Ranged DPS in Mythic+ (7.1.5)

[Noore57]

Hey guys,

until now I played Blood DK, Prot Paladin and Frost DK (changed from Blood DK) in Mythic+.
When 7.1.5. hits and I can share my Artifact Knowledge from the DK (AK20) I wanna add a Ranged DPS.

In the beta I played Shadow Priest and Elemental Shaman.
I play mainly with friends (in a small guild) and when Legion started we had no Tank, that's why I switched to Blood DK.

I would love if some mythic+ experienced Shadow Priests and Elemental Shaman could share some insight what the classes strengths and weaknesses will be once 7.1.5 hits.

Thanks
N

[ydraw]

If you're talking exclusively M+ then Shaman is always going to be better for a variety of reasons, but just shortly:

1: Bloodlust/Heroism. Just by being a shaman you're going to find it easier to PUG because your class has this ability.
2: Earthquake Totem: Passive damage reduction and interrupt that no other class has.
3: AOE damage: Unless they buff Shadow Priest AOE massively, Shaman will still be miles ahead. Elemental is one of the top 5 damage specs for M+ thanks to their AOE.

[Jazzhands]

I run elemental for M+, its great. Great AoE damage, Earthquake knockdown is nice, cap totem(5 sec AoE stun), knock back/earth bind for kiting on affixes like necrotic, group run speed, and of course Hero. Shaman bring an amazing amount of utility, wouldn't surprise me if I'm forgetting something.

Priest I can't really comment on because I don't play one. All I know is they don't have great AoE, and S2M is kinda lame cause you die afterwards. However, one of the first M+15 clears had an spriest, so they're still completely viable, just depends on comp.

[Raiju]

Depends what you consider viable. The people from that clear stated the reason they didn't sub out the spriest is that a) it was POSSIBLE with him, b) he had put in so much work with them up to 12 they felt guilty replacing him for a better class.

S2M isn't terrible for tyrannical mindyou, but it's definitely behind elemental shaman that can bring high boss damage as well as their trash damage.

[Tojara]

Elemental is amazing for all reasons listed here. Knockbacks, AoE stun, random knockdowns (thus preventing damage), reliable interrupt and amazing AoE damage. Add in that their ST burst can be incredibly strong, and you have yourself probably the most well rounded range DPS in the game.

Shadow priest is alright, just not for farming. Shadow priests are incredibly useful on Tyrannical weeks in addition to higher keystone runs where you aren't pulling more than 1 pack at a time. Shadow suffers from ramp up, and they get a bad wrap because they aren't realistically going to do great damage when you blitz through each pack in about 30 seconds. It's not that they are terrible, it's just that groups are too good at lower keystones and are setup to do exactly that, speed through shit.

[BergErr]

Anyone bashing SP in dungeons should watch this

[Elbleino]

I particularly like BM for Mythic+ lots of artifact traits and abilities that boost your AOE dmg output. and you can literally bring anything, brez, hero/lust, heals, the list goes on

[l33t]

Anyone bashing SP in dungeons should watch this

Bah. Replace their huntard and the noob they're boosting with real damage dealers and he'll be at the bottom in no time (not to mention that MoS is the easiest dungeon with trash who have easiest abilities). Shadow priest is OK in mythic+ if he has legendary ring which spreads dots. Without it, shadow is at shit levels.

[Tojara]

Shadow is still fine, but you have to have groups that can play around chain pulling with S2M. Maw of Souls in particular is a good one because of the short travel time to the first boss. For those that don't know most major CDs reset upon entering a keystone, so if you pop something like S2M prior to putting the keystone in (it lasts 3 minutes) you can chain them back to back. Depending on the quality of your group, or the affixes at play (or what level you're doing), you can either use the first S2M prior to starting the instance for the first boss and all it's trash, then proceed to use for the trash after the first boss, or just use it for the trash then pop it for the boss. Regardless you can fit multiple of them in if you do it this way.

Shadow is still fine, but you have to play around S2M, which will probably be frustrating for some groups, and again, depending on instances and affixes becomes a lot more difficult. Maw of souls for a few weeks also had the interesting side effect of bugging insanity generation, massively slowing it down such that it was possible to get near 100 stacks of void form outside of S2M, which generally isn't possible and they have since fixed some of these bugs.

The above poster is generally correct though. If you had like DH/WW you would probably AoE the trash down in seconds just as fast without any ramp up, and proceeded to kill the boss just as fast lol.

[Fleckens]

Anyone bashing SP in dungeons should watch this

That guy is abusing the void torrent bug though, He wouldn't even do half that damage without it.

Just because you can do mythic+ as shadow doesn't mean it's good, it's definitely amongst the weakest specs for mythic+ and you're generally better off going healing as disc which is pretty damn solid for mythic+.

[Deleted]

That guy is abusing the void torrent bug though, He wouldn't even do half that damage without it.

Just because you can do mythic+ as shadow doesn't mean it's good, it's definitely amongst the weakest specs for mythic+ and you're generally better off going healing as disc which is pretty damn solid for mythic+.

Is that why the world first +15 had a shadow priest?
Shadow priests actually get better the higher you go because the mobs live longer so your dots do more.
It's the lower mythics that spriest is bad at because the mobs die to fast for your dots to do anything.

[Fleckens]

Is that why the world first +15 had a shadow priest?
Shadow priests actually get better the higher you go because the mobs live longer so your dots do more.
It's the lower mythics that spriest is bad at because the mobs die to fast for your dots to do anything.

Yes they get better, doesn't mean they are great though, as already stated in this thread they brought the sp because he was the one they happened to be doing it with and if you saw the log from it he was doing far worse on damage than their mage and shaman even on bosses. But yes, in high mythic+ it's alright, although still generally not the best choice, especially when it's not tyrannical. But when you try to do low key boosts there aren't many specs i'd rather not have.

Hopefully the changes in 7.1.5 should help us a bit. We definitely won't ever become top tier but we might not be quite as bad.

[Raiju]

Is that why the world first +15 had a shadow priest?
Shadow priests actually get better the higher you go because the mobs live longer so your dots do more.
It's the lower mythics that spriest is bad at because the mobs die to fast for your dots to do anything.

The world first +15 stated they didn't replace the shadow priest since the guy had put in so much work with them initially, and that subbing him out would've been an improvement classwise.

[kalaratic]

well they are killing shadow's niche of being strong on spread out targets just so they can be stronger in dungeons so they better be one of the best casters for m+ or it's dead class, but no one can tell right now until tuning is close to being done

[Deleted]

Anyone bashing SP in dungeons should watch this

You'll notice he used a bug on the boat to spend a large part of the instance with ~95 stacks on lingering insanity. Without that bug which is rather specific to that instance he's nowhere near that kind of damage, while other classes are. Spriests just aren't that great for m+ compared to the alternatives.