[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[Biomega]

From what i heard from sloot and Viklund they are doing really good in raid atm atleast.

Which is precisely what worries people, because right now raids are the ONLY area where SPs perform adequately in any way - which is a problem for an expansion where one of the big selling points is turning away from raids as the exclusive PvE endgame. If we didn't have dungeons to worry about, it would be a different discussion. But we do.

[aemaet]

I have a feeling that this thread has its own insanity bar, which slowly grows until it reachs its limit and then produce a page of unspeakable horror, similar to the previous one.

[Nazzel]

Which is precisely what worries people, because right now raids are the ONLY area where SPs perform adequately in any way - which is a problem for an expansion where one of the big selling points is turning away from raids as the exclusive PvE endgame. If we didn't have dungeons to worry about, it would be a different discussion. But we do.

ooh now i understand sry should have read abit more then scimm a few pages

[heinz0r]

As I expected, you're a pvp player as well. Nothing wrong with that, but again, probably state it instead of just making broad statements like 99% of the players not liking how the class is going.

Also I'd just like to ask, is what you dislike the way the spec feels to play, or because it is weak? Remember as they said in the pvp interview, they can tune things completely seperate of pve now, so as long as it's a balance issue you got rather than the playstyle, then it's possible that it will get changed.

You really want me to write a wall of text now, so here you go:

I can tell you whats bad right now, regarding the pvp gameplay, next to the points I already gave you above. The crit issue is a big one in my oppinion because it simply locks us out of playing AS. The only viable option right now is SI, to gamble on retaining a bit of mobility every now and then.

But we also have only one cc that is pretty much unchanged since vanilla, yet it has been weakened ever since, everyone knows how to counter it, some classes do not even need to trinket it, and it breaks so quickly that you really have to pray that a dot does not break it, when you need that room for getting a critical heal or two out. The newly added bomb talent is even worse because it only lasts 2 seconds, and its a big gamble cause you do not know if only that one guy will get hit or maybe someone might be around him when it goes off, and it can also be dispelled if ppl notice it early.

Having a ressource buildup is not a big problem, but having a ressource that starts draining fast with a time based mechanism rather than a spending based mechanism makes the spec vulnerable to easy counterplay. People will lock you down when you enter voidform and there is not alot of stuff you can do to counter it by yourself. You will have to rely on teammates to support your golden moment. While most other classes can deal their damage on their own on the fly without much of an issue.

And its not just stunning you, or interrupting you while your insanity drains, people can simply start playing a bit more defensive during those couple seconds, and move away, behind pillars etc, and only your dots will deal damage in that case(which do not grant much insanity, especially not without steady apparitions spawning due to low crit). As long as you are unable to also cast mindblast and add some mindflays into the mix, your insanity will drain so quickly that people can just step away, rooting and snaring you. It is not that difficult and you will see people doing that when the game goes live like that.

Those problems are not just about dps, it is about how it functions and how it can disable other classes, compared to what they can do to us. We can cc once every 30 seconds in melee range, and have a silence every 45 seconds, that is all we got. Even holy priests have a 5 second stun now at 1 minute cd which they can greatly reduce with a couple smites. Yet shadow sits there with nothing but facetanking ppl when the shield is up and trying to juke like a psychic. Which brings me to another issue. We almost only have shadow spells. So we get interrupted, we are locked out from both damage AND healing, other than shielding ourselves or using dispells. In wod we could at least gloat ppl into locking our damage spell in order to then freely cast a couple critical flash heals.

Next to not having offensive nor defensive cc apart from fear, we also suffer from mobility issues. The 40% speed buff on shield can be dispelled, does not last very long anyways and is just a 40% increase, which does not really help you alot when you are already snared. Even at 60% speed the old feathers did not help all that much, since when you get snared 50%, that 60% increase only applied by multiplying your 50% speed, so it ended up being 50 * 1.6 and now its only 50 * 1.4. Melee will be able to close in without any problem, while other casters can use blink, displace, even ele now has a sort of blink mechanic, to get out of your ranged once you enter voidform.

