GC's tweet for lack of a dps burst cd for shadow priests

[Deleted]

You wouldn't spec PI for spine if it was current content. You'd still go with ToF and proc it on a blood add before the tendon cracks open, because 15% dmg is better than 20% haste.

In fact, I can't think of a single fight in the last 5 raid tiers where you would spec PI. The only use of it would be tossing it to a Moonkin on Sinestra if it was still castable on others.

I mb missunderstand Stiglet but I think what he means is that PI is not a bad talent in itself. It ends up being a bad talent because we don't scale that good with haste. If MB CD was reduced by haste then PI would be a great talent and even too imba in some fights. We know SP are relatevily weaker as you and your raid gets better gear. So Blizzard should fix this poor scaling, not this good talent.

[blargh312]

The thing is that the result of the orb generation (DP) scales just perfectly fine with haste. So Orb generation does indirectly scale with haste aswell.
Reducing MB Cooldown bsed on haste would mean DP would double dip with haste, which cant be a design goal...

The only way that orb generation scales with haste is via Divine Insight. Faster SWP ticks means more chances to proc DI. But without DI, orb generation does not scale at all with any stat. DP does, but that only matters in regards to breakpoints. Considering the 2nd extra tick is already reachable and the 3rd likely won't be until the end of the expansion, if at all, it's not really a valid point right now.

[Deleted]

But they exist and that's the fight soooo...

Spine was merely an example of a fight that required burst. I didn't mean THAT fight exactly, I meant an encounter similar in style. The fact that there is an add that will be at low health shortly before the burst phase starts is not a requirement of a burst phase fight, sooooo...

[Verain]

Well, isn't it technically an add or a player? The player part is kind of dorky, but it would suffice to create the buff, right?


In general, I don't understand the general lack of on demand burst or at least "over time" burst for spriests. I think that Blizzard's general opinion that shadow is in too strong of a place in pvp has prevented them from adding these- but you always have to worry that it's a quest for "diversity" that is doing it. It could honestly be a combination of the first and them just not knowing what would make a good cooldown- they have iterated more heavily on shadow priest design in the last few years than pretty much anything outside of the lock redesign, which is unusual for a spec with such a well defined kit.

[Deleted]

Spine was merely an example of a fight that required burst. I didn't mean THAT fight exactly, I meant an encounter similar in style. The fact that there is an add that will be at low health shortly before the burst phase starts is not a requirement of a burst phase fight, sooooo...

Which fight in past current spriest incarnation PI would be best over DI and ToF?

---------- Post added 2013-01-31 at 10:05 PM ----------

Well, isn't it technically an add or a player? The player part is kind of dorky, but it would suffice to create the buff, right?

Yes it can proc off players, even from heals you do (but not VE) such as PoM, Renew, Flash Heal.

---------- Post added 2013-01-31 at 10:15 PM ----------

In general, I don't understand the general lack of on demand burst or at least "over time" burst for spriests. I think that Blizzard's general opinion that shadow is in too strong of a place in pvp has prevented them from adding these- but you always have to worry that it's a quest for "diversity" that is doing it. It could honestly be a combination of the first and them just not knowing what would make a good cooldown- they have iterated more heavily on shadow priest design in the last few years than pretty much anything outside of the lock redesign, which is unusual for a spec with such a well defined kit.

They had the ability to sim in advance. They had 3 months to fix the problem (MoP out for 4 months, HoF 3 months). They buffed Mind Sear, they buffed Cascade, and buffed/nerfed Divine Star. None of which affects PvP. Our single target and burst damage has been untouched. Instead of a developer saying "everything is fine no warries" I rather have them say "we're looking into it" or "we cannot buff you due to PvP" but my gut feeling tells me pride wouldn't allow that here. And yet other classes got buffed and nerfed. Fire mages, as well as arcane and frost, got nerfed and buffed. IMO, a shadow priest is more important than a mage forced to play fire. Yes it does suck if you hate fire, but the shadow priest has only 1 DPS spec. Just like I find the imbalance of holy vs disc less important than shadow because at least the priest has 2 healing specs, not one. Again, it does suck if you love holy and don't like disc (yo!) but at least you got an alternative in your class. Add to that, holy isn't the worst healer, its approx in line with the other healers (NOTHING like the statistics we seen in the other thread with shadow being the WORST class in 25m in HoF for 5 out of 6 fights). I really find the "oh, I didn't know that" response from GC, given he is the lead designer, utterly lacking and unworthy of his position. At the very least he should admit he doesn't know how to fix the class, and delegate the development of the class to a third party. I guess that'd be he loses his face and price though.

