[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[Kretan]

I'm trying man, I'm trying, but I can't debate anything when all you do is "oh this is nonimportant in the long run" about any negatives we have. You know, anything is unimportant in the long run, because in two years we will have another shadow priest.

Try to look at things more realistically - try to think like a player thinks who is going to play since expansion's day 1, who is going to take a vacation when raids are opened to be able to progress more with his guild. You'll quickly see that all things that are absolutely nonimportant to you in the long run are more important than life itself to that player.

I agree that some things could be better, but assuming getting legendaries isn't the 0.00001% chance some people like to say, it really isn't a big deal. If we had no ring, that would be a big deal because it would heavily impact our strength in challenge modes imo.

"oh this is not important in the long run" IS my side of the debate..... Why is it a bad thing that someone who isn't playing the game doesn't progress? This has nothing to do with my personal situation..... Our aoe isn't a huge problem assuming the ring is achievable with a realistic amount of effort. Sure our aoe could be brought up from very bad to below average baseline or something, but in the end if the ring is the end goal and we can all get it, it's not a big deal.

Really more important than life itself?.......... It's a video game lol.

I get it you think it is, but I don't think it is. Just agree to disagree at this point.

[Aeriel]

"we have to take 9 non dps traits where some have to take non, it's a non issue." You act like completing the artifact will be easy and fast. It won't.

Honestly, I am starting to think that this is actually a good thing. Hear me out.

Shadow is being balanced around its base damage with the artifact increasing survivability. Most DPS are balanced around having their artifact trait, so in effect are catching up as they fill it out. I would rather the complexity be there to start and the traits add auxiliary benefits, so that we can learn the ins and outs upfront. The catch with that perspective is that survivability is best suited to solo and leveling where we would have fewer traits.

This is all my personal opinion.

[Kretan]

Honestly, I am starting to think that this is actually a good thing. Hear me out.

Shadow is being balanced around its base damage with the artifact increasing survivability. Most DPS are balanced around having their artifact trait, so in effect are catching up as they fill it out. I would rather the complexity be there to start and the traits add auxiliary benefits, so that we can learn the ins and outs upfront. The catch with that perspective is that survivability is best suited to solo and leveling where we would have fewer traits.

This is all my personal opinion.

I would add on to this idea by saying the complaint about the artifact is that people assume every artifact and ever talent follows the same power curve across the game. When you accept that idea, stuff like this argument takes hold. In reality, the power gains across talents are WILDLY different. That's a big reason I say that this was isn't something to worry about. Some talents will be huge power gains while other offensive choices are going to be lackluster. The absolute number of offensive talent choices is a meaningless stat in reality because the power curve is so dramatically different between specs.

The only real argument is that the feel of being forced to select a defensive is kinda shitty. It has little impact on actual game play strength, but it doesn't feel great to select shadow mend talents when you barely cast it.

[Aeriel]

The only real argument is that the feel of being forced to select a defensive is kinda shitty. It has little impact on actual game play strength, but it doesn't feel great to select shadow mend talents when you barely cast it.

As I said: the problem is that when those traits are most useful is when you are first leveling. Once outside of those early points, it becomes more of an "ugh gotta fill in with survival" like the classic trees.

[Kretan]

As I said: the problem is that when those traits are most useful is when you are first leveling. Once outside of those early points, it becomes more of an "ugh gotta fill in with survival" like the classic trees.

Heck even during leveling the absolute power portion of it is still meaningless. Each spec is going to start at a unique power level, then every talent is going to buff that spec by a unique amount.

The only way it even matters during leveling is if for example every spec started at 70% of its eventual full power, then every talent across every spec boosted overall damage by a specific percentage to end up at 100% power.

In reality though some specs will start at 80% with small boosts while others at 40% with big boosts. Then within those unique power curves, some specs have traits that boost damage percentage by a little early and a lot late while others scale quickly then slow down at the end. If the complaint about defensive artifact talents relates in any way to power at any point, it is baseless to me.

Like you said though it's like survival talents in bc, it's more annoying to have to take them than anything.

[Kilee25]

Yeah, I was just pointing out that there have been calls for buffs to everything from ST, AoE, dots, mobility, survivability, etc. Even Mind Spike was originally added in WotLK because some were asking for a proper casted nuke for Shadow.

We ask for something, we get it, then we complain about something else.

My memory of Mind Spike in Cata was that it was a very welcome addition (for me). We had been wanting a way to turn off/control our dots for years, and we had been complaining about our small add-pop burst as well. It solved two very real problems that had been an active topic about the class all that previous expansion.

I actually think that what happened in WoD was some major irony too. People had been clamoring for the ability to use talents to change where our strengths lie. In particular people had been begging for some stronger single target. CoP might not have been what people expected, but in terms of "big picture behavior", it was basically exactly what we asked for. It was a talent that gave us improved single target damage at the cost of multi-dot cleave. I remember seeing some very large sweeping posts in MoP from people saying they would gladly give up their strengths as a multi-dotter if there were a talent that improved our ST damage. It was such a common request that it was practically a mob chant...

