[Priest] PvE Shadow Guide (by Kilee)

[HDPriest]

OK, I'm almost fulltime Discipline lately, but like to keep brushed up on the Shadowy goodness. Please be easy on me since this may be a really noobish question: Is Glyph of Spirit Tap really useful at all at levelcap in PvE? I thought it was only helpful when u gained XP or Honor so I traded it out for MassDispel to help out with dispelling unless I do a few BGs.

[Zuziza]

OK, I'm almost fulltime Discipline lately, but like to keep brushed up on the Shadowy goodness. Please be easy on me since this may be a really noobish question: Is Glyph of Spirit Tap really useful at all at levelcap in PvE? I thought it was only helpful when u gained XP or Honor so I traded it out for MassDispel to help out with dispelling unless I do a few BGs.

It's really a utility thing. If you're running fights where people are grouped up and your healers need help dispelling, your glyph can be greatly helpful. If you're doing a multidot or AOE fight that's draining hella mana or your hit is especially low, the Spirit Tap one can be useful as well. Neither is a direct PP gain over the other, it's all about how you and your raid group play.

[HDPriest]

OK, I thought you only got the mana back if you killed something with SW: D that granted XP or Honor, so I thought it was useless in level 85 PvE. Is the tooltip on the glyph just wrong or am I misunderstanding it?

[Kilee25]

Hi HDPriest, thank you for the question.

OK, I'm almost fulltime Discipline lately, but like to keep brushed up on the Shadowy goodness. Please be easy on me since this may be a really noobish question: Is Glyph of Spirit Tap really useful at all at levelcap in PvE? I thought it was only helpful when u gained XP or Honor so I traded it out for MassDispel to help out with dispelling unless I do a few BGs.

Glyph of Spirit Tap works after you have reached level 85 - against any mob whose level indicator in the target window is green or more (only grey doesn't work). If you are playing as shadow, the glyph is great for solo play and 5-mans, but it is much less useful in a raid environment. Occasionally fights will have some limited use on add-heavy fights (Maloriak, Cho'gall, even OMD and Magmaw to some extint). As Omirr was suggesting a few pages back, I need to add some more detail surrounding this glyph as well as go over a few of the viable options to replace it with. I will update this section in my next update.

Your idea to trade it out with Mass Disepell works perfectly and is great.

---------- Post added 2011-06-29 at 05:50 PM ----------

Hi Raynet, thank you for the feedback.

I guess there's only 1 thing really that I have found to not make much of a difference in my DPS. it's the whole discussion of whether or not to cast MB on CD or wait for 1 orb. I have generally been waiting for 1 orb, but have tested both situations on target dummies. I find my ES buff falls off more then enough if I don't wait for 1 orb. Other people say this never happens to them on boss fights but I wonder what kind of crazy luck they have. Either way in my tests I didn't see much of a difference in DPS when I cast it on CD or when I waited for an orb so I guess it hardly matters. I will be toying with things on dummies and in boss fights I am sure as time progresses.

Oh I also was testing with clipping MF for MB but that didn't even result in a DPS change really and it's much easier to just let the MF cast go through which is the way I have been playing for a while. I am going to run this through some more tests too though. I guess I am the type of person who would take say a 100 dps hit for a much less stressing rotation. :P

Ah ok, so there's two things going on here that need to be talked about.

First off, what to do when ES falls off (or is falling off). It's true that casting Mind Blast on CD is going create situations here ES falls down. What you need to learn to adapt to in this situation is refreshing dots and remembering under what power the dots are currently ticking. In general if ES is about to fall off and DP is about to go down, and MB has a ways to go, you can just tap DP again to refresh it. This is fine because IDP is more dps than Mind Flay anyway, and it avoids any lost dps. Alternatively you can just cast DP withotu ES, and tap it again as soon as ES goes back up. This should normalize your DPS around ES outages with Devouring Plague. Vampiric Touch is more tricky, but essentially the same rules apply. When ES is about to drop and VT might be going down too, just refresh VT early. If a non-ES VT is ticking and ES goes up, refresh VT. In both cases your dps should more or less normalize itself and stop fluctuating up and down with ES drops.

For Mind Flay clipping.... this is even more tricky, but I have to say I'm genuinely surprised you didn't notice a DPS gain immediately after doing it. This was possibly one of my biggest breakthroughs in Cataclysm. I had 2 other shadowpriests in my 25-man guild, and pulled ahead of both of them my nearly 1000 DPS the day I started experimenting with it. I got a "what the fuck are you doing" from both of them that same raid night. So I have to admit I'm a bit baffled that it didn't work for you. I will say that the timing is a bit tricky on it and it takes some practice.

