[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[Deleted]

Do you have optimised gear for this, and how many artifact traits do you have? As the damage felt kinda low, but i guess that's how big a difference stm makes. Like i did around 215k with stm but I also optimised my gear so I had like 8k crit, 6.5k haste, 2k mastery and 0 vers in there, with 16 traits. It feels like a fight you definitely want to run stm on though as there's not really anything that can prevent you from dps'ing, at least not on normal.

I have "relatively" optimized gear. I run Haste Mastery as my main stats, so I'd say it's as optimized as can be for given circumstances. One Trinket is considered BiS, and my other one is 875, so also pretty good.

And you're right, compared to StM, the LotV damage is low. On the other side, we get DOWNscaled to 835 in Normal Raid-Testing, whereas we get UPscaled in Mythic Raid testing (to 898), hence why you see me do almost 700k dps in my tichondrius mythic video, but only 150k on Ursoc.
I think going for a crit build while using StM is not the most optimal, but I might be wrong. I think Haste Mastery will be optimal for StM.

Hope this helped!

[Deleted]

time to admit we got defeated. blizzard won. rip shadow

[Mechonics]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were different ways to play with different gear priorities that performed relatively similar. Consider mid-mythic progression in HFC when AS/COP were comparable, once you hit a certain gear threshold your ability to contend as AS dropped significantly and people stopped playing it on Council fights (hellfire high council/Tyrant). I hope that they cater to different playstyles or gear priorities and one isn't just destroying the other. Choices like SI vs AS, or PI vs MB...hopefully those matter and you can gear how you want to play. Probably won't happen...but w/e.

I also have a feeling that shadow is going to scale incredibly well. Which would explain a little about how shitty I personally feel as a shadow priest right now. End of expansion God class is how I feel things are going to shape up...

[Deleted]

1. Dungeons are really important and we are the worst aoe class by far. Long ramp up time and mind sear is worthless.

2. 2 legendary items that makes us good but we need to get 1 of them before the first raid.

3. StM is what makes us good.

4. I will most likely have to lvl 4 Priests and then main whatever gets the correct legendary.

5. Stat prio is all over the place. We want haste to a certain point and then crit if we get the waist since mastery doesnt increase MB damage, Mastery if we get the Shoulders (is prolly better?), and Mastery if we get the Ring(Ring isnt one of the 2 good legendaries.)

6. So now i have to lvl 4 Priests and get carried by guild/friends on all of them since i cant carry my own weight in dungeons.

Expansion is gonna be golden.

- - - Updated - - -

I wouldn't be surprised if there were different ways to play with different gear priorities that performed relatively similar. Consider mid-mythic progression in HFC when AS/COP were comparable, once you hit a certain gear threshold your ability to contend as AS dropped significantly and people stopped playing it on Council fights (hellfire high council/Tyrant). I hope that they cater to different playstyles or gear priorities and one isn't just destroying the other. Choices like SI vs AS, or PI vs MB...hopefully those matter and you can gear how you want to play. Probably won't happen...but w/e.

I also have a feeling that shadow is going to scale incredibly well. Which would explain a little about how shitty I personally feel as a shadow priest right now. End of expansion God class is how I feel things are going to shape up...

CoP didnt become viable "mid-mythic" progression for the top guilds, CoP got buffed after most guilds killed the boss and it was mostly after 2/2 upgrades that Cop really started to shine.

[Mechonics]

CoP didnt become viable "mid-mythic" progression for the top guilds, CoP got buffed after most guilds killed the boss and it was mostly after 2/2 upgrades that Cop really started to shine.

I wasn't talking about top guilds, that's irrelevant for just about everyone that reads this forum. And 2/2 upgrades came long after people were playing full time CoP.

[Deleted]

I wasn't talking about top guilds, that's irrelevant for just about everyone that reads this forum. And 2/2 upgrades came long after people were playing full time CoP.

I think everyone was playing AS standard and then CoP on certain bosses and then 2/2 changed everything.

[Mechonics]

Yeah they buffed the shit out of the CoP playstyle in 6.2.2 - then 2 months later in 6.2.3 they had 2/2 upgrades.

