Tag Archives: shadow priest

A Week’s Worth of Updates

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I wanted to report on these little updates in separate posts but what with a couple of non-update posts and blog downtime ((sorry about that by the way, trying to move servers from my current to Reliq’s and there’s a combination of it having a strop and me being inept, there will be further downtime at the weekend)) I just haven’t had chance so here’s what I’ve been upto recently!

Main Who?

First and foremost, I’ve decided not to reroll. I’ve been back and forth a lot over the past few weeks, but as it turns out I’m still too comfortable with my delightful little Shadow Priest who has been my (on/off) main since early TBC and is the same character I played when I met Dan and Kait (who is my new boyfriend apparently). Also, when you’re trying to eat mid-Terrace of the Endless Springs LFR and it just happens to be the single worst LFR group you have ever been in ((no joke)) and you still have issues with the new flat laptop keyboard and the fact that 3 is next to w and Frost Orb is next to w and despite standing miles away it still heads over to the boss regardless while people are eating up after yet another wipe and then the finger pointing starts.. ahem. I do love her though, I just can’t reroll right now. Shadow Priest is just my thing this expansion. Blizzard have really fixed not only the dps, but also the playstyle. If you spec and glyph right, the playstyle becomes a lot more bursty and just so damn fun. Plus the self heals are amazing for soloing things.

The Cutest Little Rogue

In my Project Insanity post, I mentioned I’d started up a baby Rogue. Well here she is:

Isn’t she just adorable?! I have completely fallen in love with Lady Pandas and their [spazziness] ((I really tried to find a better word but this one just encapsulates what I’m trying to say so well)) , it really suits me down to the ground so when the option was between Human and Panda, and the unanimous vote fell to Panda (and one Gnome /shoo!), I didn’t put up any arguements. The name was a struggle as I’d been holding on to ‘Kalithe’ for my Rogue which is literally ‘Kali the’ and that just doesn’t scream Panda to me so I asked and Dan said Khili and it stuck. I love it! I slowly but surely worked my way through the Panda starting zone. I’ve done it before but found myself incredibly bored and just trying to make it end, so this time I soaked it in and found myself thoroughly enjoying it this time around.

I adore yaks. The yak cart gets me every time!

Insanity All Around – Hip Hip Arr!

We’ve also been trying our hands at the Love Dungeon but short of a couple of neck upgrades for my shiny 90s there hasn’t been a lot of luck. Plus I keep forgetting to do it because ugh effort. Still, it’s worth it purely for giving us the ability to say, “Anybody fancy the love dungeon? Space for two!” *giggle*

Along the lines of Project Insanity, we gained a fourth person – Flaps, a healer. So with our nice little farming spot in the Blacksmith hut in Booty Bay, we got ourselves up to friendly pretty quickly. With a couple other.. erm.. side events.. along the way. Not too long before we get honoured and can move on to the next part.

Hip hip… arr…

The Reputations That Need More Love

Last but not least, I’m back working on my Priest’s reputations. She was getting pretty close with Brood of Nozdormu and Hydraxion Waterlords so with any luck those two will be finished within the next few weeks finally! Mine and Rel’s foray into AQ40 was a lot of fun as well. As for the others, I’m doing my best to get my dailies done. Kait really helped keep me focused today by doing Shieldwall and August Celestials with me and prodding me to go do Anglers as well! Then I only had Klaxxi and Shado-Pan left so off I went and ta-da!

It’s taken me a long time but I’m so so happy! I adore this tiger mount model and I’ve been desperate for it since the first time I saw it. Sorry Swift Alliance Steed, you’ve been replaced.

Heroic Transmogging Achievement Runs

Oh! I almost forgot to mention the transmog runs we’ve done recently. My Hunter finally got her Illidan bow!! Squee. It suits her transmog set so nicely. And Monday night, 10 of us went off to do Bastion of Twilight HC and HC Dragon Soul. Bastion was cleared, netting us a guild achievement for Sinestra and the title ‘Dragonslayer’ which is awfully nifty. I do like dragons. Dragon Soul we got up to Spine before folk were itching to head off to bed. Hopefully we’ll have some fresh clears for transmog kit, further achievements towards the drake meta, and fun. I’m dying to get the heroic version of the Time Lord set for my Mage, I adore that set and missed out on the white version from LFR. I’m also really really hoping for the heroic tier 11 chest for my Priest’s transmog. I’m pretty sure that is my favourite robe ingame, or at least way up there.

