confused about shadowpriest.com spec

[Sarkli]

Drop Improved Spirit Tap. When it procs, you gain a total of what, 14 Spellpower? Wow, grats. If it's for mana, get 2/2 Veiled Shadows for both increased DPS and increased mana (3 minute cooldown is HUGE), and learn when it's okay to use Dispersion.

Keep Improved VE, it's an underrated utility that should be loved by your hopefully competent raid leader (assuming he knows which group to put you in), and it's what keeps you up during some of that hard blasting incoming AoE. Raid Damage is everywhere, it's not only going to drop your health bar, but also your cast bar and to keep that DPS moving, you want pushback resistance. Don't even THINK about dropping Improved Shadow Form.

Dropping Spirit Tap altogether slows your solo progress by about 5% (big deal... : ) and lets you pick up Shadow Affinity to Mind Sear the hell out of some of those pulls faster, without having to worry about ever pulling aggro.

Edit: This is the progression raiding Cookie Cutter Shadow Spec for max dps.

Imp VE is NOT needed if your healers are doing their job correctly.. just regular will sustain you and your party fine, and remember it ONLY heals YOUR party NOT the raid. Not having Spirit Tap and Imp ST is just stupid.. i dont care about the SP benefit and how little it is, but the mana regen will help. And Shadow Affinity is and has not been needed since Wrath came out. If you are pulling serious aggro on trash pulls just pop fade real quick and go back to it.. but thats if. And its wasted points because if your tank is doing his job you WILL NEVER PULL AGGRO on a boss, so why the heck would you want to pick up something just for trash pulls where thats NOT where the dps matters as much because they melt so fast. I raid each week in Ulduar25 and have done all the current endgame content including the new 10 and 25man raid and never have issues.

[Zast]

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...n=Zast&group=1

Is what I run with atm. We run with great healers, and I have no threat or mana problems while still being able to pull competitive hybrid dps on most fights. Quite honestly, where you choose to put your last few points is negligible. If you're really the min/maxing type though, find out the weaker and strong points of your raid and try to fill them in. If you feel you should be providing more heals, then take imp ve. If you have threat issues on trash(and trash is srz)/bosses, then take affinity.

Aside from that, I like taking IF just because it gives that extra crit for when you need it/ providing a proc for your openers.

[Kelesti]

Imp VE is NOT needed if your healers are doing their job correctly.. just regular will sustain you and your party fine, and remember it ONLY heals YOUR party NOT the raid. Not having Spirit Tap and Imp ST is just stupid.. i dont care about the SP benefit and how little it is, but the mana regen will help. And Shadow Affinity is and has not been needed since Wrath came out. If you are pulling serious aggro on trash pulls just pop fade real quick and go back to it.. but thats if. And its wasted points because if your tank is doing his job you WILL NEVER PULL AGGRO on a boss, so why the heck would you want to pick up something just for trash pulls where thats NOT where the dps matters as much because they melt so fast. I raid each week in Ulduar25 and have done all the current endgame content including the new 10 and 25man raid and never have issues.

Logic like this says: I shouldn't need VE at all because it's a healer's job to keep me alive. Why should i even waste the GCD, it's lower dps that I could've spent time casting! Which is completely backwards to "Shadow affinity isn't needed because I can waste a GCD doing 0 damage on Fade to drop aggro!". You can pick one, or you can pick the other. You can't have it both ways.

And as it stands, I walked into Northrend Beasts 10 man, first night, no strats, vids or reading; wiped for an hour and had it down. Then went on to oneshot the 25 man with 8 PuGs. It's not that hard.

[TwistedPower]

1. Kelesti has said everything right in this topic.

2. People saying things like its the healers job to heal, well gues what if you didnt take so much damage, there could be less healers in your raid, and you could take more dps, and kill the boss faster, and with more utility and do more hard modes faster and better. But people like you need to realize that there is a huge amount of healing comming out of VE, if you bother to set up your groups right, it can realy help in those spots where everybody gets hit, and it certainly helps in groups with locks.

Quote of the day: Heals spent on dps is more hp for the boss.

[Qualia]

Why don't people just spend a few seconds checking high-end guilds' Spriests' main shadow spec instead of arguing about whether iVE or iVT is more important? Because if you did, you should have realized they all take VT & iVT while skipping Imp VE (& SA ofc) in their regular shadow spec.

IVT is only ~15 sp, true. But even 1 sp is precious to us. Saying 15sp = small is just like saying there isn't a big difference between epic & blue gem (+4sp each upgrade) - which is, not the way of min-maxing dps. (Somehow I get the feeling that people who skipped VT/IVT also don't have all their gems upgraded to epic on first day they can log in after 3.2!)

