Mind Flay, Spirit Tap and Improved Shadow Word: Pain.

[fraye]

The european world of warcraft release is soon to come so i've been thinking about a shadow talent build for levelling.

Are Mind Flay, Spirit Tap and Improved SW:P really worth it ?

I could go with this build instead:


Shadow Talents (31 points)

# Blackout - 5/5 points
Gives your Shadow damage spells a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds.

# Shadow Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces your target's chance to resist your Shadow spells by 10%.

# Improved Psychic Scream - 2/2 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream ability by 4 seconds.

# Improved Mind Blast - 5/5 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 2.5 seconds.

# Shadow Reach - 3/3 points
Increases the range of your Shadow damage spells by 20%.

# Silence - 1/1 point
Silence the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 seconds.

# Shadow Weaving - 5/5 points
Your Shadow damage spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Shadow damage. This vulnerability increases the Shadow damage dealt to your target by 3% and lasts 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.

# Darkness - 4/5 points
Increases your Shadow spell damage by 8%.

# Shadowform - 1/1 point
Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15% and reducing Physical damage done to you by 15%. However, you may only cast Shadow and Discipline spells while in this form.

What is it exactly that Mind Flay does?

Is Spirit Tap so much better than just drinking after a kill?

Does it take longer than 20 sec to kill a mob so that the imp sw:p would be useful ?


Wondering about those 3 abilities.

[arch]

Mind flay is great for PvP and finishing mobs of, since it slows them down to 50 % of normal speed they can't run so far.

SW:Pain is something that you always use, since it's extra dmg that you don't need to use casting time for. And yes fights do last around 20 seconds so it's useful.

Spirit Tap is great for leveling since it reduces your downtime alot.

Hope this will help you decide.

[fraye]

Is mind flay only a snare? No dmg to it at all?

Spirit tap doesn't seem to great to me when you can get more mana regen by drinking. I know it says 50% regen while casting. Does this mean that it works over the 5 sec rule?

[Envie]

My personal opinion of spirit tap isn't that great. The reason is, it only works if YOU pesonally get the killing blow on the mob. Now, this is fine for soloing because of course you always get the kill, but if you duo or group, it's practically useless, how often does the priest get the kill? :roll:

I also wasn't impressed with the small amount of mana I regained from spirit tap - 15 seconds just isn't enough to regain even half a mana bar, you're better off drinking. It's good for active battle when you've got another target immediately afterwards however... like a mini drink while still in combat.

Limited use.

-

[arch]

Is mind flay only a snare? No dmg to it at all?

It does alot of dmg at max level.

MF does 426 dmg over 3 sec of channeling and costs 205 mana to cast.

SW:P does 852 over 18 sec and costs 470 mana to cast.

So considering that you can do 2 MFs for around the same mana amount as a SW:P and doing the same amount of dmg but over 6 not 18 sec. Though the SW:P is a DoT I'd say MF is a great tool in PvP. Spamming MFs at a target with 30% HP when the target is trying to run away is great since it has the speed decrease too.

[Devilnaut]

Well it depends on what you want to do. Spirit tap makes shadow priest into one of the fastest grinders in the game. It is the difference between killing 3 mobs before resting, and killing 7-8 mobs before resting. Like Envie said though, it isn't super useful in groups (unless you are master KS'er! ;p)

Mindflay is snare + damage, it does three ticks of damage over three seconds and must be channeled (means you can't move for the duration). It is useful also for grinding because it is very efficient in terms of mana/damage, and your mindblast has a cooldown. Typically when grinding you'll do mindblast, SW:P, vamp embrace (if it's necessary), mindflay the mob while it runs at you, mindblast again for the kill.

Imp SW:P isn't *quite* as useful for grinding because it only makes the DoT longer, not more powerful per tick, and rarely will the mob last over 15 seconds or so. It is good for pvp or instancing early on though.

[mediocre]

Imp SW:P isn't *quite* as useful for grinding because it only makes the DoT longer, not more powerful per tick, and rarely will the mob last over 15 seconds or so. It is good for pvp or instancing early on though.

