Is Shadow Priest supposed to be this miserable?

[Djriff]

@Djriff do you mean our weights were matching his, or labeled as his? Since legion launch, it's all based on our simulator.

I swear I saw it labeled as Twintop's Stat Weights, I may be misremembering.

I always do custom stat weights regardless.

What do you mean about the tedious batches? Tell me what you are trying to do and I'll show you an easy way to do it, OR we can add in a feature to make it easy.

Well when trying to compare multiple variations of talents with the baseline ones like ToF, I run into the issue of having to run a sim for each set of talents. In SIMC I can just copy + paste and change the talent numbers.

Granted, this gets tedius to do even in simc, but it makes it much easier to simulate all the talent combos across a # of scenarios.

If AMR can simplify that or even create and export to simc and I can process it using my own CPU, that would be amazing.

[Zoopercat]

Ooooh I'm so excited. Yes we have that, and yes it's super simple.

1. Go to the simulator http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/simulator/run
2. On the right, change the Sim Type from "Single Run" to "Batch"
3. Click on the talent option that shows up. Click on the talents you want, boom, all combos are made and run for you. You can combine that with anything else, legendaries, trinkets, even different rotations. And we make the combos automatically for you.

Here's a video about it, that's probably overkill for your knowledge level, but it might highlight a few interesting things if you want: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SJv...LIWEa6&index=3

[Caladia]

@Djriff: AMR has a client download you can run locally that will allow you to go to their online simulator and send the processing to your own CPU. You can even configure it to be a background process (So you can still play WoW or other stuff), or take full control for faster/quicker processing times of batch possibilities. There's a lot of options you can configure for the batch operation; including talents, stat point allocation, and I believe artifact layouts. Obviously the more you throw at it the longer it'll take, and they give you an estimate how long it'll take. Though I'm not sure if that estimate is based on full CPU control, background, or in between.

[Djriff]

Ooooh I'm so excited. Yes we have that, and yes it's super simple.

1. Go to the simulator http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/simulator/run
2. On the right, change the Sim Type from "Single Run" to "Batch"
3. Click on the talent option that shows up. Click on the talents you want, boom, all combos are made and run for you. You can combine that with anything else, legendaries, trinkets, even different rotations. And we make the combos automatically for you.

Here's a video about it, that's probably overkill for your knowledge level, but it might highlight a few interesting things if you want: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SJv...LIWEa6&index=3

Oooooooo now I'm excited. Granted i'll have to compare it to the stuff I got from SIMC just to be sure. Not that I don't trust you, but I'd rather see for myself it meshes ya know?

I want to not be at work anymore :/

@Djriff: AMR has a client download you can run locally that will allow you to go to their online simulator and send the processing to your own CPU. You can even configure it to be a background process (So you can still play WoW or other stuff), or take full control for faster/quicker processing times of batch possibilities. There's a lot of options you can configure for the batch operation; including talents, stat point allocation, and I believe artifact layouts. Obviously the more you throw at it the longer it'll take, and they give you an estimate how long it'll take. Though I'm not sure if that estimate is based on full CPU control, background, or in between.

TBH I tend to simulate ~20 things at once and usually just afk/browse this site while I do it. I'll check that out, although processing on someone else's computer is a good thing when you are in the middle of raid and want to multitask

[Zoopercat]

@Djriff For sure, we are all about independent verification and welcome it! If you see anything let me know for sure.

[KaPe]

At 844 ilvl mind sear does 11,200 damage per tick LOL.

Don't forget that even if you talent for +50% damage, add 15% trait *and* get full 100 Voidform stacks, it will still be inferior to Holy Nova.

Well, at least those PTR changes look promising.

[Trassk]

I've only sometimes played my shadow priest in the past, on and off, but they always felt strong enough just for doing dungeons and quests.

The idea of shadow priests getting a really awesome artifact weapon, probably the most fun and interesting artifact in terms of design, and yet I'm doing next to no dps, the void form based artifact ability is a joke, and just out of curiosity I got so fed up with it I switched to disc spec, using a lv650 wod weapon, and suddenly I'm blasting down mods with harder impact and not even getting a scratch.

Blizzard done messed up here.

[Relapses]

I've only sometimes played my shadow priest in the past, on and off, but they always felt strong enough just for doing dungeons and quests.