I really do not care about the order I have to push my buttons to be effective, so as long as the playstyle feels somehow smooth, I can cope with it. But the way this spec is in terms of pvp it just feels cumbersome right now. I watched beta streams since they started showing them, play on ptr on a daily base, not just SP also other casters, and SP is the most tunneled class right after elemental shamans, and there is nothing you can do about it when you do not have a couple friends along with you that peel and heal you and basically make you the centerpiece of operations

[Isentropy]

The newly added bomb talent is even worse because it only lasts 2 seconds

Lasts 4 seconds still, it's been said by Skullflower the tooltip will be fixed soon. Well worded post otherwise.

[Darth-Piekus]

When I say that the Shadowpriest is terrible I always talk pvp wise.

[heinz0r]

Ah interesting. I did not notice that mindbomb actually is 4 seconds with wrong tooltip. Only took it for a spin at the start but it never felt like it lasted long enough to do anything great. Maybe due to ppl already under diminishing returns from all the melee stuns

[Fleckens]

When I say that the Shadowpriest is terrible I always talk pvp wise.

I don't know who you are though, same probably go for most people on this forum, so that's not really a good argument.

[Darth-Piekus]

Veteran Shadowpriest From Vanilla Beta. My only character which I played all the time though I don't know if it matters who I am. As to what we miss heinz0r pretty much covered it.

[RsinRC]

A lot of people talk down on pvp. What I've found is that our spec isn't the only spec that has been affected by pruning. What we lack in mobility we have in damage and self healing and this is without honor talents. I do miss WoD's mobility immensely because of the playstyle but by no means am I struggling.

I put up a new video where not only do I get top kills but top kills but top damage as well. If we were so horrible I do not believe we would be capable of this.
Check it out for yourself, even took the time of making it with super high quality.

[Ilir]

RsinRC... Again with the same thing : you can't self heal when trained. You can't damage when trained. THey are talking about arenas, not some BGs. (tho i liked the videos, I agree that I'm having a lot of fun in BGs)

- - - Updated - - -

I don't know who you are though, same probably go for most people on this forum, so that's not really a good argument.

Should we all submit our CV and biography before being able to comment on the spec ?

[Deleted]

Should we all submit our CV and biography before being able to comment on the spec ?

oh yes ! and sexy photo on top but maybe we would find out that leet and isentropy are married couple

Seriously, only thing that matters is your opinion/idea no reason to be passive-aggressive (fleckens)

[Fleckens]

Should we all submit our CV and biography before being able to comment on the spec ?

Of course not, but on a forum as large as mmo champion you probably should not expect most people to know who you are and so you can't expect them to know that you always talk about pvp. Simply stating that you're refering to pvp with such a post would clear up a lot of unneeded confusion.

And judging by some replies here it doesn't seem like you can get even 99% of the pvp'ers to agree.

Next part unrelated to that, but just feel like rambling a bit.

So far I think it's safe to say that the general consensus seems to be that in raids we are looking pretty good. A few changes would be some nice quality of life improvements but assuming numbers are done correctly we should be able to perform pretty well. At the very least at the current beta build we are performing quite decently.

5 mans is where we are lacking a bit. Can we do heroics and normal mythics? Of course, however with our current aoe we would definitely be dragging the group down in high level mythic dungeons.

As for pvp i haven't actually done any myself so this is purely from what I've heard from other people, but the impression I'm getting is that we will probably be viable in rbg's and possibly a few 3v3 teams, but not very good in 2v2 and duels.

Seems like in both pvp and pve we perform the best in large scale formats. Now it would be great if we could shine in all aspects but I don't think that's really a realistic goal. There are 36 specs in the game to balance, this is probably one of the most difficult games to really achieve proper balance in and if I have to be honest I would personally much rather have us excel in a few areas and be one of the top classes at that than be average at everything.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see us performing a bit better in 5 man, but we can't really expect to get the instant huge aoe damage like some of the melee classes do. I guess what I just wanted to say was that instead of just looking at the weaknesses of our class, try to remember our strengths as well. Maybe try out some of the other classes as well if you aren't happy with the way the class has gone. That's not to say you shouldn't give criticism of course, but simply stating that we are terrible doesn't help.

