shadow

[Kretan]

The reason spriest is difficult to master is because of the amount of planning that has to be done in the rotation to keep optimal DPS. You have to plan when to devouring plague such that your dots don't fall off on top of being able to refresh them both inside their last tick. All of this has to be done around our abysmal casting on the move capability. Through all this, you need to know when to snapshot regardless of length left.

If you ignore this, just keeping up dots, plagueing, and spamming mind blasts isn't hard, but you're dps will be weak.

[Dierdre]

SP has less buttons and uses less macros then any other caster. You will never find more simple caster to play with.

I play them all and they are all pretty much the same. I'd even argue ele, frost and destro are simpler than shadow. Affli is pretty much the same, demo and arcane are slightly different but not that much harder to play.

[Deleted]

Ye, no. That is BS lol.

Thanks for your constructive argument. You must have gathered all your eloquence to write this one, good job.

[Cerbz]

Shadow Priests have a very short and easy rotation. Only thing you need worry about is reapplying your dots on time.

Sure, if you want to do mediocre DPS.

[itchynose]

Shadow Priests have a very short and easy rotation. Only thing you need worry about is reapplying your dots on time.

Sure, if you're standing in front of a target dummy.

[Hooked]

I havent played my spriest (or the game) in about 2 months, its depressing to have decent gear and still do shit dps.

[Regen]

Sure, if you want to do mediocre DPS.

Im gp and i like it.

[Tojara]

Shadow is deceptively difficult. It's not going to be top tier DPS compared to a lot of other classes that are played exceptionally well. You can however get good numbers with shadow if you know when/how to refresh your DoTs, plan ahead to minimize movement, and largest of all actually understand when to properly interrupt insanity between ticks, etc. Lots of people don't know this and do completely awful DPS as shadow.

I've played lots of classes and while on the surface it seems like shadow has few buttons, it's one of the more difficult classes to play. Mind you most classes aren't that difficult to play, but the difference between a well played lock, spriest, balance druid is incredibly large. Warlocks are better for sure, but my point is the difference between played optimally and playing it bad is huge. Shadow priest can do really good DPS (again not anywhere near the best warlocks), but the reason most complain is because a badly played shadow priest (which is what most do) do incredibly bad damage.

- - - Updated - - -

Shadow is deceptively difficult. It's not going to be top tier DPS compared to a lot of other classes that are played exceptionally well. You can however get good numbers with shadow if you know when/how to refresh your DoTs, plan ahead to minimize movement, and largest of all actually understand when to properly interrupt insanity between ticks, etc. Lots of people don't know this and do completely awful DPS as shadow.

I've played lots of classes and while on the surface it seems like shadow has few buttons, it's one of the more difficult classes to play. Mind you most classes aren't that difficult to play, but the difference between a well played lock, spriest, balance druid is incredibly large. Warlocks are better for sure, but my point is the difference between played optimally and playing it bad is huge. Shadow priest can do really good DPS (again not anywhere near the best warlocks), but the reason most complain is because a badly played shadow priest (which is what most do) do incredibly bad damage. Where a badly played lock is still going to do (compared to the rest of your raid) still okay damage.

[Dierdre]

Shadow priest can do really good DPS (again not anywhere near the best warlocks), but the reason most complain is because a badly played shadow priest (which is what most do) do incredibly bad damage.

Nope. Shadow priest can do barely good DPS, and the reason we complain is that more often than not you have to be an ass ("lemme stand in shit just one more sec so I can pull my MFI", "screw priority targets, DoT all the things!!!" "fuck dispels I'm searing the crap out of those bats", "run sucker, I'm not stopping my deeps to give you feathers", "so what if those klaxxi go back to full health? I'm owning those meters!", etc.) to actually pull decent numbers.

Being a good team player and getting good numbers don't go hand by hand for a shadow priest, as opposed to any other caster.

- - - Updated - - -

All of our base spells require us to be standing still to use....unless you plan to only be casting Shadow Word:Pain/Death?

T90, FDCL and DI procs, SW, DP, PoM, PWS don't require us to stand still, and knowing when to use what is what gives depth to your spell priority. It's not just "DoT, nuke, filler, GG". Unlike other caster specs you actually need to plan ahead and switch glyphs and talents almost every fight.

EDIT. Damn you Shadow Word: Smiley.

[Drye]

Being a good team player and getting good numbers don't go hand by hand for a shadow priest, as opposed to any other caster.

This.

10chars

[Cerbz]

I said Base Spells (not our talents that we choose, because they could be different for other people)....only one not being used while moving is DP Proc, but you have to make sure you can stand still right after if you choose the Solace and Insanity talent.

Majority of the time if you don't pick Insanity you're choosing to do less DPS.

[Rellikk]

SP has less buttons and uses less macros then any other caster. You will never find more simple caster to play with.

Must be a troll. Elem Shams, Destro Lock, and every mage spec has a much more simple play style...

[Deleted]

Must be a troll. Elem Shams, Destro Lock, and every mage spec has a much more simple play style...

