[7.2] Legion Shadow Priest Guide and Discussion

[Nyel]

Atleast they are buffing the numbers, guess that is nice.

I wouldn't be too sure about that lol. In the end we get +10% Mind Flay and +10% Shadow Word: Death damage, resulting in 1% more damage overall.

[Deleted]

Guys... some insight about trinkets please. I'm not really sure about what to use in raids... I have:
880 plaguehive
885 bough of corruption
875 ethereal urn with socket
880 unstable horrorslime
880 elementum bomb squirrel generator
880 wriggling sinew

Without any trinket I'm running 8200 crit and 8600 haste. Usually I go for plaguehive and horrorslime... mostly because with s2m it seems nice to have 9200 crit and 9500 haste... and I switch to bough of corruption (instead of horrorslime) on xavius (and helya) since it seems to add a lot of damage with procs. Ive seen several high end priests that use ethereal urn tho... i guess that extra int is pretty nice (and plus mine is socketed as well) but im wondering if its worth losing the 1k crit which is rather handy during s2m for passive insanity generation (I guess they can manage to reach a lot of stacks even without that 1k, not sure I can tho).

What would you guys use? On single target and multi? Thanks!

[Jimjam38]

Just wanted to express my sympathy to all the spriests out there after reading the complete mess that was the big bluepost on shadow. The OP of that blizz forum post sounded like they really knew what was going on, and actually had math the back it up, while the Devs sound so disconnected and clueless. Its seriously frustrating to watch, and I don't even main shadow. RIP you guys.

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Guys... some insight about trinkets please. I'm not really sure about what to use in raids... I have:
880 plaguehive
885 bough of corruption
875 ethereal urn with socket
880 unstable horrorslime
880 elementum bomb squirrel generator
880 wriggling sinew

Without any trinket I'm running 8200 crit and 8600 haste. Usually I go for plaguehive and horrorslime... mostly because with s2m it seems nice to have 9200 crit and 9500 haste... and I switch to bough of corruption (instead of horrorslime) on xavius (and helya) since it seems to add a lot of damage with procs. Ive seen several high end priests that use ethereal urn tho... i guess that extra int is pretty nice (and plus mine is socketed as well) but im wondering if its worth losing the 1k crit which is rather handy during s2m for passive insanity generation (I guess they can manage to reach a lot of stacks even without that 1k, not sure I can tho).

What would you guys use? On single target and multi? Thanks!

I don't main shadow, but I'm fairly certain the Plaguehive is bis. I would imagine the horrorslime is second best after plague hive, but someone else can tell you with more certainty.

[Deleted]

Guys... some insight about trinkets please. I'm not really sure about what to use in raids... I have:
880 plaguehive
885 bough of corruption
875 ethereal urn with socket
880 unstable horrorslime
880 elementum bomb squirrel generator
880 wriggling sinew

Without any trinket I'm running 8200 crit and 8600 haste. Usually I go for plaguehive and horrorslime... mostly because with s2m it seems nice to have 9200 crit and 9500 haste... and I switch to bough of corruption (instead of horrorslime) on xavius (and helya) since it seems to add a lot of damage with procs. Ive seen several high end priests that use ethereal urn tho... i guess that extra int is pretty nice (and plus mine is socketed as well) but im wondering if its worth losing the 1k crit which is rather handy during s2m for passive insanity generation (I guess they can manage to reach a lot of stacks even without that 1k, not sure I can tho).

What would you guys use? On single target and multi? Thanks!

there is a trinket spreadsheet in the OP.
but plaguehive + urn if you can get 9,5k haste / 9k crit with it, if not swap urn for horrorslime.

[Relapses]

"Low skilled players will see higher stacks"

Horseshit.

at 18 stacks the new version drains more and on live you get to 11 by taking your hands off the keyboard.
It will drain more under any situation in which you are pressing keys...

Sigh.

So, the class is broken and will stay broken.
Atleast they are buffing the numbers, guess that is nice.

