Shadow Priest Raid-Beginner Questions

[dome]

Hi,

I leveled my Priest alt to 80 and now I have some Questions concerning raiding:

"Rotation" :

- Keep VT up
- Keep DP up
- Keep MB on CD
- MF between MB
- If MF isn't worth casting SW
- Don't cast SW:P until I have 5 Stacks Shadow Weaving

Is this all right or did I misunderstand something?


Values: Hit (till capped) > SP > Crit > Haste ?

11% Hit is clear to me (I'm Horde), but I don't know how much Haste I should be aiming for... I heard about 275, is this right?


Thanks for all the answers!


Edit: Does anyone know if I can use Bartender 4 tanking the Instructor's adds in Naxx? Or are there problems with the bars?

[Pheonixis]

Around 300 haste is the soft cap from what I've heard. Other than that your rotation seems ok. Remember to cast VT when your old dot has about 1.2 sec left, to get that last tick out, and only use SW if you have to move for the encounter and can't cast anything else.

[dome]

Yeah I'm used to that, I played Aff Lock before =)

Anyone knows something about the BT 4 issue?

[Mewtwo]

It makes them your pet, no?

If it does that, it should work just fine.. just make sure your pet bar is configured correctly

[llDemonll]

no, bartender 4 works fine and it swaps them to your main bar, not your pet bar.

[Zoulis]

Rotation:

1. SW:P
2.MB(use at every cooldown)
3.VT
4.DP
5.MF
6. After every MB i use SW

Important fact...don't use 2 instant casts together....

If u have the conqueror's 4 set bonus it;s
MB
2x MF in 4 secs cause of the extra haste
VT refresh time came..
MB
2x MF again
SW
and so on

Always have all debuffs up..

Cheers

Zoulis

[Nezoia]

a) Read the stickied guide in top of this forum
b) Read http://www.ensidia.com/home/guides/p...art-1-general/
c)

Rotation:

1. SW:P

Is WRONG

If u have the conqueror's 4 set bonus it;s
MB
2x MF in 4 secs cause of the extra haste

The four piece bonus shaves a 0.11 second off my Mind Flay cast. Being able to do two flays in between Mind Blasts have nothing to do with 4xTier8.

So I assume you don't have 4p Tier8 with such a strange statement.

[Helior]

If the toon is fresh to 80 and has shit gear then SW is probably better than MF.

[Zoulis]

i didn't say 2x MF between the mind blasts...i said 2x MF in 4 secs.... cause of the extra haste....
and if not start with SW:P...ok go VT-->DP--> SW:P
i don't start with SW:P ... but in heroics or something u don't actally get a chance of taking u'r time doting etc...so u just get the dot that helps u dps more first

[Naphomci]

i didn't say 2x MF between the mind blasts...i said 2x MF in 4 secs.... cause of the extra haste....
and if not start with SW:P...ok go VT-->DP--> SW:P
i don't start with SW:P ... but in heroics or something u don't actally get a chance of taking u'r time doting etc...so u just get the dot that helps u dps more first

The post is about raid beginning. In a raid, all that is concerned is boss fights, no one counts trash. In a boss fight, casting SW:P before you have 5 stacks of shadow weaving is wrong.

[Tablemaker]

besides... Isn't Heroics and Raid Trash just one button? Sear...

[Worshaka]

I went to the trouble to create the Shadow Priest DPS 101 thread that got stickied... so far all the questions in this thread can be answered there. I will point out a couple of things however.

Opening rotation should be

VT, MB, DP, MF, SW:P

This will proc your replenishment asap and will get your shadowweaving to 5 stacks when you cast SW:P, you will also find after casting SW:P your MB will have just come off CD.

Rotation/Priority during the encounter

MB, VT, DP, MF

SW:P should never drop off so that isn't included, SW isn't included because it's use should be in very specific circumstances which I will outline a bit later. You might argue that both VT & DP have a better DPE (Damage per execute time) than MB, you are correct, however that doesn't determine how to maximise your dps. MB has a 7 second cycle (1.5sec cast + 5.5sec CD) whereas your dots are 15 & 24sec respectively. If you get a conflict in these spells you have to delay one of them by 1.5sec. Delaying MB by 1.5sec is a greater proportion to its cycle than delaying your dots... for this reason you always cast MB first. If you want to see the numbers which prove the point, check my stickied thread and I provided a link to EJ's with the math.

