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Shadow=No Spirit Needed? o.OFollow

#1 Feb 01 2009 at 9:16 AM Rating: Default
I was told...and I usually don't believe anything I hear that shadow priests need very little spirit. That they should focus on INT and STAM. I've mixed up my gear a bit between stam,spirit and int: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aerie+Peak&n=Silvain.

The level 80 priest said that I had to much spirit and not enough INT and STAM. I mean come on I'm only level 20 for god sakes lol. If you more experienced priests can shed some light rather this is factional or fictional I would be much appreciative. Thanks to those who reply.
#2 Feb 01 2009 at 9:45 AM Rating: Excellent
Unless you focus on PvP, you don't need to focus on Stam at all. If you are on a PvP server, however, he's right. You don't have much mitigation, and stamina is what will save your **** from annihilation. Still, to maximise your leveling speed and reducing downtime, Spirit is definitely a good thing to get. Why? Spirit Tap. Your Spirit increases your mana regen. Spirit Tap increases this by 100%. Every point of Spirit you get count twice due to Spirit Tap.

So for pure PvE: Int > Spi > Stam. Higher level PvE: Int > Spellpower/Spi > Crit > Stam.
For PvP though: Int > Stam > Everything else. Higher level PvP: Int > Stam > Spellpower > Crit > Spirit.

In PvP, you'll rarely have the option of letting your mana regen. That is why you need the biggest mana pool out there, to make sure you have what is needed to finish the fight before you run OoM. Then increasing your Stamina high enough to be able to survive everything long enough to Bubble, Fear and heal yourself back up again.
Personally, I always stuck with Int as the highest stat for a Shadowpriest, because I really loved being able to unleash all that damage for so long, without having to rely on mana regen or taking breaks. And with VT, Shadowfiend, Dispersion and so on, you can make that manapool last forever once you get higher up in the levels.

Still, never underestimate Spirit in PvE. It's a huge part of our longevity while leveling, questing and so on. Anyway, don't care about Stamina in PvE. It's useless for us, as we can just pop a Renew/Flash Heal once in a while. Focus on Mana, Mana Regen, Spellpower for PvE, and leave Survivability stats for PvP.
#3 Feb 01 2009 at 12:10 PM Rating: Decent
tl;dr version:

Spirit's good for level 20. Except for PvP.

Later, Int/Spellpower.
#4 Feb 01 2009 at 1:52 PM Rating: Default
Thank you both very much for the incite on the post. North if I may, Now that I'm 20 and just obtained mind flay. Have yet to use it cause well super bowl is coming on soon. :D Do I still cast my longest casting spell first such as Holy fire, mind blast, pain, mind flay bubble and wand to finish? I got fear ward to. :D Priest is getting hella fun. And to let you know I healed a dm run and sfk, and wailing caverns. I don't think i did to bad. Just getting used to knowing what heal to put on who. My main focus is the tank. Got lesser hearl, flash heal, holy nova, heal all to my disposal oh and renew :D. All your posts have made me want to level my priest more and more. Just gets tough in certain situations. Again thanks.
#5 Feb 01 2009 at 2:26 PM Rating: Good
Yes. You still always open with your biggest nuke (which as Shadow will usually be Mind Blast/Holy Fire until talents remove HF from the equation), then DoTs, flay until MB is back up. Once MB is back up, you can decide whether or not the mob has enough health to need that cast again, or you can start wanding the mob. But if you use Bubble, make sure you use that before you attack the mob so you can get the debuff ticking early which means you can put the bubble back up again as soon as possible (if you aggro more mobs, for instance).

Once you get far enough up, you'll be opening with VT, SW:P and then MB and Flay it.