One of many things I missed from not raiding in Cataclysm

So yes, we’re all up to date now. Back to business as usual and apologies for future downtime. We should be good until the weekend but the server move is going to go through. Ta-ta!

Shadow Priest Cheat Sheet

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Updated for 4.0.

This guide basically details how I play, and soon I will stick it on a page so that I can keep it updated. I hope it helps.

Spec

Basically, you want to go for this 9/0/32 build. There are 2 spare points which I’ve put into Mental Agility and Psychic Horror, which I have found to be a very useful talent in heroics. It’s not the best CC in the world by any means, but it’s very nice if the tank’s struggling with a few mobs at once, it can even be glyphed to remove the cooldown by a minute. Feel free to move them around if you can see something more useful to you.

Prime Glyphs

The best three prime glyphs to use at the moment are:

Though, if you’d rather take something else, Glyph of Dispersion can occasionally come in useful if you find yourself needing the extra survivability.

Major Glyphs

The major glyphs are really down to personal opinion. None give any DPS increase, so it’s down to what you’ll find most useful for whatever you’re doing. Personally, I think these are the best 3 at the moment pre-raids:

However, when you start raiding, it might be worth replacing Glyph of Spirit Tap with one of the following, probably Fade or Dispel Magic. It’s situational.

Minor Glyphs

Minors are also down to you as they always have been really. I like to use Glyph of Levitate and Glyph of Fading because it’s always nice to not have to worry about carrying Light Feathers around, and the reduced mana cost on Fade is reasonably nice too if you ever find yourself using it.

Stats

For normal and heroic instances, you don’t need too much hit, just take whatever you get your hands on. For raids, you will need to aim for the hit cap, but you’re pretty safe to be 4-5% under, if you notice too many misses, however, that’s when you need to get a little more hit. If you haven’t picked up enough hit/spirit gear, it will be best to reforge your least useful stat into spirit. Remember that with the Twisted Faith talent, 1 spirit = 1 hit.

The stat priorities, not including hit/spirit (which when capped becomes useless), are: Intellect > Spell Power > Haste > Crit/Mastery. Of course, it will always be best if you run your own armory profile through SimulationCraft (see this post) to work out your stat priorities, but that is generally what you’ll be looking at with Crit being ranked only a tiny, tiny bit higher than Mastery which isn’t as useful to us as it is to other classes/specs.

Gear

I have compiled a couple of gear lists. My gear list for normal levelling gear, which you need to gather a little before you can enter heroics, is here, and this is my pre-raid gear list for heroic and reputation drops primarily. The main thing about gear, as it always has been, is knowing which stats are best for you. Once you know that it’s pretty easy to work out what is and isn’t an upgrade just by looking at the item. If you’d like to easily see how much better an item is, you can always use the Rating Buster mod which lists the stats on the item and how much better/worse it might be than the item you currently have equipped. I’ve found currently that it’s not listing haste, but I’m sure that will be fixed soon.

As for weapons, I would strongly recommend a main hand/offhand combination at the moment. I haven’t seen an enchant specifically for 2handers that we can use on staves, and I have had a thorough look at enchants, so we’ll be using the same enchant on staves as we do on our main hand weapons, and we also now benefit from offhand enchants which give us 100 intellect, so the staff would have to make up for that bonus to be better than a main hand/offhand, which usually it won’t.

I have compiled a BiS pre-raid list, which you’re more than welcome to use, on the Wowhead profiler based on SimulationCraft stat weightings. I didn’t include epic BoEs purely because they’re obviously better than the other items and depend on how much gold you have, how much you’re willing to spend, and whether or not they come up for sale on the auction house or in trade. If you want to do the same easily, when you run your character through SimulationCraft, you will see an option to check gear on Wowhead, click it, it will open up in the program and you can copy and paste the link at the bottom into your browser then go back to your imported log. It’s a very nice option, and if you want to check the list based on the stat weightings they’re using at ShadowPriest.com, you can click here.

