State of Spriest MOP BETA

[dpqt]

I have been raiding as shadow since 2005. Regularly ranking throughout my raiding career (from Australia may I add). The comments people are making implying that 'bad' or new shadow players will prefer the MoP changes while 'good' ones will prefer the old are absolutely ridiculous - if anything it's a personal preference thing and those with insight into shadow will actually recognise most of the changes as significant improvement. The changes are fun, and the rotation is just as, if not more, engaging than Cata.

5xEvangelism was essentially a static buff and not something you had to 'watch', so losing that changes nothing. ES was destroyed by horrible rng of orbs in earlier tiers, and once again a static buff once gear levels resulted in every mb cd having at least one orb (then moving on to the 4p set bonus) anyway so you were simply casting MB on cd as it was a dps loss to wait for orbs to cast mb, so you weren't really watching orbs for that reason or any other. Implying that keeping these up required any form of skill outside of not being completely and utterly retarded (or getting bad rng on orbs in earlier tiers) is outrageous. If you happened to have a mastery proc trinket then that required some slight form of awareness to proc ES correctly with the mastery buff up. Though in the earlier tiers (the only time that mastery proc trinkets were BiS or even close to it) it would require you got lucky enough to get orbs at exactly the right times to maximise ES uptime with the mastery proc ie. start and end of the buff (emphasis on lucky enough - rng is not 'skill' nor is it particularly fun to most people).

DoT management is exactly the same if not more 'intensive' (lol), as we have to recast 2 dots (VT / swp) as well as dp 3orbs. Swp is no longer refreshed by mf. Managing refreshing dot's when buffs that effect them proc is still entirely in play, in fact juggling your dp usage around procs / buffs is actually quite engaging. An example - just because you have 3 orbs up doesn't mean using them right now will net you maximum dps - if you have mb + swd on cd and are therefore not able to generate another orb - and you note that an internal cd or on-use buff is coming up within that period you can make the decision to hold off til you have those buffs up to hit your dp.

I will wager that maximising dps as shadow is, if anything, going to require a higher skillcap in MoP than in Cata. Currently all raids have gear normalised in beta and I am literally able to double any other shadow priests dps that I have come across - if the skill ceiling was as low as people are making out this would clearly not be possible. The 'dumbing down' of the rotation saying it is just mb mb mb dp that is going around could be applied to any class in any expansion. There is always a way to dumb down a rotation blindly in that manner. The equivalent would be to say that our rotation in cata was mb mb mb mb mb mb mb x102938201.

Baseline Silence and PH is delicious - though I haven't done any arena testing around PH requiring orbs to extend the horror duration to a reasonable amount (at face value it kinda sucks) note that the disarm last full duration regardless, and we have so many more additions strengthening our pvp ability that it seems a fair loss. PoM/Renew/Lifegrip in shadowform? Yes please. Especially with effect pvp power has on healing, at the moment shadow is a complete powerhouse for pvp and is looking extremely promising. Something that has not been able to be said for 2 expansions now.

Seems to me people are just afraid of change, and are covering it up with a 'lolnoobs' argument. If that is the case then you have certainly chosen the wrong class to focus on as shadow is one of the classes that has had the most extreme gameplay changes over the course of it's existence.

[Shartadin]

snip

Couldn't have said it better.

[Cerbz]

Where to start with this... I don't consider shadow hard to play on live. It is not too hard and not too easy.
Single target is outright boring, but there's a lot about it. In t11, if you weren't watching your uptimes, you were simply bad. Without all the haste, without t13p4, you have to watch them and you have to make decisions when to cast what, plan in advance.
Haste and set bonuses in DS made it more trivial, but if you were actually progressing yor'sahj, zon'ozz, blackhorn on hc without outgearing the encounter, prior to the nerfs, you had to watch ES at the very least, because it would drop while multidotting, it would drop in heavy aoe period. If you were worth of your raid spot, you had to know how to manage uptimes and make proper decisions, it wasn't all that "MINDBLAST ON CD!!!".

