S Priest proper caster dps?

Dcully

Hi folks, im primarily a holy priest but recently have gone dual spec into shadow as a dps caster option.
My gear is mostly healing gear at the moment but plan on working on some dps gear.
I have a DK alt for dps and tank but always wanted a lvl 80 caster dps.
So recently i levelled my lock to 70 and am tempted to go to 80 but it feels like a grind.
This got me thinking and wondering just how good S priest is for raid dps?
Am i kidding myself thinking a S priest can be a proper caster dps to compete with the warlock?
Should i just lvl the lock if i want a proper caster dps?

Mr. CooL ICE

Insane dps if you use it properly. I highly recommend trying it.

Great thing about shadow offspec is a lot of the gear is interchangeable, as long as you have 5-6 items stacked with +hit

Dcully

Thats what i was hoping mate.
Any tips on rotation for single and multi targets?

Mr. CooL ICE

Read up on opening sequence cos I'm sure I have mine wrong, but I always open with SWP, as this triggers misery. Opening up with MB can be a bad idea if it crits. Opening with DP is also a bad idea as it isn't guaranteed to hit if misery isn't already up, since its on a 30sec cooldown.

After that, make sure you keep your DoTs up. Assuming all DoTs are up, priority should be MB > SWD > MF. Assuming you're in a raiding environment where mana regen is a must, never MB if VT isn't up. Also, never refresh VT until it has done it's last tick.

I also found that the key to keeping constant DPS is to have MF as lowest priority, but always use it when everything else is on CD. If you are still channelling MF and any CD from MB, SWD or DP is almost up, just hammer those buttons. Keeping MF channelling while you are wasting 1sec of DP being up is a bad idea.

For gearing... I could have this wrong, but I found that once you are hit capped (289), scaling +crit with spell power is much better than haste. Do some research though, as I could be wrong.

For aoe/trash, I usually open with SWP, DP, VT and then 2x MS (or whatever is takes to kill most mobs) in group. Haven't really mastered aoe yet

Glossary:
SWP = shadow word: pain
SWD = shadow word: death
MB = mind blast
MF = mind flay
MS = mind sear
DP = devouring plague
VT = vampiric touch
VE = vampiric embrace


P.S. Opening spell should be VE. It doesn't trigger misery or anything, but it will help prevent your healers from hating you if you use SWD a lot.

Mr. CooL ICE

Forgot to mention talents and glyphs... This is what I use.

I've noticed a lot of priests don't use Shadow Affinity as they rely on the threat reduction from Shadowform alone. I use it as VE does generate a lot of threat, and I always keep it up for SWD. However, I rarely get above 60% on Omen, so I may swap 1 point for Improved VE

I've kept Pain And Suffering at 2/3 on purpose as I don't want SWP to be refreshed every MF. I'm not 100% sure about it, but I think that the 33% chance of letting it tick for a little bit more increases it's overall damage, but I dunno if this potential dps increase is nullified by having to use a GCD to manually refresh SWP every few mins.

Major glyphs are obvious though, I'm pretty sure I've got them right. Don't have much variety with the minor glyphs at all

papajimsmooth

Sorry lord chessington alot of your advice is outdated. In wotlk you do not need to use threat reduction as tanking is a cakewalk. There is no rotation as such its all a matter of priorities. You open with VT to mind blast to DP then mind flay until you have 5 stacks of shadow weaving and then apply shadow word pain. The reason for this is swp should never drop of due to the mindflay reset, but each mindflay reset will keep the same buffs that you initially cast it with so its a good idea to pop any trinkets you have before applying the initial swp.

From here you prioritize which spells to refresh in the order VT-DP-MB and mindflay when you have no other option. The only time you use SWD is when there is too little time left on your mind blast cooldown for mindflay to be of any use.

Unless there is adds then you just dot up one target and mind sear to the top of the charts :pac:

Spec
Inner focus is handy in certain situations especially for those imba mind sear moments or else throw it into improved VE, or psychic horror is always fun

There is also a plugin for the quartz addon specially for mindflay which shows when each cast is, making it easier to clip mindflay.

papajimsmooth

LordChessington wrote: »

I've kept Pain And Suffering at 2/3 on purpose as I don't want SWP to be refreshed every MF. I'm not 100% sure about it, but I think that the 33% chance of letting it tick for a little bit more increases it's overall damage, but I dunno if this potential dps increase is nullified by having to use a GCD to manually refresh SWP every few mins.

This is incorrect, if you watch it, it resets after damage has been inflicted not instantly

TheDoc

I'd advise messing with the warlock is you want a proper dps casting class.

Maybe alot has changed, I aint played my priest past tbc 70 endgame tbh, but it just left me wanting for damage output.

For me, a Priest is just a healer, if you want serious damage output from a caster go Lock with destruction at 80 or a Mage

Xyo

TheDoc wrote: »

I'd advise messing with the warlock is you want a proper dps casting class.

Maybe alot has changed, I aint played my priest past tbc 70 endgame tbh, but it just left me wanting for damage output.

For me, a Priest is just a healer, if you want serious damage output from a caster go Lock with destruction at 80 or a Mage

A priest is a proper dps class.

Mr. CooL ICE

TheDoc wrote: »

I'd advise messing with the warlock is you want a proper dps casting class.

Maybe alot has changed, I aint played my priest past tbc 70 endgame tbh, but it just left me wanting for damage output.

