First Batch of Smite Priest Tests

So here are some preliminary results:

Raw Priest Power, no Talents:
Smite Spam: 700dps. (Not bad, not great either)

Smite Spam with Holy Fire: 960dps. In this run, Holy Fire accounted for 30% of my dps (of which only 5% was the DoT), despite being cast only once every 10 seconds. What that implies is that casting holy fire results in a drop in smite DPS of around 60, but results in a massive overall 37% damage boost.

Raw Shadow Word Pain: 225dps
Raw Shadow Word: Pain + Devouring Plague: 450dps
What's interesting here is that Shadow Word: Pain and Devouring Plague are basically even in terms of DPS.

Finally, Shadowfiend damage: 570 dps. Clearly, for the 15 seconds or so the Shadowfiend is up, he contributes a fairly substantial damage boost.

Talented:
Spite Spam only: 1175dps. That's pretty nice for spamming a basic nuke, and 2/3 again better than untalented! Surge of Light is a pretty RNG (random) ability, its nice when it procs, but will only do so about 20% of the time. If adding Holy Fire to the rotation leads to a ~35% damage boost, that would suggest we're heading for the range of 1600dps.

Spite Spam with Holy Fire: Maximum of 1400dps (average result a bit lower, around 1300). Definitely better, but not as good as I had hoped. Holy Fire once again counted for about 30% of my damage, but in practice that meant a disproportionate ~170-200dps drop in Smite's damage and only 20% more damage overall. Clearly, interfering with the sheer throughput of Smite is going to give any and all attempts to increase dps decreasing returns. That is, the more complicated the rotation, the more Smite's damage is going to suffer.

Note: These tests were conducted without Glyph of Smite, which I am finding hard to come by on the PTR without heading into the lag-fest that is Dalaran. Some back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the Glyph is worth ~200dps, taking our final result to a respectable 1600dps.

Talented, Devouring Plague + Power Word: Pain is worth about 570dps. But again remember, Smite is doing ~1200 dps on its own. That means, over the space of 2 global cooldowns, we lose 3600 damage. Shadow Word Pain lasts 18 seconds, so its 'effective dps' contribution is perhaps 30% lower than this figure. Devouring Plague has a 24 second cooldown, so is a little more efficient.

So Let's Blow Everything!
My first attempt was less than ideal. Adding Shadowfiend, Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain to the rotation, as well as blowing Power Infusion, Beserking (Smiterella is a troll), Living Flame and Scale of Fates resulted in a paltry 1350dps.

I tried replacing the 'on-use' trinkets with passive ones (Pandora's Plea and Eye of the Broodmother to simplify the rotation, and this time only achieved 1250dps. In part, this is because
a) the passive trinkets are largely inferior to the 'on-use' trinkets for dps (ie. the passive 125 spell power from Scale of Fates is the maximum benefit on Eye of the Broodmother);
b) Pandora's Please didn't proc; and
c) I lacked the extra hit rating of the Living Flame.

Going back to the active trinkets, and getting in some practice improved this performance, resulting in a maximum performance of ~1550dps (again, without Glyph of Smite). I can hit that mark fairly sustainably now; over time, enough crits start accruing to have a legitimate influence on the statistics. Latency also definitely plays a part, by using a timer to start casting before the previous smite has finished, I can pack alot more dps in.

So I'm still on the fence about this one. I'll put in some more practice, hopefully get a Glyph of Smite, and then come to a final conclusion.

Until next time . . .