[7.2] Legion Shadow Priest Guide and Discussion

[Jullyx]

Here's a little Surrender to Madness guide for those who have the legendary belt. Not for the faint of heart!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...YRP4Y8/preview

Could you also make a guide on how to get legendary waist?

Joking, joking. Thanks for the guide! What do you reckon is expected duration without belt? 130-135 sec?

[Djriff]

I tested shadowy insight yesterday on Ursoc mythic (I don't have the legy belt)
With our tactic this fight involves pretty much moving around all the time...and it was amazing. I had about 40% more MB casts over the course of the 30 trys in comparsion to our other shadow priest.
Why is it rated so bad?

They key to Ursoc is planning your movement ahead of time. You have a short window you can move after casting VB (tracking your GCD helps with this) and you can basically stutter step cast and move just fine. Once you pop StM movement doesn't matter. The reason it's so bad is that 10% is still 10% and you have a higher insanity generation with AS statistically speaking.

Frankly this doesn't sound as the 'rework' they said it would have been necessary in order to nerf StM. It's basically the nerf they wanted to do before taking it back saying that it would ruin the spec since they acknowledged that the SP is a one trick pony because of it and a no trick pony without.

Sure the LotV buff sounds good, but it's a bit generic. Maybe I'm delusional, but I'm expecting a bit more.

Well they mentioned that they may bring it back down to 60 insanity to enter VF and add some insanity generation to it. That would definitely be a buff to it. As for bringing down mass hysteria, I find the StM playstyle fun, and the talent by itself isn't OP. It's the synergy with ToF and Mass Hysteria that makes it so powerful. Their intent is to shorten the gap between top priests and the ones on the lower end. Capping mass hysteria at like 75 would definitely help that without destroying the talent completely.

LotV and Mind Spike would still need to be buffed enormously to be able to compete even with a Mass Hysteria capped at 50.

And there would need to be a global spec buff aswell to account for the damage lost.
They just drew themselves into such a corner by allowing the high scaling that we have and having it all be back loaded by StM.

Yeah they would need to buff dots accordingly for the cap. That would bring things into balance a bit more imo.

[Caladia]

Any cap on MH is a direct nerf to StM, too much and now you're talking potential nerfs to other lvl 100 talents as we gear up, get new set bonus', and aim to stay in VF as long as possible. Dropping the cap from 100 to 75 is much better than the proposed drop to 50 that was previously suggested, but still caps StM damage rather early. Any direct or indirect nerfs to StM really need to be accompanied by other buffs to the 100 row.

They also mentioned that if a talent is the go-to talent for that row by nearly everyone, they might look into making it baseline and coming up with something new. My initial thought was ToF, as that has been the go-to talent in its row since MoP. So who knows, I look forward to see what they come up with in the 7.1.5 ptr notes, but at the same time am a little worried.

[Gorsameth]

Any cap on MH is a direct nerf to StM, too much and now you're talking potential nerfs to other lvl 100 talents as we gear up, get new set bonus', and aim to stay in VF as long as possible. Dropping the cap from 100 to 75 is much better than the proposed drop to 50 that was previously suggested, but still caps StM damage rather early. Any direct or indirect nerfs to StM really need to be accompanied by other buffs to the 100 row.

They also mentioned that if a talent is the go-to talent for that row by nearly everyone, they might look into making it baseline and coming up with something new. My initial thought was ToF, as that has been the go-to talent in its row since MoP. So who knows, I look forward to see what they come up with in the 7.1.5 ptr notes, but at the same time am a little worried.

The higher the MH cap the better StM is and the higher LotV and MS need to be buffed to compete. The higher MH stacks the better we scale, the more likely it is to become a problem again next tier or the tier after.

[kalaratic]

if they want to bring LotV down to 60 insanity to enter i just hope that the insanity generation is enough to actually maintain a good voidform from entering that low. otherwise it will just be what we have now where instead of entering at 85 insanity it will be like 75 or something higher than what the talent allows us.

i'm still praying that the patch will bring changes to void eruption. it just feels like you're punished to enter the first voidform with that cast time to do less dmg overall than fucking sphere of insanity. i really miss the instant cast from the beta and love the feel of the spec when i get to pvp thanks to honor talent.

[Deleted]

As much as i hate s2m and really want it gone, a cap at 75 to it and just a slight buff to other level 100 talents would be a HUGE nerf to us. Let's face it, s2m is the way to go right now, so any nerf to s2m will make us less powerful. And the reason why now we are powerful is mostly because, for the first time ever probably, people see us top dps on an and tier boss. If we could s2m only once on xavius our power would drop a lot (and fire mage would be maybe ahead of us there). So, unless Blizz plans to let us use s2m twice in several bosses ahead, nerfing it based on something that happens only once (xavius) would be a retarded way to deal with things (but once again, we all know blizzard is full of retards when it comes to shadow priest).
Also, if they reversed the changes they made, i think that shows they want to do something different (better) than just stack at 75 and buff other 100 just a little. I think they realize that a slight buff to other talents wouldnt change anything because S2M would be still too much better.