SW is quite useful when you start out and becomes less useful as you gear, particularly the haste portion of your gear. You want to use SW whenever you need to move and you can't cast anything else or when you have exactly 1 GCD's worth of time to fill to a MB CD. For example you cast MB and then you need to refresh VT, you have time to cast 1 MF and then you will have 1 GCD to fill before MB can be cast again. This is when you choose to cast SW. When you get better gear you start to cast MF again and clip it, but early on SW is a good option.

[Bornams]

Why is it wrong to cast SW:P before u have 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving?

[blupp74]

Why is it wrong to cast SW:P before u have 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving?

...because since SW:P is refreshed by Mind Flay, you will never refresh it manually, and it will keep the damage modifiers it had when it was first cast. Therefore, you want it cast with maximum damage modifiers, i.e. 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving.

[Joarrak]

For my rotation, I use:

Vampiric Touch, Mind Blast, Mind Flay (to get the 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving)
Then I use Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain
Then start doing Mind Blast, Mind Flayx2, Mind Blast, Mind Flayx2, while refreshing VT and DP. When you refresh your dots, drop mind flay out of the rotation and use mind blast when it's up.

Also, with all of my procs, in a 25 man raid with totems, food, cloak embroidery, shadow glyph, and trinkets, I can get up to 3500 spellpower, and I usually make sure to refresh shadow word pain as it will do significantly more damage over a long fight. I am not quite sure about this, but I would assume that it would also be true for fights like Loatheb when you have a greater crit chance to recast it so it will crit more often. Also on fights like Malygos, I would suggest starting over the rotation with all dots if you get into a sparks aura.

For stats, hit is good, as you get better gear you find it everywhere and isn't hard to cap. Spellpower is good to have, but I like to balance out having spellpower, crit, and haste. Because of diminishing returns on haste and crit, you don't want to have too much more than the other, but also getting too much haste may be worthless as the extra .5 seconds you have after mind flays to cast mind blast is wasted as there is nothing to do.

It's really not that hard to do well as a shadow priest, it comes easily with experience and gear. With mostly ilvl213 epics and some lucky tier 8.5 from VoA I can get 2.8k dps on a target dummy, and probably about up to 4k in 25 mans, and am always in the top 5. Just keep working at it and you will become pro in no time. If you want to see, I'll post my armory page, although sometimes I have pvp gear or healing gear so it might not completely match up . Also I just got the chest piece and need to get a gem for it.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...illa&n=Joarrak

[Nezoia]

i didn't say 2x MF between the mind blasts...i said 2x MF in 4 secs.... cause of the extra haste....

Sorry, even with 471 haste unbuffed, and all possible raid buffs, I won't have a 2 second Mind Flay, unless we're talking during Bloodlust, or in a Shadow Crash on General Vezax.

As I said , the extra haste gave a 0.11 second increase. Over two Mind Flays, that's less than a quarter of a second increment.

[Worshaka]

Also, with all of my procs, in a 25 man raid with totems, food, cloak embroidery, shadow glyph, and trinkets, I can get up to 3500 spellpower, and I usually make sure to refresh shadow word pain as it will do significantly more damage over a long fight.

No no no no no no no and no...

The MF refresh will update temp sp gains (and losses), never ever ever ever ever recast SW:P because you gained more SP from trinkets or whatever.

Other buffs such as Shadowweaving, Earth & Moon, Imp Scorch are different. You want to cast SW:P with these already up but if for some reason that is taking too long or whatever, u can recast SW:P once they are up to get the buff applied. This extends to Thaddius buffs, malygos sparks, council run of power, etc.

[Joarrak]

No no no no no no no and no...

The MF refresh will update temp sp gains (and losses), never ever ever ever ever recast SW:P because you gained more SP from trinkets or whatever.

Other buffs such as Shadowweaving, Earth & Moon, Imp Scorch are different. You want to cast SW:P with these already up but if for some reason that is taking too long or whatever, u can recast SW:P once they are up to get the buff applied. This extends to Thaddius buffs, malygos sparks, council run of power, etc.

Are you sure? I've always heard the opposite. Anyways if that is true does it work with crit also because I've always wondered if using inner focus for shadow word: pain would increase the crit chance.

[spf]

I recommend you to read shadowpriest.com forums and http://www.ensidia.com/home/guides/p...art-1-general/
you will find there anything you will think of

[LaBlueSkuld]

Worshaka has it right. When Mind Flay refreshes Shadow Word: Pain, it will notice changes in spell power but NOT damage modifiers.

Quite annoying, truthfully.