a bit of proof of FPS issues; when AoE effects start going off, this can strain FPS pretty hard and reduce performance. After all, it doesn't take theorycrafting to hit Mind Sear over and over

I'd guess that better hardware would show some solid DPS returns.

[Nezoia]

Explain my neck then

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...-Nerub&n=Eloro

Meh, it's been rumours for the past week that they would been implemented.
Example, the recipe is not available on my server yet. Since it's a world drop.

It's pretty hard to validate if a world drop is ingame, when it haven't dropped yet.

And the gems were listed on shadowpriest.com since beta, but they never made it to live before 3.0.8

[MortuariusBC]

I'd like to point out that I only go based on Patchwerk DPS. Any other boss isn't going to give an accurate showing of everyone's DPS.

1) Our vigilance goes to our high threat classes that don't have a decent threat drop (ret pallies or enh shamans)
2) Our moonkin takes imp fairy fire, and I don't believe his DPS is hurting much for it.
3) Vamp. Embrace is at best 'alright.' It's not a spell that anyone will miss if it's not cast, and that's my point.
4) Meters arent the issue as much as sheer DPS. Our first 3 are always the same. #1 is our unholy DK, on patchwerk i'm pretty sure his average week-to-week is around 5300. Below that would be our Mut rogue / FFB mage / Enhance shaman / ret pally / fury warrior. We've got a balanced raid, with no one missing necessary buffs.

She is 5/5 valorous, with plenty of best in slot, and the rest is damn near close (valorous isnt always BiS, but shes a chick, and chicks dig angel stuff). She's probably our 2nd best geared member in the guild, and sure, on some fights, she destroys meters because mind sear is embarassingly good. But, she can't pull 5.6k like our DK, and she hardly ever gets close to 4k like the other classes I listed. She sits right around 3500, keeps EVERY dot well above 95% uptime, keeps MB off cd, and has gone through every website possible trying to figure out what the next best move is... Hell, she's even gone to farming destruction potions and macro'd them to SW: Pain for boss fights.


EDIT:

Like I said before, this post is not necessarily us complaining that her DPS isn't high enough. Sure, with that misery bug, her pushing 4500 DPS was REALLY nice, but it wasn't necessary. What WOULD be nice is the old VT back, or maybe even something else to make shadow priests a class that people want again. If a moonkin has to take a kick in the teeth to pick up imp FF, it's almost worth it now to have another unholy DK or FFB mage in the raid, because not only do you still have every buff, but you have almost 1000 more raid DPS.

We have Spriest topping meters on my server as well.
BTW balance druids taking 3/3 imp FF are gimping their dps both by having to spend the 3 points and by having to reapply it every 45 secs.... it REALLY screws with their rotation if they use eclipse

Spriest is a welcome raid member on my server and a well geared well played one will take the slot of our boomkin

[Bilbobubblin]

SPriests do great DPS, our SPriest is usually second overall, and any fights with AoE he is first. It may be she is underperforming, I know your gut instinct is to say she isn't, but if her DPS isn't up there that *is* a possibility. A timer mod to watch DoT's/cooldowns is very helpful, and the basic raid strategies from ElitistJerks will give you all the info you'll ever need. Personally I've been 80 on my alt SPriest for less than a week and in mostly blues I'm doing 3.1k single target DPS - I'm not trying to say I'm great, I'm just saying I've done my homework. As far as a raid spot I have always believed that once you have proven yourself to a guild your performance should have to be fairly below average to warrant losing a raid spot.

[jkw]

Those two gems don't exist. Why do you do such lame suggestions?

Funny to call someone else lame when they both we're added in 3.0.8!

/facepalm

[Cleir]

There are 2 SP's in my guild (me being 1 of them) and patchwerk this week we were 1 and 2 on the DPS right until the end when the heroism put a warrior above us. still we were extremely close to the 5k dps mark. I had 2017 spell power unbuffed when I pulled that.

why you'd want full val gear is beyond me. the chest is way down the best in slot gear list. come to think of it only the gloves are actually best in slot.

[Worshaka]

You can argue the shoulders are as they can be a very nice place to get hit... just depends on what other hit items u have.

[Cleir]

suppose. I use shoulders/gloves. the rest I use best in slot for the 5 tier slots. gonna drop vestments for maly chest due to lacking hit these days.

just for comparism I did a dummy test with only innerfire and popped 2.9-3k dps...

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...hisper&n=Cleir

I know I'm under hit cap. I always have a draenai in my group so as long as it doesn't miss DP ;D