Shadow CC Is 'Quite' Good

[Annesh]

Didn't they remove all CCs from pets? I thought that was some huge priority for this xpack?

Not all.

In fact, as far as I saw the only pet CC they got rid of was hunter pet CC.

[gaymer77]

Q: "Could something be done for priest CC, please?"
A: "Shadow CC is quite good!"

Is that an announcement that holy and disc will be removed next patch?

No they were talking about giving silence to disc priests because they felt that disc didn't have enough CC. They felt that holy's CC was fine. I'm guessing they assume that all holy priests in pvp settings use a damage chakra instead of a healing one.

[Noradin]

No they were talking about giving silence to disc priests because they felt that disc didn't have enough CC. They felt that holy's CC was fine. I'm guessing they assume that all holy priests in pvp settings use a damage chakra instead of a healing one.

That came only later...

[gaymer77]

The announcement came BEFORE this thread was posted so I don't know why that would matter

[Raugnaut]

Please tell me a form of hard-CC that doesn't break on damage other than Stun/Knockdown(same thing pretty much).

Certain roots do not break on damage, but other then that, theres not much.

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Didn't they remove all CCs from pets? I thought that was some huge priority for this xpack?

They removed hunter pet CC, and slightly nerfed warlock pet CC (Felhunter doesn't silence, Succy is only 6 seconds, not 8, and Felguard now has a minute CD(?notsure) on their stun)

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Anyway, yea, I don't see what Holinka is saying.

Starters- Our CC has been nerfed to the ground. Mage CC, while it took a hit in burst-while-CC'd, now have more CC (Deep Freeze frost only, breaks on damage, but their Ice Ward spell now triggers from 3 melee hits, all 3 specs get a decent frost-nova replacement talent, ect). Warlocks are essentially unchanged- some minor pet adjustments, nerf to fear duration.

For us- we now have to choose between roots and fear. Horror breaks on damage, has crap duration, no longer disarms, still consumes too many orbs, has long CD. Our roots now break on damage. Our fear has a 45 second CD. Fortunately, our Silence is still best baseline silence. So- only 3 CCs, all of which have a 30-45 second CD.

Oh, and theres Vampiric Touch dispel protection- Dispeller gets feared for 3 seconds. Well, at least thats a plus.

We can longer cast healing spells in Shadow Form. Renew is gone. Prayer of Mending has a 1.5 second cast time. Our lvl 90 talents no longer heal. Can you still cast PW:S in shadow form?

Mass Dispel no longer removes bubble/iceblock without glyph. (Does it currently do that? I know it did back when it was first introduced)

Fortunately, we still keep our 100% increased armor. Unfortunately, Armor Value isn't quite the same going into WoD as it is live- currently, we go from 40%-55% armor reduction with inner fire glyph+shadow form. Next expansion, we only go from like 25-35% armor. This affects all players though, so it isn't a shadow-only nerf.

Now, fortunately, our non-dot damage has been greatly increased. Mastery gives 20% baseline increased damage, and we can talent into the mind-spike spam talent.
However, that makes our sustained pressure drop drastically. Not a good choice. In addition, casting Mind Spike means not casting Mind Flay, meaning no snare. Finally, if Mind Spike is interupted, we get locked out of all damage spells- Mind Flay, you can still cast Mind Spike.

Slightly positive news- PW:S has 10 second weakened soul debuff, so we can cast it more often.

Yea. Overall, I feel this is gonna be a crap expansion for Shadow PvP, in terms of utility.

[Deleted]

Psychic sream needs it cd lowered by atleast 10 seconds and shadow needs something to stop melee walking all over them, otherwise they are just fine.

Warlocks are essentially unchanged

Also warlocks lost howl of terror baseline, its now on the same row with coil & shadowfury.

[Thrashmetal]

what worries me is that SP is just a punching bag for every melee, if we won't get any chance to run away from melee it's better to play DK... still dots but at least survive punching.

[jonish]

You may think we have terrible cc, but where do we actually stand against other classes/specces?

Shadows CC has been garbage for years, We got nothing new and infact now have to spent talent points to get something that used to be baseline. How is this a real discussion?

[Deleted]

His comments... I mad. Beginning to wonder if he has actually played Spriest against ANY of the melee classes.

Sure it's doable... But you come up against anyone who is half decent, you're gonna half a real sh*tty time. At this rate I'll be going back to my warrior after retiring him end of Cata...

[Bakis]

Isn't melee interrupt review (nerfs) still undone?
Remember reading not long ago they will adjust, (hinted) severely nerfing the interrupts that lock out spell schools.

[Well]

Isn't melee interrupt review (nerfs) still undone?
Remember reading not long ago they will adjust, (hinted) severely nerfing the interrupts that lock out spell schools.

I certainly hope that they will significantly nerf melee uptime and the amount of interrupts in the game. It's just ridiculous:

Charge->Intercept->Leap->Charge

[Annesh]

Realtalk, a ton of people are complaining about melee uptime, so it's a semi-decent assumption that something will change, but honestly there's been zero communication of any plans, so there's no guarantee anything will change at all.

[Blackmorgrim]

Another problem I think I also see is not many arena players giving feedback are really concerned with balance... in terms of people giving feedback for balance, I think maybe only a half dozen high end arena players are actually actively analyzing the evolving meta, and trying to show the devs faults in current design. Others are mainly sitting back and enjoying seeing half the spec options pretty much eliminated from the competition.

[DonkeyKongSSJ69]

I always like to compare with Warlock when looking at shadow. Since they compete for niche a lot.

Shadow:
Psychic Scream: Talent. 5 enemies, 45 sec cooldown.
Psychic Horror: 45 second cooldown, 4 second horror, cost damage resource.
Silence: 25-45 second cooldown, 3-5 second silence.

Warlock:
Howl of Terror: Talent. 5 enemies, 40 sec cooldown, reduced further by melee attacks.
Mortal Coil: Talent. 45 second cooldown, 3 second horror, no cost, heals.
Spell Lock: 24 second cooldown, 6 second lockout. Requires Felhunter.
Blood Horror: Talent. 60 second cooldown, 3 second horror.
Fear: no cooldown, 6 second fear.

Obviously Scream competes with Tentacles and MC, while Howl, Coil, and Shadowfury compete. But shadow is closer now than it has been, to warlock CC. I think if they had left the 6 second Psychic Horror in it would have been reasonable.

twitter.com/holinka/statuses/501414954512044033

Nah, they don't consider Interrupts CC since they don't silence but won't respond when Shadow asks for an interrupt.

[Annesh]

They also don't seem to be counting the ten thousand snares in the game as CC, not one of which we get access to in a way that helps us kite/keep melee off us.