Macro DPS for Shadow Priest

[Tim]

I've always thought about how well a group of multiboxed priests would go

If so, here is a good macro for DPSing as shadow priests. Just use this as your main DPS macro

/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=30 Vampiric Embrace, Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind blast, 
Devouring Plague, Power Word: Shield, Shadow Word: Death, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Vampiric Touch, 
Mind Flay, Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay, Mind Blast, Power Word: Shield, 
Devouring Plague, Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Death, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay, Shadow Word: Pain, 
Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death, Vampiric Touch, Mind Flay, Mind Blast, Power Word: Shield, Mind Flay, 
Shadow Word: Death, Mind Blast,

Make sure that you add to your macro something like:

/assist (your group leader or focus)

If you have problems with that macro, get MacroIT, Macaroon, Bartender macro hack, or any of those that enable macros of 1000-4000 characters in length.

[Catreina]

One of the biggest problems wth that macro is that you are recasting SW: Pain. One of the best rotations for a Shadow Priest is

First cast run:
Embrace, Touch, Blast, Plague, Death, Flay, Pain

The reason for this is that you get an application of misery for Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death, and Devouring Plague. You get TWO applications for Mind Flay (currently). Also, Flay refreshes pain on the target.

One of the other things about the macro above is that [nochanneling] forces the client to not cast Flay again until the first is totally done casting. This results in a DPS loss due ot latency. Specifically, if your latency is 100ms, you are waiting up to 100ms for the client to finish casting when the server has already registered the final tick. You could have started casting again 100ms prior and not lost any ticks.

[Arithin]

shadowpriest.com • View topic - 3.1 Spell Rotation Macros
Instead of just copying and pasting their stuff I'll just link the site directly. I doubt you'll find a better macro for S.priest dps simplified to only a few buttons for the whole complex rotation. Takes into account party synergies as well since haste values will alter your rotation(yes, even in a 5man team with shaman+ret aura haste).

Would really really like to see what Tim's group can do with the priest spec'd shadow. Your priest spends most of the time just standing around or spamming inefficient spells since holy is pure overkill for any level dungeon or normal mode.

Cutting your clear time by a 1/5th seems like a valid time saver, and would also greatly enhance your world pvp punch and survivability. You'll need alot of micro management and a respec to get the survivability that shadowform would bring.

You've proven that pets don't need much healing on bosses with round robin intimidates, plus your hunters could really use replishment for less aspect switching. Would be really interested to see how it would go with the priest spec'd shadow and a hunter spec'd SV.

[Catreina]

Once again, using the "nochanneling" modifier WILL result in lower dps. If I decided to use macros that extensive, I might use those specifically without that modifier. That said, I approve of the rest of that site (it IS a top of the mill site for shadow priests).


As for shadow in Tim's group, I think this is a good idea for something to try. After all, he isn't targeting heals, so Disc wont work well. He isn't aoe healing unless he is about to wipe, so Holy doesn't really do much, and Holy Nova is glyphed, so the DPS he gets from it is ridiculously minimal.

Try it Tim!

[Arithin]

Well.. ideally you'd clip your mind flay for any other ability but another mind fly.. but I haven't figured out how to do that(yet), hence the nochannel to make it play better in a spam macro.
hmm.. wonder if I could find a nifty /click macro that does spell priorities better.

[Catreina]

Interesting. I thought clipping mind flay was a Bad Thing(tm)

[Tim]

To be honest, I'm not anywhere near pro for a shadow priest. I had thought you would want the mind flay to be nochannel so you don't waste mana

[Catreina]

The nochannel simply prevents a spell from casting if you are channeling a spell.

So that simply waits for Mind Flay to completely finish client side before you can cast it again... or continue with the macro IIRC.