Shadow Affinity

[lolface]

After seeing some really nice numbers at Hodir (and consequently being squashed by him like a fly), it turned out that Shadow Affinity _is_ useful, IST is mega shit and I'm considering Nezoia's build for tomorrow. Shadow Priest at Hodir does wonders if played right, I was doing it chaotically and spammed flay only which crits for 22k per tick. Aggro becomes more than issue, we pop on top nearly instantly. Atm it's the only fight where I had real threat issues and couldn't dps.

Not an issue if someone runs to the tank with stormcloud and gives him storm power aswell, we did that and threat was not a problem at all then, but i could imagine if u didnt it would be horrible

[plspirit]

I tried it out tonight. I'd say 3/3 Shadow Affinity, and 2/2 Improved VE beats Spirit Tap and Imp. Spirit Tap :-)

We don't need the mana, but we definitively need the healing, and the aggro reduction on bosses like Razorscale and XT-002.

err, no
i have imp spirit tap AND imp ve and no affinity, i dont have any issues regarding aggro, especially not at xt-002, whrer should i pull aggro there?
the xmwhateverthings? through healing?
every real healer generates much more aggro than we do through our heals

[Kelesti]

err, no
i have imp spirit tap AND imp ve and no affinity, i dont have any issues regarding aggro, especially not at xt-002, whrer should i pull aggro there?
the xmwhateverthings? through healing?
every real healer generates much more aggro than we do through our heals

The average healer doesn't touch threat reduction. So neither do you, by your logic.

Let's say I put out a renew on the target in your group, and you put out Mind Flay on your dps while VE is up.

Screwing around with numbers, let's pretend they are healing for equal amounts just for the sake of clarification (and I'm running late for work).

My renew ticks and gives me a small bit of threat. Your Mind Flay does uber dps, alot of threat, where your Vampiric Embrace does small threat again.

It's not just the healing aspect, it's the fact you're doing damage at the same time that makes some situations a little dicey.. even when you're not just spamming Mind Sear.

[Nezoia]

i have imp spirit tap AND imp ve and no affinity,

So where did you pull points from to get both?

Focused Mind? Because then you're dumb, as Focused Mind is saving you more mana than IST.

Specially on Thorim. Come discuss aggro with me once you done heroic Thorim, then I might bother listening to you.

And you know what? I'm getting divine bubbles on that fight, that's how much aggro I generate ;-)

[Abandon]

Focused Mind sometimes saves you more mana than Spirit Tap, depending on if the fight has adds for you to proc regular Spirit Tap from. Also, some people like the small additional amount of spellpower they gain from Improved Spirit Tap procs.

[Nezoia]

Even if you get regular spirit tap, Focused Mind is saving you more mana in a fight like Thorim where you spend 3 minutes spamming only Mind Sear (not kidding, it is over 3 minutes).

I'll be Vampiric Embrace over 14 spellpower any day. And so you should, at least for progress raiding. I can only assume we're not talking about facerolling in Naxx anymore.

[Worshaka]

pop fade before every mind sear and u would never pull ever again

It helps but all the threat you generate during the fade effect is added at the end... so it's still quite easy to pull 1 or 2 adds... personally I prefer to keep it up my sleeve and use it just b4 I pull aggro.

I also dont see IST as a mana regen only talent... we have dps synergies with spirit and increasing our spirit by 10% = spell power... sure a small amount of spell power but wow is a game built on very small increments. I've had 0 threat issues in Ulduar thus far... i was perhaps pushing aggro on General Vex when standing in the 100% haste 100% damage buff as you'd expect but was able to get around that without too many hassles.

[Nezoia]

Worshaka please don't compare 10man lolmode to real raiding (read: 25man).

Also, I'd love to Fade before every Mind Sear. But when you Mind Sear constantly for 3 minutes, it's on cooldown all the fucking time

[Abandon]

Even if you get regular spirit tap, Focused Mind is saving you more mana in a fight like Thorim where you spend 3 minutes spamming only Mind Sear (not kidding, it is over 3 minutes).

I'll be Vampiric Embrace over 14 spellpower any day. And so you should, at least for progress raiding. I can only assume we're not talking about facerolling in Naxx anymore.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...0&version=9767

That is the talent build that I am currently running with. So far, I have not had aggro issues or mana problems with any of the bosses in Ulduar 25man, but we are currently just at Freya so I will have to wait until we get further to give a more accurate description. One thing I have come to rely on is Psychic Horror though, it is a constant lifesaver on a PVP realm and works on the Ulduar trash, too. So does Mind Control, interestingly enough.