[Deleted]

Which fight in past current spriest incarnation PI would be best over DI and ToF?[COLOR="red"]

Most of this thread is comprised of people complaining that there is no burst on Shadow Priests. My simple point to these people is that there IS a burst cooldown. It just happens to be broken because of a problem with our haste scaling, and also it means that due to the way we are balanced in our overall DPS (albeit, a little too low at the moment but that's a separate problem) if we choose to have a burst cooldown in our rotation, we should be nerfed elsewhere. And quite rightly so. You can't just give a class a burst cooldown without sacrificing something else. This is why PI is a talent, because if you choose that talent you lose sustained dps from ToF or DI. That is working correctly.

The class has problems with overall dps. This is a symptom of a broken resource system that doesn't scale with haste. It is not because we lack a dps cooldown. But like I said before, I think it would be nice to have a baseline cooldown back but that will not solve our dps problems alone.

Your question bares no relevance, because past fights don't matter. It's future fights that matter. How many future fights will involve burst phases that are far more important than your sustained damage? Do you know? Doubt even Blizzard knows at this point. But they gave us the choice to have one anyway if we felt we needed one.

Think about this, if we were top of the damage meters now would this thread be the same?

[Deleted]

PI is not a useful burst cooldown because it doesn't stack with Heroism as well, that's at least as large an issue with it as anything else.

[Deleted]

PI is not a useful burst cooldown because it doesn't stack with Heroism as well, that's at least as large an issue with it as anything else.

The fact that this is considered a problem at all proves that haste buffs are not useless.

[Deleted]

It was a hypothetical question where you'd put our current spec and balance of numbers in the time frame of say 2008 and think of the raids you played back then, and envision yourself speccing into PI. A fight like "Spine without the bloods" would be valid.

The fact that this is considered a problem at all proves that haste buffs are not useless.

We already discussed that haste cap doesn't make haste useless after cap (like a def cap or hit cap does). Its a soft cap, not a hard cap.

We don't have to prove that... but here's a large difference between "useless" and "not as useful as it is for the average class/spec due to some of our core spec components not scaling."

[Nymie]

Trinkets + DP and Mindbender (or Shadow Fiend) is good enough for any burst phase imo.

Most people do not run with "Use" trinkets. Considering there are so few available, as well, and most others give better static dps gains with the Int alone, not to mention procs, I would really want to see massive numbers on this. In general I do not believe that is a viable option and as stated, our "burst" would be 6 sec while DP is up. Not sufficient for progression raiding unless other tweaks and options are available.

[snaxattax]

lol @ calling DP/mindbender a 'burst'. you just have to look at the first 30 seconds of any top log to see why shadow so desperately needs a true-blue personal damage modifying cooldown.

[Kelesti]

lol @ calling DP/mindbender a 'burst'. you just have to look at the first 30 seconds of any top log to see why shadow so desperately needs a true-blue personal damage modifying cooldown.

Even with Cataclysm, it took how long to get Empowered Shadows up, pop Archangel, and then five stacks of Evangelism again? How much of that first 30 seconds was spent doing sub-par damage to begin with?

"Look at first 30 seconds" also implies that Ret Paladins and Arcane Mages are completely the only specs to ever play ever. Your argument is invalid, useless, and so cringe worthy that I can't fucking believe I wasted my 10k posts on this.

[snaxattax]

Even with Cataclysm, it took how long to get Empowered Shadows up, pop Archangel, and then five stacks of Evangelism again? How much of that first 30 seconds was spent doing sub-par damage to begin with?

literally less than 5 seconds with t13.

"Look at first 30 seconds" also implies that Ret Paladins and Arcane Mages are completely the only specs to ever play ever.

i'm not saying look at the first 30 seconds to determine which dps spec is the best, but i'm saying that when the single target dps gap is as significant as it is now you have to look at where shadow is the worst relative to other classes. one of the most stark differences between shadow and all other dps specs is our lack of cooldowns to stack with pot/synapsesprings/etc, and with t15 introducing an additional temporary proc (via metagem) this problem will be further exacerbated.

Your argument is invalid, useless, and cringe worthy that I can't fucking believe I wasted my 10k posts on this.

maybe you should re-examine your life's priorities if your postcount holds such prominent emotional status.

[Kelesti]

literally less than 5 seconds with t13.
[...]maybe you should re-examine your life's priorities if your postcount holds such prominent emotional status.

A single tier bonus that changed playstyle for one tier does not refute the point I made. But thanks for trying.

i'm not saying look at the first 30 seconds to determine which dps spec is the best, but i'm saying that when the single target dps gap is as significant as it is now you have to look at where shadow is the worst relative to other classes. one of the most stark differences between shadow and all other dps specs is our lack of cooldowns to stack with pot/synapsesprings/etc, and with t15 introducing an additional temporary proc (via metagem) this problem will be further exacerbated.

