[Shadow] quick Gear and Stat Inquiry

[AegisRose]

I thought I made this post earlier, but it never showed up Oh well, here it is again.

Greetings Forum,
My main is Holy, but I'm trying to make my shadow more viable... I'm really a terrible Spriest though. I wanna be able to raid with my shadow gear if I'm needed to switch, etc.

After lots of browsing, I found various lists for Best in Slot Shadow Priest all which seemed to point to these items below... does this look correct?

(FYI I tried providing links and it told me I couldn't b/c I have to post a few times. I'll update with the links later)
Head: Mask of New Snow - Valor Points
Neck:Tauntka’s Necklace - High Prophet Barim – Lost City of Tolvir
Shoulder: Kyrstel Mantle - Ascendant Lord Obsidius – Blackrock Caverns
Chest: Robes of Rampant Growth - Ammunae – Halls of Origination
Back: Cloak of Ancient Wisdom - Earthen Ring Rep - Revered
Wrist: Crimsonborne Bracers - Drahga Shadowburner – Grim Batol
Hands: Flamebloom Gloves - Earthen Ring - Exalted
Waist: Belt of the Depths - Tailoring
Legs: Breeches of Mended Nightmares - Tailoring
Feet: Desert Walker Sandals - Ramkahen - Exalted
Ring: Ring of the Boy Emperor - Tol'vir - Archaeology
Ring: Diamant’s Ring of Temperance - Therazane Rep - Revered
Trinket: Anhuur’s Hymnal - Temple Guardian Anhuur – Halls of Origination
Trinket: Gale of Shadows - Erudax – Grim Batol
Main Hand: Staff of Sorcerer – Thane Thaurissan - Dwarf - Archaeology
Wand: Wand of Untainted Power - Forgemaster Throngus – Grim Batol
-or-
Main Hand: Scepter of Power – Setesh - Halls of Origination
Off Hand: Apple bent Bough - Justice points - 950


Questions:
- A few of those items have spirit. Do I reforge any spirit on these items for.... crit? mastery?
- I'm a little put off by the archaeology items... any recommendations for other items to replace the Archaeology ones?

Also, if all I've read is to be believed, my stat concerns at this time are: Int > haste > Crit > Mastery

What happened to hit? should I just not worry about it? Is there a hit cap I should reach? from what I've read, it seems that there is a split in opinions about hit capping or not. As an off-spec, should I worry about it? I'm not trying to top the charts here, I just want to keep up so it's viable in a raid if needed.

Last Q: for trash mobs / doing dailies, is there an optimal rotation for damage/maintain mana? or do most people just do whatever? I seem to MindSpikex3, MB, SW;D with occasional dots as needed. I just don't know what people do to DPS in general. LOL I'm such a healer.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

[AegisRose]

Hey guys~ my most pressing question atm is about the spirit... do I reforge the spirit from the items listed to crit or mastery?

[Arctae]

There is a hit cap, but there are different schools of thought on how important it is to reach this cap in 4.x. I prefer to be hit capped personally, but I have not pushed as hard for it as I did in previous expansions. The cap is 17%, 1742 rating, and you can see your current chance to miss by looking in your stats on your character window. Since spirit gives hit, I watch what I reforge and try to keep close to the hit cap while reforging anything to haste where possible. It just depends on your gear set up and if you want to reach the cap or not.

My wife plays a holy priest and we generally do our dailies together, so I will generally do mind spike x3, vamp. touch, mind blast (to kick off replenishment, it helps both of us), and then death if the mob is not already dead, which it is generally by that point. For most trash mobs, I generally just follow my standard rotation, it's habit for me so it just goes without thinking for the most part.

[Twintop]

I thought I made this post earlier, but it never showed up Oh well, here it is again.

Greetings Forum,
My main is Holy, but I'm trying to make my shadow more viable... I'm really a terrible Spriest though. I wanna be able to raid with my shadow gear if I'm needed to switch, etc.

After lots of browsing, I found various lists for Best in Slot Shadow Priest all which seemed to point to these items below... does this look correct?