For me, a Priest is just a healer, if you want serious damage output from a caster go Lock with destruction at 80 or a Mage

Like Xyo said, a priest is a proper dps class. But they are also a great raid utility class with the sheer amount of mana regen they bring to a raid. Even in vanilla (pre-VT), they brought a great damage boost to the raid.


@ papajimsmooth
My advice isn't outdated as I only turned to the dark side a few weeks ago, but I included the disclaimers cos I was pretty sure some of it was wrong

I refuse to spec Psychic Horror as I don't see much benefit in a raid environment. Maybe its the nab in me, but I have never used Inner Focus when I've specced with it, even when holy.

I can't say I disagree about Pain And Suffering as whenever I've tested it, the pattern I noticed indicated it always seemed to proc after the first MF tick. This will give me something to muse over when I'm in ironforge waiting for my HS CD

So using this as a template leaves two spare talent points. It's all down to preference, but I would much rather put them into threat reduction, whether its needed or not.

Dcully

Thanks to all for great advice, much appreciated.
Ive got single target rotations sussed out but im not sure about maybe a group of 3-5 mobs.
Should i just be dotting them all asap then using mind sear for aoe damage if they are together or what?
I find this is what i struggle with more than anything.

Also i see i only have 69 hit rating lol , but it is mostly naxx healing gear i currently have.
As i say holy is my number one spec so i really need dps gear.
Should i put hit rating ahead of spell power?
For example i have one piece in the bank that gives me almost +2% hit but losed out on 45 spell power,

nix

Does a DK's pestilence still spread DP ?

TheDoc

Xyo wrote: »

A priest is a proper dps class.

Like I said aint played that char in ages.

I remember my Shadow priest was called for every raid, then all of a sudden, I think paladin got this mana regen aura similar to priests....suddenly I wasnt called anymore

Splinter

nix wrote: »

Does a DK's pestilence still spread DP ?

nope, not since pre 3.1 patch we do get extra damage from unholy dks that have the talent to increase disease damage done to the mob.

i play an end game shadowpriest raiding ulduar and at times our dps can be low but its rare thats the case. get that rotation drilled into your head. DP is your highest dps spell so make sure you 100% keep that on the target and the vampiric touch. i tend to open with DP - VT - MB - MF and then SWP. if its a fight that takes a little bit of running in then i will use a shadow word death to get me into posistion. fights that have loads of adds, i wouldnt bother multi dotting them as they will probably be dead by the time you get to them so i tend to spot the mob with the largest HP pool and put a DP and VT on them and maybe a SWP and then mindseer that mob so all the others take the damage from it.

the spec i use is the standard cookie cutter shadow spec which i may change in the future but not yet. search for splinty on Jaedenar EU if you want to have a look at glyphs and talent trees.

either way, shadow damage is still very comparable and fights like hodir are simply awesome for us. (22k mindflay ticks and 24k swp ticks on our last fight)..another guildy had a 32k shadow word death so that can be situational

Splinty

KilOit

i play a raiding spriest, im generally top 5 and pull an average of 5k
did 6k dps on yogg saron yesterday, our aoe is insanely powerfull due to our low threat and single target dps is just as good i have very high end gear though.

it's not a easy class to be good at, like hunters you need to know your rotations to be worth a damn

Drakar

In AOE, often priests will easilly outstrip other classes (chain mindshear ftw!), but in single target dps situations, it's very difficult to come close to approaching similarly geared warlocks or even feral druids since the recent patch. Obviously you cant draw too many conclusions since every fight is different, but you can see some relative DPS tables from Rawr or Simulcraft (do bear in mind that they are for a fight where everyone can just stand there and dps - and there are really very few of those):
http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/wiki/SampleOutputT8

The key to remember is that it'll be very unusual that you'd be top dps on non aoe fights, but that you're providing the mana back to the raid so it's not an altogether fair comparisson (though that comparisson will still be made). Bliz have said that they'd like hybrids to be like 5% less than pure dps classes. If you're happy that even if you're being the best you can be and you still won't be good enough, then cool Your Warlock might be a bit easier if you want to smoke dps charts.

nix

Drakar wrote: »

Bliz have said that they'd like hybrids to be like 5% less than pure dps classes. If you're happy that even if you're being the best you can be and you still won't be good enough, then cool Your Warlock might be a bit easier if you want to smoke dps charts.

And then they allow feral druids to out dps most sole dps classes :rolleyes:

Dcully

Guys i seem to have decent +spellpower,should i be going for +hit gear more than anything else for dps?

Drakar

There's a hit cap (289), try to have that much hit first (make sure to pick the hit talents of course).

Theory crafting suggests scaling factors are something like:

int.....spirit..spellpower..spellhit....spellcrit...spellhaste
0.27....0.28....1.51........1.76........0.98........0.94

Again bear in mind thats for a constant dps fight (no running around etc), and that once you reach the cap, spellhit=0.

If you don't like keeping all those in your head, get an addon like Pawn to do it for you.

KilOit

Dcully wrote: »

Guys i seem to have decent +spellpower,should i be going for +hit gear more than anything else for dps?

go for best +hit items first and build arround it, 1 point of hit is worth alot more than +1spellpower if not hit capped,

check out shadowpriest.com for all sorts of useful info
there's stickies in gear discussion with gear you can go for,

can't link it in work since it's blocked :mad: