SW:P & Haste

[Worshaka]

I love it went ppl come back at me with words that say nothing. Do you expect me to read your thoughts?

Is it not true that ferals can Swipe multiple targets, while shadow priest has to switch through targets and manage half dozen dots on multiple targets?

I never use mind sear, might as well unbind that spell.

[Annesh]

The best thing about Worshaka is you can never tell when he's being sarcastic.

[Deleted]

I never use mind sear, might as well unbind that spell.

MS is surprisingly weak.
Have you ever considered how many targets you need to have in MS range before it beats multidotting?

Average VT: 3700, SW:P 2300, MS 2800.

I'm sure you can do the math yourself, but the aswer is 6+1. That one is the mob you cast MS on.
You need 7 mobs before MS does the same damage per GCD VT can do. For SW:P the number is 3+1.
Ofc in case of dots the target must live long enough for dots to tick, but boss adds often do.

MS comes in as a filler, replacing MF and maybe MB from the rotation, which poses a another problem, because MS doesn't refresh SW:P. Use of MS makes certainly doesn't make things easier if you wanna keep SW:P rolling on 4 targets.

MS doesn't replace multidotting, so your sarcastic comment doesn't make my previous statament untrue. You need to do both for max dps.

Instead of getting these pointless replies I'd like someone try to prove me wrong for a change so we can get a discussion going. I'm not perfect, I make mistakes, but usually, if I say something I have reasoning behind it and things to support it, which is more than I can say for the replies I've been getting.

[Worshaka]

MS is surprisingly weak.
Have you ever considered how many targets you need to have in MS range before it beats multidotting?

Average VT: 3700, SW:P 2300, MS 2800.

I'm sure you can do the math yourself, but the aswer is 6+1. That one is the mob you cast MS on.
You need 7 mobs before MS does the same damage per GCD VT can do. For SW:P the number is 3+1.
Ofc in case of dots the target must live long enough for dots to tick, but boss adds often do.

MS comes in as a filler, replacing MF and maybe MB from the rotation, which poses a another problem, because MS doesn't refresh SW:P. Use of MS makes certainly doesn't make things easier if you wanna keep SW:P rolling on 4 targets.

MS doesn't replace multidotting, so your sarcastic comment doesn't make my previous statament untrue. You need to do both for max dps.

Instead of getting these pointless replies I'd like someone try to prove me wrong for a change so we can get a discussion going. I'm not perfect, I make mistakes, but usually, if I say something I have reasoning behind it and things to support it, which is more than I can say for the replies I've been getting.

/sigh

VT ticks once every 3 seconds, MS ticks every 1 second and less with haste. Multi dotting is superior for 2-3 targets, after that MS is far superior.

Because the analogy applied to swipe, swipe isn't a good source of damage for 2 targets, it starts being useful around the same number of targets MS becomes useful.

[Liskadi]

I am a bit annoyed of all those things i read in this thread. First of all i play a shadowpriest since TBC, I ve seen the good days and now I can definately see tha bad ones. I am not goint to talk about pvp, I dont play pvp and honestly I dont care at all about shadow survivability in pvp.
As for the pure pve discussion 4,5-4,7dps is good for a spriest especially on a dummy, I myself have 5,5k dps in a raid with most of my items lvl 245-226. The thing is that while 4,7k dps is not bad, a mage of the same gear does 6k on a dummy and 8k on a raid. Our scaling just sucks!

I fully understand that a hybrid class shouldnt have the same dps as a pure one, but then again even elementals shamans that have serious scaling problems can outdps in most occasions a spriest. Ofcourse there are exceptions, there are good and bad players in both pure and hybrid classes. Most importantly there are good and bad raid setups for casters or melees. Everyones thinks his own "in game friends" to be the best, but I am so annoyed by ppl with little knowledge of the class/game that express opinions like "I have a friend who has a friend that once saw the screen of a shadow priest and his dmg meter said 10k dps, so you guys all suck".

I can only suppose that this nerf is due to pvp balance, AGAIN. There is no way that the internal testing inside Blizzard shows that our dps is normal in pve. But i can tell for sure that they dont give much time and effort to fix our class, mainly because holy priest is just fine, so why spend money and time to an offspec. They have more serious balancing problems in other classes. With some thinking i guess there would be a solution like giving us the old talent that instead of refreshing SW:P in every flay, we have increased duration in SW:P and make it not exploitable. Or instead of its period not being affected by haste it has its dmg increased per tick, or whatever... I m not a designer but I can find better solutions than the typical "It doesnt work, lets leave it as it is, and say spriest dont have a dps problem".