Rotation

I think the biggest question for a lot of people is how to properly use Mind Spike. The idea behind Mind Spike is to give Shadow Priests a spell to cast on shorter living mobs – namely, trash in instances or adds on bosses. Using Mind Spike will eat any DoTs on the target but if you’re finding yourself using Mind Spike, you won’t be needing to DoT anyway. It also gives you a buff that stacks upto 3 that increases the crit strike chance of your next Mind Blast, and the Mind Melt talent gives your next Mind Blast a 50% chance to be an instant cast. You shouldn’t be using Mind Spike on targets that live long enough to take a fair bit of damage from a proper rotation.

For longer living mobs and bosses, you’ll want to be doing a full rotation, starting with DoTs, Arcane Torrent if you happen to be a Blood Elf, Mind Flay until you get a shadow orb, then Mind Blast. DoTs no longer suffer from clipping, so make sure you refresh them with a few seconds left or when you get the Empowered Shadows buff (only Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plage, Shadow Word: Pain will be refreshed through Mind Flay). Try to keep up replenishment too as much as you can. You might also notice that Pain and Suffering only has a 60% chance for Mind Flay to refresh the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain now, so do keep an eye on that, I didn’t realise for the first couple of instances.

You should be using Shadow Word: Death in your rotation. Not only is it a nice bursty spell, but it grants mana back from the damage backlash, so make sure you aren’t shielded when you cast it if you need the mana. It’s even better after 25% now that it’s become an execute move – it will do more damage at that point in the fight, and if you have it glyphed, which you should do, you’ll be able to cast 2 in a row before it goes back on cooldown. Do watch out for your own health, though we have a cushion in the form of Pain and Suffering, if there’s a lot of group damage and the healer isn’t able to focus on healing you up, or the fight gives you a massive damage increase, you might end up killing yourself with it – so be smart, but do make good use of it.

Also remember to use Shadowfiend fairly early on in the fight, if the fight won’t last longer than 4 minutes, hold off until a Blood Lust or until you need a bit of mana back, if it will last longer than 4 minutes, use it after you’ve dotted up. Dark Archangel is also very worth using once you get 5 stacks of Evangelism, it increases your damage a little and gives you back 5% of your mana pool. Plus it looks awesome.

You will notice an increase in mana problems this expansion, similar to back in TBC, but if you manage your mana using the methods I mentioned above, you will be absolutely fine, might even finish some 5 man fights on full mana.

Gems

Currently, Ember Shadowspirit Diamond and Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond seem to be reasonably similar in DPS terms for us, it really depends on what you’re willing to do for meta requirements until Blizzard change the requirements for Chaotic (which they have said they will and hopefully quite soon). If you’re a Jewelcrafter for starters you’ll be best to use the Ember Shadowspirit Diamond because the Brilliant Chimera’s Eyes will more than make up for it. If you aren’t, it has been suggested that Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond, using more Purified’s than Brilliants or Recklesses, and one Lightning Dream Emerald to get the meta requirement may be slightly better than using an Ember Shadowspirit Diamond, but it’s so close that it might be best (easier/less fiddly) to go with Ember which only requires 2 yellow gems.

As for the other gems, you will still be prioritising pure intellect gems, Brilliant, unless you have a 10 intellect or more socket bonus requiring a red or blue gem. For yellows you’ll want to use Reckless, intellect and haste, and for blues you’ll want to use Purified, intellect and spirit.

Enchants

Consumables

You’re going to want to be using Flask of the Draconic Mind in raids which gives you 300 intellect for an hour.

If you’re looking for an elixir to use instead I’d recommend Elixir of Mighty Speed. There are also battle elixirs to increase your crit, mastery, hit, and spirit.

As for potions, Volcanic Potion is phenomenal.

Severed Sagefish Head is the 90 intellect food, to make it you need Deepsea Sagefish which can only be fished from open water. I’ve found the best place to be in Twilight Highlands, though Uldum isn’t bad either. Pickled Guppy only gives 60 intellect, but the fish required, Highland Guppy, can be fished from pools inland in Twilight Highlands, so it may be worth getting a few of those for heroics. If those don’t really appeal to you, you could try Fortune Cookies which give you a random buff based on your stats, I personally don’t like this kind of food for raiding, I’d rather know that I’m getting the right buff, but they might be useful to you perhaps.

