[7.2] Legion Shadow Priest Guide and Discussion

[Apero]

They nerfed the 2pc so they can make mindsear baseline spread sw: p without making the 2pc to strong for aoe. (where is my kappa emote? )

[Deleted]

The issue is that StM and MH are strong only over a relatively long duration, short to mid term they do very little, hence we suffer on short to mid duration fights.

They should buff voidform stack bonus and MH bonus, while reducing maximum voidform uptime and ramp up time. Which means to turn our dps to a series of short burst and downtime phases, instead of long ramp up phases as it is atm.

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Naw the whole mechanic about trying to stay in Voidform as long as possible is pretty much the most fun and engaging class rotation in the game imo.

They should however allow to start with full insanity. Make insanity generate passively like Energy and make Voidform cast instant. Also StM should not kill you if combat ends before insanity is depleted.

[Deleted]

Can I find somewhere a BiS list with Emerald Nightmare in mind?

EDIT: So I made this list myself, what do you guys think?

Head: Hood of Darkened Visions (Xavius)
Neck: Blackened Portalstone Necklace (Xavius)
Shoulder: Mantle of Perpetual Bloom (Cenarius)
Back: Evergreen Vinewrap Drape (Cenarius)
Chest: Dreamscale Inlaid Vestments (Dragons)
Wrist: Cinch of Cosmic Insignificance (Il'gynoth)
Gloves: Handwraps of Delusional Power (Dragons)
Waist: Pliable Spider Silk Cinch (Elerethe)
Legs: Ragged Horrorweave Leggins (Elerethe)
Feet: Cozy Dryad Hoof-Socks (Cenarius)
Rings: Twice-Warped Azsharan Signet (Xavius)
Dreadful Cyclopean Signet (Il'gynoth)
Trinkets: Unstable Horrorslime (Dragons)
Swarming Plaguehive (Nythendra)

I sacrificed a haste+mastery item for one with crit+mastery, because the amount of haste was really low (something like 200) and the crit one has something like 800 crit, which I think is a fine tradeoff.

[britishbubba]

The problem with that bis list is that due to titanforging, it's not unrealistic that lots of our BiS items in a non tier set raid are going to come from mythic dungeons.

[Deleted]

The problem with that bis list is that due to titanforging, it's not unrealistic that lots of our BiS items in a non tier set raid are going to come from mythic dungeons.

Right, I get what you mean.

It's probably to better call it a gear list for Emerald Nightmare, instead of a BiS list.

[Djriff]

Right, I get what you mean.

It's probably to better call it a gear list for Emerald Nightmare, instead of a BiS list.

Agreed. I'm putting one together based off twintops stat weights and putting it in the wowhead guide.

Pawn string trumps all though.

[Ilir]

whelp so they won't do balance changes. Well they will nerf DH and WW aoe burst.

they want to "wait for more data"

[Deleted]

Agreed. I'm putting one together based off twintops stat weights and putting it in the wowhead guide.

Are these stat weights the ones you posted a few pages ago? I'm just asking because I'm kind of new around here, just getting up to date right now.

[Djriff]

Are these stat weights the ones you posted a few pages ago? I'm just asking because I'm kind of new around here, just getting up to date right now.

Yes. It's for combined atm but I plan on doing the stm and lotv stay weights separately.

Ive been double checking stay weights across a few different sets of gear and I have mastery currently weighing a lot less than now and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. I need to do more tests until I have something concrete.

[Deleted]

With the current state of shadow I really don't see the use of a combined BiS list, or even having a set stat weight for each t90 talent. Of course I might be totally wrong(theory crafting just done in my head while at work).

But it seems we are using S2M on 90% of the bosses, and the only thing that changes stat weights is how many targets we will have to dps. With crit increasing in value the more targets there are.

If I were looking to build 2 sets I would run sims for S2M/PI/AS/RoS/ToF on patchwerk, and then again on 3 target council.

(DI > AS on 1 target if you have belt prolly applies too)

[Kilee25]

For raiding, I agree. You might see a few other scenarios occasionally, but you don't gear for the exceptions - you gear for what you want to do best.

[Nycros]

So has it already been mentioned that Blizz went 180 on their "classes shouldn't have resources at start of pull" "we're ok with ramp up time" comments?

Oh noes, our warlock overlords have to get soulshards before they can DPS at maximum effectiveness! Let's give them soul shards out of combat... What's that? Shadow? I don't know that spec... they probably don't need resources to do damage though.

[Relapses]

After reading Watcher's comments:

The cynic in me believes they'll buff our AE and nerf our ST.

The optimist in me believes they'll buff our AE and leave our ST alone.

The realist in me believes they'll do nothing.

[Kilee25]

After reading Watcher's comments:

The cynic in me believes they'll buff our AE and nerf our ST.

