Maxvla

The figures in my posts do not have any gear or set bonuses equipped. I created an item with 6% spell hit, and alternated 500 damage or 500 int. Just to be clear, there were no T2 set bonuses involved.

Going a step further with the test (on my own initiative)... I removed mind blast from the test and repeated the conditions. No mind blast - 500dmg + consumes = 102487 - (with mindblast = 96292) 500int + consumes = 81748 - (with mindblast = 95722) 500dmg - consumes = 58652 - (with mindblast = 54584) 500int - consumes = 60347 - (with mindblast = 58266) 500dmg - consumes no regen = 44051 - (with mindblast = 40634) 500int - consumes no regen = 48631 - (with mindblast = 46482) So you can see that even his spell selection was incorrect for a fight of 240 seconds. In every case, except with 500int + consumables, cutting mindblast resulted in more damage. In the lone exception, the character did not oom before 240 seconds, thus the lower dps, higher efficiency rotation yielded lower damage. However, compare the figures and you'll see that 500 damage with consumables and no mind blast did more damage than any other combination.

After a few hours of debate on discord, this was the result of the tests Killerduki requested. He provided the fight length and the stats to be weighed. He provided the limits. I simply ran the test. What actually happens in game - 500dmg + consumes = 96292 500int + consumes = 95722 What doesn't happen in game - 500dmg - consumes = 54584 500int - consumes = 58266 What also doesn't happen in game - 500dmg - consumes no regen = 40634 500 int - consumes no regen = 46482 The result is clear that in a realistic situation where people spec for meditation, get raid buff mp5, and use potions/elixirs/weapon oil/runes... spell power wins. If you don't use any raid buffs or consumables, int wins. If you don't use any raid buffs consumables and don't spec for meditation, int wins. In addition, stat budget favors spell power, so per item budget you will get more spell power than you could int. In a full 'bis' setup (including buffs/etc) I put together, the character had 900 spell damage and 400 int. Not only is spell power better in an even trade, you can get more spellpower very easily. https://gyazo.com/853fa13b61e2caac4ba0a158a96500c8

Who raids with 11 mages??? And dps shadow is truly a support spec. If your raid puts you with 4 warlocks, and you keep up an efficient MF/SWP rotation, you can last a long time and do 250-300 dps (and be responsible for another 200-300 dps from warlocks) while also doing 500-600 healing per sec with VE, if raid allows you 1 of the 16 slots. It's a pretty strong support spec if you think about it from that perspective. 400-600 dps and 500-600 hps at the same time. no other class can touch that for support.

Again you missed the point. Someone ELSE suggested 15 minutes. I built upon that time, but it is very easy to scale down to whatever duration you require. Please learn English, or rather, forget it entirely so you will go away.

Actually, 74,000 was my most efficient (but still max rank) rotation with only SWP and MF. Introducing MB increased this to 103,000 mana, but wait, it gets better because Killerduki clips his mind flays for more mind blasts, so his rotation is EVEN more expensive. I haven't bothered to look at the actual rotation, but a simple guess puts his rotation over 110,000. None of these figures are remotely possible, yet you will see Killerduki talk about how you simply need to get 1500 intellect to be properly geared. I could be wrong but I don't think, even in BC you could get 1500 intellect. Anyway, the whole point of the 15 minute duration was that someone had suggested the length for a first kill of Nefarian, so I built upon that. It is very simple to bring the fight down in scale to the point where intellect is equal in damage, around 16-18% of the length of the fight depending on rotation. This percentage clearly demonstrates just how bad intellect is vs spell damage, but he will not understand.

You clearly do not understand plain English. No shadow priest can sustain a normal dps rotation for 15 minutes, even the most efficient one. This is why I said infinite mana. You simply cannot come up with 74,000 mana, (or in your case over 100,000) in a 15 minute fight. Your vomit of numbers is completely senseless and not worth bothering to read.