The extra tick or two of damage is quite useful in solo, at least the way I solo. I stop casting spells when the mob is in the 200-400 range and let my wand and SWP finish it off

[fraye]

Thanks for the replies all.

Still can't decide between blackout or spirit tap though. Blackout gives your shadow spells a change to stun(sw:p, mind blast, mind flay).

Spirit tap gives you 100% chance of 100% extra spirit for 15 secs.

I tried a friends lvl 60 priest on us(i am going to play eu) he is shadow specced. He has 2 pts in spirit tap and 3 in blackout. As i see it, might as well not get spirit tap then ?

Thoughts? :)

[darkstryke]

I'd still go with spirit tap even if you group mostly. The ammount of stuns other classes put out each fight combined with the diminishing returns really makes blackout kinda garbage for 5 points.

[eggrollking]

Get spirit tap, and black out. Use High Spirit gear when soloing, but keep in mind spirit is capped at 300. It's less downtime when soloing, and thats always useful. A shadow priest shouldn't have to duo for quests. Just stick to yellow quests and grind here and there. When doing instances and grouping switch to Int gear. Blackout is extremely useful in pvp with shadow word pain, and mind flay, beacause every tick of damage gives you the ability to stun. Go all out shadow, and spend just enough into your disc tree to get improved buffs and stun resistances.

[Devilnaut]

"Blackout is extremely useful in pvp with shadow word pain, and mind flay, beacause every tick of damage gives you the ability to stun."


I'm pretty sure this is false.

[Dendriath]

"Blackout is extremely useful in pvp with shadow word pain, and mind flay, beacause every tick of damage gives you the ability to stun."


I'm pretty sure this is false.

Definitely false.
It only has a chance of working on the first 'hit'.

[arch]

"Blackout is extremely useful in pvp with shadow word pain, and mind flay, beacause every tick of damage gives you the ability to stun."


I'm pretty sure this is false.

Definitely false.
It only has a chance of working on the first 'hit'.

Will back you up on that one.

[Scorpicore]

nope, mind flay has a seperate chance for blackout and (re)applying weaving for every tick, not just the first one which is the case with sw:p
not sure if this is intended however :roll:

[arch]

nope, mind flay has a seperate chance for blackout and (re)applying weaving for every tick, not just the first one which is the case with sw:p
not sure if this is intended however :roll:

That is a lie.

[Krissam]

first comes my opinion.
spirit tab is soooo nice, it saves you an enormous amount of money (which you wont a lot of as a priest since the spells are so ****ing expensive) and it makes your xp/hr increase by a lot

second my experiences.
blackout seems to stun the 2nd hit with mf aswell, so i guess you're both right :D

[Scorpicore]

nope, mind flay has a seperate chance for blackout and (re)applying weaving for every tick, not just the first one which is the case with sw:p
not sure if this is intended however :roll:

That is a lie.

try it out for yourself and be proved wrong if you dont believe it (1.2.1. not tested with 1.2.2.)

[Devilnaut]

"blackout seems to stun the 2nd hit with mf aswell, so i guess you're both right"


This is probably just lag.


Scorpicore:
"try it out for yourself and be proved wrong if you dont believe it (1.2.1. not tested with 1.2.2.)"

Done, and you're wrong. Anyone who has a priest with the above talents can test this in 10 seconds in game.

Stun chance is only per cast, and same with shadow vuln.

[Scorpicore]

well that's funny

10 tests on the nagas in stv
blackout appeared on the second and third tick aswell as on the first, only used mind flay for damage no sw:p or mind blast
no lag or bad ping at all, no interference from another player

how do you explain that?

[arch]

Please make a video of that so we can believe you since you're the only one getting this stuns so often.

[Firecrak]

nvm, wrote something silly.

[XxEnderxX]

I've seen it stun while duoing with my priest friend. It seems to stun every tick, not just the first, i can tell this because the mob will be stunned at different places in our nuking. All my friend does is dot and cast shield over me while i nuke.

-Ender