Shadow Priest Help

Bald Guy

Bald Guy

New Member
OK, I quit lvl'ing up Balde (shadow priest) at lvl 75 because i just got tired of running out of mana every 2 kills. Then, last nite i was talking to Shelby and he said i should be at full mana at the end of most kills. I changed my spec (copied shadowbill) and have tried different casting orders. I seem to be more powerful now after copying the might Bill spec, but i'm still out of mana by kill #2....

any help? Pls put casting order and any thoughts down that would coach me to play this character...

thx a ton!
steve
 
What's your usual cast sequence?

IIRC (Don't hold me to this especially since I havn't played since forever...) this is the sequence Quantam taught me for Oddbob:

0. Shield (I always shielded... it's optional I guess)
1. Vampiric Touch/Vampiric Embrace
2. SWP
3. Mind Flay
4. SWD
5. Reapply DoTs

Mob should now be dead...

Always keep your dots up, flay as much as possible and mind blast as little as possible.

I never had problems with Oddbob's mana in BC.

/sigh fun times.
 
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i guess there might be a different way of doing this as you lvl up and then in an instance.
in instance, the sequence is something like: VT, MB, MF(2 or 3), DP, SW:p
but do you use this sequence in single mob fights?
i have been told to get dots up and then wand them the last few seconds so that mana can regen and spirit tap can kick in...is this right?

seems there are two sequences, one for an instance and then one that you would use for lvling up solo out there....the place i'm getting kicked around with mana is solo questing...
i'm so confused...LOL
 
Dots are definitely better for soloing. That will almost always be true.

I would utilize dots in the order of VT, VE and SWP, then mind flay and when they get to you I'd fear (depending on location) for soloing. For a quick killing blow in the end, I'd use SWD.

If I recall, mind blast is powerful, yet pretty mana intensive. SWD is (or used to be) less mana intensive but would hit you hard. Before you pull you need to be shielded too. If you have VE on the target and a shield on you wont get hit as hard from using SWD.

I would substitute Mind Blast for SWD in soloing situations for killing blows and see if that works.

I would also ask Ewoks for tips! I'm just bored at school posting from memory.

Now I want to play Oddbob again...

What's DP? (I'm such a nub...)

Edit: The bottom line is that you don't need to do "I'm gonna be at the top of the DPS meter... no I AM the DPS meter!" damage while soloing. All you need to do is essentially let your dots and flay take care of the mobs.
 
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In solo questing I use DOTs very little. We are so powerful at this point that we will almost never get the full benefit of our DOTs on a normal mob. The only one I really use when questing is Vampiric Touch for the mana regen. DOTs cost a great deal of mana as well... SW:p is like 800 mana, DP is 950, VT is even pretty expensive, but it's good because it gives you mana regen when you cast mind blast.

If you are just grinding quest mobs I usually only cast a few spells and can last on mana basically forever...

Shield, Vampiric Touch, Mind Blast, then Mind Flay till it's dead. That way you use very little mana.. and you proc replenishment from Vampiric Touch (you get replenishment any time you cast Mind Blast when Vampiric Touch is active on your target). And if you have spirit tap you will be around full mana by the time the spirit tap buff ends (spirit tap activates when you land the killing blow on a mob and gives you increased mana regen, 83% I think).

If you are interested in knowing what you need to do when you hit lvl 80 just send me a PM with any questions and I'd be more than thrilled to give you a full run down of everything an spriest needs to know :D

Oh.. and Odale, DP is Devouring Plague. It used to be an undead priest racial (I think), but now it is universal to all priests. It is a disease that ticks every 3 seconds and regens 15% health to the caster per tick and there is also a talent deep in the shadow tree that also makes DP hit instantly for 15% of it's damage when cast.
 
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I did notice a sharp drop in mana regen between BC and WotLK on my undead shadow priest.

Don't forget to use your fiend when it is off cool down and make sure you do not kill the target before the fiend dies preferably by wanding which uses no mana.

If you have a full stack of dots up and your shield/inner focus up just wand the mob down to conserve mana.

