1. #1

    Starting out as Shadow

    Hi,

    New to leveling a shadow priest. I have a question about my DPS. It really sucks. I run dungeons and am always last on the list. I get complaints that my dps sucks. Others in the group say they have lower level shadow priests that do almost double my damage, of course when I ask them what rotation they use they just say 'IDK'...so maybe they are full of it.

    I am currently level 30. There are only a few spells to use...so I am not sure if i can increase my dps much. I just got devouring plague I believe. Basically I hit a SW:Pain, Mind Blast, Mind Flay until MB or SW need to be refreshed/off cooldown. Now add in DP at the start. Before i could hit about 60 dps. With DP I think i get to about 75-80 dps. I don't really tab around and drop SW on multiple mobs because I run OOM every pull doing that.

    What am I doing wrong? Will this get better? I know leveling my Afflock my dps was pretty low until after Outland. Is a shadow priest similar? Any info and/or links are appreciated. Most DPS stuff I found was for 80+.

    Thanks

  2. #2
    Shadow Priests aren't very mana-efficient at any level. thankfully they have a lot of abilities to help them restore lost mana. you need to basically focus on keeping your dot's up refresh DP and VT whenever they are just about to run out (don't let them fall off because of haste reasons). SW: P can be refreshed from mind flaying so I wouldn't cast it twice on the same target. DoTing up multiple targets is also a great way to increase DPS since so much of your damage is based on DoT spells.

    you also want to keep the buff to your damage over time spells constantly up (the one where you get shadow orbs and you mind blast them, sorry can't remember the name) try your best to not let this fall off either. Stack INT as much as possible especially lower levels it'll help a lot.

    Spec into masochism and use shadow word death a lot to help your mana problems. since you might be too low for masochism (and dispersion) my only advice is to use your shadowfiend liberally it's there to help you regain mana and especially on big pulls or boss fights it should give you the extra boost to stay in the game.

  3. #3
    At level 30, make sure you're specced for pure damage. There's not many other talents worthwhile until later anyway. 3/3 Darkness, 2/2 Improved Shadow Word: Pain, 3/3 Improved Mind Blast, 2/2 Improved Devouring Plague, and 1/1 Shadowform. Make sure you stay in Shadow Form. For bosses, keep your Shadow Word: Pain and Devouring PLague up at as much of a 100% uptime as possible. In fact, refresh them before they fall off the target (in between the second to last and the last tick, so somewhere below 3 seconds on the counters. Later on you'll get talents that automatically refresh the duration of Shadow Word: Pain, so you rarely ever have to worry about reapplying it, but at the same time, you'll have access to a third DoT later on as well that you'll still need to manage manually. I can't remember at which point you can have a second major glyph, but you want to pick up Glyph of Mind Flay and Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain as quickly as possible (check your damage meters to see which spell is more of your damage, and get that glyph first - I haven't played in weeks so I really couldn't tell you from memory which spell is a greater portion of your total damage).

    You should also try setting up nochanneling macros for your Mind Flay and Mind Blast. They should look like this:
    #showtooltip Mind Flay
    /cast [nochanneling:Mind Flay] Mind Flay

    #showtooltip Mind Blast
    /cast [nochanneling:Mind Flay] Mind Blast

    What this accomplish is that it prevents you from accidentally clipping Mind Flay. Once your DoTs are up/refreshed, simply start spamming the macros. Cast Mind Blast and immediately start spamming your Mind Flay macro, and when your Mind Blast comes off cool down, even if you're in mid-channel of Mind Flay, start spamming your Mind Blast macro. This removes most client/server/player lag problems, though you might find your fingers getting tired (you don't HAVE to spam, but in the heat of a battle, it seems like that's what most Shadow Priests do, heh...)

    Without the Macro, at least for Mind Flay, you really have to be good at timing your Mind Flay so that you get all three ticks of your Mind Flay with absolutely the least possible amount of downtime between the last tick and the first tick of your next Mind Flay.

    If your group is complaining about trash DPS, then I'm afraid your only option is to spam Shadow Word: Pain on every target you see and tell them to deal with it when you sit down to drink. We shadow priests used to have amazing mana efficiency. They destroyed that with Cataclysm, and even at 85 with Dispersion, Archangel, Shadow Word: Death (Masochism) and Shadow Fiend, our mana efficiency is still fairly craptacular.

    Anyway, moving on...