We're lacking in a few areas. And a DPS cooldown is nice. A lot of people want Archangel back. Cool. Do they even remember what Archangel was? 25% damage bonus to MindFlay/Mind Blast, and maybe Mind Spike (but you didn't use that in the rotation outside of 4pc13, as interesting as that was). Would a 30% damage bonus to Mind Flay/Mind Blast/Mind Spike really fix the issues Shadow has?

What about 40%? No? Would it be a terrible fucking bandaid, without addressing why the spec is actually suffering as much as it is? Pretty much.

We have terrible stat scaling. We have terrible terrible terrible bloodlust scaling. We have no resource improvements through haste (permanent or temporary, which exacerbates the problem addressed in my previous statements). We have terrible movement DPS which now just got freaking worse. And all of these are making our already lower single target damage fall even further behind.

Archangel does not fix the problem. Really. If you really want a burst cooldown that badly, to have a button to push every couple minutes that increases your potential damage output, spec Power Infusion. That button's there for you to feel like a grown up big person when you want to. But the spec itself needs to mature, and fix the actual problems.

[Skandulous]

they could revert the nerf to Shadowform damage from a while back and fix some other issues with shadow and i would be fine with it.

Also thanks for deleting my other post and confirming my view

[snaxattax]

archangel buffed all of our direct damage, including SWDeath, and if you were to update it for current shadow mechanics it would probably include DP in some way or another either in the form of a straight damage increase or some sort of short term orb gen bonus.

you really need to grow up and cut it out with the ad hominem crap, though. not everyone who disagrees with you is an 'infant'. however, objectively, anyone who suggests that the present iteration of PI is any kind of solution to the lack of shadow's single target damage/burst is just unfamiliar with the spec as it currently exists. have you even done any raiding this tier past heroic MSV?

what do you want for the spec? other spells on top of dots/flay/nuke? it'd be cool to have other (or more dynamic) sources of shadow orbs, and i'd hoped that was what solace/insanity was going to be. the devs, however, seem to be heartset on changing shadow's single target dps by adjusting mindflay. my hypothesis is that it's a pve/pvp issue, and they see changes to mindflay as causing less potential harm to pvp balance. the benefit to having an archangel-style cooldown in this regard is that you could put 'less effective against players' on it and not have to worry about pve changes impacting pvp balance.

[Drye]

archangel buffed all of our direct damage, including SWDeath, and if you were to update it for current shadow mechanics it would probably include DP in some way or another either in the form of a straight damage increase or some sort of short term orb gen bonus.

And yet we would still have all the same problems we do now. How do people still not know that adding a dmg cd wont fix the problems we currently have.

[snaxattax]

And yet we would still have all the same problems we do now. How do people still not know that adding a dmg cd wont fix the problems we currently have.

the only 'problem' is that shadow is a bad spec on single target fights, particularly on fights like sha where you have to have a decent amount of on-demand single target burst dps for cackles. if you want a completely different rotation or something idk what to say - i just don't want to have to feel like a sandbag or respec disc for single target boss progression.

[Drye]

the only 'problem' is that shadow is a bad spec on single target fights, particularly on fights like sha where you have to have a decent amount of on-demand single target burst dps for cackles. if you want a completely different rotation or something idk what to say - i just don't want to have to feel like a sandbag or respec disc for single target boss progression.

Again... Putting a bandaide on a missing leg won't solve the problem. You have to look at why our single target dmg is low. Ill quote myself from page 5 hoping, at some point, people will start to understand.

-Weak scaling of stats
-weak scaling during lust/hero
-no increased resource regeneration that scales with gear (see first point).
-DPS dropping significantly when movement is involved.
-two talents we will never use, PI and SWI, on live
-Weak single target dps, see above reasons as to why

I don't see how adding a DPS cd would solve any of those. I really wish people would stop saying that we need a dps cd. If you want it that badly, you have PI. Stop complaining about something that isn't our biggest concern right now.

You just can't add a +dmg cd and have it magically fix everything. You have to look at why things are bad and try to fix those. I'm curious if people would be happy if we had the same possible dps out put as mages/locks but without any type of dmg cd. My guess is people would still complain. Nothing will ever fill the gluttonous mob.

[Deleted]

I'm curious if people would be happy if we had the same possible dps out put as mages/locks but without any type of dmg cd. My guess is people would still complain. Nothing will ever fill the gluttonous mob.

This is really the point, even if we get the same single target dps there'll still be no reason to pick a shadow priest over e.g. a warlock, who can move and dps while also having the luxury of being able to burst when the fight requires this. Purely adding competitive consistent dps won't get us on par with the other specs if they still have other advantages that we don't.

Also, depending on the power and design of a dps cd it could fix/reduce all the following issues (admittedly it'd have to be quite huge to fix our poor scaling/single target dps):
-Weak scaling of stats
-weak scaling during lust/hero
-Weak single target dps