Do not drop out of shadow form to self heal. Use food or bandages. Bonus if you are undead and can cannibalize.

Do you have spirit tap for leveling?
 
john3610 said:
...Oh.. and Odale, DP is Devouring Plague. It used to be an undead priest racial (I think), but now it is universal to all priests. It is a disease that ticks every 3 seconds and regens 15% health to the caster per tick and there is also a talent deep in the shadow tree that also makes DP hit instantly for 15% of it's damage when cast.
Click to expand...
Yeah, when I started SP's were pretty undefined and only a few people could excel with them... this was also when UD priests were the only ones that had DP.

Thats cool that all priests get it now!
 
I figured I'd also tell you about how you should be casting in an instance/raid.

You have a talent called "Shadow Weaving" where each spell you cast on your target applies one stack of shadow weaving. Each stack gives you 2% increased shadow damage. Basically, you want to have 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving before you ever cast your SW:p (basically because Mind Flay, when it restacks your SW:p DOT does not reapply the changes in Shadow Weaving.. who knows why.) If that doesn't make sense the easiest thing to remember is that you don't want to cast SW:p until you have 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving on yourself.

Once you have 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving there is a general rule of thumb spriests use to tell us what to cast. We do not have a casting order per se, but a rating system which means we want to cast certain spells depending on how powerful they are when the cooldown is up.

The ranking is: (I leave SW:p out of this because you should never have to cast it more than once per fight.. but if it ever gets off your target reapply it as long as you have full stacks of shadow weaving).
1. Vampiric Touch
2. Devouring Plague
3. Mind Blast
4. Mind Flay
5. SW: D (Shadow Word: Death is not an incredibly useful spell for us at this time.. but it is generally accepted that we use it when all our other cooldowns are spent and we need to fill the time before another one comes up).

If you follow that sequence of casting, as in cast the more important ones first you will be doing good DPS in an instance. Remember to use Shadow Fiend and Dispersion if you get low on mana. I normally cast Shadow Fiend first because it regens more mana and I do not have to stop casting while it is out.

Another important thing to remember is that you want to make sure to not clip your mind flay.. that used to be important to do in BC, but now that Mind Flay can crit you always want to let it do all 3 ticks. Also, do not reapply your DOTs (VT and DP) until the last tick goes off. I have seen many people, including myself for a long time, who would cast VT and would reapply is when there were 3 seconds left on the timer of the spell. That is a huge waste of time. Because the DOTs tick every 3 seconds if you reapply your DOTs before the spell is consumed you are cutting off 6 seconds of damage (because the first tick after you reapply the spell doesn't happen for 3 seconds.) So make sure to wait till your last tick goes off, and then reapply your DOT quickly.

LVL 80 Stat Ranking:
1. Spell Hit (up until the cap which is 290, after 290 spell hit you gain no additional benefit from the stat).
2. Spellpower
3. Spell crit
4. Spell haste

There has been a lot of argument about crit vs. haste. I still believe that crit is more powerful since mind flay and all our DOTs can now tick, but I have not done the math at this point to figure out whether haste or crit is better. As of patch 3.0.9 crit was the superior stat, but from some changes to the shadow tree I am not 100% on that, although I still prefer crit at this point.

If you have any other question feel free to PM me or ask in game. I love shadow priest theorycrafting and can teach you how to be nearly the top DPS in many groups. :)
 
this is sooo helpful....man, i wish i would have asked earlier instead of dropping the priest and goin with the mage.....i'm gonna start working on this right away. not sure i understand it all, but i will give you a shout bill i/g if i need to.
thx y'all! this is very helpful!
 
FortExorcist is what I'm using, it is by far the greatest Timer out there. When grinding I typically do VT, Pain(maybe), and MF or Sear depending on how many I'm trying to kill. Mana regen shouldn't be a big issue between, your fiend and Dispersion, I grabbed Imp Fade for the cooldown reduction of Fiend.

Heres how my spec looks...
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuZZGef0RfzcfqfkAo
 
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