Shadow priests don't make sense

[dragoll 0]

Questions I have
1. Am I going about my rotation correctly?
2. Should I be worried about clipping Vampiric Touch/SWP or do I have to let these both run out?
3. At any stage is it good to use Mind Spike off proc?
4. Should I be worried about clipping Mind Flay when Mind Blast is off CD or for Mind Spike/Devouring Plague procs?
5. End game, should I be using Shadow Word: Death 1st or are there other spells that I should cast in priority before SWD?

 

Background

I'm fairly new to Shadow priests, but I've spent a bit of time tonight trying to analyse what I'm doing wrong with my Shadow Priest. I use icyveins religiously for all my toons as a starting point for builds and rotations. I then use askmrrobot for enchant advice. I run skada for my in game meters and use worldoflogs for my combat log analysis.

 

The first thing I discovered tonight was that I was enchanted wrong as per askmrrobot, I should have been enchanting into mastery instead of crit for a Clarity of Power build. So I dropped 20k gold to enchant into mastery and noticed a slight improvement in dps.

My ilvl is 649 equipped (I don't believe in quoting average ilvl), my character is found as per link below:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/barthilas/Gaviyn/advanced

Askmrrobot
PVE: Auspicious Spirits as defined by askmrrobot.com
Int > Crit > Haste > Multi > Vers > Mastery (crit enchants)
These weights use Auspicious Spirits as the level 100 talent. They will give you the best multi-target damage, but low single-target damage.

PVE: Clarity of Power
Int > Mastery > Multi > Haste > Crit > Vers (mast enchants)
These weights use Clarity of Power as the level 100 talent. This is a very strong single-target damage build.

What I did tonight
19:02 = PVE: Auspicious Spirits weights with Clarity of Power lvl 100 talent learned on Dungeoneer's Training Dummy in Garrison
19:10 = PVE: Auspicious Spirits weights with Clarity of Power lvl 100 talent learned on Dungeoneer's Training Dummy in Garrison
19:14 = PVE: Clarity of Power weights with Clarity of Power lvl 100 talent learned on Dungeoneer's Training Dummy in Garrison
   *net result: slight increase in DPS
19:23 = PVE: Clarity of Power weights with Clarity of Power lvl 100 talent learned on Dungeoneer's Training Dummy in Garrison
   *net result: 12.3k DPS highest peak
19:30 = PVE: Clarity of Power weights with Clarity of Power lvl 100 talent learned in LFR on Imparator Mar'gok
   *Ok, now i jumped into LFR to get some real data, and went and fought Imperator Mar'gok... I was expecting less than 12k dps, so was happy with 14.7k dps. The raid buffs + flask and food all contributed to boosting my dps.

My rotation
Vampiric Touch > Mind Blast > Shadow Word: Pain > Mind Flay (Filler)
Keep up Vampiric Touch & Shadow Word: Pain (SWP)
Cast Mind Spike & Devouring Plague whenever I get a proc
Spam Mind Blast on CD

End fight, use Shadow Word: Death > Shadow Word: Death

My goal is to get to 18k dps on Imp, thats a target I've set for myself with my current gear, so any help is greatly appreciated.

Worldoflogs report: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-d5ogjvqx0lk3j27g/

 

PS sorry for the long post, but I wanted to include as much info to show that I'm not just some noob begging for an easy answer. If you need more info, feel free to ask and I'll provide what I can.

[BicV 0]

I haven't played a shadowpriest in a long while, but looking at your logs is telling me that you likely have poor UI, and/or bindings. 

 

You can see what I am talking about here;

 

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-d5ogjvqx0lk3j27g/details/0/?s=2211&e=2887

 

Your vampiric touch is at 69.3% uptime, and your shadow word pain is at 77.2%. There is no reason for it to be this low, especially when you are now able to refresh dots much earlier than they expire. You quote that you have read icy-veins guides very thoroughly, here is a passage on the subject from the site rotations guide

 

"If you refresh your DoTs when they have 30% or less of their duration left, the remaining duration will be added to the new DoT and none will be wasted. Specifically, this means that  Shadow Word: Pain should be refreshed with 5.4 seconds or less remaining and  Vampiric Touch should be refreshed with 4.5 seconds or less remaining. This does not apply to  Devouring Plague (see below)."

