Endgame (PvE) Shadowpriest at Nostalrius

[smilkovpetko]

No, you do take imp. Mind blast for PvE because once you get meditation there is no reason to put more points into any other tree, which leaves you with more points to drop in shadow, meaning that those 4 points in imp. mindblast are super awesome because it allows you to chain mindflayx2 during mindblast cooldowns. There's no reason to put yourself at a potential disadvantage for DPS by having your hardest hitting attack be on a longer cooldown, especially when you can spec it to coincide precisely with your main nuke. not putting any points into it means that to max your dps you have to clip your third mindflay's last tick.

This is the standard PvE shadowpriest build during this patch: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#bxx0sZZxGxpcxRt

The only way any argument could be made against it is if you REALLY want to put 3 points into mental agility, but since it only affects SW:P (and DP if you're an UD), it's 4 talent points to save 29 mana over 30 seconds, which just isn't worth it imo.

4/5 mb - 3 tick mf-1mb-1swp- 1 second wasted during server lag on gcd-2 tick mf-3tick mf- 1mb.

5/5 mb on unique rotation - 1mb-1swp-2tick mf-2tick mf-1mb-3tick mf-3tick mf - mb
(0 seconds wasted on server lag using gcd).

something that nobody does or notice.

p.s there is no reason wasting 2 points of improved vampiric embrace which increases so low heal and is most likely useful on only 1 boss in game . other than that is dangerous aggro machine
(especially wasting 1 worthless debuff slot and most dangerous on bwl last boss when it comes) .

Raid spec quality = http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#bxxzsZZxGxtcxot
(1 point that is set on martyrdom you can switch to improved ve).

Mana efficient quality = http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#bxxzsVZZxGxt0hot

Make Macro Mindblast with Inner Focus for good shot and enjoy that extra crit/dmg.

cheers.

Mind Flay is a 3 second long channel, 4 points in imp. Mind Blast brings its cooldown down to 6 seconds, perfectly lining it up to fit after 2 full 3 tick channels of Mind Flay. Yes, dropping 5 points into imp mind blast will allow you to technically generate the highest dps available, but at a massive hit to mana efficiency, because you're only getting 5 ticks of damage from every 2 mind flay casts. If latency is an issue then that's something that you have to deal with and adjust for. When I played on retail I never had an issue with running with 4 points in imp. mind blast.

re: Imp. VE. You can take a point out of that and put it into imp MB if you want, but there's no reason to skip it entirely. 30% of your dmg dealt returned to your group is a fuck load, and if your raid leader is smart and puts you with people who need healing on a regular basis - tanks, melee that is constantly getting some dmg from aoe effects, or warlocks, it saves your raid healers oodles of mana, because they don't have to keep dropping renews or rejuvs on them. If your mindflays hit for 300 dmg per tick (not unreasonable for a decently geared SP in a raid setting), then with imp. VE you're healing each of your group mates for 90 hp every second, and that's discounting the healing coming in from SW:P every 3 seconds. Imp. VE is worth taking, at least once the debuff limit is increased to 16. With Debuffs at 8, you have a point.

don't avoid shadow word pain of your global cd calculations , because it will always interrupt your extra second.

and ye the lag has nothing to do with your "blind eye" .

even if you have 2 ms lag it will still waste 1 tick due to server latency , this was also issue in retail until cataclysm and you cant notice that.

for this reason there was study about this using special shadow priest addons.

mindblast is far more superior.

if you have problem with mana - go for full intellect / spirit gear .

damage will still be far superior compare to mindflays due to mb crits.

(improved vampiric embrace increase the heal done by existant vampiric embrace heal by 10% 2/2) .

10% is imo nothing heal at all and only 2 wasted points on useless debuff .

[Proctologist]

wow amazing "harsh" language toward who shows opposite.

Shadow Priest in fact is good on dps , and Mindblast is the real reason of increasing this dps.

your spec is no different than mine , you just posted 5 points to "mental agility" instead 5 points to "improved mindblast" .

5 points to "mental agility" are nowhere close to solve your mana issue compare to dps increase of mindblast.

http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/Fight ... ssLimit=Pr

look at this person how shiny dps he got as shadow priest.

If you want to do dps without mana issue and 5/5 mb on cd then go for full intellect > spirit > crit > spell damage gear.

Wow you linked real old dps stats, when I was doing the most dmg and as SP we didn't even have realmplayers nor anyone in my guild, my guild I spent almost 2 years in isn't even mentioned on my realmplayers which was <Clutch>
I had much much much more DPS and I was in top5 hahaha
TLDR realmplayers can't be used to show how I performed back on ED.

