Shadow Priest Trinkets [4.3]

Trinkets. Love 'em, hate 'em, gotta have 'em. Alongside weapon and set bonus, trinkets are some of the most important things you can equip. So which ones do you wear? Below I'll list some commonly-available trinkets for the 4.3 shadow priest, and how good they are. Note: these are listed in ascending order of desirability for Ultraxion (because that's easy to simulate.) I'll try to note when a trinket preforms unusually on other fights, but I probably won't have any solid numbers to back it up.

Bottled Wishes - 2.43
Purchased for VP. Easy to come by, but probably not worth it, when compared to other items you could spend VP on. Macroing it to AA and macroing it to SF leads to the highest sustained DPS output, but it's still quite low compared to other trinkets. Preforms quite well amazingly on the Spine of Deathwing tendons, due to being a controllable on-use trinket. Best-in-slot for that fight, followed closely by the PvP spellpower-use trinkets.
Source: Valor points.


Necromantic Focus - 2.56
This is a very reliable, boring trinket that may as well grant a static 390 mastery rating. Not as good as it sounds. Worse yet, it only triggers off periodic spell damage, meaning it will drop off during your burst-phase. Pity; that's exactly when this trinket would otherwise have shined.
Source: Baleroc (Firelands).


Darkmoon Card: Volcano - 2.98
Created by scribes, this could either be the easiest trinket to obtain, or the most difficult, depending on your financial situation, and the markets on your server. Watching for its proc and intentionally refreshing DoTs during that time adds about 50 DPS.
Source: Crafted (Inscription).
Proc: 30% on spell damage, 45 sec ICD.
Proc damage: 1378.39 + 0.1151sp. (Crit: x1.50)


Insignia of the Corrupted Mind - 2.75 / 3.10 / 3.49
A decent trinket, to be sure. It would be better if, by the time you'll be finding this, you weren't already hitting the 30% haste mark. Haste over this is of lessened value, but dropping haste to account for this trinket isn't a damage gain either. Only the heroic version of this trinket is strong enough to warrant re-casting VT specially to take advantage of it.
Source: Yor'sahj the Unsleeping.
Proc: 15% on damage, 110 sec ICD.


Foul Gift of the Demon Lord - 3.14
Easily obtained from 5mans, this trinket is a good starter trinket for any shadow priest. The value listed here is assuming no proc gaming, with good gaming, the value is even higher. Notably, the use-effect, despite being nearly-worthless on its own, can trigger other procs with each pulse, including Spellweaving, the extremely-potent AoE proc granted by the aspect of magic during the Madness encounter.
Source: Mannoroth (Heroic Well of Eternity).
Proc: 15% on spell damage or healing, 45 sec ICD.


Cunning of the Cruel - ? / 3.61 / ?
This trinket was very hard for me to find solid numbers for, due to the fact that I don't have one. As such, I've only listed the normal-mode version here. This trinket preforms quite respectably on single-target, and may scale better than other trinkets to AoE fights.
Source: 1.8% drop from Dragon Soul bosses without a loot chest.
Proc: 15% on spell damage, 25 sec ICD.
Proc damage:  9368.5 + 1.57765sp. (Crit: x2.00)


Will of Unbinding - 3.42 / 3.87 / 4.35
Simple, boring, and undeniably good. By every trinket list I've seen, this will be either your best or second-best trinket. Grab it and never let go.
Source: Spine of Deathwing.



Variable Pulse Lightning Capacitor - 3.93 / 5.39
This trinket doesn't do what its tooltip says. Through in-game testing, I found that the normal-mode version deals +2122 damage per charge over the tooltip damage, and I'm assuming that the heroic version does the same. Based on that assumption, I came to the values you see here.
Source: Ragnaros (Firelands).
Proc: 100% on magic crit, gain Electrical Charge; 20% per charge on gain charge. 2.5 sec ICD.
Proc damage: 3247 (heroic: 5423) per charge. (Crit: x1.50) Does NOT scale to spellpower.

Fight-Specific Tricks (Dragon Soul part 2 of 2)

Read part 1 here: Fight-Specific Tricks (Dragon Soul part 1 of 2).

Two weeks ago, I began a two-part series on fight-specific things you can do to help your DPS and your raid in Dragon Soul. This week, I'm picking up where I left off. As before, this post is not written with LFR in mind, but some of the tips may apply there. Likewise, while I would like to give Heroic-specific tips, I simply don't know many of the fights.

Ultraxion
Ultraxion is the Patchwerk of Dragon Soul; he's a raw DPS and HPS check, with very few gimmicks and no movement.

After the first Hour of Twilight, DPS may be subject to Fading Light up to twice per hour. If you're using the MSp/MB rotation with 4pc t13, try to begin it immediately after the first set of Fading Lights for the hour, so you won't be interrupted.

