[7.2] Legion Shadow Priest Guide and Discussion

[alemaite]

I still don't understand why they don't simply buff the other legendaries. This nerf might not affect our numbers too much, but it does affect our gameplay greatly. People who have the belt will have to spam Mind Flay more often and spamming Mind Flay just isn't fun. Or they could just nerf the Mind Blast damage of belt owners by a bit. I just don't like how Blizzard keeps changing the way I play my character, as if all the other nerfs in the middle of an expansion aren't enough ...

[l33t]

Well, to be honest, you're not in control of how you play your character since Cata. It just becomes gradially worse with every next patch.

[Ilir]

I still don't understand why they don't simply buff the other legendaries. This nerf might not affect our numbers too much, but it does affect our gameplay greatly. People who have the belt will have to spam Mind Flay more often and spamming Mind Flay just isn't fun. Or they could just nerf the Mind Blast damage of belt owners by a bit. I just don't like how Blizzard keeps changing the way I play my character, as if all the other nerfs in the middle of an expansion aren't enough ...

lol... yeah I'm sure that if the others legendaries were buffed to be way better than the belt you won't ever wear the belt anymore

[Deleted]

lol... yeah I'm sure that if the others legendaries were buffed to be way better than the belt you won't ever wear the belt anymore

It all depends on if you really buffed them or not. WOW is all about numbers. Thing is, they dont want to buff other legendaries for real.
If the belt improved our dps by 10%, wouldnt you use a legendary that improves our dps by 11% flat?

[Ilir]

It all depends on if you really buffed them or not. WOW is all about numbers. Thing is, they dont want to buff other legendaries for real.
If the belt improved our dps by 10%, wouldnt you use a legendary that improves our dps by 11% flat?

I was just saying that his whole argument that "i love the belt because of the improved gameplay" is nice and all but we all know people just liked the belt because it was too good.

[Fleckens]

Definitely...
...still, one can think that something is really wrong with your spec when devs nerf your QoL legendary while nerfing dps legendaries of other classes.

It's both a quality of life legendary and a dps one, and the quality of life part is still there. Also whining about nerfs to your quality of life stuff while defending the legendary system is a bit silly dont you think? You're essentially whining about losing something that makes the class a lot better to play but is fine with a lot of people not having it.

[Deleted]

Has anyone tested nighthold on PTR? How is SP doing in real raiding world with LOTV?

[Quttan]

It all depends on if you really buffed them or not. WOW is all about numbers. Thing is, they dont want to buff other legendaries for real.
If the belt improved our dps by 10%, wouldnt you use a legendary that improves our dps by 11% flat?

I can only speak for myself, but if I had the choice between using a legendary belt that improves DPS by 10% by giving a charge to Mind Blast and a legendary belt that gives a flat 11% damage bonus, then I would absolutely use the Mind Blast belt. I just don't like that the cooldowns of Void Bolt and Mind Blast conflict. Of course there's a point where the difference would be greater than I would be willing to accept, but there really are people who assign value to the way the game feels to play and weigh it against absolute damage numbers. I would even speculate that a majority of shadow priest players would be willing to make that trade-off.

I was just saying that his whole argument that "I love the belt because of the improved gameplay" is nice and all but we all know people just liked the belt because it was too good.

Like I said above, quality of gameplay and damage numbers both have values that can be reasonably weighed against each other. Obviously there's a point where sacrificing a large enough amount of damage for a relatively small gameplay improvement is just plain stupid, but when you say that "people just liked the belt because it was too good" it makes it sound like you think that gameplay improvements never come into the equation, which is also wrong.

[Sxq]

Yeah yeah we all knew op belt was going to get nerfed. I'd rather see 2 charges be baseline, and belt reworked to something else but whatever. Getting rid of 1 charge is fair I think though, as its insane how much better your opener is with that belt compared to without. Plus there are times where dispersing, or dotting new adds, or banking for later in surrender you end up with 3 charges and benefit from it.

Still looking forward to more info on Nighthold stat weights, trinket values, etc

[Syld]

Has anyone tested nighthold on PTR? How is SP doing in real raiding world with LOTV?

Lotv is useless unless they actually implement the dmg bonus on it. Shadow crash is miles better even on single target

[Deleted]

Lotv is useless unless they actually implement the dmg bonus on it. Shadow crash is miles better even on single target

Ok, and how we doing with shadow crash in nighthold compared vs other classes?

