[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[l33t]

- When it comes to survivability we struggle in the way that to survive we must pretty much go into survival mode to reset and then continue doing damage. They should implement a new passive for Shadow Priests...
... Shadow Orbs. After killing an enemy that grants xp or honor with SWD, MB, VB or VT the void energy inside the corpse concentrates into a floating Shadow Orb. Picking up a Shadow Orb heals you for a small amount and grants you Insanity. This would help with both leveling and for pulls.

Such a huge wall of text, which could be replaced by one line: "Despite being "redesigned", we're still in 2004, while all other specs are in 2016". That describes the situation perfectly. Shadow priest is absolutely amazing - if you place him into a WoW of 2004. In a WoW of 2016, where encounters require short bursting, quick autocleaving, mobility, burst selfhealing tied to dps abilities, and smart playing with defensive and offensive cooldowns, shadow priest looks like it lacks everything I listed. (also: no, pressing stm and burning through your keyboard is not a smart playing, smart playing is tying your short bursts to your trinket procs).

I really see no sense in comparing shadow priest to enhancement, because people who were remaking enh were doing it for realities of 2016 wow, not 2004.

Also, about orbs. I admit, I laughed. We're immobile as f**k, so let's make us move even more.

Guys... one question. Those who have been trying it... how is shadow priest atm in legion raid/dungeon wise? Are we gonna be crap like pandaria, or good like WOD?

We were crap in wod's dungeons, and will be even worse crap in Legion ones. We were somewhat good in raids in WoD, we will be somewhat good in raids in Legion. Like, you know. When you're a brilliant shadow priest player surrounded by mediocre players, you will be #1 always. When you're surrounded by people of same skill, you will be in the upper middle. Like it always happens when it comes to shadow priest.

[Greatpippon]

EDIT: big plus for the belt: he removes this awkwardness of skipping 1/4 MB cd for every VB in VF

This is the single most valuable thing (DPS aside) from an item I would hope for. I sooo hate this overlap, and really think this is a dumb design mistake. There are two viable options to correct this clunkiness acting on the CD in VF of both VB and MB:
1) VB at 2GCD and MB at 4GCD (bit hectic, more mobility); or
2) 3GCD for VB and 6GCD for MB (which means removing the CD reduction of MB in VF),
both needing tuning both in damage and insanity. I still have hope that this kind of changes (along with MSear giving no insanity but huge damage) can happen.

[RsinRC]

Such a huge wall of text, which could be replaced by one line: "Despite being "redesigned", we're still in 2004, while all other specs are in 2016". That describes the situation perfectly. Shadow priest is absolutely amazing - if you place him into a WoW of 2004. In a WoW of 2016, where encounters require short bursting, quick autocleaving, burst selfhealing tied to dps abilities, and smart playing with defensive and offensive cooldowns, shadow priest looks like it lacks everything I listed. (also: no, pressing stm and burning through your keyboard is not a smart playing, smart playing is tying your short bursts to your trinket procs).

I really see no sense in comparing shadow priest to enhancement, because people who were remaking enh were doing it for realities of 2016 wow, not 2004.

Also, about orbs. I admit, I laughed. We're immobile as f**k, so let's make us move even more.

You love to exaggerate your claims when we are nowhere near as bad as you really want to try and make us appear.

I literally, just now, dropped from my mount. We can go 30% - 100% in 4-5 globals (depending on crits) every 20 seconds when we get full mana. Not many specs apart from the overtuned ones can do that without long CD's.

Immobile? So you kill a target and you can't go to it's corpse? You can't kill a group of targets and walk over their corpses and instantly heal up and gain insanity and pull again? Inb4 you say we can't kill more than 2 mobs lol If you can't idk what to tell you.

- - - Updated - - -

On a side note, the SI fix is amazing. So much smoother now.

[Daedius]

Just me or is Sphere of Insanity just insanely underwhelming...? 5% of damage done is like, nothing. :|

[Theed]

You love to exaggerate your claims when we are nowhere near as bad as you really want to try and make us appear.

I literally, just now, dropped from my mount. We can go 30% - 100% in 4-5 globals (depending on crits) every 20 seconds when we get full mana. Not many specs apart from the overtuned ones can do that without long CD's.

Immobile? So you kill a target and you can't go to it's corpse? You can't kill a group of targets and walk over their corpses and instantly heal up and gain insanity and pull again? Inb4 you say we can't kill more than 2 mobs lol If you can't idk what to tell you.

- - - Updated - - -

On a side note, the SI fix is amazing. So much smoother now.

