a Darkened Soul

Shadow Weaving-

-noun

1. a 3 point talent

2. 3 points gives you a 100% chance to increase the shadow damage you deal by 2% for 15 seconds.

3. This effect stacks up to five times for a total of 10% extra damage done by all shadow spells.

This effect is often overlooked by many Priests I have talked to because it is automatically applied when using shadow spells. Understanding what you get with this talent can help you to increase your dps potential.

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The most important aspect of this spell is how it is used with SW:P. The damage done by SW:P is increased by 10% like other spells however if you do not have 5 stacks of the effect up when SW:P is cast your damage will be greatly reduced. You must recast SW:P manually to gain the effect of the 5 stacks if it was not done at the start.

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This is the reason that Shadow Priests have two different rotations, a starting rotation and then a combat rotation. The start up rotation is designed to apply Shadow Weaving efficiently and for the maximum dps potential.

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Starting rotation-

VT-DP-MB-MF-SW:P if standing still

SW:P-VT-DP-MB-MF-MF-SW:P if running in

Popularity: 3% [?]

VERSION 3.3.1 OF THIS CHEAT SHEET IS NOW AVAILABLE!

This is not a major overhaul, just a few changes to aspects that were effected by the 3.2 patch. I will post both the full sheet and the link to the downloadable version.

Hit

* 263 hit is the cap with 6 points between Shadow Focus and Misery and with a Draenei in your group

* 289.55 hit is the cap with 6 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

* 314.78 hit before you can go to 5 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

* 341.02 hit before you can go to 4 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

* 367.25 hit before you can go to 3 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

* 393.48 hit before you can go to 2 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

* 419.71 hit before you can go to 1 point between Shadow Focus and Misery

* 445.94 hit before you can go to 0 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

- Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 29% [?]

The official Priest Q&A was released a few hours ago and surprisingly it seems to address most of the issues currently plaguing the Shadow tree. Don’t misunderstand though, there are very few solutions presented in this dialog and that might frustrate some people. However, addressing the issues that we have been hounding them with for months has scored Blizzard a few points in my book.

Some highlights of the Shadow part of the Q&A:

-They are looking into the “damage is increased while DoTs are active” talents, which they (and we) feel cause us to be handicapped in shorter fights where we don’t have the time to either apply DoTs or allow them to tick for any real value. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2% [?]

This morning the 3.2 Patch notes were released and I am happy to say that while you may not find any real Shadow Priest changes under the Priest class section, there are some very cool changes for us hidden in there. Read the rest of this entry »

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Long before there was beta, when alpha still reigned supreme, there was a foretelling of great magnitude that shook the foundations of everything we hold true. It was written that in WotLK, Vampiric Touch would be nerfed to 2.5% of damage done converts to mana for party members, down from 5% in TBC. For the longest time I wondered why? Was it something I did to upset the shadow gods? But just as I had given up all hope for retaining my raid spot over mages and warlocks, we find out that Blizzard’s testing shows that the increased damage output along with abilities to conserve and restore your own mana, gives more overall mana to party members. Could this be true? Possibly, but we have been lied to before. The only thing that could redeem Blizzard in the eyes of the people would be some kind of miracle. And behold, from behind the third wall comes a glimmer of hope. A recent blue post states the very real possibility of raid wide mana regen! While this has not been implemented in the beta as of yet, it does conform to many of Blizzards major class overhauls already in the beta: raid wide pally auras, raid wide hunter aspects, and many more. Blizzard goes on to say that they want to make it so different specs of the same class are not required for a raid, i.e.- CoH Priest and Shadow Priest or Resto Druid and Feral Tank.

So as a breakdown from what we know so far about Spriests in Wrath-

-We now have AoE, although it is way overpriced in mana

-Our dps is supposed to be increased to compete with mage and warlock classes through talents like Pain and Suffering and Twisted Faith

-Our ability to regen mana for ourselves is no longer reliant on VT. Instead we have Improve Spirit Tap and the ability to convert Spirit to spellpower, making stacking Spirit applicable again.

-VT was nerfed to 2.5% from 5% but could be adapted to be a raid wide buff before Wrath is released.

-We were given some great PvP abilities like Dispersion, Imp Shadow Form, and Psychic Horror.

Let’s not forget we have months of the beta still to come for things to change for better or worse. The important thing is that I believe Blizzard is moving in the right direction with our class and spec, although they don’t have it all down yet.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I know its a little late for theorycrafting with a new expansion coming out that will change everything, but for those maybe leveling a new spriest during this down time, here is a list of some of the bests threads ever posted about shadow priest theorycrafting.

