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Spiritual Guidance: 8 reasons why your shadow priest DPS sucks
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen rains sheer purple destruction down on all who oppose him (such as those who dress cats in outfits). It's pretty much a known fact that we shadow priests are looked up to the world over. (Especially by Tyler Caraway, but that's mostly just because he's very short.) The reasons behind the admiration are many, but one seems to be more compelling than the rest: Shadow priests are capable of doing stunningly awesome DPS. Big numbers are sexy. There's no denying it. The unfortunate reality, however, is that not every shadow priest gets to realize their true potential. Tiny problems and mistakes hold them back. And though some of these problems are easily fixed, the fact that they're damn near impossible to guess at and diagnose on your own leaves a lot of shadow priests frustrated. Without a doubt, there are an awful lot of potential pitfalls out there. If you follow me after the break, we'll talk about eight of the most common ones. More importantly, though, we'll suggest ways to overcome them and get your priest back on the path to greatness.
Spiritual Guidance: On the subject of Shadow Word: Death
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen provides stellar, thoughtful advice ... when not sabotaged by Tyler Caraway. Over the past few weeks here at Spiritual Guidance, we've been talking a bit about the simple mechanics of shadow priests, ultimately exposing them as anything but simple. In April, I put the inner workings of shadow priest mastery on display, spending over a thousand words to explain a concept that some other specs can wrap up in a few sentences. Last week, we talked about shadow priest spell haste and DOT mechanics, something so complex that even I messed up a bit when explaining. Today, we're giving Shadow Word: Death the same treatment. No other single spell generates so many questions in the shadow priest community, because no other single spell has so many complicating modifiers. You can improve it through three different talents and two different glyphs. The spell's effect changes depending on whether the target's health is above or below 25%. And, if that wasn't enough, the effect also changes depending on whether the target dies as a result of your SW:D cast. Oh, and unlike all your other spells, Shadow Word: Death can kill you. That seems important to work in there somehow.
Spiritual Guidance: The mechanics of shadow priest haste
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen rains sheer purple destruction down on all who oppose him. Proceeds from this week's Spiritual Guidance will be donated to Li'l Sebastian's favorite charity, The Afghan Institute for Learning. Haste. It's a really easy to understand concept, right? It makes spells get cast more quickly. The end. Except that's not quite the end. Haste reduces the casting time of our spells, sure, but there's a limit to how much it can do so. Haste also make our DOTs tick more quickly, meaning there are certain levels of haste where our DOT spells gain an "extra tick." These factors give different weights to each point of haste, creating weird, nebulous concepts such as haste soft caps and haste plateaus. With a little bit of math, we can pinpoint the exact value of haste where these caps and plateaus are said to exist. But how much weight should we give these numbers? And how should these numbers affect how we gear?
Spiritual Guidance: Breaking down the shadow priest tier 12 bonuses
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen rains sheer purple destruction down on all who oppose him. In stereo, where available. Historically, tier bonuses for shadow priests have been pretty boring. From tier 4 onward, we've had very little to look forward to beyond mana cost reductions, spell-specific damage increases, and extended spell durations. These bonuses were valuable, to be sure -- we could all benefit from an extra DOT tick -- but nothing was game-changing. Towards the end of Wrath of the Lich King, though, things began to change. The tier 10 four-piece shadow priest bonus, a .5-second reduction to the Mind Flay channel, was a literal game-changer. It put Mind Blast on the back burner. Some shadow priests only cast it to refresh Replenishment; others dropped it from their rotations entirely. Whether or not the tier 10 bonus was a positive thing from a gameplay perspective is debatable, but there's no debating what a powerful force it was. Now, after a relatively tame set of tier 11 bonuses to start off Cataclysm (damage increases -- oh boy!), game developers are dropping a pair of nuclear bombs on us. The tier 12 bonuses for shadow priests are compelling, controversial, and game-changing -- all at the same time.
Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priests react to patch 4.1, look forward to 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen takes you down the only road he's ever been down. You know, the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah. Shortly after patch 4.1 went live last Tuesday, I got the chance to raid Bastion of Twilight. I tried out Mind Sear on the first pull, and the numbers were absolutely luscious. Instead of weak, ugly, sub-2,000 ticks, I was seeing ticks twice that size. Before long, I was gaming my trash rotations, trying to proc Empowered Shadow and keep it up through the pulls. It was terrific practice for Cho'gall -- I finally felt like my AoE was making an impact on that encounter. Overall, I got praise for the improved numbers I was putting out (thanks, Mind Sear!). But that praise got me thinking -- how is the rest of the shadow priest community faring in the post-4.1 world? And with patch 4.2 around the corner ... is there anything about shadow priests that Blizzard still needs to fix?
Spiritual Guidance: The shadow priest's guide to patch 4.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Each Wednesday, the priestly Fox Van Allen takes on all topics shadow. If you'd like to see Spiritual Guidance in person, send your request along with a self-addressed stamped envelope to TICKETS, "Spiritual Guidance," CBS Television City, 7800 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90036. New patches almost always mean changes to classes, specs, and abilities. In this respect, patch 4.1 is no different. For shadow priests, patch 4.1 brings huge nerfs. It also brings huge buffs. There's an awful lot to keep straight. Thankfully, you don't need to go it alone. Spiritual Guidance is here to help.
Spiritual Guidance: The shadow priest's patch 4.1 gear shopping list
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Each Wednesday, the priestly Fox Van Allen takes on all topics shadow. If you'd like to see Spiritual Guidance in person, send your request along with a self-addressed stamped envelope to TICKETS, "Spiritual Guidance," CBS Television City, 7800 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90036. Sept. 26, 1986, marks a dark day in television history. It's the date the CBS game show Press Your Luck disappeared from the airwaves. To the uninitiated, this fact has absolutely nothing to do with shadow priests. But you're not the uninitiated -- you're Spiritual Guidance readers. You know all about the sheer face-melting prowess of the "Whammy." In 1986, it was unharnessed. Wild. It'd steal money and the occasional trip to Curaçao. In 2011, that power has been combined, distilled, and ... placed into a bag -- specifically, the Lost Bag of Whammies. Were the last two paragraphs a sloppy attempt to justify using a YouTube clip of Press Your Luck as my contractually required 580-pixel length header image? Yes. But that doesn't change the fact that the Lost Bag of Whammies is a kickass epic shadow priest off-hand. It's brand new for patch 4.1, and it's found in the new five-man heroic version of Zul'Gurub. If you don't have a lot of ilevel 359 gear from raiding (or from the auction house, or from reputation rewards), patch 4.1 is a godsend. A ton of great gear drops for shadow priests are about to be added to the game, winnable by anyone with the skill to take on the new heroics. There are some things you won't find in the new heroics, and some things not worth grabbing though, so it's a good idea to get your shopping list ready now.
Spiritual Guidance: Gaming shadow priest mastery trinkets
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. This week, the venerable shadow-specced Fox Van Allen asks Theralion's Mirror who the fairest priest of them all is. Spoiler alert: It's not Dawn Moore. One of the biggest mysteries for shadow priests during the development of Cataclysm was what our mastery mechanic would be. We had some vague notions of what we were getting early on -- Shadow Orbs -- but it took the boys at Blizzards a very long time to define what those orbs would actually do. Perhaps it's that history that leads to one of the greatest misconceptions among shadow priests today. Most of us believe that Shadow Orbs are our mastery mechanism. They're not. If they were, shadow priests wouldn't see them until we trained mastery at level 80. Instead, we start seeing orbs as early as level 10.
Spiritual Guidance: Raiding Blackwing Descent as a shadow priest, part 3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Each Wednesday, Fox Van Allen brings you the answers to all the burning questions: Is it Tyler Caraway that he's better than, or is it Dawn Moore? The answers, my friends, is simple; when you're a shadow priest, you're better than everybody. Normally, my friends, I fill this space with pleasantries, pop culture references, and slams at other WoW Insider writers. But I just can't do that this week. Not when Nefarian runs free, flitting about his lair, overloaded with treasure. Shadow priest treasure. Over the last two weeks, we've been sharing shadow priest strategies for taking down Magmaw and Omnotron, as well as Chimaeron and Maloriak. But they were just child's play for what's ahead. This week, we're concluding our three-part series with tips, strategies, and loot information for the most challenging encounters Blackwing Descent has to offer: Atramedes and Nefarian.
