MoP Shadow Priest rotation

yep, back again, gonna need some help optimizing this one... want to keep it to a 1 or 2 button spam, apart from the 2-min cooldown.

Sofar I have:

Code:

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/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence Shadow Word: Pain,Vampiric Touch,Mind Blast,
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Devouring Plague
/cast Shadow Word: Insanity

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This is doing about 12k on a dummy with a premade 85 in 375 gear with no chants or gems (or set bonuses).

The challenges.. SW: Pain is a 18 second dot, Vamp is 15 sec dot, and Mind Blast is a 8 sec cooldown. I don't see how to get a optimal rotation there without one of those massive Bindpand castsequence macros that tend to get stuck.

A workaround might be the SW: Insanity, the problem is that I can't get the macro stretched out enough where the SW: Insanity triggers. The macro winds up refreshing SW: Pain first, which means SW:I can't trigger.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Update: it's doing about 15k in with the non-spirit gear and basic gems. Still can't get SW:I to trigger.

According to my tests on Beta, fallthru macros are pretty much dead. They fixed whatever it was that was allowing us to use it effectively on whatever we want. I just tested again and that's still the case.

This macro

Code:

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/cast Stormstrike
/cast Lava Lash

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should be simple and predictable enough. Not the case anymore. The only time Lava Lash will go off is as Storm Strike comes off cooldown, at which point Lava Lash will cast > GCD > Stormstrike. It won't go off again until both Stormstrike and Lava Lash are both off cooldown. This means Lava Lash can sit there waiting to be used for 8+ seconds until the cooldowns match up for both spells.

Code:

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/castsequence reset=target Flame Shock, Earth Shock, Earth Shock
/cast Chain Lightning
/cast Lightning Bolt

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Same thing here. Flame Shock casts, then you have to wait 6 seconds {shock cooldown} for ES to be ready, then it will cast Chain Lightning, then Lightning Bolt, THEN Earth Shock. Then another 6 seconds of the macro sitting there not doing anything until the next ES is ready.

From what I'm seeing, there isn't going to be one or two macros per toon, you're going to need a slew of steps.

Oh, that's not good at all... ugh.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Khatovar

Same thing here. Flame Shock casts, then you have to wait 6 seconds {shock cooldown} for ES to be ready, then it will cast Chain Lightning, then Lightning Bolt, THEN Earth Shock. Then another 6 seconds of the macro sitting there not doing anything until the next ES is ready.

From what I'm seeing, there isn't going to be one or two macros per toon, you're going to need a slew of steps.

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erk...

With additional problem that they are changing spells like Focus Fire to be non-GCD instants with no cooldown, which as far as I can tell means a macro will stop at them at just spam away. In some cases, the spell can be ignored (that's what I'm probably going to do with BM), but it other cases it's going to present a real challenge maintaining optimal dps. They also seem to be mixing up cooldowns just to prevent things from lining up.

That also may mean that certain classes may just need to be abandoned and others picked up that work better in a macro world.

I think the S Priest one I'm working on is still doable.. just need to figure out how to extend the time more. May need to go to a massive castsequence rotation.

experimented a bit more, and seem to have something that's working a bit better. However, not a lot of dps gain.

Changed the level 3 talent, and went with Mindbender instead, so the macro looks like this:

Code:

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/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence Shadow Word: Pain,Vampiric Touch,Mind Blast
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Devouring Plague
/cast Mindbender

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This DOES progress through everything, but I haven't worked out yet what things need to be cast more often. It would appear that SW:P and Vamp are still being refreshed too frequently, but all the mechanics are working.

I'm also staying at near max mana with this, but I'm not sure if that's a result of solo-targeting, or not using enough mana intensive dps spells.

Looking at what Khatovar tested, I tried a few other things (didn't know about the 0,0 macros), and came up with this.

Code:

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/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence Shadow Word: Pain,Vampiric Touch,Mind Blast, 0, 0
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Devouring Plague
/cast Mindbender

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Went with a different level 3 talent (Mindbender) which does fire off pretty much on cooldown. Got a bit of a dps gain. All the failthru spells due trigger.

Need to go and try it in a LFR run, and see how real-world performance is.

I don't think it's going to be possible to use the SW:I talent, I can't find a way to get the macro to proc it at the right time. Even adding the extra 0,0 times it out right, but it still doesn't trigger. If I put SW:I in front of some of the other talents, it will hang on that until it can be cast.

Code:

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/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence Shadow Word: Pain,Vampiric Touch,Mind Blast, 0, 0
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Devouring Plague
/cast Mindbender

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I did a test with this macro on a fresh lvl 80 i coped over ( reason because the pre-made do not have the glyph shadow word:death witch i use in my macro i wanted to compare to)
I got 11.8k dps with the macro above but was able to hit 13.2k with the macro i came up with on the test server. sounds like you do not like long cast sequence macros witch it is but did not have any problems with it . ran a 5 min test on each macro to come with the a good average dps

here is the dps macro i been working on. like i said before need the shadow word: death glyph to make it work.

/castsequence [nochanneling] Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Death,Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay, Devouring Plague,Shadow Word: Death, Mind Blast, Mind Flay,
/cast Mindbender

Thanks, I'll test that out next time I'm working on this!

