[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[Chantique]

Looking at the raid test of yesterday, we are pulling much more damage than the others so we should expect a big nerf inc soon thats no big deal. The problem is that our spec is still carrying the stigma of being a "support class", and because of that, people think we shouldn't be even in the top 10 of dps meters.

My greatest fear is that people WILL bitch about shadow doing good dps even after we receive the nerfs, making us start the xpac at the very bottom and in the same position of pre-buff Mind Sear, cascade fix.

And no, its not just speculation. People are already starting to complain and we all know how blizzard reacts to enough people complaining. "NERF IT TO THE GROUND"

[Kretan]

Looking at the raid test of yesterday, we are pulling much more damage than the others so we should expect a big nerf inc soon thats no big deal. The problem is that our spec is still carrying the stigma of being a "support class", and because of that, people think we shouldn't be even in the top 10 of dps meters.

My greatest fear is that people WILL bitch about shadow doing good dps even after we receive the nerfs, making us start the xpac at the very bottom and in the same position of pre-buff Mind Sear, cascade fix.

And no, its not just speculation. People are already starting to complain and we all know how blizzard reacts to enough people complaining. "NERF IT TO THE GROUND"

If Blizzard listened to complaining like you think they do, we'd have classic legacy servers and mages would be a sub class that was not allowed to enter arena haha. Blizzard has their balance points, and they will try to hit them regardless of the bitching. It just so happens that specs #2-last place will always bitch about #1 no matter what....we happen to be #1 prior to tuning....this is the life at the top lol.

[Chantique]

If Blizzard listened to complaining like you think they do, we'd have classic legacy servers and mages would be a sub class that was not allowed to enter arena haha. Blizzard has their balance points, and they will try to hit them regardless of the bitching. It just so happens that specs #2-last place will always bitch about #1 no matter what....we happen to be #1 prior to tuning....this is the life at the top lol.

Yeah i know that blizzard try to balance things but you can't say that they don't listen to bitching and crying. It's just my fear that they cater too much to the whole "Shadow was supposed to be support" or "Shadow are Hybrids". Its a different mentality when the class that is at the top is a pure dps because people expect them to be at top.

[Deleted]

Looking at the raid test of yesterday, we are pulling much more damage than the others so we should expect a big nerf inc soon thats no big deal. The problem is that our spec is still carrying the stigma of being a "support class", and because of that, people think we shouldn't be even in the top 10 of dps meters.

My greatest fear is that people WILL bitch about shadow doing good dps even after we receive the nerfs, making us start the xpac at the very bottom and in the same position of pre-buff Mind Sear, cascade fix.

And no, its not just speculation. People are already starting to complain and we all know how blizzard reacts to enough people complaining. "NERF IT TO THE GROUND"


snip videos

Hey there, since Im the priest from that video, I just wanna point out, that I have some items that are not scaled properly. Afaik they droped from heroic dungeon (~825ilvl ?, or maybe 810), but are tagged as 723. And then when they are scaled up, they go crazy. Also have those jc rings and some 900 mastery socket in there.

[Chantique]

Oh nice to know! @warchief606. Comparing with the other classes, what is your feel on the shadow? The spec is ready in pve or we still need more tweaks?

[Deleted]

I really like the gameplay of the shadow priest. I think damage is gonna get tuned down a little. AOE is still shit (except legendary with dots). 2+ target fight shadow will go nuts, especially with t19 2p bonus and what I really like: Shadow is gonna get some really strong burst with t19 4p. Also insanely strong for speedkills ~1:30 - 2:00min with Surrender to Madness.

That being said, Im rerolling from hunter to holy priest for legion, so shadow is just my off spec. Some people might have a more detailed clue about the spec here ;-)

[Ilir]

Hi all. Some more dagger quotes for you


I think I got the first one near the Naaru in the order hall. The second whisper appeared when I was approaching the Suramar city for the first time.
The sleeping city was also mentioned here: http://wow.gamepedia.com/Puzzle_Box_of_Yogg-Saron
Looks like spoilers to me)

Hey nice ! Didn't have those quotes pop up from me even tho I went to the Naaru quite a lot and Suramar.

Ah... let's hope shadowpriests will be the first to see the "Sleeping City" that'd be cool.

[Kretan]

Yeah i know that blizzard try to balance things but you can't say that they don't listen to bitching and crying. It's just my fear that they cater too much to the whole "Shadow was supposed to be support" or "Shadow are Hybrids". Its a different mentality when the class that is at the top is a pure dps because people expect them to be at top.

