=== Contents ===

(this post)
* How talents work?
* Additive or multiplicative?
* How DoTs work?
* How Mind Flay works?
* How Mind Sear works?

(next post)
* Scaling with spellpower
* Scaling with combat ratings
* Combat ratings (levels 70 and 80)
* Spellhit caps (levels 70 and 80)
* Mana regeneration formulae (levels 70 and 80)
* Base mana (levels 70 and 80)

=== How talents work? ===

* Twin Disciplines work with Mind Flay
* Inner Focus doesn't work with crit -> dmg for dots
* Improved Spirit Tap procs get overwritten by Spirit Tap
* Improved Spirit Tap stacks with Meditation
* Shadow Affinity is most likely useless: viewtopic.php?f=54&t=16974
* Improved Shadowform provides spell interruption protection independently of Fade, it just needs Shadowform to work
* Shadow Power increases critical strike damage bonus by 100% at 5 ranks, which brings crit damage to 100% base + 50% bonus + 100% of 50% bonus = 2x
* Unlike most "empowered" talents Misery applies to spell coefficients in multiplicative manner, i.e. increases scaling by 1.15x, not by +15%
* Pain & Suffering doesn't intefere with ticking of your Shadow Word: Pain. On every application (i.e. spellhit) of Mind Flay it just prolongs the dot timer, but doesn't reset the ticks. However, this leads to a "bug", when UI shows that you still have active SWP on the target, but it dissipates after 1 or 2 seconds without ticking.

=== Additive or multiplicative? ===





=== How DoTs work? ===

* Spellpower enhancing buffs get applied at the cast time and do not get recalculated over the entire duration of a DoT.
* Shadow Weaving now acts like a spellpower enhancing buff.
* Spellcrit enhancing buffs/debuffs get applied at the cast time and do not get recalculated over the entire duration of a DoT.
* When SWP gets refreshed via P&S, it recalculates spellpower enhancing buffs, but not Shadow Weaving. The latter means that it's reasonable to wait for 5 stacks of weaving and only then cast SWP, so that it won't be sub-par for the entire fight.

=== How Mind Flay works? ===

References:
* Full resists on Mind Flay? viewtopic.php?f=54&t=17009
* Mind Flay - back to nochanneling? viewtopic.php?f=54&t=16987
* Research on chow MF interacts with Quartz: viewtopic.php?p=158427#p158427





===How Mind Sear works?===

<not yet implemented>

Stuff to investigate:
* Spellpower coefficient
* Damage caps
* How it works with debuffs on main target

=== Scaling with spellpower ===

* Only raw numbers here. To learn more about scaling and why spell coefficients are what they are, please, check the Scaling F.A.Q. (section 2, "Why different specs have different scaling patterns?").
* If you're interested in scaling numbers for other classes, check them in SimCraft sources that are hosted here: http://simulationcraft.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/. SimCraft is under quite high focus at EJ, so there's a very high probability that you'll find correct numbers.
* Numbers below are checked by Althor, stored at SimCraft's code repository: http://simulationcraft.googlecode.com/s ... priest.cpp.

Shadow Word: Pain => 18s duration, coeff suffers a 0.92x penalty that dates back to patch 2.0.6, which totals to 110% (18% per tick)
Vampiric Touch => 15s duration, coeff is doubled in comparison to standard formula since patch 3.0.3, totaling for 200% (40% per tick)
Devouring Plague => 24s duration, coeff suffers a 0.92x penalty caused by self-healing (up from 0.5x penalty since patch 3.0.3), totaling for 147% (18% per tick)
Mind Blast => 1.5s cast, coeff uses standard formula 1.5/3.5 or 42.9%
Shadow Word: Death => 1.5s cast, coeff uses standard formula 1.5/3.5 or 42.9%
Mind Flay => 3s cast, coeff suffers a 0.9x OP penalty, which brings scaling to 77% (26% per tick)

Fully talented, and with common raid buffs, our spells reach the following scaling levels:

