[6.0] Shadow Priest Discussion

[bubblesasc]

The only thing shadow apports to the raid now is dps, so yeah, it matters. If shadow only can be 4th or 6th, kick him and take another warrior/mage/hunter. This is how a serious guild works.

You clearly know nothing about serious guilds then. A "serious" guild cannot just take another warrior or hunter (both nerfed) for a few reasons, one just being the fact that you need to maximise loot on progression if you stack the most OP classes then some of your warriors won't be getting mythic loot. Another reason is that Spriest are really good for certain fights such as Beastlord Darmac or The Blast Furnace due to MC and lastly, Spriest on a fight like Garosh or Raden were AMAZING because of there burst. Hesp on a previous post explained how good our raid cooldown actually is with the glyph and you can't just bring in Hunters to replace us or else all you get is AotF when VE is raw healing output for the whole raid.

If anyone thinks shadow is weak or just average after the mastery buff they have no clue at all and should honestly go play a simple game like League of Legends.



Separate to all the shenanigans, the buff to mastery and its effect on talents basically means Insanity is going to become stronger now, compared to FDCL or MB. Is it safe to say Mind Flay Insanity has a double dip effect from the buff? I just don't want to spout random stuff without it being true so I'd like to know what everyone else thinks

[Deleted]

It's probably worse if everyone's at the same level. Then it means that you can't outplay the others to fight for your spot.

People complain about their class/specc not being strong because it can cost them a raid spot, or force them to play another class that they don't enjoy as much as Shadow. If you're a raid leader putting together the team for the night, you're naturally going to choose the players who will give you the best chance of progressing on the boss, so lower DPS classes get dropped in favour of the current FOTM.

So what you are saying is that shadow sucks, and thats where I totally disagree. Thats the whole point of my post above. We are definitely not useless, nor are we always behind locks and mages and furys (in our groups). Especially not in progression. Blizzard promissed me more dmg in exchange of survivability and Im counting on that damn it. So our raid spot should be save.

And also if you are playing in a guild who only takes whatever is fotm.... Well then... What the hell man?!

[Deleted]

The question is, do we always have to compare ourselves to the current top dps class, to the best mages, warlocks and warriors on top ranks to know where we stand? Because at the end of the day, what really matters, is that the boss dies. And for that to happen, everyone within the guild TEAM has to perform at its best, and if that means that the shadow was only 4th or 6th on that boss, who cares right? Because wow is a team game, at least pve is.

A lot of times we tend to forget how valid we are for the team, because we are too focused on the top ranks, when what actually really matters is how we performed and supported our guild when we killed the boss for the first time. I dont know about you guys but i for one was always a very important player for my guild throughout the entire mop xpac. And a lot of times top 3 if not even 1 on bosses. And please dont say my guildmates are bad, because they are not, neither was the shadow priest in mop! Dont tell me we were bad!

Of course my whole point only makes sense if everyone in the guild plays at the same lvl if skill, otherwise...

Hm... Try reading what you just wrote and think about it. If your only target is killing the boss, who you will take? Guy who is doing 100k dps or another one with 80k? Ofc guy with 100k because with him fight will be quicker thereby less space for making mistakes, thereby higher chances for killing boss.

btw almost forgot - shadow was terrible in mop and your guildmates were bad

[bubblesasc]

Hm... Try reading what you just wrote and think about it. If your only target is killing the boss, who you will take? Guy who is doing 100k dps or another one with 80k? Ofc guy with 100k because with him fight will be quicker thereby less space for making mistakes, thereby higher chances for killing boss.

btw almost forgot - shadow was terrible in mop and your guildmates were bad

A guild that thinks about 1 boss, especially one that is simple like just "killing a boss target" which would be an early tier boss is no good guild at all.

If a class is extremely strong, e.g. Monks atm than you would try and stack it regardless as long as you can get it geared but it has NOTHING to do with Shadowpriests and the state that we're in.

[gaymer77]

Is mindbender a better choice for shadow now that we can't get a third MF: Insanity off before it goes away?

[Deleted]

Is mindbender a better choice for shadow now that we can't get a third MF: Insanity off before it goes away?

Power Infusion and Mindbender is people are running on most fights, unless you're asking about 100?

[soulyouth]

Doesn't PI (or any haste proc) make the insanity buff shorter atm ?

[bubblesasc]

Doesn't PI (or any haste proc) make the insanity buff shorter atm ?

Yeah, it's quite aids.

Won't be as bad at level 100 but still.

[Ilir]

Doesn't PI (or any haste proc) make the insanity buff shorter atm ?

Yup. I really hate insanity now.

[methz]

Separate to all the shenanigans, the buff to mastery and its effect on talents basically means Insanity is going to become stronger now, compared to FDCL or MB. Is it safe to say Mind Flay Insanity has a double dip effect from the buff? I just don't want to spout random stuff without it being true so I'd like to know what everyone else thinks

I'm not sure what you mean. FDCL was also buffed since our mastery affects mind spike also. Either way, it's going to push CoP even further ahead

Yup. I really hate insanity now.

Is it weird that I find myself trying not to cast it if my meta gem haste proc is up? I just find much harder to clip the final cast to lengthen it out.
I do like that it's a buff now, though. I can actually use DP on fights like spoils and swap to another target and use insanity.

