Long term healer switching to shadow, any tips?

[Deleted]

I've been playing main spec healer the entire time I've played WoW, now I'm switching to main spec shadow for the rest of MoP.
Anyone have any tips for dpsing in general and for shadow?

I have read the guides and watched a few videos, just wanted to hear from some more shadowers

[Zoulis]

Dunno which guides you've read :P I'll just suggest the howtopriest.com shadow guide which has in all you need to know.. and more :P

[Cerbz]

Tip: Stick to healing.

[Ghostpanther]

I hate what Blizz has done to the shadow spec. Even when I want to grind dailies or solo level, much prefer to do it as disc. The dps is a little lower, but he has like 3x the survival rate.

[Calamari]

Welcome to the cold waters of 5.4 shadow! Here's just a few tips off the top of my hat:

1. Practice maximizing dot uptime before anything else, it's the backbone of your dps (especially when you can multi-dot). The optimal way to refresh dots is usually NOT to refresh them at the same time (there's 2 exceptions though, strong int procs, or if both dots have less than ~5s duration remaining and you are about to do a 3 orb plague with Insanity talented). VT and SWP have different durations and VT expires before SWP after the first application.

You'll want to refresh each dot manually -just- inbetween the last two ticks of the dot (~1s mark), to gain the maximum amount of ticks for each dot possible. It can be a hassle at first, but you'll gain many dot ticks over a fight that would have otherwise been wasted on an early refresh.

2. It's very handy to have an addon like WeakAuras configured to show you clearly when strong procs are up, like trinkets or legendary meta. This is important as dot snapshotting is for now still a thing and refreshing them during strong procs yields a massive dps gain.

3. The addon HaloPro helps you maximize Halo damage, I consider it almost mandatory for any shadow priest, as the Blizzard standard UI simply lacks any clue to show the optimal range to launch Halo from.

[Deleted]

Tip: Stick to healing.

trying to

Welcome to the cold waters of 5.4 shadow! Here's just a few tips off the top of my hat:

1. Practice maximizing dot uptime before anything else, it's the backbone of your dps (especially when you can multi-dot). The optimal way to refresh dots is usually NOT to refresh them at the same time (there's 2 exceptions though, strong int procs, or if both dots have less than ~5s duration remaining and you are about to do a 3 orb plague with Insanity talented). VT and SWP have different durations and VT expires before SWP after the first application.

You'll want to refresh each dot manually -just- inbetween the last two ticks of the dot (~1s mark), to gain the maximum amount of ticks for each dot possible. It can be a hassle at first, but you'll gain many dot ticks over a fight that would have otherwise been wasted on an early refresh.

2. It's very handy to have an addon like WeakAuras configured to show you clearly when strong procs are up, like trinkets or legendary meta. This is important as dot snapshotting is for now still a thing and refreshing them during strong procs yields a massive dps gain.

3. The addon HaloPro helps you maximize Halo damage, I consider it almost mandatory for any shadow priest, as the Blizzard standard UI simply lacks any clue to show the optimal range to launch Halo from.

wow thanks!

[Deleted]

Shadowpriestdottimer (or affliction dot timer, i think its called. Tho prefer this one myself) is a very helpful addon to track your dots and other spells. Extracd is also nice to track procs and trinkets, but Weakaura can also do that. Like Calamari said most of your dps will come from that and its very important you refresh and time them at the right times. Second is to get those haste caps going, without sacrificing to much, they are very important.

Rest i want to say, dont listen to people telling you to stay healer because shadow is "crappy dps", were not half bad. Yes if u compare us to others (warlocks) and you are a dps meter whore, then no. But a bit gear depended and not so good at single target, shining in multi target. But if u know how to play its a fun spec and good enough for any encounter.