I can´t recognize my Shadowpriest anymore.... One talent has ruined it!

[Bullettime]

WoW is not an eternal world 1st race.

By your logic, raids should only consist of the "Best" tank class, "Best" healer class and "Best" DPS class. Does that ever happen? No, not really, because the average player is not striving for world 1st kills.

Not everyone strives to min/max to the absolute highest they can.

The issue isn't that it's a simple min/maxing problem. The issue is the discrepancy between CoP and the other talents is in the neighborhood of 10 to 15%. That's massive. That's a drop very very few are willing to take unless they only raid LFR where DPS never matters in the least. That much of a drop is close to picking vs not picking a 100 talent at all.

It's also an issue because it's a forced playstyle shift with that discrepancy. If CoP, mastered, had a few % lead over the other talents, that would be fine. People could then just pick what they wanted and CoP rewarded extra attention. But when dot weaving, even screwed up, still outperforms the other talents by a significant amount while also flipping the spec's entire playstyle on its head, people are bound to be pissed off. There's no reason why there shouldn't be some variety and for people to pick their talent based on their preferred playstyle. A 10-15% gap though pretty much kills that. Blizzard has even admitted that the Shadow 100 talents are a balance wreck.

Most complaints you see about CoP aren't the damage, despite some of the comments in this thread. People aren't bitching about DPS. They're bitching about the playstyle they've loved for their Shadow for years and years, the default playstyle of the spec, being turned inside out because Blizzard's number team seemingly decided to take the last couple weeks of beta testing off.

[Dole4011]

Don't pick CoP then?

They've hinted at wanting to bring the other talents up to snuff, so maybe you can just grin and bear it if you prefer the optimal (though less fun) talent. Or maybe AS will scale better?

[Bullettime]

Don't pick CoP then?

They've hinted at wanting to bring the other talents up to snuff, so maybe you can just grin and bear it if you prefer the optimal (though less fun) talent. Or maybe AS will scale better?

Do some of the idiots spouting this even realize the level of crit necessary for AS to compete with CoP? And this is ignoring the fact that CoP will continually scale extremely well with higher Mastery levels.

Given the tuning, we can't afford to not pick CoP. While this may be well and good for the people who love it, it's basically sucking the fun out of the spec for those of us who despise it. Picking the other talents is almost the equivalent to not taking a talent at all.

Can we do anything about it? Not really atm. But telling people "just don't pick it!" makes you look ignorant to the math involved and the reason why everyone is taking it to begin with. It's not some 2-3% difference. Or even 5%. It's 10 to 15.

[l33t]

With dot snapshotting gone forever and ever, there is zero reasons to love dots any more. Dots suck. They hit like a piece of wet noodle. I feel absolutely zero satisfaction looking at that abysmally miserable parody for damage dots are now. Thanks to CoP, it feels great to not be benched/forced to disc on any boss which is not a council fight, too...

Not that I love an abomination of dotweaving, though. If you ask me, I would totally love either Cata DS shadowpriest to come back, or BC manabattery most_needed_spec_for_raiding role. In my opinion, all three lvl100 priest talents suck in terms of game design, as well as Blizzard does in designing our class features.

[Granyala]

Dots [...] hit like a piece of wet noodle.

Totally agree there.
Guess Blizzard just threw in the towel because they can't actually balance a class which has strong DoTs.

[Bullettime]

Totally agree there.
Guess Blizzard just threw in the towel because they can't actually balance a class which has strong DoTs.

That's what happens when the encounter design team create encounters that are 90% ADDS EVERYWHERE-fests.

They've been doing this nonstop since Cataclysm. Remember during Cata when everyone was all "multidot and cleave is too strong!?" It's because every fucking encounter was like ultra tailored for multidotters with 2+ active bosses, tons of long duration adds, etc. Instead of reining in that design, they've been opting to simply nerf the fuck out of dots.

[Granyala]

That's what happens when the encounter design team create encounters that are 90% ADDS EVERYWHERE-fests.

That's because single target encounters can't really engage people anymore. We have become accustomed to handling adds so much that when these adds are absent we think something is missing.

I sometimes do miss the rather slow single target encounters from TBC, but I believe that with my knowledge and skill from today, I'd fall asleep during bosses like Gruul, Maggo, or Void reaver.

[Bullettime]

That's because single target encounters can't really engage people anymore. We have become accustomed to handling adds so much that when these adds are absent we think something is missing.

I sometimes do miss the rather slow single target encounters from TBC, but I believe that with my knowledge and skill from today, I'd fall asleep during bosses like Gruul, Maggo, or Void reaver.

Shouldn't the design team take that as sort of a challenge and try to make more engaging single target fights? If your constant fallback design is to throw more adds at players to the point where dots have to be nerfed to oblivion, then there's an issue.

[Granyala]

Shouldn't the design team take that as sort of a challenge and try to make more engaging single target fights? If your constant fallback design is to throw more adds at players to the point where dots have to be nerfed to oblivion, then there's an issue.

I think a fair mix is best.

