12-18-2005, 08:09 PM
I was thinking of a slightly different shadow/disc raid build.
Discipline Talents - 21 points
# Silent Resolve - rank 5/5
# Improved Power Word: Shield - rank 3/3
# Improved Power Word: Fortitude - rank 2/2
# Mental Agility - rank 5/5
# Mental Strength - rank 5/5
# Inner Focus - rank 1/1
Shadow Talents - 30 points
# Blackout - rank 5/5
# Shadow Affinity - rank 3/5
# Improved Shadow Word: Pain - rank 2/2
# Improved Psychic Scream - rank 2/2
# Improved Mind Blast - rank 5/5
# Mind Flay - rank 1/1
# Improved Fade - rank 2/2
# Silence - rank 1/1
# Shadow Weaving - rank 5/5
# Vampiric Embrace - rank 1/1
# Darkness - rank 3/5
I don't reduce threat as much but the damage is higher and I add some 5 man utility with silence and vampiric Embrace.
Every 5.5 seconds I could throw out a mind blast that is 35% threat reduced that goes from the 517 average damage to 548 without any of the shadow weaving buffs. Stack those on there and it jumps up to 625. With vamp embrace on there you get to heal the whole party for 103-125 every 5.5 second which is OK. And then Mind Flay is doing 451 over 3 seconds without the shadow weaving buff. If that piles up you get 515 out of MF so it will heal 103 over 3 seconds (so another 100 health to the whole party). And every 3 seconds the SW:P should tick for 150-171 damage healing everyone for 30 more. So every 6 seconds (global cooldowns with flay and Mind blast) you heal the whole party for 260-280 damage without casting a heal spell. Not great but with a renew ticking on the tank for 162 every 3 seconds as well you are doing some decent healing while throwing out the damage.
The idea in MC is that you are in the group with the MT, not his primary healer but as you are throwing out additional DPS like a mage you basically get to add a decent renew level heal to the tank and increase the damage of the warlocks and other priests SW:P as well.
You get to keep the inner focus talent and expand your mana pool to help with 5 man healing. Blackout will throw an occasional stun on the mob (and with unlinking the controlled and the uncontrolled stuns) that will help provide some more damage mitigation. If spirit tap worked when you didn't land that killing blow that skill would most definitely be there over blackout though as you would then have even more mana regen. I'm still debating that one for additional healing help in 5 mans. But I'm not worried about not having subtlety. I've healed 5 mans with my druid without a threat reduction talent when pulling aggro is more dangerous because you can't shed it (and you could very well still need to heal so losing all that mana to go bear form isn't always an option) and I rarely got healer aggro. In MC the only time I see the threat reduction as a help is when the tank misses a sunder early otherwise healers generally don't pull aggro from healing. In BWL it seems to have more benefit especially for the way our group kills Razorgore but the shadow priest would be doing the DPS tricks there anyway so heal aggro wouldn't be the issue. I'll have improved fade to help in the 5 man healing area. And if I could heal 5 mans up through BRD with my paladin or my druid as the only the healer (and the druid has done scholo, strat, and DM as the only healer) I can certainly do it with a priest even without extra healing talents I figure.
My build does have 10% less threat reduction with the damage, will do a bit more damage (since the damage is from shadow and 6% from darkness should be about the same as 3% + 3% crit from force of will) and will also get some healer aggro on top of that from vamp embrace so I'm still not sure about being able to go all out like you were.
Though I've thought about dropping Darkness and just letting shadow weaving up the damage and getting focused casting to help with soloing as well as in situation where you need to heal and fade didn't shed aggro or is in the 10 seconds of cooldown it would have with the improved talent (lasts for 20 seconds and has 30 sec cooldown so if it drops aggro and keeps it off you should only have 10 seconds of it not in cooldown). But I've never really played with focused casting yet so I'm not sure the value of it. It's cheaper than shield and you don't always need the damage mitigation of shield which is nice.
