Shadow spec useless in pve for Wrath?!?

[Lostprophet]

imp Scorch, Focus Magic and Winters Chill arent a utility?

[Doomwalker]

Any of the Mage specs offer no 'utility' to the raid at all right now. Most raids would rather drop a trivial buff AI compared to Fort which is one of the best buffs available.

If a Mage of any spec can't out dps a Shadow priest while going all out on his respective skills / talents / cooldowns then I would not see much of a reason to bring a Mage. With Shamans now having Hex and Tanks being able to generate so much more threat than usual crowd control (one of the Mages key benefits being Polymorph in TBC) is becoming less of an issue as well, yet another reason I'd rather take the SPriest.

Oh I take it back, you should always keep 1 Mage in reserve to make sure everyone has enough food and water to last the night.

EDIT: Whoops, I forgot about the Water Ele raid buff. They have that going for them, which is nice.

First of all we are talking about WotlK here. I know that Frostmages do more DPS than Spriests right now in TBC, as it should be.
One of our biggest conserns are our shadow weaving debuff on the target. Warlocks allways loved Spriests for that, and we loved warlocks for the shadow debuff to they provide. Now they are taking that away (shadow weaving a selfbuff for priest) and im sure warlocks will spec fire instead for the improved scorch from Mages.
The Warlock/Spriests synergy is gone in WotlK, and it will be a destruction/firemage synergy instead.

You cant read my posts and compeare it with TBC, im talking about the new talents/abilites in WotlK, and yes, Mages can spec utility in WotlK.

[Lostprophet]

We dont want to be #1. What we want is equal dmg compared to the following SPECCS ( Frost Mage but their mana regn stacks to ours, so this will be less an issue.)

-SV Hunter
-Ret Paladin

But what i heard of Naxx 10 man is that we do very good dmg.

And btw : There is no Mage/Warlock Synergie coz imp Scorch gives 10SpellCrit to every Caster and no more 15% Fire dmg.

[Edden]

From the feedbacks that I get, shadow priest is still a very desirable dps choice in Naxx, at least in 10 man groups.

But, it's still too early to say, if shadow priest doesn't scale in later dungeons ...

[danoontje]

I still believe pure dps classes should get a slight dps advantage because that's all they do. The Hybrid classes should be balanced for dps in comparison to each other and within the ball park of the pure dps class output. That helps justify a raid position for all classes imo.

Another posibility would be to have the pure dps classes have more endurance, meaning their dps would scale better with longer fights by giving them the possibility to keep pushing high dps numbers for a longer period of time. This way 5 and 10 man would be easy to do with ANY set up of players and for the 25 man bosses (I presume they have more hp, more of everything basically) the pure dps classes would have their endge. Still the bosses should be doable with any set up but it will strain the rest of the raid a bit if you brind 2 man hybrids. Ofc this is an idea thought up right on the spot and would need some tweaking.

[Herrera]

It's people like you that I want to slap in the face.
Everyone has 3 talent tree choices.
We are a Hybrid DPS.
They can choose what kind of DPS they can do.
We have one choice of DPS.
We just have the benefit of healing if needed to.
No one said that we should be equal, just close, because they are getting utility buffs. WHICH, Blizzard said they are scaling our DPS to. God man, do you pay attention to the board or what? Stop posting about stuff you do not know anything about.

Tard. Learn to read and stop wasting internet space 'cos you're making me do it, too.

And to stay on topic, there's really, and I cannot stress this enough, absolutely no reason why a hybrid should do less dps than a pure dps class. However, the majority feels that hybrids should do less dps because they can do other stuff. That's just kiddo thinking, show me a feral that can heal! Oh cool, they really can heal, for a crappy amount, and oh look, he just wasted 10 sec of precious dps time to heal. However, "us poor pure dps classes can only do dps, nerf hybrids" is probably the biggest whines in WoW (ok, maybe after "nerf resto druids"), so blizz has decided to address this thru utility usefulness. Warlocks and mages are pure dps classes, but they have some great utilities. I see no reason why they should do more dps than shadow priests. Really, no reason at all.

[Chumpp]

Good job finding a post you can argue with then skipping the rest of the thread, you dolt. If you'd paid attention to anyone else, you'd know they don't want hybrid classes to do less damage because they can heal, it's pretty obvious a feral druid isn't going to pop out and start healing mid fight because their heals are terrible. Everyone's point is that pure dps classes don't have the ability to spec back and forth, if hybrids are doing the same damage as pure classes, what's the point of rolling a pure class? Might as well bring someone who can do multiple jobs if needed than someone who's doing the same damage and can't do anything else.

[Lostprophet]

i saw two fights from Nax 10 man. Mage PoV.

At the end of the fight he was oom. On Patchwork he was oom before the fight was finished. Maybe a 25 man raid needs both (Frost mage and SP/SV/Retri)

Rogues and Warlocks have more endurance. (Vanish/Energy & Soul Shatter/Lifetab)

Btw every moonkin is very happy if he hasnt to spend points on imp FF coz he need that points somewhere else and he had to recast it.

[Ceko]

imp Scorch, Focus Magic and Winters Chill arent a utility?

+ this1 http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=44561
Water Elemental restores mana to all party or raid members within 100 yds an amount equal to 0.6% of their total mana every 5 secs.

