Ohhh maaaa gaash Shadow priest REAL CD BURST OMG

[Deleted]

Just because I personally don't enjoy the talent doesn't mean that the talent isn't useful. It's a great talent from a dps pic. And just because I don't like it doesn't mean that others that like it should be punished. I personally, love the new mf:I and would love to have it be the go to talent and buffing mf would make it that much better. Do I think it's the logical and easy band aide fix? No, not at all. Buffing our dots or buffin shadow form to 30-35% would be a better and more useful band aide fix than buffing mf.

I thought blizz said we are too OP with multidotting? Kinda. Thats why i suggest to buff MF. Not matter at all, almost, in PVP or multitarget, just singletarget, where we are behind.

[Ethidia]

Please stop say that FDCL is sooooo great for PvP, random procs and PvP don´t go hand in hand.
Never having procs when you can score a kill/or when your partner is bursting, is just a pain in the ass, played with Mindbender since day 2 of season(best decision of my life). The fact that I can get rid of my last random proc after 5.2, thank you blizzard.
I don´t think that loosing the extra orb from DI is going to be that huge in PvP (yes we loose some extra DP and a lot of dmg), but having that extra dmg doing burst is more important.

[Drye]

I thought blizz said we are too OP with multidotting? Kinda. Thats why i suggest to buff MF. Not matter at all, almost, in PVP or multitarget, just singletarget, where we are behind.

Our multi dotting is meh, it used to be our single target is fairly weak but we destroyed everyone on multi target fights. Which I think the community was fine with, i know I personally was. Now we accele at nothing

[Deleted]

Only fight where we seem to excel as casters is Tsulong day phase with cascade:P Anywhere dots last long enough, locks will be better than us;X

[Deleted]

Only fight where we seem to excel as casters is Tsulong day phase with cascade:P Anywhere dots last long enough, locks will be better than us;X

With far fewer raid cooldowns. It's the argument of utility vs dps.

[Yvaelle]

With far fewer raid cooldowns. It's the argument of utility vs dps.

If you ever look at how much healing healthstones do in a serious progression attempt (where people are going through 2-3 each), you'd be pretty shocked to see how much more raid healing a lock brings as compared to a spriest. If everyone eats their cookies like they are supposed to, locks outheal spriests.

In terms of raid buffs, we bring 10% stamina and 5% spell haste - they bring 10% stamina, 10% spellpower, -5% magic damage debuff, -50% casting speed debuff, -20% physical damage. In terms of CC they bring more than us:

Psy Scream, Void Tendrils, Shackle Undead, Dominate Mind
vs.
Fear, Seduce, Banish, Shadowfury, 70% Snare (Exhaustion), Howl of Terror.

In terms of damage they bring way more than us; 112k in BiS 5.1 gear single target for Shadow versus 132k for Affliction - they have stronger multi-dot scaling, higher burst via Destruction, higher AoE via Demonology. There is no fight type we come anywhere close on, with the exception of when we have a 15% damage buff with near 100% uptime - like Elegon, where they beat us by only 40k ;p.

The best argument in our favour is that we have Mass Dispel - and Blizzard was "kind" enough to put in two times this tier where that was practically mandatory - Elegon/Will trash, and Wind Lord Mel'jarak - token mechanics so Shadowpriests would be near-mandatory. If there was a super-important defensive dispel fight though, locks are actually better at that than we are - via Singe Magic, which is instant and doesn't require targetting/casting (it can also be set to auto-dispel the lock if so needed). The counter argument to us having Mass Dispel, is that locks have Battle Rez.

It's hard to say locks have less utility than we do - at best we are comparable - at worst they are slightly ahead in utility. Meanwhile, if utility vs. dps is a trade-off - they win DPS by a mile, without contest. A similar argument can be made for mages - which is why the topic is frustrating for all hybrids. In WotLK Blizzard decided the utility vs. dps argument was archaic - and all DPS should be relatively equal (5% gets trumpeted alot as the hybrid tax, but Ghostcrawler officially denies it so he isn't accountable if its greater than that), and by that measure, all hybrids and pures need to be of roughly equal utility.

The greatest utility we offer, is our ability to spec holy or disc - which is utility that is irrelevant in the middle of a fight - it's not a Chakra we can shift to - then we would be true hybrids. In practice, particularly for hardcore guilds where standbys are available and people aren't put into raids because they are your friends, but because they help you win - having a hybrid swap to an offspec for a serious role on a progression fight is highly unlikely, much more likely you would get the mainspec role on standby in.

If you have the human capital, you don't tell your ret to go holy - or even your spriest to go disc - if you need another healer, you get a mainspec in from standby. Extra holy loot doesn't drop just for your rets, outside your loot system, just so they can effectively play their offspec. And even in Shadow's case - swapping a geared Spriest to a healing spec (before everything is on farm) isn't practical because their spirit often lacks way behind and they don't have healing trinkets (and trinkets are to healers what weapons are to melee).

I can't justify Shadow being 20k below Affliction in single target (in 5.1, more in 5.2), and even more in multi-dotting, on the basis of our utility being stronger than theirs - when our utility isn't stronger than theirs.



