[Priest] PvE Shadow Guide (by Newnoise)

[Deleted]

cool guide but it need a marco for the dots

[Redwinds]

hey, yeah it looks like they all got merged, i don't see my thread coming up anywhere. Sorry for the confusion.

[ElAmigo]

Where is mastery now on our priority list now with the change that will be happening in patch 4.06? Above or below crit?

[New]

We will have to wait for a version of simcraft with these changes built into the code to be sure if the relevant importance of Mastery changes. However, it seems like this will not be a big enough change to skew Mastery's worth versus Crit. I will update my post as more information becomes available.

[Kelesti]

So they're only buffing The Mind Blast/Spike component of the Shadow Orbs, and not the Empowered Shadows component?

[New]

From the patch notes I would say that it is aimed to affect the Mind Blast/Mind Spike portion as well as the Empowered Shadows buff. My comments on the issue are only qualitative at the time as I haven't had a chance to experience the change for myself.

[Odvala]

I know that there have been a lot of QQ topics about "Volcanic Potion" but is it only me or 1200sp is not the same as 1200 Str/Agility potions esp since agility provides critical as well as our Intellect. Should we expect any change on this?

Outside of that, thank you for putting so much effort and your time in your work and keep doing it. Thumbs Up!

[New]

You're welcome. I don't know if Volcanic Potions will get changed. Buffs are always nice, but I can't give any insight on what the future will hold for our DPS potion.

[Deleted]

great guide, but i have one question:
are you absolutely sure about the non refreshing dots?
when i try it for myself at the dummy, my dots seem to refresh haste/crit at each single tick.
I tried it with switching shadowform on/off, and it seems the refresh.

greets

[zenkai]

great guide, but i have one question:
are you absolutely sure about the non refreshing dots?
when i try it for myself at the dummy, my dots seem to refresh haste/crit at each single tick.
I tried it with switching shadowform on/off, and it seems the refresh.

greets

It doesn't, try this, cast a dot halfway through it buff yourself with Inner fire, the tick amount stays the same, it's not until you recast that dot (or MF a SWP) that the dot gets the benefit of your new stats.

[Deleted]

It doesn't, try this, cast a dot halfway through it buff yourself with Inner fire, the tick amount stays the same, it's not until you recast that dot (or MF a SWP) that the dot gets the benefit of your new stats.

I was talking about haste/crit, i knew that this doesn't work for spellpower (tried this as well).
Maybe its just a tooltip bug, but the tooltip changes instantly if my haste changes.

[zenkai]

It's the same for Haste and Crit, it's based on Modifiers before you cast, here is proof

I have 27.5% haste self buffed so In the first target dummy test I cast VT, THEN as soon as I cast I popped a haste pot instantly, which in theory should push me to 7 ticks. As you can see it didn't. But in the second test I did pop a haste pot BEFORE I cast VT and it gave me 7 ticks

[New]

I took off some pieces of gear so I had 1307 Haste (19.19% total spell haste), slightly above the 1256 Haste (18.75% total spell haste) needed to have a 10 tick Devouring Plague. Without Shadowform, this would leave me under the threshold for 10 ticks with only 13.52% total spell haste, and would only get 9 ticks of Devouring Plague. I then tested using the following situations:

Cast Devouring Plague without Shadowform then went into Shadowform = 9 ticks
Cast Devouring Plague with Shadowform then dropped Shadowform = 10 ticks
Cast Devouring Plague with no Shadowform at all = 9 ticks
Cast Devouring Plague with Shadowform for the full duration = 10 ticks

Conclusion: Yes, I am sure about how DOTs are affected by buffs received after the DOT's initial cast.

I don't really want to do several hundred tests to prove the issue on Crit changes, but I assure you, changes in Crit will behave the same way as the above example of Haste, as well as %damage modifiers.

[zenkai]

			 +1		 +2	        +3	        +4	       +5
Vampiric Touch	   10.00% (0220)   30.00% (2588)   50.00% (4956)   70.00% (7324)
Shadow Word: Pain  08.34% (0024)   25.00% (1996)   41.67% (3969)   58.34% (5943)
Devouring Plague   06.25% (0000)   18.75% (1256)   31.25% (2736)   43.75% (4216)   56.25% (5696)

New, not to be nit picky because you're doing such a great job with this guide, but I think there are a couple of numbers off or it could be I am doing something wrong. I only noticed this because I was doing some theory crafting.

