WoW newbie looking for advice

[Kevin]

SW:P first, always, always, always, always. The only time that this is over ruled by is when you get Vampiric Touch at level 50. DoTs always go up first for a Shadow Priest.

Here's how you pull as a Shadow Priest as a sub 50 shadow Priest:
Cast SW:P while backing up, cast Vampiric Embrace while backing up, cast Power Word: Shield while still backing, when global cooldown finishes, cast Mindblast, cast Mind Flay, then cast Mindblast and Mind Flay and use wand while reapplying Shadow Word: Pain and Power Word: Shield as needed.

I so disagree with this. Most mobs SW:P doesn't even need to be cast pre L50 or so. It's wasting mana, it may up kill speed a bit, but higher mana efficiency can speed up the kill time of the next mob (or maybe the 3rd or 4th mob down the line) and can be faster over all. Though it also depends on how much you can stand to sit and drink. Keep in mind that when I play a paladin I NEVER sit and drink while solo. I would rather judge wisdom and run seal of wisdom on a melee heavy mob (they do less damage to me than a caster) and get mana back that way than sit and drink.

Pre shadow form what worked the best was open with holy fire. Yes holy fire. Rank 1 (with no spell damage gear) is 118 damage (assuming the mob lives for 10s and if people are thinking about SW:P at all they must believe it will last for 10s) for 85 mana, you get this at L20. Rank 2 Mind Blast is 116 damage for 110 mana you get this at L22 so I figure you can compare those. Rank 2 HF (L24) is 148 for 95 mana. Mind Flay Rank 2 is 126 for 70 but you need L28. Though at that point you finally have talents to get you some more shadow damage.

Since you don't get Shadow form till L40 lets look at the L30 - 40 range. Let's assume you get 5/5 Shadow weaving as soon as you can (so you've got that done by L29). Things do change when you have shadow form, and mobs start having enough health to actually worry about putting up things like VT or SW:P around then, before then it's generally not worth it.

L30 HF R3, MF R2, MB R4, SW:P R4
L34 HF R3, MF R2, MB R5, SW:P R5
L36 HF R4, MF R3, MB R5, SW:P R5

That is what you have to work with in those levels. You can consider smite but it's not as mana efficient as Holy fire is and Shadow weaving starts to really make a difference between holy and shadow and you start to run into some gear that gives just +shadow as opposed to just +spell damage.

So how do those work out for you as far as damage and mana goes?
HF 3 = 204 for 125 (149 + 55 over 10 if you really want to break it down) = 1.632
HF 4 = 252 for 145 (187 + 65) = 1.738 DPM
MF 2 = 126 for 70 (channeled over 3s) = 1.800 DPM
MF 3 = 186 for 100 = 1.860 DPM
MB 4 = 172 for 150 = 1.146 DPM
MB 5 = 224 for 185 = 1.211 DPM
SW:P 4 = 234 for 155 (18s or 39 per tick, 6 ticks) = 1.510 DPM
SW:P 5 = 366 for 230 (61 per tick) = 1.591 DPM (for full 18s)

So L30 if you open with HF you do 204 damage, 1.5s later they get hit with a MB for 172, then MF 1 hits them and channels for 126. So you are 4.5s into the fight and you start the nest MF channel for 126 more damage, 7.5s have passed and the mob may have gotten to you to swing, or it may not have. Generally I could get 2 full MF in when doing this routine. You start up the want it fires and the last tick of the HF DoT finishes. You have done 683 damage + 1 wand shot so over 700 damage. In general L30 mobs have about 1000 HP. So you can do another MB if you like before wanding (it will be back after 2 MF) for 172 more (or 855 total in 12.5s counting the HF wind-up) which means you put it about 4 wand shots from dead, the 1.5s cast generally won't get stuttered at all either. Dead mob using 565 mana (for 2x MB cycle), you maybe took 3 hits, maybe mob dead in 15 seconds or so.

If you start with SW:P, Mind Blast, Flay, Flay, Mind Blast you get SW:P cast, 1.5s later MB is cast (Global cooldown has to clear, it clears while the cast of HF is going though) at 3s in MB hits. 2xflay though you are less likely to be able to star flay at it's max range with sequence I could still generally get 2 in. So you are 9s in now and then you can MB again so you are 10.5 in after that cast is done, so you got 3 ticks of SW:P (one at 2x weaving, 1 at 3x weaving and one at 4x). You did (39*1.02 + 39*1.06 + 39*1.08 + 172*1.02 + 126*1.06 + 126*1.08 + 172*1.08) = (40 + 42 + 43 + 175 + 133 + 136 + 186) = 795 damage (vs 855 if you had used HF though you have 2 more seconds to make up that 60 damage and the next tick of pain should be for 43) and you used 595 or 30 more mana to do it. You are in the situation of the mob getting to you faster (since the mob isn't coming at you while winding up HF and that long wind up on HF is also letting you get more spirit regen). Again L30 mobs are generally at around 1000 HP and L32 are around 1200. You have a +2 mob sitting with 345 or so HP vs 485 or so HP when it gets up close to you. The SW:P ticks alone won't finish it off since half of it's damage is done by then.

Now again this is pre shadow form, it's only for about 15 levels of play but it's worth keeping in mind. I didn't show the numbers for the other levels but they work out pretty much the same. And with the way spirit regen works thanks to the longer cast of HF as I move between mobs I got more mana regen if I used it to pull with, so I generally could kill about 3 more mobs with the HF and no SW:P method before having to drink. It was just faster.


After you get shadow form I still pull with Mind blast most of the time then apply the SW:P and VE if I think the mob will live long enough or I know I'm not going to fear it while I'm moving. VE isn't used if the mob isn't gonna hurt me. SW:P does get used because the DPM gets very good when you factor in shadow form and the extra shadow damage talents, the fact that you get more +shadow gear and the more noticable affect of shadow weaving, and the mobs will still live for most if not all the ticks. The reason is Mind Flay has a shorter range and if you can start it at max range you can pretty much always get 2 of them in before the mob is melee range. If you pull with a DOT you will often have to drop the first MB or drop a flay before it gets to you. Since PW:S is horrible on the mana effieciency I try to avoid casting it at all. If I do feel I need to cast it for stutter prevention (i.e. I won't be able to kill it with a MB and a few wands when it is on me) then I cast it before I pull. If I put a shield up I probably don't need the healing of VT unless I'm already down health. If I'm using VT as part of a healing cycle then I will preshield and pull with SW:P because I'll have the shield up to prevent stutter on flay so I'm just working flay in around the CD on MB.

Regardless if you aren't going to get at least 5 ticks (15 seconds of the mob being alive) in you probably shouldn't bother casting it. If you don't need to heal and the mob isn't going to touch you don't waste time and mana on VE.

Now, I never had VT for long. I got it got to L51 and decided I just didn't want to be shadow anymore (I started as shadow at L28 or so I was holy before then) so I went to a holy build and stayed with that till L67 when I just stopped playing the toon (the reason? I had converted my shaman from enh to resto since I was healing more in PvP anyway so I had a capped healer and there was little motivation to push the priest the rest of the way). Things could have started to change drastically after L50 but pre L50 with my experimentation most of the time it was worse to pull with SW:P than with MB and the main reason was so that I could always get 2xMF in without getting hit and that generally meant I didn't need to waste any mana on PW:S at all unless it was a tougher mob I was wanting to get some health back. Spirit tap increases your health regen too so often it just didn't matter, though I was a troll so maybe the fact that I got some health regen from spirit while in combat made more of a difference but I doubt it was that big a deal.