[7.2] Legion Shadow Priest Guide and Discussion

[Deleted]

If you receive the legendary shoulders or head that are available for shadow priests the chances are that you will only have the 2pc and 4pc bonuses from one set. The tier sets have 6 available items to account for legendaries. Not to mix multiple sets.

At least that's my take on it. And I think you meant T19 2set Ryeshot

[Alexieel]

If you receive the legendary shoulders or head that are available for shadow priests the chances are that you will only have the 2pc and 4pc bonuses from one set. The tier sets have 6 available items to account for legendaries. Not to mix multiple sets.

At least that's my take on it. And I think you meant T19 2set Ryeshot

Well the Head doenst provide any DPSgain iirc

About the 2+2+4 or 2+4 discussion:
It depends if you mean the effect two 2set effect and one 4set effect(2setbonus+2setbonus+4setbonus), or if you mean to wear 2pc of the one, and 4pc of the other set

[Ilir]

Are we really going to talk about what "two 2set and one 4set" mean ? u.u
While it may sound weird, I guess after a little guess you could end up with the conclusion that he meant "2 pieces of t19 and 4 pieces of t20"

Anywaaaay. I hope they don't make the future set bonuses shit just because of this. I'd rather they nerf the previous ones or something. But I guess what they could do to somewhat prevent us from doing the 2+4 is : make the future set have a 2p, 4p and a 6p or a 3p and a 6p. You know what I mean ^^

[Deleted]

They will make it so that the ilvl different alone is enough to not use a set bonus. And if you get the legendary shoulders you won't be able to have 2pc and a 2pc/4pc active. It's simple enough to ensure that it's not a thing that will be done.

[Deleted]

Apologies for changing the subject for a minute here, but I've just ran soe more tests on the current state of Surrender to Madness, and I'm incredibly sceptical about the future of this talent once more.

I've compared myself via Beta and via pre-patch:

Pre-Patch: Item Level 746, 30% Base Haste, 28% Critical Strike

Beta: Item Level 851, 22% Base Haste, 20% Critical Strike


With the T18 4-Set bonus, I BARELY managed to get to 100 stacksof Voidform, (got to 104,55 Seconds of active Voidform) before dropping out - therefore dying.

Before the StM nerf of last week (or this week...the most current nerfs), I was able to get to around 150 to 190 Seconds of Voidform, depending on whatever factors I took into consideration. But let's use around 170 seconds as a base line for now - as that was in the realms of possibility.

On the Beta, I managed to get to around 103 seconds of active voidform (this was also displayed in my Shadow Priest Guide), but am now only able to get to 86(!!) stacks before death. I didn't realize how huge this nerf truly is, and I really think this bottlenecks our damage drastically. 150% increased insanity generation is not enough in my opinion to grant fair - somewhat forgiving - yet highly skill-dependent gameplay.

With this nerf, my FINAL DRAIN, right before death, was at 58.0 Insanity drain/second, or to simplify it, at 99 "drain" stacks. Keep in mind that I managed to get to 105 stacks (or seconds) of active voidform, but with our drain already forcing us out of VF waayyyy too fast for high haste stacks to regenerate the competing insanity, I really think this needs to be buffed again. 200% insanity generation was perhaps a bit high - I won't disagree, but why not bring it down to 180%? a flat 50% reduction is incredibly harsh.

Input appreciated!

[Kis]

Input appreciated!

I don't mean to offend you, but with more gear and later gearlevels, set boni etc... in mind, also taking into consideration what many shadow priests say on the H2P discord: 150% is still too much. You can under ideal circumstances still time the debuff out. This shouldn't be OK be with that low itemlevel.

I'd even go as far as to say it is necessary for a proper gear equals power progress to nerf S2M even further. Maybe 100% could be a good baseline.
You will reach stupid levels of insanity generation with enough crit and T19 setbonuses.

Of course our lackluster shitty other 100 talents still need to be buffed or replaced as well. But that doesn't make the S2M problem go away.

I'd recommend something like "X% more Void Form damage bonus" for Legacy of the Void - and for "Mind Spike" to be remade into "Mind Screech" - a Supernova like ability that damages a primary target for 100% more and does AoE Damage on a short CD (like 6-10 seconds).

[britishbubba]

Do the "ideal circumstances" for STM even exist in any raid encounter? To my understanding the requirements imposed on a fight's mechanics to allow you to reach the three minute cap at 150% are so stringent that isn't something that should even be balanced around.

As for stupid levels of insanity generation with crit and t19 bonuses... we're losing our current 2pc which is high levels of generation, and while the t19 2pc is really strong (I imagine we'll wear it for the entire expansion with the addition of 6 tier slots) I don't see how one insanity a DoT tick is going to be a large enough difference compared to t18 2pc giving you almost permanent uptime on a mindbender giving 4 insanity an attack.

