The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Shadow Question
by Vonya
An Egotistical Reader mailed in a VERY good question, to which I have no answer. I’ve done a bit of research and can’t find anyone ELSE who has the answer either, so I’m imploring you, the rest of the Egotistical World, to help us out.
I’m leveling a Draenei priest currently as shadow, and I have a question in regards to the talent; Improved Shadow Word: Pain.
This extends the duration of the spell by 6 seconds, or 2 ticks of damage. My question is how does +Spell damage impact this?
Ok, while I understand that +spell damage will make the spell hit harder, my question is how does this impact the per tick damage?
My make-believe example is this (see, I’m not very good at maff, so we’ll be using big round numbers).
Lets say that SW:P is hitting for 100 every 3 seconds, normally this would have 6 ticks for a total of 600 damage.
If we improve it, it’ll hit for 100 every 3 seconds, for 8 ticks for 800 damage.If I have +500 damage, and SW:P has a 100% coefficient then we can deduct;
1100 damage over 18 seconds and
1300 damage over 24 seconds.This makes for;
183.3 damage per tick on the 18 second duration, and
162.5 damage per tick on the 24 second duration.Is this how the math is being done?
Or is the damage added to the base, then the ticks are extended?Using the above 18 second example, of 183 dmg a tick, will the game calculate the per-tick damage on the model of;
Base Damage + (Coefficient x Spell damage) x 6 (or 8)?
Making for; 1100 over 18 seconds @ 183 a tick or 1464 over 24 seconds @ 183 a tick.Being a PvP/DPS priest this is an important question for me, as in PvP I’d rather forego the mana efficiency and re-cast the dot every 18 seconds if it meant a high per-tick hit.
Thank you for the help;
Fiscal
Thank you for the email, Fiscal!
Well? Do we have any Egotistical Shadowpriests or math lovers in the audience to help out?
Answer
We have an answer! Each tick of Shadow Word : Pain will tick for the same amount, regardless of whether or not you have the talent. The talent simply adds two ticks of the same value as an untalented SW:P. So if your targets are staying alive long enough for those extra two ticks, the talent is more and more worth the points as your spelldamage goes up.
July 31st, 2007
The way I understand how SW:P works is this.
Take the base Dmg amount/# of ticks. With the Improved SW:P, take the amount per tick and add 2 more ticks on to the end. I would think that +spell dmg would increase the base amount of dmg, increasing your amount per tick. Then the extra 2 ticks would be of this increased amount.
If this makes absoutley no sense or if someone knows somthing else to be correct, please /ignore me
July 31st, 2007
I really hope that is correct, Gladadria.
It would be silly for this talent to dillute our spell damage gear.
the reason i was concerned, was because the talent alters my tooltip, which raised the question; “is it altering that in other ways too”.
If we’re right, Bliz needs to change to tooltip to an X damage every 3 seconds for X seconds.
July 31st, 2007
My priest isn’t high enough for me to try respeccing him to tell you. All i could recommend is that the next time somebody respecs, pause before you put points into this one. Test SW:P untalented on an enemy, then put in the two points, and test it again. See if the damage per tick changes, and post about it here.
Having said that, i expect the answer is out there somewhere. I’ve added a question to the wowwiki talk page for this talent, but i have never asked on there before, and don’t know if and when i’d get an answer about it.
July 31st, 2007
We wrote up a long post with lots of math, but then we were worried that it might cause more confusion.
Here’s what we found out:
According to WoWWiki (and numerous other sources), Improved Shadow Word Pain (and all DoTs over 21 seconds) take 140% of your spelldamage to account for the extra amount of time it’s ticking.
Assuming 1000 spelldamage:
Base spell with 1000 spelldamage would do 2236 damage over 18 seconds, or 2236/6 = 373 damage/tick.
1236 (base damage) + 1000 spelldamage + 400 spelldamage from increased coefficient = 2636 damage over 24 seconds, or 2636/8 = 330 damage/tick.
This may seem bad at first, but consider it’s more damage for the same mana, it scales well with your gear, and let’s not forget other talents:
With Shadowform:
1236 + (1400*.15) + 1400 = 2846, or 356 damage/tick.
