Shadow Priest, help needed

[Abandon]

It don't fit in. You'll have to drop other talents to get it, other talents that's far superior.

Really a matter of opinion.

[Nezoia]

What I drop for IF is 1 pt. in meditation. Mana isn´t my biggest concern atm so for me it works out just fine.

Mana will be your biggest concern when it comes to hardmodes. So yes, it's a bad thing to do.

Shadowfiend is also a much larger dps increment (20k damage per execution) compared to Inner Focus.

Really a matter of opinion.

No, a matter of min/maxing for hardmodes.

[Darkspectre]

to the OP's question, these 2 fights can vary so much in your dps output, i wouldn't sweat it much. Hodir, for example, one's dps can swing4k one way or another depending on who gets or doesn't get the buffs. Thorim is also a tough fight to judge dps, since casters are typically moving around alot.

I'd say just work on your timing for your rotations. It sounds like you have the standard one down, just gotta get better at timing things.

here's our latest thorim kill: http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/5233371#damageout
http://wowwebstats.com/3tdusjmwt6n3u?s=1156327-1223238
and our latest hodir kill: http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/5233370#damageout
http://wowwebstats.com/3tdusjmwt6n3u?s=1069241-1114212

[Deathwatcher]

You shouldn't have Inner Focus in a Shadow PvE build !

It is optional, but I find it required. It's a free cast, that is very likely to crit. It's a dps increase, and a huge mana saving move. On some fights where I have some mana troubles due to dispeling alot like Yogg, when I get low, i'll pop hymn of Hope, when it's done casting dispurse, then IF shadowform. No mana loss, and I've gained up to 80% of my mana back. You can also use fiend to do the same thing. I tend to use IF on Devo plague if not doing hymn/fiend/dispersion. You gain about 700(can't remember the exact amount) every time you use IF devo plague.

So Nezoia, you're wrong. You can check out my build at http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...1&version=9947. Has IF, IMP VE, and IMP shadowform. You will NEVER have agro issues on fights like Hodir where you generate massive amounts of agro so you can keep dpsing where mages and warlocs have to stop and wait for the MT to generate more ago. This is the PERFECT spec in my opinion. You shouldn't ever need spirit tap or IMP spirit tap unless you run out of mana very very easily. It's not a very big dps increase to pick up IMP spirit tap anyhow, you'll gain maybe 20 dps.

[Abandon]

Mana will be your biggest concern when it comes to hardmodes. So yes, it's a bad thing to do.

Shadowfiend is also a much larger dps increment (20k damage per execution) compared to Inner Focus.
No, a matter of min/maxing for hardmodes.

So you can prove that taking Inner Focus over say, one point in Improved VT is a DPS loss or mana regen loss? And speaking of hardmodes, using it with Divine Hymn is very effective if healing becomes a bit strained during heavy AoE.

[Darkspectre]

Imp VE is semi-useful at best, only being handy in 1 or 2 fights. If you seriously need to put points into shadow affinity, your tanks are horrible. Since neither of those are DPS increases, and imp spirit tap + glyph of shadow is a DPS increase (whether small or not) it is better.

If you're having mana trouble on anything other than hardmode vezax, you're doing something wrong. between 3 min fiend, and dispersion, you should never have to drop shadow form to use HoH. Not only is the mana regained from it minute, especially after regaining shadow form, but you've also wasted an extra 8 seconds doing it that you weren't DPS'n.

[syanid]

For hardmode vezax you go completely different shadowspec than for any of the other fights. Having or not having IF is irrelevant, I use it for stuff like buffing stamina when someone dies (tank at IC hardmode or thorim etc). Dropping 1 point from Meditation to get IF.. now that I find a bit silly. But if it works for ya..

[Nezoia]

It's still effective less mana saved! It's been proven over and over again both in theorycraft and in practice, plus it's logically obvious that it'll not be a dps increase.

Inner Focus is for healing builds, not PvE dps.

[Deathwatcher]

Really? You've never done 10 man hardmodes yet? Or you don't need that much mana because you're lazy or too slow to dispel? Yep never done hardmodes where you push 10k dps before? Idk how geared your tanks are, mine are full conc and mages/locs still pull agro. I would if I didn't have shadow AFF, but don't worry about it, you can afford the dps loss of waiting 10-15 sec to wait for the tank to catch up to you.
And IF shouldn't be in any pve build? Really? Try it sometime. Use it smart, you'll love it. Those that say you'll never use it, have never used it properly.

[Worshaka]

I did almost 7k on our last 10man kill of Hodir HM. So yeah, 5k in 25man is *very* low.

This is a little misleading... in 10man you are almost guaranteed to get storm power once or twice... in 25man its very possible to not get it at all...

Thats not to say 5K isn't low... you probably need to be at the 7K mark at least but that encounter is sooo highly corruptible to what buffs you get that direct comparisons aren't really fair.