Improved VE now is ~100hps on group healing. It's rarely make / break a fight and won't be strong enough so you can cut a raid healer. If someone is going to die he/she will probably die anyway even with 2-300 more hp. If that one can survive more than 3s after damage is dealt healers will top him up. And no "if your VE heal him healers won't have to heal much!", thanks. It's not like healers going to cancel one of their group heals because their targets got healed for 300-500 hp. It helps, but it's not that strong to sacrifice a dps talent when your aim is to maximize your dps.
Personally, killed everything except Yogg 0 before 3.2, and I haven't had an unavoidable death in a fight yet (of course, unless we wipe). Just VE & 15% dmg reduction is enough, if anything can kill you (that you can't dodge it) it will probably kill any other ppl anyway. Or may be my healers love me more than I thought? :/

Shadow Affinity so far is useless in boss fights, except for Vezax hard if you are lucky with crashes. About thrash, who care if you get 30k or 3000 dps on thrash pulls. Nuff said.

[Kelesti]

There's an Improved Vampiric Touch? :O Where?

And going by this:

Why don't people just spend a few seconds checking high-end guilds' Spriests' main shadow spec instead of arguing about whether iVE or iVT is more important? Because if you did, you should have realized they all take VT & iVT while skipping Imp VE (& SA ofc) in their regular shadow spec.

is retarded for a few reasons.

First, Remember when they announced DK's? The top guilds were all saying "It's great, but there's not a spot for them in my raid". Discipline priests wouldn't be going anywhere (it took quite awhile for them to burn the mantra that it's not a PvP spec), afterall the "best" tank healer is a Holy Paladin. : So omg better copy what Ensidia is doing! Because you know, you're totally in their guild and competing for world-firsts, amirite?

And the 14/57 healing spec that gets rid of the 13 talent point "trap" of Greater Heal still isn't seeing much use despite its gains in every other area of the Holy Priest's repertoire; an 8.5k Greater on full cast time lacks a little in 5 mans, but who cares? Elitist Jerks still put their "spec" as the original cookie cutter Holy that we came out with in 3.0.8, so that means "mine" is worse? On the contrary.

They have a word for people like you. It's called "sheep," ones who will follow blindly just because others are doing it. I personally prefer the term "lemmings" but hey, that's just me.

[Direshadow]

Since 3.2 i've noticed myself running a little low on mana in long fights, but still nothing to get worried about.

If you REALLY want VE, then you could do something like this.

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc...12323152301351


As much as people will argue with you, .5 seconds off of a mind blast is not going to make the difference between super amazatron dps and absolute fail. This spec still gives you 17& mana regeneration off procs, and allows full talented VE.

Personally, I like full talented Spirit Tap, because i'm one to throw around healing spells when the time calls for them. That hymn is god-damned expensive, but if you're not like that, it isn't so much of an issue.

The points we're throwing around make such little difference in the end, it all comes down to personal prefrence.


If you want to have infinite mana, go full spirit tap.

If you want full VE, use the spec above (Though anyone who says that it helps the raid is.. just... .dumb....)


If you people are arguing about such a tiny spell power increase over spirit tap...

go outside.... and like... meet people...

drink beer.... put away the spread sheets...

[Sarkli]

Logic like this says: I shouldn't need VE at all because it's a healer's job to keep me alive. Why should i even waste the GCD, it's lower dps that I could've spent time casting! Which is completely backwards to "Shadow affinity isn't needed because I can waste a GCD doing 0 damage on Fade to drop aggro!". You can pick one, or you can pick the other. You can't have it both ways.

And as it stands, I walked into Northrend Beasts 10 man, first night, no strats, vids or reading; wiped for an hour and had it down. Then went on to oneshot the 25 man with 8 PuGs. It's not that hard.

It is all a personal preference as to what works in your guild makeup etc i used to use Imp VE but found it wasnt really required. VE is only necessary on boss fights imo and is a waste otherwise.. and seriously why do you still hang on to the 'aoeing trash pulls makes you need shadow affinity'... if you think you need it fine w/e, knock yourself out but its a waste considering you dont need it at all on actual boss fights and a waste of points to use just for trash. And too.. if its an issue pop fade b4 you even start mind sear and again you wont have an issue since this gives tanks enough time to build up threat while they are still being dpsed.

[Qualia]

@ Keles: well, yeah, ST & iST. For some reason I typed VT & iVT in my post, my bad, brain dead after a tired day I guess.

Anyway, to the topic, true, top guilds can be mistaken about things. But it only happen right after new changes (i.e: DK announced, Disc WoTLK talent tree, etc.), and how long has it been since last time SP had a change in talent tree that affect our dps?... At least 6 months, if not more. If after 6 months you think all SP in these guilds (guilds with "s", not just Ensidia btw) & SP.com will still be taking an inferior spec to you then maybe it's time for you to get off your high horse and realize it's yours that is inferior. It's maybe arguable if only 1 or 2 people have different spec to you, but if ~100 people in different high progressed guilds have the same "different spec" (check armory, not stickies or w/e post in some forums) then it should be clear that it's the best choice in order to min-maxing. Although, I understand that some people always want to be "special".

