[Shadow Priest] Guide/Rotation

[Worldie]

Question of the day. Imagine I'm casting mind flay (with 3 sec cast, 1 tick every second).
What happens if at 2.5 I interrupt the cast for casting another mind flay? Does it behave like a DoT, hence it will tick 0.5 sec after, or it behaves like a channeled, so ticks 1 second after?

[Skye1013]

While it counts as a dot, I'm fairly certain it doesn't behave like a dot. So refreshing it early will just cause you to lose the damage of the last tic. That being said, there are some situations where you WANT to clip the last tic for something more desirable (namely, if Mind Blast comes off cool down you'll clip the final tic of Mind Flay to cast it.)

[Rhiannon]

That's incorrect. If you chain cast two flays, starting the second flay after the second tick of the first flay, you will get six ticks, spaced evenly apart. It's been like this since Catacylsm. Hence why nochanneling macros are actually a dps loss now, introducing latency when there doesn't need to be any.

[Worldie]

What, so the headache i was getting from trying to not clip mind flay with itself is useless?

[Rhiannon]

Yep!

[Worldie]

Anyone getting this wierd "A more powerful spell is already active" while spamming DP (during movement for example)?

[Skye1013]

Yes, actually. I chalked it up to procs, but it does seem to only occur when I'm moving. Then again, I usually don't chain cast DP unless I'm moving, so that may have something to do with it.

[warden]

Since this was referenced in the frusterations thread, and this might be the more appropriate place, I wanted to post here on the spike/burn rotation that I mentioned. Note, this only applies if you have 4pT13.

I learned about this from our main raid's shadowpriest looking to min/max dps on H Ultraxion. Apparently the 4p bonus, where fiend (important) and shadowy apparitions (not so important) generate 3 shadow orbs every time they strike has a unique synergy with mind spike/blast. Essentially, you want to synergize your on-use trinkets, fiend, and dark AA to set up a stacked-cd situation where you can spam mind spike/mind blast instead of using your dots/flay. This creates some pretty insane burst dps, as you're gaining instant cast, 100% crit mind blasts with 3 shadow orbs, a situation not normally possible outside of extremely lucky RNG during heavy multi-dotting. He's reported mind blast crits of upwards of 200k, in addition to the boosted mind spike damage. After the fiend fades, he goes back to normal rotation.

Just some food for thought.

[Worldie]

LF someone who can analyze this log
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-d6iqn ... =638&e=928
and criticise me / explain me why my dps is pathetic.

Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/h ... die/simple

[Rhiannon]

Just comparing with the other sp in the log, he gets 39 mind blasts off to your 33. However given his gear is considerably better than yours (Dragonwrath and some ilevels) and the fact he's getting dark intent, he's actually doing worse than you comparatively, so I wouldn't look at his breakdown too closely >_<. I would focus on increasing the # of blasts though. You don't appear to like double deathing, either. (Oops - checked your glyphs and you're not running that - some encounter-specific reason, ie you're soaking hours of twilight?)

Things you can improve - using the fiend + archangel spike/blast spam is almost certainly a gain on the pull, and during lust, when you've got pot and procs running with it. I wouldn't use it with every fiend, but definitely on the pull, and if they line up with heroism. In that log you only used one pot unless the phasing chopped out the second. Not sure if the log is bugged or you didn't actually get heroism? If you didn't get it then I wouldn't be too disheartened on the basis of that one log.

Judging by your imp devo plague hits, it looks like you're only applying DP frequently enough to keep the DoT up. Imp DP is better DPE than mind flay, albeit a massive mana drain, but I'd still reapply it under major procs (notably power torrent and velocity) as long as archangel isn't up (MF becomes better DPE than imp DP under archangel afaik). If you're not already, move a bit during the GCD in which you cast DP - if SW:P ticks during that GCD (and as your SW:P is ticking every 1.5 seconds roughly there's a fairly high chance of that) you're increasing your chance of apparitions, and so, orbs. Likewise with other instants, especially deaths sub 25%.

[Worldie]

Thanks, i'll take note of those things ^_^

[Darielle]

You're losing out on Mind Blasts here and there because you're letting a full Flay finish. Happily clip moar and you should get a bit out of it.

Am I imagining things or was Hero never popped on that kill?

[Skye1013]

You're losing out on Mind Blasts here and there because you're letting a full Flay finish. Happily clip moar and you should get a bit out of it.

Aye, you should almost never fully chain two mind flays. With the cd on Mind Blast, I'm generally clipping the 2nd Mind Flay (if not for MB, then for VT.) I'm sure I'm not perfect on my rotation, but I haven't really had any glaring issues (then again, I wouldn't say I compete for dps against the most cutting edge of players either.)

That being said... starting a fight with SF/Wings/MS/MB rotation is relatively easy. What about mid-fight? Should I save my Wings for when SF is back up, or just use it on cd and occasionally it'll line up with SF?

Also, should I hold those for dps buffs (Hagara after P2, right after orb hits Zon) or use them on cd (assuming the buff is a little farther away from happening, but not far enough that they'll be back off cd.) Would 3 of those rotations without a buff be more dps than 2 with a buff? Damn this 4 pc... it's screwing with my head!

[Worldie]

You're losing out on Mind Blasts here and there because you're letting a full Flay finish. Happily clip moar and you should get a bit out of it.

Am I imagining things or was Hero never popped on that kill?

We use some wierd idea for hero, we let all healers press the button 5 sec before fight starts, then pop bloodlust, then ideally pop bloodlust again only for healers in the last 40 secs of the fight in heroic.

[Rhiannon]

For Zon'ozz he doesn't lose the damage taken debuff, it progressively stacks through the fight, gaining stacks at the start of every black phase (at least as long as you're executing properly). You can track the void diffusion debuff to check for this.

This means that you want to get the maximum number of uses of your cds in the fight, while having as many of them as late as possible (and this applies for all dps specs that have significant CDs really). So if that means for example (considering normal mode only) that you can delay your cds a few seconds so that the boss eats the ball and gains more stacks of the void diffusion without costing yourself an extra cd usage later in the fight that you would otherwise have managed to get, then do so.

For Hagara it's a bit trickier, take a look at your kills and figure out how many you'd get as a maximum. The stun only lasts half the duration of archangel, plus if it's following a lightning phase you'll probably have to flay to get archangel up, so if it's a choice of 3 with only 1 lining up with stun vs 2 with both lining up with stun I'd go with the 3. On heroic though it lines up a bit nicer due to longer frost phases.

Edit: that idea for hero's fairly standard for heroic tactics, though most people do the hero after combat's started so that the boss is debuffed and trinkets have at least some stacks when the hero goes off. Explains the lack on the log though. If you're doing hero on pull I'd definitely do the spike/blast spam. If they insist on popping it before you actually pull, try to get a second heroism when your fiend's out as it does benefit from heroism (but only if it's cast after it's summoned).