And we get 100-0 in 3 globals or 60-0 while in dispersion in 4-5 globals. #Balance

Especially physical heavy damage dealers like feral or WW are eating us. Had great trouble with feral in recent games.

[davesignal]

Plus unlocking the SI talent.
Yeah the belt should become the to go choice, since mastery will be over crit at higher haste level i'd guess that will be the to go choice for dungeons. 3 MB with 1 recharge rolling to 4 within 6 seconds are ~50 insanity. combined with constant multidot for the proccs of MB you will spend like no time out of VF.
Problematic is the long timespan of not dotting but casting MB. I think high crit AS builds will get insane *lol* amounts of insanity, too.

EDIT: big plus for the belt: he removes this awkwardness of skipping 1/4 MB cd for every VB in VF

I think people are sleeping on San'layn, which is becoming more and more powerful as VT (and by extension, our mastery) gets buffed and has high synergy with Mass Hysteria.

Granted, it lacks Insanity generation, but it's another multiplicative bonus to throw on the pile and those get increasingly nuts as the pile grows.

[l33t]

You love to exaggerate your claims when we are nowhere near as bad as you really want to try and make us appear.

I literally, just now, dropped from my mount. We can go 30% - 100% in 4-5 globals (depending on crits) every 20 seconds when we get full mana. Not many specs apart from the overtuned ones can do that without long CD's.

Immobile? So you kill a target and you can't go to it's corpse? You can't kill a group of targets and walk over their corpses and instantly heal up and gain insanity and pull again? Inb4 you say we can't kill more than 2 mobs lol If you can't idk what to tell you.

Lol, every other spec either heals passively while dealing damage, or heals on the move from instant procs, or just don't get tons of damage in the face. While as a shadow priest, you have to pause, selfroot, and spam healing not only inbetween mobs, but also during process of killing them.
/s aside, I believe some system of instant shadowmend procs would help, like, a fucking ton with that - like for example, every Blast casted gives a buff which decreases cast time of next shadowmend by 33%, stacking to 3.

Also you forget to add how we drop 100-30 in a couple of gcds as well. Speaking about exaggerating claims, eh? By the way, wasn't you going to reroll a couple of pages ago? I remember reading your tragic posts about how you played enh, warrior, rogue, dh and realised how bad shadow is. Now you're high on unlogical, not based on anything we can see in beta optimism again. What are you people smoking, I wonder.

[RsinRC]

And we get 100-0 in 3 globals or 60-0 while in dispersion in 4-5 globals. #Balance

Especially physical heavy damage dealers like feral or WW are eating us. Had great trouble with feral in recent games.

I've noticed he damage is getting tweaked and is making a difference. Played quite a few arenas, bg's and duels since the last patch and I haven't gotten globald as hard as I was in the last 2 weeks.

- - - Updated - - -

Lol, every other spec either heals passively while dealing damage, or heals on the move from instant procs, or just don't get tons of damage in the face. While as a shadow priest, you have to pause, selfroot, and spam healing not only inbetween mobs, but also during process of killing them.
/s aside, I believe some system of instant shadowmend procs would help, like, a fucking ton with that - like for example, every Blast casted gives a buff which decreases cast time of next shadowmend by 33%, stacking to 3.

Also you forget to add how we drop 100-30 in a couple of gcds as well. Speaking about exaggerating claims, eh? By the way, wasn't you going to reroll a couple of pages ago? I remember reading your tragic posts about how you played enh, warrior, rogue and realised how bad shadow is. Now you're optimistic again. What are you people smoking, I wonder.

Every other spec? Who? and those heals on the move have a cd attached to them. We do have to pause for the most part but with just 2 Vampiric touches up we get pretty tanky. I do still think we need a root/snare or stun for a burst line up.

I would love to have a chance for a free instant Shadowmend just to increase our mobility that much more.

It's getting better though. It was obviously overtuning and we knew that. Little by little it's getting better.

When I wrote those posts is was definitely talking about playstyle and how cool some specs look and play compared to us.

[l33t]

When I wrote those posts is was definitely talking about playstyle and how cool some specs look and play compared to us.

But that is exactly the problem: looks and gameplay. Exactly what I've said about 2004 and 2016...

[heinz0r]

Been playing mostly ptr, but in the last few days also on beta, and everything I feared is true. We are absolutely whack in pvp other than 3s with a perfect nanny comp that watches our ass.

Especially in bgs, we are the absolute worst caster by a wide margin. Yeah, we can spam some instant damage when theres no pressure on us and the other team sucks, but when you actually have to work to get kills and stay alive, there is nothing you can do other than stand in a puddle of melees trying to get a cast off while eating 5 interrupts one after the other. Even ele shamans are in a better spot now, and they used to be the punching bags for everyone in wod.