Levelling Cloth Gear List 80-85

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I wanted to know what I can get for my Shadow Priest from which instances while I’m levelling 80-85, so that I know where to go if I’m queuing and such. Here’s the list if you’re interested. Should imagine you can gather a nice healing set using this list too, or if you’re one of those other cloth classes – figured I might as well add healer trinkets for the healy type Priests and swords for the Mages and Warlocks while I’m listing all the cloth.

Listing all normal mode gear from 80-85 in the new Cataclysm instances, call it a ‘pre-heroics gear list for cloth wearers’ if you will. I’ve not added every craftable, or every reputation reward, or every quest reward, just the items of note for levelling between levels 78-84. I will also update this post as and when I notice any differences.

This post at Wowjuju tells you where each entrance is, it’s worth a look, especially now that you have to discover the entrances.

*  = Has Hit
~ = Has Spirit

Armour

Head

~Aurelian Mitre – Lady Naz’jar, 78, Throne of the Tides
*Helm of the Typhonic Beast – Setesh, 83, Halls of Origination
Crown of Enfeebled Bodies – Erudax, 83, Grim Batol
Spiritmend Cowl – BoE, Crafted, 83, Tailoring 485
*Helm of Temperance – Reputation, 83, Earthen Ring Honored
*Mercury-Coated Hood – BoE, Reputation, 84, Earthen Ring Honored

Shoulder

~Krystel Mantle – Ascendant Lord Obsidius, 78, Blackrock Caverns
*Skeletalized Shoulderpads – BoE, 81, Silken/Sturdy Treasure Chest, Deepholm
~Spiritmend Shoulders – BoE, Crafted, 82, Tailoring
Mantle of Master Cho – Siamat, Lord of South Wind, 83, Lost City of the Tol’vir
Blight-Lifter’s Mantle – Quest, The Source of Their Power (requires 83), Lost City of the Tol’vir
~Woundsealer Spaulders – BoE, 83, Silken Treasure Chest, Uldum

Chest

*Inquisition Robes – Rom’ogg Bonecrusher, 78, Blackrock Caverns
Deepmist Robes – Quest, Sins of the Sea Witch (requires 80), Throne of the Tides
*Deepsilk Robe – BoE Crafted, 81, Tailoring
~Robes of Broken Dreams – BoE, 81, Silken/Sturdy Treasure Chest, Deepholm
~Anraphet’s Regalia – Anraphet, 83, Halls of Origination
Robes of Rampant Growth – Ammunae, 83, Halls of Origination
*Robes of Whispering Sands – BoE, 83, unknown source

Wrist

~Falling Snow Bracers – BoE, 80, unknown source
~Tangled Web Bindings – BoE, 80, unknown source
*True Archaeologist’s Bracers – Quest, Doing it the Hard Way (requires 83), Halls of Origination
~Crimsonborne Bracers – Drahga Shadowburner, 83, Grim Batol
*Sand Silk Wristband – Lockmaw, 83, Lost City of the Tol’vir

Hands

Vonica’s Gauntlets – BoE, 80, unknown source
~Dolomite Adorned Gloves – Corborus, 81, The Stonecore
Deathsilk Gloves – BoE, Crafted, 81, Tailoring
*Bone Fever Gloves – (Horde) Reputation, 83, Dragonmaw Clan Honored
*Gloves of Aetherial Rumors – (Alliance) Reputation, 83, Wildhammer Clan Honored

Waist

Band of the One Hundred and One – Quest, Followers and Leaders (requires 82), The Stonecore
*Stratosphere Belt – Grand Vizier Ertan, 81, The Vortex Pinnacle
~Evelyn’s Belt – Siamat, Lord of South Wind, 83, Lost City of the Tol’vir

Legs

~Leggings of Iridescent Clouds – Asaad, 81, The Vortex Pinnacle
Gartic’s Resplendent Leggings – BoE, 82, unknown source
Legwraps of Astral Rain – Isiset, 83, Halls of Origination
~Curse-Tainted Leggings – BoE, 83, Trash, Grim Batol