[Leialyn]

A lot of Shadow priests forget that they are still Priests! It doesn't matter if healspecced or shadow, you are one Class!
And Blizzard definately wants to reduce class stacking so there won't be 6 Priests in the raid anymore (like its now in endgame PvE). So there will likely be one disc priest, one holy priest and one shadow priest in the raid.

[Dareos]

[Worshaka]

[quote=Doomwalker ]

This is a really good point... While unique buffs/debuffs no longer exist to a large extent, each class still has the ability to bring something to the raid that other classes can't. A spriest for example can bring a mana battery effect, a Warlock cannot. A mage can bring the mana battery effect but they can't bring a 3% raid wide hit buff that a spriest can.

I think what im getting at is that the dps value from the hybrid classes needs to be balanced well. And I did state that while I dont think Hybrid classes should be at equal dps to pure dps classes they need to be within a reasonable gap. This is to ensure that the hybrid classes don't become redundant and their current utility is equal to the dps loss.

I think i read a blue post on this similar point which stated if you had a hybrid class doing 100dps lower than the pure dps class, is your raid going to kick that good player out to stack another pure dps class? If he is a solid player and gets on well with the guild, probably not.

[Worshaka]

With frost snap and the "short" cooldown, they will provide nearly the same mana to the raid, but faster. With improved VE (if we are going to heal the raid) we cant be DPSing 100% of the time = less manaregen for the raid. Improved VE will skyrocket our treath (we heal the raid) and with some unlucky crits (from all the new spirit gear with crit stats) we WILL take aggro.

Ye, Spriests DPS has increased alot, but so have the other classes to.

Remeber SF now gives another 30% threat reduction, from everything i've read about spriests on beta threat is a non issue. In addition the threat sorounding VT due to the new mechanic is attributed to the person gaining the mana, and VE only causes threat if there is something to heal. As it stands I have imp VE in SWP and even during a high raid damage threat sensative encounter like the Eredar Twins I don't pull aggro... I really dont see this being much of an issue. Time will tell I guess.

[Herrera]

I think i read a blue post on this similar point which stated if you had a hybrid class doing 100dps lower than the pure dps class, is your raid going to kick that good player out to stack another pure dps class? If he is a solid player and gets on well with the guild, probably not.

It really gets me worried if Blizzard are justifying class balance with players personality. Really worried.

[Mahtamori]

A lot of Shadow priests forget that they are still Priests! It doesn't matter if healspecced or shadow, you are one Class!
And Blizzard definately wants to reduce class stacking so there won't be 6 Priests in the raid anymore (like its now in endgame PvE). So there will likely be one disc priest, one holy priest and one shadow priest in the raid.

Some classes are stacked for their performance, in Priest's case Circle of Healing, not their raid utility specifically. You'll probably never see Paladins stacked, for instance, since they function in a situation which is easily balanced and controlled, but doesn't scale in the way AOE healing has a potential to do.

[Worshaka]

It really gets me worried if Blizzard are justifying class balance with players personality. Really worried.

Sorry... let me get this right.

You would prefer to play with idiots/bad players because they brings buffs that you must have in order to clear content over friends/good players because their class doesn't have access to that unique buff?

[Herrera]

Sorry... let me get this right.

You would prefer to play with idiots/bad players because they brings buffs that you must have in order to clear content over friends/good players because their class doesn't have access to that unique buff?

I would prefer an inherent class balance above all else. And it worries me you're fine with it.

"Blizzard: Guys, this hybrid class will suck a tiny little bit, but if they have good heart, go to church and pay their taxes, you won't notice the difference."

Tell me there's nothing wrong with that picture. A good player with a hybrid class is worse than a good player with a good class. I want the latter. It amazes me you fail to notice the issue.

[Worshaka]

I would prefer an inherent class balance above all else. And it worries me you're fine with it.

"Blizzard: Guys, this hybrid class will suck a tiny little bit, but if they have good heart, go to church and pay their taxes, you won't notice the difference."

Tell me there's nothing wrong with that picture. A good player with a hybrid class is worse than a good player with a good class. I want the latter. It amazes me you fail to notice the issue.

Thats not what I said... what I said is you can take a good player over a bad player and get the same chance of clearing content. I no way endorse allowing any class to suck a little bit, and it amazes me that you fail to see this change is for the good of the game, not the detriment.

[Herrera]

Thats not what I said... what I said is you can take a good player over a bad player and get the same chance of clearing content. I no way endorse allowing any class to suck a little bit, and it amazes me that you fail to see this change is for the good of the game, not the detriment.

You argued about blizzard statement that it's fine for hybrid classes to fall behind on dps a little because they're not "pure" in that area, however, this is not so bad if the player is good. I just don't agree that class potential should be justified by the players characteristics. For heavens sake, OF COURSE that a good player is better to take in raid! That's it not the issue here.

[lurked]

imp Scorch, Focus Magic and Winters Chill arent a utility?

They are in 3 different speccs, Scorch and Winters Chill cant stack, and both Scorch and Winters Chill affect only Frost/Fire/Arcane... So mostly only mages gain something from it(Destro/Fire locks too), and well.. its a key feature of a mage build, so each mage have Sorch or Winter's Chill, so it doesn't bring anything more to the raid.

And Focus Magic, in its current form, is extremly bad.

-

That being said, where is it written that a caster class wont get any raid spot if its mana regen skill isn’t the best over all classes? Mages in TBC has no utility at all, and really arent significantly higher than other classes, and still have spots for... what.. food? (Certainly not for sheep... where you can sheep on 3-4encounters in all TBC raids?)