Fuck it's been a long ass time. Looks like I don't remember things quite so clearly...probably because as soon as CoP was #1 I rerolled mage...cause fuck that.

[Kilee25]

If you weren't in a mythic guild pushing past Gorefiend before 6.2.2, CoP was always viable and competitive with AS. The dynamics of Heroic and below bosses were very different, and similar to why CoP became strong later- it was good for ST and concentrated AE and that was all you needed below mythic levels. Sure you can say anything below mythic is irrelevant, but my point still stands that for the masses of players like me who were in "normal" guilds you could easily top dps (i.e. Top 3 in a guild with even spread of players and no class stacking) with CoP all expac without having to switch.

To bring the comparison back to Legion I think people who aren't shooting for world first sub-100 rankings are looking for that same level of choice. As a comparison, a 30% difference between l100 talents for someone just dry testing them isn't a choice- it's an ultimatum.

[c8-tty]

I always thought of LotV as more of a utility, to let you get vf faster on pull or in time for a high prio add. Although its a bit of a "band aid fix" for our ramp up time. They could just make it baseline Then give us a proper talent there

[davesignal]

To bring the comparison back to Legion I think people who aren't shooting for world first sub-100 rankings are looking for that same level of choice. As a comparison, a 30% difference between l100 talents for someone just dry testing them isn't a choice- it's an ultimatum.

Pretty much. 5% I'll play whatever I want; 10% I'll play what's fun if I feel the alternative is cancerous. 30%, I'll play the cancer until I can't tolerate it any more, then either spend my sub money on Dota 2 hats or start healing.

[Elofyn]

I think that stm in most fights will be an endgame choice as they become shorter.
The strong factor about StM is the 100% haste along with 200% increased dot damage.
In short: think of your damage as exponential until you hit 100 stacks. From that you will likely hit a plateau and have big dick dps for as long as you survive.

Do you know for certain that Mass Hysteria caps to 200 % dmg? It only says "stacking until VF ends." Wouldn't this mean that with 120 s VF dots do 240 % dmg?

[Zoopercat]

For those of you running sims for Shadow on the AMR simulator, I wanted to let you know we just updated the site with the latest beta patch. You can run updated sims on our beta site.

And remember, you can easily verify all of our implementations. For example, Vampiric Touch is updated to 77% of your spell power. You can find it in the Periodic Damage section: the first number, 0.77, is the spell power multiplier.

Browse the spells on the left menu if you want to check out other ones. The idea with this wiki style info is that it's easy(ish) to verify and you can have confidence that things are implemented correctly (or find bugs quickly).

Other updates:

• We have the client program available now (get it here), so you can target lower margins of error. You still use the website to setup sims and view reports, while the client operates in the background to use your own computer's cores.
• We also have all dps set bonuses implemented and about half of the legendaries (working on finishing those this week). Trinkets are still being worked on, so hang tight on those.
• We also moved the consumables out of the rotation and into the options when you setup a simulation.
• A few bug fixes (thanks Caladia!)
• If you have questions, hit us up here, on Discord or our forums. And for help, this page has some resources.

[Nyel]

I couldn't read the last 100 pages (where I stopped some weeks ago lol) so I just ask it here:

How is SP in the beta going? How is the gameplay? How is the balancing? How is the damage compared to other casters? How are our talents / traits working?

Just some quick answers, maybe with a little explanation, would be great - thank you!

[Imaskar]

4. I will most likely have to lvl 4 Priests and then main whatever gets the correct legendary.

5. Stat prio is all over the place. We want haste to a certain point and then crit if we get the waist since mastery doesnt increase MB damage, Mastery if we get the Shoulders (is prolly better?), and Mastery if we get the Ring(Ring isnt one of the 2 good legendaries.)

What is this "random legendary" you are talking about?

- - - Updated - - -

Btw, I propose Shaheed Priest as our new class name in the light (pun intended) of new talents.