It's still not the same, one of your spec had 5 points elsewhere.. imp mb, and the other didn't even have shadow reach, and you had 3/5 shadow vuln.

5 points in mental agility is a lot of mana saved over time, and idk why you linked sulfuron?
It's not really a fight to boast about your dmg because melees have to switch a lot and same with casters.. dmg+magic shield.

In the end of the day people are still going to play with different specs and rotations and get different rotations, my rotation and my spec ensured I was always top of my game in other guilds raids, my guild runs and proper pugs.

If you feel like imp mindblast is the way to go then by all means, but you're not going to last in real fights.. not stupid halfwit mc bosses when you have bwl and/or aq gear.

Even I were on the brink of going oom using my spec+rotation when I was among top on dps+dmg in bwl raids back in mid 2013 and early 2014.

I'm sorry I probably cannot show you any more proof than the 2 random SS provided few posts earlier(they weren't mine, put together by an old guildie)

you boast and brag how good dps you are but also there you said before on previous post how bad on dps shadow priest is. ... it is funny to hear 2 counter arguments by your own words.

i was 8 years shadow priest and i was racing on world ranking meters in retail - from vanilla up to pandaria .

http://www.worldoflogs.com/

this is the website that was used in retail .
i can tell you that shadowpriest can do enormous amount of dps (especially on multitargets) .

go for full intellect/spirit gear as priority and you will never have mana issue even as mindblast on cd.

mindblast is dps boost no matter how much you disagree with that.
5/5 mb is more blasting in the field.

about the 2 talent spec i posted it seems you avoid the description.

on the 2 spec it was mention the mana efficient by dropping few keyrole talent points from affinity (reduce from 100% down to 60%) and removing range .

on the 1 spec i have the maximum dps spec efficient .

idk what you're on about but I haven't said even once or ever in my life that SP is bad on dps.

I know SP is great on multitargets, d'uh.
supression room with the orcs.. skull, x.. third tanking target.... core ragers + golemagg, core hounds before lucifer.. etc etc, 1# tyvm.

why would you go for full int/spi gear, that's just blatantly stupid.

SPD > HIT > MP5 > SPIRIT > INTELLECT, simple as that.
as long as you have above 4.5k mana you'll be good, you don't get the luxury of having mp5 or stats on e.g fel infused legs and e.g ebony flame gloves, you'll get some int on BV chest and maybe boots if u want them for the hit over maleki til you get snowblinds.

World of logs? you were an SP for 8 years? Even if you say a name that's not proof, but I'll take your word for it in blind trust.

[smilkovpetko]

hit cap is important and mandatory , there is question about it, thats why i didn't mention.


if you go full spell damage then you are so limited on dps due to lack of mana and mana regen.
you can't even use on cd mindblast and you will be useless on damage 1 target without that + you will have to downrank mindflay which is imo stupid.

what you need is to have lot mana and blow up all the max rank abilities for maximum output full duration.

intellect is the keyrole of crit and mana pool , spirit is keyrole of mana regen during the fight.

if you can't survive on mana using max ranks and 5/5 mb then your dps will be most likely crap and pointless slot in raid.

[sloasdaylight]

*Earlier stuff culled to prevent this from being a tome*

I don't think I was replying to you specifically about the threat subject, I just saw earlier it was being discussed and saw someone link a build without silent resolve. or something.

Ah. The way your post was worded made me think you thought it was a bad choice.

The churn out more on burst phases I get, it will clearly help you climbing the meter but as you said 940 mana, that's still a bit and a nefarian fight can last almost that long for some people(pretty bad if so, normally 7-8 for some guilds)
But let's not use nefarian as the sole reason for going 5/5 MA.

I will always prefer 5/5 MA over 4/5 or 5/5 imp mb because I still prefer focusing my attention of MF as it's my primary dps ability, with bwl gear and zg trinket I could burst out over 700 MF+SWP ticks, once on stream even 750 and over 800+ with nightfall or lock shadow vuln.

The main reason I don't do imp mindblast is the mana efficiency on normal to long fights, but the other reason I've failed to mention is also the aggro.. As you know mindblast generates a lot of threat, and there has been numerous occasions when my 5/5 silent resolve, 3/3 shadow affinity and 3x MF + MB > repeat rotation still get my dangerously high on threat AND I have salvation.