Believe me they don't listen to them. Blizzard is a professional game making company, and they are near the top of the business. They do exceptionally well for balance with the number of variables at play here. Sure, things could be better, but overall they do a respectable job of juggling this many specs.

Heck, we and other specs complain mages and warlocks are god specs all the time. We are just on the other side of the coin for once

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Hey there, since Im the priest from that video, I just wanna point out, that I have some items that are not scaled properly. Afaik they droped from heroic dungeon (~825ilvl ?, or maybe 810), but are tagged as 723. And then when they are scaled up, they go crazy. Also have those jc rings and some 900 mastery socket in there.

Good to see some follow up with context. This is perfect example of why damage meter comparisons right now need to be taken with a grain of salt for sure. Thanks for this post.

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Hey nice ! Didn't have those quotes pop up from me even tho I went to the Naaru quite a lot and Suramar.

Ah... let's hope shadowpriests will be the first to see the "Sleeping City" that'd be cool.

I'm not going to lie, i get pretty geeked out with these quotes haha.

[Annesh]

Videos

I'm really glad I watched these, now I'll be prepared for the nerfs. They'll come and I'll be like okay yeah we expected that.

Everyone in the alpha right now: how come the duration nerfs for dots weren't complained about that much? Like I saw some, but others were just like "ok i get it, void bolt refreshes now so need nerf duration" but to me the exact opposite is true. Nerfing the duration makes zero sense from a design perspective when you consider the following:

A) We're supposed to be multidotting gods

B) On pure single target, there's practically no functional difference between refreshing dots and extending by 3 seconds, so the dual change neither buffed nor nerfed our single target

C) On multi-target, the change makes things so much more hectic and difficult, and puts a very low cap on the number of dots we can keep going at once, which is a fairly massive nerf.

So yeah, the dual change means we're no worse or better at single target, but is a dramatic nerf to our multitarget. How does this make sense for a spec that they've outright stated is designed to be a strong multi-dotter?

I would love to see some renewed interest and feedback about this in the places they pay attention to. A 14 second duration SWP just sounds awful.

[Deleted]

I'm not going to lie, i get pretty geeked out with these quotes haha.

Ever since the Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron. I've been so excited for any old god clues and i was hoping for the dark below expansion rumors to be true when they were getting hyped. All of these mentions of the old gods and Ny'alotha with our new class identity is making me so hyped for legion and what's next. I hope being a shadowprist will play a huge role in all of this!

[Isentropy]

I'm really glad I watched these, now I'll be prepared for the nerfs. They'll come and I'll be like okay yeah we expected that.

Everyone in the alpha right now: how come the duration nerfs for dots weren't complained about that much? Like I saw some, but others were just like "ok i get it, void bolt refreshes now so need nerf duration" but to me the exact opposite is true. Nerfing the duration makes zero sense from a design perspective when you consider the following:

A) We're supposed to be multidotting gods

B) On pure single target, there's practically no functional difference between refreshing dots and extending by 3 seconds, so the dual change neither buffed nor nerfed our single target

C) On multi-target, the change makes things so much more hectic and difficult, and puts a very low cap on the number of dots we can keep going at once, which is a fairly massive nerf.

So yeah, the dual change means we're no worse or better at single target, but is a dramatic nerf to our multitarget. How does this make sense for a spec that they've outright stated is designed to be a strong multi-dotter?

I would love to see some renewed interest and feedback about this in the places they pay attention to. A 14 second duration SWP just sounds awful.

It's a big quality of life issue more than anything, in my opinion. If the duration had been left at 18 seconds the devs probably felt that, in combination with the Void Bolt refresh, it would allow for keeping up dots on too many targets while in Voidform. The 14 second duration means that you can basically keep Shadow Word: Pain up on 3 targets in Voidform, and they didn't choose 14 seconds at random. They purposely made it like this because they're afraid of it getting out of control, especially when considering the 2 piece (which is going to be completely broken on multitarget, by the way). Keep in mind that they changed Shadow Word: Pain's tick rate to be faster, too. I totally understand why this was the tradeoff they deemed balanced, especially once you also account for the fact that our dots now generate Insanity on hit. On paper it makes perfect sense.