Shadow Word: Pain => 110% (18% per tick) base * 1.21 (TD, Imp. SWP, Darkness) * 1.1 (SW) * 1.13 (EP/CoEl/EnM) => 165% (28% per tick)
Vampiric Touch => 200% (40% per tick) base * 1.1 (Darkness) * 1.1 (SW) * 1.13 (EP/CoEl/EnM) => 274% (55% per tick)
Devouring Plague => 147% (18% per tick) base * 1.15 (TD, Darkness) * 1.1 (SW) * 1.13 (EP/CoEl/EnM) => 210% (26% per tick)
Mind Blast => 42.9% base * 1.15 (Misery) * 1.1 (Darkness) * 1.1 (SW) * 1.1 (TF) * 1.13 (EP/CoEl/EnM) => 71.1%
Shadow Word: Death => 42.9% base * 1.15 (TD, Darkness) * 1.1 (SW) * 1.13 (EP/CoEl/EnM) => 61.3%
Mind Flay => 77% (26% per tick) base * 1.15 (Misery) * 1.15 (TD, Darkness) * 1.1 (SW) * 1.2 (TF+Glyph) * 1.13 (EP/CoEl/EnM) => 152% (51% per tick)

=== Scaling with combat ratings ===

* Since patch 3.0.3 all our spells scale equally with spellcrit (i.e. extra 1% of crit adds extra 1% of base damage to the total damage of the spell).
* Unlike crit, haste remains a weak spot for our scaling, since only MF natively leverages its full benefit. For other spells haste merely allows to fit more Mind Flays into the casting sequence. More details in Scaling F.A.Q. (section 2.3, "Scaling pattern: nuke on cooldown + nuke filler.").

=== Combat ratings ===

Numbers taken from Whitetooth's post at EJ (he's an author of RatingBuster, btw I highly recommend to use that addon to get an in-game reference of combat ratings - addon integrates into item tooltips and can render info about percentages directly there): http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t29453-comb ... evel_80_a/

Rating................. Level 60.......... Level 70................... Level 80
Hit..................... 10.................. 15.76923275............. 32.78998947
Spell Hit............... 8................... 12.61538506............. 26.23199272
Critical Strike......... 14................. 22.07692337............. 45.90598679
Spell Critical Strike... 14................. 22.07692337............. 45.90598679
Haste.................. 10................. 15.76923275.............. 32.78998947
Spell Haste............ 10 ................ 15.76923275.............. 32.78998947

Level...... Spell Crit Per Int....... Int required for 1% Spell Crit
70......... 0.0125................... 80
80......... 0.006.................... 166.6666709

=== Spellhit caps ===

As of patch 3.0, an unmitigable 1% resistance is removed, so for a raid boss (skull instead of level, which means +3 levels higher than player) you need 17% hit chance to guarantee 0% of misses. Note, that Mind Flay missing at the hit cap is a bug, and isn't related to hit rating (it's caused by the slowing debuff being pushed away from the mob due to debuffs limit).

Numbers below assume no draenei character in the group. If he/she is present, this alleviates hit cap by 1% (12 rating for level 70, or 26 rating for level 80). All numbers are rounded to the next integral value.

Level 70 (thanks, Mefadin):

* 139 hit is the cap with 6 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 152 hit before you can go to 5 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 164 hit before you can go to 4 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 177 hit before you can go to 3 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 189 hit before you can go to 2 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 202 hit before you can go to 1 point between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 215 hit before you can go to 0 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

Level 80 (thanks, Izolight):

* 289.55 hit is the cap with 6 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 314.78 hit before you can go to 5 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 341.02 hit before you can go to 4 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 367.25 hit before you can go to 3 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 393.48 hit before you can go to 2 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 419.71 hit before you can go to 1 point between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 445.94 hit before you can go to 0 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

=== Mana regeneration ===

ManaRegen(SPI, INT, LEVEL) = (0.001+SPI*BASE_REGEN[LEVEL]*(INT^0.5))*5
As of beta build 8962, mana regen from Spirit nerfed at level 71 to 80, at level 80 the amount of regen is nerfed to about 78% of the original value.

................... Level 70..... Level 80
BASE_REGEN.... 0.009327.... 0.007125

=== Base mana ===

Level 70: 2620
Level 80: 3863

I know it's only one point, but the hit cap at 80 with 6% from talents is 288.55, not 289.55. I currently have 288 spell hit and have 10.98% hit.

