Ohhh maaaa gaash Shadow priest REAL CD BURST OMG

[Aleaa]

A void shift can heal a tank from 1% HP to full in an instant.

full? if priest have full hp.
if not tank get % of priest actual hp. So much time when 1-2 priests spend it to 1 target at the same time.

[Deleted]

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.

Yep, you're totally right. Void Shift is useless. All those times when the whole raid was at 10% health and I thought using a Void Shift would save the raid but alas, it failed. Now it's clear to me

Dude, a cooldown for a situation. By the same logic, LoH is completely useless too. Only it isn't...

[Yvaelle]

Yep, you're totally right. Void Shift is useless. All those times when the whole raid was at 10% health and I thought using a Void Shift would save the raid but alas, it failed. Now it's clear to me

Dude, a cooldown for a situation. By the same logic, LoH is completely useless too. Only it isn't...

Nobody is saying Void Shift is useless, Void Shift is excellent utility. You keep suggesting that healthstones are useless, when in reality - healthstones allow anyone to save themselves at any time or when healers are struggling to catch up, and they can occur 75 times more often in an attempt than a priests void shift. In the example you just described, where the entire raid is at 10% - a void shift would swap your 10% health with the tanks 10% health and then heal one of you two 25% - that's not very useful. In the same scenario, having the entire raid eat a healthstone just healed 25 people from 10%->30% health - that's amazing - and you can make that call three times more often than a priest can void shift - or you can let the raiders decide for themselves when they feel at risk, and eat their own stones - either way it's incredible utility.

There seems to be a recurring argument that (1) DPS is allowed to suffer if utility is very high, (2) lock utility is far lower than spriest utility, (3) therefore, lock DPS is allowed to beat spriest dps by a mile. You can swap spriest and lock around for lots of other class combinations there - such as mage and ret - as you prefer. The point I tried to make was that lock utility is at worst, about equal to spriest utility (while everyone still expects their DPS to be better than ours on account of pure).

In our mindsets, that sounds absurd - it goes against a commonly held belief (even in my own head) - but if you define what utility is, and you try to quantify our utility: it's simply not true anymore. In TBC, Spriests were overpowered in raid environments - our DPS was horrendous, it was good if your spriest did a third to a half of the DPS of your warlocks (1k-1k5 vs 3k) - but the healing we provided would frequently put us above actual healing specs, and the mana we provided was unique and game-changing. We (like all hybrids) have persisted as something between DPS and utility ever since, and thus we were (rightfully) expected to do less DPS than the pure DPS specs. But all this time, and especcially in MoP - pure utility has risen slowly while our utility has stayed about the same: relatively. We have gained new utility like Void Shift, but redesigned VE replaced Divine Hymn - while passive VE was lost entirely, replenishment was lost (and VT before it, and original VE before it).

I'm not suggesting our utility is bad - we have good or even great utility - but so do the pures now (Rogues being the exception). Pure utility has been creeping up on us for three expansions now, but our DPS is still presumed to be second class on account of our superior flexibility and utility: when our utility borders on comparable (especcially in the case of locks, who are IMO the highest utility pure), and our flexibility isn't truly functional. To be clear, I'm fine with us having a hybrid tax for our higher utility - but our utility needs to be higher for that justification to be valid (and particularly in the case of warlocks, it isn't noticeably so any longer).

[dmfg]

I actually believe Blizzard when they say they don't aim for a hybrid tax any more, and I don't think hybrids necessarily need to have any more utility outside of "I can potentially spec healer". I think instead what we're seeing is the effect of constant spec switching for pures.

A shadow priest is always a shadow priest. Ignoring Meljarak, the only spec you can DPS in is shadow. Locks have 3 specs though, and only one of them needs to be better than shadow for every lock to go affliction, and suddenly it appears like every lock is better than shadow. And with 3 DPS specs to choose from, the chances are very high that at least one of them will be higher DPS than shadow, just from random luck.

I don't think it's reasonable to ask that hybrid DPS are balanced against the highest of the each class's pure DPS specs - then there would be balance at the high end of raiding, but any pure DPS who didn't want to switch to their FotM spec would be screwed. So, I wouldn't mind being e.g. ahead of Demo, equal with Destro but below Affli. If they want a DPS advantage they have to respec for it, just like if I want to play an OP spec I have to respec to disc.

[Yvaelle]

@dmfg

I agree, pures spec swapping is a legitimate part of it - and it should be the way that they beat hybrids - we're always stuck with the one dps spec, while they can swap to a DPS spec that is suitable for that fight type: it should be like that, and for the most part it is like that. However, Shadow isn't doing the average DPS of three pure specs even when you sim each pure spec on every fight type (not just the ones they're good for, but also the ones they are bad for). If you believe simcraft, we're doing significantly below that:

http://www.simulationcraft.org/510/Raid_T14H.html

One way to interpret that is to say "well, Shadow is therefore the worst at single target - but maybe they are best (or very good) at multi-dot, burst phases, mass AoE, or high movement fights". If that were the case, being last in single target would be permissible - someone has to be last. The problem is that, we're not above average mass AoE, we're bad (well below average) at heavy movement and burst phase fights, and while our DPS does improve noticeably with multi-dotting - we're the worst multi-dotter and our multi-dot DPS is still below many single target specs (who are gaining nothing from those secondary targets).

If our DPS were the average of all three pure specs across all encounters, that's a good target for where hybrids should be at - Blizzard should use that.