[bubblesasc]

I'm not sure what you mean. FDCL was also buffed since our mastery affects mind spike also. Either way, it's going to push CoP even further ahead

What I mean is, isn't the buff bigger to Insanity compared to FDCL since say a 10% buff to mindflay is a 20% buff to Insanity?

[methz]

What I mean is, isn't the buff bigger to Insanity compared to FDCL since say a 10% buff to mindflay is a 20% buff to Insanity?

To make sure I understand the question, you're asking if insanity is gaining more from the mastery buff because it's 100% stronger than mind flay, so if mind flay is gaining 25% from mastery, than insanity is gaining an additional 25%?

If so, it's still a getting the same increase as FDCL, since mind spike was also increased by % of mastery, and the surge of darkness procs should also be benefiting by being 50% stronger than non-proc spikes.

[bubblesasc]

To make sure I understand the question, you're asking if insanity is gaining more from the mastery buff because it's 100% stronger than mind flay, so if mind flay is gaining 25% from mastery, than insanity is gaining an additional 25%?

If so, it's still a getting the same increase as FDCL, since mind spike was also increased by % of mastery, and the surge of darkness procs should also be benefiting by being 50% stronger than non-proc spikes.

Oh yeah, I totally forget about Surge of Darkness 50% stronger damage buff :/

Thanks!

[Deja Thoris]

Hm... Try reading what you just wrote and think about it. If your only target is killing the boss, who you will take? Guy who is doing 100k dps or another one with 80k? Ofc guy with 100k because with him fight will be quicker thereby less space for making mistakes, thereby higher chances for killing boss.

btw almost forgot - shadow was terrible in mop and your guildmates were bad

Yea thats why all the Worlds top guilds took 2 tanks 4 healers and 14 of one class of dps to a fight because doing more damage outweighs all other concerns. (That was sarcasm - with you I felt the need to point it out)

[Deleted]

There is a diffrence between stacking one class x14 times and replacing 2 lowest dps. It was example for general rule not something set in stone not matter what. Ofc there is many diffrent criteria while completing raid team.

[Dawnrage]

Well in previous expansions, classes brought different things to the table. Even in MoP, shadow brought some unique utility that was useful - Life swap, T90 healing, VE, mass dispel, life grip, void tendrils (was good on two fights in SoO).

Now with half of those cut or severely nerfed, and VE healing doing less healing relative to health even after the buff to it, shadow is going to be for the most part only brought exclusively for it's damage. Every other DPS spec also lost most of their utility, so all they provide is mostly damage too. In WoD, where all every class brings is damage for the most part, why would you not replace an spriest with a higher DPS class if they did more?

Yeah of course, there's factors like whether your raid team can get someone who is good at the game playing a higher DPS class, allocating gear, whether you are a veteran or friend or w/e and all that good stuff...However the fact remains there that if you are a damage dealer in WoD and your damage is not as good as some other class, it IS better to bring another class in if the goal is to do the boss as fast as possible (which should be the goal of any decent raiding guild), all other things being equal.

That is not to say I think shadow sucks or anything since I don't really know the state of class balance right now. This is more a general statement about bringing X class in over Y.

[britishbubba]

In WoD, where all every class brings is damage for the most part, why would you not replace an spriest with a higher DPS class if they did more?

The people that raid in the vast majority of guilds where that 5% difference isn't going to matter because they're not full clearing the raid on it's highest difficulty the first week it's out. Oddly enough, most people play this game for fun, and part of that fun is playing a class they want to play, and not just the class that is FoTM op, and a lot of guilds will understand that and not just scrap someone that's an enjoyable person to raid with just because they decided they like the class that does 5% less dmg than mages.

[Relapses]

Don't get me wrong, we were still much stronger in DS, than we ever were in MoP

This was the main point I was trying to illustrate. Truthfully, I didn't even have a Shadow Priest until mid-Firelands and I only really played it as an alternative main for the last part of DS since my other raiding guilds died off after killing Deathwing. A lot of what you said is true, but many fights in DS (and Firelands) were very Shadow-friendly. It was simply a much better time for the spec. Imo, MoP was miserable both in terms of tuning and QoL; however, it does seem like they're kind of taking the hint and improving things for us.

Only time will tell how we ultimately pan out in WoD but I don't think the spec can survive being mediocre for another entire expansion so I'm really hoping Blizzard realizes this and tunes our damage accordingly.

[Deleted]

So what talent setup are most people going with now?. From what i heard PI and SoD/MB is popular

[Deleted]

If you mean lvl 90 SoO: Mindbender/PI/Halo on every fight (you can change mindbender to anything else on fights that last less than 1 min, siegecrafter I am looking at you!).

LvL 100: ATM Halo/CoP/ToF + lvl 45 of your choice depending on the encounter (insanity for single target/dot weaving, sod when you can keep vts going on 1-2 targets, mindbender when you are gcd capped/there is alot of movement). Vent is borderline useless, AS has its fights, but it's not as versatile as CoP while requiring completely different gearset which sucks for progress.
Shadow Insight is really weak atm beacuse its not really doing anything with CoP and on fights where you take AS you are usually close to being orb-capped either way.
In level 90 tier Halo is the way to go on every fight. I don't see us taking anything else ever in WoD, unless they buff Cascade/Divine star or add sth to them.