Shadow Word: Death?

[Laughriot]

I scanned the stickies and didn't see this mentioned, so I figured I would ask.

My priest just hit 32 (well, 33 now) and got Shadow Word: Death. What the heck is wrong with this spell? The tool tip lists it as doing 365 (I think) damage, but the highest I've seen out of it was 121. Is this a tool tip error, or what? Does the spell eventually become useful again? I know at one point, it was a decent damage spell to cast while on the move, and as a finisher in PvP. At this point though, it does less than a third the damage of my Smite (I'm Disc) and less than half the damage of my Mind Blast.

Seemed odd, is all.

[mordale]

it doesn't do its full dmg on target with more then 20% hp.

[Deleted]

cooking with coeficients is fun :P did you check if its doing 365 when the mob is below 25% ?

[GuyWithFace]

it doesn't do its full dmg on target with more then 20% hp.

This.

While leveling an alt yesterday, doing BRD, my Recount showed the SPriests in our group SW HITTING for 7500. That's absolutely absurd, considering that's twice the HP the mobs in there have. And yes, that's under 20% damage. It does 75% less damage (or something like that) on targets above 20%.

[Constantino]

I believe 25% is the threshold, but yeah.

It gets more fun with glyphs

[Laughriot]

Ah, I see. Well, it doesn't say that on the tooltip, so that explains my confusion. Thanks for the snappy answers, guys. I'll just hold it till low health.

[Oneirophobia]

Ah, I see. Well, it doesn't say that on the tooltip, so that explains my confusion. Thanks for the snappy answers, guys. I'll just hold it till low health.

You should hold it until 25% anyways, unless you've picked up masochism (which will be an option for you later) which will allow you to restore a fair chunk of mana when you're hit with SW:death's backlash.

[Constantino]

Because of the long cd, about the only mobs that live long enough to swd twice are raid bosses. The rest if you even start your rotation with it, they'll be dead by the time it refreshes.

[Kelesti]

To answer the question:

The tooltip has not been updated on live to reflect the current condition of the spell, where it does less baseline damage, but huge damage on targets below the threshold.

That's all that needed to be said in this thread.

[Laughriot]

You should hold it until 25% anyways, unless you've picked up masochism (which will be an option for you later) which will allow you to restore a fair chunk of mana when you're hit with SW:death's backlash.

Eh, I just use it as Disc at the moment to add some extra damage in and make the lowbie instances scoot by even faster. I don't even have to targeted heal myself, I just hang out close to the tank and spam Smite on his target, and let Atonement do the rest.

[Deleted]

I see a shadow word smilie up there =/

And yes, exactly what kel said. It does the tooltip damage on sub-25% targets, its pretty much worthless above that. Since spamming DP doesn't reset the timer on the actual ticks anymore, its better for shadow to spam that while on the move and ignore SWD completely (unless you're having mana issues), so its only original use is now gone too.

It is an execute-only move now, the only difference being that its easier to fuck it up and end up casting it at 26% as losing a load of dps (especially when the mods that told you what % the boss was on broke in the patch and arent fixed yet.. grrr)