BETA: Shadow Priest Rotation

[Pridelock]

Hi All,

I did a few instances last night on a level 85 shadow priest. I use to play a priest in vanilla and I think I may shelf my warlock and use the priest for Cataclysm. Although we cleared the instance we were in with no real problem I am having terrible difficulty with the shadow priest rotation. My damage seem to be so different however thats prob because I could not really figure out the correct way of rotating spells.

Can any of the other shadow priest beta testers provide me with some advice please? The rotation feels terrible and totally disorganised. There are procs occuring and its hard to notice them. It just feels really awkward at the moment so I figure I must be doing something wrong.

I could list the rotation I am using however I don't even know what the god damn buttons I was pressing - I tried to aim for this order (which maybe totally wrong) - Start fight with 2x Mind Spike, Instant MB, SW:P, VampT, Dplague, MF - after this is just becomes a mighty blur to the order I pressed stuff.

Any assistance (not trolling) would be appriciated.

[Chob]

Shadow priests don't work with a rotation, they work with a priority system. Priority is always keeping all dots up, recasting where needed, and using filler spills like Mind Flay and Mind blast to fill the gaps. Mind spike is not supposed to be in the priority system, it's designed for trash / quick removal of dots, and keep shadowfiend on cd.

Might I add that www.shadowpriest.com is a very useful source of information.

EDIT: in regards to procs, it's only shadow orbs that 'proc'. They've recently changed its mechanic, I'm not a 100 % sure but I think you cast mind blast at 3 shadow orbs and then your periodic damage will do 20 % more damage for a set amount of time. I think. Take a grain of salt with this one.

[pickley]

Shadow priests don't work with a rotation, they work with a priority system. Priority is always keeping all dots up, recasting where needed, and using filler spills like Mind Flay and Mind blast to fill the gaps. Mind spike is not supposed to be in the priority system, it's designed for trash / quick removal of dots.

Might I add that www.shadowpriest.com is a very useful source of information.

Its still a rotation. Once you get timing right you can easily predict what to use next.

Plus now we dont have to get 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving to use SW:P it helps a lot.

[Pridelock]

Thanks I will take a look a that website

[Chob]

Its still a rotation. Once you get timing right you can easily predict what to use next.

Plus now we dont have to get 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving to use SW:P it helps a lot.

Semantics. It's a priority system, not a rotation. Just because you can predict what to use next doesn't mean it's suddenly not a priority system. The 'rotation' would considerably change in the order you cast stuff in. So I'd say it's a priority system.

[Pridelock]

Shadow priests don't work with a rotation, they work with a priority system. Priority is always keeping all dots up, recasting where needed, and using filler spills like Mind Flay and Mind blast to fill the gaps. Mind spike is not supposed to be in the priority system, it's designed for trash / quick removal of dots, and keep shadowfiend on cd.

Might I add that www.shadowpriest.com is a very useful source of information.

EDIT: in regards to procs, it's only shadow orbs that 'proc'. They've recently changed its mechanic, I'm not a 100 % sure but I think you cast mind blast at 3 shadow orbs and then your periodic damage will do 20 % more damage for a set amount of time. I think. Take a grain of salt with this one.

Yeah it deffo does the 20% periodic damage. I was using Mind Spike rather than MB on 3 orbs so that looks like where I was going wrong and would also explain why the damage was so spikey.

[Veyne]

If you've ever played Affliction on your Warlock, you should be able to pick up Shadow with relative ease. They play essentially the same.

Vampiric Touch = Unstable Affliction
Shadow Word: Pain = Corruption
Devouring Plague = Curse of Agony. Or Bane. Whatever they're calling it nowadays.
Mind Blast = Haunt
Mind Flay = Shadow Bolt
shadow Word: Death = Drain Soul

There there are obvious gameplay differences. For instance, Mind Blast does not cause your DoTs to hit harder like Haunt does. Mind Flay is channeled, whereas Shadow Bolt is a nuke. During execution phase, we hit Shadow Word: Death when it's available, not completely change our rotation. Shadow Word: Pain is refreshed through normal rotation just like Corruption is.

The big differences being that you have to manage your Shadow Fiend's cool down, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but you have to keep your eye on it since it's constantly being reduced. At 85, you'll have to worry about stacking Dark Evangelism and using Dark Archangel. Shadow Priests do not, however, have to worry about Curse of Elements, Soulburn and demon guardian summons. And I don't know how well Seed of Corruption is fairing, but it seems like we're back to Multi-dotting instead of spamming Mind Sear for AoE.

[Chob]

Mind Blast does not cause your DoTs to hit harder like Haunt does.

Yes it does, if you have shadow orbs up.

[Veyne]

EDIT: in regards to procs, it's only shadow orbs that 'proc'. They've recently changed its mechanic, I'm not a 100 % sure but I think you cast mind blast at 3 shadow orbs and then your periodic damage will do 20 % more damage for a set amount of time. I think. Take a grain of salt with this one.

Woah, how'd I miss this? Is it live or on the current Beta build?

[zsun]

Semantics. It's a priority system, not a rotation. Just because you can predict what to use next doesn't mean it's suddenly not a priority system. The 'rotation' would considerably change in the order you cast stuff in. So I'd say it's a priority system.

Nah you are both right. Priority system is simply a biased rotation, or a rotation with set conditions.

[Chob]

Woah, how'd I miss this? Is it live or on the current Beta build?

Beta build, they revamped shadow priest's mastery a couple days ago. It's not on live.

[Pridelock]

If you've ever played Affliction on your Warlock, you should be able to pick up Shadow with relative ease. They play essentially the same.