Aren't these numbers missing 15% damage from shadowform, or am I misunderstanding something?

Yeah, they appear to be missing Shadowform. The DoTs are also missing the extra scaling they get from crit (given it's a static increase it's probably fair to include this here).

Yes, although the value of the crit scaling obviously varies according to how much crit you have.

I am finding that My dps is generally higher when stacking crit over haste. While I am sure the "paper" value of haste is legitimate, it doesn't seem to hold up during actual encounters. Also haste has a limit on its potential as it primarily affects GCD which can only be reduced to 1sec (from base of 1.5) and has a minor affect on cast times. Crit however scales unbelievably well with available spellpower, i.e. the more spellpower you have, the better crit damage you will get. Also of note, as your crit chance increases, you will be receiving a secondary boost in dps from such procs as talents (imp Spirit tap) and glyphs (Glyph of shadow). I tried building a gear set with haste as a secondary value (as I am hit cap already, I consider spellpower to be the primary stat, and list haste/crit respectively as second or third) and was average about 3.5k on Patchwerk 25man... this didn't seem like strong numbers to me given the amount of value haste has received by most sites, so I went back and blew dkp on a bunch of crit gear (I am at 24.17% unbuffed crit) and on patchwerk 25, my dps went up to 4.3 (this was helped largely by the multiple MF channels with 100% crit ticking) and so I decided to stay with building around crit. Also as was pointed out in the BRGA, such values as shadowform granting increases in damage based on crit chance, make it again more useful then haste. I hope this makes sense to everyone!!

Question about how SW:P refresh by MF works;

Lets say i start an encounter with the following casts...

1. VT
2. DP -> (reached Shadow Weavingx2)
3. SW:P -> (thus cast with SWx2 up)
4. MB
5. SW:D -> (here i reach SWx5)
6. MF -> (SW:P refresh)

Now my question is when in (6) SW:P gets refreshed is it gonna tick dps like it was cast with SWx5 up from now on, or does it keep ticking like with SWx2 up like it was originally cast?

Thanks!

It keeps ticking like with SWx2 up like it was originally cast.

If you reduce your GCD from 1.5s to 1.25s then your mind flay just got to 2.5s or exactly as much faster as the GCD.
Also the more haste you have the more spells you can cast. Only problem is that we don't have a decent nuke besides mind flay
What were your stats there? I think I beat 3.5k in mostly sunwell gear with a couple of wotlk blues thrown in. Atm I'm close to 5k on 2:50 fight while having >500 haste and ~19% crit unbuffed.

Patchwerk should be the fight where BRGA values are the most accurate. On bosses with lots of movement crit probably gets a bit better but I'm not sure how much.

Crit should not be stacked while ignoring haste. If you have 24% crit then you are greatly sacrificing haste in order to stack crit and your DPS will suffer as a result.

Scaling Properties
Scaling is about increasing the volume of your primary DPS stats in order to improve stat value. As you increase the volume of a stat the other two stats increase in value but the stat you increased in volume doesn’t change in value. Example: As you add crit the value of spell power and haste increases but the value of crit does not change. More relevant to this conversation, as you increase the volume of haste the value of crit and spell power improves.

By sacrificing haste volume you are reducing the value of crit. Not only are you reducing the value of crit provided by your gear, but you’re also reducing the value of crit provided by raid buffs. This is the exact reason why so many preach the idea of balancing crit and haste.

When explaining this to others, i like to draw a parallel to a cube, with a X, y and z axis. In order to increase the volume, you need to increase all axis.

Any info yet on how Mind Sear works with debuffs on main target, particularly misery? Anecdotal evidence suggests that DoTs on main target increasing Sear's dmg but I have no proof of this.

Mind Sear damage is based off your buffs and debuffs on the targets it does damage to.
Whatever debuffs are on the primary target of the Mind Sear spell have no effect.

It's generally accepted to cast SWP then Sear, it's the easiest and fastest debuff to get up there. Prolly the only debuff that you can actually get in a situation that requires Sear, other places would be on Fearlina type fights and if you AoE the adds from the boss you're debuffs are up on the boss etc