Almost on the Bench, please help.

[Lizzil32]

I saw an earlier post by another spriest asking for help with his lower than preferred dps (sitting at 5k) My eyebrows went up when i saw his gear and your comments. I didnt want to piggyback his/her posts with my own issues. So i posted separately. My apologies if this is not appropriate.

My toon is Lizzil, guild Felony, server Sisters of Elune, US: I would link, but couldnt' find the right url. I'm easy to look up.

So the other spriest was unhappy with his 5k and I'm struggling to stay in the 4k range 25 man raid buffed. So i did a 2min timed fight on a target dummy and i'm gonna give all the relevant info i can. If you need more info let me know.

Starting with DoT uptimes: SWP-129 38.1%, DP-123, 36.3%, VT-67 25.7% <-clipped DP a couple of times b/c i like to refresh the 2 dots at the same time...I know I shouldn't but i got used to the set bonus which i no longer have. I'm hoping that's not making a 1kdps difference.

I cast 92 mindflay (ticks), 16 mind blasts (i think i read once that i should be casting mb every 7 seconds. which would make the optimum number cast equal ~17. ) I had one MF miss and one MB miss..which I dont think I ever see real time boss fight. Most of my spells were criting anywhere from 27-31% of the time despite my meager 25% crit stats wise. The result of all this was a top out of ~3500 dps +/- 50dps.

Again this was target Dummy, stand still, no cd's of which i only have one gear wise. No pots, not food, just pure. I have recently made some changes to gear from last week to this week, but nothing massive excepting a change from Intensity to cold convergence and trophy9 shoulders to mantle of Catastrophic Emanation (yes still missing chant atm).

I'm gemmed and chanted for spwr. Waiting on the drape from Ony, and boots and hopefully the mace from Anub, which will all contribute to higher spwr. Apart from these things I'm not sure what else to do. The other spriest in the guild has more exp. with the class as I've spent more time healing than dps'g. He sits from 4.3-5.3 depending on the movement of the fight, you can prob. find his specs if you look close enough. One further change would be that i just lowered my ms from 280 average to 144, thats my Dalaran number i haven't been in a 25 man raid between last night and today to see if it jumps inside.

I like this guild and raiding far too much to sit. At this point its pivotal for me. If i dont meet my dps goals and the ranged lead's approval over the next week, I may have to go back to heals just to stay raiding regularly. Or warm the bench. : (

Open to any suggestions. Thanks in advance, Lizzy.

[Worshaka]

I saw an earlier post by another spriest asking for help with his lower than preferred dps (sitting at 5k) My eyebrows went up when i saw his gear and your comments. I didnt want to piggyback his/her posts with my own issues. So i posted separately. My apologies if this is not appropriate.

My toon is Lizzil, guild Felony, server Sisters of Elune, US: I would link, but couldnt' find the right url. I'm easy to look up.

So the other spriest was unhappy with his 5k and I'm struggling to stay in the 4k range 25 man raid buffed. So i did a 2min timed fight on a target dummy and i'm gonna give all the relevant info i can. If you need more info let me know.

Starting with DoT uptimes: SWP-129 38.1%, DP-123, 36.3%, VT-67 25.7% <-clipped DP a couple of times b/c i like to refresh the 2 dots at the same time...I know I shouldn't but i got used to the set bonus which i no longer have. I'm hoping that's not making a 1kdps difference.

I cast 92 mindflay (ticks), 16 mind blasts (i think i read once that i should be casting mb every 7 seconds. which would make the optimum number cast equal ~17. ) I had one MF miss and one MB miss..which I dont think I ever see real time boss fight. Most of my spells were criting anywhere from 27-31% of the time despite my meager 25% crit stats wise. The result of all this was a top out of ~3500 dps +/- 50dps.

Again this was target Dummy, stand still, no cd's of which i only have one gear wise. No pots, not food, just pure. I have recently made some changes to gear from last week to this week, but nothing massive excepting a change from Intensity to cold convergence and trophy9 shoulders to mantle of Catastrophic Emanation (yes still missing chant atm).

I'm gemmed and chanted for spwr. Waiting on the drape from Ony, and boots and hopefully the mace from Anub, which will all contribute to higher spwr. Apart from these things I'm not sure what else to do. The other spriest in the guild has more exp. with the class as I've spent more time healing than dps'g. He sits from 4.3-5.3 depending on the movement of the fight, you can prob. find his specs if you look close enough. One further change would be that i just lowered my ms from 280 average to 144, thats my Dalaran number i haven't been in a 25 man raid between last night and today to see if it jumps inside.