So now, they take away all the synergistic effects and make damage of every spell flat without any scaling with other parts of your rotation. Outside the spec, buffs and procs still matter, but that's something you should praise outside the priest forum. So things don't scale each other, you don't need any attention span outside managing two dots, you don't need to make any decisions - now mindblast should always go off cd unless it's a heavy aoe scenario. No point not to refresh the dot or refresh it early unless it's unrelated to the spec mechanics. Multidotting is now multidotting, don't have to manage anything, just dot your heart away. It's not flavor, its the actual gameplay - skillcap lowered by half, judging from the amount of things you don't have to do anymore. They remove about one third of my UI, more so if you exclude things that are outside class mechanics.

So ok, they also gave us something back.
Two clunky procs that are yet to be made viable, and don't bring any synergy to the ongoing gameplay. That may spice up the rotation, but it doesn't make it fluid - it makes it clunky. If they make some proper DI implementation, that would be nice, but that would require something more than immediate cd reset.
Shadowfiend 2.0, thank you, it doesn't do anything new, but we'll remove the dynamic CD reduction because having the same spell is clearly better than having an interesting, dynamic mechanic.
SW:I will be good if they manage to balance it to not be a dps loss in singletarget without it being stupidly op in multitarget, but again, no synergy.
PI option as shadow! Hooray, now we can choose to get it instead of DA if we really really need it because it'll be intentionally worse than other talents (on-demand should be worse). And doesn't scale the bursty parts of our kit either. Thank you for breaking something spriests have been asking for since vanilla.

Again, I don't find shadow hard to play, especially on static fights, especially with t13p4 and 3.2k+ haste. I don't like the different parts of our kit on their own, but I like how everything affects each other so I have to plan ahead if I'm going to alter my rotation for some specific situation. They take it away, ALL of it. Thank you, see you in 6.0 when they bring back designers who actually knew what they're doing.

So much this. The current rotation is mind numbingly simple and feels unfinished/clunky.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

So much this. The current rotation is mind numbingly simple and feels unfinished/clunky.

The live version of SP isn't hard, but it's definitely waaaaaaaaaay more fluid and polished than the very clunky rotation that we are using on the Beta.

[Celentes]

@dpqt
I didn't say shadow was hard. It's just easier on beta.
'If anything', you do require more skill to watch ES rather than not watch it. They could have worked on RNG and on-demand orbs, fixed the current spec instead of removing mechanics completely.
But no, there isn't anything in shadow on mop that requires better skill than currently on live. There just isn't anything new to watch or cast, for that matter.

They could have made the spec better, they could have fixed the current issues - instead, they removed their source, and not only that. And given some other rng to be frustrated about. I just don't see the point in the direction they're going.

[dpqt]

dpqt
I didn't say shadow was hard. It's just easier on beta.
'If anything', you do require more skill to watch ES rather than not watch it. They could have worked on RNG and on-demand orbs, fixed the current spec instead of removing mechanics completely.
But no, there isn't anything in shadow on mop that requires better skill than currently on live. There just isn't anything new to watch or cast, for that matter.

They could have made the spec better, they could have fixed the current issues - instead, they removed their source, and not only that. And given some other rng to be frustrated about. I just don't see the point in the direction they're going.

Maximising dps on beta is no easier than it is on live. DI is currently the best dps option for fights involving any amount of movement (which is every fight) and/or multi-dotting, even just watching and hitting those procs as soon as they come up in order to maximise dps potential involves more 'skill' or awareness than watching ES ever did. I am yet to see anyone make a valid point outlining what exactly it is within shadow gameplay that involves more 'skill' in live than on beta. There are more things that MATTER to watch and be aware of in beta gameplay than there is on live.

Though I agree fixing the issues on live would have been a better route for them to take instead of an overhaul, I have already outlined many ways in which the current beta shadow gameplay is more involving than that of live - which to me results in more fun whilst playing (the point of a game?). If you break it down though, it seems to me like in the process of addressing the issues we had and balancing they have just ended up at this point - which I believe is not a BAD place, just different. I have not been finding the gameplay particularly 'clunky' either, maybe that is people taking FDCL over mindbender? Even though FDCL is horrible.

Keep swp and vt up, mb on cd (+procs if you spec DI), dp at most opportune moment on 3orb, doubledeath in execute, mindflay filler. Replace keeping swp up with keeping dp up and sound familiar to live anyone - with the ADDITION of casting 3orb dp's in beta? I suppose you could say they have replaced watching ES with watching for a 3orb dp, but then you have to allow for watching for DI procs as well. So it still seems like we have made a gain in gameplay involvement.