    This will eventually be your Spec at level 85 (plus 1 point to put wherever the hell you want to). As you level, simply choose the best talents to fill out for your level according to your available spells. You will find that you will have to put some filler points that won't be useful at your level, though they will at later levels. That's one of the many downsides to Blizzard genius decision to shorten our talent trees.

  4. #4
    I don't believe you can clip your mindflay since it's classified as a dot. So don't worry about that otherwise at lower Lvls shadow Dps is gonna blow not much you can so about it.
    Few tips : don't use dp on trash it's too much mana and the mobs die to fast
    Open with pain as ur running in. Mindblast then spam flay till mb is up,rinse and repeat.
    You are the most mans inneficient caster at every lvl and especially now because you lack any of your mana regen abilities so play conservatively.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Veyne View Post
    We shadow priests used to have amazing mana efficiency. They destroyed that with Cataclysm, and even at 85 with Dispersion, Archangel, Shadow Word: Death (Masochism) and Shadow Fiend, our mana efficiency is still fairly craptacular.

    Anyway, moving on...
    I am confused as to why you would have mana issues. I am not even specced into Mental Agility anymore and I almost never need to disperse to recover mana. I offensively dispel most fights and still maintain a top dps spot. Initially at the very beginning of Cataclysm, I found mana to be a little more in need of management but now feel like nothing has changed from WotLK.

  6. #6
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bellefso View Post
    Hi,

    New to leveling a shadow priest. I have a question about my DPS. It really sucks. I run dungeons and am always last on the list. I get complaints that my dps sucks. Others in the group say they have lower level shadow priests that do almost double my damage, of course when I ask them what rotation they use they just say 'IDK'...so maybe they are full of it.

    I am currently level 30. There are only a few spells to use...so I am not sure if i can increase my dps much. I just got devouring plague I believe. Basically I hit a SW:Pain, Mind Blast, Mind Flay until MB or SW need to be refreshed/off cooldown. Now add in DP at the start. Before i could hit about 60 dps. With DP I think i get to about 75-80 dps. I don't really tab around and drop SW on multiple mobs because I run OOM every pull doing that.

    What am I doing wrong? Will this get better? I know leveling my Afflock my dps was pretty low until after Outland. Is a shadow priest similar? Any info and/or links are appreciated. Most DPS stuff I found was for 80+.

    PS - Skip Devouring Plague on second-time rotation if it's still got 6 or more seconds on it.

    Thanks
    At lower levels my mana regen was awful until I got Dispersion (level 69), and Shadowfiend (I believe that's level 40). Get used to a LOT of drinking between pulls

    The rotation I used early on was: Vampiric Touch, Mind Blast, Devouring Plague, Shadow Word: Pain, then Mind Flay. The moment I got an orb, which was usually when MB was off cooldown, I'd start all over again to regain mana - Vampiric Touch, Mind Blast, Devouring Plague, SKIP Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay. That kept me pretty high up the damage meter. Vampiric Touch is level 30 and restores mana to everyone in the group when used BEFORE Mind Blast.

    If you don't have Vampiric Touch yet, then start with Mind Blast. As for teh DPS, if you're not in heirloom gear that has crit/hit on it, I can see why your DPS would be lower, and if anyone is being an ass about it, just ignore them. Your DPS will improve as you get more comfortable with the rotation and gear up as you level up.

    PS - skip Devouring Plague on the second-time rotation if it has more than 3 seconds left (and remember it can only target one target at a time)
    Last edited by Darsithis; 2011-03-18 at 04:55 PM. Reason: Added more info for second rotation

  7. #7

    Thanks

    I want to thank everyone for the information so far. I checked my spec on the armory, and for some reason I picked some extra stuff up in the first tier. I will respec so that I can get Shadowform, not sure what I was thinking on that. After that I fired up the trusty calculator, does this look like a viable spec to use?
    (Can't post links yet...)

    3/3 Darkness
    2/2 Imp SW:P
    3/3 Imp MB
    2/2 Imp DP
    1/1 Shadowform
    2/2 Harnessed Shadows
    2/2 Twisted Faith
    1/1 Vampiric Embrace
    2/2 Masochism
    2/2 Mind Melt
    1/1 Vampiric Touch
    2/2 Pain and Suffering
    2/2 Veiled Shadows
    2/2 Sin and Punishment
    3/3 Shadowy Apparition
    1/1 Dispersion

    Disc:
    3/3 Twin Disciplines
    3/3 Mental Agility
    2/2 Evangalism
    1/1 Archangel
    1/1 Inner Sanctum


    Not sure if the link will work. I just took a rough guess on the glyphs, so any suggestions on spec/glyphs would be appreciated if they are way off.