[Ryeshot]

Sorry if this has been asked, but what is our best artifact path for launch? Initially I thought CttV with Sinister Thoughts along the way since that is just so damn good, but depending on early tier stat priorities, and the amount of damage Mass Hysteria provides, the long path of Unleash the Shadows > To the Pain > Mass Hysteria might be best (but not the most efficient). This delays our first golden to 8830 AP instead of 525.

Now Call to the Void is not bad, from everything I have tested it does not compare to MH. It has a 1 + haste chance to spawn a tentacle that does 10 ticks of 100% spellpower, benefited by only crit and vers, for a total of 1000% spell power. Not sure how many spawns of these single target would it take to be competitive with MH, but I'm sure it is a lot.

[Deleted]

What is this "random legendary" you are talking about?

- - - Updated - - -

Btw, I propose Shaheed Priest as our new class name in the light (pun intended) of new talents.

Shoulders and Waist.

Sorry if this has been asked, but what is our best artifact path for launch? Initially I thought CttV with Sinister Thoughts along the way since that is just so damn good, but depending on early tier stat priorities, and the amount of damage Mass Hysteria provides, the long path of Unleash the Shadows > To the Pain > Mass Hysteria might be best (but not the most efficient). This delays our first golden to 8830 AP instead of 525.

Now Call to the Void is not bad, from everything I have tested it does not compare to MH. It has a 1 + haste chance to spawn a tentacle that does 10 ticks of 100% spellpower, benefited by only crit and vers, for a total of 1000% spell power. Not sure how many spawns of these single target would it take to be competitive with MH, but I'm sure it is a lot.

Long way.

For real though, can we start a riot about our lack of aoe? When raids was all that mattered i didnt really care but now when dungeons are a big deal and we have to do alot of them and during a time limit that requires dps during trash which we cannot bring. I really think we need to bring this up as MUCH as possible so it gets fixed.

[Deleted]

Sorry if this has been asked, but what is our best artifact path for launch? Initially I thought CttV with Sinister Thoughts along the way since that is just so damn good, but depending on early tier stat priorities, and the amount of damage Mass Hysteria provides, the long path of Unleash the Shadows > To the Pain > Mass Hysteria might be best (but not the most efficient). This delays our first golden to 8830 AP instead of 525.

Now Call to the Void is not bad, from everything I have tested it does not compare to MH. It has a 1 + haste chance to spawn a tentacle that does 10 ticks of 100% spellpower, benefited by only crit and vers, for a total of 1000% spell power. Not sure how many spawns of these single target would it take to be competitive with MH, but I'm sure it is a lot.

I've uploaded a video with the artifact path I decided to take, going for MH first, then SoI, and finally that last mind-flay thingy.
I hope it'll help you make up your mind

[Imaskar]

Shoulders and Waist.

I mean, why is it random. Do people get a guaranteed random legendary at the end of some quest hub?

[Isentropy]

Sphere of Insanity is beyond useless right now, there are several minor traits that are better than it at the moment. Call to the Void -> Mass Hysteria or the other way around is the only good path to take, depending on how hard you can farm AP you will probably want to take the long route to Mass Hysteria because Death's Embrace is literally the most useless trait in the tree. If you intend on grinding really hard every day that's probably what you want to be doing, otherwise Call to the Void to Mass Hysteria the short route is the best atm, of course picking up Sinister Thoughts as you go.

Sphere of Insanity really needs a fairly substantial buff to even consider going for it second.

To clarify why Mass Hysteria second is a valid option: for dungeons it's not a fantastic trait. Call to the Void is more direct damage and does really well on bosses. You only really need Mass Hysteria for raids, so if you can at least get Mass Hysteria before raids open I don't see a reason to rush it as of right now.

[Kis]

I second Isentropys opinion on Artifact traits.

I personally will opt going for Mass Hysteria (the long route) first, then Sinister Thoughts -> Call to the Void, as that should be 1. doable and 2. best for the first week of raids and mythic+.
Unless something changes with Sphere of Insanity, I don't see it being anywhere as useful in raids as Call to the Void can be on boss damage, which should be more important early on. As much as I hope something happens to Sphere before Legion goes live, I don't believe in it happening. It is alright for a third trait, but it could have been way cooler as a mechanic for SPriests.