Hey all, first post here. /wave
Long story short, I pwned in SoO and a lot of people I know went and rerolled spriest because of me. :P Now I understand the rotation is different and we are forced to use CoP and dotweave on virtually every fight (yes, I know this may change soon and I hope it does) and as far as I know, I've been adapting and dotweaving perfectly (will discuss my rotation shortly). However, I had vaguely known about Warcraftlogs, but only recently had someone introduce me to it and point out that my numbers are slacking profoundly on a lot of the new bosses in WoD. I realize that the numbers are skewed because the website is only tracking 1 kill per boss on a couple scattered bosses, but seeing myself at like 20th percentile came as a total shock to me, since I always felt I did relatively well compared to the pugs I was with and even pretty much all other shadow priests I encountered pugging...and now I'm determined to fix it.
I also noticed that judging by warcraft logs, another shadow priest that I really respect seems to be having a hard time with the same exact bosses I'm flunking on, albeit not as hard (though she has about 10 ilvls on me).
I am 666ilvl and my gear is crit > multistrike > mastery/haste. I cannot link my Armory apparently, as this is my first post. My character is Regia-MoonGuard.
I won't link the friend's armory without permission, but she is 674ilvl and it looks like she is gearing mastery > multistrike > crit/haste judging by her gear.
Is it our gearing stat priority or something else? When I saw that she and I failed the same bosses (particularly Gruul), I thought maybe it was because we both geared the same way, for multitarget, and you needed to prioritize mastery in order to perform on singletarget fights. However, her armory shows that unlike me, she's going for a substantial amount of mastery, and she still sucks on Gruul.
Something I wish I could see on Warcraftlogs is whether the same 90th percentile shadow priests on Gruul are also doing well on Darmac etc., or if they are comparatively underperforming there. The latter would suggest that shadow priests need at least 2 entirely different gear sets to be competitive on a general scale, which is beyond stupid. I am geared primarily for multitarget (though I attempted to squeeze some mastery in there for those singletarget fights -- possibly unwise??) yet was told to GTFO from a heroic group because I was judged purely off of my scores on Gruul. /rage
So I guess the best input I could get would be from any shadow priest that has done WELL on Gruul. Obviously someone's at the 85th percentile and above -- Warcraftlogs suggests that percentile is around 29-30k. Anyone breaking 30k on Gruul, normal or heroic? Can I see your gear and rotation?
Rotation for singletarget (i.e. Gruul, my worst encounter):
MS + MB until 4 orbs > MS > SW:P > VT > MB > Insanity (refresh and continue to full duration possible) > MB when insanity is done > Insanity again (full duration possible), other dots fall off with a couple seconds remaining on Insanity > back to MS + MB
Oregorger: Same as above, running around frantically and watching my numbers go to hell once the crate phase starts.
Flamebender: Modified version of above, keeping SW:P and VT up on Flamebender and one wolf while I perform the above rotation on the other wolf. Prioritize MB on cooldown on the non-dotted wolf.
Hans/Franz: Same as above; keep SW:P and VT up on the second guy while he's targetable, otherwise perform singletarget rotation on the other guy.
Kromog (haven't done as shadow, only as disc, but would do this): Singletarget burn rotation on boss, halo all the hands, burn the tanks' hands, mind sear some while there are still available clumps of hands, then SW:P/SW: D/MB the remaining hands, prioritizing healer hands for DP/insanity if available.
"Strategy" for Blast Furnace (using Auspicious Spirits):
SW:P on everything, spam DP, Insanity on priority targets, MC security guard at ~5% for elemental debuff and big melee damage for a short time (hits harder than I do, usually dies early from dots while MCed -- this is strategic as it is untauntable when MC drops)
Iron Maidens (Auspicious Spirits, Surge of Darkness, Twist of Fate):
Prioritize keeping SW:P up on everything, then apply VT, use instant mind spike whenever available, spend most of the fight refreshing dots and preventing SW:P from falling off. Possibly excessive re-application of SW:P, often refreshing it whenever I refresh VT. [Side-note: My Affdots:Spriest and Tidyplates used to show ticking dot durations above nameplates without targeting or focusing council-type bosses, but they no longer work and I haven't been able to get them to, so I've been relying on /focus and the mental clock -- is there a new addon for this?]
Thogar (I am about average on this fight):
When no adds, use rotation for singletarget as described above, otherwise spam mind sear. When cannon guy comes up, mind blast it; if DP is ready, throw DP and just blast it with Insanity without weaving other dots onto it.
Beastlord Darmac (Strongest fight, 83rd percentile):
Burn singletarget rotation on darmac when he's alone, put SW:P on all spears for ToF procs, add VT to the spears also if they are sitting at high health for long periods of time (halo/mind sear on the stampede is higher priority than this unless spears pose a threat) I'm currently doing 37k on this fight on heroic, no kill yet and no logs.
Is it my gearing stat priority? Do I need to have a second gear set for singletarget fights in order to not be laughable? Is it just that I'm not padding as much as other spriests do?
Please, if you are excelling on Gruul as shadow, let me see your gear