P/S: btw, where do you see the Holy spec that "EJs still put as the original cookie cutter" that took 13 talent points "trap" of GH? I failed to see it.

[draticus]

Why drop spirit tap before focused mind? If mana isn't an issue then focused mind should be the first to go since it doesn't give a small dps boost. 0 shadow affinity has always been fine for me even though I'm topping dps charts but the following spec gives you 1 point at least.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?prie...&version=10192

[llDemonll]

off topic to answer to person above me:

5 points in divine fury
3 points in improved healing
5 points in empowered healing

is the gheal 13 point trap. they are all useless talents as gheal is never used, and as holy the whole 'i have empowered healing so my flash heals hit for a billion' is a waste of 5 points

that was the BC spec that was just kind of pushed into wotlk without testing

[Zeuq]

but if ~100 people in different high progressed guilds have the same "different spec" (check armory, not stickies or w/e post in some forums) then it should be clear that it's the best choice in order to min-maxing.

FWIW, this is a logical fallacy called argument ad populum; you're not helping your position at all by using that sort of reasoning.

Either way, this entire argument is silly. People who refer to the build without IST as a max DPS build are technically wrong. If you lose 15 SP, or however much it is, it is technically not a max DPS build. However, in the grand scheme of things, 15 SP is relatively insignificant (as in probably less than 0.5% DPS increase). The thing is, there's a reason some builds are called "cookie cutter" specs, and they do not fit all situations. For instance, if you find that your tank is having trouble building threat because he's undergeared, or is wearing pure mitigation gear because you're running low on healers to meet DPS requirements, or because the DPS gets massive damage buffs and the tank's threat is limited by mechanics of the fight, then it might make sense to have points in threat reduction. Similarly, if you're running low on healers, or there's lots of raid damage, it might make sense to put points in IVE. But where do you take those points? In general, IST makese the most sense because, sure it is technically a DPS increase, but it's such a minor one and it's so expensive (effectively 3 SP per talent point), that it's generally the best choice to take points from if you're in a situation where you want IVE or SA and, after you start taking out one point, you might as well take them all out because it's even more overpriced with only 4 points, and worthless as a DPS boost with less.

TBH, I just wish this argument would just go away. If you think your tanks and healers are pro and you never need threat reduction or IVE, then fine, grab IST and do a little more damage. If you run into threat or healing problems on hard modes, or you're happy with trading away a slight bit of damage to avoid a rare silly death from pulling aggro or to save the healers some mana and GCDs, then fine, skip it. Either way, it comes down to what content you're doing, what your raid composition is, and how good the players in the raid (including you) are.

[talrob]

Basically Spirit tap, Imp VE, affinity and If are all optional and do little for you. I personally take IF and 2/3 affinity because everyone loves more mindblast crits but none of them affect my dps more than like 10 if that so why argue about it.

[Proletariat]

"Hey guys, lets take some of the best priests on mmo forums and make them argue why green grapes are better than purple grapes."

[Sefa]

btw....
if you check well Kelesti talked about that spec for progression fight....
i rly dunno how all are used to but on progress fight tank normaly use avoidance gear/spec instead of pure threat...and that could be an issue on more then one fight...
again considering some fight, having one less healer should be considered pure win...in this situation imp VE can only be of some help....for sure it's another "utility" that can save life in huge ae situation.

for farming boss...well...u can even go as smiter without any issue...so no point discussing it....it's all a personal preference.

[Strykzor]

"Hey guys, lets take some of the best priests on mmo forums and make them argue why green grapes are better than purple grapes."

I like oranges.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuZZbxfVRfzffqfzAo
Best DPS Spec.

PS: I don't want to hear about how much agro you pull of shit tanks.
See how i underlined that? its so people don't miss it, you only pull agro off shit tanks.

[Sefa]

wow, that 2 point in spirit tap are rly usefull...thank's for sharing your knowledge ( and start dpssing instead wanding on vezz and hodir if you don't have any threat issue )

[Nezoia]

"Hey guys, lets take some of the best priests on mmo forums and make them argue why green grapes are better than purple grapes."

I don't like fruit

[Naphomci]

My favorite part of the IST argument that so many people miss is the uptime. The mind blast cycle is 7 seconds. At a very generous 40% raid buffed crit rate rate you'd expect 2 crits in 5 casts. So your expected uptime in a 35 second cycle is 15-16 seconds (2 crits in succession cut 1 second from the uptime) or 43-46%. So at generous values of 40% crit and 1000 spirit those 5 talent points buy you a whoping 9.2 spell power average (and yes that includes the glyph) or basically 1.84 spell power per talent point.
This in a strictly max dps spec, those improve it. Is that worth it? Not a chance in my opinion.

As to what shadowpriest.com says, they are very very very hit or miss. Do not use them as your only source, they have some very good info, and some not so good