With another 200 spelldamage, you’d be up to 396 damage/tick in Shadowform and no other talents.
Priests who are interested in having the highest tick amount may want to stay away from the talent depending on gear, but those interested in efficiency and causing the most damage should definitely pick up the talent, because it scales _extremely_ well.
July 31st, 2007
Whoops, we forgot to add the extra 2 ticks to our calculations in base damage, but still divided by 8.
The spell with talents should look like this:
1648 (base damage) + 1000 spelldamage + 400 spelldamage from increased coefficient = 3048 damage over 24 seconds, or 3048/8 = 381 damage per tick.
So definitely take this talent, even if you’re worried about PvP!
August 1st, 2007
Unfortunately, the only priest I have that I could test this with is my main - and I’d like to keep her respec costs down. My other two priests are old school and don’t have any +shadow damage gear.
@Fiscal
Did you find what you were looking for?
August 1st, 2007
@Vonya
Not yet, still looking, what Chris has said seems to make sense, but I’m not sure i’m willing to believe it yet.
I’m waiting from a reply from someother experts (self-proclaimed of course). I’ll post here if we can determine anything more definate.
August 1st, 2007
@Fiscal
The only way to do better than theorycraft would be to test it, I think. I wish I had a GM in my pocket (well, only if he was a SEXY GM) but unfortunately I’m fresh out. =]
August 1st, 2007
@ Fiscal -
Double checked our math, our sources and it turns out we were only partially correct in our post yesterday. If you’d like a more in-depth explanation (complete with math, and links to prove that what we wrote is correct), you may check it out at our blog:
http://wow-addicts-anonymous.blogspot.com/
(The short answer is that the DoT ticks for exactly the same amount whether you have the talent or not).
August 1st, 2007
@Chris
So basically, the damage for each individual tick is neither bumped nor downgraded. It remains the same whether you have the talent or not.
But it adds two additional ticks for the same damage, regardless of +damage gear?
Just clarifying, for my own benefit as well. =]
August 1st, 2007
@ Vonya
Correct, the damage per tick doesn’t change whether you have the talent or not.
But, as you know, it does add 2 more ticks. The difference is that the damage coefficient is increased due to the longer duration of the spell. By default, SW:P receives 120% of your +damage gear, and Imp. SW:P receives 160% of your +damage (every 3 seconds past 15 grants another 20%).
At Rank 10, each tick does 206 base damage (there are 6 ticks in 18 seconds, or 1236/6 = 206).
With the talent, each tick does 206 base damage (there are 8 ticks in 24 seconds, or 1648/8 = 206).
In simplest terms, the longer the duration of the DoT, the more your +damage gear effects it.
You can check out the formula on our blog, and plug in your own numbers.
August 1st, 2007
*nods*
At this point, the effectiveness of the talent lies more with how long the mob stays alive than with your +damage gear - if you’re killing things well before the DoT ticks off, then it probably isn’t going to help you much.
I can see it being a HUGE annoyance in PvP though, and a great benefit in raids.
If I ever respec shadow for later raids, you can bet your Tuscaloosa Heart I’ll be snagging this talent. It’s shiny.
August 1st, 2007
Thanks for the additional Info Chris,
I was comming back to post the exact same thing, my sources were able to confirm this as well.
August 1st, 2007
@Chris
You site has been bookmarked and will be checked daily.
=)
August 1st, 2007
@ Vonya
Definitely - the talent is there to improve the efficiency of the spell. Definitely a bonus for anyone who is serious about sustained damage.
@ Fiscal
Thanks for the bookmark. Tell your friends!
August 29th, 2007
Information from comments moved to the original entry to this point
September 28th, 2007
Another question for shadows; does wanding with a shadow dmg wand heals if your ve and vt is on the mob you’re wanding?
September 28th, 2007
@Luni
untested, but I’d very strongly guess that it doesn’t, no. Wands have been traditionally exempt from any “spell damage” coefficients or anything else, I would say it’s highly unlikely that they’d spark off VE or VT