What am I doing wrong? (Spriest)

[Deleted]

I wonder if 25% or below, it would be better to ignore dots and use MSx3/MS/SWD spam.

on a side note: has anybody tried fights using MSx3/MB/SWD whenever you can use AA? then back to dots after the duration is over.

[Keosen]

1) No it's not 25% HP it can take very long and it will certainly will take long enough to make you lose tons of DPS by using MS.
2) No MS it's only usable on adds/trash that leave less than 10-15 seconds or if you need to clear your dots, using it in another situation and you are hurting your dps.

[Xelestial]

1) No it's not 25% HP it can take very long and it will certainly will take long enough to make you lose tons of DPS by using MS.

This is somewhat incorrect. Check our New's guide's comments. I asked him to sim this and they were actually very close. I personally am finding they are very close, it just depends on the exact situation and how fast the boss is going down already.

My overall thought would be to say, rotation is safest and best, but there isn't enough data to say that MS/MB spam isn't worth it after 25%. Especially after Mind Blast's potential buff, it definitely warrants testing. Unless you have some data for us?

I wouldn't do the side note though, with AA. It would kill your DPS.

This is actually not the best opener. It's better to NOT refresh VT and DP as soon as you get the Empowered Shadows buff. Here's proof:

If you refresh immediately after you get empowered shadows, sure you will immediately gain the full benefit of empowered shadows but the act of refreshing dots will cost you 1 Mind Flay.
1 Mind Flay, given a rough estimate is about 10k damage. And this means you will lose out on 10k damage.

However if you let the initial DoTs roll till the end, you will lose the benefit of Empowered shadows for a while but this loss is actually not as bad as 10k damage (Keep in mind SW:P wont be affected since that will be auto-refreshed):

VT: 4400 damage per tick (based on my current sp and evang), 4972 damage per tick with ES
572 damage difference
DP: 2200 damage per tick, 2486 damage per tick with ES, 286 damage difference.

Assuming that your VT ticks 6 times total and DP ticks 10 times total, and not counting the initial tick since...well you definitely wont get ES up before the first tick of your initial DoT applications, that leaves with 5 potential VT ticks and 9 potential DP ticks that may suffer loss of damage by not recasting immediately.

(5 x 572) + (9 x 286) = 5434 damage lost, lets just say it is roughly 5.4k

Depending on the number of ticks your DoTs have, it can go a bit higher than 5.4k, but definitely won't surpass 10k.

Conclusion:
Rough cost of losing 1 potential Mind Flay = 10k dmg
Rough cost of not applying DoTs immediately after gaining ES: 5.4k dmg.
As you can see, it is actually better to just let those initial DoTs roll till the end rather than immediately refreshing them to get the full benefit of emp shadows.

Hmm...Okay, I'll go with it for awhile. Looks solid. Did you mean just the Emp. Shadow reapplication part wasn't optimal or the application of DoTs?

[zsun]

Hmm...Okay, I'll go with it for awhile. Looks solid. Did you mean just the Emp. Shadow reapplication part wasn't optimal or the application of DoTs?

I was just saying, the reapplication of dots immediately after getting Empowered Shadows up isn't really optimal. It's better to let your current dots reach their full duration before reapplying them.

[MoanaLisa]

1) No it's not 25% HP it can take very long and it will certainly will take long enough to make you lose tons of DPS by using MS.
2) No MS it's only usable on adds/trash that leave less than 10-15 seconds or if you need to clear your dots, using it in another situation and you are hurting your dps.

Everything about MSp (to distinguish it from the other MS/Mind Sear) is about target lifetime. I think there's a case to be made that if the target is some sort of boss and basically down to about 30 seconds of life and dots are nearly done, then something like MSpx3, with an instant MB crit plus a couple of SW-D (if you have the glyph that resets the cooldown) makes sense. Be careful not to kill yourself. The trick is the timing because a mini-boss at 25% health won't last nearly as long as a regular boss so 25% isn't the best thing to go by.

