A raid n00b question since I've not raided pre-BC.

I just took a look at my Spell stats recently and realised that Spell Penetration was zero and the Spell Hit was about 94 (7.45%). A guildmate recommended to get Spell Hit as high as 16% to be effective for raid bosses.

1) For a shadow priest, what should the Spell Hit and Spell Penetration be?

2) Is it possible to achieve 16% with tailored gear, Kara gear and Heroic gear only?

1) spell hit around 10-15%

2) close, but not 16%

hmm....can u give me the name of a shadow priest with those stats that I can armory?

so far, have only compared against Addict's Hansuke since that's probably the only shadow priest that I know in LYN.

check out maybe juice or insurrection guild on horde side.

asia pacific guild... maybe twisted by design? or dimsum

wah..i never seen any shadow priest that i know off on my server with that high spell hit..
most are around 2-4% only.. :\

hmmm...checking out a few other shadow priests, looks like it's not easy to hit even 10% hit rating. they seem to be targeting 1.2k spell damage first and only then tackling the hit rating.

spell dmg comes first and foremost no matter what, chances of you actually landing the spell as opposed to resists (spell hit/pene counter) are much much higher.

Yea, try aim for 1k spellpower unbuff before going for +hit and +crit. It will be sufficient enough for SSC and TE.

Your guildmate is right about the 16% for raiding. Let me explain why you need the 16%.



Source taken from http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/spells.html

Looking at the quoted text above, all bosses we fight with will have a lvl difference of +3, meaning the percentage for our spells to hit without talents and +spell hit rating items is 83%. Adding in another 16% will give you the 99% hit rating cap. And since 12 spell hit rating = 1%, you will require +192 spell hit rating to achieve the 16% spell hit cap.

However, since us shadow priests have this talent called Shadow Focus, my advice to you is to max out this talent for an additional 10% chance on shadow spells to hit or put 4/5 talents in it to achieve 8%.

Therefore, with 8-10% chance on spell to hit, you only need an additional 8-6%, or 96-72 spell hit rating on your gear to achieve the spell hit cap.

The head and chest piece of your Incarnate Regalia set gives 16 and 17 spell hit rating respectively. Also, there are plenty of pre-raiding dungeons that provide blue drops with +spell hit rating.

Don't ask me about my spell hit rating; its still far below the spell hit cap.

Yumiakira, but this was strictly Before BC gear only

qua : okie dokie.

postboy : ta. time to find better gems. as well as better gear. planning to aim for spellstrike set after i get my chest piece done. will probably take awhile urgh.

flush : hee hee...i can understand that. my spell hit is nothing to brag about either but my spell damage needs quite a bit of boosting. need to slot my red gems in. getting broke a bit as lazy to do quests now.

nVidiaFX : cheers.

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Added on July 12, 2007, 12:46 pm http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=rxMhzhZZEGgzMtRotVo

flush, how's this build with Shadow Focus max out? The last point, i just put into Focused Mind as no idea where to put it.

I also took blackout for PvP a bit but left out the crits for Shadow Power.

This post has been edited by myremi: Jul 12 2007, 12:51 PM

Yeap you'll need 16% for bosses in raids because they're all lvl73 mobs and by default you only ahve 83% chance to land a hit on them. The max you can go is 99% which is why you'll be needing 16%.

Spell hit rating is always more valuable than spell damage in raid bosses fights if you haven't reach the cap yet. Once you're at 99% then invest on Spell Dmg.

It is possible to reach 16%. Get Spellstrike Hood and Pants. And fill them with +hit gems or those +hit and +dmg gems.

Thanks khelben. Going to try and test it out a bit then. Currently, the pants I'm wearing are the Trial-Fire ones that drop from Opera Event. Haven't started on Spellstrike set yet but will do soonest.

Hmm..is there any interactive website that allows one to test the build of a cloth + talent + gemslots?

I would prefer Focused Mind maxed out since Mind Blast and Mind Flay, esp Mind Flay, will be your primary
spells besides SWP and VT and 10% cheaper mana = alot in the long run. You can move the 2 points you put in VE into Focused Mind. This is because in raids, esp. 25 mans, I hardly put VE on unless I'm in the main tank's grp.