LoTV should have just had void lord rolled into it and void lord should have been replaced by something else.

[Ilir]

LoTV should have just had void lord rolled into it and void lord should have been replaced by something else.

THIS OMG.dfsf

[Deleted]

http://www.wowhead.com/item=132409/a...les&bonus=1811 Wrist
http://www.wowhead.com/item=133973/t...uch&bonus=1811 Ring
http://www.wowhead.com/item=132864/m...ess&bonus=1811 Waist
http://www.wowhead.com/item=132437/m...ion&bonus=1811 Shoulder

So 3/4 of the DPS increasing Legendarys (I guess the head which increases healing done from VE during VF wont be used in raids) arent on a Setitem slot.
And you have the chance to get the boots - also not on Setitem slots.

But yeah, the statsloss is pretty hight, aroung 2k int if you take both slots :/ Still, the insanity regeneration of nearly perma Mindbender could be worth it..
/edit and it also increases the uptime of the mindbender by more then 100%, so that alone is a xx% dps increase ...

The head is still a DPS increase because of the stats assigned to it. And like I said several times: If people are using it, Blizzard will disable it. They already disabled legacy tier bonuses for timewalking, they will definitely disable T18 bonuses so we can't cheese 2pc.

As for stupid levels of insanity generation with crit and t19 bonuses... we're losing our current 2pc which is high levels of generation, and while the t19 2pc is really strong (I imagine we'll wear it for the entire expansion with the addition of 6 tier slots) I don't see how one insanity a DoT tick is going to be a large enough difference compared to t18 2pc giving you almost permanent uptime on a mindbender giving 4 insanity an attack.

We won't be wearing our T19 2pc bonus for the whole expansion. The sets have 6 pieces to allow people to still wear 4pc tier bonuses and have a few legendaries covering slots: primarily the shoulders, potentially the head. It has good stats. Blizzard's design intention is not going to be us wearing 2pc T19 for the whole expansion. Let's just end this discussion right now.

LoTV should have just had void lord rolled into it and void lord should have been replaced by something else.

This I can agree with.

[britishbubba]

The head is still a DPS increase because of the stats assigned to it.

We won't be wearing our T19 2pc bonus for the whole expansion. The sets have 6 pieces to allow people to still wear 4pc tier bonuses and have a few legendaries covering slots: primarily the shoulders, potentially the head. It has good stats.

Blizzard's design intention is not going to be us wearing 2pc T19 for the whole expansion. Let's just end this discussion right now.

I mean, if the t19 2pc ends up being a larger gain than wearing legendaries in those slots then we will wear it over that. Currently two of our better legendaries don't even take up tier slots. It hinges heavily on the legendaries they said they're adding in future patches.

[Deleted]

I mean, if the t19 2pc ends up being a larger gain than wearing legendaries in those slots then we will wear it over that. Currently two of our better legendaries don't even take up tier slots. It hinges heavily on the legendaries they said they're adding in future patches.

It does indeed. However, by then, we will be well past the T19 bonuses. We will be into T20/T21.

I also keep forgetting that the belt is good, because of the Mind Blast charges. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

[Gorsameth]

I mean, if the t19 2pc ends up being a larger gain than wearing legendaries in those slots then we will wear it over that. Currently two of our better legendaries don't even take up tier slots. It hinges heavily on the legendaries they said they're adding in future patches.

If using t19 is optimal in t20 I could very well see Blizzard deal with it considering their stance on 'legacy' set bonuses.

I wouldn't worry about it until we actually get to t20 and see the math there.

[Deleted]

I don't mean to offend you, but with more gear and later gearlevels, set boni etc... in mind, also taking into consideration what many shadow priests say on the H2P discord: 150% is still too much. You can under ideal circumstances still time the debuff out. This shouldn't be OK be with that low itemlevel.

I'd even go as far as to say it is necessary for a proper gear equals power progress to nerf S2M even further. Maybe 100% could be a good baseline.
You will reach stupid levels of insanity generation with enough crit and T19 setbonuses.

Of course our lackluster shitty other 100 talents still need to be buffed or replaced as well. But that doesn't make the S2M problem go away.

I'd recommend something like "X% more Void Form damage bonus" for Legacy of the Void - and for "Mind Spike" to be remade into "Mind Screech" - a Supernova like ability that damages a primary target for 100% more and does AoE Damage on a short CD (like 6-10 seconds).

No offense taken chap, input is what I wanted

And after discussing this on the Discord, and after running more tests, this time in actually raid/dungeon environments, I do agree with you. 150% can still be a lot, especially once gear comes rolling in.

[Ilir]

what's the shadow discord ?

[Kaesebrezen]

I'd even go as far as to say it is necessary for a proper gear equals power progress to nerf S2M even further. Maybe 100% could be a good baseline. You will reach stupid levels of insanity generation with enough crit and T19 setbonuses.