Plus we have ensuring mflay / feather speed buff is up for moving, saving the tank with voidshift (or ourselves with mindbender+vs combo), the ability to throw out renews and PoMs and grip without losing anything other than a gcd (which we may have available if we are moving). I just cant see anything that screams a loss in fun factor, involvement or skill ceiling.

[Celentes]

DI is really clunky. I guess it may be subjective, but DI isn't really interesting in that way. It isn't fluid, doesn't solve any issues, and as a mechanic, it is a horrible atrocity ES rng doesn't even come close to. I'd like some proper, fluid implementation instead of some gimmick proc that barely ever happens. They could make it more smooth (better procrate but either gradual CD reset, or stacks resetting MB or better yet allowing SWD at some magic number, whatever).
Also, it isn't really much better unless on very heavy movement, especially considering its microscopic procrate.

It's not like new shadow is much worse. It is out of sync. Multiple interactions between spells are fun, same spells without interactions are much less fun. My issue with DP is that it stands on its own, but aside from high damage, it doesn't bring any synergy to the kit - it isn't affected by anything (aside from orbs as a resource) nor affecting anything. I don't have that feeling that I need to cast this and this, not only because it's a better dpet spell, but also because I'll lose the stacking synergy these spells have on the rest of the kit.
On beta, if I use mindflay, stop for 30 seconds, then mindflay again, it'll be the same damage mindflay. Mindblast doesn't differ from any other mindblast. DP with three orbs is not any different than any other DP with three orbs. They're all there, but now they're independent, take something out and you won't really miss it. On live, you play this way and use these spells because you follow the synergy. Albeit easy, it's fun.

[dpqt]

I agree synergy certainly enhances the experience, yet the synergy we have on live is mainly just a ramp-up into a constant (until you hit AA then ramp up your flay again). From a rotational aspect though - it seems we have just dropped ramp up which was a common complaint so this seems to me that it would be an improvement in the eyes of many (personally I thought Evang/DAA was fine - just ES that was a bad mechanic). If you dig into it I feel that the BIGGEST loss suffered is the removal of DAA, which gave us the feeling / opportunity (even prior to tier bonus) of controlled burst at opportune moments.

It would be interesting to see some changes to the DI proc, pretty annoying when it procs when mb was about to come off cd anyway, decrementing the cooldown of mb similar to mflay crits old interaction with fiend cooldown would be nice however the instant cast aspect (for movement / readjusting position) seems to come in handy far more often than you would think given the low procrate. I feel like they could have left evangelism in, and modified DAA to increase the damage of mblast/mflay AND dp (or even just dp) to give us the feeling of a dps cooldown (which is my biggest gripe with the changes) such that we could wind up a DAA'd dp+mblast+mflay back up to 5stack evangelism before refreshing swp and or vt. Feel almost certain that some people would still be complaining about ramp-up in that case though, which aside from balance could be some if not all of the reasoning behind removal of evang+DAA.

It's just sad to see people hating on the new shadow so much when it actually IS very fun, there are a lot of nice new additions to the spec that broaden our horizons significantly. My standpoint is that we have lost some but gained a fair bit more. Sure I wish some elements still remained but currently it's still one of the most interesting beta class spec's to play.

[Celentes]

Well, I prefer constant synergy to no synergy. I didn't personally feel like our synergy was too static, on interesting fights it was interesting to manage it.
I'd rather play with dynamic synergy, and that would be a good design direction, but they went with the other one instead, basically taking off the little fun I had.

DI interaction with remaining MB cd is easy to fix - move it to SWD instead of MB. However, given before the DP nerf, DI was still the best talent in its tier, that would potentially lead to further decrease in procrate to balance.

Thing about fun is, if you find the current shadow fun, you will probably like every single other spec in the game fun as well, maybe except arcane mages. Talk about casters - elemental has more synergy and is way more reactive, boomkin has better synergy and is more involving, warlocks (at least affli and demo, didn't look into destro on beta) are way more dynamic, mages are kinda meh except for fire, but that's always been the case and they have their own forum to cry about it.