 

If you would like more instruction on how to more efficiently create a full keybinding scheme (and you should definitely keybind absolutely everything including consumables/extra action buttons etc). You can refer to my guild site post that I made on the subject at;

 

Link for keybinding guide: http://failed-experiment.enjin.com/forum/m/28094947/viewthread/18646616-how-to-effectively-keybind

 

You can check out the other site material for an idea of a basic ui layout that I use, however id heavily recommend you install both tellmewhen and weakauras and learn how to use them. You can see a simplified layout that you could easily replicate in this thread.

 

Basic UI Layout: http://failed-experiment.enjin.com/forum/m/28094947/viewthread/18453660-warrior-ui-package

 

Link for importing guide: http://failed-experiment.enjin.com/forum/m/28094947/viewthread/18733215-tellmewhenweak-auras-2-importing-guide

 

Another issue is that you need to be aware of upcoming events in the raid, most people use dbm however I greatly prefer BigWigs and I would also highly recommend you read my guide on setting it up at (this guide happens to be tailored specifically to the imperator fight people stuggle on);

 

BigWigs Installation Guide: http://failed-experiment.enjin.com/forum/m/28094947/viewthread/17783759-bigwigs-setup-dbm-alternative

 

Finally after redoing your bindings/tellmewhen/weakauras/bigwigs you should also go to warcraftlogs.com which is a much more superior logging site in my opinion. Here you can compare and filter your performance against other spriests of SIMILAR ILVL, raid size, and instance difficulty. You can not only see your own performance, but you can watch the entire replay of top ranking players in real time. Spend time on warcraftlogs.com learning how to use it and you will see dramatic improvements after carefully analyzing other players.

 

Best of luck

[dragoll 0]

I haven't played a shadowpriest in a long while, but looking at your logs is telling me that you likely have poor UI, and/or bindings. 

 

"If you refresh your DoTs when they have 30% or less of their duration left, the remaining duration will be added to the new DoT and none will be wasted. Specifically, this means that  Shadow Word: Pain should be refreshed with 5.4 seconds or less remaining and  Vampiric Touch should be refreshed with 4.5 seconds or less remaining. This does not apply to  Devouring Plague (see below)."

^ this is what I was after...

 

I tried this and used warcraftlogs.com and had a big improvement. 2k dps by focusing 100% on my DoT uptime...

Shadow Word: Pain = 94.22% (was 77.2%)

Vampiric Touch = 91.61% (was 69.3%)

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/bHqBM6r4gA9N7cXd/#type=damage-done&source=16

 

I had a look at your posts about UI and Keybindings. I have a fairly clean ui in ElvUI, and am happy with it, however, I think you might be right, i'm not using my keybindings effectively, I have Vampiric Touch set to 2, Mind Blast set to 3, and Vampiric Touch set to 4... However, Mind Spike isn't key bound, and I have to jump to 6 for Shadow Word: Death

 

I currently run DBM and am happy with it. However, I'll look into tellmewhen/weakauras as that sounds interesting.

 

But now that I have found out about all these things above, I feel confident that I now have a plan in place to improve my output and hopefully after a few weeks of using new keybinds/rotations/addons I can be comfortable and hopefully topping those meters in our raids

 

Big thanks to you BicV for this info...

Edited January 29, 2015 by dragoll

[Brewmonksta 157]

The best dps can currently be acheived by having CoP and dotweaving.

 

This is explianed quite well in the shadow priest guide here and will give you the highest dps currently.

[Brutalpriest 60]

Agreed, I'm confused why you're using auspicious spirits.  Both spriest bad talents are getting buffed in 6.1, but shouldn't be used seriously until then.

 

One more thing.  World of Logs has fallen out of favor.  WarcraftLogs has been the go to for logging, as it provides much more data and you can almost step through the fight following a certain player, watching what they cast when.  If you can re post your logs there, using Clarity of Power (I really can't comment on Auspicious Spirits as I don't use it ) I'd be glad to help you out. 

