[Shadow] Is it safe to assume we will be garbage for mythic+ for the entire expansion

[Deleted]

Hey

I'd like to start yet another discussion about mythic+ and our viability for 2-3 chest speed runs. First of all, before you say its a learn to play issue I would like to state that I am an ilv 857 shadow priest with average percentile of 98% across all EN bosses, being world ~80-120 on xavius & dragons heroic(can provide logs). I am a good player and I understand how the class works.

My issue is that we are the worst dps class for mythic+. Sure we are capable of finishing within the timer on all keystone difficulties but when it comes to 2 or even 3 chests - really really really hard, to the point where nobody that understands the game will take us. For those that don't know yet, 3 chest runs basically gives you triple loot at the end of the dungeon, as opposed to 1 chest. This is huge, instead of running dungeon 3 times you only run it once with amazing DPS and bam. Other classes that struggle for mythic+ always have another good dps spec, such as elemental shamans having the choice to go enha. Nothing for shadow, unless you want to heal. That raises another question, is shadow made bad for dungeons on purpose so we have more healers? I have had to switch to holy recently to get those +3 runs on mythic6, maybe this is the developers goal?

To me it is clear that mythic+ endgame will turn into "keystone +10, 3 chest run" in a couple of months from now, and in this world shadow priests sadly will have no place. I've heard the common argument - in higher level mythics they have more hp and live longer so our dots will tick, well yes that is true however then DHs + Fire mages and all other good specs will start reaching up to 2-3 million dps on 5-6 mobs, something we can never ever imagine to reach. The problem is we have no aoe burst and I can't see this being changed in major patches, I believe the "RNG" legendary ring changes little too. Is it fair to assume that we will be poop in mythic+ speed runs for the entire expansion?

[britishbubba]

Shadow has not been as bad in mythic+ in my experience as people have been letting on.

[Fascinate]

Shadow has not been as bad in mythic+ in my experience as people have been letting on.

Even if i spec for the most AOE possible im not even close to a melee, not even close. Bosses i can hang, but when most of the dungeon is trash there really is no good reason to bring a spriest.

[britishbubba]

Even if i spec for the most AOE possible im not even close to a melee, not even close. Bosses i can hang, but when most of the dungeon is trash there really is no good reason to bring a spriest.

By specing aoe I assume you mean void ray and shadow crash? Our AoE spells are trash. Mind sear to get into void form, dot while insanity drain is low and let dots do your AoE. If you're mind searing and shadow crashing for damage you're going to do shitty trash damage.

In 2+'s is it hard for me to be near DH and firemage? Yeah. But we're also pulling like a quarter of the instance per pull. In our higher runs we have to pull less things which means I can DoT them which means mass hysteria does work. Shadow only looks bad when you're doing dungeons that you vastly over gear. At least that's how it's been in my experience.

From the spriests we've snatched keys from, as far as I can tell people do shit damage as shadow because they for some reason think mind sear is anywhere close to other classes' aoes. It's a filler for when you don't have dots to cast or you need insanity to sustain or get into void form.

[Fascinate]

By specing aoe I assume you mean void ray and shadow crash? Our AoE spells are trash. Mind sear to get into void form, dot while insanity drain is low and let dots do your AoE. If you're mind searing and shadow crashing for damage you're going to do shitty trash damage.

In 2+'s is it hard for me to be near DH and firemage? Yeah. But we're also pulling like a quarter of the instance per pull. In our higher runs we have to pull less things which means I can DoT them which means mass hysteria does work. Shadow only looks bad when you're doing dungeons that you vastly over gear. At least that's how it's been in my experience.

From the spriests we've snatched keys from, as far as I can tell people do shit damage as shadow because they for some reason think mind sear is anywhere close to other classes' aoes. It's a filler for when you don't have dots to cast or you need insanity to sustain or get into void form.

Nah, sanlayn.

