Shadow Priest 7.3

[Aieoshekai 0]

Hi, thanks for working to update this guide so quickly after the Sept. 23 hotfix notes rolled out.  I've been following the guide since Beta and it can be tough to see exactly what's changed each time it's updated, since the guide is organized into separate sections.  From what I can tell, nothing about gearing/stat priority, artifact progression, or talent preference has changed with the recent nerfs to dispersion and void torrent -- with the exception that dispersion is no longer usable offensively.  Is that correct?

If so, I my first question is about how the powers of legacy/surrender have changed relative to one another.  It seems surrender is still the more powerful spec, but does the nerf hit one spec harder than another, and, if so, which one?  I play shadow as an offspec in holy gear (Mastery > Crit > Haste) so I use legacy of the void, and thus I never used dispersion offensively unless I was soloing and I just wanted to keep voidform/lingering insanity rolling a little longer between pulls.  So it seems to me the only way this nerf affects legacy of the void is that, assuming you're never (or only very rarely) in voidform longer than a minute, you'll essentially have a 4% reduction in haste across the board (4 fewer stacks of voidform lost to void torrent, and a corresponding 4 fewer stacks of lingering insanity in the build phase).  Is that correct?

That doesn't seem so bad (although any nerf at all to LotV shadowpriests seems pretty unwarranted, since they're already only viable in a handful of encounters).  I assume this nerf was targeted at making it harder to sustain surrender to madness.

On a related note, would it be possible to include haste breakpoints for determining when your gear will support the swap from legacy of the void for surrender to madness?  I.e., what's the minimum haste I need to viably run with surrender?

And, regardless of spec, what are the haste breakpoints for increasing the number of ticks on void torrent?

 

Thanks,

Aieo

[Valks 2,373]

30 minutes ago, Aieoshekai said:

Is that correct?

Pretty much, yep.

30 minutes ago, Aieoshekai said:

On a related note, would it be possible to include haste breakpoints for determining when your gear will support the swap from legacy of the void for surrender to madness?  I.e., what's the minimum haste I need to viably run with surrender?

I'm not sure what the exact minimum value is here unfortunately, sorry!

32 minutes ago, Aieoshekai said:

And, regardless of spec, what are the haste breakpoints for increasing the number of ticks on void torrent?

There aren't any. Due to how it works now, the game basically factors in the amount of time you have progressed into the next "tick" and then accordingly rewards damage.

[Aieoshekai 0]

14 hours ago, Blainie said:

Pretty much, yep.

I'm not sure what the exact minimum value is here unfortunately, sorry!

There aren't any. Due to how it works now, the game basically factors in the amount of time you have progressed into the next "tick" and then accordingly rewards damage.

Thanks for clearing that up!

[Valks 2,373]

13 hours ago, Aieoshekai said:

Thanks for clearing that up!

No problem. If you have any other questions, just ask :)

[Guest Elbrecht]

Hi,  

Does the talent choice or rotation change with the latest patch (25September)  ? Are the guides already up to date ? 

Regards, 

[Valks 2,373]

6 minutes ago, Guest Elbrecht said:

Hi,  

Does the talent choice or rotation change with the latest patch (25September)  ? Are the guides already up to date ? 

Regards, 

The guides are pretty much done with updates. There are very recent, minor adjustments that are yet to be taken into account, but will be in the near future. Keep an eye on the guide for updates!

[creno 0]

Hello

Anyone can help me with my dps? i can't do more than 100k of dps with ilvl 796

CS 15%

HASTE 22%

MAstery 45%

Versatility 1%

[Guest Zerada]

Has anyone calculated shadow priest stat weights? Id like to know those since i use Pawn addon.

[Valks 2,373]

On 9/27/2016 at 7:58 PM, creno said:

Hello

Anyone can help me with my dps? i can't do more than 100k of dps with ilvl 796

CS 15%

HASTE 22%

MAstery 45%

Versatility 1%

I can't really tell you much about what you're doing wrong or right without a log. Make a post in the Priest forum with a link to a log and I can help.

[Valks 2,373]

2 hours ago, Guest Zerada said:

Has anyone calculated shadow priest stat weights? Id like to know those since i use Pawn addon.

For the most accurate weights possible, I would suggest using SimCraft to sim your own character. It takes into account your current stat levels, so gives the best results. General weights don't really help that much since stat weights can vary so much.

[Guest Monty]

Wasn't there a very recent hotfix that canceled the 23 September hotfix regarding Mass Hysteria? Those changes appear crossed out here: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/20252902/hotfixes-september-21

[Valks 2,373]

3 hours ago, Guest Monty said:

Wasn't there a very recent hotfix that canceled the 23 September hotfix regarding Mass Hysteria? Those changes appear crossed out here: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/20252902/hotfixes-september-21

Where are you seeing reference to the Mass Hysteria cap in our guide? I can't find it. 

Let me know, thanks!

[Guest Monty]

My bad, I thought the description of Mother Shahrahz's Seduction in the Gear, Legendaries and BIS section was alluding to that.

[Valks 2,373]

2 minutes ago, Guest Monty said:

My bad, I thought the description of Mother Shahrahz's Seduction in the Gear, Legendaries and BIS section was alluding to that.