We remain our shadowy animations, but talking about fun that's pretty much it.

[Deleted]

---------- Post added 2012-08-07 at 12:29 PM ----------

[/COLOR]

On beta, if I use mindflay, stop for 30 seconds, then mindflay again, it'll be the same damage mindflay. Mindblast doesn't differ from any other mindblast. DP with three orbs is not any different than any other DP with three orbs. They're all there, but now they're independent, take something out and you won't really miss it. On live, you play this way and use these spells because you follow the synergy. Albeit easy, it's fun.

I mentioned something like this, cant remember if it was in thie thread, about MB MB MB DP is flat damage rotation. The damage will always be the same and that, I find, is boring. Dots are the same, no matter what you do, how you open, how your rotation is during the fight or execute phase the dots will do the same damage nomatter what happens. On live ES and Evangalism buffs dots and mindflay and its up to the player to ensure theyre buffed like that. So far the only think I have seen that can edit that is procs from trinkets and enchants and withholding DP for max 8 sec to see if one procs, and trink procs are relevant to all classes.

@dpqt
I really cant agree more with the CD. It is going to be really missed by probably all players. And I think some of your ideas are really worthy.
I would also wonder about really lowering the CD, to like 30 seconds or something (or lowering due to mf crits - I miss that active reduction) and have it buff your next DP or have it remove CD on all spells for 5 seconds or something.
Could even have it stacking via DP hits and then use DAA for an increased 20% damage or something - Every time you hit with DP you gain a stack of something and you consume those stacks with DAA (along the same lines as Evangelism but its based on a greater dpet spell). After all, to gain 5 stacks with DP is, at most 24x5 = 120 seconds which is a standard 2 min CD so long as you make sure you hit DP on 3 orb CD.
Just a few ideas for a bit more burst.

---------- Post added 2012-08-07 at 12:33 PM ----------

I wonder if its worth making a new thread for shadow CD ideas, I'm sure there are more creative types out there in the forum than me.

[Brusalk]

A problem with the one you suggested is that you could get the damage significantly faster if you casted 1 or 2 orb DPs.

In my opinion they should allow MB to scale with haste, give us archangel back, make mind-bender have the same CD as SFiend but deal more damage to compensate, and allow sfiend/mindbender to have their CD reduced via MF crits. Would give us an established good CD with archangel, let our secondary resource scale with haste, and give at least some unexpectedness in the rotation.

[Deleted]

A problem with the one you suggested is that you could get the damage significantly faster if you casted 1 or 2 orb DPs.

In my opinion they should allow MB to scale with haste, give us archangel back, make mind-bender have the same CD as SFiend but deal more damage to compensate, and allow sfiend/mindbender to have their CD reduced via MF crits. Would give us an established good CD with archangel, let our secondary resource scale with haste, and give at least some unexpectedness in the rotation.

Yeah I have been thinking about this and what about a secondary shadow orb resource.
For example if you use 3 orbs on DP you gain a buff of 3 stacks. Then if you use another DP with 3 orbs you gain 3 more stacks totalling in 6. There could be a limit at say... 30 and the amount of stacks directly refers to how long DAA is up for, or how much damage it does. There should be a minute CD on DAA to stop it being up constantly. I thought it was a cool idea so that you sort of recycle the orbs, its a bit less linear and you have some choice there.

Some quick math..
30 stacks would, at best without DI, equate to: 10x24 = 240 seconds = 4 minute CD.
I have just noticed that the problem with this is that the ramp up time is fucking huuuuge... 4 mins for a full CD stack and its not available at the start of a fight.

I like the idea of adding a second use for the orbs we use through DP but perhaps not quite in the way I suggested.

@Brusalk
Yeah it seems like you want all best features from live and thread them around the new rotation, which I dont see as a problem if I am honest. I think haste would be wayyy to OP for us then, affecting pretty much all of our damaging spells except SW: D

[Brusalk]

Haste wouldn't be that OP. It might always be a bit above the other stats depending on talent choices but our orb generation needs to have some variability in it besides DI, otherwise as we scale up in gear then other sources of damage become larger portions of our damage compared to DP, which while not a bad thing could cause us to be worse compared to other classes whose abilities all scale.