I've been thinking I really need to make a video one of these days where I just DPS a target dummy for 3 minutes and demonstrat things like refreshing dots and clipping Mind Flays...

But anyway, I would say if these things don't work for you or even worse lower you dps, don't do them. Not everyone plays the same or has the same UI setup. In the end we have to do what works best for us. I would say try the things in the guide and if they don't work, just don't do them and find what works best for you. I wil continue to ask around and if I hear a lot more shadow priests saying this doesn't work, I'll try to look into it harder.

[Zuziza]

OK, I thought you only got the mana back if you killed something with SW: D that granted XP or Honor, so I thought it was useless in level 85 PvE. Is the tooltip on the glyph just wrong or am I misunderstanding it?

The tooltip is just misleading. Although you don't get experience from raids or heroic dungeons because you're max level, you would if it wasn't for level restrictions. A better rule would be "if you kill something that doesn't have a grey number", you get the buff.

[HDPriest]

OK, ty guys for the answers and courtesy! I was so confused, lol. I'll probably keep the Mass Dispel one though, since our Resto Druid seems to be allergic to dispelling >:-(

[Swampsong]

Hey would it be worth using Vibrant alchemist stone instead of my 359 Theralion's Mirror to hit the haste plateau of 2140? I'm not sure if the dps increase would offset using a slightly less valuable trinket. The obvious answer is prob to simcraft.

[Kilee25]

Hi Swampsong, thank you for your question.

Hey would it be worth using Vibrant alchemist stone instead of my 359 Theralion's Mirror to hit the haste plateau of 2140? I'm not sure if the dps increase would offset using a slightly less valuable trinket. The obvious answer is prob to simcraft.

So I've read that reaching a new tick of VT is roughly equivalent to gaining about 50 intellect. I don't know if the math was correct, but if we go with that evaluation, then yes the Alchemy Stone would be worth it.

Looking at this another way, I'm going to pull up Simulationcraft and take a make-believe gear set with Theralion's Mirror, then adjust the haste to just below 2140, sim it, and then replace the mirror with the alchemist stone and see what happens.

I'll take my own character (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...g/kilee/simple) (probably will be a valid example for 2-3 days...) which is wearing Theralions Mirror (359) and unforge the haste from Darkmoon Card: Volcano to mastery. This puts me at 2138 haste.

Result: 2138 haste with Theralion's Mirror: 25379dps - Haste stat weight is .7373 (heh)

Now I'll replace Theralion's Mirror with the Alchemist stone to bring the haste back over the 2140 mark.

Result: 2255 haste with Vibrant Alchemist's Stone: 25432dps - Haste stat weight is .5326

So.... some might say it is an imperfect test, but it's good enough for me. My answer is yes it's worth trading them out. You should see an even larger increase while multi-dotting.

Bear in mind that if you can reach that haste number without needing the Alchemists stone then Theralion's Mirror is still better.

Good luck and let me know how it works for you.

[Deleted]

I've been thinking I really need to make a video one of these days where I just DPS a target dummy for 3 minutes and demonstrat things like refreshing dots and clipping Mind Flays...

Been there, done that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7INaUvDQUh0
Feel free to comment tho as it's not perfect. Note this was in 4.1. I'll be making new vids for 4.2 soon.

[AnjaJD]

Some decent information in this guide - I have a home-brewed one myself that I usually dish out to friends and guildmates who need help and former guilds that need help with their priests.

But I can't help but wonder why you list your dot "plateaus" (as you will) so incorrectly. A fellow shadowpriest and I were clocking them again today on server, because he didn't quite believe what a few other sources were saying. So we were doing some on-server testing versus simulation.

At 85, base - no haste, nothing - we get 5 VT ticks, 6 SW:P ticks, 8 DP ticks.

You say:

+1 +2 +3
Vampiric Touch 10.00% (0220) [0091] 30.00% (2588) [2435] 50.00% (4956) [4780]
Vampiric Touch (DI) 10.00% (0000) [0000] 30.00% (2140) [1991] 50.00% (4441) [4268]

+1 +2 +3
Imp. Devouring Plague 12.50% (1601) 25.00% (3202) 37.50% (4803)

What I was running with tests... has been showing something completely different. As we scale into higher content, I wonder when to scale back on haste for mastery (especially thanks to the huge dot nerf we just received, but more on that in a moment.)

