Shadowfiend

[Taztingo]

I'm not too clued up about priests as i have only just started playing my alt for 3.3.
My question is basically does your characters' stats affect your shadowfiends' stats.

So far i've heard that they take a % of your sp towards their damage which is quite straight forward,
the important thing i want to know is how their haste is affected (due to 'x' hits * 5% mana).

Picked up http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50260 and was wondering if I used my trinket before summoning
my shadowfiend would it have the extra 464 haste rating.

Same thing goes with bloodlust, cast him before BL and he gets the 30%, or during bloodlust (taking characters natural haste rating+30%).


Thanks

P.s if this has been asked before I looked thru a couple pages and couldnt see anything, so sorry in advance :>

[Proletariat]

You'll want to Shadowfiend before BL, which is why it's so annoying that our shaman doesn't have a workable mic >_>

As for whether the Shadowfiend's melee scale from the priest's haste, I'm not sure, but I'd prob lean on the side of not

[Venara]

Lose the Snowflake, it sucks. Was nerfed into oblivion a few days after it went live.

Also, if possible, always cast your fiend so it will have maximum buffs. If you know BL/Heroism will be used shortly, throw out your fiend. Also make sure you're sending the fiend to a target that is in range of totems (like Windfury). More hits = more mana.

[Danner]

The shadowfiend does scale with the priest. Just how it does this has been subject to change many times however, and noone - myself included - have the full info anymore.

- The shadowfiend attacks using melee shadow damage. Its attacks may be blocked, parried, avoided and partially resisted. It may also crit.
- Each actual hit returns 5% of the priests max manapool (was: mana based on damage, but they changed that). As long as you hit, you get 5% mana back regardless of how hard you hit.
- The shadowfiend attacks at one swing per 1.5 seconds. It lasts 15 seconds, meaning you get 10 hits off in an ideal solo case. You can theoretically get 11 hits if you spawn the shadowfiend next to the mob in question as it tends to hit just before despawning.
- The shadowfiend is NOT affected by the priests haste rating. It is however affected by external haste like bloodlust. Notably, it is affected by wrath of air which grants it up to 20% more attacks by default. The gains are usually neglected in a raid setting since the shadowfiend must run up to the mob, leaving us still at 10 hits. Unless you take advantage of...
- The shadowfiend Shadowstrike ability is on autocast, ideally allowing the shadowfiend to spawn next to the mob. Even if it is on autocast, it rarely if ever ever use this ability automatically. Make sure to cast this in a macro after summoning the fiend. This alone is worth 1-2 extra hits on any mob; spending precious time running really sucks.
- 6.5% of your shadow spellpower is added to each hit. This means the shadowfiend does scale in damage with your priest. Authenticity of this number is disputed, however. I have also seen the number 37% on wowwiki; frankly I do not know which is true. But everyone seems to agree that it scales with spellpower.
- Talents increasing your shadow damage spells also increase the output of your shadowfiend. That includes Darkness, Shadow Weaving, etc.
- Since 3.2, it does no longer have a high avoidance rating, but in return it has a decent health pool meaning it is no longer oneshot by other players (instead, it's twoshot. Yay). It still has some damage mitigation from aoe, but not as much as a hunter pet. You're still better off not sending it into a raidboss warstomp, it will die. I don't know the exact number though.
- Used to scale with your stamina, attack power and armor. I have no idea if it still does. No priests have attack power anyway.

[Venara]

The shadowfiend does scale with the priest. Just how it does this has been subject to change many times however, and noone - myself included - have the full info anymore.

- The shadowfiend is NOT affected by the priests haste rating. It is however affected by external haste like bloodlust. Notably, it is affected by wrath of air which grants it up to 20% more attacks by default. The gains are usually neglected in a raid setting since the shadowfiend must run up to the mob, leaving us still at 10 hits. Unless you take advantage of...

I think you mean Windfury ;>

[Danner]

Er... Yes, yes I do.
/fails
/seppuku

To think I had a shaman once... :P

[CookieEater]

I think you mean Windfury ;>

And Improved Icy Talons, but no sensible Death Knight specs into that. Ergo, there's a lot of Death Knights with Improved Icy Talons...

[fabian]

And Improved Icy Talons, but no sensible Death Knight specs into that. Ergo, there's a lot of Death Knights with Improved Icy Talons...

Actually, any DW frost DK's spec will include IIT.

[Proletariat]

Actually, any DW frost DK's spec will include IIT.

Last I checked, the higher personal-DPS frost spec did not include IIT. The slightly-lower dps "raid buffer" frost spec had it.

But we're prob straying away a little now.

[Kelesti]

Danner, I've had no trouble at all with getting my fiend to cast Shadowcrawl on its own lately, but I must be targetting (and not just a focus) its target. If my target isn't the boss (i.e. my tank or someone else) it can't auto-shadow crawl to that target because it's invalid, so it'll just sit and wail on its current thing.

So if you're using Healbot, Grid+Clique, Vuhdo, or any set up involving mouseover macros, make the boss your target (watching his HP whittle away as the fight goes on), and your fiend will have no trouble with it.