I know in our raid we deliberately give the storm power buff to melee... so im usually 7-8K on 10 or 25man and I can be lower just depending on my luck with having to move.

[Darkspectre]

Really? You've never done 10 man hardmodes yet? Or you don't need that much mana because you're lazy or too slow to dispel? Yep never done hardmodes where you push 10k dps before? Idk how geared your tanks are, mine are full conc and mages/locs still pull agro. I would if I didn't have shadow AFF, but don't worry about it, you can afford the dps loss of waiting 10-15 sec to wait for the tank to catch up to you.
And IF shouldn't be in any pve build? Really? Try it sometime. Use it smart, you'll love it. Those that say you'll never use it, have never used it properly.

i'm sorry, you've mistaken me for someone who doesn't know what he's tlaking about. FYI, i've done alot more hardmodes than you have, so i think i have experience to make comments on this stuff. I've also never had to wait at all for my tanks to "catch up on threat" since there's no way i've ever been able to catch them. Hence why i said your tanks blow if you over take them. Yeah i may not have pulled 10k dps on a fight yet, altho the only fight an spriest could pull that off on would be hodir, and thats pretty rng to who gets the buffs and who doesnt, but our last kill i did 8.8k so whatever.

IF in a pve spec is a dps loss, but do whatever you want. Don't take nezoia or my word for it. even though we probably have a combined knowledge of this class that exceeds the combined efforts of the rest of this thread.

[Worshaka]

Imp VE is semi-useful at best, only being handy in 1 or 2 fights. If you seriously need to put points into shadow affinity, your tanks are horrible. Since neither of those are DPS increases, and imp spirit tap + glyph of shadow is a DPS increase (whether small or not) it is better.

If you're having mana trouble on anything other than hardmode vezax, you're doing something wrong. between 3 min fiend, and dispersion, you should never have to drop shadow form to use HoH. Not only is the mana regained from it minute, especially after regaining shadow form, but you've also wasted an extra 8 seconds doing it that you weren't DPS'n.

I don't think you know what you're talking about. Imp VE is one of the best progression talents we can take... i'm almost always the last person to die in any boss encounter thanks largely to imp VE... when i'm doing 5Kdps (which is often) i'm healing for 1.25K per sec as opposed to 750 per sec... it's a massive difference. And I don't know where you get 1 or 2 encounters from, it's massively useful in:

Flame Leviathan (all spriests should launch to kill turrets), and despite what horrible pugs do, you want to shut him down repeatedly, particularly for hard mode.
Ignis - large amounts of raid damage
XT - Hard mode tantrum kinda hurts
Iron Council - Steelbreaker has an aura that constantly does damage and imp VE owns for hard mode.
Hodir - I actually avoid the stacking dot but it's useful while waiting for a Fire to spawn.
Thorim - Hard Mode has massive amounts of incidental damage
Mimiron - Phase 2 & 3 (if tanking) & 4 and it's not bad for phase 1 either.
General - Healers don't have to spend a single point of mana on me
Yogg - Certainly useful to help healers heal someone other than you in the chaos of phase 2.

Imp spirit tap is probably the worst dps increase for 5 points out of any class ever in the history of WoW. Particularly now that BiS Uld gear has very little spirit, the dps effectiveness is non-existent. I have about 700 buffed spirit (from memory)... imp spirit tap procs provide me with a massive 7 sp... those 5 points are far better spent elsewhere.

1. I get imp VE which provides me with the benefits listed above.
2. I get shadow affinity which means I never even register on the threat meter. I can AoE trash without care and I can go ballistic on Hodir & General without a care of pulling aggro. Unlike other casters who are starting to be threat capped (particularly early on Hodir). And despite noobs believing that bosses are the only things that count in a raid, trash actually takes up at least 50% of your time and anything that helps you clear trash quickly and effectively is a bonus to your raid. That means I can AoE trash and pretty much top trash damage meters and never pull aggro unlike other classes. Not having to be rezzed saves my raid time and the entire time benefit from shadow affinity far out weights 7sp when I crit... I can't believe I even have to point this out to you.

Lastly... maybe think about HoH for your raid rather than yourself. I mean the 9 or 24 other people in your raid are there helping you clear bosses for loots. You might want to consider using HoH for non-selfish reasons, but then again that isn't doing your optimal dps, my bad. DPS meters mean a lot btw.

[Darkspectre]

i never said VE was totally useless, i said it was semi-useful. Yes, it can heal you for quite a bit on those fights, however the paultry 5% to the rest of your party is all but unnoticeabe by your healers i'm sure. As for the couple of fights i was tlaking about, well, there's really only 3 where it might save you from dying while your healers are focused elsewhere. Those are XT during tantrums, Steelbreaker, and mimi p2. Everything should be easily handled by your healers.
So yeah imp VE is useful, but really not required.