I like this guild and raiding far too much to sit. At this point its pivotal for me. If i dont meet my dps goals and the ranged lead's approval over the next week, I may have to go back to heals just to stay raiding regularly. Or warm the bench. : (

Open to any suggestions. Thanks in advance, Lizzy.

Cast Analysis

I don't understand your DoT uptime figures... Dot Uptime % = ((Number of Ticks) / (Total Seconds/3)) * 100. You should see an uptime of 95% or better but the figures you present are in the 30% range so I have no idea how you are measuring that. You also seem to be providing the raw number of ticks however the number of VT ticks you have is half of that of SW:P... were both up close to 100% the number of ticks would be very close to identical.

Seems to be your DoT uptimes are horrible (but this is based on speculation until you provide better info). Seems to be your VT uptime is perhaps 50%? If those raw numbers are dot Ticks and clipping DP for whatever reason is just bad. Another way to look at it, the number of DoT ticks you get from VT & DP shoudl be equal to SW:P (because its quite easy to keep SW:P up 100% of the time).

I'm going to guess the combat length based on what you said about MB, if 17 MBs would have given you a 7 sec cast average then the combat length was about 119 seconds. I think this is too small a sample to make any good conclusions from, going from full mana to oom + shadow fiend should see you get parses of over 200 seconds probably approach 230 seconds. However at 119 seconds getting in 92 MF ticks means a tick every 1.3 seconds... now something isn't right here because that number isn't achievable unless you were under the effect of Bloodlust 100% of the time.

You really need to post your combat parse with total seconds, number of MB casts, number of DoT ticks & MF Ticks. I don't think the parse was only 119 seconds based on that information meaning you weren't even close to a 7 second MB cast average, it was probably closer to 8 seconds if not above. DoT ticks just don't add up particularly if you got 129 SW:P ticks which would mean the parse went for 387 seconds... you'll have to post more info sorry.

[Honin]

thoes numbers are not her DoT uptimes, they are recount's total % of overall damage.

[Verzerrung]

I'm confused. Are you trying to beat pure dps classes?

[Worshaka]

thoes numbers are not her DoT uptimes, they are recount's total % of overall damage.

If thats the case something is terribly wrong because SW:P isn't supposed to be anythign near 38% of your total damage... try 12%, same with DP, its about 12% too and VT should be 2nd to MF...

In any case I need far more info to work out what is wrong.

[Honin]

she is kicking ass now on phase 1 of ony, 5027 during the first phase on our last attempt, gonna try to get a screenshot entering phase 2 with her numbers and dps time to give you the pharse info needed (as long a she doesn't kill me for helping >..<)

[Lizzil32]

Sorry Worsh, Actually that's the recount info for dot uptime. Not my own calc'd numbers...I just did 5027 in an ony25 pug in phase one. I screenshotted it..once movement and aoe is factored in in phasse 2 its a little more skewed..so i'mma ss the recount on this one (we've wiped, no comment) and i'll ss the recount pages, maybe i can give you better numbers?

Erm..to answer the pure dps question. Truefully I dont expect to be a mage or a
warlock, however there are standards of performance for spriests based on certain factors and i have to be competitive. I have been sat for prospects b/c the prospects can out dps me. I'm not really sure what the top out of performance for spriests are, but i know I'm not there. And I'm in this game to do much else but raid. Sitting is not an option. And p.s. I'm not rolling a mage just to play. Make room..spriests RULE!

Thnx Worshaka...... Lizzy.

[Dreamtail]

wait till tomorrow

[Worshaka]

Sorry Worsh, Actually that's the recount info for dot uptime. Not my own calc'd numbers...I just did 5027 in an ony25 pug in phase one. I screenshotted it..once movement and aoe is factored in in phasse 2 its a little more skewed..so i'mma ss the recount on this one (we've wiped, no comment) and i'll ss the recount pages, maybe i can give you better numbers?

Erm..to answer the pure dps question. Truefully I dont expect to be a mage or a
warlock, however there are standards of performance for spriests based on certain factors and i have to be competitive. I have been sat for prospects b/c the prospects can out dps me. I'm not really sure what the top out of performance for spriests are, but i know I'm not there. And I'm in this game to do much else but raid. Sitting is not an option. And p.s. I'm not rolling a mage just to play. Make room..spriests RULE!

Thnx Worshaka...... Lizzy.

Just do parses on a target dummy where you know what the exact numbers will be and post total seconds, dot ticks, MB casts & MF ticks. Those numbers you first post are just confusing... I don't know how you can have double the amount of SW:P ticks to VT ticks, but then again it depends what you're doing, particular if you are multi dotting etc.

Just to work out how close the theroetical limit you are, do target dummy parses and changes you make there will translate to raid conditions (at least thats the theory).

