[7.2] Legion Shadow Priest Guide and Discussion

[Deleted]

What simulator are you guys using to look at numbers? Beta Simulation craft? Or the AskMrRobot beta?

Mages have always been Blizzard's favourite class it seems. It's pretty sad though that they are so high, and shadow is being hit with nerfs and unoriginal talents.

[Sarkol]

This isn't relevant to anything, it's pointless obfuscation that sounds impressive but is utterly devoid of meaning without the context of the class.

Yes, it's the strongest DPS CD in the game.. on a spec that is one of the weakest in the game at their baseline. Consider what it means to give a class the 'strongest DPS CD in the game'.. and yet still have them be on par with other specializations, who don't have access to it.

I seem to remember Isentropy saying Spriests are perfectly viable without STM, so which is it? Weakest in the game? Give over.

[Ryeshot]

Does anyone know the new damage gain MH gives over an average StM with this change?

[davesignal]

I seem to remember Isentropy saying Spriests are perfectly viable without STM, so which is it? Weakest in the game? Give over.

Isentropy's word is not law. The gulf between STM and Legacy is vast. 'Viable' can mean anything from 'within 5% of the top' to 'well, you're ahead of the tanks, so whatever'.

[Deleted]

I think this comment from the beta forums says a lot:

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/t...e=52#post-1026

Not a comment from a shadow priest, however he makes a good point about the scaling.

[Sarkol]

Isentropy's word is not law. The gulf between STM and Legacy is vast. 'Viable' can mean anything from 'within 5% of the top' to 'well, you're ahead of the tanks, so whatever'.

It's not law, but he seems to be one of the most level headed, non ragey people on this forum, who actually looks at things objectively, instead of throwing around Hyperpolic statements.

[Palaryel]

So what? Where are the other choices. I don't care that it got nerfed. Where is the compensation for the other skills. Everyone saw this nerf coming from a mile away, but the most they've done to fix anything with us is just by nerfing us for the past couple of tuning passes and not compensated other talents in that row at all. It being the best DPS CD in the game is moot for me.

True that. Adjusting StM isn't a big issue, but doing so while leaving LotV and Mind Spike as they were is what makes this a big issue. They should have done something like tune StM down and at least boost LotV to give 10% more dmg inside Voidform on top of the base increase. I won't even bother thinking about possible a Mind Spike change since the retard that came up with it in its current iteration obviously has the final word in that matter (and possibly in all SPriest related matters).
Also, another thing that is really setting me off is blizzards complete lack of interaction with the user base (at least regarding class feedback and tuning) , but I guess I got spoiled to much by how CCP does it with the EVE community.

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

[Rainingblue]

It's always such a delusion to see your favorite class being nerfed right after having great results with it.
I don't know how powerful will be StM with artifact because i didn't have chance to play legion beta, but i hope we won't be again the same mediocre class of every single expansion.
I'm seriously considering to start playing mage, really really tired of this.

Sorry for my terrible english.

[Dawnrage]

Seems like 2 minutes is the best I can do now with StM (maybe give or take a couple more seconds).

Anyone know what it looks like on the beta? Does artifact/shorter dispersion > near constant uptime of mindbender for stm stacks?

[Rainingblue]

Ok, now that i swallowed all the rage i got from this news, could anyone report any feedbacks from dps with change? Is Shadow still a good class for raiding environment?

[Kilee25]

I'm so glad we all learned the word "hyperbolic" so that we can throw it at any poster whose opinion we want to ignore...

Anywho some random thoughts from the past few pages...

I agree with the bliz thread that was linked that this issue is primarily about synergy and stacking benefits. StM seems very well-thought-out. The other talents feel like placeholders or afterthoughts. They seem so lacking in compelling gameplay compared to StM that it's difficult to not take it personally. StM feels forced upon us, as do many of the other talents, such as AS.

People keep asking where sims are coming from. Most of the newest info is coming from Twntop over at H2P, but rather than the website most of the info is in Discord, or perhaps the paywall section of the site (I am not entirely sure as I can't read everything due to limited free time). The last batch of sims I looked at showed basically one talent in each row blowing the others completely out of the water. The play style and stat weights are looking almost identical to WoD BRF + AS time period. So basically hope you like that playstyle and gear setup because priest has been designed with that in mind from the ground up.

