Shadow Priest 101

CGamer

Gnome Priest
As far a SP they are one of the greatest hybrid DPS out there. A lot of people compare them to a petless Warlock but they aren't in my opinion. Anyway Stubbers asked for a guide for SP's. I've played a SP since WoW has come out and with the talent and skill changes they have come a long way in terms of raid and dungeon DPS...so here goes my 2nd attempt at writing this out..1st attempt ended when the power flicked off.

So here goes...
Stat wise, you need to be hit capped first and the magic number for us is 289 hit, which equates out to 11% hit and through talents we get another 6% for 17% total.

Spellpower and crit are next in line, with the negative side effects Mind Flay receives from haste a high crit rate is important. Spirit is also nice when we get it because of the extra spellpower we get from it and the mana regen.

There are 3 major specs I've used or are used by SP's which are listed below, starting with my current spec.

13/0/58
This spec is for maximum DPS, with little downtime as possible, this is the typical Raiding spec for us.

This next spec is essentially the same except you drop 1 point in Imp MB and gain Inner Focus. I really like this spec and used it for a long time.
14/0/57

The general focus behind this spec is the almost guaranteed crit provided by Inner Focus and the free MB cast. Alhana is sitting at 22% crit unbuffed so w/ the Inner Focus boost it jumps me to 47%. The only downside is the .5 sec increased CD time on MB.

I used this macro for it:
===================
#showcount Mind Blast
/cast Inner Focus
/cast Mind Blast
===================
The showcount tracks the MB cooldown that way you'll always know when it's ready.

This final spec adds Silence into the mix and is primarily a 5 man spec but imo it's just not worth it to get Silence when the points can be used elsewhere, and the fact that almost every class has some sort of interupt or Silence.

13/0/58 Silence

This spec can be modified for what you like, taking or adding points from some areas to gain Silence is the goal. Which as I said I don't think Silence is worth it because it requires taking points from vital areas for a Silence with a 45 sec CD, if the CD was lower it might be useful but unless that happens I can't see spending the points to get it.

Modwise I'd recommend these following two mods if you don't get anything else.
ForteXorcist DoT tracker Must Have

OmniCC - CD tracking on your Actionbars

As far as spell Rotation goes I typically start out with:
VT, DP, Pain, MB, MF, then its just a matter of refreshing DoT's and burning CD's. I typically burn MB on every CD, which you should, occasionally MF will run out just a second before the MB cooldown is up, so throw in a Shadow Word: Death when you can to avoid any downtime between casting. Just be sure to remember the .5 sec global CD between casting.

I'll think of some more later...but this is a start.
 
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Another very handy addon for SPs is the shadowgreenlight mod http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/shadowgreenlight.aspx

This addon notifies you when a refresh of your SW:P is warranted given the application of raid buffs such as Sanctified Retribution, Shadow Weaving, etc. It does not, however, indicate a refresh based on power-ups such as Empowered Darkness or the like.

The ubiquitous resource for all things Shadow Priest is http://www.shadowpriest.com I find the raiding gear thread very helpful http://www.shadowpriest.com/viewtopic.php?p=193351 as it also includes the modifiers for hit, crit and haste calculations. These are adjusted regularly through regular testing whenever there is a gear, talent or any other change to the game calcs or mechanics.

Release 3.3 will include some scaling of haste for DoTs which will change the modifiers in some way. This is due to Blizzard trying to fix our current scaling issues that have always been a problem going back to Classic. At least DP and VT uptime will scale with haste. That should put us back on the dps map for end-game content - at least out of the cellar :eek:
 
Yea Shadowpriest.com is an invaluable tool and resource.

This is due to Blizzard trying to fix our current scaling issues that have always been a problem going back to Classic. At least DP and VT uptime will scale with haste. That should put us back on the dps map for end-game content - at least out of the cellar :eek:

Definitely was a much needed fix for us..as the current standpoint...to much haste kills our dps.
 
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