However... the refresh timing is really tight, even on 3 targets. You have to remember dot order and target switch accordingly, which I believe isn't something that most people will be able to pull off correctly outside of perhaps a council style fight. Void Bolt's fairly slow projectile speed makes things worse, too, as the refresh happens on Void Bolt landing, not on cast. It's clearly tuned around being able to play around refreshing perfectly and that's where my gripe with it lies mostly. The timing is just really, really unforgiving and for a spec that is already looking to be fairly complex in other areas I don't think it needs this extra layer of complexity. Changing Shadow Word: Pain to 16 seconds or Void Bolt to refresh on cast would go a long way towards improving the problem while still keeping the playstyle intact. Because they want you to keep multidotting if there's more than 3 - 4 targets. If adds spawn, that's what you'll have to do anyway, whether you're in Voidform or not.

So basically: I understand the reasoning but I don't like that said reasoning doesn't account for user error in any way. If damage needs to be nerfed to account for a more user friendly playstyle I'm totally fine with that. I can do it, most other good priests will be able to do it, but it's unnecessarily hard in my book.

[Kretan]

One thing I've been thinking about is how the new spec design has likely buffed scaling for shadow. If you look at today's model:

1) Haste - Doesn't really scale all that well with CoP.....you hit the point at which the rotation is only insanity, and then the benefit is restricted.

2) Crit - No real major interaction with the spec aside from you crit more.

3) Mastery - A flat damage boost

Then we compare it to Legion's model:

1) Haste - More haste leads to longer void forms. Longer void forms lead to a higher haste percentage gains which then scale your base haste even higher. Higher void form stacks mean more mass hysteria stacks. More mass hysteria is more dot damage. More dot damage means more scaling from mastery and crit because dot's hit harder and you get more void bolts. More dots leads to more AS/SI interaction which feeds AGAIN back to more void form.

2) Mastery - Flat damage increase, scales very well with haste.

3) Crit - More crit in conjunction with auspicious spirits leads to more void form stacks. More void form stacks lead to more haste and crit chances to extend void form, and on and on just like haste.

===========================

The major point here is that we went from a basic scaling from secondaries to something that reads more like what a fire mage experiences; we are going to scale like haste fire mages. Haste leads to more haste, and then it gives more benefit to other secondaries. Crit to a lesser extent also leads to more scaling from other stats and it causes more haste and dot damage from mass hysteria. We should be one of those specs that just gets much much better as gear pours in.

[Ilir]

1st one : "Skovald would like to rally the destructors. He doesn't see he'll be betrayed like many before him did." When meeting Skovad in the dungeon. I guess the destructors are the legion.

2nd one : "Another brute serving Sargeras who claims he's helping the elves. They don't see it coming." This occured when I met the Legion (looks like a felguard) boss in the Arcway dungeon. The elves in here are the Suramar's elves, nightborne I think. I think he means they'll get betrayed when he says "They don't see it coming."

3rd one : "She owes/she got her form (= her look) to/from N'Zoth, but her arrogance belongs to her entirely." When meeting the Naga Lady in the Eye of Azshara dungeon. In english, the "peut-être" (= maybe) could be translated like that "Although she owes/got her form to/from N'Zoth, her arrogance is entirely hers."

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Those were from 2 days ago... Will try to get more. But I'm super tired lately without really knowing why :'(

[Kretan]

I'm really glad I watched these, now I'll be prepared for the nerfs. They'll come and I'll be like okay yeah we expected that.

Everyone in the alpha right now: how come the duration nerfs for dots weren't complained about that much? Like I saw some, but others were just like "ok i get it, void bolt refreshes now so need nerf duration" but to me the exact opposite is true. Nerfing the duration makes zero sense from a design perspective when you consider the following:

A) We're supposed to be multidotting gods

B) On pure single target, there's practically no functional difference between refreshing dots and extending by 3 seconds, so the dual change neither buffed nor nerfed our single target

C) On multi-target, the change makes things so much more hectic and difficult, and puts a very low cap on the number of dots we can keep going at once, which is a fairly massive nerf.

So yeah, the dual change means we're no worse or better at single target, but is a dramatic nerf to our multitarget. How does this make sense for a spec that they've outright stated is designed to be a strong multi-dotter?

I would love to see some renewed interest and feedback about this in the places they pay attention to. A 14 second duration SWP just sounds awful.

Isentropy does a good job covering this, but I'll add my opinion here too. This was no nerf; it was a massive QoL increase and buff.