[FrothyMug]

Wait, I thought MH was already capped at 50. It was part of the first pass of nerfs early in the expansion.

[Gorsameth]

Wait, I thought MH was already capped at 50. It was part of the first pass of nerfs early in the expansion.

All those nerfs except for the Dispersion one (no voidform stacks during it) did not get implemented.

[Zephirdd]

Wait, I thought MH was already capped at 50. It was part of the first pass of nerfs early in the expansion.

That was cancelled.

[Gorsameth]

As much as i hate s2m and really want it gone, a cap at 75 to it and just a slight buff to other level 100 talents would be a HUGE nerf to us. Let's face it, s2m is the way to go right now, so any nerf to s2m will make us less powerful. And the reason why now we are powerful is mostly because, for the first time ever probably, people see us top dps on an and tier boss. If we could s2m only once on xavius our power would drop a lot (and fire mage would be maybe ahead of us there). So, unless Blizz plans to let us use s2m twice in several bosses ahead, nerfing it based on something that happens only once (xavius) would be a retarded way to deal with things (but once again, we all know blizzard is full of retards when it comes to shadow priest).
Also, if they reversed the changes they made, i think that shows they want to do something different (better) than just stack at 75 and buff other 100 just a little. I think they realize that a slight buff to other talents wouldnt change anything because S2M would be still too much better.

The people talking about nerfing StM (myself included) are doing so under the assumtion that the spec as a whole gets buffed in combination.

StM (or MH) is getting nerf. That is unavoidable because it scales to well. We are already topping fights and no other spec scales as well with gear as we do.

[Djriff]

Yeah, I'm ok with StM being a bit out there as an outlier, but like 5% ahead as opposed to completely dominating as it does now. It should be powerful since it kills you, but not this much. I think MH nerf would go a long way to fixing the situation. Either that or they need to completely rebalance damage and buff LotV accordingly.

[Deja Thoris]

I tested shadowy insight yesterday on Ursoc mythic (I don't have the legy belt)
With our tactic this fight involves pretty much moving around all the time...and it was amazing. I had about 40% more MB casts over the course of the 30 trys in comparsion to our other shadow priest.
Why is it rated so bad?

Theres 2 rules for ursoc with movement in my raid.
1) Be in range for roaring cacophony
2) Be in place to soak your assigned charges.

Apart from that its kind of irrelevant where you stand (to a point cos heals). Because of this I stand in front of the boss and just move when needed, the fight is something of a dps check so having to wiggle 3 yards to the side everytime a puddle of crap expands near me felt sub optimal.

[Deleted]

The people talking about nerfing StM (myself included) are doing so under the assumtion that the spec as a whole gets buffed in combination.

StM (or MH) is getting nerf. That is unavoidable because it scales to well. We are already topping fights and no other spec scales as well with gear as we do.

That is not unavoidable. Honestly, why are priests so willing to get nerfed all the times? Sometimes it seems like we are asking to be shit.
You make it sound like this has never happened before: WHOLE history of wow has some classes and spec scaling too well and ending up topping charts. Why is it such a huge deal if for once it happens to priest? I dont remember arcane mages asking for a nerf in HFC.
Seriously, instead of wanting a nerf to s2m we should be asking just one use in xavius, that is what is really messed up with s2m that puts us off the chart in the dmg.

[Video Games]

That is not unavoidable. Honestly, why are priests so willing to get nerfed all the times? Sometimes it seems like we are asking to be shit.
You make it sound like this has never happened before: WHOLE history of wow has some classes and spec scaling too well and ending up topping charts. Why is it such a huge deal if for once it happens to priest? I dont remember arcane mages asking for a nerf in HFC.
Seriously, instead of wanting a nerf to s2m we should be asking just one use in xavius, that is what is really messed up with s2m that puts us off the chart in the dmg.

lol https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

[Kilee25]

The mage thing in HFC was a product of a trinket rather than a base class design. it's splitting hairs, but I mean I think this is probably in a separate league... I am fine with spriests having their days in the sun, but I just want the gameplay to be more varied. I want to have some options about how to play. I also don't want to see such a large gap in performance based almost completely around non-player issues like internet latency and physical apm limitations.

[Deleted]

lol https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

Not sure what yer lolling at. One log proves nothing. I can find 1000x more HFC logs with mages going off charts, and that lasted a lot longer (a year).