I was taking off haste, and dropped my haste to 17.37 in form - 6 VT ticks / 7 SW:P ticks / 9 DP ticks. From here on the format will be haste - #/#/# (their ticks in same order respectively to what I just listed, then +#/+#/+# from base, VT/SW:P/DP respectively.)

I raised everything incrementally, I saved all my blues for this reason, I periodically check things in an ocd fashion. By incrementally I raised it as close to .25 as possible. Some of the time I was at .23, then I would recheck at .26 - I will post only what I found relevant to a dot tick added for space-saving.

17.37% = 6/7/9 - +1/+1/+1 (I was nearly naked, wearing my tier shoulders, a haste hat, and some reforged rings, one of them a blue, lol)
18.56% = 6/7/9 - +1/+1/+1
18.76% = 6/7/10 - +1/+1/+2
... The next jump didn't happen until I switched up some old gear and broke my 4pc for giggles (I've been on a quasi hiatus for medical reasons).
27.27% = 6/8/10 - +1/+2/+2 Shadow word pain, finally gets its day (again). (this was using a sub-optimal dps trinket that had latent haste on it)
25.16% = 6/8/10 - +1/+2/+2 (Without that trinket - with my normal sustained dps trinkets for raid. This equates to "2014 rating +15.73% haste" in the character panel. This is when I'm standing in form, no other buffs that affect haste. Without form, in this gear, my haste percentage reads 19.20%)
...
28.33 6/8/10 - +1/+2/+2
30.23 7/8/10 - +2/+2/+2 (The level is probably 30%)
30.95 7/8/10 - +2/+2/+2
...
34.88 7/8/11 - +2/+2/+3 (Dark Intent, we had to whore a lock to get it outside of a raid setting, we were doing the test at an odd time on server, we couldn't however, figure down were the actual +3 mark is, the warlock abandoned us and we lost the buff. Ugh. So we'll have to pay some loving to my RL friend who is a warlock on-server.)
34.57 7/8/11 - +2/+2/+3 (Dark Intent on my partymate, who has slightly less haste than me, but higher iLevel... more crit, essentially.)

Mind you my ilevel at the time of posting is 359, no firelands opening cloak, no avengers rep belt like my testing partymate.

I'm mostly concerned with this because the sources he's firing against me. He is the interested-in-theroycrafting-but-not-quite-familiar-with-his-new-main kind of priest to know what sources are blowing smoke and what sources are actually ON to something... he also doesn't know where to find reliable equations, not savvy with spreadsheets (building his own or using *good* spreadsheet and editing it). There's a difference in using good theorycrafters with slightly conflicting data, and just bad data from players trying to be the big elitistjerk. :P (Not saying yours falls into any of those categories, I just wanted to post these haste numbers and share them... possibly for clarification for yourself and others that visit this guide.)

I haven't, do this day, found a *reliable* datasheet, equation, simulator, that can project accurate haste levels for next dot ticks. What I would like to know... when is the next dot tick beyond what I can already obtain? Clearly... we can probably can another 1000 rating if we're utter snobs about reforging and going after only high-haste items. The difference in +1/+2/+2 barely happening (2015 rating) and my current gear (2337 rating) and eeking out extra haste to test if I can get extra dot ticks on the dummy (2580 haste rating) - that's a big difference in rating. As we progress through content (there may be 2 additional tiers this expansion)... I love to plan ahead, just as I did last xpac.

Now here's the thing... with all this haste, my test subject saw great gains in the dummy. He's been at a loss and ignoring my trusted sources (and my own guide) for what to reforge, what to gem for, what to enchant. So, it finally took doing all this to get him to realize he didn't need to nuke all of his haste down to 17%, all his mastery to 277 and change it to all to crit (while crit isn't bad... changing what he did to get there...), and put himself .5% over hit cap. Oi.

So now that he's seen the light he's on the same page as I am, and I've been wondering this since they announced the nerf to our dots...