Vampiric Touch = Unstable Affliction
Shadow Word: Pain = Corruption
Devouring Plague = Curse of Agony. Or Bane. Whatever they're calling it nowadays.
Mind Blast = Haunt
Mind Flay = Shadow Bolt
shadow Word: Death = Drain Soul

There there are obvious gameplay differences. For instance, Mind Blast does not cause your DoTs to hit harder like Haunt does. Mind Flay is channeled, whereas Shadow Bolt is a nuke. During execution phase, we hit Shadow Word: Death when it's available, not completely change our rotation. Shadow Word: Pain is refreshed through normal rotation just like Corruption is.

The big differences being that you have to manage your Shadow Fiend's cool down, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but you have to keep your eye on it since it's constantly being reduced. At 85, you'll have to worry about stacking Dark Evangelism and using Dark Archangel. Shadow Priests do not, however, have to worry about Curse of Elements, Soulburn and demon guardian summons. And I don't know how well Seed of Corruption is fairing, but it seems like we're back to Multi-dotting instead of spamming Mind Sear for AoE.

Now thats what I call talking in my lanuage. That answers everything expect for one thing. What is mind spike and what sitatuions is this used?

Once again thats for the constructive advice that I could understand

[Veyne]

Rotation is an outdated term in most aspects of the game. Most classes/specs don't have a "rotation." But it's still easier to say than "priority system." Some classes/specs still do use rotations though.

[zsun]

Now thats what I call talking in my lanuage. That answers everything expect for one thing. What is mind spike and what sitatuions is this used?

Once again thats for the constructive advice that I could understand

It's used for trash that doesn't live long enough for dots to be effective. Using this will also clear every single dot you currently have on the target so dont cast this if your target is fully dotted unless you intentionally want to lose those dots

[Pridelock]

Lets not take this offtopic plz - I dont really care if its called a rotation, priority system or a button mashing system. Call it whatever you guys want to its more the conent that is more important than the name

---------- Post added 2010-11-10 at 08:54 AM ----------

Yes it does, if you have shadow orbs up.

Little confused here - Is it the orbs that trigger the extra damage or is it the actual hit of MB (With Orbs)? If its the latter does it need to be 3 orbs or will 1 suffice?

[Deleted]

Mind Spike is almost exclusively used for killing adds. At it ends your Dots, it's not very useful for anything else.

With the recent change to Mastery, you can almost pull-off the rotation without using Mindblast. You need a canceaura macro then though to maintain the buff.

[Veyne]

Beta build, they revamped shadow priest's mastery a couple days ago. It's not on live.

*Whew* that explains it. Sorry for the misinformation.

Now thats what I call talking in my lanuage. That answers everything expect for one thing. What is mind spike and what sitatuions is this used?

Once again thats for the constructive advice that I could understand

Mind Spike is a new ability the devs gave us just because we've been begging for Frost secondary damage for YEARS. But it has its uses. It's not in our typical raid boss priority system. It's about like Searing Pain. Infact, it used to be pretty much identical to Searing Pain. Just like Searing Pain produced high amounts of aggro, Mind Spike used to. They took that part out though and now it just cancels our dots. Basically, it's just there to give us something spammable on targets that die too quickly for DoTs and live long enough for Mind Flay to be somewhat annoying. Think about doing dailies in not-end-of-expansion raid gear. As a Shadow Priest, I typically cast Vampiric Touch, Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Death. Now it would be something more like Mind Spike, Mind Spike, Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death. On boss fights, it would be fore times when we'd have to quickly switch to adds and burn them down quick.... you know, the ones that die before you even get a full set of DoTs on them?

[Pridelock]

Mind Spike is almost exclusively used for killing adds. At it ends your Dots, it's not very useful for anything else.

With the recent change to Mastery, you can almost pull-off the rotation without using Mindblast. You need a canceaura macro then though to maintain the buff.

Sorry again for my priesty noobiness - Could you expand on this for me please?

---------- Post added 2010-11-10 at 09:00 AM ----------

*Whew* that explains it. Sorry for the misinformation.



Mind Spike is a new ability the devs gave us just because we've been begging for Frost secondary damage for YEARS. But it has its uses. It's not in our typical raid boss priority system. It's about like Searing Pain. Infact, it used to be pretty much identical to Searing Pain. Just like Searing Pain produced high amounts of aggro, Mind Spike used to. They took that part out though and now it just cancels our dots. Basically, it's just there to give us something spammable on targets that die too quickly for DoTs and live long enough for Mind Flay to be somewhat annoying. Think about doing dailies in not-end-of-expansion raid gear. As a Shadow Priest, I typically cast Vampiric Touch, Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Death. Now it would be something more like Mind Spike, Mind Spike, Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death. On boss fights, it would be fore times when we'd have to quickly switch to adds and burn them down quick.... you know, the ones that die before you even get a full set of DoTs on them?

Excellent - That explains the use of that ability.

[Veyne]

Just to add, the reason for such a unique mechanism for Mind Spike was because many Shadow Priests in beta were finding that the additional threat really didn't matter and they had almost completely replaced Mind Flay with Mind Spike for superior damage output. They wanted Mind Spike to be used specifically for fights where our DoTs would be impractical. With the change, though, they made it so that it would be impossible to even use our DoTs at the same time as Mind Spike.

[Pridelock]

Hi,

I could still do with the following two points been expanded on if possible:

---------- Post added 2010-11-10 at 08:54 AM ----------

Yes it does, if you have shadow orbs up.

Little confused here - Is it the orbs that trigger the extra damage or is it the actual hit of MB (With Orbs)? If its the latter does it need to be 3 orbs or will 1 suffice?

Mind Spike is almost exclusively used for killing adds. At it ends your Dots, it's not very useful for anything else.

With the recent change to Mastery, you can almost pull-off the rotation without using Mindblast. You need a canceaura macro then though to maintain the buff.

Sorry again for my priesty noobiness - Could you expand on this for me please?