Conflicts in the priority

[Worshaka]

I haven't seen a lot of discussion about what is the best course of action when the shadow priest spell priority runs into a conflict. That being that you can cast MB at the exact same time a DOT needs to be refreshed.

I had worked on the theory that for the GCD cost dots do more damage, even though that damage is over time, for the time spent casting them they do higher dps. Therefore priortise dots. However, I found with this strategy my average MB cast time would be 7.5 to 8 seconds and no matter how much practice etc I did, I found it difficult to lower. I came to the conclusion that I was running into conflicts quite often... so I analysed how the conflicts were taking place.

VT has a 15 sec duration, it needs to be cast every 15 seconds... so why was this spell conflicting with MB? MB has a 7 sec cycle or is cast twice every 14 seconds. Add a bit of lag in, the odd bad reaction time and it's not hard to see that MB is going to tend towards a 15 sec cycle as well. So by priortising VT over MB I was going to encounter the same conflict in 15 sec time.

My solution has been to priortise MB over VT for this very reason and as a result I experience less conflicts and it really hasn't impacted my VT uptime in any signficant way.

I also started thinking about the GCD cost vs the effect from a different direction. What I concluded was that even though dots do more damage compared to the GCD cost, delaying them by 1 GCD didn't cost me the entire effect of the dot, just 1/2 a tick of the dot. Also delaying a dot that lasts for 15sec has less of a % effect than delaying a spell with a 7 second cycle. (Assuming 0 haste) 1.5 sec is 10% of 15 seconds whereas 1.5 sec of 7 seconds is 21.5%.

Going a bit further, 2.5K is a modest average for a VT tick and 4K is a modest MB hit. So lets assume we cast VT 10 times perfectly, we would deal 2.5K damage * 5 ticks * 10 times = 125K damage over 150 seconds. Now lets assume we cast MB 10 times perfectly, we would deal 40K damage over 70 seconds.

Now lets delay casting each spell by 1 GCD, we do the same amount of damage but we take longer to do it. In this cast VT takes another 15 seconds and MB takes another 15 seconds as well. Now lets convert all of our results to a DPS figure.

VT (perfect) = 833.33 dps
VT (delayed) = 757.58 dps
MB (perfect) = 571.43 dps
MB (delayed) = 470.59 dps

So the difference in delaying VT is 75.76 dps but MB is 100.84 dps... it's obviously better to delay VT from pure numbers as well, despite the fact that VT will do more aggregate damage for the GCD cost. You also get the added benefit that by casting MB first you break the conflict for several MB cycles, if you VT before MB you will generally end up with a conflict every 2nd cycle, which results in wasted dps.

Lastly this small example doesnt take into account that MB can crit while the VT ticks have their crit modifier already applied to them. What this means is that the MB numbers are actually considerably bigger and further divides the comparison made above.

I'll be interested to hear what other spriests have been doing about conflicts and whether they can fault my logic or not.

[Girryn]

Your math seems solid, I think you just impacted my play style sir.

[heriana]

I find that many people like to quote shadowpriest.com information or simcraft results without actually evaluating what they're saying. I ran simcraft with three spell priorities:

MB, VT, DP, MF: 5767

VT, MB, DP, MF: 5765

VT, DP, MB, MF: 5781

That being said, I don't find anything wrong with the logic you presented; however, I feel like you left out the effect of casting MB ahead of VT. When you cast Mind Blast ahead of Vampiric Touch, you now have enough time for 1.5 Mind Flays (Assuming Swift Retribution and Wrath of Air Totem). If you have the 300 haste that most shadow priests have (in addition to SR and WOA), you can get 1.67 Mind Flays in. This would lead me to think that if you have low haste you might want to cast VT first, but most shadow priests would want to cast MB first.

You also have to take into consideration what happens if you have to refresh DP during this mess:

MB>VT>DP: Even with 300 haste, SR, and WOA, you now only have time to cast 1 MF (would need almost 900 haste to get in 1.5 MF's)

Regardless of the simcraft, I agree with your post; although, if you happen to come upon the conflict of refreshing DP, VT, and MB is off cd, then I would suggest doing VT > MB > VT > 1.67 MF's

[Abandon]

I have tested this after reading your rsearch and noticed that always reapplying Mind Blast as first priority gave me a noticable DPS increase. Logically it would, as you pointed out the 1.5 second delays on every second Mindblast mount up, especially on longer fights.

[rhiannan]

i'm one of those few shadow priest that runs a low haste rate or least below 300.. i'm at 258 now. though embrace of the spider, brings my haste up to about 760 something for 10 secs. so my priority if given the example really jump quite a bit. in raids, i can usually count there being swift retribution from a ret pally but not wrath of air. we bring maybe 2 shamans and i rarely get paired with them on 25's.

i as far as priority goes right now i usually do vt first out of habit. if i get the time i'll do some testing to see how it goes for low haste. i do suspect though that vt may have a very very slight edge though.

my armory http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...gun&n=Rhiannan

oh and any idea on how this may work on ptr?

[Tablemaker]

How are the regeneration and spirit changes in Ulduar? Even thou it may mean more DPS... I think it will be more needed in Ulduar, and future raiding, to make sure you have VT up for replenishment before you cast Mind Blast. Now... if your raid is filled with the properly spec'd warlocks, paladins, mages and hunters for replinishment, do as you wish for your personal DPS as those classes do not have the utmost garbage, clunky, way of proccing replenishment.

[rhiannan]

my mana regen with the changes in ulduar is about double what it is on live ( due to the buffing of talents and the shadowfiend. if you are constantly casting you won't miss much and won't be effected by the nerf to spirit.

1. you can easily grab meditation which was buffed to 50% to help holy/disc and spirit tap in a 13/0/58 spec
2. they buffed the shadowfiend regen to 5% up from 4%
3. buffed spirit tap.

[Nezoia]

I read something similar to this on EJ a few weeks ago, and tested.
So yes, prioritizing Mind Blast over VT is improving the DPS :-)

[heriana]

my mana regen with the changes in ulduar is about double what it is on live ( due to the buffing of talents and the shadowfiend. if you are constantly casting you won't miss much and won't be effected by the nerf to spirit.

1. you can easily grab meditation which was buffed to 50% to help holy/disc and spirit tap in a 13/0/58 spec
2. they buffed the shadowfiend regen to 5% up from 4%
3. buffed spirit tap.

The buff to meditation and spirit tap were just to normalize casting regen after the nerf to spirit/int mana regen.

[Amaiya]

Thank you very much for this thread, I have recently started raiding and encountered this same dillema, I have been prioritizing the dots over MB.

[Helior]

Also consider that prioritising VT is more likely to cause you to refresh VT early and miss the last tick.

[Strykzor]

I swear to god, does anyone actually listen to me, hell, Ive been saying this every time it comes up in a question.