Feet

*Slippers of the Twilight Prophet – High Priestess Azil, 81, The Stonecore
~Medic’s Bloodstained Sandals – BoE, 82, unknown source
~Hekatic Slippers – Rajh, 83, Halls of Origination
*Sandals of the Courier – Quest, Kill the Courier (requires 84), Grim Batol

Back

Periwinkle Cloak – Lady Naz’jar, 78, Throne of the Tides
~Beauty’s Cootie-Ridden Blankie – Quest, Do My Eyes Deceive Me? (requires 80), Blackrock Caverns
Rippling Azure Cloak – BoE, 80, unknown source
*Shadow of Perfect Bliss – Asaad, 81, The Vortex Pinnacle
Vertigo Cloak – BoE, 81, unknown source
~Solar Wind Cloak – Rajh, 83, Halls of Origination
~Azureborne Cloak – Drahga Shadowburner, 83, Grim Batol
~Cloak of the Dryads – Reputation, 83, Guardians of Hyjal Honored
~Thousand Bandage Drape – BoE, Reputation, 84, Guardians of Hyjal Honored

Weapons

Two-Handed

*Cerith Spire Staff – Commander Ulthok, 78, Throne of the Tides
Sealing Heartstaff – BoE, 80, unknown source
~Soul Releaser – Earthrager Ptah, 83, Halls of Origination
Staff of Siphoned Essences – Erudax, 83, Grim Batol
Staff of Solemn Secrecy – BoE, 84, Silken Treasure Chest, Uldum

Main Hand

~Torturer’s Mercy – (mace) Rom’ogg Bonecrusher, 78, Blackrock Caverns
Biting Wind – (dagger) Grand Vizier Ertan, 81, The Vortex Pinnacle
~Scepter of Power – (mace) Setesh, 83, Halls of Origination
Blade of the Burning Sun – (sword) Rajh, 83, Halls of Origination
*Modgud’s Blade – (dagger) General Umbriss, 83, Grim Batol

Off-hand

*Beauty’s Favorite Bone – Beauty, 78, Blackrock Caverns
~Prophet’s Scepter – High Priestess Azil, 81, The Stonecore
~Lord Rottington’s Pressed Wisp Book – BoE, Crafted, 81, Inscription
Book of Blood – BoE, Crafted, 81, Inscription
Book of Origination – BoE, 83, Trash, Halls of Origination
*Petrified Camel Haunch – BoE, 83, Silken Treasure Chest, Uldum

Wands

*Corla’s Baton – Corla, Herald of Twilight, 78, Blackrock Caverns
~Torchlight Wand – BoE, 81, Silken/Sturdy Treasure Chest, Deepholm
Wand of Dark Worship – BoE, 81, Trash, The Stonecore
~Wand of Untainted Power – Forgemaster Throngus, 83, Grim Batol
*Cyu’s Ornate Wand – BoE, 83, unknown source

Jewellery & Trinkets

Neck

~Quicksilver Amulet – Karsh Steelbender, 78, Blackrock Caverns
~Acanthia’s Lost Pendant – BoE, 78, Trash, Blackrock Caverns
~Sea Witch Charm – Quest, Rescue the Earthspeaker! (requires 80), Throne of the Tides
~Amulet of Tender Breath – Altairus, 81, The Vortex Pinnacle
*Token of Gratitude – Quest, Vengeance for Orsis (requires 82), The Vortex Pinnacle
~Soulsurge Necklace – BoE, 82, Silken/Sturdy Treasure Chest, Deepholm
Tauntka’s Necklace – High Prophet Barim, 83, Lost City of the Tol’vir
*Charm of the Muse – BoE, 83, Trash, Halls of Origination
~Pendant of Elemental Balance – Reputation, 83, Earthen Ring Honored
Kuang’s Locket of Secrets – BoE, 84, unknown source

