Hey, I just had a few simple questions about the shadow priest rotation. I was looking on Icy Veins but couldn’t find my answer, so I figured I’d come here.
When do you refresh your DoTs? Is there a certain duration that you refresh them at? (Ie. Any time below 5 seconds left Ect.) And does the time carry over, or does it add the remaining damage to the new DoT ticks?
Second, do you stop casting Mind Flay/Insanity at any point in your rotation? If you’re Mind Flaying something and you get a proc of Shadowy Insight, or Mind Devourer (free Mind Blast/Devouring Plague) do you stop casting Mind Flay/Insanity in order to get those seemingly more important spells off? Or do you finish your filler before using the procced spell?
And lastly, Idol of C’Thun seems to do very little damage. I generally find that it’s doing around or less than 3% of my total damage. Is it worth taking, or should I consider taking the talent point and putting it into Deathspeaker?
(Currently using N’Zoth, Yogg-Saron and C’Thun and C’Thun is by far the weakest of the three. Both on single target and AoE.)
Cthun is usually in my top 6-8 damaging abilities.
If you’re mind flaying, you cancel the cast. If you’re mind flay: insanity, you finish the cast first, same goes with mind spike.
I start refreshing my dots at 4-5 sec left, mine usually last around 25 seconds or so.
Deathspeaker is a viable option for mobility purposes, although I don’t see myself using it much personally.
Mind devourer wise, you want to try and stack DP as much as you can, so normally, yes, you’d stop mid cast unless you were again, doing insanity procs.
Hmm. Maybe I’m just not mind flaying enough to get them out for it to really shine. I’ll mess with my rotation a bit more then.
Thanks for all the other info. Quick and easy answer. I appreciate that. It’s weird that the guide I was looking at has 47 different pages on one spec, but doesn’t mention DoT refreshing or Mind Flay cancelling.
Under 30% of maximum duration remaining there is no lost damage for reapplying dots. The duration will just extend. Devouring plague is different and will never waste damage from reapplications, you’ll just lose uptime which is relevant for your mastery and insidious ire.
You always cut mind flay short for spells of a higher priority, there is no value to finishing a mind flay channel. Mind flay insanity is different, you want to try to finish those but sometimes a spell like void bolt comes off cooldown or you cap on blast charges and you have to cast them instead. Mind devourer procs don’t need to be used immediately though because you aren’t at risk of getting another one while you aren’t casting the spell that procs them.
Idol of cthun not only does damage, it generates a massive amount of insanity which you aren’t seeing on the meters.
You need to cast flay / spike at least once every 3.5 seconds to saturate the RPPM of idol of Cthun. This shouldn’t require you to deviate from normal gameplay, but it’s something to keep in mind. Empowered filler spell casts also count.