| Maegrette | #303164 Tuesday May 27, 2008 at 12:43 | |
Makes the rockin' world go round |
Like most people who play a healer, I don't get many opportunities to raid on my other characters. But recently I've gotten to take my shadow priest to ZA a couple of times, which has exposed how pitifully inexperienced I am in the dps role. She's decently geared (+1200 damage raid buffed, more or less), and I understand the abilities of the class well, but I know I'm not performing up to my potential. Back in the KZ days, I was limited in my role by the amount of threat the tanks were generating. As the tanks geared up and adjusted to their role, I went from a VT/SW:P/MF-only rotation to actually being able to throw a MB once in a while. Now that I no longer way outgear my tanks, I'm finding threat isn't as much of an issue as before, and I'm free to fully explore my abilities. Which has led to a few issues, and I'd really love to have some of the more experienced spriests here weigh in on them: 1. MANA!! Omg... I couldn't run out of mana if I tried by just using MF. But if I MB every time the cooldown is up, I'm sucking fumes mid-fight. Chain-potting and judicious use of the shadowfiend helps, as does getting wisdom instead of kings when there's more than one pally. But I'm really starting to understand the shadowpriest motto - "We go OOM so you don't have to." Gearing up for more spell damage will help here... but any other hints? 2. SW:D. I know this is an important part of a spriest spell rotation, but as I've never had the opportunity to use it, I'm learning from scratch here. It's more mana efficient overall than MB, which may help with the previous issue. But it is appropriately used with VE, which is a threat issue waiting to happen. Where do you put SW:D in your rotation and how do you prioritize it in relation to your other spells? Do you use it in heavy splash-damage fights? How do you deal with the increased threat? And how do you train your healers not to panic? :) 3. To ImpVE or not to ImpVE, that is the question. Yes, it's a threat magnet. I've taken the talent, since there are a lot of fights where I can take a huge load off the healers, and dealt with the threat issue by not using VE on the fights where it's not really necessary. But of course that means I don't use SW:D. Would it be better overall to drop the talent and heal less, but use the ability more, increasing my own DPS (through lower threat and through use of SW:D) and making the healers pick up the slack on the tougher fights? 4. The aggro ceiling. How close do you try to get, and how do you ensure you stay there, considering that due to our group buffs and DoT-heavy damage, we can't simply back off from casting to reduce threat? 5. Any other suggestions? Here's my armory - feel free to point fingers and laugh. :) Thanks in advance!! --
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| Gerad | #303178 Tuesday May 27, 2008 at 13:58 | |
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http://dwarfpriest.com/2008/02/21/priest-dps/ http://shadowpriest.com and http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t16977-shadow_priest_101_how_melt_faces_effectively/ Are great places to start. :) |
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| Gerad edited this message on Tuesday May 27, 2008 at 14:27 | ||
| Iristhyr | #303285 Tuesday May 27, 2008 at 21:33 | |
ex LOL Smite extrodinair |
Yep, those are the right links to go play with. If you're healers are anything like the healers I'm used to running with, they're pretty board as is and using SWD on cool down w/o VE up gives them something else to do. If you're worried about doing it to much, do it when you have a PWS or a prayer of mending bounce on you. As far as your rotation, best dps can be done by managing cool downs starting with: VT, SWP, SWD, MB, flay, flay... then hitting the first 4 on cool down/at end of duration and flay everywhere else. Big things are don't interrupt your flay to hit a cool down or refresh a dot. Unless you find you really need it for PvP, I'd suggest taking a point out of Shadow Weaving and picking up inner focus. You can make a macro that uses it on cool down with a SWP cast for max mana efficiency or you could bind it to a MB for those bigger crits. On the same token, if you're not doing big PvP, I'd drop the imp fear and silence for imp MB and SWD crit. Except for getting yourself in trouble with a ill-timed SWD crit, it's basically free dmg which is free mana for you and your friends. Also as you pick up more +hit from gear you can pull points out of Shadow Focus: you only need a total of 16% spell hit for raid bosses. This'll get you started thinking about the right stuff, but you really should go read up a bit on those forums. --
"Aggro," losely translated, it means "the priest dies."  |
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| Dae | #303307 Wednesday May 28, 2008 at 00:01 | |
Shadow carebear >.> |
