Day 1 of Heroic 5 mans and I suck

[Alessandra]

So on the first day of Heroic 5 mans I go in, and am feeling decidedly hopeless. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a bad Shadow priest. Ranked a few times in Cata, always in the top percentile, I'm good, not great, but good.

5 mans find me doing overall less damage than the tank.

Maybe its all the aoe pulls..

Maybe it's not really being comfortable with my spec so far.


So the question is, how do we get the most out of our spec in a heroic 5 man when most of the pulls are aoe ones.

Dotting and sear isn't working as everything dies too fast, Halo isn't really doing much for me plus I am terrified I will pull more adds.

What are YOU doing in 5 mans rotation/dps wise. Care to share and help other shadow priests who like me, are likely suffering.

[hughmad]

Halo is amazing for AoE for me. standing at max range and haloing is huge damage. I only mindsear if there's 8+ adds roughly, otherwise i just dot up and halo off CD. I top basically every boss by a nice amount, so we have pretty sick single target as well.

[Alessandra]

I've been trying Halo more, though I admit my concern about pulling extra adds is still high, that and trying to determine distance. At the moment I'm using Range Display. My dps is getting better but I'm still not happy.

Had a friend suggest using mind spike slot more on trash, hasn't really worked out for me though.

[Spinalcrack]

I've been trying Halo more, though I admit my concern about pulling extra adds is still high, that and trying to determine distance. At the moment I'm using Range Display. My dps is getting better but I'm still not happy.

Had a friend suggest using mind spike slot more on trash, hasn't really worked out for me though.

If you want an addon specifically for Halo distance, I have written one for just such a purpose.

http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/halopro

there is also a running thread on these forums discussing that addon's development

http://www.howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1758

It's more tailored to Halo than RangeDisplay.

[Blackmorgrim]

Um, one thing to keep in mind... I've been hearing warriors/DKs are kind of OP at the moment (at least as our MT has been gloating). If a tank is doing his job nowadays, he's going to be doing comparable, if not more damage than dps now due to tanking mechanics.(to make tanking more attractive in PVE)

Basically the more they get hit, the more AP they get. So if its a good tank that's able to chain pull, he's going to be doing really well.

[iwasadwarf]

ran over 40+ heroics now with the same warrior tank and hes doing the more damage 80% of the time, it will be like this till dps gear up more , tanks hit hard at the start but then if anything there dps gos down as they get more avoid stats

[NINJA]

It's because there is no vengeance cap right now on tanks which I think they did on purpose because I recall reading one of ghost crawlers posts about "what if tank dps mattered and how to make tanking more fun".

But on a side note 97% of the time I've been top dps in our guild 5 mans I'm at 460 ilv and the two rogues who had legendaries (and are used to being top) are butt hurt about it lol. Only time tank passes me is if he pulls a lot. Its all about halo and twist of fate. If you can manage to take advantage of tof as much as possible (I mainly do it with swd sniping) and get the range down on halo (you are going to mess it up and pull extra stuff btw lol till you get it down) You Should see a dps increase easily.

[Proxzy]

Priests have always been pretty gear reliant. I wouldn't put much stock in the dps you do in dungeon blues or greens, so don't worry about it and just work on perfecting your rotation until you feel comfortable with it.
I was going to suggest halopro, but I was already beaten to the punch. :P I've been considering using Star or Cascade in dungeons like Scholo though, since it's fairly hard to use Halo unless you have a confident tank that likes to pull entire rooms. You could try going that path. Halo may do more damage, but it isn't doing any damage if you're too afraid to use it in crowded areas.
Also, like others said before me: tank dps is very high right now. Don't fret. :) Raids aren't even open yet, too early to judge our dps really. I am so sure you are doing fine. My dps was pretty terrible until I replaced everything with heroics, now I'm usually on top unless I'm with the demo locks in my guild..

[Zych]

Haha I hear you, I strolled into my first heroic about 15 minutes after dinging 90 with about 8.5% hit, it wasn't pretty.

Once you get a little gear your outlook should improve. If you get too sad just run ahead and halo pull a whole room, that always cheers me up.

[Alessandra]

Have been working on Glory of the Pandaria hero with some guildies. A feral druid who is totally op at her class (she regularly ranks on WOL), a really good rogue, and a warrior tank.

Been doing better, but I'm still not fantastic my dps has improved somewhat.

Biggest problem right now is trying to get the Cleaning Up achieve (Defeat the Sha of Doubt in Temple of the Jade Serpent while under the effects of Purified Water. )

Has anyone done this and have any tips? For the aoe prepull I have Halo'd, then multi dotted and seared. The biggest trouble I have is on Sha itself, there is no Halo room so I'm just multi dotting and my dps is holding us back from getting the achieve.