Spriest DPS not so hot - any advice?

[drogoganor]

Hi all,

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Olrotty/simple

I've been doing a lot of reading about maximizing shadow DPS, and I seem to be following the rules fairly well RE: spell priority, gemming, enchants, reforging, etc. However I only seem to be able to attain about 15k DPS in optimal conditions.

Can someone have a look at my gear/spec and tell me if I'm doing something wrong? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Olrotty

[Drhomie]

you have 0,8% too much hit
that's all i can say about your gear

it seems, that you have problems with your spell priority or better: in how you play (clipping MF, renewing dots too early, etc.)

[Katurian]

I see a few places to make improvements. But I don't know if it'll be enough to improve you beyond a 1k dps or so.

-Lose the Spirit enchant on wrists and get +50 Int.
-Switch Mastery on your Gloves to Haste.
-Put two +40 Int into your Belt
-On your pants replace the Hit raiting gem with a +20 Int\Hit Gem.
-Power Torrent on your Staff would be a good improvement.
-Put a +40 Int in your Boots.
-Run BRC and get the Haste Trinket off the last boss to replace the Soul Casket. I believe thats actually a pretty high DPS increase even for a blue trinket.

You should be fine losing those hit gems since you're .80% over cap at the moment. If you can go ahead and reforge more out of it. I dont know if it's exactly the same, but in 4.1 SPriests actually saw some DPS increase by sticking around 15-16% hit, and putting the other 1-2% into hit. Obviously the more hit and the more haste the better. =) you'll see a large DPS increase at certain haste thresholds. I dont know what they are except for the 30% haste mark.

Im sure others will have more ideas for you =)

[drogoganor]

I see a few places to make improvements.

Great, thanks!

[Deleted]

Hi,

1. too much hit, you only need 1742, its better to be a bit undercapped then overcapping by 0,8%.
2. main hand isn't enchanted, "Power Torrent" should be cheap enough currently.
3. your glove enchant should be 50 haste, the boots enachant 50 hit, use "Powerful Ghostly Spellthread", int on the bracers. And generally the big enchants shouldn't be too expensive...
4. You could but one point from Inner Sanctum into Mental Agility, but I guess it doesn't make that much difference.

[Irony]

You seem to like hit, a lot.
Being hit capped isn't required anymore, so drop the insane amount of hit gems/enchants for +40 int. Enchant your staff, PT is a noticeable increase in dps.
Every piece of gear you have should have haste on it, whether you have to reforge for it or not.

Read the sticky, it helps a lot.

[Demetrion]

I see a few places to make improvements. But I don't know if it'll be enough to improve you beyond a 1k dps or so.

-Lose the Spirit enchant on wrists and get +50 Int.
-Switch Mastery on your Gloves to Haste.
-Put two +40 Int into your Belt
-On your pants replace the Hit raiting gem with a +20 Int\Hit Gem.
-Power Torrent on your Staff would be a good improvement.
-Put a +40 Int in your Boots.
-Run BRC and get the Haste Trinket off the last boss to replace the Soul Casket. I believe thats actually a pretty high DPS increase even for a blue trinket.

You should be fine losing those hit gems since you're .80% over cap at the moment. If you can go ahead and reforge more out of it. I dont know if it's exactly the same, but in 4.1 SPriests actually saw some DPS increase by sticking around 15-16% hit, and putting the other 1-2% into hit. Obviously the more hit and the more haste the better. =) you'll see a large DPS increase at certain haste thresholds. I dont know what they are except for the 30% haste mark.

Im sure others will have more ideas for you =)

This and:

1. Buy a Volcano card from AH if you can afford it.
2. Get 2 set bonus from t11.
3. Put spirit gems instead of hit, helps a bit with mana management.
4. Put hybrid gems instead of pure hit gems (int+spirit mostly)
5. If you can't afford Power Torrent, put Hurricane on your staff.
6. When you get tier legs, put proper enchant on them (int+spirit)

There is probably more, but I'm sleepy as hell, gonna update this post tomorrow morning.

[godofslack]

Ok first thing's first let's talk about your gemming/enchanting.

The first thing I notice is that you are matching gems when you really shouldn't be. The only time you should be matching +20 int items is when it's red + another gem. That way you get 80 int and 20 haste/spirit as opposed to going pure red and getting 80 int. In your particular case you are matching and losing DPS as a result. The rule is Helm match it > Chest/Pants with red, match it, if it's +20 int > Chest/pants w/o red, pure red > Everything else, pure red.

A couple of your enchants are a little off. Your Bracers should either be +50 int, or for those who don't have the gold to spend on it +50 haste. Your glove enchants should be +50 haste. Pants should be +int and +spirit. And boots should either be +35 mastery + runspeed (lava walker if I'm not mistaken) or +50 haste (we like haste).

You should aim to enchant your weapon too. Ideally Power Torrent but Hurricane is okay.

Your reforging seems ok without going too deep into it. Though you are 0.8% over hit cap (which is roughly 80 hit).

Your Glyphs and Talents are perfectly fine. Though I would add glyph of spirit tap (as a major glyph).

I don't personally know what you are doing for your rotation but makes sure to use Mind Blast off CD. Spam Shadow Word Death/ Devouring Plague when moving. Keep your DoTs up and Cast Shadowfiend during Procs.

[Beav]

People telling him to change hit for spirit gems - theres no need.

In-combat spirit based mana regen does not work for shadow priests anymore. The only reason to gem spirit is if you want faster out of combat regen.

