[Priest] PvE Shadow Guide (by Kilee)

[Solia]

Any advice when leveling a spriest?

Go Disc until you hit 70's, especially if you are running dungeons.

[Hoddie]

I just wanted to leave a message that at this point in time it is doubtful that I will be raiding in MoP. My wife and I just recently had a daughter, which is taking up all of my time.

In truth the guide needed at least one last major update for Cata, but I've just simply run out of steam at this point. Although I might still make some guides for myself or work on trinket lists, I can't put the kind of dedication I once did into something as expansive as this one.

With the EXTENSIVE changes that are happening to our class in MoP, the guide will be immediately outdated as soon as the MoP patch hits. Someone else will need to pick up the torch at that point and get a new guide out. I'm perfectly fine with someone taking my guide and editing it for future expansions, although I've never been completely happy with the format of it - I would hope that the next version looks better (lol).

Anyway, I just wanted to say it has been an honor and priviledge to maintain the guide for the community in this expansion. I had a lot of fun with it, and definately enjoyed the feedback I receieved because of it.

Thanks again for the guide Kilee, and I echo the sentiments of those above; congratulations on your new sprog and I hope you enjoy what she brings to your life

[jisbilby]

As others have said, thanks for the excellent guide this expansion Kilee, and I hope you have a wonderful time with your daughter.

[Skygoneblue]

I just wanted to leave a message that at this point in time it is doubtful that I will be raiding in MoP. My wife and I just recently had a daughter, which is taking up all of my time.

Phht, pics or it didn't happen!

Thanks a lot for the guide Kilee. Enjoy RL!

[lbcbomberman]

Sorry to see you go Kilee but thanks for all the work you have put into the class. I usually just lurk the forums but for you I had to post Goodbye and good luck!

[Karfragnor]

I have not played shadow since WOTLK, however I just specced into it last night out of boredom and this guide was a lot of help. I appreciate the work done and it's great you're off starting a family! Happy hunting!

[zaface]

nice guide, i hope u come with something similar after MoP is launched

[Kelesti]

nice guide, i hope u come with something similar after MoP is launched

Clearly haven't been keeping up.

[Kilee25]

I updated the trinket list to account for the changes in Cunning of the Cruel (a few months ago). Been meaning to do that for a while. Also added the value of Bottled Wishes when paired with cooldowns.

[Chipies]

I've installed the quartz and dotimer, i also configurated so it only shows my debuffs.
But there is also some bars that also show me the debuffs and casts but I just can't get rid of it... know how?

[Nianif]

Thx for the guide!

Question:
"1. Tailoring, Lightweave Embroidery: 120 pp"

How do you calc this?
IMHO it's only 83 pp.

[Kilee25]

Hi Chipies, thank you for the question.

I've installed the quartz and dotimer, i also configurated so it only shows my debuffs.
But there is also some bars that also show me the debuffs and casts but I just can't get rid of it... know how?

For Quartz - the only thing I enable is "player cast bar" and "latency". I turn pretty much everything else off.
For Dotimer - The only thing I enable is target and focus dotimer. Then I click on "white list" and type in VT, SW: P, and DP. There is an option buried in the Dotimer options that says "Show blizzard buffs". If this isn't checked you won't see your buffs in the top-right corner.

I hope this helps. You'll have to play around with it some and read through the controls some.

---------- Post added 2012-05-29 at 11:24 AM ----------

Hi Nianif, thank you for the question.

Question:
"1. Tailoring, Lightweave Embroidery: 120 pp"

How do you calc this?
IMHO it's only 83 pp.

This is how I'm calculating it:

580*15/72 I added about 12 seconds to the CD to account for the fact that it doesn't always proc immediately.

Reading through some comments on wowhead now... I see that people are subtracting the 50 intellect from the "alternative"... yeah I didn't really think about that. I'll fix it.

[Seramore]

Few questions:

1: Do people still clip Mind Flay? I remember hearing about re-casting Mind Flay right after the second tick. Is this still efficient or are people just fully channeling Mind Flay now?

2: When Mind Blast comes up while I'm casting Mind Flay, should I interrupt it to cast Mind Blast, or wait for a tick/the channel to expire to cast Mind Blast?

[Zarqa]

Few questions:

1: Do people still clip Mind Flay? I remember hearing about re-casting Mind Flay right after the second tick. Is this still efficient or are people just fully channeling Mind Flay now?

2: When Mind Blast comes up while I'm casting Mind Flay, should I interrupt it to cast Mind Blast, or wait for a tick/the channel to expire to cast Mind Blast?