Edit: I don't mean to sound like a downer, there is way too much of that going around already - though I get why. Just saying if Blizzard isn't officially balancing us based on utility vs. dps - we shouldn't be using it either - but if they are (unofficially) then even still we're at a net imbalance compared to locks, where we have equal (or lesser) utility and significantly less DPS (even after affliction nerfs and spriest buffs in 5.2). Generally, I'm excited for next tier - but I wouldn't mind more buffs

[Drye]

I can't justify Shadow being 20k below Affliction in single target (in 5.1, more in 5.2), and even more in multi-dotting, on the basis of our utility being stronger than theirs - when our utility isn't stronger than theirs.

t14 geared lock is doing as much in 5.2 on single target as t15 geared shadowpriest. = /

[Purpleisbetter]

Please stop say that FDCL is sooooo great for PvP, random procs and PvP don´t go hand in hand.
Never having procs when you can score a kill/or when your partner is bursting, is just a pain in the ass, played with Mindbender since day 2 of season(best decision of my life). The fact that I can get rid of my last random proc after 5.2, thank you blizzard.
I don´t think that loosing the extra orb from DI is going to be that huge in PvP (yes we loose some extra DP and a lot of dmg), but having that extra dmg doing burst is more important.

You serious? You can synch ur procs easily to the lunancy of DF/shatter combo by frost mages and yet u can't pool a 15% per target proc with, let's say, a 3minute burster?
WTF?

FDCL makes the spec in pvp, play it harder to easily find out (or get trained by melees more often).

Well GoSac got nerfed hard, wich means nothing on target cleaving (on 3+target is behind GoSup anyway); it could sound like a good news, pity now basically every dps spec is going to outperform shadow with ease.
Very few days 'till 5.2; at this point i'm glad to take even 18 variations of FDCL all at one as long as i don't look ridicolous on meters with questionable raid cds (hello HoH refilling warlocks!).

Actually i've hit the point where i'd go with a pinkform shooting banana flays if it would help at least with single target :|

[Yvaelle]

@Purpleisbetter

A hot pink mind flay would be a cool graphic

I think Sear and Insanity should have more unique graphics from mind flay actually!

Insanity should be the Penance graphic but recoloured for Shadow - with some colour accents, like green/magenta sparks in it.

Sear should just be bright magenta.

[Deleted]

MANY WORDS!

You can't decide the off healing of a class by looking at total healing done, and healthstones certainly have their limits. Total healing might be higher, however, burst healing is far more important and I think Vampiric Embrace is far more valuable than healtstones. That plus Halo, Void Shift, we provide much better support for when the healers are overwhelmed. It's not about total healing done. I've lost count how many times I've saved a tank with Void Shift. When was the last time you saw a healtstone bring a tank to full HP?!?

And thats just healing.

Sorry dude, but there's no way a Lock brings more utility to a raid than a Spriest.

[Yvaelle]

You can't decide the off healing of a class by looking at total healing done, and healthstones certainly have their limits. Total healing might be higher, however, burst healing is far more important and I think Vampiric Embrace is far more valuable than healtstones. That plus Halo, Void Shift, we provide much better support for when the healers are overwhelmed. It's not about total healing done. I've lost count how many times I've saved a tank with Void Shift. When was the last time you saw a healtstone bring a tank to full HP?!?

And thats just healing.

Sorry dude, but there's no way a Lock brings more utility to a raid than a Spriest.

Do people in your raids healthstone when they're at full health?

People are in control of their own stones, they use them when they get low - or when healers call for them - all healthstone healing is entirely effective healing that usually saves lives or greatly reduces the risk of death. When your raid is suddenly taking a big spike in damage, having the entire raid instantly gain 20% of their maximum health is also better burst healing than having VE restore our DPS as HPS divided across the raid over the next 10 seconds (assuming glyph). It is about burst healing, and while Void Shift is certainly stronger than a healthstone - it only affects one person once every six minutes, healthstones can hit 25 people 3 times each (75 uses) in that time.

[Deleted]

VE is no good in 25m, having a heal do 5k/s for 10 seconds in most cases is kinda bad. It would be so much better if it were like the middle tiers 5 talent of shamans: healing for a good amount 3 people that are low instead of every one for a laughable amount.

[Deleted]

It is about burst healing, and while Void Shift is certainly stronger than a healthstone - it only affects one person once every six minutes, healthstones can hit 25 people 3 times each (75 uses) in that time.

Again, you're comparing total healing with burst healing. Healtstones do 20% 2 mins apart. A void shift can heal a tank from 1% HP to full in an instant.

[Makarena]

as priest you can grip someone into pillage and overtake him on dps, as warlock you can't

[Deleted]

as priest you can grip someone into pillage and overtake him on dps, as warlock you can't

Best use of Life Grip - EU

[Yetiman]

Best use of Life Grip - EU

I remember when we could still lifegrip people into the Maelstrom before pulling Madness of Deathwing. Those were some epic flying duels, ala "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" . Whenever someone called for a bio break, me and a priest friend would start pulling people while flying, and when they'd shout us down, we'd start against each other until there was a victor laughing over the other's lifeless corpse being dragged into the Maw of Neltharion .

[Deleted]

My favourite place to grip people was on the way back to Ragnaros in firelands. This passage was made for us to kill people. Can't count how many nerdrage people had in my raid because of this, haha.

[Purpleisbetter]

Demo Portals in movement phases are a better raid cd then Hym Of Warlocks and HAHA-embrace!

@Yvaelle and the fiend should be a very coloured little pony swinging kisses o'doom instead of melee swings!

[Yetiman]

@Yvaelle and the fiend should be a very coloured little pony swinging kisses o'doom instead of melee swings!

Someone's been to Pony Land in Diablo 3 a bit TOO much . Those ponies hit HARD!

[Arlee]

Again, you're comparing total healing with burst healing. Healthstones do 20% 2 mins apart. A void shift can heal a tank from 1% HP to full in an instant.

Except 25 people gaining 20% of their health is more than 1 person gaining 99% of their health... not to mention the 6 min cooldown on void shift. So during the cd of void shift healthstones can be used twice more...

Again they do 20% healing PER PERSON. Void Shift "can" (doesn't automatically) do 99% healing on one person... so great the tank lives, you have 25% health and everyone else dies.