The best time to be a Shadow Priest

[Deleted]

I loved being mana battery in TBC, Wrath was a very exciting time to play as shadow though, seeing all the huge improvements and people being like 'omg priest is highest on dmg'. I hate what they've done to vampiric embrace.

[oplawlz]

I loved my spriest from vanilla to wotlk, cata was meh and i hate the mop playstyle.

[Teebu]

BC hands down, even vanilla. It has gotten worse and worse for shadow.

What? Only one fight Shadow was even taken for in Classic and that was with 2.0 talents only I believe (Loatheb). In TBC Spriests were realistically hard-capped on DPS around 1600 when Warlocks were spamming Shadowbolt for twice that in bis.

[Annarion]

I fucking HATED Cata. Mind you I went entire fights without proccing orbs. Deadly serious. I'd be sitting there with two orbs spitting blood at the monitor screaming for a fucking proc. I have enjoyed MoP's mechanics for the most part, if not the numbers. I think that MoP before they nerfed the FDCL/MS/Instant Mind Blast interaction was a pretty enjoyable time. I do like DI though, so there's that. Shadow needs two things, one is an element of surprise, aka a proc. If you don't have DI now the rotation literally is identical at all times. The other is a goddamn burst CD. Come on Blizzard, I don't care if we're just warlocks without the fire, give me fucking PI baseline.

[apepi]

The Burning Crusade? lol

Thanks for this, it made me laugh.

[Drithien]

What? Only one fight Shadow was even taken for in Classic and that was with 2.0 talents only I believe (Loatheb). In TBC Spriests were realistically hard-capped on DPS around 1600 when Warlocks were spamming Shadowbolt for twice that in bis.

I don't think he is talking exclusively about PvE. Also performance, in any department is not the only aspect of the specialisation, there are players who would welcome a more complex, demanding, and most importantly fun gameplay, regardless of "topping meters"and all that.

Also in Crusade shadow priests were no as strong in damge output as warlocks due to the fact that if they were warlocks would become useless performance-wise.

My favourite period in PvE was Cataclysm. Far from ideal, but the potential for improvement was very good; learning how to play properly had an actually big impact on performance; now it feels like if you have the basics for character in a PvE encounter, and casters in general, down you are good to go. It's quite disheartening really.

Also the older Vampiric Embrace and Blackout are sorely missed. Damn their streamlining ways.

[Yvaelle]

I quite liked ICC era WotLK, I guess?

In PvP we had bloodlust in arenas and Shadow had defensive dispel magic - RPS was a very high skill cap comp that had a fighting chance against any other comp (no hard counters), given the right strategy. In PvE I had 2 second Mind Flays, great DoT cleave - and strong AOE - not to mention good survivability.

Late Cataclysm was a pretty decent time too, all things considered.

All that said, TBC was maybe 'the best' - I'm debating whether it's just nostalgia doing the last bit.

[Deleted]

Cata, especially with the t13 (dragonsoul) 4p and shadowfiend MS/MB burst rotation etc was a lot of fun!

[tiporispit]

The only thing consistently better at PvE DPS in ICC was Feral. When the Cataclysm mechanics were implemented at the end of WotLK. Shadow was completely retarded in PvP up until Cataclysm's actual release. I'm by no means exceptional at PvP, but you could drop dots around and spam Pain and SW and other players would just die all around you like a SP killing field. It all leveled out at 85, like the said it would, but Shadow was absurd at level 80 after that patch. Feral bleeds were pretty stupid around that time, too... and not dispellable. All in all, it was a fun few weeks for PvP.

[Dierdre]

The only thing consistently better at PvE DPS in ICC was Feral.

I remember our retardin had a good time too with his bonus damage to undead.

[SwizzleTweets]

Mists of Pandaria, because I like being a Shadow Priest and Mists of Pandaria is the best expansion, so far..

[Vargur]

Cata was definitely awesome.

[Deleted]

Cata for PVE, no contest. As for PvP, I really enjoyed the first part of MoP, the stealth on stun was pretty sweat.
But I do think that the Mind spike rotation is what made us extremely viable during DS, since there were a lot of % bonus dmg on bosses(Madness/Hagara/zonozz...).

[Dierdre]

Most people remember Cataclysm fondly because for once shadow was an actually competitive dps spec, but to this day I resent the huge simplification we had from WotLK to Cata. I feel cata shadow was pretty much like today's warlocks: It yielded great output with significantly less effort than you'd need in WotLK.

And yes, the infamous Mind Spike rotation. And the shuffling!!!

[Brusalk]

Cataclysm Shadow was the most fun I've had playing this game. (Second only to ICC SWP spam for Apparition procs when there was no cap.) There was a lot to keep track of and plan ahead on, but enough RNG to keep you frustrated at times (yet interesting). The MoP redesign introduced so many new problems to the spec when the only real problem Cata Shadow had was reliable shadow orb generation. The RPPM technique applied to the chance to generate orbs would've been amazing and the only change needed. Even something simple like Archangel granting 3 shadow orbs on cast would've been sufficient.