The optimist in me believes they'll buff our AE and leave our ST alone.

The realist in me believes they'll do nothing.

It's hard to read that post and not get the impression they are talking almost directly to shadowpriests.

[l33t]

After reading Watcher's comments:

The cynic in me believes they'll buff our AE and nerf our ST.

The optimist in me believes they'll buff our AE and leave our ST alone.

The realist in me believes they'll do nothing.

That's not being realist. Being realist is knowing that they will nerf our ST to oblivion, while not touching aoe.

Wait till you see the tier set changes. You'll be happy (not).

[Deleted]

It's hard to read that post and not get the impression they are talking almost directly to shadowpriests.

You're talking about that part, right?:

But in a couple of weeks, when we talk about balance, major considerations ...

l33t probably got it right. They're not touching AOE and we'll probably be nerfed on ST. Even the T19 two piece bonus was already changed to be weaker.

[Kilee25]

I know people have short memories, and are jaded at this point... But we had awful ae at the start of WoD too. It went most of the Highmaul like that - people were very angry about it. There were lots of people on both sides of the fence, many were justifying the weak ae by saying priority target damage was all that mattered. "Other classes kill trash, but priests kill bosses." If I had a dime every time somebody threw that quote in my face and then links a WoL damage meter with priests #1 for damage done to boss target.

Our AE finally got buffed via Searing Insanity at some point and everyone was like "Oh god finally, that was awful not having AE."

My point is...

1. Well we seem to have a bit of a bi-polar history when it comes to what we "want", but I think priests throughout WoD were viewed primarily as boss finishers, and people seemed to really like and enjoy that niche.

2. Bliz finally buffed our AE, they have a history of starting every expac with bad AE then buffing it shortly after to adjust for balance.

I believe both are true. We were designed with a niche place in teams, providing unique dps. And I also believe a significant buff to ae is coming, and soon. I would be willing to bet on it.

Someone jokingly said that our 2p was nerfed because some kind of pain dot spreading mechanic will happen. That is not a bad theory at all.

[Relapses]

That's not being realist. Being realist is knowing that they will nerf our ST to oblivion, while not touching aoe.

Wait till you see the tier set changes. You'll be happy (not).

It really depends. I see where Kilee is coming from, especially this part:

There will of course be areas of strength and weakness, and some specs will thrive in certain situations while lagging behind in others, but those gaps should not preclude viability.

"Precluding viability" is the key phrase. It boils down to how they envision the spec's performance in given situations. It looks like we'll be very close to one of the best performing ranged DPS specs in raids, especially on encounters with extended execute phases. So if they feel our lackluster performance in dungeons is an acceptable trade off for great raid performance then it's par the course for Shadow since we never had particularly high participation levels in either MoP or WoD's CModes. Mythic+ is an inherently different beast than CModes, though, so I think tuning and participation numbers here should matter more than they did in the past. It'll be interesting to see what Blizzard has to say about Shadow when they do begin tuning passes but it's a bit early to say with confidence which direction is the most likely they'll take.

[Ilir]

It really depends. I see where Kilee is coming from, especially this part:

There will of course be areas of strength and weakness, and some specs will thrive in certain situations while lagging behind in others, but those gaps should not preclude viability.

"Precluding viability" is the key phrase. It boils down to how they envision the spec's performance in given situations. It looks like we'll be very close to one of the best performing ranged DPS specs in raids, especially on encounters with extended execute phases. So if they feel our lackluster performance in dungeons is an acceptable trade off for great raid performance then it's par the course for Shadow since we never had particularly high participation levels in either MoP or WoD's CModes. Mythic+ is an inherently different beast than CModes, though, so I think tuning and participation numbers here should matter more than they did in the past. It'll be interesting to see what Blizzard has to say about Shadow when they do begin tuning passes but it's a bit early to say with confidence which direction is the most likely they'll take.

This argument doesn't work in Legion.

They sold Legion by saying "Mythic + dungeon as an alternative way of progress". They can't then say "oh but it's okay if you are shit in CM shadowpriests, you're good in raids if you have a good connection !"

- - - Updated - - -

Oh and congrats to those who got 2 legendaries, it was a bug. They fixed it, now those of you (like me) who didn't get one... well enjoy being behind everyone with 2 legendaries ^_^

[l33t]

It really depends. I see where Kilee is coming from, especially this part:

Yeah well, we'll see. I fail to remember any significant shadow buffs during expansions, only nerfs, or close to useless stuff like adding searing insanity in WoD - which was absolutely useless, btw, you got a much better results cascading, swping some targets for AS running and then nuking single target; and it remained useless in HFC, during the age of dotless CoP.


Also, would totally love to see weaknesses being created for some specs like fire mage for example, because for some specs there are only strengths existing.