As for shadow affinity, again, i guess i just roll with way better tanks than everyone else does, because the only fights where i've ever seen ANY dps actually pull aggro have been on vezax and hodir, and the offending classes were mages/locks, never spriests. So the for me and the other spriests in my guild, the 3 points would be an utter waste.

And IF is completely useless, i mean 25% crit on a 3 min cd. need i say more.

As for imp spirit tap, for one 7sp is 7sp more than you had before. and an extra 1/3 of your mana regen while casting is also nothing to smurk at. fully raid buffed it's like having an extra 130+ mp5 since its up the majority of the time. Basically meaning you won't go oom in between fiend uses.

[syanid]

i never said VE was totally useless, i said it was semi-useful. Yes, it can heal you for quite a bit on those fights, however the paultry 5% to the rest of your party is all but unnoticeabe by your healers i'm sure. As for the couple of fights i was tlaking about, well, there's really only 3 where it might save you from dying while your healers are focused elsewhere. Those are XT during tantrums, Steelbreaker, and mimi p2. Everything should be easily handled by your healers.
So yeah imp VE is useful, but really not required.

There are so many situations where someone screws up and can't heal you, so why not help yourself (and healers) by taking 2/2 Imp. VE and just heal yourself all the time without worrying if you're gonna die or not. Saying "oh it's up to the healers to keep me up" is such a bad thinking, some guilds have such exceptional healers, some have such crap ones - you can't advise against taking Imp. VE, for only 2 points it grants you such incredible survivability. I bet mages or locks would kill for it.

[Nezoia]

This is a little misleading... in 10man you are almost guaranteed to get storm power once or twice... in 25man its very possible to not get it at all...

Not if you got all your ranged on top of your tank, which is standing on top of a fire ;-)

And IF is completely useless, i mean 25% crit on a 3 min cd. need i say more.

Shadowfiend, 20k dps on a 3 minute cooldown, do I need to stay more?

because the only fights where i've ever seen ANY dps actually pull aggro have been on vezax and hodir, and the offending classes were mages/locks, never spriests.

Push more dps, it's perfectly doable. Specially if you hug for Storm Clouds, and thus only can do 100% threat, not 130%

[Worshaka]

As for shadow affinity, again, i guess i just roll with way better tanks than everyone else does, because the only fights where i've ever seen ANY dps actually pull aggro have been on vezax and hodir, and the offending classes were mages/locks, never spriests. So the for me and the other spriests in my guild, the 3 points would be an utter waste.

I'll flip to the opposite side of the argument and say your dps is terrible... there are 2 spriests in my raid, I take shadow affinity and the other doesnt... he is always complaining on Vezax & Hodir that he's threat capped.

And you neglected my comments relating to trash. Whether you agree or not clearing trash quickly and effeciently is just as important as doing bosses. You spend probably more of your time clearing the trash than doing bosses and shadow affinity just helps you AoE aggressively and prevents you from pulling any aggro whatsoever.

You'd be hard pressed to sell me that 7 or so sp is worth the security I get with Shadow Affinity and the benefits of Imp VE (7sp is all 5 points in ST & IST is going to give me and a bunch of mana I don't need).

[Amarantis]

About MF, should I let it tick 3 times or should I cut it short and use MB if its ready ?


Any sites u guys can recommend me for hard mode boss strats ?

Thanks

[Darkspectre]

i wouldn't clip the last tick of flay for MB these days, that was something you use to do in BC. With ~10% haste you should be able to fit 2 flays in between MB's without having any overlaps.

[Abandon]

Always cut short Mind Flay if Mind Blast comes off cooldown. If you check out the Shadow DPS 101 threat at the top of the forum, it has quite a lot of good information on rotations and priorities.

[Darkspectre]

I'll flip to the opposite side of the argument and say your dps is terrible... there are 2 spriests in my raid, I take shadow affinity and the other doesnt... he is always complaining on Vezax & Hodir that he's threat capped.

And you neglected my comments relating to trash. Whether you agree or not clearing trash quickly and effeciently is just as important as doing bosses. You spend probably more of your time clearing the trash than doing bosses and shadow affinity just helps you AoE aggressively and prevents you from pulling any aggro whatsoever.

You'd be hard pressed to sell me that 7 or so sp is worth the security I get with Shadow Affinity and the benefits of Imp VE (7sp is all 5 points in ST & IST is going to give me and a bunch of mana I don't need).

OK, i guess all the spriests in all the top guilds in the world are completely wrong about shadow affinity and you're right. Oh wait, they're not. go armory any of the guilds rated in top 100 on wowprogress and check their spriests specs. I guarantee you, every PvE spriest spec in those guilds have imp Spirit tap, and 0 pts in shadow affinity. and if you're gonna sacrifice pts out of anything for imp VE, you should lose 2 pts out of focused mind for it.