Shadow: Suggestions on Crit vs Haste

[TheStraubulous]

Hello everyone, as I'm sure you hear alot from people I am one of those who read this site and the forums alot. I've had my account on WoW since Vanilla. I've played heavy and raided in Vanilla and ever since I've done just casual play. I want to do some decent PvP and my 2v2 partner is a mage. He usually is specced Arcane. We have about a 50/50 win/loss ratio. I'd say we are pretty geared and we duel each other alot. But we both know how we play pretty well so we don't really learn anything. Anyways, I've stacked up lots of crit if you look at my armory. When in 2v2 arenas I have 21%ish crit which I think is awesome and in heroics it's ok. My haste is around 14%. Would it benefit me or our 2v2 team if I stacked Haste instead?

My armory is us.battle.net/wow/en/character/burning-legion/killionaire/simple
You can just search armory: server 'Burning Legion', char 'Killionaire'

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Töasty]

Haste is always better, more reliable, getting casts off faster in PvP will always be better than a chance at doing more damage with a slower cast. Tell your mage to spec frost and you will dominate.

[Winternight]

Hello everyone, as I'm sure you hear alot from people I am one of those who read this site and the forums alot. I've had my account on WoW since Vanilla. I've played heavy and raided in Vanilla and ever since I've done just casual play. I want to do some decent PvP and my 2v2 partner is a mage. He usually is specced Arcane. We have about a 50/50 win/loss ratio. I'd say we are pretty geared and we duel each other alot. But we both know how we play pretty well so we don't really learn anything. Anyways, I've stacked up lots of crit if you look at my armory. When in 2v2 arenas I have 21%ish crit which I think is awesome and in heroics it's ok. My haste is around 14%. Would it benefit me or our 2v2 team if I stacked Haste instead?

My armory is us.battle.net/wow/en/character/burning-legion/killionaire/simple
You can just search armory: server 'Burning Legion', char 'Killionaire'

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Check my armory

Haste < Crit

Haste is above all!

[sd1309744]

Cri is almost useless, haste,haste,haste,haste,haste...

[Ieft]

mind spike -> mindspike -> dots -> basically garunteed crit mb = stun -> really solid opening.

Moral of story haste > crit

And tell your mage to go frost.

[Winternight]

mind spike -> mindspike -> dots -> basically garunteed crit mb = stun -> really solid opening.

Moral of story haste > crit

And tell your mage to go frost.

Or fire...

[stickyjam]

yeh youd have better success if your mage just learnt to play frost....

and int >> haste > crit

all ur gems that are 40 crit should be 20int/20haste or if its a red socket straight int... INT IS KEY.

[Zuziza]

Int > haste > spirit/hit > crit = mastery

Haste is so valuable, stacking it instead of hit (yes, below hit cap) will increase your dps more than if you went for hit cap. Crit should be about the level of mastery. If you want to see a larger discussion on it, I'd suggest going to the forums on shadowpriest.com. They have a lot of theorycrafters that pick this priority apart. The same priority applies to reforging too.

Not everyone's comfortable with going under hit cap, so just do what you like. I'd highly suggest messing around with stats and checking on a target dummy. It's not as accurate as testing on a boss, but it's an easy way to see how fast you go oom, total damage til oom, and dps with hit cap or not. You can also try simcraft, but it's a takes a lot of time to figure it out if you're not used to such programs.

---------- Post added 2011-04-02 at 11:32 AM ----------

Or fire...

I think he means for pvp. The stun means nothing for pve.

[schoenkid37]

Intel then haste, always and forever. Especially in pvp where we are far less of a bursty class than most having dots tick as many times as possible before needing to reapply or getting dispelled can make a huge difference. A frost mage partner would help a LOT

[Cinis]

Hi there, I'm currently running Spriest/Fire mage in 2's (with grossly varying success, but that comes down to practice and how focused you are on the day); a few suggestions for your situation:

Duelling each other is nice and fine, but keep in mind that will mostly just make you accustomed to, from your point, what an Arcane Mage will do in a 1v1, and from his side, what a Shadowpriest will do in a 1v1. Neither is particularly useful for arena, and, might I add, there's hardly that many Arcane mages around (to my regret. I do enjoy seeing an arcane mage on the opposing team ). For duelling, keep in mind that you do so to practice solo-CC chains, priorities, and countermeasures. To learn anything from that, you'll need to duel a wide array of different classes, specs, and most of all, actually, players. It's good in that you'll learn what other classes are capable of, but also to see how differently 2 people can handle the same spec. Scope out its potential, so to say.