You may think that 5/5 MA is worth sacrificing 4/5 imp MB and 2/2 imp VE, but from a theorycrafting (and real life application) standpoint, the mana retained is not worth the dps lost. 940 mana is enough for 2 SW:P, or I think like 3.5 Mind Flays, that's it. Over 10 minutes, and like I said, you have to drop 6(!!) talent points to take it. It's simply not worth it. As far as the aggro thing, that's an issue, sure, but I ran with 4/5 IMB and 2/2 IVE primarily in the Warlock group (who were life-tap happy) when I raided back during the retail days, and NEVER pulled aggro (except for one very unfortunate but also amusing set of circumstances including a nightfall proc, the ZHC, a mis-clicked Power Infusion and I believe a wing buffet or resisted taunt that resulted in a raid wipe on Ebonroc.) Besides, there is nothing requiring you to run a MF -> MF -> MB rotation all the time, having imp MB merely ALLOWS you to do that if the situation requires it, something that having 0 points in it does not.

[sloasdaylight]

don't avoid shadow word pain of your global cd calculations , because it will always interrupt your extra second.

and ye the lag has nothing to do with your "blind eye" .

even if you have 2 ms lag it will still waste 1 tick due to server latency , this was also issue in retail until cataclysm and you cant notice that.

for this reason there was study about this using special shadow priest addons.

mindblast is far more superior.

if you have problem with mana - go for full intellect / spirit gear .

damage will still be far superior compare to mindflays due to mb crits.

(improved vampiric embrace increase the heal done by existant vampiric embrace heal by 10% 2/2) .

10% is imo nothing heal at all and only 2 wasted points on useless debuff .

You can safely exclude SW:P from your GCD equations because it lasts for 30 seconds. If you're really concerned about how super long spells affect your rotation, you have to include VE into it as well because it must be reapplied.

I'm well aware of the issues with latency and how they can wreak havoc on a shadow priest - as well as the development of Quartz, which was adopted early by many shadow priests including myself because it showed you when and where in the cast you could clip your Mind Flay - , and yes, if you're going for an absolute pure min-maxed dps spec, then 5 points is correct, but not because you clip the ticks, but because you clip the animation after the last tick does it's damage.

Mind blast hits harder, but its damage output over the duration of a fight isn't much greater than Mind Flay's over the course of a fight, thanks to its cooldown, this is something that becomes immediately apparent to anyone who has raided as a SP and looked at their logs. Mind Blast only gains 43% of your +spelldmg thanks to its cast time, compared to Mind Flay's 86%, so it scales particularly poorly, especially at higher gear levels, where things REALLY start to even out, damage wise.

Intellect does not fix mana issues, and neither do spirit. Int increases your maximum mana pool you start with, and spirit is only really useful when you're not casting, which as a dps, you are never doing. Further, spirit gear doesn't have +dmg on it, or at least most of it doesn't, so you're gimping yourself even further by denying yourself the ability to do extra damage in some foolhardy attempt to stop your mana problems.

And no, you're wrong about how Imp. VE works. You return 30% of your damage back to you and your group as healing, not 22%. If it's 22% here then it's bugged.

damage will still be far superior compare to mindflays due to mb crits.

Don't speak on shadowpriests any more if you are really making the argument that we should rely on crits. Crit is worthless to a shadowpriest. It's as useful as tits on a bull, or holes in a condom.

[smilkovpetko]

don't avoid shadow word pain of your global cd calculations , because it will always interrupt your extra second.

and ye the lag has nothing to do with your "blind eye" .

even if you have 2 ms lag it will still waste 1 tick due to server latency , this was also issue in retail until cataclysm and you cant notice that.

for this reason there was study about this using special shadow priest addons.

mindblast is far more superior.

if you have problem with mana - go for full intellect / spirit gear .

damage will still be far superior compare to mindflays due to mb crits.

(improved vampiric embrace increase the heal done by existant vampiric embrace heal by 10% 2/2) .

10% is imo nothing heal at all and only 2 wasted points on useless debuff .

You can safely exclude SW:P from your GCD equations because it lasts for 30 seconds. If you're really concerned about how super long spells affect your rotation, you have to include VE into it as well because it must be reapplied.

I'm well aware of the issues with latency and how they can wreak havoc on a shadow priest - as well as the development of Quartz, which was adopted early by many shadow priests including myself because it showed you when and where in the cast you could clip your Mind Flay - , and yes, if you're going for an absolute pure min-maxed dps spec, then 5 points is correct, but not because you clip the ticks, but because you clip the animation after the last tick does it's damage.

