Shadowpriest PVP - need help to not give up

[barrsftw]

Damn, I'm still a bit away from both of these, gonna try a get them as soon as possible and see if this changes anything.

Any tips on which gold trait in my artifact I should get 1st? I'm running the void tentacle on mindflay but can respec the artifact...

The +50% heal on dispersion is the single most important trait for PvP imo. Better than any of the 3 golden traits.

[patrins]

If you aren't specifically interested in 3v3 arena, pick another class.
/thread

[Dimitrije]

If you aren't specifically interested in 3v3 arena, pick another class.
/thread

Sadly, this is true.

[bonewax]

i watched a swifty class burst video last night and the shadow priest was the same time to kill as a tank. Thats pretty god damn sad in my opinion. Whereas a fire mage was the fasted time to kill out of any class. Where is the class designer for mage and can we get them on shadow priest team? Seriously i even gave up on leveling my SP because it took literally 3x as long to kill mobs as opposed to my melee classes. SP in a really really bad spot this expansion.

[Linri]

was playing priest for quite a while, and honestly, i'm not really digging the whole void form playstyle... I know its crucial, but I really can't seem t enjoy it... Maybe everyone is right, and I just need to stick with it thru the rough times to get to the good

[Reposed]

Went MH route, respec is too expensive so im still 3 traits and 100k AP away from it sadly.
Do you know if the mindflay damage is decent, or is it just used for the slow?

It does more damage per tick than Mind Flay, and does about half a million damage over its duration, which isn't bad for passive damage...but its primary benefit comes from the slow.

[SirreASDF]

I just recently unlocked void swap (is that the name? the health swap) and all of a sudden I feel somewhat viable in 2s.. Only been doing pug skirmishes, but with an extra life in the swap, I can survive long enough to actually get INTO void form, thus doing a ton of damage by kiting.

Spriest damage is really strong, it's just hard to get it out But if you get VT up and get into void form, you can keep em up while just kiting doing some pretty solid damage.. Through in the occassional instant mindblast and void bolt on cooldown and you're pretty much a super mobile death machine.

The issue is getting to 70+ insanity and getting those 2 VTs up obviously.. At least in 2s

[bonewax]

The problem isnt sp's damage its getting shit on by melee (which all casters are feeling right now.) So many gap closers, interrupts in legion that you wont live very long as a caster. Make no mistake this is world of meleecraft.

[Khorneflake]

Whats funny is there is an honor talent which increases our damage by 30%? When we are at 100 insanity. This says to me "oh, we know you are never going to get enough stacks in VF in pvp, so your core mechanic is pointless, here's a damage buff which you will have to build up before being able to do any meaningful dps".

Same with the talent for passive haste increase by 6%, because this is all the stacks you're going to get when a rogue sees you in VF. They basically turn us into the pre-7.0 SP, without affecting us in pve.

Provided your not being sat on (which lets face it, ain't going to happen), we'll be trying to pop into VF to gain a few stacks to go with our 6%, building back upto 100 insanity and use that 30% buff with our additional haste gained from our time in VF. Or play a melee and press 3-4 buttons.

[Ocedic]

Whats funny is there is an honor talent which increases our damage by 30%? When we are at 100 insanity. This says to me "oh, we know you are never going to get enough stacks in VF in pvp, so your core mechanic is pointless, here's a damage buff which you will have to build up before being able to do any meaningful dps".

Same with the talent for passive haste increase by 6%, because this is all the stacks you're going to get when a rogue sees you in VF. They basically turn us into the pre-7.0 SP, without affecting us in pve.

Provided your not being sat on (which lets face it, ain't going to happen), we'll be trying to pop into VF to gain a few stacks to go with our 6%, building back upto 100 insanity and use that 30% buff with our additional haste gained from our time in VF. Or play a melee and press 3-4 buttons.

I kind of wish they expanded on the not-going-into-VF route, perhaps even as a PvE path. It would have been an interesting tradeoff to not have void bolt/voit.

But yeah, the Void Form mechanic is just really hard to use in PvP. If they rebalanced it so we had higher out-of-void form damage (while keeping the same VF damage) it would help. In arena there's just too much rampup considering how quickly we're getting shredded by DH/Rogue/other melee.

[Deleted]

Any tips on talents (the regular ones, not the honor talents) - I'm currently debating as to what is better, shorter cooldown on fear or mindbomb.

I think a good idea would be to allow mindflay/void torrent to be channeled while moving but I don't think they will do something like this.

[Luxeley]

I played a Shadow Priest during WOD and absolutely "wrecked" people. I've uploaded 25-30 SP pvp videos where I went no less than 20-0 and topped the charts. My channel name is the same as my user name here. And, I've completely given up on Shadow Priests.

Here's why - the removal of Spectral Guise and Phantasm makes it impossible to peel for yourself. You'll need to rely on someone else to do this for you. Boomkin has Displacer Beast, Mage Blink and Warlock (although not great) has gateway. Shadow's got literally nothing.

Loss of instant casts makes Shadow a lot less mobile. Keep in mind a moving target is a lot harder to catch up with and hit than a stationary one. It doesn't help the speed boost also went from 60% to 40%

The loss of psychic horror makes it harder to be pre-emptive and avoid the potential problem of being trained. In WOD you could have psychic horror and psychic scream and now it's one or the other (mind bomb acts like psychic horror) which seriously hurts the spec.

During the Beta - Blizz allowed Shadow to use Mind Control and maintain control of their character. This meant MC acted like a poly or cyclone. If Blizz let this be a reality live - it might've been a bit OP, but the fact they took it away and did not provide fair compensation, is completely FUCKING ridiculous.