Anyway more feedback on that template would be appreciated.
Discipline Talents - 21 points
# Silent Resolve - rank 5/5
# Improved Power Word: Shield - rank 3/3
# Improved Power Word: Fortitude - rank 2/2
# Mental Agility - rank 5/5
# Mental Strength - rank 5/5
# Inner Focus - rank 1/1
Shadow Talents - 30 points
# Blackout - rank 5/5
# Shadow Affinity - rank 3/5
# Improved Shadow Word: Pain - rank 2/2
# Improved Psychic Scream - rank 2/2
# Improved Mind Blast - rank 5/5
# Mind Flay - rank 1/1
# Improved Fade - rank 2/2
# Silence - rank 1/1
# Shadow Weaving - rank 5/5
# Vampiric Embrace - rank 1/1
# Darkness - rank 3/5
I don't reduce threat as much but the damage is higher and I add some 5 man utility with silence and vampiric Embrace.
Every 5.5 seconds I could throw out a mind blast that is 35% threat reduced that goes from the 517 average damage to 548 without any of the shadow weaving buffs. Stack those on there and it jumps up to 625. With vamp embrace on there you get to heal the whole party for 103-125 every 5.5 second which is OK. And then Mind Flay is doing 451 over 3 seconds without the shadow weaving buff. If that piles up you get 515 out of MF so it will heal 103 over 3 seconds (so another 100 health to the whole party). And every 3 seconds the SW:P should tick for 150-171 damage healing everyone for 30 more. So every 6 seconds (global cooldowns with flay and Mind blast) you heal the whole party for 260-280 damage without casting a heal spell. Not great but with a renew ticking on the tank for 162 every 3 seconds as well you are doing some decent healing while throwing out the damage.
The idea in MC is that you are in the group with the MT, not his primary healer but as you are throwing out additional DPS like a mage you basically get to add a decent renew level heal to the tank and increase the damage of the warlocks and other priests SW:P as well.
You get to keep the inner focus talent and expand your mana pool to help with 5 man healing. Blackout will throw an occasional stun on the mob (and with unlinking the controlled and the uncontrolled stuns) that will help provide some more damage mitigation. If spirit tap worked when you didn't land that killing blow that skill would most definitely be there over blackout though as you would then have even more mana regen. I'm still debating that one for additional healing help in 5 mans. But I'm not worried about not having subtlety. I've healed 5 mans with my druid without a threat reduction talent when pulling aggro is more dangerous because you can't shed it (and you could very well still need to heal so losing all that mana to go bear form isn't always an option) and I rarely got healer aggro. In MC the only time I see the threat reduction as a help is when the tank misses a sunder early otherwise healers generally don't pull aggro from healing. In BWL it seems to have more benefit especially for the way our group kills Razorgore but the shadow priest would be doing the DPS tricks there anyway so heal aggro wouldn't be the issue. I'll have improved fade to help in the 5 man healing area. And if I could heal 5 mans up through BRD with my paladin or my druid as the only the healer (and the druid has done scholo, strat, and DM as the only healer) I can certainly do it with a priest even without extra healing talents I figure.
My build does have 10% less threat reduction with the damage, will do a bit more damage (since the damage is from shadow and 6% from darkness should be about the same as 3% + 3% crit from force of will) and will also get some healer aggro on top of that from vamp embrace so I'm still not sure about being able to go all out like you were.
Though I've thought about dropping Darkness and just letting shadow weaving up the damage and getting focused casting to help with soloing as well as in situation where you need to heal and fade didn't shed aggro or is in the 10 seconds of cooldown it would have with the improved talent (lasts for 20 seconds and has 30 sec cooldown so if it drops aggro and keeps it off you should only have 10 seconds of it not in cooldown). But I've never really played with focused casting yet so I'm not sure the value of it. It's cheaper than shield and you don't always need the damage mitigation of shield which is nice.
Anyway more feedback on that template would be appreciated.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.