I rerolled lock because that's what my guild needed going into the expansion, but I'm not sure I would've enjoyed playing MoP Shadow anywhere near as much as I loved Cata Shadow.

[Deleted]

shadow in vanilla was crazy - hard as hell not to pull aggro off the tank ( and very very hard not to on trashmobs!)

[zenkai]

Cata was good, then ghostcrawler saw one mage crying; so he nerfed priests to oblivion.

aye lol, usually when other classes top dps they wait till they next patch but they hot fixed us the same week lmao.

- - - Updated - - -

Most people remember Cataclysm fondly because for once shadow was an actually competitive dps spec, but to this day I resent the huge simplification we had from WotLK to Cata. I feel cata shadow was pretty much like today's warlocks: It yielded great output with significantly less effort than you'd need in WotLK.

And yes, the infamous Mind Spike rotation. And the shuffling!!!

I have played every class during wotlk/cata, and I Find shadow the most complicated back then, the easiest was arcane mage, blowing up the meeter with 2 buttons lol

[Tucci]

I loved dueling my dwarf shadow priest friend over and over and over in BC/WOTLk. So much fun as a warrior, rofl. Clutch blackout stuns every. freaking. time. Then again he had to deal with the Stormherald and mace stuns so...

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Cata in t11 and t12, nothing comes close.

Nothing.

but to this day I resent the huge simplification we had from WotLK to Cata.

Seeing how Cata Shadow was pretty much the same as WotLK + the Shadow Orb mechanic and an additional CD, you must be trolling. And no, refreshing DotS AFTER they expired, was in no way, shape or form, harder than doing it before.

[Yvaelle]

What? Only one fight Shadow was even taken for in Classic and that was with 2.0 talents only I believe (Loatheb). In TBC Spriests were realistically hard-capped on DPS around 1600 when Warlocks were spamming Shadowbolt for twice that in bis.

Shadow was actually one of the highest DPS specs in the game in Vanilla, the problem was solely that we had a very sharp gear curve - so you had to pretty much have an already geared priest go Shadow in BWL/AQ40/Naxx - rather than maining a Spriest. The biggest reason Shadow wasn't popular/common in Vanilla though, was that our good DPS weighed heavily on casting Mind Blast on cooldown.

Why is that a problem? Because in Vanilla, Mind Blast had a very high threat bonus - it was just shy of a taunt every cast - which meant you needed a Thunderfury+ tank to have a prayer of holding threat off a Spriest who was serious about DPS. It's a common misconception that Shadow wasn't good DPS in PvE - but it was solely a threat issue, not a DPS issue.


In TBC, Spriests were redesigned to be a support spec - Vampiric Embrace healed each person in our group for 25% of the damage done - which meant that a 1600 DPS Spriest was putting out 2k HPS onto a controllable 5 targets in the raid: if you put a skilled Spriest in a group with the tanks/offtanks on a heavy tank fight - we could give the healers a serious run for their money, while also putting out non-trivial DPS.

It's also important to note that Shadowbolt (Destro/Sacc) Locks could only put out 3k-3k2 DPS on Brutallus because a Shadowpriest was present. We had 2 absolutely fantastic debuffs, which stacked - and which were unique to us. One increased Shadow damage taken on the mobs we were targeting by 10%, another increased all magic damage by 5% - this meant that a Lock in the presence of a Shadowpriest had a 15% damage buff, while Mages in the same raid only had the +5% from a Spriest (in addition to Curse of Shadow Elements-thing).

Finally, Locks/Mages left to their own devices could pull incredible DPS like that (3k-ish) - but they would go OOM very quickly. Fortunately for them, and for Brutallus kills - there was one spec in the game that had a Mana Regen buff in TBC - and it was Shadowpriest. Vampiric Touch restored 5% of all damage the Spriest dealt on a VT'd target as mana, to everyone in the Spriests group. This meant that a 1600 DPS Spriest was providing 80 mana per second, or 400 mana per 5 to everybody in their group: in TBC that meant infinite mana by any specs standard.


It's very inaccurate to compare TBC Spriest DPS with TBC Lock DPS in Sunwell - because nobody in a Sunwell guild would ever claim that anybody was doing more for a raid than a top Spriest: our utility/HPS/DPS/mp5 combination was positively absurd

It was entirely possible, for example, for me to be say.. 5th on DPS (typically on DoT cleaves) - 1st on HPS - offtanking mechanics with Shadowform, and funneling infinite mana into the Locks/Mages/Healer. Which, if you took the mana/debuff benefits I was giving the Locks/Mages and counted it as my own (since they wouldn't be able to pull it without me) - my DPS-benefit-added to the raid was probably more like 7-10k (compared to the same raid lacking a Spriest). It was seriously OP - so long as you got used to never topping Recount