Almost every other caster class has at least some tools to get away from a total melee train (until they eventually catch up with the gap closers), yet for some reason we are the only ones with nothing, ABSOLUTELY nothing. Yeah so we can try to fear or bomb and then walk away at crawl speed. That will work nicely in a game where we will see 60/70% melee classes in bgs.

I am so sick and tired of this... might be time to main the mage again this time around.

[bladeson]

Dunno if this has been posted before, but Xal'atath whispers are some of the coolest things added to the class.

If you defeat Odyn on Heroic Halls of Valor (the difficulty might not matter), the dagger might whisper this:



You can go ahead and ask Odyn:



He'll then reply:



After which you'll be promptly insta-killed by his Spear of Light ability

[RsinRC]

But that is exactly the problem: looks and gameplay. Exactly what I've said about 2004 and 2016...

Ok, but with that being said we still function and work in Legion with what we have.

- - - Updated - - -

Been playing mostly ptr, but in the last few days also on beta, and everything I feared is true. We are absolutely whack in pvp other than 3s with a perfect nanny comp that watches our ass.

Especially in bgs, we are the absolute worst caster by a wide margin. Yeah, we can spam some instant damage when theres no pressure on us and the other team sucks, but when you actually have to work to get kills and stay alive, there is nothing you can do other than stand in a puddle of melees trying to get a cast off while eating 5 interrupts one after the other. Even ele shamans are in a better spot now, and they used to be the punching bags for everyone in wod.

Almost every other caster class has at least some tools to get away from a total melee train (until they eventually catch up with the gap closers), yet for some reason we are the only ones with nothing, ABSOLUTELY nothing. Yeah so we can try to fear or bomb and then walk away at crawl speed. That will work nicely in a game where we will see 60/70% melee classes in bgs.

I am so sick and tired of this... might be time to main the mage again this time around.

In the ptr I blame the lack of a gap opener and dispersion being at 60% baseline. It gets better at 110 but an extra gap opener would be clutch.

- - - Updated - - -

In duels and 2's Masochism and San'layn talents help dramatically.

[Gorsameth]

Dunno if this has been posted before, but Xal'atath whispers are some of the coolest things added to the class.

If you defeat Odyn on Heroic Halls of Valor (the difficulty might not matter), the dagger might whisper this:


You can go ahead and ask Odyn:


He'll then reply:


After which you'll be promptly insta-killed by his Spear of Light ability

Its a nice flavor thing.
Tobad other specs/classes got actual combat benefits instead

[Isentropy]

I think people are sleeping on San'layn, which is becoming more and more powerful as VT (and by extension, our mastery) gets buffed and has high synergy with Mass Hysteria.

Granted, it lacks Insanity generation, but it's another multiplicative bonus to throw on the pile and those get increasingly nuts as the pile grows.

You really can't underestimate the Insanity that AS gives you on multiple targets. At this point, San'layn is probably a bit of a better choice on pure single target, but once there's multiple targets AS starts pulling ahead again. Mastery is still a bit too niche of a stat to warrant gearing for it during progress, crit is far more versatile.

Bear in mind that when multidotting, you typically don't have the globals to cast both of your dots because 1) adds will die too quickly or 2) there's too many targets. When picking San'layn, you're basically forcing yourself into using VT as your preferred dot, but that might not always be the most efficient because SW:P does its damage quicker and over a shorter period of time. Not relevant on every fight, but certainly a consideration. AS is almost never a bad choice and scales exceptionally well with more targets, San'layn doesn't always do so. It's not a bad choice in dungeons or when leveling/doing world quests, and is probably a solid choice for PvP as well - for raids though? I don't see it getting close to AS on most fights. Early sims are corroborating this.

[davesignal]

SW:P does its damage quicker and over a shorter period of time.

This sticks out to me. Like, what? Vampiric Touch is higher DPS than SW:P. 14 seconds of VT does more damage than 14 seconds of SW:P. Baseline VT does 29% of SP per second, SW:P does 22.5% (excluding the instant burst, ~25% with it). Auspicious Spirits and a lot of crit will bump that up a bit, but San'layn with mastery bumps up VT (and SW:P) a lot.

In terms of raw damage for multidot, mastery/San'layn should be very strong. The only thing AS has going for it is the 4 insanity pops from AS. I think that's a fair trade for actually knowing your spells will pull through when you want to instead of having to roll the dice on your 30% crit chance and praying you get lucky enough to make your shit work.

There's a reason crit-based specs all have a bunch of passives and mechanics to prop up their critical strike chance..