[dragoll 0]

The best dps can currently be acheived by having CoP and dotweaving.

 

This is explianed quite well in the shadow priest guide here and will give you the highest dps currently.

 

With this, I managed 16k dps on Imp in LFR. I'm concerned though as I am wanting to get to 18k dps, so I can enter HM heroic. I'll keep practising and see if my dps can increase. I'm starting to think my 630 waist is holding me up, so am hoping I can get a new one in HM norm on Sunday.

[Brutalpriest 60]

A single peice of gear will NOT give you 2k dps.  link logs.

[dragoll 0]

A single peice of gear will NOT give you 2k dps.  link logs.

I didn't mean to say that 1 piece of gear would increase me by 2k, but more practise plus gear would help...

 

Logs below: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/7KNCa2DtBFAPLTwc/#type=damage-done&source=1

[Brutalpriest 60]

Thanks. 

 

Looking at your casts.  It seems like you have single target down pretty well.  Now is the time to take your game to the next level with multidotting.  I see you're only casting pain and VT on your current target during the dotweave.  Try replacing mind spikes with pain and VT on secondary targets.  So, when the arcane abboration and its variants are spawned throughout the fight, dot up Imperator and go to town on the add.  I might critisize the lack of Reflective Shield on this fight.  Considering how mobile you are throughout the fight, and that you very frequently take damage, it's a perfect fight to use the glyph.  IMO, leave it on at all times, a sheild fully consumed deals more damage than a mind spike.  Remember, self-casts only.  Shielding others doesn't deal damage. 

 

You didn't cast SW:Death on the first round of warmages.  Massive damage and free shadow orbs!  You should be jumping at every opportunity to cast SW:death.

 

I don't know if you were, but on Imperator try to save Halo for when the arcane aberation like add pops up, so you can hit imperator plus the add for double damage. 

 

I hope that gives you some hints as to how to maximize your dps.  If you have any other questions, let us know!

[dragoll 0]

Thanks. 

 

Looking at your casts.  It seems like you have single target down pretty well.  Now is the time to take your game to the next level with multidotting.  I see you're only casting pain and VT on your current target during the dotweave.  Try replacing mind spikes with pain and VT on secondary targets.  So, when the arcane abboration and its variants are spawned throughout the fight, dot up Imperator and go to town on the add.  I might critisize the lack of Reflective Shield on this fight.  Considering how mobile you are throughout the fight, and that you very frequently take damage, it's a perfect fight to use the glyph.  IMO, leave it on at all times, a sheild fully consumed deals more damage than a mind spike.  Remember, self-casts only.  Shielding others doesn't deal damage. 

 

You didn't cast SW:Death on the first round of warmages.  Massive damage and free shadow orbs!  You should be jumping at every opportunity to cast SW:death.

 

I don't know if you were, but on Imperator try to save Halo for when the arcane aberation like add pops up, so you can hit imperator plus the add for double damage. 

 

I hope that gives you some hints as to how to maximize your dps.  If you have any other questions, let us know!

This is great, thanks man.

 

You're right, I'm not dotting up other adds... using BicV's onmouseover macro i can easily dot these guys up, keeping VT up is going to be an art though, a lot of movement going on.

 

I had no idea how to incorporate halo into my rotation, i used it as a filler while I was generating shadow orbs, but what you say makes perfect sense.

 

As the dotweaving rotation is still relatively new to me, I'm not 100% focusing on my surroundings just yet, hence why I keep taking damage, plus in LFR I find the waves to do very little damage to me, however, with the raid tonight, I should be practising with all mechanics.

 

I'll post my logs after tonights raid and show the progress.

 

I really appreciate all the help, I've come a long way in the past 2 weeks, and even in norm BRF, I was doing reliable damage for my gear compared to others in my group.

Edited February 8, 2015 by dragoll

[Brutalpriest 60]

Yeah NP.  Good luck!  Link me those logs when you have time. 

 

Typically I try to replace a mind spike with Halo, or put it in between mind blast (halo) devouring plague and adjust the dotweave accordingly.  Do what you need to do!  Typically taking out a mind spike and filling it with other spells is the best way to do things, as mind spike is just filler.