I don't believe Blizzard realizes the issue with Shadow in pvp. They are focused on tuning classes that under perform in pve (not Shadow atm) and nerfing classes who are OP in pvp. My best advice to you is try playing disc or role another caster. If Blizzard, by some miracle does fix the issue with Shadow you can always go back, I certainly will do so myself.

[Ocedic]

Any tips on talents (the regular ones, not the honor talents) - I'm currently debating as to what is better, shorter cooldown on fear or mindbomb.

I think a good idea would be to allow mindflay/void torrent to be channeled while moving but I don't think they will do something like this.

I tried both and you can go with both. They each are good for different situations and you will wish you had the other one all the time.

Fear: Instant effect, lasts longer if it doesn't break.
MB: Ranged, has delay, stun won't break on its own but lasts shorter, dispellable before it detonates.

I have found myself preferring Fear overall, but Mind Bomb works just fine.

[Deleted]

During the Beta - Blizz allowed Shadow to use Mind Control and maintain control of their character. This meant MC acted like a poly or cyclone. If Blizz let this be a reality live - it might've been a bit OP, but the fact they took it away and did not provide fair compensation, is completely FUCKING ridiculous.

Actually didn't know this as i never kept up to date with beta stuff, i feel like dominate mind should allow us to do this in PvP but then it would become the go-to pick.

[Deleted]

So what do people think about the hotfix and the PTR notes? Am I correct that Void Form will reduce the cooldown of mindblast by 3 seconds?

I am also happy to see some of the melee classes have had their damage reduced.

[bonewax]

So what do people think about the hotfix and the PTR notes? Am I correct that Void Form will reduce the cooldown of mindblast by 3 seconds?

I am also happy to see some of the melee classes have had their damage reduced.

a band aid fix at best. Shadow needs to just be torn down and rebuilt. The void form mechanic is stupid (in pvp) due to its long ramp up time and the fact that any melee with a brain is going to save their stun/interrupt for the moment you pop void form and quickly trash you.

The main problem with shadow which is also the main problem with many other casters is blizzard had decided that hardcasting 1.5+ spells is fun. Its not and its the best way to get shit on in pvp by melee who now have many, many gap closers/interrupts/stun/snare removal etc which leaves us screwed because our highest output is hardcasting. The removal of insta cast spells is now just reserved for precious little fire mages. Until blizzard listens to us and realizes that hardcasting in pvp is a death sentence, i wont be playing shadow regardless of a pitiful 10% physical damage reduction and 10% damage increase from tired old shadow form. Shame on you blizzard...shame on you.

[tiptopmemer]

If you want to PvP, dont play spriest, simple as that.

When you get responses like

So what do people think about the hotfix and the PTR notes? Am I correct that Void Form will reduce the cooldown of mindblast by 3 seconds?

This isnt new bro, shadow has always been awful 1v1.

You realise the people dont know what happens in the game.

The biggest issues with spriest.
1. We have no escape or focus deterrence, Although mages and locks are a little less squishy than us and offer more utility, they still have escapes like blink and teleport.
2. Our spells have huge ramp up time and we have no interrupt or silence protection.
3. Our Defensives cause enemies to focus us, the moment we disperse, they realise we cant cast, they get ontop of us, stun towards the end of dispersion then destroy us in 2-3 seconds, not even a 3v3 team with peel can counter this.
4. We are incredibly squishy, PWS is crap and only used for Body and Soul / Void Shielded benefits (though i imagine fleeting embrace is quite powerful)

The design of spriest is to get our multidot out and feel like a drag on the enemy team while we self heal quite sufficiently with our vampiric touch and leech.
While this is quite possible in 3v3 where you can be protected by your allies, once the enemy team forces a trinket from your allies, you become a target you cant cast anymore, your class design isnt to keep enemies away from you, its to be able to continue being effective while they're in your face, which isn't possible, because 1 interrupt on your survival (vampiric touch) means you cant do shit.

TLDR;
We're squishy, Our defensive makes us vulnerable, our utility is weaker than most and we have no escape or ability to persevere while focused.

Suggestions.

More damage reduction, something like Focused Will
Ability to cast while focused (casting during dispersion and we have interrupt protection)
Dispersion having 2 charges, allows us to turn off enemies from focusing us.
PWS Absorbing for much more (Void Shielded lasting longer)
Vampiric Touch being Instant cast after receiving a melee hit.
Mind Bomb not replacing Psychic Scream
Psychic Scream not breaking from dots.
Void Shift not bringing allies below 50% HP.
Psyfiend not being killable.
VOID TORRENT NOT BEING INTERRUPTIBLE.

edit ^obviously not all these things at once, because that would be stupid

[Deleted]

If you want to PvP, dont play spriest, simple as that.

When you get responses like

You realise the people dont know what happens in the game

Sorry but I don't understand your comment. My post was just a valid question while your reply seems rude and elitist.

But, on topic, after seeing the "class tuning" changes and nothing remotely helpful being done to shadow priests I give up, there is no hope. The changes are a fuming pile of excrements and just show that blizzard wants to balance the class around S2M, which really is a bad talent, in my opinion, AND it's unusable in PVP...

Even in PVE it is really clunky - basing the whole balance and playstyle on a talent that kills you is just "what the heck"? I wonder who up the chain thought this is a great idea and keeps pushing for this to stay.

Meanwhile we still didn't get any mobility and/or escape... BUT fear not! You can now mind sear the crap out of all those melee players that bunch up on you as soon as the see you!

I am throwing in the towel and joining team melee.

After so many years my priest will now be my alt. Thank you Blizzard.