Now that I've said that, it's just another thing to add on to the pile of things to keep track of and trying to judge target lifetime in seconds is tricky at best, never mind when you have 12 other things on your mind. I've used this though and it's very bursty and hits very, very hard. Highly situational.

[Xelestial]

I was just saying, the reapplication of dots immediately after getting Empowered Shadows up isn't really optimal. It's better to let your current dots reach their full duration before reapplying them.

Gotcha.

@MoanaLisa- Yes, I agree too. That is how I feel. It's situational, gotta go with your gut feeling with the MS/MB/SW: D spam. I'd say perhaps start on a raid boss with 10-15% health.

[Keosen]

This is somewhat incorrect. Check our New's guide's comments. I asked him to sim this and they were actually very close. I personally am finding they are very close, it just depends on the exact situation and how fast the boss is going down already.

Since when 1000 to 1500+ DPS loss is consideres as "very close"?
Are you also considering that you're gonna screw your Lock's DI and with it the raid's DPS?

If you are still not convinced that MSp spam during <25% it's a total failure you can go check WoL top 100 Sps on every encounter 10/25 N/H tell me if you see 1 MSp anywhere.

PS
Sometimes common sense>simcraft.

[Worshaka]

I wonder if 25% or below, it would be better to ignore dots and use MSx3/MS/SWD spam.

on a side note: has anybody tried fights using MSx3/MB/SWD whenever you can use AA? then back to dots after the duration is over.

Bad bad bad bad bad...

VT deals something in the vicinity for 50K damage for its GCD... no matter how much you look at it, any of the spells you have mentioned are lucky to do half that for the same execution time. This really illustrates how little people understand the spriest class... it's all based on DPeT.

[Alexio]

Not if it's not additive. You can't just spam VT cos it has the highest DpET.

[rimmer]

This is actually not the best opener. It's better to NOT refresh VT and DP as soon as you get the Empowered Shadows buff. Here's proof:

If you refresh immediately after you get empowered shadows, sure you will immediately gain the full benefit of empowered shadows but the act of refreshing dots will cost you 1 Mind Flay.
1 Mind Flay, given a rough estimate is about 10k damage. And this means you will lose out on 10k damage.

However if you let the initial DoTs roll till the end, you will lose the benefit of Empowered shadows for a while but this loss is actually not as bad as 10k damage (Keep in mind SW:P wont be affected since that will be auto-refreshed):

VT: 4400 damage per tick (based on my current sp and evang), 4972 damage per tick with ES
572 damage difference
DP: 2200 damage per tick, 2486 damage per tick with ES, 286 damage difference.

Assuming that your VT ticks 6 times total and DP ticks 10 times total, and not counting the initial tick since...well you definitely wont get ES up before the first tick of your initial DoT applications, that leaves with 5 potential VT ticks and 9 potential DP ticks that may suffer loss of damage by not recasting immediately.

(5 x 572) + (9 x 286) = 5434 damage lost, lets just say it is roughly 5.4k

Depending on the number of ticks your DoTs have, it can go a bit higher than 5.4k, but definitely won't surpass 10k.

Conclusion:
Rough cost of losing 1 potential Mind Flay = 10k dmg
Rough cost of not applying DoTs immediately after gaining ES: 5.4k dmg.
As you can see, it is actually better to just let those initial DoTs roll till the end rather than immediately refreshing them to get the full benefit of emp shadows.

I've been thinking about this - if you started your rotation with your dots then they wouldnt have the buff from evangelism either, would it be worth refreshing to apply both Evangelism and ES?

[Worshaka]

Not if it's not additive. You can't just spam VT cos it has the highest DpET.

Who said you should just spam VT... point is that casting VT over any other spell puts you at least 25K ahead in damage, probably more like 30 to 35K, DP is similar to VT's DPeT so that has you about 20 to 25K ahead on any other spell, SW:P was cast at the begining of the encounter and is basically free damage... no combination of nuke spells is going to outstrip that sort of damage throughput.

As for casting dots with no evangalism, keep in mind that evangalism only increases dot damage by 10%... so overwriting those dots for an additional 10% damage is going to be poor use of your GCD's... basicall you're adding about 5K to DP & VT, and that 5K damage is easily gained via nuke spells.

