[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[Gnarilex]

@Theed That might be true too. I think it stayed at 60% because of the artifact trait that heals you and reduces the CD. 60% isn't enough if we can get killed from 50% health inside dispersion. Especially from when you get dispersion up until you get the artifact trait.

@Gnarilex What I said was when dispersed and attacked you gain insanity. Much like the pvp talent Driven to Madness.

My only issue is your use of the word "regen" since it's a resource that we build that is naturally at 0.
@Theed I forgot all of that happened too.

[Isentropy]

They most likely reduced Dispersion down to 60% because they didn't want practically-immunity abilities anymore. The line between the two was probably seen as too thin and as such they felt they had to tone it down. Greater Invisbility was brought down in the same way, for example. This was probably seen as more of a PvE problem, so they added Pure Shadow as a PvP talent to compensate. Not saying I agree with this thought process entirely, to be clear.

[worcester]

I think almost every specs personal DR got nerfed in some way. Hunters don't have double deterrence, shamans don't have both shamanistic rage and astral shift, mages greater invis is now for arcane only and the list goes on. Healers external cd also got major cooldown nerfs.

It's for the better because now; hopefully there will be less 1 shot mechanics that need to be cheesed and overall raid damage can be less spikey. Although I will miss our immunity being the only one that can soak Impale-like abilities, but recent mechanics just straight up kill you anyway. I'm just glad dispersion can be used so frequently (90s) compared to some other specs DR having 3 min cooldowns and externals going up to 4 minutes.

[Kilee25]

One of the reasons I liked healing in Vanilla and BC was because I felt that good, well-geared healers made a palpable difference in the raid. These days I do not place much respect on healing, and I generally think that the only challenge is in trying to figure out how few of them you can take in order to make it more "challenging". As a healer, this style isn't fun to me at all. Healing also feels like it's just twitch reactions - wack-a-mole at it's most drug-crazed extreme. People go from 100 to 20, and if you don't heal them within one second, they go to zero. All gear serves to do is let you spam your quickest heals faster and longer...

I digress, but my point is I basically really hate what healing turned into - it started around Wrath and just kept getting worse imo. I actually hope healing feels different in Legion. I wouldn't mind going back to it.

(Also, I realize this is the shadow thread, but I'm typing this in response to the lack of survivability in DPS classes and people saying they feel weaker. IMO, if it is part of a wider plan to make healing feel "fun" again, I am all for it.)

[RsinRC]

I think almost every specs personal DR got nerfed in some way. Hunters don't have double deterrence, shamans don't have both shamanistic rage and astral shift, mages greater invis is now for arcane only and the list goes on. Healers external cd also got major cooldown nerfs.

It's for the better because now; hopefully there will be less 1 shot mechanics that need to be cheesed and overall raid damage can be less spikey. Although I will miss our immunity being the only one that can soak Impale-like abilities, but recent mechanics just straight up kill you anyway. I'm just glad dispersion can be used so frequently (90s) compared to some other specs DR having 3 min cooldowns and externals going up to 4 minutes.

Which is how it shoukd be. The worry is we are this close to legion, even closer to pre-launch and what you mentioned isn't a scenario. One shots are frquent and not by us. There are ways to counter I haven't leaned yet but I know there are counters with what we have and we must really have awareness, which is good, but other classes hitting like trucks innately, makes the class feel weak.

Giving us a new gap opener/cc would make it that much more less of of this weakness and give us more control of the battle field including giving us the power to peel and create the window to burst. We already rely on our partners a little too much imo.

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[Gnarilex]

One of the reasons I liked healing in Vanilla and BC was because I felt that good, well-geared healers made a palpable difference in the raid. These days I do not place much respect on healing, and I generally think that the only challenge is in trying to figure out how few of them you can take in order to make it more "challenging". As a healer, this style isn't fun to me at all. Healing also feels like it's just twitch reactions - wack-a-mole at it's most drug-crazed extreme. People go from 100 to 20, and if you don't heal them within one second, they go to zero. All gear serves to do is let you spam your quickest heals faster and longer...

I digress, but my point is I basically really hate what healing turned into - it started around Wrath and just kept getting worse imo. I actually hope healing feels different in Legion. I wouldn't mind going back to it.

(Also, I realize this is the shadow thread, but I'm typing this in response to the lack of survivability in DPS classes and people saying they feel weaker. IMO, if it is part of a wider plan to make healing feel "fun" again, I am all for it.)

The issue seems to be they traded what durability we had in favor of a powerful (but expensive) heal. A dps spec shouldn't have to rely on spamming a heal in order to stay alive in combat. I'd much rather see the 100% increased armor from shadowform return and have VT's healing bumped back up to 100%. If disc can heal through damage, then surely we can keep ourselves alive by dps'ing and only using shadowmend when things get really rough.

Since it seems a bit late to add in another spell to help with our AoE, wouldn't the solution be to buff mind sear? I know it's not the most interesting spell, but it's something. Maybe after buffing it, turn it from a channeled spell to a 2 second cast with an 8 second duration with an identical cooldown like Blizzard or Rain of Fire (this has a shard cost instead of a cooldown) and have it pulse on the applied target? Could even keep its current uniqueness with being able to be cast on a friendly target. At this point I doubt we'll see them do something like make Shadow Crash baseline with an 8 second cooldown and reduce its damage to what a blizzard or RoF would do during their durations.

