Shadow Priest PvE

[Rok 0]

Thank you for writing and updating this guide, Publik. It is very rich, as the Shadowpriest class is, and I learned a lot from it.

As a bit of feedback and a question, I think that the interaction and prioritization betweeen Void Eruption and Shadowfiend may need to be rethought or reworded, at least for folks like me, who use your guide to put together some helpful indicators using WeakAuras or a similar addon, based on computable if-then rules, because currently in section 2. Single-Target Rotation for Shadow Priest, priority 1, Void Eruption, asks the reader to ensure that Shadowfiend is on cooldown, which can either mean to ensure that Shadowfiend is the ability used right before Void Eruption, or that Shadowfiend is just not useable generally speaking. Reading priority 10 clarifies that it is the former, the reader needs to ensure that Shadowfiend is the last used ability before using Void Eruption. All this clearly indicates that Shadowfiend needs to be used before Void Eurption, maybe unless Shadowfiend has a cooldown that's longer than 90 seconds, in which case Void Eruption can be used and be off-cooldown by the time Shadowfiend is also off-cooldown. And this implies that, computationally speaking, or as far as if-then rules are concerned, Shadowfiend takes priority over Void Eruption, perhaps unless Shadowfiend's cooldown is longer than 90 seconds, as I mentioned.

Does all that make sense? I hope that I was able to describe my problem clearly. Do you agree that Shadowfiend can be moved as priority 1 before Void Eruption unless its cooldown is longer than 90 sec? If not, then can you, please, explain how the current priority system can be used with WeakAuras or a similar addon? I've tried to consolidate Void Eruption and Shadowfiend, as they currently stand, with if-then rules but both indicators end up cancelling each other out and my brain just refused to find a computational solution for this apparent oxymoron.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Rok

[Publik 7]

22 hours ago, Rok said:

Thank you for writing and updating this guide, Publik. It is very rich, as the Shadowpriest class is, and I learned a lot from it.

As a bit of feedback and a question, I think that the interaction and prioritization betweeen Void Eruption and Shadowfiend may need to be rethought or reworded, at least for folks like me, who use your guide to put together some helpful indicators using WeakAuras or a similar addon, based on computable if-then rules, because currently in section 2. Single-Target Rotation for Shadow Priest, priority 1, Void Eruption, asks the reader to ensure that Shadowfiend is on cooldown, which can either mean to ensure that Shadowfiend is the ability used right before Void Eruption, or that Shadowfiend is just not useable generally speaking. Reading priority 10 clarifies that it is the former, the reader needs to ensure that Shadowfiend is the last used ability before using Void Eruption. All this clearly indicates that Shadowfiend needs to be used before Void Eurption, maybe unless Shadowfiend has a cooldown that's longer than 90 seconds, in which case Void Eruption can be used and be off-cooldown by the time Shadowfiend is also off-cooldown. And this implies that, computationally speaking, or as far as if-then rules are concerned, Shadowfiend takes priority over Void Eruption, perhaps unless Shadowfiend's cooldown is longer than 90 seconds, as I mentioned.

Does all that make sense? I hope that I was able to describe my problem clearly. Do you agree that Shadowfiend can be moved as priority 1 before Void Eruption unless its cooldown is longer than 90 sec? If not, then can you, please, explain how the current priority system can be used with WeakAuras or a similar addon? I've tried to consolidate Void Eruption and Shadowfiend, as they currently stand, with if-then rules but both indicators end up cancelling each other out and my brain just refused to find a computational solution for this apparent oxymoron.

Thanks for the question! Truthfully the placement of Shadowfiend in regards to Void Eruption has less to do with the relationship between those two skills, but all the other skills in the mix as well. If I simply moved Shadowfiend above Void Eruption you would assume that is the first priority action you use, which is not the case. This is why I use a priority system where the top priority action is first, and by means of unblocking it with lower priority skills you get to use that high priority action. The Priority Target list uses specific conditional if then rules that should be able to be applied to any system. This is exactly what simc uses for this as well, just in text form. Functionally moving it for your solution works for the relationship strictly between Void Eruption and Shadowfiend/Mindbender, but fails to properly prioritize actions 2-9 above the 10th action of Shadowfiend as appropriate. I'll link some simc resources if that helps:

 

Generated APL: https://github.com/WarcraftPriests/sl-shadow-priest/blob/master/apl/default_apl.simc

Void Eruption line: https://github.com/WarcraftPriests/sl-shadow-priest/blob/master/apl/default_apl.simc#L73

Shadowfiend/Mindbender line: https://github.com/WarcraftPriests/sl-shadow-priest/blob/master/apl/default_apl.simc#L96

The written guide on IcyVeins is meant to be a consumable version of this APL in a more readable form, so it is not word for word but rather condensed to be the information you need to make the correct decision in a basic rotation list. Hope this helps.