I'm thinking that Blizzard is trying to balance around non-S2M VFs which is what Lore was referencing (ie, low-skilled players having longer non-S2M VFs will result in more net-DPS gain even if they still suck at S2M itself). It's poorly worded, though, so I can see why players are upset. I'm interested to see how much they're buffing our spells in the next build but it still kind of seems to me they're stabbing in the dark and throwing shit on the wall to see what sticks. It's a really awful way to balance anything but as long as Blizzard stands by S2M's current design I really don't know how else they'd handle it.

[Catbug]

They could buff all spells to do mad damage but it still wouldn't make up for the gameplay, toolkit and skillcap they are cutting out.

[fujiapples]

hello guys.Can you help me.
Im from casual guild and we've just managed to kill mythic cenarius yesterday.If everything goes well we will start mythic xavius today.
I've heard about some bugs on mythic xavius about ppl dying in dream in s2m.Suppose if i go in first dream should i get corrupted? and when and how should i die in there? got corrupted and die from s2m before debuff expires or somehow manage to live for whole debuff duration,got MCed and die?
Thank you in advance!

[Fleckens]

hello guys.Can you help me.
Im from casual guild and we've just managed to kill mythic cenarius yesterday.If everything goes well we will start mythic xavius today.
I've heard about some bugs on mythic xavius about ppl dying in dream in s2m.Suppose if i go in first dream should i get corrupted? and when and how should i die in there? got corrupted and die from s2m before debuff expires or somehow manage to live for whole debuff duration,got MCed and die?
Thank you in advance!

When you reach 100 corruption you get a damage buff for 20 sec, when that ends you get mind controlled. In dream it will simply take you out of the dream. So your goal is generally to hit that 100 corruption in the last 20 sec of your stm. It's perfect if you can get it and also get a third void torrent but generally I'd say just aim for hitting 100 corruption at the time you would normally pop your PI as it's more consistant and will still do more damage than pretty much anyone else.

To get corrupted, keep an eye on the timer for the adds and quickly move to them so you get hit by their explosion. The last bit of corruption you can get by soaking one of the small circles that start appearing at high corruption. Another option to get corruption, which is what I usually do, is to do the first dispel on the tank by using mass dispel.

[Jimjam38]

When you reach 100 corruption you get a damage buff for 20 sec, when that ends you get mind controlled. In dream it will simply take you out of the dream. So your goal is generally to hit that 100 corruption in the last 20 sec of your stm. It's perfect if you can get it and also get a third void torrent but generally I'd say just aim for hitting 100 corruption at the time you would normally pop your PI as it's more consistant and will still do more damage than pretty much anyone else.

To get corrupted, keep an eye on the timer for the adds and quickly move to them so you get hit by their explosion. The last bit of corruption you can get by soaking one of the small circles that start appearing at high corruption. Another option to get corruption, which is what I usually do, is to do the first dispel on the tank by using mass dispel.

I was wondering about this when I played my OS shadow in our normal run the other night. I've seen videos of viklund keeping his lingering insanity from the dream - how? Is it only if you get kicked out from corruption, rather than dying to S2M? Or was that a bug they've fixed?

[RsinRC]

Ok so speaking as if we are going to go live with these changes (some that I don't like but I try and get the most with what I have)

The Twin's Painful Touch is going to be Spriest's mandatory legendary (On any fight with adds or trash packs)

In the ptr with the legendary ring I am not having to (re) apply dots at all, like at all, during or in between voidforms if my targets are all stacked. The only real time I have to re apply dots is if my targets are far from each other and this doesn't feel too bad, tbh. Without the legendary we are going to have to still switch often to get our dots up but with the new VB we won't have to try and focus to maintain all of our dots. Simply keeping VB on CD will suffice (unless the targets are spread out).

So in 7.1 we're going from having to dot up targets and constantly switching targets, whether far or near, to refresh our dots with VB with dots still falling off when there are 4+ targets so re applying dots is inevitable.

to...

7.1.5 Applying dots and then do ST damage on one target while VB extends our dots on all stacked targets. Only having to re apply dots on spread out targets. Dots do not fall off when there are any number of targets inside VF, if you keep VB on CD and continue to stay up with shorter out of VF times.