Finger

~Kibble – Beauty, 78, Blackrock Caverns
*Anthia’s Ring – Mindbender Ghur’sha, 78, Throne of the Tides
~Ring of the Great Whale – BoE, 78, Trash, Throne of the Tides
Finkle’s Twinkle – Quest, Do My Eyes Deceive Me? (requires 80), Blackrock Caverns
Rose Quartz Band – Slabhide, 81, The Stonecore
~Ring of Frozen Rain – Asaad, 81, The Vortex Pinnacle
~Caliph’s Band – Quest, Vengeance for Orsis (requires 82), The Vortex Pinnacle
~High Priestess’ Signet – Quest, Followers and Leaders (requires 82), The Stonecore
~Band of Life Energy – Ammunae, 83, Halls of Origination
*Band of Rays – Rajh, 83, Halls of Origination
Abandoned Dark Iron Ring – BoE, 83, Trash, Grim Batol
~Heartbinder Ring – BoE, 83, Silken Treasure Chest, Uldum
~Ammunae’s Blessing – Reputation, 83, Ramkahen Honored
Diamant’s Ring of Temperance – Reputation, 83, Therazane Revered
Spirit Creeper Ring – General Husam, 83, Lost City of the Tol’vir
~Veneficial Band – Lockmaw, 83, Lost City of the Tol’vir

Trinket

Witching Hourglass – Ascendant Lord Obsidius, 78, Blackrock Caverns
Bottled Lightning – BoE, 80, Silken/Sturdy Treasure Chest, Deepholm
Elementium Dragonling – BoE, Crafted, 80, Engineering
~Lady La-La’s Singing Shell – BoE, 80, unknown source
~Unquenchable Flame – (healing) BoE, 80, Silken/Sturdy Treasure Chest, Deepholm
Tendrils of Burrowing Dark – Ozruk, 81, The Stonecore
Tear of Blood – (healing) High Priestess Azil, 81, The Stonecore
~Rainsong – (healing) BoE, 81, Trash, The Vortex Pinnacle
*Anhuur’s Hymnal – Temple Guardian Anhuur, 83, Halls of Origination
Blood of Isiset – (healing) Isiset, 83, Halls of Origination
Corrupted Egg Shell – (healing) Erudax, 83, Grim Batol
Gale of Shadows – Erudax, 83, Grim Batol
~Electospark Heartstarter – BoE, 83, unknown source
Sorrowsong – Siamat, Lord of South Wind, 83, Lost City of the Tol’vir

The Under-Representation Of Shadow Priests

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There are some amazing Shadow Priest bloggers out there, though I couldn’t give my opinion on the wow.com Shadow Priest columnist ((being a no spoiler freak, then traipsing wow.com and MMO Champion like there’s no tomorrow would not mix well)), I have heard that they are very good. Not to mention the brilliant community behind ShadowPriest.com, who, if you look properly, have answers for pretty much everything, to the point that even Elitist Jerks use them as a reference point, rather than the other way around. And of course, a couple of great web comic artists (both of whom are in my blogroll). Yet, it still seems that Shadow Priests are a little under-represented.

I’d like to say that it’s the curse of being a hybrid, but there are plenty of Retribution Paladins, Moonkins, and Kitty Druids. I suppose Shamans are in the same boat, mind. Here’s the thing though, as things currently stand, Shadow Priests are pretty boring to level until you have the proper tools: Shadowform, Mind Flay, Vampiric Touch. Until then, you’re not really a Shadow Priest, let’s face it. I think the slowness to actually become what you’re trying to level does put a lot of people off. They’ll either go all “Fuck it, this is lame, I’m gonna heal dungeons instead,” to which I just have to say – DON’T DO IT, THINK OF THE COOKIES YOU’RE ABANDONING! Or, they just stop playing their Priest altogether.

This is why the new talent changes are AMAZING. Less bother over where to put your points, better talents to choose from, cooler abilities to make 5 mans much, much more fun, and of course, you get the Shadow Priesty stuff ((Mind Flay, Shadowform, Vampiric Touch)) from a much earlier level – hopefully making Shadow Priest feel more like Shadow Priest, and bringing our awesome class a lot more, well deserved, love. This needs some celebratory dancing methinks! (By the way, the following video is a clip from Eurovision, if you know what that is, yes I did watch it, great for the rofls! But I truly loved this.)