1: Yes, if you recast after the second tick, the last "missing" tick will be added to the next Mind Flay, just like it works with VT and DP. As long as you cast the new spell between the second and third tick, you're absolutely fine DPS wise. It will cost you some extra mana, but that should be a non-issue.

2: Yes, Mind Blast has a much higher priority then Flay. Again, you'll lose some mana, but you'll gain DPS. The only 2 times this might not hold true is when you need extra ticks of Mindflay to get Evangelism stacked to 5, or if you want to delay Mind Blast to gain a Shadow Orb. But even in those situations it almost always is better to keep Mind Blast on cooldown.

[Seramore]

Word, thanks!

[eErike]

2: Yes, Mind Blast has a much higher priority then Flay. Again, you'll lose some mana, but you'll gain DPS. The only 2 times this might not hold true is when you need extra ticks of Mindflay to get Evangelism stacked to 5, or if you want to delay Mind Blast to gain a Shadow Orb. But even in those situations it almost always is better to keep Mind Blast on cooldown.

To add:

Yes, Mind blast is worth more than a finished Mind Flay but only if you interrupt the Mind Flay right after the 2nd tick. Otherwise you've completely wasted a global.
The Evangelism part is only true in sertain, hard to spot, situations:

1. You have Mind Blast ready, 3-4 stacks of evangelism and you'll need to refresh either Devouring Plague or Vampiric Touch directly after the Mind Blast.
2. You are about to use Archangel after the Mind Blast.

In any other situation you'll be better of reaching those stacks with another Mind Flay right after the Mind Blast.

If you feel unsure about when the seccond tick hits try downloading any castbar add-on displaying that. If you feel insecure about the whole thing with clipping, don't. It's such a small DPS gain to cast that Mind Blast .8 secconds faster at that very moment. It will ofcours add up in a whole fight though and can be rather good to learn to master

[Zarqa]

Yeah, you're absolutely correct. One thing I would do differently though:

2. You are about to use Archangel after the Mind Blast.

In that situation, I would finish the MF to get to 5 stacks, then use AA, and then cast a buffed MB, so that the MB actually benefits from the AA.
Other than that, thanks for the additions.

[Kilee25]

To add to the discussion:

I did a bit of theorycrafting on this a while back. The way that you calculate whether or not it is safe to clip Mind Flay works like this:

MB damage/MB cast time = MB DPS
MF average tick damage/MF channel length/3 = MF DPS per tick

You can get all of this data from a typical raid log or damage meter and the tooltip on the spell itself. From there you need to find the amount of time remaining on a tick of Mind Flay where it would equal the DPS of the Mind Blast. (ie pretend the channel length is shorter than it actually is.)

Long story short, the last time I did the math on this, the answer was that somewhere past about 50% of a mind flay tick it's better to just wait for the tick than to interrupt. However the space between a tick and 50% of the way to the next is very lenient, and is a pretty easy window to hit with a modicum of practice.

And if you don't even feel like putting that much work/thought into it, in all honesty you can just cast MB as soon as it's up without even bothering to look at the MF channel, and you will still see a dps increase or at the worst break even - basically there's no harm in doing it even if you suck at it.

[Zarqa]

in all honesty you can just cast MB as soon as it's up without even bothering to look at the MF channel, and you will still see a dps increase or at the worst break even.

I personally feel that spamming the MB keybind so that it starts casting the moment it's available will increase my DPS more than waiting for the perfect moment of a Mind Flay to cast it. No math behind it, just based on so many answers in 'fix my dps' telling people to Cast More Mind Blasts! The best way to do that I think is spamming the MB right after you start a MF so you won't lose unnecessary time with MB off cooldown.

This way I might not have the best MF usage, but I do know I will cast as much MBs during a fight as I can.

[eErike]

MB damage/MB cast time = MB DPS
MF average tick damage/MF channel length/3 = MF DPS per tick

This would be very inacurate if calculated form a log where mind flay have been clipped.

---------- Post added 2012-06-08 at 01:57 PM ----------

I personally feel that spamming the MB keybind so that it starts casting the moment it's available will increase my DPS more than waiting for the perfect moment of a Mind Flay to cast it. No math behind it, just based on so many answers in 'fix my dps' telling people to Cast More Mind Blasts! The best way to do that I think is spamming the MB right after you start a MF so you won't lose unnecessary time with MB off cooldown.

This way I might not have the best MF usage, but I do know I will cast as much MBs during a fight as I can.

Casting a Mind Blast right before the seccond tick of a Mind Flay will never be a dps increase as you would have spent almost as much time on one tick as you would have on two. (1 tick per 1.6 secconds instead of 2 ticks in 1.7 is never a dps increase).