Do we need all these extra dot ticks to an extent now that our dot damage isn't going to be as prominent of a damage dealer? Should we hit the first +1/+2/+2 and stop (18.75) and balance mastery/crit so we get "double" damage from crits and increased damage overall from mastery stacking on dots and insane Mind Blast increases from 3x orbs? (I had a spreadsheet that calculated the total increases per orb when you filled out all your gear, very handy.) Or should we just go until we get +2/+2/+2 (possibly 30% haste, achievable in pre-firelands with some handy reforging, but probably easily achievable with some basic rep gear, or early firelands gear... I haven't even started with the gearlists yet because I want to get to the bottom of this, I'll gladly accrue EPGP as mages and warlocks spend theirs on wrong pieces/suboptimal sidegrades or something... we're a 25man guild, it's bound to drop again.) I've never been a huge stacker of crit as you will, but I'll pick up a crit/haste combo piece if my hit can support it and there's really no other viable options in that tier (and there's no better PP options in other gear slots). Huzzah puzzle solving, I love a good puzzle.

Either way around it. I mostly wanted to post about the haste numbers. You have what I benched on the server today, 6/30/2011 through 12:00-4:00pm EST. Yes I was talented when I did all of this, so there as the 3% haste from talents, but I believe blizzard has that fixed into the character panel now, and I know they fixed the shadow form. Enjoy the delicious numbers.

[Zuziza]

Some decent information in this guide - I have a home-brewed one myself that I usually dish out to friends and guildmates who need help and former guilds that need help with their priests.

But I can't help but wonder why you list your dot "plateaus" (as you will) so incorrectly. A fellow shadowpriest and I were clocking them again today on server, because he didn't quite believe what a few other sources were saying. So we were doing some on-server testing versus simulation.

At 85, base - no haste, nothing - we get 5 VT ticks, 6 SW:P ticks, 8 DP ticks.

You say:

(quote)

What I was running with tests... has been showing something completely different. As we scale into higher content, I wonder when to scale back on haste for mastery (especially thanks to the huge dot nerf we just received, but more on that in a moment.)

I was taking off haste, and dropped my haste to 17.37 in form - 6 VT ticks / 7 SW:P ticks / 9 DP ticks. From here on the format will be haste - #/#/# (their ticks in same order respectively to what I just listed, then +#/+#/+# from base, VT/SW:P/DP respectively.)

I raised everything incrementally, I saved all my blues for this reason, I periodically check things in an ocd fashion. By incrementally I raised it as close to .25 as possible. Some of the time I was at .23, then I would recheck at .26 - I will post only what I found relevant to a dot tick added for space-saving.

17.37% = 6/7/9 - +1/+1/+1 (I was nearly naked, wearing my tier shoulders, a haste hat, and some reforged rings, one of them a blue, lol)
18.56% = 6/7/9 - +1/+1/+1
18.76% = 6/7/10 - +1/+1/+2
... The next jump didn't happen until I switched up some old gear and broke my 4pc for giggles (I've been on a quasi hiatus for medical reasons).
27.27% = 6/8/10 - +1/+2/+2 Shadow word pain, finally gets its day (again). (this was using a sub-optimal dps trinket that had latent haste on it)
25.16% = 6/8/10 - +1/+2/+2 (Without that trinket - with my normal sustained dps trinkets for raid. This equates to "2014 rating +15.73% haste" in the character panel. This is when I'm standing in form, no other buffs that affect haste. Without form, in this gear, my haste percentage reads 19.20%)
...
28.33 6/8/10 - +1/+2/+2
30.23 7/8/10 - +2/+2/+2 (The level is probably 30%)
30.95 7/8/10 - +2/+2/+2
...
34.88 7/8/11 - +2/+2/+3 (Dark Intent, we had to whore a lock to get it outside of a raid setting, we were doing the test at an odd time on server, we couldn't however, figure down were the actual +3 mark is, the warlock abandoned us and we lost the buff. Ugh. So we'll have to pay some loving to my RL friend who is a warlock on-server.)
34.57 7/8/11 - +2/+2/+3 (Dark Intent on my partymate, who has slightly less haste than me, but higher iLevel... more crit, essentially.)

Mind you my ilevel at the time of posting is 359, no firelands opening cloak, no avengers rep belt like my testing partymate.

I'm mostly concerned with this because the sources he's firing against me. He is the interested-in-theroycrafting-but-not-quite-familiar-with-his-new-main kind of priest to know what sources are blowing smoke and what sources are actually ON to something... he also doesn't know where to find reliable equations, not savvy with spreadsheets (building his own or using *good* spreadsheet and editing it). There's a difference in using good theorycrafters with slightly conflicting data, and just bad data from players trying to be the big elitistjerk. :P (Not saying yours falls into any of those categories, I just wanted to post these haste numbers and share them... possibly for clarification for yourself and others that visit this guide.)