[Nezoia]

So you're picking a PvP talent, and taking IST over Focused Mind, even it's mathematical proven stupid.

Why is people ranting over MY build, atleast I'm not missing PvE talents, or taking PvP ones.

[Abandon]

I can either take Inner Focus or one point in something else, it just kind of bugs me when I don't fill out talents, and being on a PVP realm having something to actually give you a chance when you are out doing anything that isn't a raid is quite nice, so that is why I took Psychic Horror.

I don't have a problem with your build, but the only talent I could take that would really affect PVE would be Focused Mind, which would just give me more mana efficency, something I have no problem at all with, and I prefer the small boost to spellpower than a boost to my mana efficency that I don't need.

[Nezoia]

You done Thorim 25man yet?

[Qualia]

I'll be Vampiric Embrace over 14 spellpower any day. And so you should, at least for progress raiding.

No, you shouldn't, not with our WoTLK VE so far. Even 1 sp is more precious than the insignificant, non-dps-bonus +2% more healing to raid from VE. Non-hardmode, up to YS, I don't see any fight in which imp VE could be a helpful talent that can change outcome of the fight, maybe except Mimiron in few first tries when your healers still getting familiar with raid dmg.

[lolface]

Did thorim, spammed mindsear until thorim dropped down no threat issues at all, aoe tanks ftw.

[plspirit]

So where did you pull points from to get both?

Focused Mind? Because then you're dumb, as Focused Mind is saving you more mana than IST.

Specially on Thorim. Come discuss aggro with me once you done heroic Thorim, then I might bother listening to you.

And you know what? I'm getting divine bubbles on that fight, that's how much aggro I generate ;-)

yes focused magic, i dont care about mana, never got any problems there, ist is a little bit of dps, focused magic is not
and thorim is one fight out of 14?
i dont pvp i dont heal, i plan to spec for aoe fights with FM and mind sear glyph

The average healer doesn't touch threat reduction. So neither do you, by your logic.

Let's say I put out a renew on the target in your group, and you put out Mind Flay on your dps while VE is up.

Screwing around with numbers, let's pretend they are healing for equal amounts just for the sake of clarification (and I'm running late for work).

My renew ticks and gives me a small bit of threat. Your Mind Flay does uber dps, alot of threat, where your Vampiric Embrace does small threat again.

It's not just the healing aspect, it's the fact you're doing damage at the same time that makes some situations a little dicey.. even when you're not just spamming Mind Sear.

healing and damage dealing are two different things
heals generate threat on every mob infight evenly divided, damage only an the mob your are dpsing
so a healer who has 2000 hps whilst 5 mobs are infight generates 200 tps (2000/5 and * 0,5 for being heals) on every mob
if i do 2000 dps, i heal myself for 25% = 500 hps and another 20% = 400 hps makes 900 hps divided over all mobs infight
even if i have no reduction (which is wrong since shadowform has 30% already) and the healer does (whats normally not the case) i gegnerate a bit more than half of the healers threat

difference is, healer generate threat in larger steps, ve heals up to 6 times in 3 seconds

sure the mob im dps gets 900/5*0,5+2000 tps, but this mob is being tanked by a tank that easily reaches 7000tps and more

in bc, e.g at RoS we were horrible aggro bombs, i started to dps at 80% in phase 3 and had to stop at 50% to not wipe the raid, now i go full dps an generate maximum 3300-4000 tps

[Nezoia]

Our tanks is also doing 7k tps, but without shadow affinity I would be able to reach them :-)

You're not doing enough dps!

[atf]

It could not possibly be that you don't know how to control your aggro, right?

[Kelesti]

It could not possibly be that you don't know how to control your aggro, right?

Control your aggro? Aggro = threat. Threat = damage done. If you're doing as much dps as you can (which on some fights is a must), apart from Fading (temporary fix to a permanent problem), what else can be done to "control" aggro?

[Nezoia]

Because spamming 1 button for 3 minutes (Mind Sear ftw.) and using fade pretty much on every CD, including shields and dispersion to avoid dying from loose adds, I control my aggro?

Seriously people, nobody's forcing a build on you. Pick what works for you, the argument for IST over SA been discussed widely now, and neither was better than the other.

[Dorfie]

No affinity and Thorim was fine. Just Sear > Fade > Sear > Sear. You basically can't pull agro off that. If your tanks don't suck keep searing. I suppose if your tanks are terrible affinity would be a wise choice.