With the legendary ring in 7.1 We're going from applying dots on 1 target, searing (stacked targets) ->VF then swp/sear remaining targets (if any) while using VB to refresh dots already applied/expiring. Still lots of target switching where I believe SP suffers at a higher skill level because you might click the wrong target or might tab to the wrong target leading to missed GCD's.

With the legendary ring in 7.1.5 We dot 1 target, flay (stacked targets) ->VF then fully dot remaining targets (If any) while keeping VB on CD. The huge difference in 7.1.5 is you do not have to worry about stacked target's dots because VB is extending all of these dots.

Much easier and more focused play style in 7.1.5 and only really re applying dots on spread out targets. And with the buffs to dot duration and upping VB's dot extension to 3s it is only going to make this a lot smoother for us.

It seems they are switching/180 how SP works when dealing with near and spread out targets and to be fair we see a lot more stacked enemies than spread out ones in the game so having to, in an overall scope of things, dot less is a plus for me.

Many see it as a drawback but the more I play I definitely am seeing how these changes are working with us and not against us. Especially in Mythic+ where I spend the majority of my play time.

TL;DR The Twin's Painful Touch will be mandatory for that 'smooth' gameplay experience. SP is having to re apply dots much less than people make it out to be. The more you play SP in the PTR (as of last build) the more these changes make sense.

[Syenite]

...
The Twin's Painful Touch is going to be Spriest's mandatory legendary (On any fight with adds or trash packs)
...
TL;DR The Twin's Painful Touch will be mandatory for that 'smooth' gameplay experience. SP is having to re apply dots much less than people make it out to be. The more you play SP in the PTR (as of last build) the more these changes make sense.

So essentially you are telling us what we already know, dotting spread targets will be more of a pain, not
Having the right legendary for a given situation will be even more of a setback and ultimately gameplay won't be as smooth as before.

So why would the changes make sense if only those blessed by RNGsus can move on somewhat smoothly. Keep in mind we will still be dying and running a high risk build for little to no payoff.

[Alanar]

TL;DR The Twin's Painful Touch will be mandatory for that 'smooth' gameplay experience. SP is having to re apply dots much less than people make it out to be. The more you play SP in the PTR (as of last build) the more these changes make sense.

So glad I got both ring and belt for next patch.

[RsinRC]

So essentially you are telling us what we already know, dotting spread targets will be more of a pain, not
Having the right legendary for a given situation will be even more of a setback and ultimately gameplay won't be as smooth as before.

So why would the changes make sense if only those blessed by RNGsus can move on somewhat smoothly. Keep in mind we will still be dying and running a high risk build for little to no payoff.

Conversely, having to REdot targets AND VB tab/switch targets far or near while still* having dots fall off targets who are stacked or spread out like on live is much more of a pita.

Without the legendary it will still be much simpler than on live as all you need to do is apply your dots and keep them up with VB. Only having to reapply dots on spread targets instead on all targets that your dots fell off of like it is on live.

I'm not too worried about StM. I find it interesting how most if not everyone knows that stm is OP broken yet when seeing the inevitable nerfs there is a huge outcry. I tested it a few times and was still doing well over 1m dps. I'm pretty sure it is still going to be pretty powerful but less OP than on live. Also non-stm VFs are much more satisfying because it isn't such a crawl to the next VF. So the DPS before using StM will be a bit higher with the high end of StM being less than live.

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So glad I got both ring and belt for next patch.

I played with belt in the PTR and it is such a great playstyle. Having the new legendary cloak, the belt, RoS and SI and it's instant proc city where you rarely cast Mind Flay but enough to proc Call of the Void and extends your VF by a shit ton for both ST and aoe. I have seen near 1million crits with the Cloak proc. And where my dps was hovering at 420k on target dummies it is now 570k dps. So fucking sexy. This setup will prolly be god mode on medium length fights but I'm still a fan of AS.

[Nyel]

So glad I got both ring and belt for next patch.

Others haven't and that's a huge problem here (I got the ring and I know how much the gameplay improvement with it is).