Best Raiding Gear- Shadowpriest.com

DPS Spreadsheet- Shadowpriest.com

Haste for Dummies- Shadowpriest.com

Shadow Basics- Dwarfpriest.com

Tips and Tricks- Dwarfpriest.com

More to add later, this is a good start though. Happy reading.

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A little behind on this one but some big news.

Priest (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8770))
Raid-Wide Vampiric Touch
We’re still in talks about how to consolidate buffs/debuffs between classes. Making VT raidwide is a possibility, but yes it would mean the value of multiple Shadow Priests in a raid is somewhat diminished. In a lot of ways we’re okay with that (you shouldn’t *have* to have multiple specs of one class in a raid), but there are a lot of other side effects we’re not sure about right now. (Source)

Vampiric Touch nerf to 2.5%
To be honest, 2.5% still might be too high. In our tests, Shadow Priests were still providing around the same amount of mana to their party (if not more) than before because of their increased damage output. Not to mention the Priest wasn’t going out of mana at all because of Spirit/Improved Spirit Tap. (Source)

Popularity: 2% [?]

This is the first of a series of posts I will be doing about the new talents and spells in WotLK. Today I will be focusing on Twisted Faith in the 10th tier of the shadow tree.

Twisted Faith- Increases your shadow spell power by 6/12/18/24/30% of your total Spirit, and your damage done by your Mind Flay and Mind Blast is increased by 1/2/3/4/5% for each of your Shadow damage over time effects on the target.

Lets break down this talent into its two parts.

The first part states: Increases spell power by 6/12/18/24/30% of your total spirit. Up to this point spirit has been very important to holy and disc priests but not as much to shadow priests. In the Burning Crusade, the addition of mp5 made stacking spirit for mana regen pretty useless. Now spriests are going to have to go back to the old ways, stacking spirit not only for regen but also for increasing spell damage. If you combine this with the regen from Improved Spirit Tap, which is based off spirit, then you have spirit standing right behind spell power as the stat spriests will be building around in Wrath.

The second part of this talent states: Increases the damage done by your Mind Flay and Mind Blast by 1/2/3/4/5% for each of your shadow over time effects on the target. This is pretty self explanatory. Keeping up your dots at all times just became even more important than before. Mind Blast is also going to be more important in the priority list now that it and Mind Flay are amplified by dot stacking.

The effects of this talent on the overall game play of a spriest wont blow anyones socks off. However, I can see this as being a major contributer to my theory that shadow priests are looking at a much better dps standing in Wrath. Its seems that Blizzard is working on a synergy between mana regen talents based off damage done and damage done being amplified by mana regen stats. I personally am really excited about this talent and its applications towards PVE.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Notice: all items listed here are still being beta tested and will most likely be changed in some way before release.

Spell Changes:

Improved Shadow Word: Pain – Now increases damage by 5/10% but no longer increases the duration

Mind Control- Has only 1 rank and costs 12% of base mana

Improved Spirit Tap- Gives you 50/100% chance to gain a 50% bonus to your spirit after gaining a critical chance effect from your Mind Blast or SWD spells. For the duration, your mana will regenerate at a 25% rate while casting. Lasts 8 sec.

Shadow Focus- Now a 3 point talent, down from 5. Now also reduces the mana cost of your shadow spells by 2/4/6%

Shadow Resilience- Now reduces physical damage taken by 2/4% but no longer reduces chance to be critically hit by spells.

Shadow Form- Now has an Innate 30% threat reduction. Now has a shapeshift UI.

Vampiric Touch- Mana returned from damage reduced from 5% to 2%

New Spells and Talents:

Pain and Suffering- Your Mind Flay has a 33% chance to refresh the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain on the target, and reduces the damage you take from your own Shadow Word: Death by 20/40/60%

Improved Shadowform- Your Fade ability now has a 50/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects when used while in Shadowform, and gives you a 35/70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage when casting any Shadow spell while in Shadowform.

Psychic Horror- Causes your Psychic Scream spell to have a 50/100% chance to Fear the target in horror for 4 sec.

Twisted Faith- Increases your shadow spell power by 6/12/18/24/30% of your total Spirit, and your damage done by your Mind Flay and Mind Blast is increased by 1/2/3/4/5% for each of your Shadow damage over time effects on the target.

Dispersion- You disperse into pure shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 90%. You are unable to attack or cast spells, but you regenerate 6% health and mana every 1 sec for 6 sec.
Instant, 3 min cooldown

Mind Sear- Causes an explosion of shadow magic around the enemy target, causing 183 to 197 Shadow damage every 1 sec for 5 sec to all enemies within 10 yards around the target.
2465 Mana, 30 yd range, Instant cast

More to come as testing progresses!

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