I haven't, do this day, found a *reliable* datasheet, equation, simulator, that can project accurate haste levels for next dot ticks. What I would like to know... when is the next dot tick beyond what I can already obtain? Clearly... we can probably can another 1000 rating if we're utter snobs about reforging and going after only high-haste items. The difference in +1/+2/+2 barely happening (2015 rating) and my current gear (2337 rating) and eeking out extra haste to test if I can get extra dot ticks on the dummy (2580 haste rating) - that's a big difference in rating. As we progress through content (there may be 2 additional tiers this expansion)... I love to plan ahead, just as I did last xpac.

Now here's the thing... with all this haste, my test subject saw great gains in the dummy. He's been at a loss and ignoring my trusted sources (and my own guide) for what to reforge, what to gem for, what to enchant. So, it finally took doing all this to get him to realize he didn't need to nuke all of his haste down to 17%, all his mastery to 277 and change it to all to crit (while crit isn't bad... changing what he did to get there...), and put himself .5% over hit cap. Oi.

So now that he's seen the light he's on the same page as I am, and I've been wondering this since they announced the nerf to our dots...

Do we need all these extra dot ticks to an extent now that our dot damage isn't going to be as prominent of a damage dealer? Should we hit the first +1/+2/+2 and stop (18.75) and balance mastery/crit so we get "double" damage from crits and increased damage overall from mastery stacking on dots and insane Mind Blast increases from 3x orbs? (I had a spreadsheet that calculated the total increases per orb when you filled out all your gear, very handy.) Or should we just go until we get +2/+2/+2 (possibly 30% haste, achievable in pre-firelands with some handy reforging, but probably easily achievable with some basic rep gear, or early firelands gear... I haven't even started with the gearlists yet because I want to get to the bottom of this, I'll gladly accrue EPGP as mages and warlocks spend theirs on wrong pieces/suboptimal sidegrades or something... we're a 25man guild, it's bound to drop again.) I've never been a huge stacker of crit as you will, but I'll pick up a crit/haste combo piece if my hit can support it and there's really no other viable options in that tier (and there's no better PP options in other gear slots). Huzzah puzzle solving, I love a good puzzle.

Either way around it. I mostly wanted to post about the haste numbers. You have what I benched on the server today, 6/30/2011 through 12:00-4:00pm EST. Yes I was talented when I did all of this, so there as the 3% haste from talents, but I believe blizzard has that fixed into the character panel now, and I know they fixed the shadow form. Enjoy the delicious numbers.

A couple things:

1) Huge dot nerf? 12% is not that much. All it affected was base damage. The actual damage a DoT does still takes all the modifiers and buffs (like ES) into account, so in reality, it's not that bad.

2) I reread through your numbers several times, and the part I bolded still confuses me. Was this out of order on purpose or was it a typo? Which trinket were you using? What is your character pane showing? It should only show one haste number (not X% + Y%), and if you close/reopen it, it will snapshot your stats from what I recall. Your discussion on whether or not you were in sform is irrelevant really; only your haste% and the number of ticks would matter with the issues you're bringing up. If you could clarify the point you were trying to make with this, it'd be a lot easier to discuss.

3) Crit is a terrible stat. It's RNG and we're not bursty. Yay, a 5k crit from DP! I'm so excited! Yay! A 10k crit from SW: P! And so on. Just because it could crit on a 3 orb MB while you popped your wings does not mean it will, and it's not something to gear around. The orb proc has a maximum chance of 18% when SW: P and MF do damage. There's no way to increase that chance (though you could speed them up by stacking haste), and gearing around RNG twice over is just silly.

Also, trying to argue that mastery would be better than haste because of ​Mind Blast ignores the fact that MB is still (even AFTER 4.2) not a huge part of our damage, and the increase in damage it does is limited by the simple fact that it has a CD. We are a DoT class. Most of our damage done is going to be VT, SW: P, and MF over MB. We only cared about mastery from Theralion's Mirror because it was a gigantic boost to ES. The only reason we would start reforging out of crit instead of mastery is that mastery is catching up to haste because the ES boost is beginning to scale well.

In sum, I fail to see how you can argue that we should gear for mastery because of MB and orbs, especially after you insinuated that mastery devalued because of a DoT nerf.