Spiritual Guidance: Raiding Blackwing Descent as a shadow priest, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Fighting evil (and riding Sandbox Tigers) by moonlight, winning love by daylight ... Your shadow-specced host for the Wednesday edition of Spiritual Guidance never runs from a real fight -- for, you see, he is the one named Fox Van Allen. Ladies and gentlemen, do not be distracted by the ridiculously adorable Sandbox Tiger -- we've got serious business ahead of us. You see, the evil Queen Beryl dragon Nefarian (sorry, I get them mixed up all the time) has filled Blackwing Descent will all sorts of treasure-filled minions. And you, as duly deputized Van Allen Scouts, are tasked with taking them all down. Last week, I charged you with defeating the relatively easy Magmaw and Omnotron Defense System. I gave you some basic strategies, and you dispatched them with haste. This week, though, our marks are more difficult: Chimaeron and Maloriak. With great risk comes great reward, however ...
Spiritual Guidance: Raiding Blackwing Descent as a shadow priest, part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, the shadowier-than-thou Fox Van Allen takes over, trying to undo the damage caused by Dawn Moore's healing-oriented Monday edition. I've been pleasantly surprised with raiding in Cataclysm. It's pretty well-balanced -- raids like Blackwing Descent have a good mix of bosses with varying levels of difficulty. The statistics speak for themselves: While about 94% of raiding guilds have downed Magmaw (or so says WoW Progress), only 20% have made it to and beat Nefarion. That's a pretty wide gap. My discipline-oriented nemesis Dawn Moore has been spending her last few columns covering Blackwing Descent raiding strategies for Maloriak and Nefarion and for Chimaeron and Atramedes. All the while, you poor raiding shadow priests have been on your own while I laid out the law in Shadow 101. Well, no more -- it's time to talk raiding. We have to start at the beginning, though -- and that means taking on Magmaw and Omnotron Defense System. (Hey, everyone needs a couple of easy wins now and then to build confidence, right?) They're pretty easy for experienced raiders, but for those just cutting their teeth on Cataclysm raiding, they can still pose a real challenge. Over the next few weeks, we'll build our way up to the exceptionally challenging Nefarion and even dabble in some serious heroic mode strategies. For now, though it's time to smash some loot piñatas right in their ugly little (Mag)maws.
Spiritual Guidance: Shadow Priest 101
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, the shadow-minded Fox Van Allen takes over for the discipline-oriented Dawn Moore. Fox -- the Reagan '84 to Dawn Moore's Mondale; the communion wine to Dawn's flavorless communion wafer; the Charlie Sheen to ... that other boring guy with the fat kid. When I tell people that I write for WoW Insider, they often have a lot of questions. "What does Mike Sacco's hair really smell like?" "What's Tyler Caraway's deal?" "Can I have Dawn Moore's personal cell phone number?" I answer them all, of course (seriously, it smells like strawberries; he's overcome with Fox-induced hero worship; and no, you can't!). Today, though, I want to answer the one that comes up most often: "Do they let you write about whatever you want?" In short, yes. My employers are gracious folks, who seldom resort to physical violence against their writers. Every once in a while, though, the editorial gods issue an edict from their digital version of Mount Olympus. Three months ago, that edict was "now that Cataclysm is out, write a [your spec here] 101 article." You see, lots of World of Warcraft players are interested in reaching out and trying new specs, but are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information they need to get started. They want to know all about talents, gems, and what the spec is all about, but they don't want to sift through 50 articles to get the information. They want the Cliff Notes version. And that's precisely what the 101 series is all about. All my fellow writers here finished their Not as Cool as Shadow 101 articles back in December or so. Since I was too busy staring at my own reflection to get it done in time ... well, here it is, three months late: Shadow 101.
Spiritual Guidance: Revisiting the hybrid tax
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. And every Wednesday, Fox Van Allen takes over, encouraging priests to abandon the light in favor of the shadow. Shadow priesting: Because friends don't let friends lolsmite. When I first sat down to write, I had decided my column this week was going to be all about patch 4.1.0 and the PTR. Once I started looking through all the priest class changes, though ... well, there's not much there. That's not to say there aren't any changes. There are some tweaks to Power Word: Shield (which I do use all the time), and Inner Fire no longer has a duration (which is great). It's just that there are no changes to our damage-dealing spells in the mix. Perhaps that's a good thing. Our boomkin friends are getting a pretty ugly-looking nerf to Starsurge in patch 4.1.0, which surprised me a little bit. Admittedly, I'm no expert on balance druids, but from what I've seen on the DPS meters, their damage didn't seem stratospheric. In fact, I usually see boomkins trailing shadow priests across the board. The whole thing got me thinking. Why are boomkins being nerfed if they're not topping the meters? Is it a "hybrid tax" thing? Does the hybrid tax even still exist in Cataclysm? And what does it all mean for shadow priests in a post-4.1.0 world?