Mind blast hits harder, but its damage output over the duration of a fight isn't much greater than Mind Flay's over the course of a fight, thanks to its cooldown, this is something that becomes immediately apparent to anyone who has raided as a SP and looked at their logs. Mind Blast only gains 43% of your +spelldmg thanks to its cast time, compared to Mind Flay's 86%, so it scales particularly poorly, especially at higher gear levels, where things REALLY start to even out, damage wise.

Intellect does not fix mana issues, and neither do spirit. Int increases your maximum mana pool you start with, and spirit is only really useful when you're not casting, which as a dps, you are never doing. Further, spirit gear doesn't have +dmg on it, or at least most of it doesn't, so you're gimping yourself even further by denying yourself the ability to do extra damage in some foolhardy attempt to stop your mana problems.

And no, you're wrong about how Imp. VE works. You return 30% of your damage back to you and your group as healing, not 22%. If it's 22% here then it's bugged.

when you talk about mindblast vs mindflay . you don't interrupt full cast of mindflay so there is no point to compare who will be greater.

you just risk "1 tick" mindflay vs mindblast that can do so amazing crit .

1 tick of mindflay can be 300 damage vs 1 cast mindblast which is 1500 dmg crit.

there is enormous difference between 300 and 1500.

vampiric embrace is far useless debuff slot on any boss that exist in vanilla except 1 boss in naxxramass. there is no point to use this ability at all.

[sloasdaylight]

when you talk about mindblast vs mindflay . you don't interrupt full cast of mindflay so there is no point to compare who will be greater.

you just risk "1 tick" mindflay vs mindblast that can do so amazing crit .

1 tick of mindflay can be 300 damage vs 1 cast mindblast which is 1500 dmg crit.

there is enormous difference between 300 and 1500.

vampiric embrace is far useless debuff slot on any boss that exist in vanilla except 1 boss in naxxramass. there is no point to use this ability at all.

Yea, sure, Mind Blast can crit for 1500, shit, it can crit for a lot more than that when you get the right set of circumstances together. But you're a shadowpriest, you have literally 1 ability that can crit while you're in shadow form, and at best you get 1 out every 7 seconds. You have no talents that increase crit damage, it receives the lowest +dmg coefficient of all your abilities, it's a mana heavy spell, and it has a significant aggro weight attached to it. Simply put, clipping Mind Flay for Mind Blast is situational at the very best, and at the worst a really good way to run out of mana.

As to VE being useless, I'm just kind of speechless. Like I said, at this point, with 8 debuffs, I agree with you, but when there are 16, you're just flat wrong.

[smilkovpetko]

when you talk about mindblast vs mindflay . you don't interrupt full cast of mindflay so there is no point to compare who will be greater.

you just risk "1 tick" mindflay vs mindblast that can do so amazing crit .

1 tick of mindflay can be 300 damage vs 1 cast mindblast which is 1500 dmg crit.

there is enormous difference between 300 and 1500.

vampiric embrace is far useless debuff slot on any boss that exist in vanilla except 1 boss in naxxramass. there is no point to use this ability at all.

Yea, sure, Mind Blast can crit for 1500, shit, it can crit for a lot more than that when you get the right set of circumstances together. But you're a shadowpriest, you have literally 1 ability that can crit while you're in shadow form, and at best you get 1 out every 7 seconds. You have no talents that increase crit damage, it receives the lowest +dmg coefficient of all your abilities, it's a mana heavy spell, and it has a significant aggro weight attached to it. Simply put, clipping Mind Flay for Mind Blast is situational at the very best, and at the worst a really good way to run out of mana.

As to VE being useless, I'm just kind of speechless. Like I said, at this point, with 8 debuffs, I agree with you, but when there are 16, you're just flat wrong.

why would aggro from mindblast be a problem if you have 3 points on shadow and 5 points on discipline that reduce it? + salvation from paladin + fade ?.

as i said about mana is not issue if you go for intellect gear , intellect will increase crit too .
also inner focus is bonus 1 crit and free mindblast if you macro that.

it is far more damage and efficient than 1 wasted tick of mindflay .

+ it is far much better toward bosses that does "aoe interruptions" .

Vampiric embrace heals only the group you are in (maximum 5 people) and it heals for damn nothing .
it is wasted 1 debuff slot that can be used for enormous dps increase for everyone by warlocks or mages or tanks.
and the worse is that vampiric embrace is not affected by shadow damage aggro reduce and this will cause many aggro issues .

[Praxxia]

Does Mental Agility not work with Mind Flay in vanilla? I see people keep citing it only benefits sw:p. I know MA worked with MF in BC.

[Syphonize]

Mental Agility affects instant cast spells. Mind Flay is not technically an instant cast spell, it is a channeled spell. For this reason, it should not work.