TL;DR: Ghostcrawler haunts us with his thoughts of Spriest burst damage.

Edit:

I went back to find the quote to back up my bit on #3.

The benefit of reaching a new tick with [Vampiric Touch] is not the added tick. It's just simply that the spell goes from about 13 second duration back to 15 second duration. In effect getting an extra tick of damage on this dot makes it last longer, so you don't have to refresh it as often. You don't get this effect with Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain, so we don't have to worry about them. The additional benefit of stacking haste up until this point is that you need a certain amount of it to help proc Shadow Orbs in order to make your Mastery more effective.

Essentially, we want to hit the haste plateau because we get more casting time due to fewer refreshes. Not only is that 2 seconds more per 15 seconds of a VT (Adding up to 40 seconds of cast time in a 10 minute fight) which is presumably filled with MF, but it also means that the RNG effect of proccing orbs is lessened because we now get more SW: P and MF tics in the same amount of time due to shorter periods between tics for both. Having that much haste makes mastery a better stat because it makes the orb procs happen more often, not due to chance, but due to having more opportunities.

However, this leaves the issue you brought up with not being able to find a reliable haste/tic table. This I'm more skeptical to comment on, especially since I'm completely unable to tell if your tests were done correctly. You mentioned going in and out of shadowform (which conflicts with the fact that Kilee's stats were given under the assumption that you're always in shadowform, since haste is multiplicative), included irrelevant discussion of crit and trinkets (unless they're somehow boosting your haste, but that wasn't explained well), and you weren't consistent with the use of DI. Altogether, it makes your numbers come off as unreliable. There's a lot of room for human error in your testing, and the way you explained it doesn't really assuage those concerns.

[spiralout]

But I can't help but wonder why you list your dot "plateaus" (as you will) so incorrectly.

I know this question wasn't directed at me, but you got your 7th VT tick at 30%, and looks to me you were counting points were reg DP got ticks, not when Imp DP got it's extra upfront damage from haste, and with SW: P, it doesnt really matter so much.

[Kilee25]

Hi AnjaJD, thank you for your feedback and questions. I had to read through your post several times to figure out what you're trying to say. I'll do my best to adress everything you've brought up.

But I can't help but wonder why you list your dot "plateaus" (as you will) so incorrectly. A fellow shadowpriest and I were clocking them again today on server, because he didn't quite believe what a few other sources were saying. So we were doing some on-server testing versus simulation.

<snip examples>

I see nothing wrong in your testing, and nothing that conflicts with my guide. You've reached additional dot ticks at the appropriate levels of haste. In my guide, I list haste values under the assumption that you've taken 3/3 Veiled Shadows and that you are in Shadow Form. The second tick of VT hapens at 2588 haste, which is 30% haste, which is exactly what you are showing. So I don't see anything wrong here.

My listing for Improved Devouring Plague is for the initial burst damage and not an additional tick of damage. These are two different things. The initial burst from DP is not affected by talents or shadow form, and only from your base amount of haste.

I haven't, do this day, found a *reliable* datasheet, equation, simulator, that can project accurate haste levels for next dot ticks. What I would like to know... when is the next dot tick beyond what I can already obtain?

Ok, there is the equation to find out the amount of haste you need to obtain a certain amount of dot ticks.

X = ((((base tick distance)*(number of ticks - .5)/(base dot duration)/(haste modifiers))-1)*100)*128.05701

So for VT, our base tick distance is 3, and our base dot duration is 15. Our haste modifiers are 1.03 and 1.05 (3% from Veiled Shadows and 5% from shadowform).

For VT, you end up with the following equation:

X = 2368.1365n - 13989.768

6 ticks = 2368.1365*6 - 13989.768 = 219.051 = 220
7 ticks = 2368.1365*7 - 13989.768 = 2587.187 = 2588
8 ticks = 2368.1365*8 - 13989.768 = 4955.324 = 4956

This correlates with the guide, and is where the numbers come from. I'm not going to bother going through the equation and math for DP and SW:P since we don't really care about them. You can alter the equation for our other dots and play around with the math if you like.

<snip remainder of post>

At the moment I wouldn't suggest trading out haste for other stats. You "might" see a small gain from adding some mastery just after reacing a 2nd tick of VT, but the gain will be small and in the end adding haste should be about the same amount of damage increase.