The idea of shadow priests getting a really awesome artifact weapon, probably the most fun and interesting artifact in terms of design, and yet I'm doing next to no dps, the void form based artifact ability is a joke, and just out of curiosity I got so fed up with it I switched to disc spec, using a lv650 wod weapon, and suddenly I'm blasting down mods with harder impact and not even getting a scratch.

Blizzard done messed up here.

For leveling and world content Disc is superior. That was a harsh lesson I learned early on in this expansion. But once you start getting some gear (for me around ~830-840 ilvl), Shadow starts faring a bit better. It's still annoying since you absolutely will die if you over pull, but it does get better.

[KaPe]

For leveling and world content Disc is superior. That was a harsh lesson I learned early on in this expansion. But once you start getting some gear (for me around ~830-840 ilvl), Shadow starts faring a bit better. It's still annoying since you absolutely will die if you over pull, but it does get better.

Gear is one thing, another is Sol. If you have him with you, it's much easier. External heals help a lot and negate the main advantage Disc has over Shadow. It's much easier when you don't have to worry about shields or Shadowmend and can afford to actually multidot without dying. At that point, the damage is vastly superior to Discipline. And then you get Mass Hysteria and there's no real competition.

'Course, if you drop him, it's back to the old "random damage actually hurts and VT is hardly enough, might as well play Disc.".

[Deleted]

Gear is one thing, another is Sol. If you have him with you, it's much easier. External heals help a lot and negate the main advantage Disc has over Shadow. It's much easier when you don't have to worry about shields or Shadowmend and can afford to actually multidot without dying. At that point, the damage is vastly superior to Discipline. And then you get Mass Hysteria and there's no real competition.

'Course, if you drop him, it's back to the old "random damage actually hurts and VT is hardly enough, might as well play Disc.".

Sol definitely makes World content a lot easier, but I haven't had any issues even when he died since I hit 840 ilvl (now 847).
Can take 5-6 mobs no issues, and solo most of the 18m world quest bosses.

[KaPe]

Sol definitely makes World content a lot easier, but I haven't had any issues even when he died since I hit 840 ilvl (now 847).
Can take 5-6 mobs no issues, and solo most of the 18m world quest bosses.

You don't have issues when he dies because he respawns within few seconds. It's a massive difference between getting those heals and counting on your own defenses. Not impossible, of course, but much easier.

Plus you can give him extra gold items for some additional spare change during world quests.

[rowaasr13]

SP becomes significantly better once you actually have access to all the gear that's available in both raids because you'll be able to deck out most slots with high ilevel haste/crit and SP scales the best out of all classes with secondary stats.

Don't worry, this will be fixed once you actually get to that gear. Gotta keep those pesky SP in check, you know.

On related note, I'm absolutely appaled at SP community in general: there's so much preaching "we're fine" so of course devs think "they're fine". Warlocks had to whine TOGETHER less than a week to get their ramp-up improvements. But we OTOH always have people that come in any discussion with their "we're fine". Masochism is no longer SP spec talent. It's SP players' talent.

[Djriff]

For most part we are fine. We just have shitty aoe and multidotting isn't the answer. Shadowcrash is meh and mindsear is a joke. Other than that and StM being a monster of a talent that overshadows everything, we're fine.

[Spodumene]

Actually they failed pretty much on priest in general. Not just the shadow have all the problems you are saying, the discipline desing also fails since on hard dungeons (at least) the class is broke. You cant use the dps to heal, forced to spam shadow mend. Also when group take damage because fires and such, you are fucked xDD

Funny that the best priest spec doing aoe damage is holy with holy nova hahaha



and indeed, the void form is a fail. Is a resource they added to simply add something. Dont make the class more interesting, and is not intuitive or effective. Jst make the class more unfun

The problem is the diablo team had too much input on the game. They made shadow priests archon form.

[GT4]

For most part we are fine. We just have shitty aoe and multidotting isn't the answer. Shadowcrash is meh and mindsear is a joke. Other than that and StM being a monster of a talent that overshadows everything, we're fine.

Whether SP is fine comes entirely down to your definition of fine. A lot of raiders believe that all content outside of raids is 100% irrelevant for balancing. With how much gear you can get out of Mythic+ (and Mythic+ items filling way more slots with good stat distributions for the raid than the raid itself), I'd argue that's not a viable way of looking at things. Being good in raids (and broken on the end boss) while being bad outside and relying on others to drag you through Mythic+ for gear isn't exactly what I'd call fine even though it might look balanced on paper.

