Post by maswell
I've been raiding for a little while on my shadowpriest and I thought I had the nuances Shadow Word: Pain figured out. Usually I just make sure I have shadow weaving x5 before putting Pain up. When I decided to look a little deeper into how it worked I have found nothing but conflicting opinions and I think I am more confused than before.
As I understand it, buffs to spellpower such as
Sundial of the Exiled start working immediately with the next tick of Pain and then are gone the next tick after the buff wears off. Correct me if I am wrong. Also is this the same for other dots?
Buffs to %dmg done like shadow weaving or to crit chance,
Elemental Oath for example. do not work like this, but need to have a hard refresh (pressing the button again) of SW:P. Do our other dots pick up buffs like this right away or not until one of them is refreshed.
My main question surrounds the crit portion of
Potion of Wild Magic. When does this buff wear off of SW:P? The tick immediately after the buff is gone? On the next MF refresh? Or does it stay till a hard refresh? If it stays then it would seem a good idea to hit this at the beginning of a boss fight and try to keep Pain refreshed throughout ( for the crit, not the SP)
A similar question would be if a shaman with
Elemental Oath or a moonkin dies, would my SW:P retain the crit bonus if I kept soft refreshing it with MF?
Post by Zhivago
Wow, we have to revisit this topic again.
As I understand it, buffs to spellpower such as Sundial of the Exiled start working immediately with the next tick of Pain and then are gone the next tick after the buff wears off. Correct me if I am wrong. Also is this the same for other dots?
No. Spell power buffs work when the spell is cast. This is straighforward. The only exception to this, and it is not really an exception is that SP buffs also apply on MF refreshes of SW:P. Thus, your SP when you refresh SW:P with MF is the SP applied to SW:P for its duration. Each time SW:P is refreshed, your current SP is the SP applied to SW:P.
Buffs to %dmg done like shadow weaving or to crit chance, Elemental Oath for example. do not work like this, but need to have a hard refresh (pressing the button again) of SW:P.
This is true.
Do our other dots pick up buffs like this right away or not until one of them is refreshed.
They get the benefit when cast.
My main question surrounds the crit portion of Potion of Wild Magic. When does this buff wear off of SW:P? The tick immediately after the buff is gone? On the next MF refresh? Or does it stay till a hard refresh?
As long as SW:P does not drop off of the mob, i.e. you continually refresh it with MF, the crit portion stays applied. This is considered a known bug.
- You get five stacks of Shadow Weaving up.
- You drink a Potion of Wild Magic.
- You cast SW:P. It is boosted by 200 SP and 200 crit
- Potion effects drop.
- You refresh SW:P. The 200 crit applies. The 200 SP does not apply.
If it stays then it would seem a good idea to hit this at the beginning of a boss fight and try to keep Pain refreshed throughout ( for the crit, not the SP)
Assuming you can keep SW:P refreshed for the whole fight and it never needs to be recast, it depends upon the length of the fight. If you have a short fight, like Hard Mode Hodir, you are better off saving it for BL, where all of you spells can hopefully take advantage of it. If you have a long fight, like Jarraxxus, as long as you can keep SW:P on the boss at all times, it is
PROBABLY better to cast it at the beginning of the fight. Since you can't guarantee this, it is just better to save it for BL/Heroism.
Post by Zhivago
So... a SW:P keeps the crit at time of original cast and only the SP gets refreshed? so what if one were to use the
Darkmoon Card: Greatness to proc the extra intellect... would the crit from the intellect stay on the SW:P through MF refresh?
if one were to proc
Jouster's Fury and
Serrah's Star then drink
Potion of Wild Magic they could keep the +695 crit on a SW:P as long as they kept it refreshed with MF?
Let me break this down again. When you refresh SW:P with MF:
- The SP applied to SW:P is the SP you have when you refresh SW:P.
- The Crit value of SW:P is the Crit value when SW:P was cast.
- If any game effect changes your crit rating and you wish to take advantage of that new rating, you must re-CAST SW:P. It is that simple. It doesn't matter where crit rating comes from. The game doesn't distinguish the origin of the crit rating. It just knows the value of it.