Also if your issue is not balance but rather how the class feels to play that you dislike then you should definitely consider trying out some other classes. I played priest from start of TBC to end of Cata where I quit it as i was unhappy with how it changed in MoP. I took a break but when i came back in WoD I still didn't like priest there so I played dk instead. Now in legion I'm not completely happy with the way dk's have changed and So i switched back to priest as I'm much more of a fan of the way they are working now in legion.

So yeah, most classes generally have their niche. There are certain classes that are more all around than others but personally I don't mind being a fairly specialised class, which is why I got interested in priest again. I guess I am also not so bothered by the 5 man issue as I am planning to heal them anyway, but i can of course understand those that only play shadow aren't too happy with it.

Anyways, rambling over.

[RsinRC]

@illr No offense bro but ya only talk about the 2v2, that is it and make it seem like a general statement for the spec.

[Fleckens]

oh yes ! and sexy photo on top but maybe we would find out that leet and isentropy are married couple

Seriously, only thing that matters is your opinion/idea no reason to be passive-aggressive (fleckens)

Wouldn't really say I was, although it's possible I misjudged the attitude of the guy I replied to, such things are obviously hard to judge in written form, in the same way you did my post. His reply seemed somewhat arrogant hence why I pointed the things out that I did. If I was wrong in that regard then I do apologize though.

[RsinRC]

@Fleckens even in 5 mans I dont feel gimped tbh.

[Fleckens]

@Fleckens even in 5 mans I dont feel gimped tbh.

It's not quite as bad as some people make it out to be, but we are definitely one of the weaker classes in there due to our ramp up time. Having ramp up time is not too big a deal in raids where the fights are fairly long but in 5 man's you will spent a good amount of the fight just ramping up while a lot of other classes do full damage from the start. And on trash we will in most cases only be above healer unless we are with some other classes with poor aoe, assuming equal gear and skill of course. Some packs where you have everything up you may get ahead of others that don't, but overall you will be quite low on trash damage.

[RsinRC]

It's not quite as bad as some people make it out to be, but we are definitely one of the weaker classes in there due to our ramp up time. Having ramp up time is not too big a deal in raids where the fights are fairly long but in 5 man's you will spent a good amount of the fight just ramping up while a lot of other classes do full damage from the start. And on trash we will in most cases only be above healer unless we are with some other classes with poor aoe, assuming equal gear and skill of course. Some packs where you have everything up you may get ahead of others that don't, but overall you will be quite low on trash damage.

The ramp up times is not every pull tho. You will have lingering after every pull and either at full insanity or some insanity or none. Our burst is actually pretty good at full insanity even PI does wonders at full insanity. And for trash, shadow crash is so good with on top of the new Void Eruptions. No point in taking mind bender for dungeons imo.

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

[Annesh]

A lot of people talk down on pvp. What I've found is that our spec isn't the only spec that has been affected by pruning. What we lack in mobility we have in damage and self healing and this is without honor talents. I do miss WoD's mobility immensely because of the playstyle but by no means am I struggling.

I put up a new video where not only do I get top kills but top kills but top damage as well. If we were so horrible I do not believe we would be capable of this.
Check it out for yourself, even took the time of making it with super high quality.

Dude, that video...

First of all, it's a random BG. Of course things are easier when you're playing against random idiots.

Second, it's ToK, and you didn't touch an orb. These conditions are inherently favorable because you're unlikely to be attacked. ToK is my favorite BG because it allows me to just mindlessly spam damage.

Third, your team was owning. Of course you're going to do well.

That video is NOT an accurate representation of how the spec is doing.

[Unholypriest]

My only wish is a fix for Shadow's AoE right now.

Also someone else can't login? "World server is down" in suramar for me

Edit: After 30min+ i finally got in!