New Shadow rotation!

[deviantcultist]

Good things might come from the demise of snapshotting though. With that and the MoP warlock resurrection rally over (hopefully), maybe shadow will be able to become a decent dps spec in WoD.

True, but I think that there are lots of ways of improving the shadow dps quality without clinging to an outdated mechanic like snapshotting. Inventing interesting features is smarter and more effective than sticking to the same old thing. I believe that their thought about alternate rotations or the fact that they intend to balance Shadow around being set on default orbs rather than have to pool them are steps towards a new direction.

How is the orb change promoting any difference? It sounds to me like changing rage into energy. That kind of change.

[Drye]

In other words, it's a big gain.

Not for players who have any skill or care. For warlords, they're obviously going to buff dots or do something to compensate.

[Dierdre]

Not for players who have any skill or care.

This.

For warlords, they're obviously going to buff dots or do something to compensate.

Let's hope so. So far i'm not thrilled about WoD shadow.

[Nestar]

It will result in more dps. It's humanly impossible to be 100% on par with every dot when they are snapshotted. You will screw up eventually, and you'll notice it, whereas with dynamic dots you simply cannot screw up with dots unless you don't apply them. It will also result in blizzard being able to balance dot classes properly.

In other words, it's a big gain.

I believe others have mentioned this as well, not sure if it was this thread or not though. Losing snapshotting doesn't really completely remove the issue, it just switches the dmg priority with procs to our fillers instead of dots. The best players will be watching for ICD's and making sure dots are at full duration prior to procs so they can maximize filler uptime while the procs are up.

It is definitely easier to balance this however.

[Dierdre]

The best players will be watching for ICD's and making sure dots are at full duration prior to procs so they can maximize filler uptime while the procs are up.

You can't track RPPM, ICD procs have a % chance so they don't proc exactly at their ICD, which makes the two seconds that it takes to refresh dots meaningless; and even if it were feasible and profitable, you would still need an addon to track ICDs and know when to refresh your DoTs, which is precisely the alleged reason to remove snapshotting.

[Nestar]

You can't track RPPM, ICD procs have a % chance so they don't proc exactly at their ICD, which makes the two seconds that it takes to refresh dots meaningless; and even if it were feasible and profitable, you would still need an addon to track ICDs and know when to refresh your DoTs, which is precisely the alleged reason to remove snapshotting.

You can generally track icd +or- 5 seconds with that method, which should be enough to see a dps gain vs not doing it at all. And yes rppm can only be tracked based on proc chance (time since last action) which only works on the pull now. This strategy would favor on use trinkets heavily should they become available.

[Drye]

I don't believe reading of an addon when to reapply dots to be very skillful.

Not everyone uses affdots, I don't. I track all my buffs with weak auras. This also isn't anything new. Dot snapshotting and refreshing has been around since the end if wrath/beginning of cata. It's just that bad players now have an addin it do it for them.

[Deleted]

Not everyone uses affdots, I don't. I track all my buffs with weak auras. This also isn't anything new. Dot snapshotting and refreshing has been around since the end if wrath/beginning of cata. It's just that bad players now have an addin it do it for them.

I played a shadow priest in DS as an alt, but I did it in another guild which kinda made it a 2nd main, and trying to re-DoT a target just before you lost big buffs such as trinkets or BL/Hero was (at least to me, to which Spriest and DoTclasses) quite an obvious thing as soon as you figured out how DoTs worked, and with a good UI and a bit of a feel for a class, it's not something I'd really consider a skillful thing to do. (Though I can't say I did any amazing dps or w/e but I did play a caster in DS w/o dragonwrath so the rankings weren't 100% suited for me )

[Yvaelle]

Not everyone uses affdots, I don't. I track all my buffs with weak auras. This also isn't anything new. Dot snapshotting and refreshing has been around since the end if wrath/beginning of cata. It's just that bad players now have an addin it do it for them.

DoT snapshotting was around in TBC and Vanilla too

I've never used an addon for it, but I do use a weak aura that writes out my spellpower/haste/crit/mastery stats on my screen without having to look at my character screen to know the current values

[Kelesti]

Not everyone uses affdots, I don't. I track all my buffs with weak auras. This also isn't anything new. Dot snapshotting and refreshing has been around since the end if wrath/beginning of cata. It's just that bad players now have an addin it do it for them.

DoT snapshotting was around in TBC and Vanilla too

Yeah, I was gonna say...

[Alanar]

Let's hope so. So far i'm not thrilled about WoD shadow.

Same here.. I guess it's just the lack of class information this time.. we have nothing to be realy excited about cus the only info we got was a small sheet on blizzcon and some random tweets. When u ask more they say we are not ready to talk about that stuff yet.. yea we just have to wait and see.

ps: 100n talents yes.. but according to people and tweets from holinka quite some stuff has been changed from what we've seen, so chill out till we get more info.