[Guest Flagellant]

Lasting Plague has been removed from PvP talents, and thusly does not need to be included in the guide.

Excellent guide on the overall!

[Guest Nahirri]

Hey Publik,

Is it possible to update the Rotations page so that we can select more of the Talent options that we have and the rotation dynamically updates based on that? For e.g. I am looking at ST Opener and it lists casts such as Shadow Crush or Void Torrent. Now, I am aware that we can simply ignore these lines since we do not use them, but it would be much easier to read if these lines wouldn't even show up if you do not have those talents selected.

 

Thanks for the Guide!

[Publik 7]

7 hours ago, Guest Nahirri said:

Hey Publik,

Is it possible to update the Rotations page so that we can select more of the Talent options that we have and the rotation dynamically updates based on that? For e.g. I am looking at ST Opener and it lists casts such as Shadow Crush or Void Torrent. Now, I am aware that we can simply ignore these lines since we do not use them, but it would be much easier to read if these lines wouldn't even show up if you do not have those talents selected.

 

Thanks for the Guide!

Kind of torn here, when I've included this in the past people that are just glancing at it sometimes don't see that those checkboxes are there and then ask the reverse question you do 🙂 I'll think about ways to make this better though in the future.

[Guest Lostmybible]

Thanks very much for the guide! When using shadowflame prism, the guide says it’s critical to line up mindbender with voidform. Does that mean that after the opener, you should always wait to use mindbender until voidform is ready? And how do these interact with the timing of fae guardians?

[Publik 7]

17 hours ago, Guest Lostmybible said:

Thanks very much for the guide! When using shadowflame prism, the guide says it’s critical to line up mindbender with voidform. Does that mean that after the opener, you should always wait to use mindbender until voidform is ready? And how do these interact with the timing of fae guardians?

Good question, this is something where you need to take a big picture approach to cooldowns, rather than focus on each individual use, think about getting the most uses possible with your cooldowns. With that in mind you should use Mindbender on cooldown to line up with every 3rd voidform (and every Power Infusion) to get the most bang for your buck. If you hold and sync cds too much you will lose uses of that cooldown, and therefore lots of damage. The caveat here is if you know you are only going to get 1 more voidform/power infusion/fae guardians/mindbender left in an encounter you should hold it to sync with as many CDs as possible. The same thing can be applied to boss phase timings/etc. 

 

Hope this helps.

[Guest Chibibowa]

Note: If you play Kyrian Shadow priest, you will prefer to favorize crit instead of mastery, because you will get more damage with boon using crit than using a mastery build. (Have some mastery tho, don't overstack crit).

[Auchioane 0]

Thanks for another great guide write up.

Just noticed one small bug/error in the 1.2 Open World talent section of: (https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/shadow-priest-pve-dps-spec-builds-talents)

The import string needs to be updated, when I attempted to import it on live it gave me an out of date error.

[Publik 7]

On 10/26/2022 at 2:32 PM, Auchioane said:

Thanks for another great guide write up.

Just noticed one small bug/error in the 1.2 Open World talent section of: (https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/shadow-priest-pve-dps-spec-builds-talents)

The import string needs to be updated, when I attempted to import it on live it gave me an out of date error.

Thank you very much, fixing it now but if you'd like it ahead of time its just a slightly modified version of the ST setup:

BIQAu+2Vv7op3uGggQnVDr07wIItAAAAAAAAAAAAAAikokWIFNSSSJhEgCJRSSkAQiUapFSAA

 

[Guest abnee]

Love your guides; thanks so much for making them.  I had a question about rotations.  None of the rotations mention a chance if I am taking shadow flame prism.  Are my Shadow Word: Death and and Mind Blast a higher priority if mindbender is out?

[Publik 7]

On 11/3/2022 at 10:44 PM, Guest abnee said:

Love your guides; thanks so much for making them.  I had a question about rotations.  None of the rotations mention a chance if I am taking shadow flame prism.  Are my Shadow Word: Death and and Mind Blast a higher priority if mindbender is out?