I think you're right. I wasn't saying you were wrong, I just couldn't spot it. I'm going to double check with the writer because, honestly, I'm not sure if it does refer to that.

Thanks for pointing it out, I'll check for you!

[KingDanx 0]

Is there ever a time when the haste bonus from your Lingering Insanity is more beneficial than entering Void Form?  For example, what if you have 70% haste from Lingering Insanity and Fortress of the Mind, Void Ray and San'layn on a single target?

[Valks 2,373]

On 9/29/2016 at 11:41 PM, KingDanx said:

Is there ever a time when the haste bonus from your Lingering Insanity is more beneficial than entering Void Form?  For example, what if you have 70% haste from Lingering Insanity and Fortress of the Mind, Void Ray and San'layn on a single target?

It's a DPS loss to stay out of Voidform because of Void Bolt I believe. You might see it becoming more useful at higher gear levels though.

[Guest Derpus Maximus]

I often find myself wondering how much of which secondary stat is enough/good/amazing, and while knowing the priorities helps, even a sketchy target percentage would be helpful. For instance, I saw that Fury Warriors should get 50% Haste then focus on other stats. I think every spec's stat priority section could use a few sentences about this.

Also, because I don't trust anyone else with this question but don't know where should I ask it, which food is better: the +200 main stat feast or the relevant +375 secondary stat meal?

[Valks 2,373]

43 minutes ago, Guest Derpus Maximus said:

I often find myself wondering how much of which secondary stat is enough/good/amazing, and while knowing the priorities helps, even a sketchy target percentage would be helpful. For instance, I saw that Fury Warriors should get 50% Haste then focus on other stats. I think every spec's stat priority section could use a few sentences about this.

The only reason this exists for Fury Warrior is because of the breakpoint for them. For pretty much every other class, you just follow the priority. The stat weights change depending on your current level of gear, but we can't give percentages for people to follow because they don't exist for most. 

One of the most requested is Fire Mage, in which the "sketchy percentage" where Crit no longer becomes top is physically impossible to obtain in game currently, at least until future patches, and even then, it's doubtful. This is similar for other classes too.

Secondary stat food.

[Guest Derpus Maximus]

Thanks a bunch for clarifying that mate, you're awesome.

[Shine 144]

On 8/9/2016 at 4:40 PM, Guest Szerated said:

Hi, I didn't see anything about an opener, but your priority list would lead me to believe you would open with Mind blast and not dots. Is this the case?

And maybe this is going too far into the weeds here, but there are going to be situations where your priority list changes that aren't reflected. For example: at a certain number of enemies, mind blast becomes less effective than mind sear. This would be further compounded I would think by voidform and lingering insanity haste. This would also make mind sear more effective than mind blast at a certain point.

Any thoughts on this?

 

You will indeed want to cast mind blast as one of your first spells. This is simply to trigger the cooldown before applying dots. Let's say you open with:

Mblast, Vtouch, Swpain, Mflay, Mblast.

You can see that the mind blast on opening will ensure mind blast is off cooldown again soon after applying dots. Remember Mblast is your primary insanity generator. 

Opening with dots would look like this:

Vtouch, Swpain, Mblast, Mflay (x3), Mblast. 

In the first example you will have a decent amount of insanity after 5 casts. In the second example considefably less so.

Hope this clears it up

[Guest axionages]

Hey hey,

 

so is there really no cap on haste someone should have?  I was goign foor haste overall but i figured that crit was better after ~30%haste. so now i am by 24%crit and 26% haste doing about 410k dps on short bosses and in em hc about 250k a bit more depends on encounter.
would be nice to know the ca haste cap tho.

greetigns

[Valks 2,373]

On 10/14/2016 at 11:34 AM, Guest axionages said:

would be nice to know the ca haste cap tho.

What talents are you using in the 100 slot?

[Guest N1gh7h4wk]

"In addition to the above, you will have to use  Dispersion at least once during  Surrender to Madness. It should be cast late (around the 90 second mark), but in any case before you use  Power Infusion and the third Void Torrent. This is needed in order to allow you to reach the third Void Torrent. In case you have doubts that you will be able to complete the sequence (something you must evaluate before even entering  Voidform, you should use another Dispersion very early on (around 5 seconds in). "

I'd advise to use PI before hitting dispersion, since dispersion halts the VF stack increase, making you sit on~90 stacks for 6 seconds, only to gain one more swd into the pre PI VF.
This increases you PI damage from ~90-110 stacks to 93-113~?, but makes your 6 seconds of dispersion worth 10 VF stacks less than using it before PI.
Better: you have 20% more dps during dispersion at full ramp vs dispersion at 90 stacks
The PI damage increase is nearly neglectable, since you effectively only lose 10% dps for ~2-3 seconds of PI.
 

[Guest grammarnazi]

constant rate that increases every 1 second

 

It's not constant if it increases...

[WyzrdX 1]

The guide for Shadow Priest shows it was updated for 7.1 but it also still reads

Quote

• Shadowform is now always on (there is no way to exit it).

 

In 7.1 this is no longer the case. The Shadowform is back in its prior form. Here is the link Shadowform however it actually says 10% Shadow Damage and 10% Physical Damage reduction in game and no longer costs mana.

Edited October 28, 2016 by WyzrdX