As for Mind Sear its a very usefull tool, in every aspect of an aoe fight, you dont need the math to prove to you that its a week spell vs 3 targets, since it only hits 2 of them, and its weaker than a MF. In fights like Onyxia, or Anub25Hc that adds dont have much health and there are many of them its really precious.

[Keosen]

MS is surprisingly weak.
Have you ever considered how many targets you need to have in MS range before it beats multidotting?

Average VT: 3700, SW:P 2300, MS 2800.

I'm sure you can do the math yourself, but the aswer is 6+1. That one is the mob you cast MS on.
You need 7 mobs before MS does the same damage per GCD VT can do. For SW:P the number is 3+1.
Ofc in case of dots the target must live long enough for dots to tick, but boss adds often do.

MS comes in as a filler, replacing MF and maybe MB from the rotation, which poses a another problem, because MS doesn't refresh SW:P. Use of MS makes certainly doesn't make things easier if you wanna keep SW:P rolling on 4 targets.

MS doesn't replace multidotting, so your sarcastic comment doesn't make my previous statament untrue. You need to do both for max dps.

Instead of getting these pointless replies I'd like someone try to prove me wrong for a change so we can get a discussion going. I'm not perfect, I make mistakes, but usually, if I say something I have reasoning behind it and things to support it, which is more than I can say for the replies I've been getting

I begging you to stop posting haven't seen so many bad infos in a signle post since vanilla wow.

[Deleted]

/sigh

VT ticks once every 3 seconds, MS ticks every 1 second and less with haste. Multi dotting is superior for 2-3 targets, after that MS is far superior.

Because the analogy applied to swipe, swipe isn't a good source of damage for 2 targets, it starts being useful around the same number of targets MS becomes useful.

Haste affects both VT and MS casting times. Notice I'm not using seconds but GCDs as time so haste is taken in.

VT does 3700*7 = 25900dmg/cast (GCD)

MS does 2800*1.5 = 4200dmg/GCD/target. (MS has 5 ticks and 3.33GCD duration so 1 tick is 0.66GCD and it needs a multiplier 1.5 to get dmg/GCD.)


So, here comes the boss with 4 adds. The fight lenght is 30GCDs, long enough for VT to tick for its full duration.

You MS boss making a respectable 30*4200*4 = 504000dmg.

I spend my 4 first GCDs casting VT on adds and then start MS spam making 4*25900+26*4200*4 = 540400dmg.

How is this not correct?

So there, I have just proved that multidotting + MS does more damage than just MS with 1+4 targets, if the targets live long enough for VT to tick.
If you are going to prove me wrong then you are going to have to do the numbers yourself, or atleast show me exactly were I have an error in my numbers. Untill then I will standby my claim, you need 1+6 targets to make VT not worth casting.

[Kamos]

The feral rotation actually makes spriest DPS look easy... however i've seen in a blue that Blizzard are happy to 'reward' the complexity of feral DPS and are hesitant to nerf it because of the repercussions it would have with the sub optimal players. I don't see that methodology applied to spriest DPS which is my only real gripe.

Out of curiosity, do you have a feral druid?

I played shadow for all of TBC, start of WLK then i had to switch to holy, and honestly the feral rotation really isn't bad. The only thing that can be challenging is judging when you can FB without rip/SR expiring

[Deleted]

I begging you to stop posting haven't seen so many bad infos in a signle post since vanilla wow.

I beg you to prove me wrong, if you can. Use numbers to do it pls.

I see you made an account just to reply, so you must have something intelligent to say. I'm waiting for your numbers to show me that I'm wrong. If you can't provide them then pls say nothing.

[syanid]

I can't remember a single encounter where Mind Sear was incredible since the days of Sartharion + 3D and DP being spread by Pestilence.
Encounters today spread mobs too much, plus there are only 2-3 adds that need to be aoe-d which makes MS less appealing than multidotting.

[Unholyground]

I don't think its going to be a problem, Affliction only gets one haste increase and it requires a Glyph, Its going to be a dps increase still.

[Deleted]

But is their corruption refreshed to full duration like it wasn`t hasted? The way SW: P was?

[Worshaka]

Out of curiosity, do you have a feral druid?

I played shadow for all of TBC, start of WLK then i had to switch to holy, and honestly the feral rotation really isn't bad. The only thing that can be challenging is judging when you can FB without rip/SR expiring

I do and playing the feral rotation at the supreme level where you get FBs, maintain 100% dot Uptimes, keep mangle up and get the max number of shreds in, as well as being situationally aware is extremely difficult. Oh and I forgot that you need to keep up SR, and if your SR & Rip are going to come off early you need to identify it early and use CP to unalign them... it's by far and away the most difficult rotation.