Other than that, this fight is all about raw output. Be sure to pre-pot, and consider checking out my advanced shadow priest DPS guide, if you're not up to snuff.

Heroic: You'll likely be called upon to help soak one or more of the Hours of Twilight. Use Dispersion, and make a /cancelaura macro so you can get back to DPSing as quickly as possible. Here's mine:

#showtooltip Dispersion /cancelaura [mod] Dispersion /cast [nomod] Dispersion

This macro casts Dispersion if you don't hold a modifier key, and removes it if you do. (By default, the modifier keys are Ctrl, Alt and Shift, but you can change which keys count as modifier keys in the WoW options.)

Warmaster Blackhorn
Blackhorn is the gunship fight in Dragon Soul, and a perfect place to master multi-DoTing, and to show off your monstrous DPS numbers once you do master it.

Drakes: The drakes spend the first ~20 seconds of their life out of attack range, and if DPS is low, fly away again later. You can and should load these up with DoTs as they fly overhead to drop off each set of melee adds. Beware that Shadowfiend has difficulty meleeing them, even when they're harpooned.

Twilight Sappers: You can hit them with an instant cast DoT right as they land. DP is a good choice. After they reappear, Mind Flay spam will help your melee catch up to them. They're immune to our fears.

Twilight Onslaught: Use Dispersion on these to help your healers out.

Phase 2 (Goriona/Blackhorn): Groups progressing Blackhorn will want you to focus all DPS on Goriona, and specifically to NOT multi-DoT them both. If you're in a farm run though, feel free to do so. If you foresee yourself failing to avoid a Shockwave, you can cheese the damage with Dispersion, but the stun will still hit you.

Spine of Deathwing
The Spine of Deathwing fight is all about precise damage and healing, rather than large raw output. Think of it as the antithesis to Ultraxion.

Burning Tendons: I wrote a detailed analysis of this portion of the fight over on ShadowPriest.com. It's as relevant today as it was last Christmas. Check out my guide here. Seriously, do it. It'll almost triple your output on the Tendons.

Fiery Grip: As a shadow priest, you can turn this fight from healer hell into just another raid boss. After your group is done cleaning up the initial Corruptions, focus the final one and pay loose attention to its cast bar. It will cast Searing Plasma x4, then it will begin channeling Fiery Grip. As the 4th Searing Plasma cast nears completion, pre-cast a Mind Spike, cast a second Mind Spike, and cast an instant Mind Blast. This will interrupt the Fiery Grip after ~1.5 seconds, long before it would deal any damage to anyone. If the grip is on you, use Dispersion to soak the damage and call for help. Your raid will love you.

Late fight (many Corrupted Bloods, handle it!): As the fight draws to a close, you're likely to see Corrupted Bloods spawning faster than the raid can make use of their residues. 1-2 DPS should devote themselves to AoE; the bloods deal far less damage as they explode than they do if left alive to melee the healers. Your raid may also call upon you to help heal. Divine Hymn, as always is quite helpful, then I recommend Flash Heal spam on players with the debuff.

Madness of Deathwing
Madness of Deathwing is the final boss of Cataclysm, and in my opinion, the best-designed raid endboss since Ulduar. This fight taxes every aspect of your raid, from healing to raw DPS, to burst DPS, single-target, AoE, defensive cooldown use, multi-DoTing and more.

Mutated Corruption: If your group isn't depending on killing it before a second Impale, or if you'll manage that regardless, you can multi-DoT the limb tentacle while this is up. Also, Shadowfiend had been known to have problems meleeing this. Take care not to push the limb tentacle to 75% during this phase though; you'll spawn Blistering Tentacles.

Elementium Bolt: If the time zone is active, MSp/MB will likely kill it before it lands. If not, MSp/MB is still the most effective way to kill it, just make sure to be far away from the impact site.

Blistering Tentacles: Multi-DoTing or MSp/MB are both good options here. Tailor your choice to your raid group.

Regenerative Blood: Make sure you have a fresh Empowered Shadow as these spawn, and center Mind Sear off of your tank.

Cataclysm: For the love of the Light, don't use Shadow Word: Death here without 2pc t13! Once it's over run with your raid to the next platform. As mana can be tight on this fight, consider using Dispersion for the mana while running.

Phase 2 (Elementium Fragments): DoT up any loners, then center a Mind Sear on the biggest grouping of the buggers you can find.

Phase 2 (Elementium Terrors): MSp/MB + cooldowns on the first kill target. After that, de-form and begin blasting the tank with Flash Heal. I don't care if you weren't asked to; he's going to be taking upwards of 100k every second. Keep blasting him until his HP bar stops resembling a tennis rally.

Closing
Thus concludes my 2-part series on Dragon Soul bosses. Next Friday, I'll either write an analysis of shadow priest trinkets, or do something else. Aren't I specific? Feel free to suggest desired topics in the comments.