As for stats; I'm with most everyone else in this thread: Go Int/Haste. Int gives you SP, a smidgen of crit, and more base mana - and since pretty much all Spriest mana regen comes from max-mana-% replenishments, it will serve you better. As for haste > Crit, look at it this way. Which spells are important to crit with? Mind Blast. You already have a method to force crit chance (Spike, Spike, Blast) to proc Paralysis, and as for your DoTs critting, meh. To be entirely honest you'll likely see more of your DoTs getting dispelled and you spending precious globals reapplying them (making Haste far more attractive, not to mention shorter GCDs and faster tick times), and also, you'll be starving for mana.

Go duel a resto shaman that happens to have Cleansing Waters on his hotbar, after that it should become evident that int+haste > crit. Also, you'll grow a seething hatred for resto shamans, but that's another topic.

Finally, as for comp-wise things, if your partner is hellbent on staying Arcane, it can work I suppose. I'm slightly unsure as to the viability of it, though. Yes, Slow is nice, but it'll be dispelled, leaving you with only CoC+Frost Nova (that will also both be dispelled...) as actual kiting mechanics. I could just foresee some very unpleasant matches where you have dual melee on the other side, and you get wrecked. Frost is way superior for the defensive work, and honestly, Spriests need a decent amount of babysitting to get the job done.

As for spec and gearing, I finally figured that you were from a US server. A few things:

1: Spec - Get Dark Archangel. It's a mana regen feature and also your best burst facilitator. Get it. No discussion.
2: Spec - Veiled Shadows - this is a personal preference thing, but considering you're running 4 piece Satin (I can wholeheartedly recommend going 4 piece mooncloth, or even 2p/2p for dual resilience bonus, the 4 piece Satin bonus blows) you'll need all the added mobility you can get, and shoter CD on fade == goodly.
3: Gear - well, yeah. 4 piece satin is borderline useless. At least compared to going 4 piece mooncloth. Hell, some of the satin pieces are even inferior to mooncloth, from a *shadow* itemization PoV.
4: Spec - I'd _suggest_ (again, up to playstyle and comp) dumping points from imp SW: P and imp MB into Veiled Shadows and Twin Disciplines. Bear in mind that yes, points in imp PW: S is nice, but considering the mana cost of it, it's a toss up if you will have the mana to throw PW: S out everytime it's on CD anyway.
5: Spec - Sin And Punishment...well. it *can* prove useful, and it's the only dispel 'protection' we have. It's unreliable, DRs with your Psychic Horror (and itself), but it's still something.
6: Gear - You might want to look into getting a PvP CC breaking trinket at some point

[TheStraubulous]

.. 1: Spec - Get Dark Archangel. It's a mana regen feature and also your best burst facilitator. Get it. No discussion.
2: Spec - Veiled Shadows - this is a personal preference thing, but considering you're running 4 piece Satin (I can wholeheartedly recommend going 4 piece mooncloth, or even 2p/2p for dual resilience bonus, the 4 piece Satin bonus blows) you'll need all the added mobility you can get, and shoter CD on fade == goodly.
3: Gear - well, yeah. 4 piece satin is borderline useless. At least compared to going 4 piece mooncloth. Hell, some of the satin pieces are even inferior to mooncloth, from a *shadow* itemization PoV.
4: Spec - I'd _suggest_ (again, up to playstyle and comp) dumping points from imp SW: P and imp MB into Veiled Shadows and Twin Disciplines. Bear in mind that yes, points in imp PW: S is nice, but considering the mana cost of it, it's a toss up if you will have the mana to throw PW: S out everytime it's on CD anyway.
5: Spec - Sin And Punishment...well. it *can* prove useful, and it's the only dispel 'protection' we have. It's unreliable, DRs with your Psychic Horror (and itself), but it's still something.
6: Gear - You might want to look into getting a PvP CC breaking trinket at some point

1) Have not really looked into that, so I will check it out.
2) For the mooncloth gear.. What's wrong with these set bonus's? ("+400 Resil/+70Int/-5% Cast time on MB&MS/+90Int") vs "(+400 Resil/+70Int/PW:S movement speed reduction effects are null for 4 sec when cast on self/+90Int"). It just seems like the Satin set is all crit, and there is no way I'm getting all those Conquest Points again in order to buy the mooncloth gear, that would take forever and don't think it would be worth the change. Can't I just reforge to haste? But if I get enough pieces.. is it actually possible to get some of if not all of the set bonuses of both sets?
3) Hmmm
4) I will look into that very soon.
5) See 4
6) The trinkets I tested.. none were allowed to work in arena's. What gives? Got a suggestion?