[Drye]

DoT snapshotting was around in TBC and Vanilla too

I've never used an addon for it, but I do use a weak aura that writes out my spellpower/haste/crit/mastery stats on my screen without having to look at my character screen to know the current values

Yeah it's always been in but was never beneficial until haste effected dot ticks.

[soulyouth]

I rather liked on the single target fights in ICC on my lock and spriest both cheesing with Nevermelting Ice Crystal, add in a tricks at the start and you kept that monster SWP/Corruption rolling the whole fight since flay/haunt/shadowbolt didn't update the crit or +dmg on the dot when you extended it.

[Kelesti]

Yeah it's always been in but was never beneficial until haste effected dot ticks.

Really? I played 18/43 Holy for almost the entirety of TBC (only had a couple weeks of 23/38 before I said fuck it and made someone else do it, exception: Pain Suppression for Felmyst progression), but there were Spellpower Trinkets were there not? Couple those with the Hyjal exalted ring, and you had a couple spellpower procs going off.

With how little damage Mind Flay did back then, it wasn't worth updating VT for it? (it was usually worth delaying your DP if you were undead for one of them). Like I said, I didn't play Shadow myself, so maybe it really really wasn't. I just remember it wasn't just Mind Flay's graphic that was terrible.

[Deleted]

The one thing I really hate about Spriest is Mind flay channeling. I main a Warlock and wanted Priest as my alt (Disc mostly) but really couldn't stand Mind flay, really hate Malefic Grasp on the Lock for Aff.

I'd be pleasantly happy with Mind Spike > Mind Flay and Shadow Bolt > Malefic Grasp.

[Drye]

With how little damage Mind Flay did back then, it wasn't worth updating VT for it? (it was usually worth delaying your DP if you were undead for one of them). Like I said, I didn't play Shadow myself, so maybe it really really wasn't. I just remember it wasn't just Mind Flay's graphic that was terrible.

Back then the procs were not as significant as they are now, in terms of dmg increase. So the wasted gcds from early refreshing were not worth it. There was a window of like 5 seconds where you could refresh then, but other than that, it was a wasted gcd. It was better spent mfing. Once haste became a stat in sunwellish gear it started to become more viable but still then, if you didn't play almost perfectly it was wasted. Our scaling was pretty poor until that point as well.

[Leadfoot352]

I'm actually very excited to see that not all snapshotting is going, glad to see it staying on some abilities despite generally disliking it. What I'd really like to see now, as the tech is still in the game to snapshot, is a set of glyphs that would allow you to continue to snapshot, possibly with another set of glyphs that simply increases the damage of the aforementioned dots. A very high end player, or any player that enjoys the playstyle, would be able to snapshot to his heart's content, while a player who doesn't enjoy the mechanic or is simply not very good at it yet would have the option to do similar, but not as high, damage. A delta would have to be determined as to how big a gap would be allowed, say 15%, and then the numbers just need to be tuned to match it.

It would also allow players to choose to snapshot some dots while dynamically updating others giving them something to cast on the move. A demo warlock would be able to snapshot Doom if they wanted, but still have corruption update so it'll do more damage while they're in demon form. It would also let a player opt out of snapshotting on fights where it might not be beneficial or in a tier where there may not be a trinket that is good for snapshotting. I'd like to see a trinket that doesn't have a proc or on use at all, just gives flat stats all fight.

I think that in the end it'd be a good compromise, snapshot if you want, don't if you don't, do competitive damage either way.

Oh and on a partially related note, what if they allowed the new dot to snapshot? That could be the difference between it being a good talent and a great one, maybe not, but it was a thought.

Rambling on now so best be going,
Leadfoot352

[Dierdre]

A delta would have to be determined as to how big a gap would be allowed, say 15%, and then the numbers just need to be tuned to match it.

That's precisely why snapshotting is gone, the gap between good and bad players with snapshotting is well above 20% which makes tuning a PITA. The affdots thing is just a lame excuse, otherwise DBM, weakauras, etc. would be gone too.

[Drye]

Well all dots are going to get pandemic, which is a great mechanic. And they said they were going to do some dmg bonus the scales with haste towards the end of the dot duration, which will be interesting. I'm sure there will be some new added skill cap to dots that we don't know about yet. People are not upset that the ability of snapshottimg is going away it's that the class is going to be even easier now, or at least we know of. So most of the micro managing that we've had that distinguished good from bad players is being taken away. That's what people are upset about. But again, we don't know what is all going to come of because they really haven't released any info for classes yet. Just old lvl 100 talents that have totally changed and orb banking. That's all we know of so far for shadow.

[Dierdre]

Well all dots are going to get pandemic, which is a great mechanic.

It is... with snapshotting. Without snapshotting pandemic is more like "just hit whatever whenever, it doesn't really matter anymore". I too hope that some kind of skill cap is added.