The Face Melter: Scaling Factors

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I finally decided to take a look at SimulationCraft. I’d taken this long specifically because, okay I’m lying to you, I’d had a look before and I didn’t understand what the heck I was doing with it. Until I came across this guide, which admittedly did take me a while to read through but it’s so utterly simple that I feel a bit silly for waiting so long.

I thought I’d go through with you the basics of how to use this programme. I’m sure there are ways to use it that will tell you so much more, but SimulationCraft isn’t the simplest of programmes as far as I can tell so I’m starting with the basics and I’ll find more guides, tips, and fiddle a bit. If, like me, you’ve never used SimulationCraft before but would like to see your own scaling factors and details to improve yourself rather than base your theory on somebody else’s numbers, then hopefully this will be helpful to you.

The only thing you’ll need to change is in the scaling tab. You will want it to look like the following as a Shadow Priest.

Next, import your armory for analysis. You will have the armory page open up, and a few other options. The only bits you really need to care about are these, to keep it simple. Top left, bottom left, and bottom right.

Once you have imported, your character’s details will appear. At the bottom right, the same place as the import button, you will see this.

While you wait for your profile to load you will be able to see the bar moving. Then you can see the results.

The results page will give you a range of information about your character. Have a look through, it’s very useful. Just a few examples from my own results. With an optimal raid situation, I should be capable of about 9k dps. As with anything, this won’t take into account movement time, taking care of adds, any stuns i.e. the bone spikes on Lord Marrowgar, however, it’s nice to see what you could be doing with full raid buffs on a Patchwerk style fight.

This pie chart tells me which of my abilities should be doing the most damage. If you use a damage meter, probably Recount or Skada, or a parse, ((Usually World of Logs, but there are others)) this will show you what you should be doing, which you can compare to what you are doing. If there’s a big difference then this will allow you to play around with things a bit to improve a little.

Further down, there is an ‘action priority list’, which tells you how to prioritise any spells and buffs while in combat. Generally, you will probably know all of this already. Food buffs, flasks, speed potions, Shadowfiend, followed by DoTs, and so on. There are plenty of topics about it on ShadowPriest.com though if you’d like to have a look, it’s there. It isn’t specifically a rotation list, but it does tell you what you should prioritise, i.e. if Shadow Word: Pain falls off, it should be the first thing you refresh.

The part I’m most interested in is the scaling factors. In basic, these tell you how each stat will scale with your gear, spec, glyphs, and so on. Hit will always be ranked as the highest stat because if you don’t have enough it will net you a nice dps loss. However, you also don’t want to have too much, because then it becomes useless. I think most people’s scaling factors will be fairly similar, spell power being the major stat with haste being fairly close to it, crit a little behind, and spirit and intellect at the bottom. Mine interested me, take a look.

As you can see, haste is rated a tiny bit higher than spell power, whereas I expected it to be the other way around. Crit and spirit are ranked fairly close to each other as well, I expected intellect and spirit to be quite low down near enough equal, nowhere near as high as crit. Very interesting.

SimulationCraft works with other classes and specs too, so do take a look at your results if you’re interested.

Posted Edited: Because apparently people get testy over the tiniest of things.

Meet Seithir

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So, I’ve rerolled from Hunter to Priest as I mentioned in my last post, this means that I can no longer class myself as a Hunter blog so update your bookmarks if you have me listed as that. General WoW is probably the most precise, or Shadow Priest, or alts and levelling. Any of those should fit. Anyway, I can assume a lot of you might not know much about my Priest, if anything at all as I haven’t really blogged about her, so I thought I should introduce her properly.

You’ve met her before, briefly, of course so I don’t need to go into too much detail about where she came from, just that she is a Blood Elf through and through. I’ve gone over the idea of race changes and faction changes in my head and the personality she appears to have developed during my idling outside the Aldor bank time and my attachment to her simply wouldn’t suit any other race but Blood Elf. She feels that she is superior to others, basically. I suppose defeating Kael’thas, Lady Vashj, Illidan and Archimonde would do that to you.

