Are Shadow Priests really as bad as people say?

[Deleted]

The only DPS I've actually played were Enhancement Shaman and a Shadow Priest, usually I'm playing healers.
The thing is, I always managed to be pretty decent in DPS as Enh, pulling an 8th place in DPS at worst, 3rd or 4th at best - all this without really putting an effort outside rotation.
As a Shadow Priest, I was always at (or nearly at) the bottom of the DPS charts, excluding tanks, no matter how hard I tried and marked my ass off practicing stuff from guides. For me, it just feels like Shadow Priests are the retarded cousin of an Affliction Warlock.

However, my good friend also main a Shadow Priest, and the stuff she can pull with that spec is simply breath-taking.

What I'm getting at is that there are some classes and specs that are easier/harder to play, and you need to "feel" it to be good with it. Judging from the popular opinion I'd say that SPriest is simply the one you have to have a knack for. I'd say you should give it a shot - if you like it, there is no reason to limit yourself in a game you're supposed to be enjoying yourself in!

[Glurp]

Shadow Priest is bad. They are very far behind pretty much every other DPS spec for majority of the fights this tier. Whether or not that matters to you is your own choice.

[Deleted]

damage, utility, buffs, debuffs and offhealing are the worst of all the classes. compared to other equally geared/skilled classes shadow is just plain shit

I don't know.. Shadow might seem very weak if you compare us to locks I guess. I agree most classes are better, that doesn't make shadow useless however? (as you guys make them out to be)
Buffs? Pf we bring spell haste and fort. 2 buffs, same as any other caster with the exception of ele.
Debuffs? What's that supposed to be? Elements, sunder, cast speed slow, MS, physical vulnerability or physical dmg reduction? Oh well.. Shadow doesn't bring that, we're shit. Only elements would really make sense to bring. The rest are either for melee, tanks or rarely used on bosses.
Offhealing? I guess you never tried divine star, or a well timed halo.

If you enjoy shadowpriest, then play it. It can definately be an asset to your raid if played right. And no, I'm not saying shadow isn't weak compared to many other specs. My point is that we're certainly not as shitty as people make us out to be.

[xenogear3]

Showdow's single target dps is ALWAYS the last place.
Also always, lots of people deny/defend it.

Blizzard doesn't want healers to do good dps.
At one time, shadow's range was shorter than other range dps. It is that bad.

Blizzard will never buff it, because top guilds use them as backup healers.

[l33t]

Shadow priests have a complicated history of love/hate from Blizzard. Cata's shadow priest was the best scenario possible, while mop's was the worse one. I want to believe that in WoD Blizzard would fix us, but I've leveled warlock just for a cause when they won't.

Its not a problem of low-skill shadow priests vs high-skilled shadow priests. It is a problem when a high-geared high-skilled shadow priest gives less damage and less utility to raid than a low-geared low-skill warlock. That is a problem. And off-healing is pfft, unless you're in a heavy herioc progression phase with drastically cutting away a number of healers to beat enrage timers. And even in this scenario it is way better to take ele/boomkin, since they do better offhealing and better throughput. Not to mention that shadow shares gear with mages and warlocks, thus leading to being undergeared due to gearing those two classes as fast as possible. So, welcome to the bench on progressing - welcome to being the second sort - welcome to the life of shadow priest.

[Deleted]

Can we get over the fact that warlocks are OP already :3 It's been said a million of times. By blizzard aswell. And that the only reason they werent getting nerfed now, was that it'd screw guilds still progressing (or something along those lines). It's also been said that their intention is to tone them down in WoD. And tone up the damage of shadow at the cost of our healing. So I guess we got that going for us..

OP's questions was whether or not shadow is bad. I guess my answer is yes, shadow is bad. But not as bad as people make us out to be, and we're definately usefull in progression as well. Not to mention that fact that future looks bright(er) for shadow in WoD. Damage wise anyway.

[l33t]

OP's questions was whether or not shadow is bad. I guess my answer is yes, shadow is bad. But not as bad as people make us out to be, and we're definately usefull in progression as well. Not to mention that fact that future looks bright(er) for shadow in WoD. Damage wise anyway.

Yeah that's it, on the paper. But the history of shadow priest in MoP has too much of "Shadow word: Pain nerfed by 15% first day of a new patch". We're not bad in terms of bad, we're just both the worst cloth wearing damage dealer and the worst ranged damage dealing class at the moment. We just have nothing special to offer in comparison to other specs in terms of dps spec. If it makes your life better, rets are way worse than us. Yet wod still gives us no option to burst with the whole raid team on start of the fight under bloodlust effect, it still gives us zero improvements over awful mobility (though mobility seems to be nerfed for everyone, so maybe its not relevant), we will have complicated and prolonged gearing issues due to spirit gear is nonexistant for us in wod, and our raid utility is being nerfed.
Not to be sort of pessimistic, but I'd recommend OP level up a warlock or mage, just in case

[Deleted]

On topic, from what my sp friends say shadow skill cap is high. And even if you nail it (which is probably only possible to someone who is used to healing), you probably won't be on top in 25man, although you can aim to stay in the top half, among the dps. So... High effort for medium reward I guess?

[l33t]

So... High effort for medium reward I guess?

Exactly this.

[Bonkura]

Shadow sucks in PvE right now. If someone tells you otherwise they're biased.

