Some low level clarity please.Follow

Hi folks, I've received a lot of feedback from you guys regarding my new little project - being my priest ;-> - Some in direct response to questions I've had, some picked up from answers to other posters' questions. The feedback has always been perfectly spot on, and has made my journey to 21 (so far) a breeze (16 hours played making this the quickest toon I've taken to this level - beating out the hunter by several hours).

I initially intended to level holy/disc, cos that's the way I wanted to play my priest, but the dark side has gripped me, and I'm now running full tilt in the zone of squeezing the life out of my targets by inflicting intense inescapable pain on their minds ;-D.

Which bring me to the first of my questions.

1) Having hit 20, and deciding to level shadow, I obviously picked up Mind Flay ... and oh my, what a disappointment ... my wand is the 17.3 dps level 16 wand made by my enchanter alt, and with MF doing 45 damage over 3 seconds (15 dps). WTF ... My wand does more damage, doesn't use mana (and allows me to come out of 5 Second rule quicker), is auto-shoot (which means I can let it go and do it's thing without having to refresh it).

So why, pray tell, did I waste a point in MF ... it is, for all intents and purposes, useless (at this level). Now, I've had a look at MF (rank 2), which comes at 28, and things look up a bit there - working out to about 36 dps - more than any easily attained wand at that level, so things may change then ... and yes, once I start picking up spell damage gear, and get shadow form, it'll be a big shift ... but until then, I've realised it's a pointless spell.

2) With still trying to wrap my mind around the useful/lessness of MF, I've been trying to figure out what spells to use and in what rotation ... currently, I use one of 2 (and a few vsriances) rotations.
A) MB > SW:P > DP (maybe) > Wand > (maybe MB if the mob is still around 40-50% health at this stage, otherwise I just let the wand finish the work)
B) HF > SW:P > MB > DP (maybe, depends on my mood) > Wand till dead.

I find opening with HF very beneficial, as it provides good DPM and a dot. I follow the SW:P up with MB in a search for a Spirit Tap proc. I understand that this rotation will dissapear once I hit 40, but I guess my question is - does this look fair ... should I be making a better effort to include DP, or should I ignore it for now ... (a 24 sec DoT doesn't make much sense to be applied halfway through a 10 second fight)

3) Does Shadowform pretty much signal the end of the need for a wand, or would I still be using it after that ... when should I expect to stop using it .. ie, when do I start picking a wand for stats instead of DPS.

Thanks again all (for past, present and future help) .. it's much appreciated.

Thanks a ton ... I actually have no issue using the wand if that's what is required (it almost gives me a similar feel to my warrior .. auto-attack while popping a few specials in between ;->, and that actually makes me comfortable). I just don't want to be going down a road when it's the wrong road to follow (ie, my take on the issue is way off base, and I've missed a trick somewhere).

I've actually unmapped MF from my action bar, simply because wanding is just that much better at the moment (still too wierd for me to really comprehend, but if you way that's the way it is, then that's the way it is ;->).

Use what works for you. You aren't the only one to not use mind flay at this level. I only did occasionally until a good few levels after I got it and I kept Holy Fire in my task bar way longer than I think most do but it worked for me. The same as end game specs. I am disc, it works for me. I took the advice I saw and went with the flow, you have to adapt and tweak these things to make them work.

Thanks all for the responses, glad to see I'm in some company here, and not just experiencing this on my own.



I thought about that, then I realised that my wand can crit too ... not sure of the crit rate though, but at low levels, it can't be a vast difference between the 2 (somewhere around the 5 or 10% mark).

Don't get me wrong, it appears that from rank 2 (level 28), it changes a touch with MF doing slightly more Damage per second that the generally available equivalent level wand ... the fact that the wand doesn't use mana, and I'm able to get out of 5SR quicker may make it still better to wand even at that level. Rank 3 is where I see it pulling away ... but that's easily 10-15 levels after you first get the talent.


Edited, Feb 23rd 2009 10:22pm by robertlofthouse

I highly suggest doing some Shadow PvP at about 49 or so. Spriests are downright OP in this bracket, and once you've gotten some good scaling talents such as these, it's a recipe for disaster. For the other side.

Seriously, from then on it's only downhill in PvP, so you might as well njoy it while you can.

Just noticed the shadow changes for 3.1 .... they're dropping blackout and moving darkness down into it's place ... way to go to confuse the crap out of me ... this could change things a bit.

With VE MF gives you health back.

I almost always end with MF as it keeps the mob from running and tops off my health.

Blackout is for pvp. It's crap for pve. If you don't pvp there shouldn't be any confusion.

Sorry, I wasn't quite clear there ... I don't have blackout, so them dropping it doesn't affect me at all, but the moving of darkness to it's (blackout's) place means that I can get a 10% increase in damage right from the beginning ... so now, at 22, I can get MF, and have other talents already that actually might make it attractive to use .. find one or 2 pieces of damage gear, and things could be helluva different.

Heh, I guess ... the boundaries for this kind of thing are kinda limitless.

I think my point is that you could never get flay before any of the damage talents ... that's changed now. As for Tap vs Damage ... I'm thinking tap (and imp tap), then darkness, then flay, then imp SW:P and shadow focus.

All that being said .. I don't use flay now .. it's mostly wand, which means my mana situation is idyllic. If I changed that to MF instead , because it's (maybe) a better option, then my mana situation may changed dramatically.

ONly one way to find out now, isn't there ? ;-)