[Drye]

One way to interpret that is to say "well, Shadow is therefore the worst at single target - but maybe they are best (or very good) at multi-dot, burst phases, mass AoE, or high movement fights". If that were the case, being last in single target would be permissible - someone has to be last. The problem is that, we're not above average mass AoE, we're bad (well below average) at heavy movement and burst phase fights, and while our DPS does improve noticeably with multi-dotting - we're the worst multi-dotter and our multi-dot DPS is still below many single target specs (who are gaining nothing from those secondary targets).

If our DPS were the average of all three pure specs across all encounters, that's a good target for where hybrids should be at - Blizzard should use that.

After doing a lot of ptr testing, it's not looking too good for us = /

[Yvaelle]

After doing a lot of ptr testing, it's not looking too good for us = /

I know, I'm not sure how to get Ghostcrawler's attention anymore though - I think he may have blocked my twitter account for asking too many questions / offering too many suggestions

[dmfg]

How big's the gap in your testing? I'm not on PTR, but I think at once point they have both +20% on MB and +5% on Shadowform, before reverting the MB change for PvP reasons. If they add another 3-5% of damage between now and release that should put us in a decent place right?

[Deleted]

There are two arguments going on here, so let me break it down since we got on the wrong track, but it sounds like we're arriving at the same point.

I don't think Healthstones are useless, I just disagree that Locks bring more utility or "better". At the very least, the utilities of each class are just different and serve a different purpose and having both in a raid will benefit. Can start another thread if you want comparing the two classes utility but I don't want to drag that debate on in this thread...

The other point is that there shouldn't be a hybrid tax on dps. This might be true, but in reality does it work? I sincerely believe that the current mentality that Blizzard is applying to DPS just doesn't work. If Blizzard somehow managed to balance every class so that every one of them did the same dps (ignoring benefits for certain fights for the sake of argument) then classes really would be picked and chosen depending on what else they could bring to the raid. Before you know it, "xxxx class has less to offer besides dps so we won't bring them along this time round", "This class does the same dps but far more off healing so lets just take them instead". Now, Blizzard must start balancing the utility of each class as well as the dps. Does this work? I don't know, but it would be much more interesting to the game and also much easier to compose a team if they just went with the idea that some classes might do more dps, but offer less utility whilst others were more of a support class.

There are currently 23 different dps specs in the game, and a lot of them seem to be too similar to serve any point because they're all trying to compete for the same thing; good dps. Even Rogues are being given some utility in Smoke Bomb damage reduction buff now, which I think is just plain silly.

[Kelesti]

I know, I'm not sure how to get Ghostcrawler's attention anymore though - I think he may have blocked my twitter account for asking too many questions / offering too many suggestions

If you can go to his profile page while logged in, you're not blocked.

Though that doesn't say anything about filters built into certain clients (like Echofon).

[Yvaelle]

If you can go to his profile page while logged in, you're not blocked.

Though that doesn't say anything about filters built into certain clients (like Echofon).

Good to know Thanks Kelesti

[jonish]

Good to know Thanks Kelesti

I am glad some people aren't as jaded as I have become. How you can still manage to work your way through the PR bullshit answers that GC vomits onto the shadow priest community every patch is an amazing feat.

[Brainmelt]

I am glad some people aren't as jaded as I have become. How you can still manage to work your way through the PR bullshit answers that GC vomits onto the shadow priest community every patch is an amazing feat.

^^ yeah you rock yvaelle.

[Viromand]

Healthstones are so much better then anything the Spriests has to offer except when theres a +dmg buff on the encounter.

Try hc bosses like bladelord garalon leishi spirit kings wote with and without healthstone you will see how easier that makes the fight, there maybe more fights but i only have 10/16 hc. You can even have your wl put down another healthstone pool while infight its just a click and you get 3 more. Imo Wls have the strongest utility of all classes

[Yvaelle]

I am glad some people aren't as jaded as I have become. How you can still manage to work your way through the PR bullshit answers that GC vomits onto the shadow priest community every patch is an amazing feat.

Sometimes I get bothered by it. The key is to know deep down that our true strength is something Ghostcrawler cannot nerf, our immeasurable awesomeness is what makes us overpowered. Ghostcrawler cannot nerf our awesomeness - he sometimes tries to nerf everything else in a futile attempt to balance us. But we will always be overpowered, so long as we remain true to the darkness in our hearts: the shadows in our footsteps.

Mother Shadow is greater now than the game in which she was borne, she cannot be contained by Azeroth, nor controlled by Ghostcrawler - her wake now ripples across these internets - into the hearts and minds of mortal men. She fills the space between the stars above. Ghostcrawler can no more nerf Shadow than he can nerf an idea or a whisper, or the absence of light. Our mistress is eternal now, what is Ghostcrawler against the ebb and entropy of time? What man could hope to stop the heat-death of this universe? His nerfs are petty things, Her victory is fate

[Kelesti]

…wat?

(lol'd, nice read Yvaelle)

[Sealed]

I am glad some people aren't as jaded as I have become. How you can still manage to work your way through the PR bullshit answers that GC vomits onto the shadow priest community every patch is an amazing feat.

You and I must be reading different tweets and forum posts.

[Deleted]

GC might be clueless sometimes but he does put idiots and trolls in their place, which I have more respect for than 90% of the blue posts I see.

[zito]

GC might be clueless sometimes but he does put idiots and trolls in their place, which I have more respect for than 90% of the blue posts I see.

I don't. They say they don't listen to trolls or rants and don't take them into consideration without "facts" or "numbers" yet they take the time to waste a response in order to put them in their place which is childish.

[Volitar]

Most of the time I read blue posts I /facedesk so I just stopped reading them.