{ITEM LIST}

That looks fairly acceptable for a pre-raid shadow priest. I didn't look at each item individually, but see what looks like 5 epics (lacking only Earthen Ring gloves), so you're pretty well set.

Questions:
- A few of those items have spirit. Do I reforge any spirit on these items for.... crit? mastery?

What happened to hit? should I just not worry about it? Is there a hit cap I should reach? from what I've read, it seems that there is a split in opinions about hit capping or not. As an off-spec, should I worry about it? I'm not trying to top the charts here, I just want to keep up so it's viable in a raid if needed.

Will you be raiding? As Arctae said, there are different opinions about this. Shoot for at least 15% if not a full 17%. You'll want to reforge either mastery or crit to spirit to accomplish this, or, gem blue sockets with 20int/20spirit gems (if the socket bonus is worthwhile). Right now crit is slightly more valuable than mastery at a high gear level. For you, consider them roughly equal with a preference towards crit.

- I'm a little put off by the archaeology items... any recommendations for other items to replace the Archaeology ones?

For weapons, the 353 PvP weapons are decent and not difficult to obtain. You can also purchase a Heartbound Tome off the AH if you have a spare 10k gold. For the ring, your best bet is a Valor Point ring that you can use for both Holy and Shadow, I.E. one with spirit on it.

Also, if all I've read is to be believed, my stat concerns at this time are: Int > haste > Crit > Mastery

That is correct.

See above.
Last Q: for trash mobs / doing dailies, is there an optimal rotation for damage/maintain mana? or do most people just do whatever? I seem to MindSpikex3, MB, SW;D with occasional dots as needed. I just don't know what people do to DPS in general. LOL I'm such a healer.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

When I'm doing dailies, I usually do Mind Spike x2 (or 3, depending on HP), the insta-cast Mind Blast, and SW: Death (x2 if not dead). With the multiple SW: Deaths at the end (and with Dispersion being on a low CD), I don't go OOM at all and mobs are usually dead before they reach me.

[Swol]

Here is a good pre-raid gear list that you can use:
http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/p...w#v0-o50300~23
(This site takes the "get hit-capped" approach to spriest gear.)

You can also load up your character on this site if you log out in shadow gear to optimize it quickly.

[Arlee]

The only time I would imagine reforging spirit to something else is if you are way over the hit cap (17%) and then you would reforge it to haste if you can and then either mastery or crit. You also might consider looking at your holy gear and just using that because stat priorities for shadow are Int>Spirit/Hit>Haste>crit/mastery... which from what I have seen are pretty close to what the priorities for Holy are.

[AegisRose]

That looks fairly acceptable for a pre-raid shadow priest. I didn't look at each item individually, but see what looks like 5 epics (lacking only Earthen Ring gloves), so you're pretty well set.

Missed that one. I'll update my list. Are these the ones you meant? Flamebloom Gloves - The Earthen Ring - Exalted

---------- Post added 2011-02-15 at 06:30 PM ----------

Will you be raiding? As Arctae said, there are different opinions about this. Shoot for at least 15% if not a full 17%. You'll want to reforge either mastery or crit to spirit to accomplish this, or, gem blue sockets with 20int/20spirit gems (if the socket bonus is worthwhile). Right now crit is slightly more valuable than mastery at a high gear level. For you, consider them roughly equal with a preference towards crit.

The only time I would imagine reforging spirit to something else is if you are way over the hit cap (17%) and then you would reforge it to haste if you can and then either mastery or crit. You also might consider looking at your holy gear and just using that because stat priorities for shadow are Int>Spirit/Hit>Haste>crit/mastery... which from what I have seen are pretty close to what the priorities for Holy are.

Well, the whole point is for me to be able to switch to shadow in the event I'm needed to switch in a raid for whatever reason.
Basically, you're saying (and Arlee is saying) that I should leave the Spirit in place unless I'm needing more hit... correct?

