Duct Tape and a Prayer

In Naxxramas, one of the bosses, Heigan the Unclean, casts a debuff on everyone within 30 yards called “Spell Disruption“, which slows casting speed by 300% (effectively, your spells take four times as long to cast). Normally, this is a bad thing (although it doesn’t affect instant-cast spells).

However, Shadow priests can take advantage of this debuff. Spell Disruption increases the channeling time of channeled spells like Mind Flay, and also increases the spaces between ticks, so that, for example, a spell like Penance, which ticks once a second for two seconds (three ticks – 0s, 1s, 2s), will instead tick once every four seconds for eight seconds (0s, 4s, 8s).

Here’s the bug: Mind Flay does have its channeling time increased fourfold, from 3 seconds to 12 seconds – but for some reason, the tick frequency is unchanged. Where Mind Flay does damage every second for 3 seconds without the debuff, it now does damage every second for 12 seconds with the debuff. You’re getting four times as much damage for the same mana cost, making Mind Flay possibly the most mana-efficient damage-dealing spell in the game while under the effects of Spell Disruption.

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