Personally I was really excited about the idea of CoP, and my initial thought wast hat "Blizzard listened to us, and they really care." So I found the extreme lashback towards CoP it to be almost comical in nature.

Speaking towards whether AE matters or not. I remember reading some pretty big posts from some pretty big players back before Searing Insanity was added this expac. Back when our AE was truly very garbage. Everyone said over and over again how AE doesn't matter and that our priority damage was the only thing that mattered in raids. "Nobody cares about AE" was a sign on a board that shadow hung around their necks...

Then when we got a better AE with Searing Insanity, everyone was like, "Oh thank god, we've been suffering for so long."

I do agree there's a theme running for the past few expacs that people just seem to like to complain no matter what we get. Having said that, I also don't particularly like the blanket justifications that hide everyone's true feelings - like people sayign AE doesn't matter at all. Of course it matters, and of course you're going to notice if you're bottom of the barrel on it. And of course it's going to bother us.

I also agree with those saying that we don't really know where the class is going to sit until the last few tuning patches. Making claims that our ST makes up for a lack in some other area right now is just hopeful speculation.

[Tanned]

I like CoP gameplay but I spoke out against CoP during the WoD beta because its design made Shadow play silly, encouraged very gamey things like dotweaving, and was bolstered by a crappy Mastery. I raised these points, in person, to the developers at BlizzCon, and was flatly dismissed. "It's not going to be a problem."

In MoP we were inferorior multidotters compared to Mages and Warlocks and we were among dead last in single target. In WoD, burst AoE became much more important, an area where we are very weak. In WoD we have extraordinarily strong sustained single target damage through the Class Trinket and CoP, but we pale in comparison to every other class who can stack CDs with the Legendary Ring and in situations where a boss dies in less than a minute.

I think it is reductive to consider complaints about Shadow without talking about the broader game. Shadow's kit has always been done better by others. One problem is that the class designers are not the encounter designers; class designers can give us new tools but encounter designers need to design encounters where those tools matter. When they adjust Shadow's kit the game also changes making the updates to Shadow of null effect. The complaints for Shadow amount to "I hate feeling like we are always one step behind the meta." People will still complain if Shadow is ever the strongest spec in a given situation, but *I* complain because it feels like the spec is not proactively designed.

[Ilir]

Twintop... then Tanned. What is happening =O

[l33t]

The only real argument is that the feel of being forced to select a defensive is kinda shitty. It has little impact on actual game play strength, but it doesn't feel great to select shadow mend talents when you barely cast it.

Nailed it. It is just like that, instead of a "wow, I now get better because I have experience to level up my artifact, yay" feeling we get "/sigh, next three traits are crap" feeling. And that feeling will be repeated three times...

See, the problem is I just can't understand why is it so hard for Blizzard to just create more paths between traits? It does not require any hard balancing or tons of development time, and it just lets us get our golden traits more effectively, like every other caster spec can.

Twintop... then Tanned. What is happening =O

What do you mean?

[Deleted]

There are just 2 things wrong with COP I think. Mindblast damage decreasing on targets with dots on them and the classtrinket completely ignoring dots.

[Tanned]

Mindblast damage decreasing on targets with dots on them and the classtrinket completely ignoring dots.

Well, I have good news for you. One of those isn't an actual effect of Clarity of Power. With CoP, Mind Blast doesn't decrease in damage on targets with DoTs. Mind Spike, Mind Sear and Shadow Word: Death, do, however.

[Ilir]

What do you mean?

I dunno... I remember a time where I saw their post regularly and then they disappear. Now both of them posted today... I just find it cool
I like them. They're cool.

I like you too, even tho your avatar reminds me of someone I hate

[Deleted]

Well, I have good news for you. One of those isn't an actual effect of Clarity of Power. With CoP, Mind Blast doesn't decrease in damage on targets with DoTs. Mind Spike, Mind Sear and Shadow Word: Death, do, however.

Oke that was silly.

[mkultra55]

.........Making claims that our ST makes up for a lack in some other area right now is just hopeful speculation.

I've also found that it never works out that way. Look at Feral in WoD. Very poor AoE and strong ST but not the best by any metric. Some of that is the current Hybrid tax which is the inability to change into a different damage dealing spec based on the encounter (Mages for example).

[pixelated senpai]

Will anyone be streaming todays testing, just wanna see shadow in a raid environment.

[Kretan]

@Annesh

Bad news bud:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...94515?page=1#3

[davesignal]

Probably why the PvP talents already include a dot spread mechanic, I guess.

[Ilir]

I'm a little scared we'll get nerfed.

(i'm saying this because on almost all videos/stream I watch, be it pvp or pve... all i hear is "spriest is doing really fine" "spriest is really strong").

[Kretan]

I'm a little scared we'll get nerfed.

(i'm saying this because on almost all videos/stream I watch, be it pvp or pve... all i hear is "spriest is doing really fine" "spriest is really strong").

I'd be surprised if we didn't get tuned downwards numbers wise to be honest.

[pixelated senpai]

I'm a little scared we'll get nerfed.

(i'm saying this because on almost all videos/stream I watch, be it pvp or pve... all i hear is "spriest is doing really fine" "spriest is really strong").

oh, you know its coming! im just bracing myself