PvP or pve? or both? PvP is easy as hell, even if you are a free kill to mostly any one. but that doesn't mean play style is complicated. What is simple and what is not is arguable. But the fact is that SP has less buttons then any other caster, with exception of, maybe, Moonkin, not sure about that one, which has the most complicated rotation in the game:P
You can simply check your Spell book and compare how many pages and spells do you have as a Shadow and how much more do you have them as Afflicction or Destro or Elemental for example and you will see what am i talking about. Count them carefuly and try to avoid all passive abilities)

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Mages, Hunters and Ele Shammies are simply easier to play than SPs because of the nature of the specs. SPs are based around Dots, the others are not.

Destro has some of the lowest skillcap I have ever seen in a spec, so thats not even compareable (the difference between perfect play and tons of mistake is really fucking small compared to Shadow). Affliction has the easiest rotation in the game, but REQUIRES you to watch procs. There has never been another spec with so much emphasis on refreshing dots, and so little emphasis on "everything else". If you refresh at the wrong times, you will do shit dps, simple as.

Boomkins are the ones that are closest to SPs in playstyle, except that they dont have MFI that requires you to be rooted in place for the duration every time you use DP.


Having played all caster specs, I can with great confidence say that the ones that have the most "difficult" rotations are Shadow Priests, Arcane Mages, and Demo Locks. SPs because of MFI and the planning it requires, aswell as the extreme limitations it puts on our movement. Arcane because of the huuuuuge amount of extra Dps one can get by micromanaging your Mana properly, and Demo because its just so different from everything else in the game, so clunky and annoying to play.

If you wanna add melee classes, Fury warriors are up there aswell, because of the planning ahead and decisionmaking required to make use of every single RB proc and never waste any rage (no, Feral is not hard).

[Deleted]

To sum it up cleave is easier to play than (multi)dot.

[Deleted]

Must be a troll. Elem Shams, Destro Lock, and every mage spec has a much more simple play style...

I disagree. Shadow is the number 1 easiest caster dps to play. Without DoT snapshotting the spec would be so unbelievably boring that I would have trouble staying awake. Shadow isn't looking to well when dot snapshotting gets removed in WoD.

I mean seriously..other than maintaining dots(which is stupid easy with the shadow priest dot timer addon or w/e its called) you priority is
Mind blast/ SW-D
DP with 3 orbs
insanity / mind flay

The easiness of the spec is the reason dynamic scaling dots in WoD will completely kill any sort of fun in the spec, it'll be terribly boring.

[Deleted]

I disagree. Shadow is the number 1 easiest caster dps to play. Without DoT snapshotting the spec would be so unbelievably boring that I would have trouble staying awake. Shadow isn't looking to well when dot snapshotting gets removed in WoD.

From what I understood dot snapshotting from trinkets is gone, but from class mechanics it isn't. Which suggests it still works with Dark Soul and Power Infusion.

[Deleted]

I disagree. Shadow is the number 1 easiest caster dps to play. Without DoT snapshotting the spec would be so unbelievably boring that I would have trouble staying awake. Shadow isn't looking to well when dot snapshotting gets removed in WoD.

I mean seriously..other than maintaining dots(which is stupid easy with the shadow priest dot timer addon or w/e its called) you priority is
Mind blast/ SW-D
DP with 3 orbs
insanity / mind flay

The easiness of the spec is the reason dynamic scaling dots in WoD will completely kill any sort of fun in the spec, it'll be terribly boring.

I completely agree with you on the WoD part. With Snapshotting gone they will have to implement some other mechanic in order to raise the skillcap.

What you don't understand though is that as a SP you have dps increasing tools at your disposal that revolve around damaging other targets at the right time, and can interfere with the "incredibly easy" spell priority system you just mentioned. Triggering ToF off of Spawning adds and calculating this into currently running proccs in order to maximise your snapshotting is easier said than done, especially with BBoys. Getting the maximal amount of orbs you can by deathing smaller adds that usually die quickly is also a decison you have to make while dp is running.There is also a threshold for a 2orb Dp, fyi. I dont say that shadow is rocket science, but it has some of the highest micromanaging in the game, combined with it being the most movement gimped caster specc there is.

[Calamari]

Really hope they will reconsider removing dot snapshotting, it's a huge fun factor (Opinions™) and with no pandemic mechanic to extend dots there is a much higher skill cap required to optimize shadow dots than for example affliction dots. Nothing quite as satisfying as getting off a 100% crit, power infused, heroism +40k int set of dots on the boss. :P There is huge reward for paying attention and mastering dot clipping, that would be gone with dynamic dot updating.

If they remove snapshotting, they might as well make DI and FDCL baseline, since non-snapshotting pandemic dots pretty much managing themselves and would indeed lead to a very dull rotation by itself.

[Yvaelle]

Really hope they will reconsider removing dot snapshotting, it's a huge fun factor (Opinions™) and with no pandemic mechanic to extend dots there is a much higher skill cap required to optimize shadow dots than for example affliction dots. Nothing quite as satisfying as getting off a 100% crit, power infused, heroism +40k int set of dots on the boss. :P There is huge reward for paying attention and mastering dot clipping, that would be gone with dynamic dot updating.

If they remove snapshotting, they might as well make DI and FDCL baseline, since non-snapshotting pandemic dots pretty much managing themselves and would indeed lead to a very dull rotation by itself.

I think they said they will be giving all DoT specs Pandemic too somewhere ><