---------- Post added 2011-02-15 at 06:33 PM ----------

Here is a good pre-raid gear list that you can use:
{link here which i can't post yet}
(This site takes the "get hit-capped" approach to spriest gear.)
You can also load up your character on this site if you log out in shadow gear to optimize it quickly.

ooooh~ Thanks so much for this link revulva!

[Twintop]

Missed that one. I'll update my list. Are these the ones you meant? Flamebloom Gloves - The Earthen Ring - Exalted

Yes.

Well, the whole point is for me to be able to switch to shadow in the event I'm needed to switch in a raid for whatever reason.
Basically, you're saying (and Arlee is saying) that I should leave the Spirit in place unless I'm needing more hit... correct?

Spirit = Hit for shadow priests. What Arlee was saying is that, as a priest healer, most of your healing gear already has spirit on it, so it should be quite easy for you to incorporate some healing pieces (no reforging -- you wouldn't do that during a raid anyway!) in to your shadow set and be hitcapped.

If you have an item in your healing set that is a higher ilvl than the piece you're thinking of including in your shadow set, use the holy piece. The int boost alone will make it better.

[AegisRose]

If you have an item in your healing set that is a higher ilvl than the piece you're thinking of including in your shadow set, use the holy piece. The int boost alone will make it better.

I feel like an a$$hat... I bought a second JP Mask of New Snow so I could "reforge it" LOL! oh well~ I was JP capped anyway.

[Chrispythegull]

Honestly don't worry about BIS lists. The best rule of thumb I could give you is take whatever cloth pieces have haste as their primary stat. Do not go out of your way looking for hit/spirit. You can always forge into that later if you need to. Mastery and Crit are for all intents and purposes equal and you shouldn't fret as to which is .01 Pseudo power more per stat point. Haste >> Crit = mastery >> worry about hit later.

If you want to start getting technical about gearing options and you want to min/max because it's just in your nature, then you should still ignore BIS lists and do the math based on your current gear set up. Run your character through simulationcraft and obtain the new stat scales, do the math, and then make the choice accordingly. The reason? You'll naturally wind up with more of one stat than another, and in doing so you will thusdevalue that stat. For the sake of illustration, if you wake up one day to find your character with all haste and crit and you overlooked mastery, you may notice when you run your character through simulationcraft that mastery is now your favored stat by far! Don't panic. all this tells you is that relative to spell power mastery will give you the most benefit per point given your current gear set up going forward. In other words, try to start reforging crit into mastery until such a point that when you run the numbers again, order is restored and mastery and crit are on par with each other. Luckily for us, they scale remarkably close right now.

[AegisRose]

Honestly don't worry about BIS lists. The best rule of thumb I could give you is take whatever cloth pieces have haste as their primary stat. Do not go out of your way looking for hit/spirit. You can always forge into that later if you need to. Mastery and Crit are for all intents and purposes equal and you shouldn't fret as to which is .01 Pseudo power more per stat point. Haste >> Crit = mastery >> worry about hit later.

If you want to start getting technical about gearing options and you want to min/max because it's just in your nature, then you should still ignore BIS lists and do the math based on your current gear set up. Run your character through simulationcraft and obtain the new stat scales, do the math, and then make the choice accordingly. The reason? You'll naturally wind up with more of one stat than another, and in doing so you will thusdevalue that stat. For the sake of illustration, if you wake up one day to find your character with all haste and crit and you overlooked mastery, you may notice when you run your character through simulationcraft that mastery is now your favored stat by far! Don't panic. all this tells you is that relative to spell power mastery will give you the most benefit per point given your current gear set up going forward. In other words, try to start reforging crit into mastery until such a point that when you run the numbers again, order is restored and mastery and crit are on par with each other. Luckily for us, they scale remarkably close right now.

Thanks for the reality check Chrispy (love the name btw). I'm not a huge min/maxer, but I do tend to get caught up with having as-optimal-as-i-can-manage gear for my OS. Specally b/c I already have a "I suck at shadow" complex. At the very least, I want to have the right stats/gear so I'm not blasted if asked to OS. Anywho~ thanks for the info and the advise.