The same is true for S2M. It might look fine on paper for SP to be good in a well coordinated guild with a good player playing the SP and worse otherwise but ultimately the current situation makes SP frustrating to play in any raid that's not too well coordinated (and completely sub par for the average raider once Blizzard brings up the weaker specs) while being borderline broken for some fights if played around - with the biggest offender being Xavius where you'll certainly see most high end guilds stack SPs as it stands now.

In the end, game balance should not only make classes/specs balanced on average but it should support player fun as well - this is a game after all and that's also why Blizzard admittedly intentionally tried nerfing Demo to be the worst spec in past expansions. That's simply not the case for a lot of players right now and if raids aren't your main priority, you'll simply be better off playing any other classes' DPS spec(s) - especially once the lower DPS specs are brought up.

Ultimately what I believe should be the question: What's the reason SP shouldn't be at least decent outside of raids (and/or S2M)? There are plenty ways of making SP not suck as much (and shadow form's damage reduction at least is a very minor one coming in 7.1) without affecting high end raids much if at all.

[Theed]

For most part we are fine. We just have shitty aoe and multidotting isn't the answer. Shadowcrash is meh and mindsear is a joke. Other than that and StM being a monster of a talent that overshadows everything, we're fine.

I refuse to play surrender to madness in PvE. I hate the death component and i can't understand how blizzard let shadow go live without changing the other two talents.

Blizzard balances shadow around it, yet S2M is not playable in pvp. I despise this stupid talent.

As long as S2M remains so stupid and mandatory, Shadow is not fine for me.

[Djriff]

I refuse to play surrender to madness in PvE. I hate the death component and i can't understand how blizzard let shadow go live without changing the other two talents.

Blizzard balances shadow around it, yet S2M is not playable in pvp. I despise this stupid talent.

As long as S2M remains so stupid and mandatory, Shadow is not fine for me.

I should have specified pve. Pvp we are far from fine hell casters in general are far from fine.

[Wondercrab]

Shadow is really awesome for boss encounters. One of the most unique and exciting specs in the game. Unfortunately that's all it seems to have been designed around. The mechanics do not flow smoothly or work particularly well in a solo questing environment, or on dungeon trash.

What I'd really like to see is a talent option that replaces Voidform with a nuke that consumes a fixed amount of insanity, effectively giving the option to play Shadow in the same way it worked prior to Legion. This would give the class a playstyle that works much better for solo play and for fast dungeons, while still preserving the awesome feel of Shadow in raiding and on boss fights.

[Simulacrum]

For most part we are fine. We just have shitty aoe and multidotting isn't the answer. Shadowcrash is meh and mindsear is a joke. Other than that and StM being a monster of a talent that overshadows everything, we're fine.

No, "for the most part" shadow is trash. It's fine in raids, but trash in world content, trash in 5 mans, and trash in pvp. Even in raids I wouldn't call being forced into the awkward and unusual StM playstyle "fine". Having to stand around and wait for the execute phase to feel like a real member of the raid is even more annoying than having to play with momentum on your DH.

It doesn't exactly provide anything other than damage either. It has no mobility whatsoever, no utility at all besides mass dispel, not even any real free healing the way most specs do. All they have are awful cooldowns like vampiric embrace, which is so weak that even as a permanent buff it probably wouldn't be overpowered, but which as a 15 sec duration/3min cooldown is a joke.

Shadow needs massive changes to be "mostly fine". Insanity should grow to 100 out of combat. The Twins' Painful Touch effect should be baseline. Mind blast should be castable while moving. Vamp embrace should have like 50% uptime. The other two talents should be competitive with StM. Probably a bunch of other stuff as well. Until (unless...) something like that happens, shadow will be a spec that you're okay with playing in a raid but that makes you want to kill yourself whenever you bring it out anywhere else. Seriously, it's like I'm playing a spec right out of vanilla when I compare it to my moonkin or my fire mage or any of the specs on my hunter. It's pathetic.

[rowaasr13]

Don't worry, this will be fixed once you actually get to that gear. Gotta keep those pesky SP in check, you know.

Aaaaaand... here's your well deserved nerfs! Get it, you pesky SP, you're too strong!

I don't know, sometimes I feel like spec designer is the guy who was molested by SP as a child and now that he worked hard to get into Blizzard, he extracts his vengeance.

To OP, as you see, SP are supposed to be more miserable than that.