[Deleted]

Reforge out of hit. The amulet hit reforge is not needed. Do not gem for hit ever, do not enchant for hit ever. Only do this to reach exactly 17.00% or a little bit lower. Anything from 16.90-17.00% is good. I would also like to point out that 50 haste on gloves < 65 mastery on gloves. Also 50 haste on boots > lavawalker, but only if the player is aware of when to move. Power Torrent is a must. It is a wise plan to get hold on that DMC: Volcano, as it is BiS for cheaps. Your other trinket should either be: BRC Hourglass/Theralion's Mirror/Necromantic Focus. All of them are okay. Bracer enchant should be 50 int. When you get crit on an item with haste and no spirit, either reforge to spirit if you need the hitcap (never exceed the hitcap) or to mastery. Mastery currently > Crit. What I would go for is 2200 haste in your current gear with the hitcap if possible. This will give a few BPs for your dots with DI active. If you wanna check out how I run my shadow, use EU armory and find Anhemus - Frostwhisper.

[Arlee]

You should be fine losing those hit gems since you're .80% over cap at the moment. If you can go ahead and reforge more out of it. I dont know if it's exactly the same, but in 4.1 SPriests actually saw some DPS increase by sticking around 15-16% hit, and putting the other 1-2% into hit. Obviously the more hit and the more haste the better. =) you'll see a large DPS increase at certain haste thresholds. I dont know what they are except for the 30% haste mark.

This is still mostly true, some people do get improvements from going that low on hit cap, some people don't though. The other thing is that as you get higher gear levels what misses you get will be more noticeable, and having 4pc T12 makes that argument a little stronger... The best advice about hit though is to get as close as you can without going over. The difference between being 17% hit and 16.5% hit are negligible.

[Dawn Falcon]

All the above posts are right, but probably missing the point.

What addons are you using? Try MFClip...

[Brusalk]

The only thing I can really add onto what others have already said, is to make sure that you are refreshing your dots just after their second to last tick, and before their last tick, as that'll give you 100% dot uptime. To help with that get a good DoT Timer like DoTimer or EventHorizon or ForteXorcist that shows DoT ticks.

Also, get a good cast bar and put it in a noticable location on your screen so that you can take advantage of getting an extra MF tick if you need to clip it for something. (Gnosis or ACB are pretty good)

Also, you can't clip mind flay with itself, so to save time and get your GCDs earlier, you can cast mind flay after the second tick of your current mind flay cast and that way the GCD will be earlier opening up some time for other things when you need them, and also marginalizing the effect of latency on your rotation.

[Monsterdrink]

I agree with the others, and you really might want to buy the Tier set for shadow and not for healing.

[untg]

I asked myself this question a while ago and did a few things which helpded.
Reforged all my crit to mastery, then went on a dummy and this is mostly my rotation (I have Darkmoon Card: Volcano):
DP-VE-SP-Mind Blast
Mind Flay until 1-3 orb procs <(ORB's are uber important BTW).
Recast all dot's (I think this should be done once you have Empowered Shadow's, pretty sure you have to re-cast to get % from ES).
Rinse and repeat.
If my Darkmoon card procs and I have an orb I usually Mind Blast and then recast Dot's, but as someone said, keeping Mind Blast always cast is probably a better idea, however, always be watching what your SP% increases are doign like empowered shadow's etc..because they matter to the DOT's.
I'm currently on 11K dps with iLVL 352, hoping to up that pretty soon and I do need more HIT but waiting until I get some hit gear so I don't lose mastery.

[Zalgren8725]

If you are having questions regarding gems/enchants/meta/etc. check out Ask Mr. Robot. It's an iPhone/Android/Web app for optimizing those things. Works great for me so far

[Gellania]

I hope this is not your healing gear, but going slot by slot:

Back - Lightweave
Chest - Peerless Stats
Wrist - +50 Int
Staff - Power Torrent
Wand - Should have gotten the other VP wand
Gloves - +65 Mastery
Belt - +40 Int gem
Pants - The +95 Int spellthread

[Veiled]

It's like I always say, anything above 17% is just a waste. Everyone covered what I'd type to you though. If you still have issues, provide us a wol report.

[Xenodrake]

I would suggest getting power aura's if you cant keep track of cetain buff its really nice to have also get castbars and button timers to keep track of each Dot's tick and im sure once your use to those it will go up in no time. ^_^ GL

[Zuziza]

I asked myself this question a while ago and did a few things which helpded.
Reforged all my crit to mastery, then went on a dummy and this is mostly my rotation (I have Darkmoon Card: Volcano):
DP-VE-SP-Mind Blast
Mind Flay until 1-3 orb procs <(ORB's are uber important BTW).
Recast all dot's (I think this should be done once you have Empowered Shadow's, pretty sure you have to re-cast to get % from ES).
Rinse and repeat.
If my Darkmoon card procs and I have an orb I usually Mind Blast and then recast Dot's, but as someone said, keeping Mind Blast always cast is probably a better idea, however, always be watching what your SP% increases are doign like empowered shadow's etc..because they matter to the DOT's.
I'm currently on 11K dps with iLVL 352, hoping to up that pretty soon and I do need more HIT but waiting until I get some hit gear so I don't lose mastery.

Do not cast MB in your opening rotation until you have an orb. Get DoTs up and cast MF until you proc an orb, cast MB, refresh DoTs if you got procs going on too (like volcano, PT), then maintain uptimes. Cast MB on CD whether there's an orb or not; if you haven't refresh ES and it's about to fall off, make sure your DoTs are going to last a bit. If they'll fall off quickly, do an early refresh on them and MF away. Don't forget SF and AA on CD.