1. #1

    What's wrong with my shadow priest?

    Hey. I usually heal with my priest, but I've been getting into shadow spec lately. I've got an average ilvl of 349 in shadow set. I've been reading several different guides, and I've gotten my dps up to around 12k in dungeons/raids. How can I make my DPS higher? Am I gearing/gemming right? I'm getting some enchants tonight, since the guilds enchanter was on vacation for a bit. If you want, you can recommend enchants, if not that's ok.
    My rotation is VP>SW:P>DP>MF until 1 orb, MB, MF until either 3 orbs, empowered shadow is running low, or dots are running low (If dots run low, re-dot). At 3 orbs or empowered shadow running low, I mind blast. During burn phases, I wait until I have 3 orbs, then Dark Evangelism>MB>MSMSMS>MB>MSMSMS>MB, etc. Does that sound like an ok rotation?
    My armory is http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...healyou/simple

  2. #2
    Statwise, int > haste > crit > mastery. This means every gem should have int on it and in general, unless the socket bonus is 20+ int, you should just gem 40 int. You should use the 54int/3%crit meta (burning shadowspirit diamond I think?) instead of the one you have now.

    You should generally use MB on cd as long as there is 7+ seconds left on empowered shadow. If it's less than 7 seconds then MB as soon as you get 1 orb. You never want to wait for 3.

    For dark evangelism you should refresh vt/dp and then mf/mb spam. Don't mind spike, it'll wipe your dots.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Wuga View Post
    Statwise, int > haste > crit > mastery. This means every gem should have int on it and in general, unless the socket bonus is 20+ int, you should just gem 40 int. You should use the 54int/3%crit meta (burning shadowspirit diamond I think?) instead of the one you have now.

    You should generally use MB on cd as long as there is 7+ seconds left on empowered shadow. If it's less than 7 seconds then MB as soon as you get 1 orb. You never want to wait for 3.

    For dark evangelism you should refresh vt/dp and then mf/mb spam. Don't mind spike, it'll wipe your dots.
    Thanks man.
    I've been trying to get that burning shadowspirit, just haven't had the money. They're expensive as hell on my server lol.
    And I use the 20hit/20int because I'm not hit capped. Should I throw on some of my healing gear for the hit and regem for int?

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Wuga View Post
    For dark evangelism you should refresh vt/dp and then mf/mb spam. Don't mind spike, it'll wipe your dots.
    Don't refresh your DoTs early for 1 proc only. It's usually not worth it for 1, almost always is for 2 or better. Best way to figure out when is to compare the increase damage for VT over 24 seconds (refresh asap, then before proc dies, so ~24 sec. stronger) to the increase for MF for the duration of two VT casts (which you lose out on because you refreshed). If the VT boost is higher, it's worth refreshing. DP is usually worth refreshing beause it's one GCD. Lot of math if you're only just starting, but it's something to work towards.

    Also, make sure you refresh your DoTs before using Archangel. It wipes out your stacks of Evangelism, so your DoTs will be weaker if you refresh just after popping. Try to time it so you can get at least 5 tics of MF in before you have to refresh, getting your DE stacks back up to 5.

    Fix your reforging. Reforge to haste first, then to spirit/hit. You won't give a crap about mastery or crit until you have to micromanage their balance later on.

    Enchant your gear. You don't have to get the ultra expensive ones, but at least put something on them. Int and Haste enchants all the way, and get Hurricane on the weapon.

    Your haste is insanely low. Get some haste gear as soon as you can, since they will improve your DPS tremendously.

  5. #5
    To add on to what Wuga said....

    Burn phases for us don't really change much... you just keep doing your normal spell priorities (if it is a burn phase where the boss is under 25% health you hit sw: death every time it is off cooldown. You could also drink an int pot to help in burn phases.

    Mind Spike is not your friend in pve, don't bother with it

    Make sure you are using archangel when you aren't going to have to recast VT or DP quickly or else you will refresh them without the evangelism stacks. Focus on keeping VT and DP up all the time, you generally refresh them just before they fall off, or when you get a proc (like power torrent).