You have to go back to the base design goals of shadow priest. If we look at all of the changes, the mechanical base of the spec, and the path we've taken to get here to me it is clear that shadow is supposed to be strong at single target, weak at AoE, and strong at multi dotting.

The problem with that assessment though is that two of those attributes cannot exist together without one being overly dominant......namely single target and multi dot. There is absolutely, positively no way to make a spec that is both a multi-dot king and a single target king without making convoluted and confusing design choices; you would have to design a spec that fundamentally changed it's scaling and mechanics based on the number of targets available or engaged. I won't get in to the argument of whether that's a good idea or not because there are valid reasons both ways, but to me it is clear that blizzard either doesn't want to design in that fashion for the reasons I said or they just don't want a spec that can fit the multi dot and single target king type.

So, what does this all mean? It means that blizzard has to make a choice....do they make shadow a single target king with good multi dot, or do they make shadow a multi dot king with good single target? The shortening of dot durations leads me to believe that they intentionally picked single target king with good mutli-dotting. By shortening the dot durations, you mechanically cannot go nuts on multidot because dots just fall off. There is a very real ceiling of 3 targets maximum that you can keep dots up 100% on. This allows dots to be a major part of our single target kit without allowing it to be broken in multidot.

Ok, with that covered....why did they change from 3 sec extension to a full out refresh? Well the reason is that with a 3 second extension, the very real ceiling for dot extension wasn't 3..it was 1. This encouraged things in the spec that mechanically were not intended. This broke surrender to madness hopelessly as an option because it is rather blah on one target while being amazing on 2-3. It actually actively punished multidotting in void form, and felt punishing to multidot outside of void form. While this flawed design kept shadow great at one target, it made us crap on multi target.

By changing void bolt to refresh dot durations, they now actively rewarded multidotting, but to keep shadow only good at multidotting, they needed a new throttle on multidotting.....namely dot duration. This is the new control they have.

To take this is a slightly new direction, this is also where the legendary ring makes no damned sense. Popping it late in void form is going to be a straight up dps cooldown on a pack of adds. With the 2 piece tier, you now have a straight up MUCH longer void form, more damage, and more crits leading to more Si/AS interaction. The possibilities here are insane. This is why I always said a dot spread was OP......it's interactions go WAY beyond simple aoe damage, and it can be an insane DPS cooldown when gamed. One huge problem that is going to come up eventually I'm sure is the ring + surrender to madness. When you get to 60 stacks, just throw up mindbender, void torrent, then hit mind sear for 1 global and shadow word death. You now have dots on a ton of adds with 65% haste and 130% base damage on top of AS/SI interaction with a low void bolt CD (like 2 seconds). You can now actively keep up dots on 6-7 adds. Remember my 1 million dps on 3 targets? That will be a joke compared to this.

If we ever get an AoE buff, I have always pushed for it to be not tied to dots in any way.......ala shadow crash; a quick and dirty nuke that ups AoE damage but ends it interaction there.

What Isentropy is saying is that while he agrees with the mechanics of the method, he doesn't agree with how tight the window is to maintain 3 targets being dotted up 100%. My question to you @Isentropy is won't this tight window get opened up more when we have more base haste? In my tests, I have found 3 target maintenance to be quite easy at 25-30 stacks of void form. At some point, I'm refreshing at a rate significantly faster than needed for 3 targets. Maybe they made the window THIS tight because they expect us to have significantly more base haste in the long run, and they don't want us at any more than 3 targets to start? If you gave us 40% to 50% base haste and loosened the window on refreshing three, wouldn't the new standard be tight refreshing on 4?

A final point is that there might be murky haste break points at which 3, 4, and 5 target refreshes become possible/easy. I wonder if this will play in to gearing at all.

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1st one : "Skovald would like to rally the destructors. He doesn't see he'll be betrayed like many before him did." When meeting Skovad in the dungeon. I guess the destructors are the legion.

2nd one : "Another brute serving Sargeras who claims he's helping the elves. They don't see it coming." This occured when I met the Legion (looks like a felguard) boss in the Arcway dungeon. The elves in here are the Suramar's elves, nightborne I think. I think he means they'll get betrayed when he says "They don't see it coming."

3rd one : "She owes/she got her form (= her look) to/from N'Zoth, but her arrogance belongs to her entirely." When meeting the Naga Lady in the Eye of Azshara dungeon. In english, the "peut-être" (= maybe) could be translated like that "Although she owes/got her form to/from N'Zoth, her arrogance is entirely hers."

