Thread: [Priest] State of Shadow - 4.0.3

If the first tick lands however, all 3 ticks will land.

Originally Posted by YankeePhan1234

What's everyone's DPS like on Nefarian? Im struggling to top 14k, I'm always hovering at 13.8ish.

10 or 25 man? 25 man I am doing 18kish, the top priest on WOL who has like 500 more sp than me is pulling 22k



Edit - Got a SS for ya, **** hunters :P

If I mind control a player from another faction and then auto-attack a player of my own faction in a quest area with guards that kill people who initiate combat, and let's say I'm in a spot where they won't aggro on me, will the guards kill my mind controlled target?

Originally Posted by Dread Pirate Roberts

If I mind control a player from another faction and then auto-attack a player of my own faction in a quest area with guards that kill people who initiate combat, and let's say I'm in a spot where they won't aggro on me, will the guards kill my mind controlled target?

When you mind control a person of the opposing faction they are classified as your faction and is a friendly target to you and your allies. So you can't auto attack a player of your own faction.

And before you ask, if you MC someone of the opposing faction and send him into his own city the guards will attack him but they stop if MC runs out and they will go after you.

Mind Blast damage been increased to a value that's 50% greater than Mind Spike, This means that it will do around 15k dmg non crit (Mind Spike does 10k).

This will most likely mean that it will be cast on CD again since its DPET will now be at least 3 times as high as Mind Flay itself (although this is not certain).

On a side note its DPET is around half of VT (at my current haste level). However if it is cast on CD, its DPCD (damage per cooldown) will in fact be greater than VT since VT (on my current gear with emp shadows and evangelism and also accounting for the upcoming mastery change) is approximately (4000 x 1.1 x [(0.16 x 0.14)+1.14] x 6) / (15 + 1.2)sec = 1894 DPCD, whereas MB will have approximately 15000 / (6.5 + 1.2) sec = 1948 DPCD...
This effectively puts MB on a higher priority than even VT.

Now another question is: is it better to cast MB on CD? or wait for 3 orbs? The answer depends on your mastery rating.

Using my current mastery rating in the calculation:
The chance of an orb proc is 10% base + 8% talent = 18% for each MF/SW:P tick (not counting being critically struck by enemy).
This means an average of 100/18 = 5.56 ticks is required to get 1 orb. So in order to get 3 orbs you must do an average of 16.67 ticks, lets round up to 17 ticks, shared between MF and SWP
Assuming MF ticks 3 times as fast as a SWP (this is quite a bold assumption atm), therefore:
17 = 3*MFticks + 1*SWPticks
This gives us 12.75 MF ticks and 4.25 SWP ticks on average is required to get 3 orbs.

(12.75 MF ticks / 3) = 4.25 MF casts. Therefore an average 4.25 MF casts is required to gain 3 orbs (assuming swp is on target)

The time required to do 4.25 casts (using my current haste profile) is 4.25 x 2.4 = 10.2 seconds.

Using my current mastery profile, with 3 orbs up, MB will do an additional 34% damage... with the changes in mastery bonus, it will do an additional 34 x 1.16 = 39.44% damage.
15000 x 1.3944 = 20916 damage with 3 orbs.
New DPCD = 20916 / (10.2+1.2) = 1835 DPCD.

As you can see this is in fact lower DPCD compared to the DPCD i calculated for casting MB on CD with no orbs...Also the 10.2 seconds used in the calculation still did not factor the time spent casting other spells such as VT and DP in between, so in reality it will be even longer. Plus, I also assumed that if I didn't wait for 3 shadow orbs, I wouldn't get any orbs at all, when in reality theres a very good chance I get at least 1 orb before the CD of MB is up. However higher mastery rating will definitely favour casting MB with 3 orbs.

In order for casting MB on 3 orbs to be the better option you will need to exceed 1948 DPCD. This means (given my current haste rating) I will need:
1948 x 11.4 = 22207 MB damage
22207 / 15000 = 1.48 This means that at 3 orbs my MB must hit at least 48% harder for casting MB with 3 orbs to be the better option (on average). However this 48% value is not static. It will change depending on your other stats such as haste rating.

However I still don't recommend waiting for 3 orbs because it takes too much time to gather it up and you are VERY likely to lose out on emp shadows buff. This is just a simple analysis comparing the two casting options on its own

This MB change, plus the improved mastery changes, will definitely provide a heavy boost to the already awesome shadow PvE single target damage. Look forward to see if this changes mastery stat weight.

Edit: seems to be working now

At zsunnie:

Wouldn't waiting for 3 orbs be a dps loss because you can proc more wasting orbs.

And if the opener is still Dots - mind blast for 1 orb - mind flay we can use mind blast right after we apply our dots because 1 our dots are already on the target and obtaining empowered shadows at that time would be pointless and 2 casting mind blast will do more damage then mind flay.

After we get SW:P rolling we should all have atleast 1 orb for every mind blast from now on.

Tdlr: We should be casting mind blast on cooldown from now on

Originally Posted by zito

Edit: seems to be working now

At zsunnie:

Wouldn't waiting for 3 orbs be a dps loss because you can proc more wasting orbs.

Yes what I said above is purely based on my current gear setup, and that is to cast MB on CD no matter what since it provides a higher DPCD. What you just said further reinforces my point. However, I also said that after a certain level of mastery rating, waiting for 3 orbs will be the better theoretical option. This is purely theoretical and certain practicalities such as wasting orb procs and losing Emp shadows can certainly offset this by a lot. With that said I am still looking into whether if casting an orbless mind blast twice in a row and losing emp shadow buff will cause a concern. But considering its priority is higher than VT itself (even WITH emp shadows) the concern shouldn't be that big.

EDIT: I have made a post here that compares the dps lost by delaying Mind Blast and losing out Emp shadows:


As for your opener, I'm not sure about DoTs but if you open with an orbless MB you already did 50% damage of an entire VT in just 1.2 seconds...

EDIT: I believe it's time to officially start "State of Shadow 4.0.6"

Originally Posted by zsun

EDIT: I believe it's time to officially start "State of Shadow 4.0.6"

Quoted for truth

Originally Posted by zsun

EDIT: I believe it's time to officially start "State of Shadow 4.0.6"

I agree.
Thread closed.