On rotation and whatnot, /second Iristhyr. The ideal is to keep your dots up at all times, and use your nuke cooldowns whenever you can. 1) Mana - Since the spirit changes, this hasn't been nearly the problem for me that it used to be, but I guess I was always used to a mana-heavy cast sequence. Basically the best you can do is use your potion cooldowns whenever they're up, and shadowfiend. As a shadow priest doing content appropriate to your gear level... you -should- have to pot as a regular thing, not just an emergency measure. Also, taking Inner Focus and using it on SW:Pain whenever it's up will help as well. 2) Death - every time it's up, unless it's a very heavy raid damage fight and you're going to kill yourself with it. The healers either are used to it, or should be. VE without the imp VE increase should be sufficient to make up the SWD damage you do to yourself, but even if you can't use VE due to threat, keep casting Death. Being aggressive with your SWD cooldown will -greatly- improve your dps. 3) Imp VE is a nice utility buff for much later when you never have to worry about threat. If you -ever- have threat problems, my recommendation is not to take that talent. Better to be able to use a smaller VE fairly often than a larger version only once in a blue moon due to aggro issues. 4) My preferred strategy when threat's an issue is to dps full blast up to about 100-110% of the tank's threat. At that point, stop using nukes until you drop back. If you're still about to pull aggro with just DoTs and Mind Flay... you need a better tank, for one, and you then just keep your dots up and cry. Never use VE when you expect aggro to be an issue. Definitely check out those links for more in-depth discussion, and good luck! :) --
  + Daevia, 70 destro 'lock, and Daelind, 70 rogue |
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| KeeRissa | #303381 Wednesday May 28, 2008 at 08:19 | |
Burn or Heal? |
I agree with everything said above me. I would definitely consider dropping the three points in Imp Psychic Scream and Silence as well as a couple out of Shadow Weaving (or lose Imp VE) and drop them into Inner Focus and Shadow Power. As stated, Inner Focus is a great mana saver and Shadow Power, once you learn how and when to Mind Blast and SW:D, will improve your DPS significantly. If you're worried about using SW:D because of your healers, talk to them before a run. Let them know you will be using it. Most healers, especially ones who see good returns on your VT, will do their best to keep you alive. On painfully damage intensive fights, just be judicious. If you're already low and the rest of the raid is taking pretty big spikes of damage, it's probably a good idea to back off on your SW:D. I sometimes will drop a shield on myself and do it anyway, but that can get mana intensive fast. As a mage before I was a spriest, I learned the difference between a mage's spell "rotation" and a spriest's spell "priority" by reading the links provided above. Mages gain more advantage by hitting the same few buttons in a specific order. Spriests gain more advantage by managing their cooldowns. Get a cooldown counter as well as a DoT timer (if you don't already have one) and learn how the cooldowns work and how long your DoTs stay up. Know when it's important to refresh SW:P and VT and prioritize your spell cooldowns. Here's how it works for me (this is again priorities, NOT the order in which I cast the spells): VT SW:P VE (IF the fight lets me use it, more on this in a sec) SW:D MB MF (ONLY if my DoTs are ticking and everything else is on CD) VE - I rarely use it. I don't have the imp talent because even with really well-geared tanks, the threat it produces is just way too much. In my experience, if I use VT I'm juggling my aggro and forced to back off much sooner and be much less effective than I am if I don't use it and spam the heck out of my other cooldowns. If the raid is taking crazy damage and the tank is not going to lose aggro, those are the times I can use VE. As for aggro, I don't push the ceiling unless I know the tank very well or the fight lets me. Being cautious and keeping yourself alive to give mana back to your group > big numbers. Spriests are a utility class and can gain more from steady DPS over time vs big, spammy, crit-happy damage that gets themselves and half of the raid killed. My two cents. Have fun raiding as shadow! |
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| Maegrette | #303401 Wednesday May 28, 2008 at 09:30 | |
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Makes the rockin' world go round |
Thanks for all the input. The links posted were actually already in my bookmarks and I've found them helpful (Dwarfpriest was the one who got me to break the bad habit of overwriting my DoT's). But in re-reading them I did see some further tweaks I can do. Inner focus... of course. I've never needed it before so kind of forgot it was there. I've been meaning to clean up my spec (I used to PvP regularly, now I hardly ever do it, so the ImpPS/silence can definitely go too) and this is a good reminder to go ahead and do it already. While I'm at it, I'll drop ImpVE and see if that helps the overall situation. I know I'm over cap on spell hit; I've been wanting for a while to replace my staff with a 1-hander and Orb of the Soul-Eater, but I'm not sure which weapon that will be. I was grinding for the Gladiator's Gavel, then took a break from that hoping the Mindblade would drop from Prince, then my guild stopped doing Kara, now I get the occasional ZA run and there are a couple of nice 1-handers in there. Depending on which weapon I get, I may or may not be able to drop a point from Shadow Focus. (And when I do get a 1-hander, it's a definite candidate for a Soulfrost enchant.) Hearing other people's experiences and perspectives is much appreciated. Sometimes improving your own character is like proofreading your own term paper - you're so intimately involved with it that it takes a fresh outside perspective to catch all the mistakes. --
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| Iristhyr | #303695 Thursday May 29, 2008 at 15:43 | |
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ex LOL Smite extrodinair |
I'd say spec for the gear you have now. If you turn around and get a new weapon or something tomorrow and have to respec.. well... grats on your new loot. But that probably won't happen. It could be a month or two before you get any significant changes in gear. Spec what you got now and you'll have more fun and be better at it.
