Is shadow undertuned yet again?

[Annesh]

Around 897 equipped ilvl, 54 traits, 3.3 million hp, I group with similarly geared monks, ret pallies, and just about everyone else in mythics between 13 and 15, and they're blowing me away on both aoe/cleave pulls and bosses. They burst to like 1.5 million and higher on the trash and casually hit 600k on the bosses, and meanwhile I can get to 800k on a good trash pull and barely make it to 500k on bosses. Some bosses I can get higher thanks to adds to dot or whatnot, but I just generally feel like I'm getting outdone on everything, and there's nothing I'm really good at. And worse, it gets horribly horribly bad on true aoe pulls like the first slimes in Arcway, where my lack of Mind Sear means I'm doing basically no damage.

I was enjoying 7.1.5 early on, but it seems like everyone else is scaling much better than I am. Were we overnerfed? Is anyone else having this experience? My gear isn't optimized but even if it were, it wouldn't increase my damage by 100k singletarget and 400-500k cleave.

[vavlqlw]

This is the result of being a ramp-up spec doing content where things die before you can ramp up. If your endgame is m+13 to 15, shadow isn't the best place to be.

[Fritters154]

Around 897 equipped ilvl, 54 traits, 3.3 million hp, I group with similarly geared monks, ret pallies, and just about everyone else in mythics between 13 and 15, and they're blowing me away on both aoe/cleave pulls and bosses.

If similarly geared monks and ret pallies aren't blowing an spriest away on most M+ pulls there is likely something wrong. Spriests are primarily designed to dps raid bosses. You can successfully do M+ but don't expect to beat classes that are AOE centric or have extreme burst on AOE trash pulls and boss fights that last less than 90 seconds.

If you run extremely high M+, it will likely balance out more as everything is going to take longer to die and ultimately boost your numbers more so than the mentioned classes.

[kalaratic]

i wouldn't focus on your dps pull by pull, it's better to look at overall damage for the dungeon and use that as a baseline to compare yourself from run to run imo. and ya like it was said above of all the classes to get shit on in m+, ww and ret would make me feel the least bad about getting beat. a lot of your dmg also depends on the competency of your tank or if it's necrotic/bolstering, if you can't chain pull you will always end up doing less damage.

[Waynebrady]

The higher M+ you do, the more you see our trash AoE numbers rise because the adds last longer, but we are no where near the level of most other classes who can press 2 abilities and pull 1-2m+. These same classes also do really well on boss fights. The problem is that we used to be bad at AoE and really good at single target/boss fights. Now they have helped our AoE a little bit with our talent choices, but made us sacrifice boss damage to gain it. They really need to just make Shadow Crash baseline, or make it instantly hit targets. I find that I throw a SC out but it may miss targets because the tank has to move the mobs (and boss too).

[dmfg]

Shadow is super situational. This week on EU it's bolster, skittish, fortified. You will be taking a giant dump on melee on +16 upwards.

[Deleted]

Last week it was almost impossible to very to any higher m+ group. This week insta-invite. There is something about our dps in raids though. We're progressing on Krosus mythic. We're awful there. Same for trillax if you don't cheese ads. Only on botanist we shine. We're just one trick pony. Cleave or bench. Which is scary because other classes got weak points but not as weak as Spriest ST or AOE.

[hikamiro]

Melee & Hunters (aka melee #2) are across the board better than ranged classes for m+

Shadow is in a good spot for utility though. VE is huge in dungeons and our AoE stun is very useful

[Deleted]

Shadow is in a good spot for utility though. VE is huge in dungeons and our AoE stun is very useful

lul, as if anyone would pick a priest for that ^^

[Deleted]

lul, as if anyone would pick a priest for that ^^

From scratch had 3 SP assistibg heal with shadowmends , wearing prydaz (décent on SP) and dispersing m chanics
A single VE is like 7M heal so yeah ppl pick SP for their utility

[Tojara]

Does it really matter if you're being blown out of the water by a ret/monk in a M+ that you likely over gear? Doesn't matter if you look bad, it's simply that your group is stomping the content to where the trash doesn't last long enough. When you get to a level where you're only pulling packs of 3-6 and they last a decent amount of time, shadow by no means is bad.

I mean, shadow is certainly way better in M+ than what it was previously. It's also still probably the best ranged raid spec all around. Amazing cleave and average ST on the surface don't mean a lot to some people, but the reason you see so many shadow priests is because they heal themselves a lot and will never die. That alone is better than most of the other ranged who die when they get target by any ability.

VE is also solid.

[Deleted]

There is something about our dps in raids though. We're progressing on Krosus mythic.

The way in our mechanics works is super unforgivable for breaks in dpsing. Taking 6-12s break mid fight because of soaking adds far away from boss is fucking your dps far more than for any other spec in the game because of Lingering Insanity and overall mechanics of Voidform.