Target dummy parse should be about 200 to 230 seconds long, so it's a decent sample and we'll get a good idea of your cast priority from that. I'd do several and then post one of the parses that was typical of most of your attempts.

[nickles]

My alt is a shadow priest but, looking at your gear you seem to have a lot of haste (terrible trinket) on your gear, which at the point is terrible. You might see this change after the patch hits tomorrow because of haste affecting some of your dots. You might wanna change the enchant on your boots to ice walker, getting hit capped > speed boost enchant. 10 spi, 10 crit gem on your head? Shadow priests at this time arent very good peroid... they are behind every dps class.

[Worshaka]

My alt is a shadow priest but, looking at your gear you seem to have a lot of haste (terrible trinket) on your gear, which at the point is terrible. You might see this change after the patch hits tomorrow because of haste affecting some of your dots. You might wanna change the enchant on your boots to ice walker, getting hit capped > speed boost enchant. 10 spi, 10 crit gem on your head? Shadow priests at this time arent very good peroid... they are behind every dps class.

This is the unenligntened view, with good gear skill and execution you can do very decent DPS, i'm far from last in my raid on progression content... in fact i tend to be top 5.

[Sidonis]

This is the unenligntened view, with good gear skill and execution you can do very decent DPS, i'm far from last in my raid on progression content... in fact i tend to be top 5.

You either outgear the mages and warlocks, or you're surrounded by fail. Anecdotal evidence of this sort doesn't prove that your class is fine where it's at, it really only proves that you know what you're doing with your class, and your mages and warlocks in the guild don't.

[Strykzor]

http://wotlk.bloodlineguild.info/tools/spriest_uptime/

Wont work of tmmrw lol.

[Dreamtail]

http://wotlk.bloodlineguild.info/tools/spriest_uptime/

Wont work of tmmrw lol.

Translation please

[Mythanor]

Translation please

Won't work as of tomorrow, lol.

[Lizzil32]

Just do parses on a target dummy where you know what the exact numbers will be and post total seconds, dot ticks, MB casts & MF ticks. Those numbers you first post are just confusing... I don't know how you can have double the amount of SW:P ticks to VT ticks, but then again it depends what you're doing, particular if you are multi dotting etc.

Ok lets see if these numbers help you more: 200 sec. SF hit one time.

MF 130 (39% of my dps) VT 48 (15.9%) DP 63 (13.1%) SW:P 66
MB 19 SW 8

According to a calc on http://wotlk.bloodlineguild.info/tools/spriest_uptime/
Info when you load this website is not my own))

Hasted GCD: 1.25 VT Uptime: 72.73% (94%)
MB Possible: 29 DP Uptime: 95.45% (94%)
DoT Ticks Possible: 66 SW:P Uptime: 100.00% (94%)
Spells Cast: 46 MB Uptime: 65.52% (95%)
MF Time: 142 MF Uptime: 76.02% (92%)
MF Casts Possible: 57

The first percentages are my own results..not sure what the parenthesied ones are. Which leads me to believe my rotation is not optimal...and I'm gonna be in a world of hurt tomorrow.

The result of this, self buffed only my dps was at 3528.9 on the target dummy in iron forge. Stand still point and pew pew

[syanid]

Are you using any sort of timer for your dots and for cooldowns? If you're using default blizz UI with xperl and enlarged icons with your debuffs, that's 90% of your low dps problem.

[Worshaka]

You either outgear the mages and warlocks, or you're surrounded by fail. Anecdotal evidence of this sort doesn't prove that your class is fine where it's at, it really only proves that you know what you're doing with your class, and your mages and warlocks in the guild don't.

No I don't... I like how people just make this assumption... most spriests play their class badly, I don't play mine 100% optimal and I have no doubt there are plenty better spriests out there than me. But I play my spriest rather well... if you can do that you can be competitive with other casters in a majority of encounters assuming the content isn't on farm and completely on farm. When content becomes easy the potential DPS of other classes will drown a spriest but when people are worrying about staying alive and doing all the non optimal DPS things you do in progression type content, spriests do decent DPS.

The real argument is whether the amount of effort and execution we have to output is worthy of being simply competitive. Perhaps that's a good argument because there are blues which indicate feral DPS is somewhat elevated due to it's complexity and the worries they have about nerfing it due to the numbers mediocre players would output. Personally I don't care too much, I enjoy having a reasonably complex class to play, it keeps me entertained.

[Worshaka]

Ok lets see if these numbers help you more: 200 sec. SF hit one time.