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Those were from 2 days ago... Will try to get more. But I'm super tired lately without really knowing why :'(

God these are so cool. These quotes give personality to the dagger that is so awesome and unique. Well done Bliz. Well done. I almost don't want to transmog it now just because it's quotes add incredible depth for me.

[Ilir]

Oh by the way I'm sorry for not having them in english from the get go, the translation would be much better but I kinda enjoy checking the spelling and stuff of the french translation to help with the localisation.

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The legendary ring along with the 2pc would be kinda broken. I guess they can do something like "you only gain insanity per dot ticks from a max of X target" or something.

I just hope that if they end up nerfing something, they nerf the ring and not the class.

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About keeping dots on 3 targets : the window is tight early on if you have no haste or voidform buff. But the more haste you have, the easier it becomes.

THO I DUNNO WHY BUT MY TANKS KEEP FUCKING RUNNING TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM FOR NO DAMN REASON wa0pidjaidj

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The spec feels AMAZING to play when RNG god is with you ( i mean when you're not being targeted by every single mechanic/stun or whatever) in ST/multi target (3-4). It's way better than how it was in the early alpha and miles ahead of WoD.

[Kretan]

Oh by the way I'm sorry for not having them in english from the get go, the translation would be much better but I kinda enjoy checking the spelling and stuff of the french translation to help with the localisation.

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The legendary ring along with the 2pc would be kinda broken. I guess they can do something like "you only gain insanity per dot ticks from a max of X target" or something.

I just hope that if they end up nerfing something, they nerf the ring and not the class.

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About keeping dots on 3 targets : the window is tight early on if you have no haste or voidform buff. But the more haste you have, the easier it becomes.

THO I DUNNO WHY BUT MY TANKS KEEPS FUCKING RUNNING TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM FOR NO DAMN REASON wa0pidjaidj

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The spec feels AMAZING to play when RNG god is with you ( i mean when you're not being targeted by every single mechanic/stun or whatever) in ST/multi target (3-4). It's way better than how it was in the early alpha and miles ahead of WoD.

Oh your translations have been spot on. I don't think I've had any issue understanding anything you've put on here translating.

Just the legendary ring is going to be a point of incredible strength. I wish they would honestly remove it and just buff shadow crash to make up for it....lower cooldown on shadowcrash would fix a lot of things. I don't see a scenario where the ring is anything but way too strong. I'd argue it is likely the best legendary in the game for any spec. Here is a list of interactions:

1) Void form stacks
2) 2 piece tier insanity gain
3) AS/SI buff
4) Spreads sphere of insanity
5) mass hysteria
6) AoE damage

We want #6, but this ring gives us #1-#5 too. On top of the, #1-#5 all interact with each other buffing and proccing each other independent of AoE damage alone.

Haha yeah range issues can be quite frustrating. Shadow is a train of momentum and stuns/CC/mechanics/idiot tanks break it in a frustrating fashion. With an organized group this should be a non issue though.

[Deleted]

Shamans
Shadow Priests
Demon Hunters

A little bit down the line

Mages and Hunters

I've watched some videos of DH/Shamans pulling 100k and others pulling 400-500k on these fights. So don't all go crazy just because some groups suck. Shadow doesn't need a huge nerf. But it all depends on what Numbers bliz wants to be average dps.

And to calm you down, even if they go crazy nerfing, enh shamans got it way worse than us

[Djriff]

I think they could buff shadow crash and still keep the ring in, maybe tone it down a little bit. AoE will be extremely lackluster to those without the ring and a buff to shadow crash will fix that.

[Yvaelle]

I'm having a loregasm at the thought of Xal'atath being a Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron

This makes me realize though, our offhand should really be Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron, tweeting the devs:

@WarcraftDevs Celestalon I love the Xal'atath quotes - would you consider making the Spriest offhand into [Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron]?

[deviantcultist]

I'm having a loregasm at the thought of Xal'atath being a Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron

This makes me realize though, our offhand should really be Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron, tweeting the devs:

@WarcraftDevs Celestalon I love the Xal'atath quotes - would you consider making the Spriest offhand into [Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron]?

Puzzle of Yogg was nice but the book of Natalie Seline has an important value with the Forgotten Shadow RP and it was really nice of them to include it.