[Worshaka]

Haste affects both VT and MS casting times. Notice I'm not using seconds but GCDs as time so haste is taken in.

VT does 3700*7 = 25900dmg/cast (GCD)

MS does 2800*1.5 = 4200dmg/GCD/target. (MS has 5 ticks and 3.33GCD duration so 1 tick is 0.66GCD and it needs a multiplier 1.5 to get dmg/GCD.)


So, here comes the boss with 4 adds. The fight lenght is 30GCDs, long enough for VT to tick for its full duration.

You MS boss making a respectable 30*4200*4 = 504000dmg.

I spend my 4 first GCDs casting VT on adds and then start MS spam making 4*25900+26*4200*4 = 540400dmg.

How is this not correct?

So there, I have just proved that multidotting + MS does more damage than just MS with 1+4 targets, if the targets live long enough for VT to tick.
If you are going to prove me wrong then you are going to have to do the numbers yourself, or atleast show me exactly were I have an error in my numbers. Untill then I will standby my claim, you need 1+6 targets to make VT not worth casting.

/double sigh

Yes haste affects the 'cast time' of VT, however the cast time isn't where the damage is dealt, instead the VT damage is delt in the 15 seconds of unhasted time (until 3.3)... Because the first application of VT is applied without it already existing I guess it makes sense to factor this time into the DPS cycle. With 0 haste its 1.5 sec cast + 15 sec Damage time = 16.5 seconds. Considering the GCD can never fall below 1 sec, the effective cap on the reduction in damage cycle is 0.5 seconds or 16 total seconds, or you can reduce the damage cycle by a massive 3% (for 50% worth of haste rating invested). You may be technically correct in that haste helps with VT damage on intial application but you're pushing shit uphill to suggest it increases it's damage by anything meaningful. 50% haste increases it's DPS by a whopping 3% and after it's present haste does nothing, because you can preemptively cast it to keep it up 100% of the time. It's a fair comment to say that the true haste benefit to VT (currently) is 0.

MS on the other hand is a 5 second channel and as with all long cast spells get more milage from haste in terms of raw time saved. 50% haste to MS would reduce the cast time to 3.3 seconds. You can instantly compare 1.7 seconds of lost time with 0.5 seconds to see a +300% benefit (just in time saved). 50% haste increases the MS damage by, you guessed it, 50%. This kinda makes your 3% on initial cast rather trivial, not to mention that MS gets the 50% damage increase on ALL casts. VT only gets it on the initial cast due to it being preemptively applied every time after the first application, in 15 seconds you could cast (with this silly example of 50% haste) 4 mind sears, all casts gaining benefit from your haste.

Next thing to keep in mind is that DoT's are only worthwhile if they get their entire damage on the target. In the case of casting VT 4 times, all adds would need to be up for 15 seconds + 4 GCDs, around 21 seconds. In addition by doing that you stagger your VT damage, that means not everything is taking damage for 4 GCDs and not everything is taking damage for the last 4 GCD's of time b4 DoTs expire. In comparison MS would damage all targets (apart from the target you choose) for upto 8 GCD's worth of time more. Lastly if targets die in anything but 16.5 sec intervals you get more effecient damage from MS because it's a per sec applicaiton of damage. There is no time invested for damage done later.

In any case you think you know best so feel free to VT your adds and then MS, I don't really mind. I'll continue to do the smart thing and use MS when I should and multi-Dot when I know it's not worth it.

[Annesh]

I do and playing the feral rotation at the supreme level where you get FBs, maintain 100% dot Uptimes, keep mangle up and get the max number of shreds in, as well as being situationally aware is extremely difficult. Oh and I forgot that you need to keep up SR, and if your SR & Rip are going to come off early you need to identify it early and use CP to unalign them... it's by far and away the most difficult rotation.

Definitely. Nothing in WoW is "hard" when compared to other games, but as far as DPS specs go, feral is definitely the toughest.

[Deleted]

/double sigh

I wish you would stop doing this, I honestly thought you were better than that.

Yes haste affects the 'cast time' of VT, however the cast time isn't where the damage is dealt, instead the VT damage is delt in the 15 seconds of unhasted time (until 3.3)...

Actually thats 21s or 7 ticks with 2pc T9, I know.

Because the first application of VT is applied without it already existing I guess it makes sense to factor this time into the DPS cycle. With 0 haste its 1.5 sec cast + 15 sec Damage time = 16.5 seconds. Considering the GCD can never fall below 1 sec, the effective cap on the reduction in damage cycle is 0.5 seconds or 16 total seconds, or you can reduce the damage cycle by a massive 3% (for 50% worth of haste rating invested). You may be technically correct in that haste helps with VT damage on intial application but you're pushing shit uphill to suggest it increases it's damage by anything meaningful. 50% haste increases it's DPS by a whopping 3% and after it's present haste does nothing, because you can preemptively cast it to keep it up 100% of the time. It's a fair comment to say that the true haste benefit to VT (currently) is 0.