Spiritual Guidance: Top 10 trinkets for the pre-raiding shadow priest
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. All armor is pretty much the same. That may have always been the case, when it comes down to it, but it seems especially noticable in Cataclysm. Each armor slot has the same "stat budget," with the only differences between pieces of equipment at the same item level being the secondary stats that piece contains. Thanks to reforging, finding the right piece of armor isn't a big deal -- we can just find something close to what we need and modify it until it meets our specifications. Our two trinket slots are special, though. Trinkets don't carry around the same intellect and stamina that all other equipped pieces of armor do. It's notoriously difficult to rank which trinket is best, because they all have special "on-use" or "proc" effects that vary from piece to piece. Of course, it's those differences that make trinkets so compelling. The right trinket can make a huge impact in your DPS. For those of you who have yet to raid, there are 10 solid DPS caster trinket options -- six ilevel 346 rares and four ilevel 359 epics -- that you can choose from if you have the patience (or gold). Most have a huge spellpower proc. Some offer haste. One special little trinket offers intellect. We'll break them all down in this week's quest to answer the question, "What trinket is right for me?"
Spiritual Guidance: Balanced gear along the road to the shadow priest endgame
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Today is Wednesday, and for the 58th consecutive week, Wednesday is all about Fox Van Allen and his army of overpowered shadow priests. Last week was an interesting one for me here at WoW Insider. I wrote a shadow priest's guide to 4.0.6 on Monday, shortly before the patch went live. Because I knew the 4.0.6 stat weightings would be a much desired piece of information, I used SimulationCraft to try and generate some usable numbers. That led to a problem: I used the PTR 4.0.6 version of SimulationCraft to get the stat weightings. Hours before my article was published (and hours after it had been written, edited, and slotted for publishing), the folks at SimulationCraft came out with a new live 4.0.6 build of their software. The new live numbers were vastly different from the PTR numbers, and worse yet, the live numbers involved an error that incorrectly modeled hit. Long story short: I had to rewrite major sections of last week's article. And yes, that included the stat weighting. We have new, updated numbers that say for a best-in-slot shadow priest, haste is king. And that, as they say, was that. End of story. Column over. Right? Well, yes, that's the end of story ... if you're a best-in-slot, item-level 372 shadow priest with four-piece tier 11. If you're not a best-in-slot shadow priest, though, those stat weighting numbers are going to be different. Not "maybe" different -- significantly different. But just how different? Should a new 85 gem differently than an endgame raider? And how can you find out your own specific stat weightings without a degree in multi-variable calculus?
Upcoming class balance hotfixes
Community Manager Bashiok hit the forums this evening to supply advance notice on some major class balance hotfixes that will be coming in the next few days. If you're a shadow priest or balance druid planning to reforge all of your gear to mastery this weekend, you may want to hold off on that. The incoming hotfixes are: Shadow Power (shadow priest passive) is being changed from 25% to 15% of shadow damage. Moonfury (balance druid mastery) is being changed from 15% to 6% arcane and nature damage. Raging Blow reduced from 120% to 100% weapon damage at max level. You can find the full details of these hotfixes and the developers' reasoning for them in the blue post behind the break.
