Shadowform : Shadow Priests as Water : Fish (for those of you who remember the old SATs) and it was high time that I sat down and made sure I was always safely in the water.
This means I need to hunt down the macro’ing quirks of Shadowform as well as rebuilding my default attack macros so they stop kicking me out. I’m used to druid fuzzy-form stances, so hopefully this will be easier than my cat-bear dances of yore.
Hopefully.
Shadowform: ON
Having Shadowform on increasing my shadow damage by 15%, reduces all damage done to you by 15%, and increasing all party and raid members spell haste by 5%. Since I’m dual-boxing I get the nice bonus of always having that haste (instead of just whilst dungeon running).
At first I tried adding /cast !Shadowform to the beginning of the Killit macro, but apparently that doesn’t work. I got ‘spell is not ready yet’ errors whenever it was already active, which brings the macro to a screeching halt.
/cast [nostance] Shadowform on the other hand works like a charm. I tucked it in before the /castsequence so that the attacks won’t start before I’m in form, thus making sure I get the bonus. (Shadowform triggers GCD, so the castsequence kicks out ‘spell not ready yet’ errors).
For the moment I’m not worried about checking to see if I’m in Shadowform [Stance 1?], I’m just worried about being out of it.
Holy: OFF
Using any Holy spell whilst enrobed in shadowy goodness yanks away my nice 15% damage reduction, so unless I’m healing things, I need to lay off the sunshine. *sadly pulls Smite out of her rotation*
It’s the end of an era, dontchaknow. :p
Anywho, since I’m losing Smite and Holy Fire from my rotation, it was time to start taking a look at what I could replace them with. I’m looking for damage spells, so Disc’s preventative care is off the table, leaving me with:
Shadow: Devouring Plague(Instant), Mind Blast (1.5/8), Mind Flay (3C), Shadow Word: Pain (Instant)
Mind Blast is my generic opener, then I tag the target once with Devouring Plague from Illysu and once with Shadow Word:Pain from Illysa. At that point Mind Blast is still on cooldown and the mobs will normally die from the DoTs… so I added in a /cast !Shoot to tide me over until MB is off cooldown.
I threw in a shield for Illysu since 90% of the time she’s the one who pulls agro. Since it’s a Disc spell it doesn’t drop me out of Shadowform and it helps to soak some of the damage that I know I’ll be getting as the DoTs do their work.
I also added a quick dismount to the front of the macro, since I’m rocking the sparkle pony/Emo Emu for the ‘run here, now run there, now run back again’ quests. *sighs*
And yes, I know I can’t fly yet… but I can dream—I can dream!
Illysu’s Killit Macro (Leader)
/dismount [noflying, mounted] /cast [nostance] Shadowform /castsequence reset=combat/8 Mind Blast, Devouring Plague, Power Word: Shield /cast !Shoot
Illysa’s Killit Macro (Follower)
/dismount [noflying, mounted] /cast [nostance] Shadowform /assist Illysu /castsequence reset=combat/8 Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Pain /cast !Shoot
I also built a macro that flips the DoT casts, so I can hit a second (or third) target if needed. Or just hit a bigger target more often… although the group quest bosses really aren’t as challenging as I had expected. :p
HealMe/HealThem
The last problem I have is that my HealMe/HealThem macros will kick the person who isn’t being healed out of Shadowform so they can cast the Renew. Since the cooldown on Shadowform is two seconds, right now I just wait and then pop back into combat once it’s up.
The nice thing about leveling is that I’m not looking for the highest DPS output—I’m just looking for quick efficient kills and stable mana levels.
Once I swap to PvP… all bets are off! 😉