[Thrayne]

I had been looking at the dungeon journal in-game as our guild plans our tier sets. Then I notice on wowhead that the stats had changed. Much of the stats had been replaced with Vers. I have Legendary shoulders and belt (I know, lucky SoB) and every 4 piece I think might be the best has a tremendous amount of Vers on it. I'm thinking the best 4 set to have (while keeping legendaries) would be Head, Chest, Legs and Gloves.

I guess my real question is, to what point would forgoing the set bonuses for other better itemized slot item be worth it? Also I have Sephuz so not using shoulders is an option (I know probably not realistic). Just being completely disgusted by all the Vers on the tier set and hoping someone had some more math behind it.

[Vained]

I had been looking at the dungeon journal in-game as our guild plans our tier sets. Then I notice on wowhead that the stats had changed. Much of the stats had been replaced with Vers. I have Legendary shoulders and belt (I know, lucky SoB) and every 4 piece I think might be the best has a tremendous amount of Vers on it. I'm thinking the best 4 set to have (while keeping legendaries) would be Head, Chest, Legs and Gloves.

I guess my real question is, to what point would forgoing the set bonuses for other better itemized slot item be worth it? Also I have Sephuz so not using shoulders is an option (I know probably not realistic). Just being completely disgusted by all the Vers on the tier set and hoping someone had some more math behind it.

Crit and Haste is roughly 20% better than Versa. Versa is far from worthless, keep that in mind.

[alemaite]

I was just saying that his whole argument that "i love the belt because of the improved gameplay" is nice and all but we all know people just liked the belt because it was too good.

How do you know? You don't know what people think, there is no reason for me to lie. The main reason I liked the belt was because it changed up the rotation. You can't tell what people are thinking. I'm #1 in dps in most fights by 10% - 15% anyways, even before I got the belt I was #1 in most fights. If I was so concerned about SPriest damage, I would be much more pissed at the changes they made to s2m.

[pseudoJ]

It all depends on if you really buffed them or not. WOW is all about numbers. Thing is, they dont want to buff other legendaries for real.
If the belt improved our dps by 10%, wouldnt you use a legendary that improves our dps by 11% flat?

not if it changed the gameplay for worse (subjectively speaking). The thing is that no single item which is totally RNG should improve one's dps by 10%.... Legendaries should ideally provide only utility. I would consider Prydaz to be a good legendary, or the caster boots which allows you to cast while moving, or the movement speed boots. Also ideally different legendaries would be good for different types of situation -- which currently is not exactly true as DPS boost shines everywhere.

[Ilir]

How do you know? You don't know what people think, there is no reason for me to lie. The main reason I liked the belt was because it changed up the rotation. You can't tell what people are thinking. I'm #1 in dps in most fights by 10% - 15% anyways, even before I got the belt I was #1 in most fights. If I was so concerned about SPriest damage, I would be much more pissed at the changes they made to s2m.

Except the nerf doesn't change the QoL. You'll still have 2 charges and you'll still not waste charges, so again... your point doesn't really stand.

Also anyone who is surprised about StM nerf is really bizarre.

[alemaite]

Except the nerf doesn't change the QoL. You'll still have 2 charges and you'll still not waste charges, so again... your point doesn't really stand.

Also anyone who is surprised about StM nerf is really bizarre.

Every time I see you post you never bother to properly read what people write and just respond to things in your own head. I never said I'm surprised about the s2m nerfs. And the nerf changes the way you play the class, I never said anything about QoL either. You spend more time casting Mind Flay than before, and I don't find casting Mind Flay fun, that is precisely what I said. But why do I even bother, you don't seem to be the type to change your mind.

[davesignal]

Except he's right, and you're wrong.

Just because you have the legendary belt doesn't mean you stop casting Mind Blast on CD. The #1 benefit of the belt is that you can delay Mind Blast to cast Void Bolt during Voidform without wasting Mind Blast's CD, and this still works 100% with Mind Blast having 2 charges over 3. You should almost never be hitting three charges of Mind Blast with the legendary belt. You should barely ever be hitting two charges except during periods of EXTREME haste. Like, Power Infusion + 30 stacks of Voidform levels of haste.

Please, by all means, explain in intricate detail how you're playing the game such that you regularly cap at three charges of Mind Blast.

[l33t]

Please, by all means, explain in intricate detail how you're playing the game such that you regularly cap at three charges of Mind Blast.

SI? /10charz

[davesignal]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but even with Mangaza's Madness isn't Auspicious Spirits better than SI on any fight which has enough secondary targets to actually have that happen regularly?