You might want to shave off the talent points in Spirit Tap and put 2 points in Improved Mind Blast, 1 in Absolution (Disc) and 2 in Mental Agility (Disc).

But then, if you are planning on using ur priest to farm for the mats for the Shadow's Embrace set, then keep Spirit Tap first until you have farmed your mats. While it may be easy to time the last hit for 5 man dungeons with MB or SW:D, you will rarely get the killing blow off of 25 man dungeons with another 12 or so dps classes competing.

Oh btw, Improved PW:S doesn't scale that well with spell dmg + healing gear, since only 10% of your +heal bonus adds to your shield. But for holy spec with tonnes of +heal, it does. So it is a choice of just putting 1 talent in Imp PW:S and moving 2 talents into Martyrdom, or leaving it as it is. But Martyrdom will really save ur ass both in PVE and PVP.

And like what Khelben said, focus on your spell hit gear first. Veiled Noble Topaz is a really good friend of Shadow Priests.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=rxRMkhbZZihgdMtohtVo

how's thing now? although there's one point into Silent Resolve.

phew. learning ain't easy.

U really should keep ur talents in Imp SW:P cos with talents, it is the most mana efficient dmg spell available to a shadow priest.

Just imagine, SW:P without talent is 18 sec DoT. Your base dmg from the highest rank SW:P is 1800 dmg. Without +spell dmg gear, that gives you 100 per sec. So with 2 talent points, you get an additional 300 dmg.

How SW:P scales with +dmg gear is that, since it is a damage over time spell component, you get 99% benefit out of your + spell dmg bonus.

And the + spell dmg bonus is calculated (spell dmg)/18 secs. Not spell dmg/24 secs.

Let's say for example, you have 900 spell dmg bonus. You gain an additional of 50dmg per sec (900/18). Multiply that buy 24 secs u gain (50dmg X 24sec) = 1200.

When you take into account shadow weaving, darkness and misery, u gonna melt faces with that 2 talent points.

CAn't really explain much more for now, im alt tabbing in gruul's lair atm.

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Added on July 12, 2007, 5:00 pmbtw silent resolve not really necessary. ur not holy spec n ur not pvping hard. 1 talent point doesnt do much. and 2 points in spirit tap isn't very good either

This post has been edited by flush: Jul 12 2007, 05:01 PM

bleargh, i need your armory link. playing with limited talent points per tier is excrutiating. the final i could play around with was this one :

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=rxRMkhbZZihgdMtohtVo

but it involved deducting points from Blackout and maxing out Darkness.

so, after your gruul, post up a good build please. my head is already aching.

Are u going for PVP or PVE? or you mixing both? you can't get best talent if you're going for both.

If you focusing more on PVE, check my new talent, but i took silence...most of the fully PVE spec they dont get improve fear and silence. I took it just for some out door pvp LOL. others are into PVE.

Hehe finished d. Got the collar of chogall!!

here's a link to my ideal build, not my current one yet as i am still using farming spec GG

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=dxMRkhhZZVGTuMpohtVo

Ok, I put 3 points in Shadow Affinity, but what you should do is just put 2 points there first. You can choose to either move that talent point into Shadow Focus, or Shadow Weaving.

The reason behind it is because your spell dmg gear might not be that high at the moment and you shouldn't have to worry about threat that much. Plus, u can ask a pally to salv u

I put 3 points in MB because by the time you cast SW:P, VT, mind flay X 2, ur MB cd should be ready. But you can also choose to move that talent into other points like Mental Agility, Shadow Weaving if its not maxed, or Shadow Focus.

Try it out with only 42 or 41 talent points in Shadow, Shadow Affinity with only 2 talents and Imp Mb with only 2 talent points. If in raids, u find that your aggro is too near the threshold, you can put the additional talent point in Shadow Affinity and choose either Shadow Weaving or Imp MB.

Good luck with your experimenting.

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always going to spell dmg for farming, and +spell hit for raiding.
and my max hit rating only 8% T_T