- - - Updated - - -

The mage thing in HFC was a product of a trinket rather than a base class design. it's splitting hairs, but I mean I think this is probably in a separate league... I am fine with spriests having their days in the sun, but I just want the gameplay to be more varied. I want to have some options about how to play. I also don't want to see such a large gap in performance based almost completely around non-player issues like internet latency and physical apm limitations.

I dont agree with you. Indeed the combination with the trinket did the trick, but what difference does it make? For over a year they dominated pretty much, thats what matters. Would it make ANY difference if s2m was good, for instance, just with a particolar trinket? Not at all. Because then everyone would get that trinket and abuse it. Which is what mages did. When you balance shit, you cant balance it around baddies that wont abuse it, you need to balance it for those that WILL abuse it. When they created manno trinket, obviously they didnt think (or maybe they did: mages are played by a lot of blizz people as ghostcrawler said) about the possible implications it could cause with arcane mages. Same thing with S2M.
Difference is mages didnt complain about it, some priests apparently want to be middle of the pack and dont want to fight to shine, at least once.

[Video Games]

Not sure what yer lolling at. One log proves nothing. I can find 1000x more HFC logs with mages going off charts, and that lasted a lot longer (a year).

- - - Updated - - -



I dont agree with you. Indeed the combination with the trinket did the trick, but what difference does it make? For over a year they dominated pretty much, thats what matters. Would it make ANY difference if s2m was good, for instance, just with a particolar trinket? Not at all. Because then everyone would get that trinket and abuse it. Which is what mages did. When you balance shit, you cant balance it around baddies that wont abuse it, you need to balance it for those that WILL abuse it. When they created manno trinket, obviously they didnt think (or maybe they did: mages are played by a lot of blizz people as ghostcrawler said) about the possible implications it could cause with arcane mages. Same thing with S2M.
Difference is mages didnt complain about it, some priests apparently want to be middle of the pack.

Because you claim one fight
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/10#boss=1841
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/10#boss=1877
Even our worst fight we're #1 at https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/10#boss=1873
Like if you don't think this was going to get nerfed you're in hardcore denial.

[Ocedic]

Let's face it, if it was some other class that was overpowered, you would not be defending them to remain that way. We're very clearly ahead of the pack, and not in a slight "someone has to be #1" way. It's only going to get worse at this rate because S2M is the best scaling ability in the game.

I'm not saying we deserve to be nerfed into the ground, but if S2M's scaling was capped and the other talents were better, it would be healthier for the class and the game as a whole.

[Deleted]

Because you claim one fight
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/10#boss=1841
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/10#boss=1877
Even our worst fight we're #1 at https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/10#boss=1873
Like if you don't think this was going to get nerfed you're in hardcore denial.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/8

There, HFC ranks. Mages dominate and are top in 9 out of 14 bosses. According to ranks, we top 4 out 7. 4 out of 7 < 9 out of 14, in case you have problems with math. If we go back to other tiers we see similiar things happening to other classes/specs, so theres nothing new here.

And remember: if you want 10, you fight for 15. If you fight for 10, you get 5. Which is what we priests get if the community is just fine with whatever.

[Isentropy]

That is not unavoidable. Honestly, why are priests so willing to get nerfed all the times? Sometimes it seems like we are asking to be shit.
You make it sound like this has never happened before: WHOLE history of wow has some classes and spec scaling too well and ending up topping charts. Why is it such a huge deal if for once it happens to priest? I dont remember arcane mages asking for a nerf in HFC.
Seriously, instead of wanting a nerf to s2m we should be asking just one use in xavius, that is what is really messed up with s2m that puts us off the chart in the dmg.

First of all, 'willing to get nerfed' implies that there is some sort of argument against shadow deserving nerfs in our current state. There kind of objectively isn't. And it's not because of some tier set interaction/strong trinket/good fights for us - it's because of several aspects of our kit. You call it 'willing to get nerfed', I call it being realistic about the state of the spec; because the current state of shadow is absolutely ridiculous. It's not just Xavius, people need to stop with that nonsense. Shadow is pretty much top on all fights, and the shorter kills get the more excessive shadow gets. Nerfs are happening, we know that much. The reason why we haven't been nerfed hard yet is because shadow hasn't really been this OP in a long time. They just let it slide until they can fix some of the mechanical problems that plague shadow (since as we all know, it's not just StM being strong that's the problem). Do you expect Blizzard to just, you know, let us be overpowered for the entirety of the expansion?

And comparing a spec being broken at the start of the expansion vs a spec being broken on speedkills at the end of an expansion during deep farm. Really? Do you really not see that's a ridiculous comparison? Mages weren't overpowered for HFC progress, before you try and pull that card.