So, some people were talking about shadow priest things on discord and of course Killerduki shows up to spread his misinformation. He links us to this wonderful thread for 'proof' he is right. He is not right, mostly, and here is my post from there explaining why intellect is never better than spell power, except in extremely rare situations. I hope the Elysium staff deletes this entire thread and mutes Killerduki as he is doing nothing but harm by spreading all of this misinformation. -- (Original discussion about Nefarian as a new guild taking 15 minutes to kill led to this) Given the 15 minute duration earlier, assuming infinite mana, assuming no mind blast because it is very inefficient, you would cast SWP, then 8 mindflays per rotation. This rotation would be repeated 35.29 times and each rotation costs 2110 mana, or 74,461 total, a figure impossible to reach by any means. With these rotations you would cast a total of 282.32 mindflays, and 35.29 SWP. The figure given earlier of 30 int vs 30 spell power is not a great figure to use since you get into partial casts. I chose 27 int which is 5 mana short of 2 full mindflays, close enough. 27 spell power yields 12.42 damage per mindflay, and 32.4 damage per SWP. With the total counts listed above, this is 4,649 damage. 2 mindflays is 852 damage. This is the total damage gain over 15 minutes for both 27 int and 27 spell power. With these figures we can scale the fight to see how they compare in realistic situations. Obviously you cannot sustain this rotation for 15 minutes, so let's look at it as a ratio. 852 is 18.326% of 4649. This means that at 18.326% of the fight is when intellect could conceivably be equal, since damage is then equal. 18.326% of 900 seconds (15 min), however is merely 165 seconds, or 2.75 minutes, well within the time frame of sustainability via consumables. This means intellect can truly never be better than spell power with this rotation, because the damage difference is so large, that it requires a short fight to break even with intellect. Fights of this length are in no danger of running oom if using an efficient MF/SWP rotation, as you would use 13,651 mana. This is possible with max consumables. Introducing Mind Blast increases total damage dealt moderately, due to fast cast time, but at a high cost of efficiency. The rotation would be SWP MB MF MF MB MF MF MB MF MF, wait half sec, repeat. This rotation is slightly shorter, 24 seconds. This rotation would be repeated 37.5 times to make 900 seconds and cost 2750 mana per rotation, and 103,125 in total. Again this is unsustainable. The spell count is 225 MF, 112.5 MB, 37.5 SWP. Total bonus damage from 27 spell power is 5254. Looking again at ratios, 852 damage from mind flay is just 16.216% of 5254. That percentage of a 900 second fight is 146 seconds. 146 seconds is 6.08 rotations and 16,720 mana. Now here is where it gets a little murky, because Killerduki is correct, within certain circumstances, that int is stronger than spell power. The reason for this, is that I believe it impossible to have a total of 16,720 mana in 2.43 minutes with which to maintain this rotation (without serious outside help, multiple innervates, mana tides). So what does this mean? This rotation cannot make it to the 146 second mark to equal spell power, it is actually higher dps, BUT it is only higher dps for precisely the cast time of those two mind flays. After this point the priest would be stuck mostly wanding and waiting for mana cooldowns. This is a VERY NARROW window where killerduki is correct. But before we end this, let's remember this is factoring only base spells and 27 int and 27 spell power. The DPS difference between these rotations with base spells is 40.32 (218.52 - 178.2) or 18.45% in favor of the Mind blast rotation. Mind blast has a lower coefficient than Mind flay, so the mind flay rotation will scale 1.78% better, and is 23.27% more mana efficient. "OK, give me the TLDR!" Killerduki is wrong in all but a very narrow range of possibilities. To gear as he does, he has to know precisely when the boss will die and also be at precisely zero mana in order for his method to be superior. At the efficiency he is working with, it will soon be a moot point, as most fights in AQ and especially Naxx, will require a lower dps, but more efficient rotation in order to keep casting. Spell power is nearly always better than int. THE END.