Originally Posted by
Yvaelle
People are right to still be concerned about our scaling, our scaling is still the worst of all dps specs even after the buffs we've gotten: that's concerning. Even with the buffs, we're still probably going to come out as the lowest DPS spec again in 5.2, and by heroic parses we're going to (because of bad scaling) slip even further behind than we were at the start of 5.2: again, concerning.
Our ability to maximize DPS gains out of the new wrathion legendary and the crit trinket should lead to a relative boost to shadow which is not as accessible to other specs. Even with the nerf to crit snapshotting, refreshing dots during the crit trinket will lead to 18 seconds of crit Pain ticks, which will extend the duration of Pain by another ~18 or so seconds (but then end, it won't continue indefinitely now) - if that application overlaps with say, Bloodlust, or Wrathion mini-lust, or power infusion - it will retain those haste bonuses for the full ~40 seconds. That synergy is almost unique to shadow in 5.2 - and will provide a relative DPS gain to Shadow by gearing right and being very mindful of these procs and re-applications.
That should make people a little hopeful. If we do all that right, we won't be the worst dps in single target - so that's an improvement. It's still a very long way from being a great single target DPS spec, and we're still going to be behind in multi-dot to the other multi-dotters (but the Shadowform buff will help that a bit), and our AoE still won't be demo lock aoe (but the shadowform buff will help this also). So, overall, our relative position in 5.2 will be better than our position in 5.1 if we make good use of these proc effects and the synergies they provide.