    Once I get shadow form, I will run some instances and see how it goes. Shadowform will make a fairly large difference I would guess.

    So for right now I would be doing something like this: SW:P, DP, MB, MF till MB is off CD, refresh SW:P and DP as needed. I believe that I can't do refreshes with MF until I get Pain and Suffering in tier 5.

    Thanks again.

  8. #8
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bellefso View Post
    I want to thank everyone for the information so far. I checked my spec on the armory, and for some reason I picked some extra stuff up in the first tier. I will respec so that I can get Shadowform, not sure what I was thinking on that. After that I fired up the trusty calculator, does this look like a viable spec to use?
    (Can't post links yet...)

    3/3 Darkness
    2/2 Imp SW:P
    3/3 Imp MB
    2/2 Imp DP
    1/1 Shadowform
    2/2 Harnessed Shadows
    2/2 Twisted Faith
    1/1 Vampiric Embrace
    2/2 Masochism
    2/2 Mind Melt
    1/1 Vampiric Touch
    2/2 Pain and Suffering
    2/2 Veiled Shadows
    2/2 Sin and Punishment
    3/3 Shadowy Apparition
    1/1 Dispersion

    Disc:
    3/3 Twin Disciplines
    3/3 Mental Agility
    2/2 Evangalism
    1/1 Archangel
    1/1 Inner Sanctum


    Not sure if the link will work. I just took a rough guess on the glyphs, so any suggestions on spec/glyphs would be appreciated if they are way off.

    Once I get shadow form, I will run some instances and see how it goes. Shadowform will make a fairly large difference I would guess.

    So for right now I would be doing something like this: SW:P, DP, MB, MF till MB is off CD, refresh SW:P and DP as needed. I believe that I can't do refreshes with MF until I get Pain and Suffering in tier 5.

    Thanks again.
    Looks good - but I really suggest you use Vampiric Touch before Mind Blast. When you use Mind Blast on a mob with Vampiric Touch, you get 5% of the cost back overall, which helps, and, of course, is a DoT that adds to your dps. Shadowform doesn't have any mana-regenerating baked in; I think you're thinking of Shadowfiend.

  9. #9
    Brewmaster link064's Avatar
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    I'm just about finished leveling my spriest (83 now) and I'm going to recommend leveling as disc until about level 50. Smite spam is pretty high dps until later on, shields keep you alive forever, evangelism makes your spells cost less while archangel returns mana, and you can queue as healer (which gets really fast queues while leveling). I never ran into a downside. My shadow spec would see light about every 5 levels for a couple of seconds so I could apply talent points and see if it was worth trying again. Shadow really doesn't shine until about 50-60. Shadow destroys stuff in Outland though.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Darsithis View Post
    Looks good - but I really suggest you use Vampiric Touch before Mind Blast. When you use Mind Blast on a mob with Vampiric Touch, you get 5% of the cost back overall, which helps, and, of course, is a DoT that adds to your dps. Shadowform doesn't have any mana-regenerating baked in; I think you're thinking of Shadowfiend.
    When I was talking about Shadowform improving things, I was referring to the increased shadow damage and other benefits, not so much for mana regen. At this time I don't think i have access to Vampiric Touch, I am level 30 at this time. I will remember that when I do get it though. Shadowfiend is not until much later, I think someone mentioned lvl 68?

  11. #11
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    Shadow mana is not in a good place, I was worrying about it a lot until I was in at least half epics. Even now, when I have 6/7 372 pieces I'm worrying about it as soon as there's more than one target to hit.

    As for low level dps, all I can say is focus on the time left on the mob. If its going to die soon, just start flaying/blasting it. Remember to try and keep your empowered shadows buff (gained from consuming a shadow orb) as much as possible. The stuff about when to cast MB at all the 85 content still applies.
    If its going to live, start with SWP and then DP, then go as usual. If you want to do half decent dps at low level, all I can say is bring some drinks =]

  12. #12
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Welcome to shadow priesting. Since dots are where we really do our damage over a long fight low level shadow priests don't do particularly well compared to other classes.

    Mainly because fights at that level in instances don't last long enough to get everything rolling properly. Your damage will likely suck until you get to 60 or so.

    Nonetheless, good players will know this and as long as you do your part and are ready to toss in the occasional emergency heal, etc. you'll be fine.

    Bring lots of fluids. Lots.

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