Of course, I was always an achievement whore, avid pet collector, cool mount .. gainer on this character in the past and she has acquired a fair few titles too, so luckily she’s only a tiny bit behind Fae. I particularly love that she is both a Hand of A’dal and a Champion of the Naaru. The titles given for doing both the Black Temple and Mount Hyjal attunement to kill Kael’thas and Vashj and a bunch of other stuff, and the Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep attunement to complete 3 or 4 heroics and finally Magtheridon. I did the latter later on when heroics weren’t so impossible, it was easy when I got it, but I’m glad I did.

At 70, my first guild did Karazhan, Gruul, Magtheridon, the easy bosses in TK and SSC, and after a couple of months of being there it died. I stuck around for a while because I was pretty happy there, I’d met Dan and had a few laughs, we did Zul’Aman when that was released but after a while I wanted to try raiding a bit more. Both me and Dan applied to one guild, they were full on Shadow Priests at this point but Dan got in as a social, and he got into a few raids when he was needed. I applied to another guild who were raiding TK and SSC and I got in. I liked it there, it was calm, they did quite well in raids, we cleared everything except Kael before a spot opened up in the first guild and I left to play with Dan. They got me attuned and then I was a BT and MH raider. I absolutely loved progressing on Bloodboil, Essence of Souls (or the ‘big face dude’ as I preferred to call him), Mother Shahraz, and so on. The only thing that annoyed me, really, was the time my net went down for a few weeks and I missed the first kill of Illidan, but I got it when I came back and that was an awesome fight. We started doing Sunwell after Illidan had been on farm for a while and the trash was hard, it took over an hour to get to Kalecgos, the first boss, if I remember correctly and I did see him go down. I think that was the most anti climatic kill I’ve ever seen, “Is he dead.. have we wiped? Oh he’s dead! Yay!” I missed Brutallus to go help a few friends on my Paladin for a while (also the reason I don’t have the Spirit of Competition), which I do regret because that was a less than fun time.

I started Wrath on my Hunter but rerolled to my Priest in January after a bad experience. Joined a newly started guild with a few people I knew and we got a lot done. We got to the point where we would clear Naxx 25, Malygos 25, and still have some time for Sarth 3D 25 tries by the end of the night, and I think that only took us 3 weeks. It was fun though, there was an atmosphere in the guild of friends rather than hardcore raiders, and I enjoyed that. Until Ulduar hit and they tried to hardcore it. They want to raid from 1 in the afternoon until 10 or 11 at night and I just wasn’t having that. Ulduar was fun for the first day but after that I couldn’t enjoy it because it had been ruined and this led to me quitting raiding and leaving my Priest in the dust.

On the PvP front, my Priest is the character I have been most active on. Though, more so in TBC. Shadow Priests were very underpowered in PvP then but I didn’t care, I tried anyway. As hard as it was, when I really got into it I enjoyed it. I did a little arena with another Shadow Priest and a Holy Priest because they wanted to do Priest 3v3, also did a little 2v2 with one of them, though I didn’t last long, I never felt like it.

In Wrath I was focusing more on catching up with Fae on achievement points and being ready to raid. I did a little PvP, especially when they introduced Psychic Horror which I fell in love with, but not very much.

Currently, I’m having to pug any raids I want to do, with my gear being “below 5k gearscore” (sigh) I have been struggling to find Icecrown groups though I’m almost there with everything I can get pre-raid, I just need the Nevermelting Ice Crystal and the Wrathful cloak, 10k honour to go, and then I’m really going to push for raids. Of course doing the weekly, both VoAs, and a random plus Pit of Saron every day. I’m PvPing a bit as well, using the stand in the back and dot everyone up method because I’m not very skilled and often forget to use fear, but I do remember to Disperse when I’m being punched in the face!

My talents are a bit strange at the moment as I’ve tried to create a bit of a mix. I’ve taken 2 points in Focused Mind purely for heroics, to reduce the mana cost of Mind Sear, and I’ve taken Psychic Horror because in PvP, I aim to annoy.

I suppose my goals will now change a little, though not by much. I did start Loremaster when I played her before and I’m currently just 70 quests in Kalimdor away from getting it, so when I feel like it I will push for that. I also have the Eye in my bank, ready to do the quest for Benediction/Anathena when I remember to.

All in all, this is the character with the most history, the best memories (I have a lot of bad ones on Fae), and it just feels like a comfortable pair of slippers.