Imo the reason no other talents seem fleshed out is because nobody at the top level of feedback at Bliz cares about anything else except mythic world first raiding. Anything off from that is basically unimportant.

Don't expect the other talents to be fixed. We went all of WoD with Void Entropy never being fixed. And it absolutely could have been with minimal changes. Start looking at this game from the perspective of the most elitist player you know and the design choices will start making perfect sense. Every time you see a change, or a lack of change, just ask yourself, "How does this affect mythic raiders and do they care about my problems?" You don't need an interview with Bliz to know what is happening internally, seriously.

Well there's my hyperbolic response for today. Later!

[Slammin Shaman]

Really this is probably my fault. I just switched over to shadow after playing Ele Shaman for the last few expansions.

[Sxq]

Just did a full clear of mythic and the nerf doesn't feel that bad, although kind of expected since we kill most things quick enough that I can pop it on pull. Beat a bunch of my previous best pre-patch parses. Lived for 90-120 seconds with each StM - I think generally with good play you should still live to 120 seconds or so most of the time as long as you can take advantage of RoS.

I fully expect later in the expansion that we'll be able to catch up to the 2.5-3 min void forms that we could do before.

[Ryeshot]

I fully expect later in the expansion that we'll be able to catch up to the 2.5-3 min void forms that we could do before.

This won't be the case. There is a point where any amount of insanity gain is not able to compete with the insanity loss, and the nerf to StM makes it so we hit a net insanity gain of 0 and less way quicker. Any amount of haste past 150% in VF is pretty much devalued since there is a negligible change in VF cycle time any haste past that. The only way we can now achieve same duration StM with the same amount of haste as before, is to stack crit. And there is a point where even the amount of crits we have do not make a net insanity gain > 0.

[Deleted]

This won't be the case. There is a point where any amount of insanity gain is not able to compete with the insanity loss, and the nerf to StM makes it so we hit a net insanity gain of 0 and less way quicker. Any amount of haste past 150% in VF is pretty much devalued since there is a negligible change in VF cycle time any haste past that. The only way we can now achieve same duration StM with the same amount of haste as before, is to stack crit. And there is a point where even the amount of crits we have do not make a net insanity gain > 0.

Void torrent and dispersion (which we can use more frequenly in legion) pauses the insanity drain increase while they are up. We also gain spirits from 45% of VT crits and 1 insanity PER TICK of our dots with nighthold 2p. If they didnt nerf stm it would be rediculously easily to time the buff out.

[Deleted]

Quick question about Surrender to Madness: Does the CD reset when you kill a boss?

Also, when not using Surrender to Madness, it'd just better to pop into Void format at 85 insanity with Legacy of the Void? I assume that's a bigger DPS increase than the minimal damage from Mind Spike? Talking single target here.

[Kretan]

I think the nerf was probably more due to future scaling issues than anything....we already already blowing past the insanity cap......and we aren't even in the first tier lol. I'd be really concerned if it were nerfed to be only able to last like 80 stacks.

[Ryeshot]

StM resets when you kill a boss or wipe.
LotV is best used ~85 insanity, depending on how many apparitions are out.

We also gain spirits from 45% of VT crits and 1 insanity PER TICK of our dots with nighthold 2p. If they didnt nerf stm it would be rediculously easily to time the buff out.

I forgot about our 2pc for T19. I agree with that only we might be able to game the timer, but VT isn't as large a source of apparitions as people think. With 3/3 UtS, assuming equal crits with SWP and VT you get a ratio of 4.5:1 for apparition spawn.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the nerf was probably more due to future scaling issues than anything....we already already blowing past the insanity cap......and we aren't even in the first tier lol. I'd be really concerned if it were nerfed to be only able to last like 80 stacks.

The main issue I have is we were already reaching the point where haste no longer increased our IPS by reducing our cycle time. This is the point where we stagnate and abilities like VTor, Disp, MBend, and SWD help keep us afloat. In order to reach that point again we need to stack crit, since apparitions are the only insanity generations not solely affected by haste. I'm not sure what crit levels would enable us to last super long, but the nerf forces us to use AS even on shorter surrenders, and increases the value of UtS even more than it was before.

[davesignal]

It'd be nice if mastery increased Insanity generation, like the original design Blizzard showed us.

[davesignal]

What do you think of it being half a half? half the value going towards generation and half going to the increased damage?

I don't think it even needs to be that much. I think a nominal amount would actually go a long way.