Talents and waaay too much hit

[Zelol]

So ive bumped in to a situation where all the stuff that drops has just ridiculous amounts of hit on them, im sure youve realized this too.. And according to sp.com

Spell Hit Caps:
* 263 hit is the cap with 6 points between Shadow Focus and Misery and with a Draenei in your group
* 289 hit is the cap with 6 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 315 hit before you can go to 5 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 341 hit before you can go to 4 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 368 hit before you can go to 3 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 394 hit before you can go to 2 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 420 hit before you can go to 1 point between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 446 hit before you can go to 0 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

My question really is that would you ever WANT to drop MISERY and FOCUS due to the other things they give except hit (6% less mana cost for casts and bonus damage from misery)

If i have gear that will slap me over 450 hit should i even try a spec that doesnt have those two abilities? Im just playing with the idea of these "loose talent points".

Ive played a shadow priest since vanilla and frequently browse sp.com and other forums but yesterday we started talking about this with a guildie and i just thought that i would drop the ball here as well.. I really think there are no good substitutes for those 6 points and we are just flooded with hit what ever we do.

Any ideas?

[Glittersmith]

Well misery is a raid debuff so you wouldn't want to drop it unless you have someone else doing it.

[Zelol]

Exactly, so thats more or less out of the question. So this means there is a possible 3 points to use from FOCUS but in addition to losing the hit you would also lose 6% reduced casting costs which amount to quite a lot for a long fight.. so my point is that the itemization kinda f**k´s us up with overflooded hit and no substitutes for out talent points

[OGFF]

i don't really see a problem in getting too much hit.
in icc 10/25 u always have enough items with haste/crit instead of hit.

with my shadow i have exactly 264 hit. but its no problem, because in both 10 and 25er raids we always have at least one draenei.

[MushroomBomb]

Exactly, so thats more or less out of the question. So this means there is a possible 3 points to use from FOCUS but in addition to losing the hit you would also lose 6% reduced casting costs which amount to quite a lot for a long fight.. so my point is that the itemization kinda f**k´s us up with overflooded hit and no substitutes for out talent points

Thing is, with the three extra points from Shadow Focus, you can spec into whatever mana-saving talents you want. If you aren't already fully specced into the two slightly less mandatory manatalants (Focused Mind and Veiled Shadows).

But I must say I agree with OGFF above me. The itemization in ICC is fairly decent for us, I doubt you'll stay high in hit for so very long.

[Kucedon]

Tanks need hit as well, and boy oh boy how much fun is it when your taunt or a high threat ability misses the boss. Not parried,dodged or blocked no just missed.

That is where you misery talent comes in.

[eErike]

Blabla

You should never, ever drop misery, droping the other one might be an option tho if you go for something else that can save you some mana

[fabian]

Never drop Shadow Focus or Misery, even if you're ridiculously over the hit cap. If you need 400+ hit because you dropped those talents, you're wasting itemization points on something you can pick up with talents, thus lowering you max DPS.

[chir0n]

If your shadow spec is right and you ARE going to drop say shadow focus.
For me PVE-wise there would not be any beneficial talents left anyway to spec in.

Sure improved vampiric embrace is nice for soloing but no other benefits from those talents or any others

[KresnikHellfire]

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=33193

*snip*and increases the benefit from spell power gained by your Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Mind Sear spells by 15%.

Don't ever drop misery.

[fabian]

Sure improved vampiric embrace is nice for soloing but no other benefits from those talents or any others

Most people take 2/2 Imp VE and 1/3 Focused Mind for more survivability. If you need the mana, go ahead with 3/3 Focused Mind, but most do not need it.

[Zeuq]

If you're way over Hit, you could drop points from Shadow Focus. If you're worried that it'll hurt your mana situation, you could move some of those points to Focused Mind, but that seems a little silly to me because you'll get similar mana efficiency per point (5% on some spells vs. 2% on all spells), but losing the Hit that could affect some gearing decisions. So if you were going to drop points from Shadow Focus, I'd really only consider it if mana is a non-issue and you can find some use for some utility talents like maybe Silence so you can help with interupts or something.

Do NOT spec out of Misery, ever. Even if you are guaranteed someone else in your raid will bring the 3% Hit, you're also losing increased SP coefficient on Mind Blast, Mind Flay, and Mind Sear, so it WILL be a DPS loss.

Either way, there should be plenty of non-hit options; hell, if you have that much Hit, you might even be better to look at putting on some slightly lower iLevel gear that could replace the unneeded Hit with other DPS stats.

[Direshadow]

in Cata, this will be fixed.

[Quibble]

Most people take 2/2 Imp VE and 1/3 Focused Mind for more survivability. If you need the mana, go ahead with 3/3 Focused Mind, but most do not need it.

Most people use 1/3 focused mind? since when lol.. It just seem stupid to not have that one, you rather wanna be on the edge of going oom than be on the safe side?

I my self do have 2/2 imp VE. but that is because I found dropping MB to be a dps increase so I took the points from MB and put 2/2 imp VE. 2/3 Shadow affi and 1/1 Inner focus.

Anyway, never drop neither of those two hit talents and also, use 3/3 focused mind rather than 2/2 imp and 1 focused mind..

[fabian]

Most people use 1/3 focused mind? since when lol.. It just seem stupid to not have that one, you rather wanna be on the edge of going oom than be on the safe side?

I my self do have 2/2 imp VE. but that is because I found dropping MB to be a dps increase so I took the points from MB and put 2/2 imp VE. 2/3 Shadow affi and 1/1 Inner focus.

Anyway, never drop neither of those two hit talents and also, use 3/3 focused mind rather than 2/2 imp and 1 focused mind..

I said take 3/3 focused if you NEED mana. 1/3 Focused Mind is 5%(instead of 15%) off the mana cost of only 2 spells, which are already cheap.

With no talents, MF costs 347.67(348) mana, and MB 656.71(657) mana.
Fully talents, san Focused Mind, you have 6% reduced mana from Shadow Focus, so MF now is down to 327.12(327) mana, and MB is now 617.58(618). This comes to be 21 mana on MF and 39 mana on MB.

1/3 Focused Mind brings these numbers down to 310.764(311) mana for MF and 586.701(587) mana for MB, which is 37 mana saved on MF and 70 mana saved on MB.

3/3 Focused Mind:
MF: 278.052(278) mana, 69 mana saved
MB: 524.943(525) mana, 132 mana saved

Assuming a 5 minute fight, with 7.5s between MB, 1.6s for every MF tick, this comes out to be 40 MB in the fight and 187.5 MF ticks in the fight. Assuming you can average about 2.5 MF ticks per cast, this comes down to 75 MF cast.

So in a 5 minute fight, you're saving, using 3/3 Focused Mind over 1/3 Focused Mind:
((40 MB x 132 mana saved) - (40 MB x 70 mana saved)) + ((75 MF x 69 mana saved) - (75 MF x 37 mana)) = 4880 mana
Which is 81 MP5, in a scenario in which you should not need to be worried about mana. The only time when mana is a problem is when multi-dotting, in which Focused Mind is a waste of talents. Then add on the fact that Survivability is perhaps the number 1 thing a progressing raider should look after, makes Imp VE better than Focused Mind.