The haste plateaus at this moment are listed in case you are close to them but have not yet reached them. If you can find a way to get to them you should notice a damage increase, even if you have to do a little gemming or enchanting to get there. There's nothing else profound to get out of them at this point in time.

---------- Post added 2011-07-01 at 06:44 PM ----------

Updated Glyphs, Stat Weights, Gear List, Trinkets, Gems, and FAQ.

[MoanaLisa]

Really great guide Kilee. Thanks.

---------- Post added 2011-07-02 at 01:59 PM ----------

Most decent shadow priests don't need to be told a priority of Mind Blast, or using it on cooldown.

As a guide it should iterate that point, and illustrate the risks, something that hasn't been taken into account yet.

Exactly.

One of the things that a lot of guide writers have a hard time with is stepping back from everything they know. Assuming that everyone knows X or Y leads to guides that are difficult to understand even for experienced players looking at a class/spec for the first time.

I've tried guide writing. It's not as easy as it sometimes looks. You can't assume anything if you're writing a class guide.

[Keosen]

1) Huge dot nerf? 12% is not that much. All it affected was base damage. The actual damage a DoT does still takes all the modifiers and buffs (like ES) into account, so in reality, it's not that bad.

Patch notes do not mention base damage so i assume that the nerf is on damage i.e if SW:P in a given situation was hitting for 1000 now hits for 880.
Maybe i'm wrong but i think that every time they nerf a spell base-wise they mention it like "Ice lance base damage reduced by 10%"

[Zuziza]

Patch notes do not mention base damage so i assume that the nerf is on damage i.e if SW:P in a given situation was hitting for 1000 now hits for 880.
Maybe i'm wrong but i think that every time they nerf a spell base-wise they mention it like "Ice lance base damage reduced by 10%"

Rethought it a bit: how do you nerf something by 12% for every 85 spriest regardless of gear level?

First, I still say it's feasible that it's a 12% nerf to base damage. I have little faith in Blizz's blue posts, patch notes, and tooltips. Leaving out 1 word specifically does not really rule it out. (I just don't trust Blizz to be accurate about anything.)

Secondly, this made me think it could have been a nerf to the spell modifiers. That would mostly affect the spells' scaling with stats from gear and buffs. I doubt they would nerf the scaling to all stats (haste plateaus seem unchanged), and it's instead a nerf to the modifier for SP. 12% is still a fairly minor nerf in that regard. We haven't seen our DPS drop since 4.2 hit at all, and I haven't seen any difference in the DPS rankings among my guild (though that's still limiting it to my personal experiences).

In either case, I really don't see a cause for alarm. Base damage takes modifers into account, and even if the modifiers were changed, haste wasn't, so our DoTs are still fairly powerful. We won't really be able to see how it pans out until people slow down on gearing anyway, since everyone who's coming on is getting upgrades from rep and dailies by next week.

[minsunye]

if i cannot hit 2588 without DI do i still try to go for as much haste as possible or do i go for more mastery?

[Zuziza]

You still stack haste beforehand. It's just a goal you have to shoot for because that plateau specifically is a big DPS boost.

[Keosen]

We haven't seen our DPS drop since 4.2 hit at all, and I haven't seen any difference in the DPS rankings among my guild

Neither do i nor anyone has seen i guess, but the fact is that our dots now are less powerful you can see it in multidotting fights/trash it doesn't worth to load dots on every target and got massive ticks anymore.
We are in the same place as before and maybe a little better because of the hard hitting MB mainly.

Maybe you are right about the base damage i just pointed out that there is no patch note clarifying this,

[Zuziza]

I could be wrong about the base damage, but I think that'd be a simpler fix than modifying the SP multipliers for all 3 DoTs. Either is feasible, and there may be some other way to do a 12% nerf that just hasn't popped in my head. Those are just what occur to me and wouldn't be all that difficult to implement. Blizz saying "X% decrease" is absurdly vague because they don't say exactly what it was that was changed.

I do agree we're in about the same spot as before. Multidotting isn't as awesome as it was, but it's still worth doing on certain pulls. I have noticed that I'm refreshing more often because they take longer to kill adds, which means more mana issues with mutlidotting. That is aggravating. It's less of an issue in Firelands where there's enough of a break between pulls for a Dispersion or quick drink, but it's a pain when you're trying to chain pull through a heroic or do a ZA bear run. It hasn't really come up in Firelands for me yet (Beth upstairs and Shannox so far), but Ryolith is next, so that should be fun.