It's not that I don't mind long castsequences, it's more that I've had problems with them getting stuck, and working out the timing gives me headaches, lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by leroyreborn

here is the dps macro i been working on. like i said before need the shadow word: death glyph to make it work.

/castsequence [nochanneling] Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Death,Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay, Devouring Plague,Shadow Word: Death, Mind Blast, Mind Flay,
/cast Mindbender

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OK, got the glyph, and tried it out on the dummy, and it's a solid dps increase, doing right at 20k with lvl 85, 378 gear, gems and chants, on the 85 dummy. I like adding the SW:D in, as it will allow for that to seamlessly be used in combat.

I noticed that there's a few spots where it pauses for a GCD or two, so it can be refined a bit more (might be haste levels too), but it's certainly an improvement over what I had.

Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by halabar

OK, got the glyph, and tried it out on the dummy, and it's a solid dps increase, doing right at 20k with lvl 85, 378 gear, gems and chants, on the 85 dummy. I like adding the SW:D in, as it will allow for that to seamlessly be used in combat.

I noticed that there's a few spots where it pauses for a GCD or two, so it can be refined a bit more (might be haste levels too), but it's certainly an improvement over what I had.

Thanks!

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yeah there lest one place it hang for a sec while waiting for mind blast but think if you added in mind flay then mind blast would be sitting of cool down for couple secs and would not make it around to refresh the dots in time. will probably look at it more see if i can figure some thing out

It's really not that complicated to adjust to these changes. Just use a multiple step sequence. It's still one button and if something is on cooldown, it'll just progress to something else.

a bit more testing after the latest beta builds, no real change in performance...

Code:

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/castsequence [nochanneling] Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch,Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Mind Blast, Mind Flay,Devouring Plague,
/cast Mindbender

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about 20k on the dummy, preserving this since I don't have a toon on live to use it on right now.. :D Does perform solidly better than my earlier version (thanks again Leroy!)

The macro gets stuck for me at some point. I only get Mindbender off after it gets stuck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pazgaz

The macro gets stuck for me at some point. I only get Mindbender off after it gets stuck.

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That on live or on beta?... I just tested both of these on beta (don't have a 85 spriest on live) on lvl 85 dummy, and both work without hanging. Perhaps someting is different on live.

Code:

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/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence Shadow Word: Pain,Vampiric Touch,Mind Blast, 0, 0
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Mind Flay
/cast Devouring Plague
/cast Mindbender

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Code:

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/castsequence [nochanneling] Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch,Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Mind Blast, Mind Flay,Devouring Plague,
/cast Mindbender

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The first does about 16.5k, second does about 19k.

If you are multi-boxing, you might want to swap in SW:D, if just macroing, use SW:D at under 20% manually.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by halabar

Looking at what Khatovar tested, I tried a few other things (didn't know about the 0,0 macros), and came up with this.

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This might be a dumb question, but what does 0,0 do in a macro?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kate

This might be a dumb question, but what does 0,0 do in a macro?

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Provides a time gap, similar to what the old ,,,,,,,,,, did. (I am a noob at this part, but that's my understanding).

another version...

Code:

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/cast [noform] !Shadowform
/cast berserking
/use 13
/use 14
/castsequence  [nochanneling] reset=target Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch,Mind  Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Mind Blast, Mind Flay,Devouring  Plague,
/cast Mindbender

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fyi this macro doesnt seem to work anymore, gets caught on mindbender.

Not surprised. I saw the same issues with fallthru macros back when MoP was still beta.

Back again...

Two issues, trying to optimize DP performance, and also fixing things with the 5.1 failthrough nerf. Based on the new fix in the other threads, working on this at the moment.

Code:

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/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=target Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch,Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Mind Blast, Mind Flay,Devouring Plague,
/castsequence reset=0.3 1,Divine Star
/castsequence reset=0.3 Mindbender
/use 14

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That appears to be firing everything off again, without any delays that I can see. The problem is that is only takes advantage of 2 orbs with Devouring Plague, which is a dps loss theoretically. Problem is, when I try building the macro to take advantage of 3 orbs, I'm filling even more with MindFlay, which isn't ideal. (and of course it means I need to use BindPad as well, which I'm not using otherwise).

So the long version would look like this with BindPad.. any ideas on how to optimize?

Code:

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/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=target Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch,Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Mind Blast, Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Mind Blast,Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Devouring Plague,
/castsequence reset=0.3 1,Divine Star
/castsequence reset=0.3 Mindbender
/use 14

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Trying the both macros on a lvl 85 dummy (488 ilvl, specced into ToF, Windsong), the first gives me ~52k dps, depending on procs, the second is about 3k lower, I'm assuming that's because of the extra Mind Flays. So there needs to be a way to optimize for 3 orbs without just filling with more Mind Flay.

Edit: Did some more testing, and I'm beginning to think that due to the way macros work and step through stuff, going for 2-orb DP may be ideal, as the macro winds up generating more procs and such, where extending it out to get 3 orbs for DP winds up being a dps loss or a wash due to Mind Flay.

Just wanted to say that this macro (I split it in three because I use isboxer multistep) is working great for my spriest.

Nice.. getting 15-18K dps out of this on my SP 8) ( level 85 )

Not to necro - but,

/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=combat/target shadow word: pain,Vampiric Touch,mind flay,mind flay,mind flay,mind flay
/cast mind blast

seems to be working really well, manual casting of DP.