The "fun" factor isn't up for us to decide. It's stricly subjective. I personally don't like it in PvE anymore.

If you want to make sure the class you play is viable in WoD you'll have to wait and see. However Shadow has rarely been a top spec, so if you want to be comptetitive you should probably consider playing Warlock or Mage.

[Leakage]

I don't understand all the shadow hate. No, it's not a top tier spec. It's still ahead of rets, ele shamans, and maybe boomkins/enhance. Is everyone just upset that they aren't as good as their affliction overlords?

edit: dks too

[Bonkura]

I don't understand all the shadow hate. No, it's not a top tier spec. It's still ahead of rets, ele shamans, and maybe boomkins/enhance. Is everyone just upset that they aren't as good as their affliction overlords?

edit: dks too

Wow you are really clueless if you think Shadow is close to Ele/Enahnce/Boomkin right now.

[Vargur]

I don't understand all the shadow hate. No, it's not a top tier spec. It's still ahead of rets, ele shamans, and maybe boomkins/enhance. Is everyone just upset that they aren't as good as their affliction overlords?

edit: dks too

You do realise priests have only one damage dealing spec, right?
Even paladins.
Also http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ened-to-shadow

[Leakage]

You do realise priests have only one damage dealing spec, right?
Even paladins.
Also http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ened-to-shadow

If you want to use raidbots, here is spriests over the past two months for the 60th percentile, just like the thread you linked. While spriests are historically low, they are currently still mid-tier above the specs I said earlier.

http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overa...100/14/60/p60/

[l33t]

I don't understand all the shadow hate. No, it's not a top tier spec. It's still ahead of rets, ele shamans, and maybe boomkins/enhance. Is everyone just upset that they aren't as good as their affliction overlords?
edit: dks too

No, they're not. Ele gives a better raid utility, sweet burst, wonderful cleave, less mobility issues and is way easier to gear. Boomkin deals better ST damage, is better at offhealing and again is way easier to gear, not to mention every druid is a potential jack-of-all-trades, being able to fill any role in your raid. Enhance has a fucking amazing damage output both in cleave and ST, cool burst, great off-healing and yet again it is way easier to gear (not to mention that it is not really viable to compare melee classes and ranged). Rets are the melee analog of shadow priest. See? Not being able to be the very best is normal, problem is we don't have anything to shine. Even in multidotting scenario, which is considered our strong side, arcane mages (#wtflolsincewhenarcanemageisamultidotter) are better than us, lol.

Oh, and by the way you forgot to compare us to two more raid outsiders: mm hunter and arms war. Shadow priest is better than those two as well. Yay.

[moremana]

Priest are not for everyone, and no shadow does not suck.

My main is a priest, been my main since TBC and nothing comes close to being as fun. Shadow isnt the top dps, but played correctly will hold its own.

Like any other class, Blizz can drop the nerf hammer at any time and change the dps of any class.

Hunters use to be top dps, now they suck, Warriors as well, now they suck, hell in WotLK, SP were top dps at one time.

So, play whatever class fancies you, and dont base it off "which class has the top dps now"! It will change as it always has.

[Vargur]

If you want to use raidbots, here is spriests over the past two months for the 60th percentile, just like the thread you linked. While spriests are historically low, they are currently still mid-tier above the specs I said earlier.

http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overa...100/14/60/p60/

Fixed that link for you, to account for everyone, not just meter padders and overgeared farmboys.
http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overa...all/14/60/p60/

[Bonkura]

Hunters use to be top dps, now they suck, Warriors as well, now they suck, hell in WotLK, SP were top dps at one time.

Do you even raid?

[Deleted]

I love my Shadowpriest I really do! but my mage which is 20ilvls lower out dps's it and has higher burst not to mention being frost gives it awesome mobility. If you are only interested in numbers and being towards the top of the meters give shadow a wide birth at the moment. That said, the blues have already said that Shadow is going to lose Utility and gain damage output in WoD so its to early to make a decision on whether they will be viable for progression in WoD.

[Deleted]

I don't know.. Shadow might seem very weak if you compare us to locks I guess. I agree most classes are better, that doesn't make shadow useless however? (as you guys make them out to be)
Buffs? Pf we bring spell haste and fort. 2 buffs, same as any other caster with the exception of ele.
Debuffs? What's that supposed to be? Elements, sunder, cast speed slow, MS, physical vulnerability or physical dmg reduction? Oh well.. Shadow doesn't bring that, we're shit. Only elements would really make sense to bring. The rest are either for melee, tanks or rarely used on bosses.
Offhealing? I guess you never tried divine star, or a well timed halo.

If you enjoy shadowpriest, then play it. It can definately be an asset to your raid if played right. And no, I'm not saying shadow isn't weak compared to many other specs. My point is that we're certainly not as shitty as people make us out to be.

A lot of our utility is shared with Discipline, who are amazing. A lot of our gear is shared with Mage and Warlock. In every tier in this expansion, giving gear to Discipline, Mage, or Warlock and having your Shadow around as dead weight has been the most optimal path. Off-healing DPS we may be great, but certainly Elemental and Enhancement are also very good and they do more damage. Elemental does more damage than Shadow because the cleave fits them, and they can also go Restoration (which is amazing) and Enhancement (which is easy to gear up and does great single target damage). There was simply very little place for Shadow in this expansion. The expansion is over though and those who are now rerolling or leveling need to keep that in mind. Warlords of Draenor is coming!