[hypsi]

my experience is different e.g on mythic+ over 13+ i beat pallys monks and other classes on aoe trash fights because fights take longer and u can dot all. on mythic+ bosses they r also long fights i use PI on mythics and dot 1 by1 if u use misery ur aoe is increasing 80k or more but u suck on dungeon bosses , its harder to dot 1by1 but pays off on bosses and not much diffrence on aoe. on raids, on the other hand, no1 can beat spriests on botanist , spellblade auriel also we do lots of dmg on guldan+chromatic if u play right. for other bosses like krosus its normal to get behind some classes like rogues, hunters, pallies but still do good job. briefly , i felt like we are more powerful in aoe fights than ST. but im also sad that our single target (being raid spec) is gone cos many other specs perform better than spriests now. overall we are really good and strong but on ST only we are not powerful as we used to be. one last thng, we should have s2m back it was really fun to play and (more risk more reward) talent no1 uses it no more dying spriests and huge dps

[Flubby]

Anything under a 13 / 14 + with other high damage output AoE classes, trash won't last long enough to really let us shine. Then again when mobs live long enough to let us take advantage of voidform the damage jumps up quite a lot. (minus non elite trash packs that die in 5 seconds) You can't compare yourself with classes that have a huge amount of AoE burst, thats just not what spriests are made for. So no I wouldn't say spriests are undertuned, (quite the opposite) I'd say we're situational especially when it comes to m+.

[daniika]

There are a few things you can do as an spriest to push out a bit more burst damage on multi add packs. I can usually pull about a million on these packs, keeping up with specs like ret pallies.

- Run Misery (Take a look at your group's composition though. If it's Tyrannical week, and the other DPS in your group specialize in AoE cleave, you may be better off taking Power Infusion for more boss damage).
- Swap out trinkets. The Grimoire (from Krosus) and the legendary trinket can both do some major AoE damage if timed properly. You can swap back to single target trinkets for bosses.
- Shadow Crash CAN be useful, if the tank knows you're using it and can hold packs in place for a few seconds. It's worthless if it misses.

With certain trash packs (like the imps in CoS), there's not much you can do other than mind bomb them, SW:P one or two, then mind flay. Usually the rest of your group will AoE them down before you get the chance. Don't blow your VF or CDs on these packs, save them for when things will be alive for more than 5 seconds.

When mobs will be alive longer, such as in the little roundabout in DHT, I usually try and put both SW:P and VT on every target (misery helps). Then VF and VB the shit out of everything.

While it is hard to keep up with pure burst classes, it can be done with proper spell usage and gear. Just practice

[Deleted]

I'm currently 896ilvl and yes, in lower mythics we tend to get rolled over by classes that can do burst aoe. On the other hand, in higher mythics (12+) i'm usually on top in both AoE and single target dps.

[Deleted]

I'm currently 892ilvl I have to agree with the above poster, in lower mythic+ I get rolled over but around +12 and above its the other way around.

[friedmudkipz]

Last week it was almost impossible to very to any higher m+ group. This week insta-invite. There is something about our dps in raids though. We're progressing on Krosus mythic. We're awful there. Same for trillax if you don't cheese ads. Only on botanist we shine. We're just one trick pony. Cleave or bench. Which is scary because other classes got weak points but not as weak as Spriest ST or AOE.

Yeah spriest is only good for anomaly, spellblade, tich, botanist, augur, elisande, and gul'dan. Hard life.

On a more serious note, spriest is fine on trilliax, not sure if this is what you mean by cheesing adds but abusing the 2 pc on the srubbers gives you plenty of dps.

[Deleted]

Yeah spriest is only good for anomaly, spellblade, tich, botanist, augur, elisande, and gul'dan. Hard life.

On a more serious note, spriest is fine on trilliax, not sure if this is what you mean by cheesing adds but abusing the 2 pc on the srubbers gives you plenty of dps.

I don't have any personal experience from M Nighthold since I killed only 3 first bosses there. But from a quick glance on warcraftlogs:
There are 3 SPriests in the first 100 on Anomaly. I wouldn't call it SPriest being "good" there.
There are no SPriests in the first 100 on Spellblade.
On Tichondrius like 70% of SPriest DPS comes from cleaving bloods. I don't know if it's a usual strat or simply a way to boost DPS for parses.
There is ONE SPriest in the first 100 on Augur.
No SPriests in the first 100 on Trillax. Mostly because I think warcraftlogs does not include add dmg for overall DPS.

I know there are not many logs from last bosses on mythic. And I don't argue, SPriests are decent in NH overall. But this shouldn't overshadow glaring disadvantages we have comparing to other classes.

[Deleted]

Yeah spriest is only good for anomaly, spellblade, tich, botanist, augur, elisande, and gul'dan. Hard life.

On a more serious note, spriest is fine on trilliax, not sure if this is what you mean by cheesing adds but abusing the 2 pc on the srubbers gives you plenty of dps.

This is a plain lie, sorry. There is currently no fight in mythic nighthold where spriests shine. Even botanist is a single target fight and all cleave you do is wasted and only padding the meters. You can spec misery and pad the meters on scrubbers, but that will not increase your boss dps. The time you spend dotting scrubbers causes more harm on your boss dps than it helps. It is simply a way of padding meters. We are probably the weakest single target damage in the game, currently (unless we spec StM, which no boss in nighthold allows).
And as we are a ramp up class, we have no AoE nuke either (again, unless we spec shadow crash, which is not very viable on current bosses). If there were more bosses like botanist HEROIC, we would be fine. But as I said, even botanist is a single target fight on mythic.

Shadow is way below avarage in current raid settings. It is great for high mythic dungeons though, especially if the affixes include fortified as our cleave/multi dot still is very strong.