[Aleysia]

I've yet to actually look at the numbers, but I believe it *is* worth recasting DP after getting Empowered Shadows up, for the simple reason that Imp. DP will probably hit harder in a single GCD than ~2 ticks of MF (about the same amount of time). If so, you would not lose any dps by refreshing DP early, and your DP would hit 10% harder a bit earlier. Of course, it's a hugely mana-intensive spell, and our weakest hitting dot, so use this at your own discretion.

[zsun]

I've been thinking about this - if you started your rotation with your dots then they wouldnt have the buff from evangelism either, would it be worth refreshing to apply both Evangelism and ES?

Realistically speaking you are still looking at a maximum of 3 VT ticks and 7 DP ticks that can suffer potential damage loss by not recasting immediately. Even if I take Evangelism into account (which I probably should have) the total loss is still around (3 x 972) + (7 x 486) = 6318 damage. This is assuming you got an orb with just 1 Mind Flay. And 1 Mind Flay is actually 4 stacks of evangelism, but I still assumed 5 for easier calculation.

But most cases you won't get an orb on your first Mind Flay. Getting an orb on the second Mind Flay means you are looking at around 2 VT ticks and 6 DP ticks instead. That gives a slightly lower loss of 4860 damage.

If I just average the 2 numbers, it would come to an average loss of 5.6k.
So in the end if you choose not to refresh immediately, you are looking at an average of 5.6k loss of damage.

However

I've yet to actually look at the numbers, but I believe it *is* worth recasting DP after getting Empowered Shadows up, for the simple reason that Imp. DP will probably hit harder in a single GCD than ~2 ticks of MF (about the same amount of time). If so, you would not lose any dps by refreshing DP early, and your DP would hit 10% harder a bit earlier. Of course, it's a hugely mana-intensive spell, and our weakest hitting dot, so use this at your own discretion.

That is something I admit I didn't think of, and can probably change the way you open, since this instant damage can even out the differences in the loss of damage between the two opening methods. I was quite surprised that Empowered Shadows affected DP's instant damage, especially since Evangelism didn't. However, just keep in mind refreshing it early reduces the dpet of your initial cast, and there's the mana factor that you mentioned. And also keep in mind that MF generates orbs. DP doesn't. This means you have a better chance to sustain your Empowered Shadows and a harder hitting Mind Blast later on if you choose to go with Mind Flay. But in the end the differences in the final outcome is quite negligible, and can easily be offset with a bit of RNG.

[Deleted]

Feels stupid to make another thread named the same when there is one on 1st page, so I'll pin my own problem to this one.

WTF am I doing wrong?

I get rather good output(compared to what stateofdps.com and other priest logs say, not to other classes) on gimmicky/multitarget fights, like Nomnomtron, Valiona, Twilight Council - but on any single target nukefest like Chimaeron, Atramedes or Lolgaroth my DPS gets just so much worse. Please note, by "worse" I do not mean "less than elsewhere" or "less than class xxxxx". By "worse" I mean "Less than what a spriest should be doing there". Just what am I doing wrong on target dummy-style fights?

I open up while running in with SW:P>DP>SW:D if still moving>VT>MF till the first orb>MB and go on. I use MB with 3 orbs or when the ES is about to fall off, never without orbs. I recast my DoTs timing them so that the refresh lands about half a second before it falls off. I don't clip MF ticks. I keep Theralion's Mirror proc active for as long as possible by refreshing buffed ES when the proc is abut to fall off. On short movement I either use SW:D if the mana is going to be an issue or DP if it's not, on longer alternate DP>SW:D>DP(can't spam DP due to "more powerful spell is already active" bug) and by then it's usually finished. Under 25% SW:D spam if fight mechanics allow, possibly saving up for a few seconds if movement is anticipated in very near future.

If anyone could help me, armory in the signature and a couple of logs below:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/qjtsbiow373x5y8a/
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/ry9nb3xou13lqi8y/
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/lcjxuzuf2ti7lrdg/