Spiritual Guidance: Top 7 shadow priest questions about patch 4.0.6
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Wednesday's shadow-specced version of Spiritual Guidance was taped before a live studio audience. Shortly before patch 4.0.6 went live, I took a glance at the final version of the patch notes. There were hundreds of changes, spread out across each and every class. And yet, with all those changes, there were really only four of major consequence to the practicing shadow priest. Taken from yesterday's official patch notes: Patch 4.0.6 Official Notes The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%. Mind Blast now does 18% more damage than Mind Spike. Mind Sear can now be channeled on friendly targets in addition to enemy targets. In addition, Mind Sear's damage has been increased by roughly 15%. Shadow Orbs benefit from mastery has been increased by approximately 16%. source No, shadow priests, your eyes do not deceive you -- that is indeed four consecutive buffs without a single nerf. Together (especially the last three), they add up to a solid DPS increase. That's clearly good news for us, but it doesn't tell the whole story of 4.0.6 -- there are still some yet-to-be-resolved questions. Is haste still our best secondary stat, or should we gem for something else? Do the changes mean we should now be hit-capped? How do the changes in 4.0.6 affect rotations? If you still have questions about patch 4.0.6, then today's column is for you -- it's all about answers.
Spiritual Guidance: Best professions for Cataclysm shadow priests
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Each Wednesday, Fox Van Allen steps up to offer his State of the Spec address a nation of priests, preaching the superiority of the shadow spec. The holy and discipline spec response, offered by Dawn Moore, will be broadcast immediately after on a channel no one watches (like CNN or CBS). President Obama gave his State of the Union address last week. I didn't watch it, because I was too busy catching reruns of Canadian home improvement shows on HGTV. You understand. I don't follow politics. I don't even like to vote -- I just have my neighbor do it for me. As much as I tried avoiding the speech, I still caught bits and pieces of it the next morning. From what I hear, we're in a recession. Now, I'm not exactly sure what that means, per se. From what I understand, part of it is that people are having trouble finding jobs. I don't understand why, though -- jobs are plentiful in World of Warcraft. Why, they're so plentiful, everyone is encouraged to take two of them! Professions are a great way to earn money, but they also carry with them some powerful stats bonuses and profession-specific perks. Which two professions should your DPS-maximizing shadow priest choose? It's a tougher question than it sounds, and some of the top choices may surprise you.
Spiritual Guidance: A Monstrous Compendium for the mind-controlling shadow priest
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Each Wednesday, while Dawn Moore is busy handing out sparkle-covered hugs and cupcake-flavored shields, Fox Van Allen takes the helm of Spiritual Guidance to practice the fine art of Mind Control and all other things shadow. This week: How to get former Angels outfielder Reggie Jackson to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II, all with the push of a button. Two weeks ago, we discussed the basics of the incredibly powerful priest ability Mind Control. It's crowd control taken to the next level -- you get to turn the bad guys friendly, dish out giant gobs of damage, blow the bad guys' cooldowns, and start out every pull with an effortless enemy death. In a world of cruelly difficult heroics, Mind Control is nothing short of a game-changer. Once you get past the basics, though, Mind Control can be a challenging ability to master. With most spells, once you press a button, you're done. With Mind Control, casting the initial spell is just the beginning. Knowing your own abilities is no longer enough -- you need to know your enemies' abilities as well. Some enemies aren't worth mind-controlling. Some have unbelievably powerful abilities. With a little bit of knowledge, you'll be able to exploit every last one of those 30 seconds Mind Control gives you. What follows is what I hope you'll find to be the ultimate Mind Control resource: a list of all the mind-controllable enemies in Cataclysm heroics, complete with their special abilities you can exploit for your own personal gain. It's our own version of a Monstrous Compendium. Turn your foes into crabs! Summon a meteor! Triple your tank's health and reduce the damage he takes by 90%! And that, as they say, is just the beginning.
One Shots: A shadowy sunset
The Shadow Priest in World of Warcraft. Some hate them for their damage-dealing abilities, others complain that they're annoying in PvP, and still others can't decide if they should go Holy or Shadow for endgame. However you may feel about them, generally people have to admit that the funky shadow form is pretty wicked looking. Add that spooky silhouette in with a stunning sunset over the swamp, and we say it's surely spectacular. Today's World of Warcraft One Shots comes to us from Saat, who writes in: "During an Archeology run in WoW I came across this sunset in the northwest looking across the Pool of Tears in the Swamp of Sorrows. I really like how the sun is throwing rays while partially blocked by a mountain and fires from the fighting at Bloodmire nestled in the shadowy distance." If you'd like to contribute your screenshots to us here at Massively, it's incredibly easy to do. Just pick one you like and send it in to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing in the image. Please make sure that the image is at least 1024 pixels wide and has as few visible UI elements as possible. It could wind up being the next one we feature! %Gallery-112285%