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"Aggro," losely translated, it means "the priest dies." |
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| Etul | #306916 Monday June 16, 2008 at 19:56 | |
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From death comes mana |
Sounds like you have the idea, a few things to think about: - Aggro generation from VE (last time I looked, could be wrong) is on _successful_ heals. This means VE aggro generation can spike pretty badly if several people in your group take damage. Most of the time in a caster/healer group (which you are in since you give mana) people don't take much damage, and you don't get much aggro from VE. If the fight has damage concentrated on the tank this is probably ok, but then you don't need to be healing anyway. If there is sudden area damage to your healer/caster group you can see your aggro shoot up fast. VE can be deadly on fights where there are aggro table wipes or new mobs show up (tidewalker). Since your dots can't be stopped - combined with VE - your healing, and thus general aggro, can't be stopped. Generally VE is just bonus healing and generates too much sudden aggro, so improved VE is usually not worth it. - Calculate how much shadow focus you need to for 16% with your +hit gear. Remember if you have a draenei around (or conveniently happen to be one) the inspiring presence will reduce that by 1%. - In a raid you likely only need 3 or 4 points in shadow weaving. You hit often enough that you don't need 100% to keep it up. Also if you have several Spriests in a raid you don't all need to keep it up. - Careful about using SW:D - I have killed myself a bunch of times by SW:D and being low on health or taking a sudden hit at the same time. --
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| KeeRissa | #306949 Monday June 16, 2008 at 22:58 | |
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Burn or Heal? |
quote: Originally posted by Etul: Generally VE is just bonus healing and generates too much sudden aggro, so improved VE is usually not worth it. Sunwell changes this significantly - having imp VE is awesome for Kalecgos and for Brutallus. Both of our regular shadowpriests (I'm back to healery for now) have at least one point in imp VE and as one of the healers they help - it's wonderful. Of course, the threat mechanics on Brutallus and Kalecgos are a little different than other fights but imp VE is something to think about in these two early Sunwell fights. I hope you're still having a "blast", haha, as shadow! |
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| Maegrette | #306986 Tuesday June 17, 2008 at 08:12 | |
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Makes the rockin' world go round |
I am! I have to admit that while my healer is my main, and sees a lot more action simply because of the need, the shadow priest is way more fun to play. It's a wonderful (and needed) break from the high stress of the healer role. (Not to mention that having a character who can actually solo effectively makes farming and dailies much easier.) I did tweak my spec a bit. Pulled out imp VE, imp PS/silence, and one point of shadow weaving; switched some 2nd row disc points from imp shield to silent resolve, and added Inner Focus and Shadow Power. (Tried out Blackout for a bit, wasn't impressed, went back to Spirit Tap.) I have to say, the new build is working out great so far. I haven't been back to ZA with it yet, but I did get the opportunity to give it a test drive in Karazhan. My threat was much more consistent than it has been, with fewer sudden spikes (I didn't even die on Nightbane!). And what with staying closer to the aggro ceiling without fear of going over, more crits, better mana efficiency, and working SW:D into my repertoire, my DPS numbers were way up from the last time I did those fights. I suspected shadow priests play a big role in Sunwell, since every end-game guild recruiting post I've seen has been wanting them. I'm not holding my breath about ever getting into that content, but if I do, I'll reconsider my spec. --
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| Tonk | #308947 Saturday June 28, 2008 at 03:36 | |
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quote: Originally posted by KeeRissa: VT SW:P VE (IF the fight lets me use it, more on this in a sec) SW:D MB MF (ONLY if my DoTs are ticking and everything else is on CD) VE - I rarely use it. I don't have the imp talent because even with really well-geared tanks, the threat it produces is just way too much. In my experience, if I use VT I'm juggling my aggro and forced to back off much sooner and be much less effective than I am if I don't use it and spam the heck out of my other cooldowns. If the raid is taking crazy damage and the tank is not going to lose aggro, those are the times I can use VE. On the subject of "spell priority": I completely agree with what KeeRissa has said on the spell priorities. For example, just last night, I raided a 25-man T5; there was another SP there - with very close to the same stats I have. In the end, according to Recount, she had 665 overall dps, and I had 942 overall - why? - it's all about the spell priority. One thing KeeRissa did not mention, but I'm confident she knows, is the reason why SW:D comes in a higher priority than MB - so if both c/d's are up, which do you cast first? All lag set aside, your damage per time is the same - the difference is healers - I've found that I freak out the healers a LOT less if I SW:D and *then* MB - because of the MB, about a 3rd of the health lost from SW:D is immediately regained, and the healers don't have to worry as much. Since I have imp. VE, the health is typically regained with one MB and one MF (with DoTs ticking). On VE - I use it all the time, for one reason only - healers. In my opinion, if a healer has to take their attention off a tank just because I want to do some extra damage, I'm not doing my job. Like KeeRissa said, the healers are usually more than willing to keep you alive, but despite that prefer carrying my weight health-wise. This doesn't always work, depending on the tanking, but I think you catch my drift. Well that's my two cents. Great forum post; love the discussion. Regards, Dahlandor / Tonkatank --
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