Shadowpriests work on a spell priority system, not a rotation. VT > SW:P > MB > SW:D > Flay. (later on it changes, but that's how you should work it once you hit 50. And pre-50, it's MB > SW:P > Flay)

Mind Flay is an awesome spell, there's no doubt about that. But it's still not awesome enough to take the place of MB/Holy Fire on your levels. It's basically just there to fill the spaces between the MB/SW:D cooldowns.
#6 Feb 01 2009 at 3:15 PM Rating: Decent
Thats awsome north. Just copied pasted and printed all that. I do bubble before they attack. I read that on the stickie :D. Ok back to leveling. 3 more and I get to heal stocks :D And you were right in your other post. Healing as shadow can be tricky but pretty easy to figure out if you pay attention to detail :D
#7 Feb 01 2009 at 4:00 PM Rating: Decent
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266 posts
At 20-40ish I never used MF, Holyfire>MindBlast>SW:P>Wand. If you fight mobs 2-3 levels below you the first 2 spells should knock off half the mobs HP then wand/sw:p were usually enough, just keeping the wand up to date is the most important.
#8 Feb 01 2009 at 4:24 PM Rating: Default
Thats exactly what I do trial.:D And your right. So basicly I can start rotating smite out of my action bar? Thats what I started with pre 20. Smite then MB while bubbled, dot then want to finish. :D Thanks for all the help
#9 Feb 01 2009 at 7:53 PM Rating: Decent
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266 posts
Smite was good till you learned MB and Holy Fire. It's not worth the mana if your going Shadow. At 40 when you learn Shadowform take HF out of the rotation and use SW:P/VE/MB, I know most people like to MF2-3 times but I've found not MFing gaurentees you will be out of the FSR for maximum Spirit Tap.

Edited, Feb 1st 2009 11:03pm by FreeTrial

Edited, Feb 1st 2009 11:04pm by FreeTrial
#10 Feb 01 2009 at 8:26 PM Rating: Good
You take Smite out of your rotation the second you get Mind Flay. It basically takes Smite's place as a filler between MBs. Mind Flays will scale much better with the Shadow Talents you'll be picking up as you level the next 20 levels towards Shadowform, and will be your slowdown spell of choice when you fearkite and deal with multiple mobs you don't want to run off aggroing even more mobs.

And Trial, you never ever use VE unless you're down to at least 60% health. It's a waste of mana unless you can completely maximize the healing effect from it. It's basically a survival tool when dealing with hard mobs or packs of multiple medium mobs. As for 5SR, you only need two seconds of wanding after a Mind Flay to make sure it's working. The three seconds of casting plays straight into the five seconds, as the mana is withdrawn the second you start channeling it.

Once you start getting a slightly decent manapool and mana regen, you won't really be caring much about conserving mana through the fight itself. Beyond waiting two seconds after the flay, it's all moot. All you care about is getting the 100% straight off the kill, while minimizing the time spent doing the kill so you can move on and achieve a higher killspeed which will be more beneficial than saving one or two MF casts on your manapool.
#11 Feb 01 2009 at 10:34 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
And Trial, you never ever use VE unless you're down to at least 60% health. It's a waste of mana unless you can completely maximize the healing effect from it.


Actually, they removed the mana cost in 3.0.8.
#12 Feb 02 2009 at 5:41 AM Rating: Good
Nice. That'll teach me to read the patch notes more closely. How the hell did I miss that?
Anyway, it's still a waste of gcd unless you need the healing, and will lower overall killspeed if you keep casting it on all mobs.
#13 Feb 02 2009 at 5:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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1,634 posts
I don't do the theory craft BS. Here's my opinion:

1. That 80 was an idiot. He/She should know better than to make suggestions like that.

Why - Because you're lvl 20. No one stacks stats with any purpose at that lvl. Heck - even into my 50s, I just took the best gear available... Sometimes it's +INT, sometimes its spirit, Spell power, etc... You're leveling and your goal is good time/progression. You're goal is NOT to be the best lvl 20 you can be... You're goal is to be lvl 21, 22, 23, etc. Also - Short of you stacking STR or Agility (aka - being a complete idiot) you can pretty much put what ever you want on.

2. Generally speaking healing priests like Spirit and DPS priest like INT. However, for leveling, I've tried to reduce my down time, by keeping spirit in mind at all times. Every kill increases my spirit - thus decreases my down-time.
#14 Feb 03 2009 at 4:37 PM Rating: Default
Thanks for all the incite. Ran some instances again and picked up some good stuff. Little of both though I have more int then spirit which I think is pretty good from reading your posts:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aerie+Peak&n=Silvain
I think I'm going the right way. Though is improved PS worth the 2 points. I rarely use it. Here's what I'm going for :D http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bZZG0frofkcVo

Thats as far as I got. That'll get me to shadow form. :D
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