Even if VT doesn't scale with haste, it still does a huge amount of damage per application time. As long as you have targets to cast it on you can benefit from that.

MS on the other hand is a 5 second channel and as with all long cast spells get more milage from haste in terms of raw time saved. 50% haste to MS would reduce the cast time to 3.3 seconds. You can instantly compare 1.7 seconds of lost time with 0.5 seconds to see a +300% benefit (just in time saved). 50% haste increases the MS damage by, you guessed it, 50%. This kinda makes your 3% on initial cast rather trivial, not to mention that MS gets the 50% damage increase on ALL casts. VT only gets it on the initial cast due to it being preemptively applied every time after the first application, in 15 seconds you could cast (with this silly example of 50% haste) 4 mind sears, all casts gaining benefit from your haste.

I said haste is taken into consideration in my calculation.
Let go with 50% then. The fight is now 30seconds.
The only difference between my rotation and yours is the first 4seconds of the fight.
You MS for 4*4200*4 = 67200dmg and I spend it setting up 4*25900 = 103600dmg. Sure, you are ahead of me now, but after 30s all 4 VTs have ticked and I am past you.

Next thing to keep in mind is that DoT's are only worthwhile if they get their entire damage on the target. In the case of casting VT 4 times, all adds would need to be up for 15 seconds + 4 GCDs, around 21 seconds.

I said numbers are true "if the targets live long enough for VT to tick", that is only condition I gave, so I'm aware of it.

In addition by doing that you stagger your VT damage, that means not everything is taking damage for 4 GCDs and not everything is taking damage for the last 4 GCD's of time b4 DoTs expire.

Me casting 4*VT is taken into consideration, you have 30 GCDs of MS time, I have only 26.

I'm not going to start recasting the VTs if I know the fight is over in a few seconds, I will spam MS like you ofc.

In any case you think you know best so feel free to VT your adds and then MS, I don't really mind. I'll continue to do the smart thing and use MS when I should and multi-Dot when I know it's not worth it.

Everything you said is true, but nothing you said makes my numbers incorrect. You examine individual spells, not the whole picture.

You didn't point out the number(s) in my calculations you think are incorrect, as I asked you to do. You didn't provide your own numbers of the scenario.
They are still there, saying I do more damage. You show me an error and I will correct it, I promise.

[Worshaka]

Seriously dude... if there are 4 targets MS is by far the most superior DPS spell. If it's under 4 targets and they have enough health to live through full duration dots you multi dot...

However the analogy was multi-dotting Vs swipe, as far as i'm aware its not worthwhile to swipe until 3 targets, might be 1 target less than when MS is worthwhile but you stated orginally that cats just get to swipe while we have to do something complex. This isn't actually true, when it's worthwhile swiping it's generally worthwhile using MS.

Multi Dotting 4 targets is a DPS loss, using your numbers, VT ticks at 3.7k (i assume you're factoring in crit) every 3 seconds is just over 1K DPS, MS does 2800 per tick every 0.9 seconds (with moderate haste), you can instantly see the difference.

[Azyoulike]

Multi Dotting 4 targets is a DPS loss, using your numbers, VT ticks at 3.7k (i assume you're factoring in crit) every 3 seconds is just over 1K DPS, MS does 2800 per tick every 0.9 seconds (with moderate haste), you can instantly see the difference.

c'mon dude - we're talking dots here, what does dps mean? Damage per cast time is the relevant measure, so you still haven't dismissed his point. I'm not sure which of you is right, but you're certainly making your case very badly.

[Qualia]

You are getting it wrong here Worshaka. With 4 targets, given they live long enough for the dots to finish their last ticks, multi doting + MS is superior than pure-MS. He didn't say multi-doting only, which will be a DPS loss as we all known, but he said multi doting + MS (apply 4 VT first then start MSing), so it would be proper to add MS dps to VT dps after his first four gcds if you want to compare about dps.

[Deyus]

Berner's correct with the VT + MS method. In a case where there are 4-5 targets it is more powerful (assuming they live long enough for VT to tick it's full duration). To see the effect (and difference) check out parses of Anub'arak hard mode kills. With VT on the adds + MS I'm doing around 12k DPS, but when I have to pay more attention to VE heals in P3 and can't afford GCD's to put out VT anymore my DPS drops to around 8k with only Mind Sear.

There will be a point where VT is no longer worth applying though. Probably when there are around 7 or 8 targets.