If we could just AoE like everyone else for once I'm sure a lot of people would consider staying.

[photas]

Hey guys, i have played a Ret Paladin since Wrath and from what I understand the class is very underwhelming in Legion with an annoying rotation.

I`m thinking about switching to something random like Shadow Priest for the expansion and I was wondering what the general consensus is about them so far. I`ve watched a few videos and their rotation def seems unique!

Thanks

[Knifttar]

I have a 5man related question. Due to time constraints, I wont be able to consistently raid, but I will be able to do mythics and whatnot dungeons. I have gathered from streams that shadow is not exactly desired due to their long rampup times, but I dont really plan on being cutting edge world first types at it. Will I still be able to have fun and feel like im contributing, or is it going to be rough for shadowpriests at all level of play?

[RsinRC]

The issue seems to be they traded what durability we had in favor of a powerful (but expensive) heal. A dps spec shouldn't have to rely on spamming a heal in order to stay alive in combat. I'd much rather see the 100% increased armor from shadowform return and have VT's healing bumped back up to 100%. If disc can heal through damage, then surely we can keep ourselves alive by dps'ing and only using shadowmend when things get really rough.

Since it seems a bit late to add in another spell to help with our AoE, wouldn't the solution be to buff mind sear? I know it's not the most interesting spell, but it's something. Maybe after buffing it, turn it from a channeled spell to a 2 second cast with an 8 second duration with an identical cooldown like Blizzard or Rain of Fire (this has a shard cost instead of a cooldown) and have it pulse on the applied target? Could even keep its current uniqueness with being able to be cast on a friendly target. At this point I doubt we'll see them do something like make Shadow Crash baseline with an 8 second cooldown and reduce its damage to what a blizzard or RoF would do during their durations.

If we could just AoE like everyone else for once I'm sure a lot of people would consider staying.

I agree with our shadowmend being powerful even more so with masochism. However, the mana cost is great. Four to five heals in you're mana starved. 1 mass dispel and you have to wait a few seconds to cast a shadowmend from how expensive mass is.

There was a main artifact trait where mind sear would cause your dots to insta tick for an increased amount depending on your VF stacks. That was an interesting talent that gave VF another unique aspect but they took it out.

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[RsinRC]

I have a 5man related question. Due to time constraints, I wont be able to consistently raid, but I will be able to do mythics and whatnot dungeons. I have gathered from streams that shadow is not exactly desired due to their long rampup times, but I dont really plan on being cutting edge world first types at it. Will I still be able to have fun and feel like im contributing, or is it going to be rough for shadowpriests at all level of play?

Its def doable. Instead of dotting everything just focus on 2-3 mobs and let your shadow crash and mindsear pick up the slack between VBs, Void Torrent and shadow word death. Once at a boss switch up to a spec that would help yu in the encounter.

We have the dps in dungeons. Mob's health play a big role in how much dos we can pull off during trash but just medium to long health'd mobs and we def can do some damage.

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[Gnarilex]

I agree with our shadowmend being powerful even more so with masochism. However, the mana cost is great. Four to five heals in you're mana starved. 1 mass dispel and you have to wait a few seconds to cast a shadowmend from how expensive mass is.

There was a main artifact trait where mind sear would cause your dots to insta tick for an increased amount depending on your VF stacks. That was an interesting talent that gave VF another unique aspect but they took it out.

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I feel like you didn't actually address anything in my post.

[RsinRC]

You say shadowmend is strong but you cant rely on it as much as yu'd want it to.

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[Gnarilex]

You say shadowmend is strong but you cant rely on it as much as yu'd want it to.

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No I don't want to rely on shadowmend. Because it's so expensive and you can only get out a handful before you run out of mana, it should only be used in "Oh shit!" moments when your health is dropping a lot faster than normal. I would be playing one of the priest's healing specs if that's how I wanted to stay alive in a fight. There are other hybrid classes with a dps spec that doesn't need to heal spam to stay alive.

Balance druids gain 200% more armor when they shift into moonkin/astral form. With Guardian Affinity they take 10% less damage and they have an artifact trait that increases their armor by an additional 75%. They have barkskin to reduce all damage by 20% for 12 seconds (double the amount of time for dispersion) on a 1 minute cooldown. We don't even get our additional 100% extra armor rating anymore. They still have their 30% health self heal talent, while we had Desperate Prayer was taken away. They have an entire talent row dedicated to new CC spells (a stun, mass root, and knockback), while void tendrils was removed from our kit and our "CC" row revolves around giving Psychic Scream a shorter cooldown or castable on a mob instead of ourselves and not having to channel dominate mind with a 30 second duration and 3 minute cooldown. They even removed the glyph that made psychic scream root feared enemies in place so they didn't run off and pull more mobs. They have Healing Touch baseline if they need it, but they also have access to the Restoration Affinity talent and gain two HoTs and an instant 700% heal on a 30 second cooldown, on top of regenerating 3% of their health every 5 seconds.