Or you know, you could actually fix stuff properly, and not take the cheap route out?

StM shouldn't multiply AS Insanity generation.
ToF could actually use some balanced competitors on it's tier. Like for example: Place ToF next to AS - now you get to choose a 20% multiplier for StM OR longer duration.
Nerf the probably too strong setbonus.
Mass Hysteria still needs to be capped for StM.

Still, that LotV and the garbage talent next to it don't provide any DPS increase also is a pretty big problem.

Or even better - since i doubt StM will ever be balanced - just redesign it and save us the trouble of dumb and cheap nerf after nerf.

[Ryeshot]

I'd even go as far as to say it is necessary for a proper gear equals power progress to nerf S2M even further. Maybe 100% could be a good baseline.
You will reach stupid levels of insanity generation with enough crit and T19 setbonuses.

I'm curious why people think shadow scales so well. It does not scale "stupidly" with crit because crit's rate is dependent on haste which hits a ceiling at 100 stacks. This makes crit's insanity generation linear, whereas haste rating scales quadratically. The T19 2set also has the same issue: it is completely dependent on haste. This means that with the nerf we hit the point faster where quadratic scaling of insanity generation stops and only linear generation continues to scale.

- - - Updated - - -

Even though haste scales quadratically, because of the global alignments at 100 stacks, we no longer gain full benefit from it so it gets massively devalued any rating past that point. Mathematically this haste is 50%, but because of latency and input lag, it will be lower. My findings before the nerf were haste started getting massively devalued past 25%, but it might be different because our IPS at max stacks is different.

- - - Updated - - -

I gotta ask, since the cooldown reduction of skills through haste - a major benefit of it - is asymptotic, does this mean that haste is devalued exactly when the net insanity gain of our cycle while waiting for Void Bolt is greater than the net insanity gain when we cast our 2tick Mind Flay in between our first and second bolts?

Visual representation of Void Bolt Cooldown Reduction Based on Haste Levels if you do not believe me.

[Zephirdd]

Man lately i've been exeriementing with San'layn, Shadow Crash and Void Lord(along with ToF and LotV) on mythic dungeons.

So, San'layn being in the same talent tier as Auspicious Spirits and Shadowy insight means that taking it inherently changes which dot is your priority; with AS/SI, pain is obviously better but with San'layn you'll want to use vamp touch. That's pretty obvious.

What isnt obvious, however, is that VT has a longer duration which means you can cast it on more mobs before they fall off. Along with that, Void Eruption actually deals damage to all dotted targets. With shadow crash, you get a crap load of AoE which is very useful when mobs die so fast, and with void Lord you get a lot of value from getting in and out of void form asap, which is useful since you'll probably drop VF when moving between packs. Lotv also has a great synergy with the in-and-out of vf rotation. Been pulling some pretty good numbers on Draenor mythic although I'm interested in how good this will be on Legion - especially at lower keystone levels where mobs die quickly. Feels like it's a great build for this type of content; I was feeling bad with the cookie cutter AS build since spirits take so long to walk to mobs, and insight looks more like a cleave talent than a pure AoE one. any experiences on that regard?

[Menae]

I'm curious why people think shadow scales so well. It does not scale "stupidly" with crit because crit's rate is dependent on haste which hits a ceiling at 100 stacks. This makes crit's insanity generation linear, whereas haste rating scales quadratically. The T19 2set also has the same issue: it is completely dependent on haste. This means that with the nerf we hit the point faster where quadratic scaling of insanity generation stops and only linear generation continues to scale.

I am confused by your assertion that crit doesn't scale well. It's true that it stops increasing in value as you get haste capped, but... so? If a Fire Mage had a mechanic that gave them 100% haste, crit would still be good for them, because it helps them generate resources (heating up procs). Similarly, crit helps shadows generate resources via Shadow Apparitions and Auspicious Spirits generating insanity. It's not the best stat ever created, but it's more than just a straight damage boost.

I also question your assertion that the StM nerf makes shadow hit the point where haste drops off sooner. If anything, a nerfed StM makes it harder to reach the number of stacks needed to hit that level of haste and reduces your life expectancy when you do reach that level, meaning you need more base haste on gear to hit that point where exponential scaling turns linear.

[Dawnrage]

I see a lot of people saying it's possible to time the debuff out now "under special circumstances", but what exactly are those? I have hopped on beta and tried S2M a bunch after the nerf, and I can barely make it to 2 minutes without dying, and that's with having SW: D available the entire time. What do you need to be able to sustain a S2M to 3 minutes?

[Deleted]

I think those people managing to get past 3 mins are on the 3 target dummies in the class order hall. Therefore no travel time on Void Bolt.

Void Bolt really should generate insanity on cast, not on landing.