[Rothg]

I don't know how some of the best players in the game can be so silly and paranoid.
Surely, with you're understanding how different classes and different mechanics work, you have to understand that some classes will naturally be better at certain things. Shadows mechanics work much better in raids than mythic+, as you certainly know. Why would you ever in a million years assume this is so more people go to a healing spec? Blizzard is not out to get shadow priests. They are not trying to force people to switch in to healing roles. They have made two types of content with very different requirements, and one spec that does terrific at one type is sub-optimal at the other type. No surprise.

[Glnger]

The legendary ring that spreads vt and swp with mind sear should be a talent.

I've had plenty of whiners complain about shadow dps that I've ended up beating, just like I've had people that don't know what they're talking about complain about me being discipline. Tell others to worry about their own shit.boss dps matters too. 30 sec aoe stun matters, shadow mend and pws matter.

[Deleted]

I don't know how some of the best players in the game can be so silly and paranoid.
Surely, with you're understanding how different classes and different mechanics work, you have to understand that some classes will naturally be better at certain things. Shadows mechanics work much better in raids than mythic+, as you certainly know. Why would you ever in a million years assume this is so more people go to a healing spec? Blizzard is not out to get shadow priests. They are not trying to force people to switch in to healing roles. They have made two types of content with very different requirements, and one spec that does terrific at one type is sub-optimal at the other type. No surprise.

You do understand that mythic+ gives arguably better gear than everything in Emerald Nightmare, even most mythic drops, especially with shadow priest where haste/crit weights a ton. Ofcourse people would complain when they have to spend double time grinding them in comparison to other classes.

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By specing aoe I assume you mean void ray and shadow crash? Our AoE spells are trash. Mind sear to get into void form, dot while insanity drain is low and let dots do your AoE. If you're mind searing and shadow crashing for damage you're going to do shitty trash damage.

In 2+'s is it hard for me to be near DH and firemage? Yeah. But we're also pulling like a quarter of the instance per pull. In our higher runs we have to pull less things which means I can DoT them which means mass hysteria does work. Shadow only looks bad when you're doing dungeons that you vastly over gear. At least that's how it's been in my experience.

From the spriests we've snatched keys from, as far as I can tell people do shit damage as shadow because they for some reason think mind sear is anywhere close to other classes' aoes. It's a filler for when you don't have dots to cast or you need insanity to sustain or get into void form.

Was attempting mythic6 2-3 chest runs, was vastly behind rogue + hunter who had 470k overall dmg, and me 280 as shadow. Please don't think that higher mythic difficulties fix the issue, the op aoe specs get even better and mobs die arguably quicker.

[britishbubba]

Was attempting mythic6 2-3 chest runs, was vastly behind rogue + hunter who had 470k overall dmg, and me 280 as shadow. Please don't think that higher mythic difficulties fix the issue, the op aoe specs get even better and mobs die arguably quicker.

*shrug* wasn't the case for me at all on bolster week. Couldn't just yolo AoE without buffing the mobs through the roof.

Also how do they get better? Their burst AoE only does so much dmg and once the mob health scales past that they stop klling the packs in CDs. do appropriate difficulties for your ilvl.

[Deleted]

You seem to be assuming that if trash packs live longer then everyone's DPS will go up, which is not the case. Most classes have frontloaded AOE burst, which is brilliant for large packs of stuff with no hp. When stuff lives longer and you're pulling fewer mobs, as it does when you start getting to +6 and above, then our backloaded dps catches up.
No, we aren't going to be as good as the top-tier specs like mage, DH etc. but thats why they're called top-tier. As content actually starts to be challenging, rather than zerging through as fast as possible, then shadow does OK. I would very much like some kind of AoE burst tool, likely related to Void Torrent to actually make it an interesting spell, but we can make do with what we have.

All these doom and gloom threads aren't helping with the perception. We aren't fine in all situation by a long shot, but if you're pushing the limits of what your group can do then shadow is perfectly viable.