Howdy! For the case of pre-patch anytime I mentioned Inescapable Torment that is equivalent to Shadowflame Prism. That is the talent version of the legendary, and since you cannot have both active at once I just use the same check box for both for pre-patch. Simply check that box and you should see how the rotation is changed with the talent OR with the legendary, sorry that wasn't clear.

TLDR to answer your question, yes SW:D and MB are a higher priority when Mindbender is out!

[Prophet001 598]

Hey. Thank you for the Shadow Guide. I appreciate you guys taking the time to do this. I had a few questions if you've time.

- You mention that Mind Spike is baseline better than Mind Flay unbuffed or without procs. Mind flay seems baseline better to me without buffs? It's 144% spell power according to the tooltip vs 3 Mind Spikes being 132% spell power in the same time.

- What does the "Dots deal damage 41% faster" mean? Do they just tick faster and expire faster? Do they tick faster and keep the same duration? If I have a dot with 100s duration on it and it ticks 50% faster does it do all of its damage in 1/2 the time or does it do 50% more damage in the same amount of time? If it expires faster then how do you factor in having to refresh it more often into its overall DPS contribution?

Thank you again!

[Publik 7]

On 11/11/2022 at 7:19 AM, Prophet001 said:

Hey. Thank you for the Shadow Guide. I appreciate you guys taking the time to do this. I had a few questions if you've time.

- You mention that Mind Spike is baseline better than Mind Flay unbuffed or without procs. Mind flay seems baseline better to me without buffs? It's 144% spell power according to the tooltip vs 3 Mind Spikes being 132% spell power in the same time.

- What does the "Dots deal damage 41% faster" mean? Do they just tick faster and expire faster? Do they tick faster and keep the same duration? If I have a dot with 100s duration on it and it ticks 50% faster does it do all of its damage in 1/2 the time or does it do 50% more damage in the same amount of time? If it expires faster then how do you factor in having to refresh it more often into its overall DPS contribution?

Thank you again!

Sorry about that note on Mind Spike, thought I updated all of those from the recent balance change. Pushing a fix for that now 🙂

For Screams of the Void basically it reduces the time between ticks of the DoT, without changing the overall duration. So this means you don't need to alter when you refresh the DoT whatsoever.

[Prophet001 598]

12 minutes ago, Publik said:

Sorry about that note on Mind Spike, thought I updated all of those from the recent balance change. Pushing a fix for that now 🙂

For Screams of the Void basically it reduces the time between ticks of the DoT, without changing the overall duration. So this means you don't need to alter when you refresh the DoT whatsoever.

Oh nice so that means it directly increases dot dps by 40% or whatever?

Thanks!!

[pjrobot 0]

Thanks for the great guide.

Just to let you know, the link to the Weak Auras labelled "Utilities and Consumables" now 404s:

https://wago.io/mec8SWDBt

Cheers,

Pete

[Publik 7]

On 11/14/2022 at 11:50 AM, Prophet001 said:

Oh nice so that means it directly increases dot dps by 40% or whatever?

Thanks!!

Not quite, it actually changes the interval between ticks. Lets say the base tick rate is that the DoT ticks every 1 second. The 40% increase per rank would change it to tick every 0.60 seconds instead. So it doesn't necessarily mean "dots do 40% more damage" but they do tick faster 🙂

[Publik 7]

18 hours ago, pjrobot said:

Thanks for the great guide.

Just to let you know, the link to the Weak Auras labelled "Utilities and Consumables" now 404s:

https://wago.io/mec8SWDBt

Cheers,

Pete

Thanks for letting me know! Seems like the guy deleted it.

[bradsimm72 0]

I solo a lot. Most of my gameplay is solo content.  Therefore, I am typically tanking for myself.  I find this macro useful for Shadow Crash when I'm surrounded by mobs. 

#showtooltip Shadow Crash
/cast [@player] Shadow Crash

 

Useful with many other classes that have reticle for targeting abilities. Death and Decay. Any Demon Hunter sigil. 

[Burxat 0]

Hello, 

As for today the guide says that "Undulating Sporecloak" has customizable stats and also that can be embellished. Is that so?

I am new to crafting and I am just trying to understand how the optional reagents work.