That's just one spec. I'm not saying to go play a balance druid because of their superior survivability skills, but in comparison what Blizzard thinks is enough for a shadow priest to survive in a fight just looks ridiculous in comparison. Celestalon even said he thinks more should be pruned from our toolkit. Which it should, as long as it's Shackle Undead.

[heinz0r]

Yeah lets prune our almost non existant toolkit some more. Celestalon is really part of the problem this game has since years. One of the devs that is so disconnected from the actual state of the game, but still acting like he drank from the fountain of knowledge.

[RsinRC]

No I don't want to rely on shadowmend. Because it's so expensive and you can only get out a handful before you run out of mana, it should only be used in "Oh shit!" moments when your health is dropping a lot faster than normal. I would be playing one of the priest's healing specs if that's how I wanted to stay alive in a fight. There are other hybrid classes with a dps spec that doesn't need to heal spam to stay alive.

Balance druids gain 200% more armor when they shift into moonkin/astral form. With Guardian Affinity they take 10% less damage and they have an artifact trait that increases their armor by an additional 75%. They have barkskin to reduce all damage by 20% for 12 seconds (double the amount of time for dispersion) on a 1 minute cooldown. We don't even get our additional 100% extra armor rating anymore. They still have their 30% health self heal talent, while we had Desperate Prayer was taken away. They have an entire talent row dedicated to new CC spells (a stun, mass root, and knockback), while void tendrils was removed from our kit and our "CC" row revolves around giving Psychic Scream a shorter cooldown or castable on a mob instead of ourselves and not having to channel dominate mind with a 30 second duration and 3 minute cooldown. They even removed the glyph that made psychic scream root feared enemies in place so they didn't run off and pull more mobs. They have Healing Touch baseline if they need it, but they also have access to the Restoration Affinity talent and gain two HoTs and an instant 700% heal on a 30 second cooldown, on top of regenerating 3% of their health every 5 seconds.

That's just one spec. I'm not saying to go play a balance druid because of their superior survivability skills, but in comparison what Blizzard thinks is enough for a shadow priest to survive in a fight just looks ridiculous in comparison. Celestalon even said he thinks more should be pruned from our toolkit. Which it should, as long as it's Shackle Undead.

Thats a conversation you're gonna have to have with Blizzard.

I can totally see your frustration. We do have many ways to try and stay up not as many as balance but surely stronger than balance.

I blame it on the damage tuning. By the time the 'oh shit' moment is here, we're dead. Sometimes before the 'oh shit' moment we're dead lol.

The notion to rely on your partners is too great in this upcoming expansion. I hope to see a final numbers pass and many small hotfixes during prepatch. All we can do now is continue to send feedback and cross our fingers.

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[Isentropy]

That's just one spec. I'm not saying to go play a balance druid because of their superior survivability skills, but in comparison what Blizzard thinks is enough for a shadow priest to survive in a fight just looks ridiculous in comparison. Celestalon even said he thinks more should be pruned from our toolkit. Which it should, as long as it's Shackle Undead.

I'd just like to point out that cross comparisons like this are rather pointless when leaving out details. It's never as black and white as people often like to make things out to be. For reference, here's a balance druid on the feedback forums expressing jealousy for shadow's survivability tools http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...58?page=13#249

Same principle. It doesn't even matter who's right or wrong, it just happens so often that people look at the tools of other specs and try to set up these comparisons in order to form a narrative that is always going to make their spec out to be the weaker one. You can see Tanned in that thread add some nuance to the guy's points regarding shadow, and just as Tanned did so for his spec, so too would a balance druid want to add nuance to your post. Playing the victim is a common strategy amongst literally all specs.

[Kilee25]

I always thought armor for shadowform didn't make sense from a lore perspective. It should make you dodge or something.

[Dontrike]

I'd just like to point out that cross comparisons like this are rather pointless when leaving out details. It's never as black and white as people often like to make things out to be. For reference, here's a balance druid on the feedback forums expressing jealousy for shadow's survivability tools http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...58?page=13#249

Same principle. It doesn't even matter who's right or wrong, it just happens so often that people look at the tools of other specs and try to set up these comparisons in order to form a narrative that is always going to make their spec out to be the weaker one. You can see Tanned in that thread add some nuance to the guy's points regarding shadow, and just as Tanned did so for his spec, so too would a balance druid want to add nuance to your post. Playing the victim is a common strategy amongst literally all specs.

Wait....we have others jealous of us? What a strange world we live in.

I always thought armor for shadowform didn't make sense from a lore perspective. It should make you dodge or something.

Unfortunately we don't have permanent Blur going as a necromancer wizard (or technically Warlock) in D&D 3.5.

[Deleted]

what is the current stat prio in legion? i have searched on h2p and here but couldnt really find anything. maybe i am too stupid :/
can someone point me in the right direction? thanks.

[Caladia]

Wolf, Melgane will be releasing a guide for pre-patch soon on H2P, maybe here too. He'll then update it for Legion going forward as well. The basic consensus is your AS gear (haste > crit > mastery).