[Rumex]

I think the biggest problem is that priest dont really offer much to the grp, 30 sec aoe stun, some decent self-heal but thats it. If we just had a BL or a CR people would maybe start to look at shadow as a viable mythic+ option. I said it many times, but Mage is too op for 5 man content, brings so much to the grp that its rather absurd. But i dont think shadow is that bad, we just need better burst and redesign on some of the talents, alot of the talents is either designed for single target or aoe but not really a balance between both of them. If you pick Shadow Crash you feel like you lack dmg on single target and wise versa, just make Shadow Crash a talent we always have or something like that.

But i also think the player base become really toxic over the past year, players gating other players out is a real issue for some classes, specially in mythic dungeons where you have a hard time finding grps as a shadow because there are better options and shadow is just considered ''bad'' by the playerbase even tho it is viable in higher mythic+, ive seen some shadow priest doing 10+ so it is doable with the right grp, finding the right grp is the real problem ..

[kalaratic]

i don't think it's fair to say we will be bad at m+ speedruns the whole expac but for now ya. whenever they nuke S2M in a future patch hopefully they will throw us a bone and give void eruption a fat buff for some burst AoE. shadow crash is pretty useless since it's in the same tier as PI which helps our sustain AoE + boss fights way too much to bother with anything else.

[Deleted]

You seem to be assuming that if trash packs live longer then everyone's DPS will go up, which is not the case. Most classes have frontloaded AOE burst, which is brilliant for large packs of stuff with no hp. When stuff lives longer and you're pulling fewer mobs, as it does when you start getting to +6 and above, then our backloaded dps catches up.
No, we aren't going to be as good as the top-tier specs like mage, DH etc. but thats why they're called top-tier. As content actually starts to be challenging, rather than zerging through as fast as possible, then shadow does OK. I would very much like some kind of AoE burst tool, likely related to Void Torrent to actually make it an interesting spell, but we can make do with what we have.

All these doom and gloom threads aren't helping with the perception. We aren't fine in all situation by a long shot, but if you're pushing the limits of what your group can do then shadow is perfectly viable.

I already said multiple times, this is for speed runs and speed runs only(3 chests). In those runs everything will be a zerg fest, something shadow cannot do.

[RsinRC]

All haste gear, aoe trinks, PI on cd, void lord for fast transitions and lotv. If done right your damage will surpass the groups within the last 10s of the fight. If your tank chain pulls you should be ahead of the curve. Multidotting wins over melee in chain pulls. If the fight lasts less than 25s we do struggle but seriously, no joke if you are doing a dungeon where everything dies quick af then either your team is overgeared or the dungeon is too low for you.

Pros:
Fights where the tank or mobs move a lot, we shine.
ST fights, we shine.
Encounters where mobs are spread out, we shine.
Anytime we start an encounter with cap insanity, we shine. (Plan ahead!)
Anytime PI is up our dps sky rockets.
Encounters with a lot of mechanics shadow's dots still ticks at full strength as long as you maintain them.
Mind Sear replaces MB at a certain # of targets. It gives yu more damage and more insanity. Mind Sear is a filler not a stand alone aoe abilty, generally speaking. Not directed to the op.

Cons:
We struggle at shorter fights/ mobs with very low hp especially if its aoe but luckily these situations are far and few. If theres alot of this type, shadow crash/mindsear(voidray) is best but not that youll do shit tons of damage but atleast more than normal.

Im definitely getting the hang of mythic+. When the group outgears the instance I struggle on trash only because my dots dont fully do their damage but when going for higher mythics my dps is always top either on trash or boss.

I can understand why it sucks not being able to do instant burst damage but when my dps is top in situations where it matters im good with it. I use to post everyday in these forums but it has dwindled down and instead of having productive conversations its almost always toxic posts.

[Jullyx]

Our only issue in mythic+ now is that silence is on a 45 sec CD.

We are not good on short, bursty AoE, but when is that really happening? Sure, a tiny bit in BRH, WotV and Arcway, but it's so minor. Also, mind sear made those short fight a lot more tolerable.
Having a monk/fire mage/DH/BM in your group makes your effort on those fights close to meaningless anyway. It's nice for the dps ego, but it shaves off less time on overall than our damage throughout the dungeon. Being able to do 400-500k on bosses and 5-600k on dangerous trash packs is a lot more beneficial that those 5 sec of 2-5M dps.