[Ryeshot]

Gotta remember about DPET. Since SW:P has initial damage and ticks quick and is an instant cast, it takes x more seconds for VT to be active on the target for it to do more damage than SW:P. Yes, San'layn definitely reduces this threshold, but SW:P may still be better for multi-dotting. I'll do the math rq then post back here.

[l33t]

Ok, but with that being said we still function and work in Legion with what we have.

Yes. Like, you know, a carriage with horses still can serve as a transportation vehicle; but a car, a train or a plane does it next level better.

After which you'll be promptly insta-killed by his Spear of Light ability

The fuck is with this flavor-killing of shadow priest? I wonder, maybe devs are dropping some secret hints for us or something? /s

While I, definitely, like the speaking artifact, I would greatly prefer it to not be a dagger, and have much better traits.

[Isentropy]

This sticks out to me. Like, what? Vampiric Touch is higher DPS than SW:P. 14 seconds of VT does more damage than 14 seconds of SW:P. Baseline VT does 29% of SP per second, SW:P does 22.5% (excluding the instant burst, ~25% with it). Auspicious Spirits and a lot of crit will bump that up a bit, but San'layn with mastery bumps up VT (and SW:P) a lot.

In terms of raw damage for multidot, mastery/San'layn should be very strong. The only thing AS has going for it is the 4 insanity pops from AS. I think that's a fair trade for actually knowing your spells will pull through when you want to instead of having to roll the dice on your 30% crit chance and praying you get lucky enough to make your shit work.

There's a reason crit-based specs all have a bunch of passives and mechanics to prop up their critical strike chance..

If there's 4 add spawns that live for 20 seconds, there's not a lot of point in putting VT on them. In that situation, SW:P is the more efficient dot to use because it ensures that all of the mobs will take the full damage of the dot, with VT you won't have that guarantee for all mobs. Not to mention that it's possible that one or more adds die a lot quicker than some others. If you think of the Dragons of Nightmare, there's a bunch of little adds that spawn at times. No point in putting VT on those. On Il'gynoth, there's a lot of targets at all times, with a couple of adds that die quite quickly. The amount of Insanity income you get from that through AS is massive, and the argument that it's RNG becomes bollocks at that point. You could see this happen in WoD with AS as well.

The Insanity isn't even 'the only thing' AS has going for it. On heavy multidot fights (Tichondrius comes to mind) the Shadowy Apparitions damage is really nothing to scoff at either. That alone almost beats out what San'layn can do, ignoring the fact that devoting globals to putting up both dots on the bloods is probably a waste unless your intention is to pad. Again coming back to the argument that San'layn forces you to use Vampiric Touch as your main dot.

Mastery bumps up the damage of VT and SW:P by a lot, but so does crit, and crit affects all of our damage sources as well. Just because you take San'layn doesn't mean that will push up mastery enough to overtake crit - as I said, mastery is a stat that won't work well in all scenarios and as adds die quicker, the value of mastery will drop real fast because of how much the stat relies on your dots actually being able to do damage.

[davesignal]

If there's 4 add spawns that live for 20 seconds, there's not a lot of point in putting VT on them. In that situation, SW:P is the more efficient dot to use because it ensures that all of the mobs will take the full damage of the dot, with VT you won't have that guarantee for all mobs.

Again: what? Literally the only thing that matters is the DPS of the dot.

It doesn't matter that SW:P is 14 seconds and VT is 18. If VT's DPS is higher then it will do more damage in 14 seconds than SW:P will do in 14, barring an extremely small set of edge cases relating to your level of haste.

Edit: I know there's more to your post, but I operate on a "stop and reply as soon as I get to a point that makes me do a double take" policy.

[Ryeshot]

This is assuming full artifact traits, 20% mastery (0 mastery rating). Haste does not affect this, since the change in ticks is relative to the spells.

Without San'layn:

6 ticks of SW:P (12 seconds) = 45 * 7 * 1.2 * 1.18 = 446.04% sp
4 ticks of VT (12 seconds) = 87 * 4 * 1.2 * 1.15 = 480.24% sp

With San'layn:

3 ticks of SW:P (6 seconds) = 45 * 4 * 1.2 * 1.18 = 255.88% sp
2 ticks of VT (6 seconds) = 288.14% sp

Conclusion:

Without San'layn, a target needs to be alive for 4 ticks of VT (12 seconds at 0 haste) in order for it to be more DPET than SW:P for the same time frame. With San'layn, a target needs to be alive for 2 ticks of VT (6 seconds at 0 haste) in order for it to be more DPET than SW:P. Note this is not including the throughput of AS when San'layn isn't taking, and is assuming 20% mastery (0 rating).