    Shadowfiend is a dps cooldown for us, use it every time it is up.

    You also need to take a look at your gear and think of it as a whole set instead of looking at individual pieces. You seem to have successfully reforged out of 582 mastery, 143 haste, 39 crit, and 34 hit and then reforged into 538 hit, 123 crit, 94 haste, 43 spirit... which just doesn't make sense. Granted you are prob using some of your healing gear for shadow, but reforging out of something only to reforge into on another piece of gear doesn't make sense.

    In general we don't reforge out of haste (your haste is WAY low). You are missing a bunch of enchants. What Wung said about gemming is right on. If a socket bonus is +20 int and you need a yellow gem use reckless; if you need a blue gem to make a 20 int socket bonus use a purified; otherwise go pure int.

    That's most of what I see

  6. #6
    Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll get to work on the haste. And I'm using a few pieces of healing gear for my dps spec (Like the belt) which I have reforged recently.
    What my hit rating?

  7. #7
    Hit's a preference. If you're just starting, going for hit cap is recommended because you won't have to worry about refreshes missing. In general, haste gets us greater DPS gains, so prioritizing haste over hit means more DPS, but you're below hit cap. However, we're a DoT class; we only care about the initial cast hitting because tics of a DoT don't miss. Thus, if you're exceptionally good at noticing when your refresh miss and react very quickly to cast it again, you minimize the loss of DPS from misses and your overall DPS goes up despite being below hitcap.

    It's something that's very individual, so there's no magic number below hit cap to shoot for. It's something you have to work on yourself. If you have a lot of lag and/or can't keep track of the refreshes that well, go for hit cap so it's one less thing to worry about. With those issues, you'd do higher DPS at hit cap than you would below.

  8. #8
    Your hit rating is 15.76% which is fine as long as you don't mind paying attention to make sure if you do miss a dot you can recast it right away. If you don't want to ever miss you need 17% (for raiding anyways).

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Zuziza View Post
    Hit's a preference. If you're just starting, going for hit cap is recommended because you won't have to worry about refreshes missing. In general, haste gets us greater DPS gains, so prioritizing haste over hit means more DPS, but you're below hit cap. However, we're a DoT class; we only care about the initial cast hitting because tics of a DoT don't miss. Thus, if you're exceptionally good at noticing when your refresh miss and react very quickly to cast it again, you minimize the loss of DPS from misses and your overall DPS goes up despite being below hitcap.

    It's something that's very individual, so there's no magic number below hit cap to shoot for. It's something you have to work on yourself. If you have a lot of lag and/or can't keep track of the refreshes that well, go for hit cap so it's one less thing to worry about. With those issues, you'd do higher DPS at hit cap than you would below.
    Thanks, I've always been worried about that with my max level classes. I'm pretty good at noticing when my hits miss, but is there any sort of addon that shows when spells miss? I found something on the wow forums that says I should get ForeX, is that a good one?

  10. #10
    I actually don't use any addons to track my DoTs. I'm the weirdo that has wobbly eyes all over the screen. I actually tried getting a few UI bundles, but they were actually distracting and I couldn't adjust even after 2 weeks of practice with them.

    I know a lot of spriests on the forum recommend Power Auras and Forte Xorcist though.

  11. #11
    Forte does everything you need, even procs. Takes a bit of time to set up properly but once you got it nailed, it's the best one out there. Never used PA, not going to.

  12. #12
    I like shadowtimers... it doesn't tell you when you miss but shows your dot's on your current target and they turn green when they are about to fall off. So if you cast a dot and it stays green or disappears from the bar you know you missed.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Ithrowmagicz View Post
    And I use the 20hit/20int because I'm not hit capped. Should I throw on some of my healing gear for the hit and regem for int?
    ...keep in mind. That for priests. and for all hybrid caster dps, actually (moonkin, ele sham, spriest), that spirit = hit rating. For a priest it is via the talent "twisted faith", which you have two points in. So yeah. Keep that in mind when deciding what gear to use.

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