It does really suck to have a 45 sec CD interrupt though. Especially when you play alliance and your group has 2 AoE stuns already.

[Kiea]

SHADOW PRIESTS ARE GOOD IN MYTHIC+.

But are we the top dogs? No, definitely not, and the ideal comp for doing the very highest mythic+ is probably a combination of the top 3-4 specs (fire mage, demon hunters, hunters, WW monk maybe?).

First off, shadow priests as a class ramps ups, and as such anything that lives longer we will do better on. Ontop of that, we are an execute class, our damage excels when targets get into execute range, and our execute unlike warriors just requires one target to get the full effect on ALL targets.

Secondly, shadow priests have a higher skill cap when it comes to add fights, and by extension, trash. We need to keep dots on different targets and refresh them, demon hunters need to press eye beam for a good result.

Now, lets look at talents. Always use Twist of Fate, there is no discussion at all. Next, Shadow Crash is TRAP, on 2-4 targets it does not beat Mindbender, it might have its uses in teeming, or lower level mythics where everyone dies quickly no matter what group you have.


Shadow Priests are good, but they are not the best in 5 man dungeons, however they are above average if you can play it properly. You need to play differently than what you would in a raid.

[Uberkafros]

Th Sear boost was ok but not enough.Personally i could live with only the insanity gain from Sear if other measures where taken to make our aoe not as bad as it is.

We need a skill that either spreads or inflicts SW:Pain in aoe (even without the initial damage).
We need Sphere of insanity interact with Sear and Shadow Crash.
We could also possibly have our CttV tentacle channel Sear with us if it was procced with it.

The legendary ring is a joke and should be reworked. Even if it was spreeading SWP and VT freely with no aoe limit it would only be an uninteresting necessity binding our aoe to an item drop while making it BiS.

[tiptopmemer]

People who claim shadow is alright for high end Mythic+ haven't grouped with a good melee.

3 Benefits of a spriest in mythic dungeon
1. Ranged
-Fulfilled by many other specs
2. Single target damage
-Fulfilled by many other specs
3. AoE stun
-Fulfilled by few other specs

Not to mention that we're cloth, no clothies are particularly important for Mythic+, people are much more likely to bring similar armor types and share personal loot.

[Segus1992]

You do understand that mythic+ gives arguably better gear than everything in Emerald Nightmare, even most mythic drops, especially with shadow priest where haste/crit weights a ton. Ofcourse people would complain when they have to spend double time grinding them in comparison to other classes.

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Was attempting mythic6 2-3 chest runs, was vastly behind rogue + hunter who had 470k overall dmg, and me 280 as shadow. Please don't think that higher mythic difficulties fix the issue, the op aoe specs get even better and mobs die arguably quicker.

Mythic 6 is hardly high. It was the second mythic+ I did and that was with a pug. Higher mythic+ levels might still fix it.

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I already said multiple times, this is for speed runs and speed runs only(3 chests). In those runs everything will be a zerg fest, something shadow cannot do.

That's fair, Shadow sucks at speed runs. Maybe that's a weakness we'll have to live with - although it'd be nice if we didn't.

[Jullyx]

You do understand that mythic+ gives arguably better gear than everything in Emerald Nightmare, even most mythic drops, especially with shadow priest where haste/crit weights a ton. Ofcourse people would complain when they have to spend double time grinding them in comparison to other classes.

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Was attempting mythic6 2-3 chest runs, was vastly behind rogue + hunter who had 470k overall dmg, and me 280 as shadow. Please don't think that higher mythic difficulties fix the issue, the op aoe specs get even better and mobs die arguably quicker.

Chain pulling is so important for our dps. In a group with moomkin/monk/sp, I topped overall damage by a pretty decent margin on 3 chests in +6. Me and the moonkin just pull towards the tank when it's appropriate for us. If you have to rebuild on every pull, sure you're not going to top on speed runs, but that's not how speed runs should be played.