Shadow Tier 13 Set Bonus Analysis

Fox Van Allen recently wrote a post over at WoWInsider regarding the shadow tier 13 4-piece bonus. While true and informative, he didn't treat the subject in any real depth. In this post, I aim to settle once-and-for-all just how good the 4-piece bonus is, and what you need to do to optimize it.

There are three set bonuses of interest here: 2pc t12, 2pc t13 and 4pc t13.

2pc t12 - SF -cooldown, +damage.

This is the set bonus that some people occasionally use instead of our current unusual 4-piece bonus. Reduces the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 75 sec, and increases its melee damage 20%. A very solid set bonus, worth about 800 DPS from damage alone.

Also increases mana income from Shadowfiend by 45%; this may have an indirect effect on DPS, particularly on movement, AoE, or multi-DoT fights where mana becomes an issue, or if your raid asks you to de-form to heal.

2pc t13 - SW:D -backlash, +damage.

This set bonus isn't really in question; tier-13 items have more stats than tier-12 ones, and this set bonus is better than the tier-12 4-piece. Reduces SW:D backlash by 95%, and SW:D damage by 55%. This adds 816 DPS on a typical stand-and-burn fight where HP wasn't a concern.

In practice, however, the backlash protection also helps your healers, and allows you to use SW:D at times where you shouldn't've, due to low HP. Thus, in practice, the true effect is more pronounced. Also becomes more valuable on fights with adds or multiple parts, as you'll hit execute phase more often and SW:D more.

4pc t13 - SA and SF +orbs.

This is the contentious set bonus. It's unintuitive, play-style altering, hard to math out, and suffers heavily on movement fights. Grants 3 Shadow Orbs whenever Shadowy Apparitions or Shadowfiend deals damage. If you simply wear this set bonus to a stand-and-burn fight and don't even alter your rotation, it's worth 1100 DPS; slightly superior to the 2pc t12 bonus, but without the bonus mana.

You can, however, squeeze a good deal of extra damage out of this set bonus. First, some data:
* Tier Notes: * 42134 4pc tier 13, no burst rotation * 43037 4pc tier 13, with MSp/MB, holding AA * 42680 4pc tier 13, with MSp/MB, holding AA, MSp3 * 43421 4pc tier 13, with MSp/MB * 43410 4pc tier 13, with MSp/MB, 3-orb blast right after * 42863 4pc tier 13, with MSp/MB, MSp3 * 43494 4pc tier 13, with MSp/MB, not using final MSp * 42869 4pc tier 13, with MSp/MB, not using final MSp, MSp3 * 43102 4pc tier 13, with MSp/MB, holding AA, not using final MSp * 42689 4pc tier 13, with MSp/MB, holding AA, not using final MSp, MSp3 * 41803 2/2, old rotation

This is the output from my shadow simulator, regarding different rotation options used with 4pc t13 (2 Normal, 2 Heroic). The final line of the output corresponds to 2pc Heroic t12 + 2pc Heroic t13.

The two best rotations are as follows. In both cases, it is a damage loss to delay SF to sync it up with AA, or to delay AA to sync it up with SF.

1. Use MSp/MB rotation when SF is up; return to normal rotation after 2nd MB, despite that SF has 2-3 melee swings left.
2. Use MSp/MB rotation when SF is up.
   

This raises the value of this set bonus to ~2480 DPS. This is huge, and definitely worth doing.

There are also two other things you can do you squeeze extra DPS from the set bonus.

Firstly, reforge any Haste in excess of 30% to Mastery. This was already done for the data you see above, but without it, the value of the set bonus was ~600 DPS lower.

Secondly, move unnecessarily. By raising the portion of SW:P ticks under movement, you raise the portion of MB hits under 3 orbs. Whenever you cast an instant spell, move a little bit. Assuming ~0.5 sec movement per instant spell, this adds about 500 DPS, bringing the total value of the set bonus to ~3000 DPS.

Take caution, however; you are extremely sensitive to interruption during the burst window. If you or your Shadowfiend has to move (or Dispersion, or Heroic Will, etc.) during it, you'll take a massive damage loss, potentially in the ~200-300k range for only a couple seconds of movement.

Furthermore, on multi-target fights, or fights where you're asked to heal, you will have very few Shadowfiends, as you'll not be casting MF much, and so the benefit will be reduced. On such fights, the value of this set bonus may fall well below the value of 2pc t12.

Consider switching to a 2pc t12/2pc t13 setup on fights with heavy unpredictable movement, target swaps, or mana issues, as that set bonus is better on those fights, and this bonus is worse.

Closing

Next week, fight-specific tips for Ultraxion through Madness. Also, sorry about the poor formatting again this week. Blogger don't always show formatting issues correctly until the post goes live, and my internet was out for about 24 hours.