I’d Rather Be Wowing!

As many avid shadow priesters have known, one of the challenge in our class is in the spell casting sequence, where we don’t have a rotation, only a priority. The basic ideas are simple: keep VT (and SW:P) at all time, cast MB and SW:D whenever they are up. Otherwise, cast MF. The application, however, is not as simple. There are certain nuances, such as, should we clip MF whenever MB is up? The general concensus here is that, it is okay to clip MF immediately after the 2nd tick. But how can we know when is the 2nd tick has occurred? Another problem is if your timer shows that MB will be in cooldown in less than 1 sec, should we wait or cast another spell?

So, when an addon like Face Melter (from Wow Curse) went into my radar, I was eager to see how my current spell priority hold up against, the supposedly, a better spell rotation. Face Melter is an addon that suggest what spell that you need to cast, taking into consideration all the best practices in shadow priesting spell rotation.

When the addon initially appear in your screen, it will be in the form of a grayish black rectangular (the size of the this rectangular can be somewhat adjusted). If it is not locked, you can move the rectangular around. When you have a hostile target, 3 squares of icons will appear in this rectangular. The left and the right icons will be grayed out. The left icon shows the spell that you just casted (it will be irrelevant when you first target a mob). The middle icon shows the spell that you should cast at this moment in time. The icon is castable (when it’s not in global cooldown, or for MB when MF is after its 2nd tick) when a green square surrounds the icom. The right icon shows the spell that you should cast next.

This may sound really simple at the get go, but not really. Notice the words that I emphasis in the previous paragraph? I found that using this add on is like testing your reflex in identifying what icon to press and pressing the spell associated to the icon as soon as possible.  The right icon, most of the time, will have nothing to do with what you will be casting next. Often times, additionally, what spell that shows up in the middle icon will change before the spell can be casted. For example, there’s a time where MB shows in the middle icon, but due to global cd, it may not be castable yet. As I was going to cast MB, it suddenly changed the icon to VT. I found myself feeling very frustrated when wanting to follow it spell by spell.

Customization wise, you can specify not using VE, or SW:D, or SW:D when your health is at a certain percentage. I think the latest one is a very useful function. Also, you can specify the priority of each of the spell.

My verdict so far is that this is not the silver bullet to our shadow priest’s challenge. To be fair, I think that no add-on should take away the thinking process. If it can precisely predict what spell to cast next, by taking into account all the other spells’ expiration and cooldown, it may be take away the fun of playing the game itself. My poor review may also be caused by the unfamiliarity with the add-on. People who have spent more time using the add-on, may be able to utilize it more effectively. One thing for sure though, I ended up paying attention to the add-on rather than the environment around, which may be too hazardous to use during raid. Again, it’s probably because I’m not used to it. What I also did, is try to utilize the aspect of the addon to tell me when it is good to cast MB, especially when I am currently cast MF. That also didn’t work out quite so well. It’s shame, really, I do really want to like this add-on.

If you have a better luck in using the add-on, or any advice on how to use it, feel free to chime in!

What I am using it for: A cast bar, to substitute Blizzard’s own cast bar. What special about it is that, it takes into account your latency and shows you when your cast is really over, enabling you to continue casting “safely” even when the regular cast bar shows that your cast is not over. Note that the add-on itself comes with buff timers. However, I am using a different addon for that.

How to use it: Simply look at the “red” area of the cast bar. That’s your area of latency. As soon as the bar hits the red area, your casting is actually over (in the server side). You can move, or cast another spell, without having to worry about canceling or clipping your previous spell.

Why is it “essential”: It takes a bit to get used to and at first your attention will be glued to the bar. But, it does wonder to your dps. On Mr. Boom’s test, using just VT, SW:P, and MF - when I didn’t use quartz, my dps is 652 while when I used quarts, my dps jumps to 693. Including MB on rotation, without it, my dps is 758, while with it, my dps is 787. Most notable difference, however, is how fast your game seems like. I noticed this the most when using Avenger Shield with Val. My casting is literally cut to half. This allows me to jump in, move around, and queue my next spells much faster.

Verdict: I simply love this add-on. It’s easy to configure and place in your screen. If you are a caster, or has skill that has to do with cast bar, you really need to get this add-on.