[Shadow] Need help to improve Performance

[Ahvanar]

Hey folks

First of all thanks for reading.

I am running a 10man raid group and 1 of my member is concerned with his performances as Shadow. I don't feel like its being problematic but when we look @ the ranking infos, hes lower then he wants to be and he feels like it could be higher. I personally have very limited knowledge about that specific class/spec. any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Here's a log of our last raid, please disregard SoF and Gara'jal since the logs on those encounters are beyond broken.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/q...um/damageDone/

[Burchoid]

His active time seems pretty good... but I think he could benefit by changing talents between bosses if he isn't already. For example, he should be near the top of the meters on Garalon with quick dotting and Twist of Fate + Cascade. Not using ToF on that fight would be a pretty big DPS loss for me. I like cascade because it hits the boss and all/any legs that are up, helping proc more ToF off those hard-to-reach back legs.

[Nestar]

Active time isn't really a good indication just fyi. You can very well be casting the wrong spells and have good active time.

As far as dps goes, He's actually doing really poorly.
I'm using feng as an example as its the easiest to check.
94.8% uptime on SWP (should be 99%+) and 81.8% on VT (Should be 95%+)

Really low mind blast usage. (assuming 9.5 seconds between casts, that allows for approx 41 across the fight. He got 40, while using Divine Insight with 16 procs during the fight. A good run with that should've been close to 48 depending on timing of the procs.

He did use all but one of the Surge of Darkness procs by the looks of it, so its more than likely a priority issue, (Mindblast should always be higher priority than Mind Spike)
45 shadow orbs gained, but 17 Devouring plauges used. Meaning he's casting it before reaching 3 orbs sometimes.

As far as improving goes, he needs to get proper dot timers and ensure he can keep near 100% uptime before worrying about procs. Until he's comfortable doing so, he should avoid running both FDCL and DI together. If at all.

Gearing is reasonable so for the most part he'll just have to work on rotation.

[Deleted]

First of all tell him to start using potions. One right before pull and another one during Bloodlust or execute phase.

From logs i can read that he's familiar with rotation and priority, so there are only a few advices I can give.

1. If you know that you may have to move within next few seconds, try to save Mind Spike procs or another instant casts abilites for movement. There's 15sec window for use of MindSpike and 7sec window for Devouring Plague.

2. Trinket proc's are significant part of dps. Use addons to track trinket procs, but also trinket cooldowns. So u can delay Devouring Plague or Shadowfiend a moment if your trinkets are going of cooldown, and with 4set bonus also think of reaplying dots during trinket procs.

3. The goal is to spend 100% of time casting something while prioritising highest dmg abilites. I've noticed lesser usage of mind flay, but this may get better with 4set bonus.

4. Use Twisted Fate on fights with adds.

5. Your overall dps is fine for some heroic bosses and people usually do more dps when they have to do so

Edit: Agree with a poster before, Mind Blast usage can be and should be higher. Devouring Plague with less orbs is acceptable if u can't use anything else during movement.

[Ahvanar]

Thank you very much for the help, i'm sure that will help improve his numbers!

[dmfg]

Looking again at the Feng logs, have a bit more to add on the shadow orbs side. Go to expression editor on Feng and run this:

((spell="Mind Blast") and (type=TYPE_CAST)) or ((spell="Mind Sear") and (type=TYPE_CAST)) or ((spell="Shadow Word: Death") and (type=TYPE_CAST)) or ((spell="Devouring Plague") and (type=TYPE_CAST))

Then go to the Timeline tab and click "Plot spell timeline". It will tell you about shadow orb generation and usage. You are looking for
- long gaps between MBs (except when Mind Searing for shield adds)
- one DP every 3 orbs generated
- in execute phase, 2 consecutive SWs with no delayed MB or SW

What you can see is
- frequent over-long gaps between MBs (ignore excessively short gaps as these are DI procs)
- some DPs used with 1 or 2 orbs
- messy execute phase, with very long delays on MBs and shorter delays on SW (the second SW doesn't generate an orb, and should be used before pressing DP in order to put SW back on CD)

What this means is your priest
- needs to tidy up his DOT refreshes so he doesn't delay MB. Better to clip an extra tick (or even 2) of a DOT than delay MB
- probably needs to watch his orbs more carefully so he doesn't DP early (maybe justifiable with 2 orbs if 2 trinket SP procs are about to expire, otherwise probably not worth it)
- needs to practice his execute phase so he lands every MB and SW on time, even if it means DOTs dropping off for a few seconds, and not using DP between 2 SWs