For example VT gets 2 ticks at 30% haste, while the number 2588 is correct the 30% haste isn't. I am coming up with 20% haste adding our self haste buff/talent puts it at 28% haste. It's simliar to SWP +2 ticks 1196 is 15.58% haste (23.58% buffed) . it's no big deal because we refresh our dots, Just through you might want to double check your numbers

[Deleted]

Hey guys, I was wondering if we can bring back the discussions about the Shadow priest after 4.0.6, where the Improve power word shield talent has been reverted.
I think that for discipline priests this change is nothing, because they have other new good things that can keep themselves up, BUT how it remains with the Shadow priest?
For 2 or 3 days on playing on the PTR after the Improve power word Shield was up, for the first time I thought that the Shadow priest class has something to sey, we finally had a chance to win against another class and we could finally think that we could play a 3vs3 arena without making the lowest dmg or dying to fast.
It was a good improvement because we could finally had time to cast/dot the enemy, so we can do dmg!!! and now or in the near future without the Improved Power Word Shiled that increases the absorption by 15/30% when cast on itself, the Shadow priest again will be Poor.I know that the 15/30% increase absorption of the shield for a priest that is playing as a Discipline is Over Power, BUT for shadow priest is NOT, is NOT!! Can blizz answer to this and maybe tell us what they have in mind about the shadow priest?
Can you guys share opinions about this?.

[New]

New, not to be nit picky because you're doing such a great job with this guide, but I think there are a couple of numbers off or it could be I am doing something wrong. I only noticed this because I was doing some theory crafting.

For example VT gets 2 ticks at 30% haste, while the number 2588 is correct the 30% haste isn't. I am coming up with 20% haste adding our self haste buff/talent puts it at 28% haste. It's simliar to SWP +2 ticks 1196 is 15.58% haste (23.58% buffed) . it's no big deal because we refresh our dots, Just through you might want to double check your numbers

You're forgetting that Mind Quickening and Darkness are multiplicative Haste buffs and not additive. The above examples you have are taking your character sheet Haste, dividing it by the haste combat rating to find the haste %, then adding 8% on top of it. Your calculations should look more like this.

x/128.05701 = 2588
x= 20.201

1.2021*1.05*1.03 = 1.3 or 30% total spell haste

[cruxxy]

Hey guys, I was wondering if we can bring back the discussions about the Shadow priest after 4.0.6, where the Improve power word shield talent has been reverted.
I think that for discipline priests this change is nothing, because they have other new good things that can keep themselves up, BUT how it remains with the Shadow priest?
For 2 or 3 days on playing on the PTR after the Improve power word Shield was up, for the first time I thought that the Shadow priest class has something to sey, we finally had a chance to win against another class and we could finally think that we could play a 3vs3 arena without making the lowest dmg or dying to fast.
It was a good improvement because we could finally had time to cast/dot the enemy, so we can do dmg!!! and now or in the near future without the Improved Power Word Shiled that increases the absorption by 15/30% when cast on itself, the Shadow priest again will be Poor.I know that the 15/30% increase absorption of the shield for a priest that is playing as a Discipline is Over Power, BUT for shadow priest is NOT, is NOT!! Can blizz answer to this and maybe tell us what they have in mind about the shadow priest?
Can you guys share opinions about this?.

Did you really need to post this in two different places?

[New]

Hey guys, I was wondering if we can bring back the discussions about the Shadow priest after 4.0.6, where the Improve power word shield talent has been reverted.
I think that for discipline priests this change is nothing, because they have other new good things that can keep themselves up, BUT how it remains with the Shadow priest?
For 2 or 3 days on playing on the PTR after the Improve power word Shield was up, for the first time I thought that the Shadow priest class has something to sey, we finally had a chance to win against another class and we could finally think that we could play a 3vs3 arena without making the lowest dmg or dying to fast.
It was a good improvement because we could finally had time to cast/dot the enemy, so we can do dmg!!! and now or in the near future without the Improved Power Word Shiled that increases the absorption by 15/30% when cast on itself, the Shadow priest again will be Poor.I know that the 15/30% increase absorption of the shield for a priest that is playing as a Discipline is Over Power, BUT for shadow priest is NOT, is NOT!! Can blizz answer to this and maybe tell us what they have in mind about the shadow priest?
Can you guys share opinions about this?.

This may sound a tad rude, but that is not my intended meaning. I don't really care for PVP and the aspects of Shadow Priesting around it. Therefore, I'm not really going to talk about PVP related matters in my guide. There are plenty of other threads and websites where you can discuss the information you're looking for. The thread in the Priest forums that you started with your exact post copied would be an excellent place for that discussion.

[NotAPieceOfMeat]

Hello, first i would just like to say thank you for the guide and congrats. I would like to know what ya'lls opinions are for the tier 11 four piece bonus. I was looking at shadowpriest.com and they gave it very low stats in the gear rankings. Should i aim just for the 2 set or is it likely to be buffed in future patches?

Also when mind spike is used on a target that currently has dots applied to them does that count as dispelling the dot or is it some other mechanic?

[zenkai]

1. I'm personally avoiding the 4 piece bonus just because the helm and gloves are ass, maybe ill change my mind once PTR goes live

2. When you mindspike a target with YOUR dots it gets rid of them and applies it's 3x stacking buff.