Shadow Priest

[Jim]

So, been trying to decide on this for a while: Spell power or Crit,

Now that i'm hit capped i don't know whether to work on crit, or go for spell power instead,

Crit (until 3.1) will give me more DPS from my dots, but when 3.1 hits, i'm sure crit will still be handy when they remove the extra dps from crit % into making the dots Actually crit :yahoo:

So, your thoughts?

Jim / Gaebora

[TeaLeaf]

Easy.  Like most dps casters you follow Haste > Spell power > Crit assuming you are hit capped already.  Crit is a very expensive stat and is not worth as much as other stats unless the socket bonus makes sense.

SW: P should only get casted once per boss fight, and % damage increase due to crit/vulnerabilities on the mob is only determined upon the initial cast. If you open up on boss fights with shadow word pain before winter's chill/shadow vulnerability/earth and moon are up, you are costing yourself a lot of DPS. The traditional opening sequence is something like Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague, Mindblast, Shadow Word: Death, Shadow Word Pain - since at this point all the debuffs should be stacked on the boss.

On use + crit trinkets should be used prior to casting Shadow Word Pain as well.

After you have gotten all your dots on the boss, play as follows:
1 Refresh VT as priority number 1
2 Refresh Devouring Plague as priority number 2
3 Mindblast if 1 and 2 are done
4 Mindflay is 1, 2 are done and Mindblast is on cool-down
5 Shadow Word Death iff you need to refresh a dot in ~2 seconds and mindblast is on cooldown. Shadow Word Death is almost never worth using except when opening, since it causes two shadow vulnerabilities when building up your stack.

The trick to good dps is to get all the debuffs up, then trinket, blow all CDs, pot, then hit your first SWP.  Maximises the dot you will then keep up for the rest of the fight with mind flay.

TL.

[Jim]

Righto, thanks for clearing that up, I kinda gathered it was SP anyway, but just wanted other opinions

[Jim]

bumped for Jas

[JonnyAppleSeed]

Cheers..

Shadow Word Death is almost never worth using except when opening, since it causes two shadow vulnerabilities when building up your stack.

This is the sort of info i was looking for

[TeaLeaf]

At the same time as you hit your trinkets and cooldowns in preparation for using SWP on the boss, use one of these:

Potion of Wild Magic
[item]Potion of Wild Magic[/item]
(increases crit rating by 200 and spell power by 200 for 15 seconds)

It ups the damage a load as the increased spell damage and importantly the crit rate is maintained on the DOT so long as the original DOT continues to be refreshed by Mindflay.  Likewise this also means you need to check all the debuffs are fully up on the boss before casting your empowered SWP dot.  Things like Imp Scorch from the mages which increases crit etc, as all the buffs you have and all the debuffs the boss has at the point you cast the SWP will be maintained on that SWP for the duration of the fight (assuming it is properly refreshed).

TL.