MF 130 (39% of my dps) VT 48 (15.9%) DP 63 (13.1%) SW:P 66
MB 19 SW 8

According to a calc on http://wotlk.bloodlineguild.info/tools/spriest_uptime/
Info when you load this website is not my own))

Hasted GCD: 1.25 VT Uptime: 72.73% (94%)
MB Possible: 29 DP Uptime: 95.45% (94%)
DoT Ticks Possible: 66 SW:P Uptime: 100.00% (94%)
Spells Cast: 46 MB Uptime: 65.52% (95%)
MF Time: 142 MF Uptime: 76.02% (92%)
MF Casts Possible: 57

The first percentages are my own results..not sure what the parenthesied ones are. Which leads me to believe my rotation is not optimal...and I'm gonna be in a world of hurt tomorrow.

The result of this, self buffed only my dps was at 3528.9 on the target dummy in iron forge. Stand still point and pew pew

I don't mean to be insensitve but i'm going to be rather critical because there are some major defeciences in how you are playing.

First major problem... MB is being cast once every 10.53 seconds, however MB is a 5.5 sec CD with a 1.5 Sec cast (un hasted) meaning it can be cast every 7 seconds... what this means is you missed out on a massive number of MB casts. This is a dramatic loss in DPS.

Second major problem is your VT uptime, its horrible... 72.73% simply doesn't cut it, you missed out on nearly 20 ticks of VT which is the highest DPE (damage per execute time) spell you have. You either don't have some form of DoT timer or something else is horribly wrong. You need to get this figure as close to 100% as possible, 95% is the bare minimum you should achieve.

Oddly DP wasn't too bad, so if you can do to VT whatever you are doing with DP that may fix the problem?

SW:P numbers are too good, meaning it was the first spell you cast in order to achieve a 100% uptime. If it was the first spell you cast this is bad because SW:P will not get the benefits of your Shadow Weaving stacks until they are fully present on casting. You should always see SW:P be about 2 ticks from perfect because you need to build to 5 shadow weaving stacks before you cast it. Ensure your starting cast rotation is VT, MB, DP, MF, SW:P, as you can see this is 5 GCD's into combat meaning you'll never achieve 100% uptime. If you did do this then the combat time is wrong meaning some figures are even worse.

MF Ticks at 1.54sec isn't too bad, however you are missing out on VT & MB casts, so it's probably not as great as it needs to be. I probably wouldn't worry about your MF ticks until you fix the other major problems.

Having 8 SW casts is a worry, you should pretty much drop it from your rotation... I'd only advise very advanced players to consider using it. The only time I'd say use it is when you are on the move and taking damage isn't going to cause an issue. On a target dummy parse I should never see SW... the advanced rule is if you know you can only fit in 1 tick of MF you sub in SW... however 99.9% of the time there is always room for 2 ticks of MF which always triumphs SW and I would even suggest delaying casts by the marginal amoutn of time to go from MF1 to MF2 is worthwhile than SW. Just take my advice and remove it from the rotation and use MF2 in place of SW.

That is a massive amount of work, not to mention things change now the patch is here and haste affects VT & DP... in some respects things will be even harder. Stive to get MB always on CD and try to never delay it and get your DoT uptimes above 95%.

[Worshaka]

No I don't... I like how people just make this assumption... most spriests play their class badly, I don't play mine 100% optimal and I have no doubt there are plenty better spriests out there than me. But I play my spriest rather well... if you can do that you can be competitive with other casters in a majority of encounters assuming the content isn't on farm and completely on farm. When content becomes easy the potential DPS of other classes will drown a spriest but when people are worrying about staying alive and doing all the non optimal DPS things you do in progression type content, spriests do decent DPS.

The real argument is whether the amount of effort and execution we have to output is worthy of being simply competitive. Perhaps that's a good argument because there are blues which indicate feral DPS is somewhat elevated due to it's complexity and the worries they have about nerfing it due to the numbers mediocre players would output. Personally I don't care too much, I enjoy having a reasonably complex class to play, it keeps me entertained.

I have to apologise to Lizzy before I start, I don't mean to go on a witch hunt, however i'm going to use Lizzy's spell analysis to prove my point that the number 1 problem with spriest DPS is fundamental playing errors, not the spriest mechanics.

10 sec average MB casts and poor DoT times happen a lot more frequently than you think. I have players swear black and blue to me that they 'rotation' is perfect and when I get them to prove it this is the sorts of numbers I see. Even those people who think not me, yes even you... back when I did less damage in naxx than I knew was possible it was even me. So if you take some time to assess what is wrong and rectify it you'd be suprised how competitive you can be. Sure you wont' rival others for potential dps on an easy tank n spank encounter, but in hard content you certainly can do some very nice DPS, and what you do in progression type raiding means a lot more than what you can do when content is on complete farm.