I am checking on my char (with tailoring maxed and the relevant specializations learned) and "Customize Secondary Stats" doesn't appear as an optional reagent, neither does "Add Embelishment".

EDIT= The following quote was in my original post but i've seen that is an incorrect appreciation, the guide shows the "Undulating Sporecloak" correctly under "Embellished items" section.

Quote

Also the item appears as it will be embellished by default, and right now I am already using the embellished Azureweave set of two pieces, which generates an incompatibility issue with my gear.

On the other hand, the "Vibrant Wildercloth Shawl" has both the "Customize Secondary Stats" and "Add Embelishment" available, which allows it to use the "Alchemical Flavor Pocket" embellishment with "Haste/Mastery" stats. 

I have attached some screenshots with the evidence. 

Hope we can sort it out, as I have said i am just learning about crafting.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Burxat

[Guest Moosekins]

The pre-raid BiS list has an agility necklace currently!

[Publik 7]

On 5/11/2023 at 5:37 AM, Burxat said:

Hello, 

As for today the guide says that "Undulating Sporecloak" has customizable stats and also that can be embellished. Is that so?

I am new to crafting and I am just trying to understand how the optional reagents work.

I am checking on my char (with tailoring maxed and the relevant specializations learned) and "Customize Secondary Stats" doesn't appear as an optional reagent, neither does "Add Embelishment".

EDIT= The following quote was in my original post but i've seen that is an incorrect appreciation, the guide shows the "Undulating Sporecloak" correctly under "Embellished items" section.

On the other hand, the "Vibrant Wildercloth Shawl" has both the "Customize Secondary Stats" and "Add Embelishment" available, which allows it to use the "Alchemical Flavor Pocket" embellishment with "Haste/Mastery" stats. 

I have attached some screenshots with the evidence. 

Hope we can sort it out, as I have said i am just learning about crafting.

Thanks for posting! Seems I missed a spot when the cloak was changed in the PTR cycle. Pushing an update for this soon. It did used to be non-embellished and have customizable stats I just forgot to fix this section.

[Publik 7]

On 5/12/2023 at 10:13 PM, Guest Moosekins said:

The pre-raid BiS list has an agility necklace currently!

Thanks for letting me know, looks like a tooltip issue. The Mythic+ version of the necklace does not have agility: https://ptr.wowdb.com/items/206180-choker-of-stolen-thunder

 

will try to get the tooltip fixed soon.

[Guest Focal]

Hello Publik, very big thank you for all of the time and work you put into this and your other content. I was able to get into season two very fast thanks to your work and i appreciate the suggestions and feedback you voice to make the shadow priest better.

I had some feedback with the guide that may help others..i have two weapon choices this week in vault and one includes the curious "Bloodfire Extraction Conduit" mace from Rashok but i am not sure where that stacks up compared to the other weapons in your section 6 list. I also got the Thought-Piercer as an option which is very similar.

Something to note is the Extraction Conduit i have in vault, is now itemized with Haste/Crit where in wowhead PTR it seems in the past it was high haste and verse. I ran some basic sims and the conduit does properly show with high haste and crit in raidbots and sims very similar to the thought-piercer. It might be one to add to the weapon list with the high haste as it seems pretty easy to get from raid.

Take Care

[Publik 7]

19 hours ago, Guest Focal said:

Hello Publik, very big thank you for all of the time and work you put into this and your other content. I was able to get into season two very fast thanks to your work and i appreciate the suggestions and feedback you voice to make the shadow priest better.

I had some feedback with the guide that may help others..i have two weapon choices this week in vault and one includes the curious "Bloodfire Extraction Conduit" mace from Rashok but i am not sure where that stacks up compared to the other weapons in your section 6 list. I also got the Thought-Piercer as an option which is very similar.

Something to note is the Extraction Conduit i have in vault, is now itemized with Haste/Crit where in wowhead PTR it seems in the past it was high haste and verse. I ran some basic sims and the conduit does properly show with high haste and crit in raidbots and sims very similar to the thought-piercer. It might be one to add to the weapon list with the high haste as it seems pretty easy to get from raid.

Take Care

Hey there! 

My sims did include this mace but it was outside of the 0.3% range when talking about bis stated items at top-end item level since it is capped at 444. I agree it can be decent while gearing up though but I was specifically only including the top choices and since it does not stack up against 447 or higher options it was not included.

These lists are just a rough guideline though and of course personal sims should always be used to know for sure.