[Deleted]

Haste wouldn't be that OP. It might always be a bit above the other stats depending on talent choices but our orb generation needs to have some variability in it besides DI, otherwise as we scale up in gear then other sources of damage become larger portions of our damage compared to DP, which while not a bad thing could cause us to be worse compared to other classes whose abilities all scale.

Yeah that is a very valid concern and one which I didnt think about. DP and MB being nearly 50% of our DPS and only scaling with int could be a real problem in 5.2+
This leads me to expect some quite significant changes from patch to patch in mop, not really ideal.

[Deleted]

I am sorry for asking this since I know most of you will think it's a really dumb question but: what is baseline? DPQT said that baseline PH and Silence were great and I have no idea what he's talking about. Thanks ^^

[smokeajay]

Blizzard isn't going to please everyone 100% of the time. Different strokes for different folks.

I am not stating that Shadow is perfect. The main reason I support the Beta changes is because of the open possibilities of evolving the specialization. The problem is that with each day we inch closer and closer to the release date of September 25 the possibilities dwindle. Instead of bickering here, we need to make ourselves more vocal in the beta forums. I've started writing an essay on what I think is wrong with Shadow on beta:

Shadow Priest's Affair with a Ret Pally

First, let me start out by stating I've played Retribution as my main prior to Wrath. I leveled my Shadow Priest at the start of Wrath. I've switched between the two classes and specs throughout Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm.

Throughout Cataclysm retribution paladins were plagued with issues of slow resource generation. Crusader Strike generated one holy power every 4-6 seconds -- varying with haste. This created problems with one getting 1-2 Templar Verdits between refreshing Inquisition. Even with Divine Purpose, retribution lacked resources to make their priority more interesting than the days of FCFS in Wrath. Limiting retribution's resource generation to only one spell and resource spending to 2 spells (I am focusing mainly on PvE DPS and not PvP/utility) hurt them in Cataclysm; however, access to DPS cooldowns that could be stacked helped retribution during those mediocre times. These problems have been alleviated in the Mists of Pandaria beta.

Now, in the Mists of Pandaria beta, I find my beloved Shadow priest having an affair with the same problems that effected Retribution during Cataclysm, but we have no interesting DPS cooldowns to add to an otherwise boring playstyle. Shadow is lacking in complexity. Talents that are suppose to make our "rotation" more interesting were nerfed to the point that no one will take them or other abilities were buffed over said abilities (FDCL vs Mind Flay).

The main reason for the changes to Retribution in Cataclysm was they were too easy to play and the player's choices didn't effect DPS (much). Sadly, these problems are arising for Shadow in the MoP beta.

This isn't near complete. So much more to add. Then revise. Then correct.

---------- Post added 2012-08-07 at 08:31 PM ----------

I am sorry for asking this since I know most of you will think it's a really dumb question but: what is baseline? DPQT said that baseline PH and Silence were great and I have no idea what he's talking about. Thanks ^^

Baseline, in that context, means that they are base spells. If you select Shadow as your specialization, then you automatically obtain those spells. Where as Power Infusion, Halo, Mindbender (and others) are not baseline, but rather optional.

[Deleted]

Recent changes in the latest patch.

This has made my mind up to re-roll if it releases like this. At first glance everything nerfed to compensate for a buff to Mind Spike FDCL?
In my own opinion dots were nerfed far too much anyway and now further.
I really dont like these changes and it seems blizzard want to force us to chose FDCL over anything else? It was competitive before this huge buff.

[Drhomie]

I don't know what they are doing... letting their 3 year old children hacking in some numbers?
don't they even think?

we are the worst ranged class as far as I am aware of and now even worse... and 150% MS instead of 120% or the 25% buff of SW:I doesn't really help

[Deleted]

I don't know what they are doing... letting their 3 year old children hacking in some numbers?
don't they even think?

we are the worst ranged class as far as I am aware of and now even worse... and 150% MS instead of 120% or the 25% buff of SW:I doesn't really help

Trying to fix the problems with the damage tier by buffing the numbers doesnt help.
And yeah, in the last patch sims we were around middle dps and now smacked with more nerfs unless you take FDCL, I cant quite understand.

[Deleted]

I can't understand it either, but I can also see some nerfs to other classe's damage. So I guess it's not that bad.