Blizzard just should turn the effect of the ring into a talent and replace Legacy of the Void with it. Something like "when activating your Voidform you reset the DoTs on your primary target to full duration and spread them to the next 3, 4, 5 targets within 5/10m of your primary target".

The huge advantage of Twins Painful Touch is not only the DoT-spread but the DoT-refresh on your primary target (that makes it a great Legendary for ST fights as well).

[Alanar]

Conversely, having to REdot targets AND VB tab/switch targets far or near while still* having dots fall off targets who are stacked or spread out like on live is much more of a pita.

Without the legendary it will still be much simpler than on live as all you need to do is apply your dots and keep them up with VB. Only having to reapply dots on spread targets instead on all targets that your dots fell off of like it is on live.

I'm not too worried about StM. I find it interesting how most if not everyone knows that stm is OP broken yet when seeing the inevitable nerfs there is a huge outcry. I tested it a few times and was still doing well over 1m dps. I'm pretty sure it is still going to be pretty powerful but less OP than on live. Also non-stm VFs are much more satisfying because it isn't such a crawl to the next VF. So the DPS before using StM will be a bit higher with the high end of StM being less than live.

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I played with belt in the PTR and it is such a great playstyle. Having the new legendary cloak, the belt, RoS and SI and it's instant proc city where you rarely cast Mind Flay but enough to proc Call of the Void and extends your VF by a shit ton for both ST and aoe. I have seen near 1million crits with the Cloak proc. And where my dps was hovering at 420k on target dummies it is now 570k dps. So fucking sexy. This setup will prolly be god mode on medium length fights but I'm still a fan of AS.

The playstyle is super sexy, hands down most fun with 3 charges mindblastSI talented and spread aids up to 6-9 targets with couple gcd mindsears.

[Deleted]

I can see the ring and new VB being decent in m+, it's shit for raids tho. Usually in raids you only stack adds when they die very fast (so we're shit anyway), when they live longer you usually have to split them up (unlike m+ trash), so new VB/ring wont refresh them. If you add that S2M is nerfed and that was our key win in raids, then we definately need buffs for raid. Making us slighly better in m+ just wont cut it because, as we have said many times, no one with a brain plays a SP to JUST do m+ when there are so many other dps classes much better for that (and the changes wont change this).

At this point, I hope they'll buff some of our spells (I guess they cant buff dots tho, so maybe blast/flay) and help us with insanity drain somehow, im not really sure how many stacks we'll be able to get with s2m.

[Deleted]

Had some thoughts on the matter, but not sure how they would actually play out...
What if LotV would give back the full DoT-refresh on VB for main target, and +2/3sec on targets nearby? Would make it the go-to talent for spread out cleave (which i know is barely any raid fight, but would let you pick that sometimes at least...)
And also, for Mass Hysteria and S2M nerfs. Instead of MH scaling 2% per second, why not keep current S2M as it is, giving people that 3rd VoiT to aim for, but nerf the scaling of MH without capping it. Start it at 2% per second, then the next tick gives it a 1.99% increase, then 1.98 and so on (Actual numbers would be a tuning issue, but you see what i'm getting at). Would still reward great players from extending their S2M longer, but just not as much.

Not sure, just some thougts.

Edit: Just thought of the implications of VB not refreshing DoTs to full duration for PVP, oh gawd... At least my idea of full refresh for LotV would fix that issue aswell.

[kalaratic]

i fucking hate how these clowns can get away with changing our playstyle in the middle of the expansion

[Djriff]

Help out.

865 Moonlit Prism with no socket (986 haste)
865 Swarming Plaguehive with no socket (986 haste)

vs

875 Stormsinger Fulmination Charge with no socket (1557 int/461 avoidance).

Current stats with no buffs.

Crit : 7973 (29%)
Haste : 9882 (30%)
Mastery : 2040 (35%)
Vers : 227 (1%)

I'd run Stormsinger and Plaguehive.

[Demetrion]

If anyone was here who always defended the devs, it was me, but reading the reasons behind the changes on the PTR makes me lose all faith. I'm 100% sure that no one plays shadow, nor they have any logical idea what are they talking about.

I'm just saddened and speechless...