State of Raiding

My fellow Shadow Priests,

Today is a world of change, today is a world where change in inevitable. Change happens, change will occur and change, like it or not, happened. What am I talking about? I am talking about the patch 3.0.1 and 3.0.2. There is a new way of raiding, a new way of specing and a new way of playing your shadow priest. I hope to impart these in three separate posts for reasons of my own (I need something in the future to write about eh?)

A new way of Raiding is upon us. It is up to us to catch the train and hope we don't get left behind. Allow me to take a few moments here and summarize the state of raiding. Shadow Priests have been a type of caster that has developed over a long period of time. Before the Burning Crusade we rarely, if ever, were allowed to spec shadow to dps in raids. Once we had Vampiric Touch it became easier for us to find raiding spots because everyone could use more mana. Us shadow priests would be placed in groups that either had ranged casters or healers and our job, our only job, was to keep their blue bar full. When I first started raiding all I could do was keep thinking back to Everquest and being an Enchanter. We had our little nitch and I must say, we did it pretty effectivly for the lack of our damage. I would gladly sarcrafice 20% dps for my healers to be able to heal for 10+ minutes in a boss fight.

Now is a time for change though and we have been hit with the "We dont want ultility, we want DPS" bat. This means an adjustment in the way we play our priests. No longer are the healers relying on us being in their group for we have Replenishment which hits ten targets. No longer are ranged dps bitching about us being in the healers group because Replenishment hits ten targets. No longer is Vampiric Touch being up 100% of the time something so important because Replenishment is a 15 second buff while VT is a 12 second DoT.

No longer was Improved Vampiric Embrase a talent that 'could' be taken only when we were hit capped. Now, for raids, its manditory. While people will argue that it isn't needed, I find that I am back to the Old World style of raiding. A voice in my ear goes "Your replenishment is great but your Improved Vampiric Touch is even better. Into the tank group you go" Now I (or possible 2 shadow priests) are stuck in the tank group with our tanks (warrior, warrior, paladin) and we have to make sure our numbers are high enough to keep them 'healed'.

I say 'healed' in quotes because its a matter of ineffectivity. Shadow Priests don't have great heals, we do a little bit more dps (200-400 most tests have shown) and we have lost 85% of our ultility. Blizzard has mentioned that Shadow Priests are going to get buffed, but when?) Now, this isn't a rant against blizzard. This is just me stating that there is a new playstyle out there.

Our play style is just management on our dots. We have to make sure they are up to provide maximal dps but Mind Flay is now something you DO NOT want to cut short. I crit on my Mind Flay for 1800-2000 and I can not complain.

Devoring Plague is also a spell you want to have up whenever it comes off cooldown. It has a 25 second duration and a 24 second cooldown so do not use it during the trash pulls - unless its a single mob that has alot of hp.

Shadow Word: Pain gets refreshed (mandatory talent in my opinion) whenever mind flay ticks and thus you should only have to cast it once at the begining of the fight, the phase, or in my case, when your done with the dragon orbs against KJ.

Mind Blast: Spell is important for it refressed Replenishment whenever VT is also up on the target. Good damage (critting for 5-6k) and should always be on cooldown.

Shadow Word: Death: Not as effective anymore but I still like to have it on cooldown because DP and Imp VE will always keep my health realitivly high. Note: Even on Naj'entus, I was always above 8500 hp and thus never was one to heal. (Crits for 3k every 12 seconds) If it crits for 3k, I get 2 mind blasts (600-1200 hp on every hit) and my dots so it generally gets healed up. I might also get a druid HoT if it is necessary.

Shadow Priests are useful to bring to a raid and I would always bring at least 1 or 2 depending on where your raiding. Black Temple: 1-2 Sunwell: 1-2 (3-4 if you have 0 Holy/Disc Priests - which you shouldn't)

Standard Rotation for me at least stays the same but I will say one thing about talents in this little tiny itty bit of the post. If you have Dispersion, which you should, this little macro brings me from 30% mana to about 95% in 10 seconds.

/cast Shadow Fiend
/cast Dispersion

Shadow Fiend now scales with your damage so I get about 35-40% mana back from him and Dispersion adds another 36% which is great because both are on a 3 minute cooldown. If you are in a bind and both are on Cooldown - pop a potion.