Ultraxion / Butcher serve their purpose, but I surely don't want every second boss to be that "patchwerky".

[LL Hand J]

The funny part of this whole post is......

This topic comes up every tier with pure DPS classes.

You learn to adapt to changes. If you want to do the best you can. One spec (talent in this case) won't be tops forever.

It boils down to some people not liking change. That's not a game issue.

[Bullettime]

The funny part of this whole post is......

This topic comes up every tier with pure DPS classes.

You learn to adapt to changes. If you want to do the best you can. One spec (talent in this case) won't be tops forever.

It boils down to some people not liking change. That's not a game issue.

Except again, it's not that it's slightly better to shift and create change. It's not like a 3% or even 5% differential. The gap is significant enough to be almost at the level of having a talent vs not having one at all.

Also, expecting everyone to be ok with a 100% playstyle flip after years of having a "defining" playstyle is a bit ridiculous. Arcane Mages flipped shit when they went from a 100% nuker to having a high contribution from Nether Tempest and even Blizzard admitted that was terrible. Even when pures would mass migrate to a new spec, the differential between the specs was fairly small and people were swapping over a 3% theoretical.

CoP wouldn't get near as much hate if it were more closely balanced to warrant even a little bit of choice. People aren't mad that CoP exists or "hating change." They're mad that Blizzard's number team is a bunch of total fucking failures as of late and flipped shit on its head for no reason and with no alternative. They even recognized the problems before launch and promised a level 100 talent tuning pass and AoE pass that never came, fucking balance overall and more specs than just Shadow.

[Deleted]

i dont care if it takes us a few nods down the ranks on ST fights, as long as we are as good as always with 2+ targets!

AS is not a choice atm if you want to stay competitive.

Is it just me that sees what's wrong here?

Besides, on most fights, you get to throw around plenty of DoTs.

[Nekusar]

CoP wouldn't get near as much hate if it were more closely balanced to warrant even a little bit of choice. People aren't mad that CoP exists or "hating change." They're mad that Blizzard's number team is a bunch of total fucking failures as of late and flipped shit on its head for no reason and with no alternative. They even recognized the problems before launch and promised a level 100 talent tuning pass and AoE pass that never came, fucking balance overall and more specs than just Shadow.

Wait until Foundry gear comes out and play AS then, if Blizzard went and balanced it so that AS was somewhat close to CoP it would scale out of control in BRF/T18 and people would be creating these exact same threads complaining about the exact same shit, it's infinitely easier for Blizzard to leave it where it is now so that it scales on content that actually matters rather than .5 of a tier and if it's still not working take another look at it then.

[nonameelf]

It boils down to some people not liking change. That's not a game issue.

No, it doesn't. It boils down to CoP being a boring piece of shit talent that turns shadow priests into WotLK arcane mage level of boring.

If CoP gameplay wasn't boring as fuck I might be ok with it, but it is boring as fuck so I want nothing to do with it.

[zoomgpally]

Don't pick CoP then?

They've hinted at wanting to bring the other talents up to snuff, so maybe you can just grin and bear it if you prefer the optimal (though less fun) talent. Or maybe AS will scale better?

They also said that would be too big of a change to do without a real patch, which means nothing will happen before 6.1

Best option now if you hate the whole dotless playstyle is CoP lite, which is pretty much the same as you have always done, only using CoP for more mind blasts

[anon5123]

WotLK arcane mage level of boring

CoP is nowhere near that 2-button rotation.

From what I remember of Arcane Mage in WOTLK, it was just Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage 90% of the time. 2 buttons.

CoP? Yes, you have "mind spike -> mind blast", but you also have DoT weaving and Death execute, multidotting, etc.

I find CoP to be a fun change of pace after 10 years of "dots + mind blast + mind flay".

[nonameelf]

CoP is nowhere near that 2-button rotation.

From what I remember of Arcane Mage in WOTLK, it was just Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage 90% of the time. 2 buttons.

CoP? Yes, you have "mind spike -> mind blast", but you also have DoT weaving and Death execute, multidotting, etc.

I find CoP to be a fun change of pace after 10 years of "dots + mind blast + mind flay".

DoT weaving is just replacing 2 mind spikes with your dots at 4 orbs. That's it. That's all it is. It's not some mysterious and challenging aspect of CoP. It definitely didn't need it's own special name.

Execute range is the only time CoP is anywhere remotely fun.

[anon5123]

DoT weaving is just replacing 2 mind spikes with your dots at 4 orbs. That's it.

And using Insanity, and keeping track of your Shadow Orbs, etc....a far cry from "arcane missiles -> arcane barrage, rinse repeat until boss is dead".

[nonameelf]

And using Insanity, and keeping track of your Shadow Orbs, etc....a far cry from "arcane missiles -> arcane barrage, rinse repeat until boss is dead".

Keeping track of Shadow Orbs? Is counting to 4 difficult for you?

[Deleted]

i love cop,its huge talent and make this weak spec to bomber. never liked the dots anyway. best thing ever happen to shadow after cata.