Shadow spec useless in pve for Wrath?!?

[Doomwalker]

Nice pic there, is it your big sister? (stopping the flame now)

Well, after some good sleep i se that some of you got my point. Im not QQing about me not getting raidspace in my guild, im just trying to understand Blizzards new philosofy on class/spec roles and balance.

For example, they clearly say that all tanking classes should be viable in all encounters. Some classes will have a small advantage, but are not needed to do it.

I remember when Pallys wanted AoE heal before TBC and Blizzard clearyfied that "Paladins will never get AoE heal or HoTs, its not their role". In TBC there was some encounters that demanded HoTs on the Tank (Gruul fight was one of them) so you couldnt do the Gruulfight without any priests or Druids (at least not in the beginning).

Things are changing now. Blizzard is trying to implement Hero classes, and in the same time they lower the raidspaces in raids from 40->25. Now its 1 new class entering in WotlK, and tell me, if that class is worse than the other classes when it comes to tanking or DPSing, why should you EVER roll one?

So the answer to this, they decided to make it not needed to bring special classes to raids. You can role any class you want depending on what you prefer for your playstyle, at least this is what they going for if you look at the changes in WotlK.

So now Pallys, DKs, warriors and druids can tank any bosses. Pallys, priests, druids and shamans can heal any encounter (not 100% sure here), allmost all classes have a utility spec that is allmost the same as another class utility spec. Caster DPS (this is what we talking about realy) still having 2 ways to go, less DPS and utility (counting in other things than DPS here), or PURE DPS with no utility EXEPT Spriests/oomkins. The limit for hybrid casters like oomkin and Spriests is that we cant spec PURE DPS, only DPS with utility.
The pure DPS classes (Rogues/mages/hunters) can however spec less DPS and more utility (Rogues got missdirect, and Mages/hunters got manaregen for raid)

The point still remains, if a Spriest do less DPS than a utility specced Hunter/Mage/Rogue (that sacrifice some DPS for utility) why on earth should high end guilds ever want to bring one, and why should anyone ever want to play one?
"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." Well, thats not a good argument imo, its not fun to raid when you know that you are gimping the raid, and dont bring anything needed to make it easyer.

[lurked]

...its not fun to raid when you know that you are gimping the raid, and dont bring anything needed to make it easyer.

You're not gonna gimp the raid only because they changed 2 of your abilities...

The only point that is true in your post is:

ShadowPriest players will need to be skilled to get in raid( LIKE EVERY OTHER CLASSES/SPECCS ), instead of having a spot because we lack mana regen.

BTW, I remember a ShadowPriest with mostly green and blues, stepping in our BT run for 2weeks in a row because all of our SP were absents, and we needed at least 1 for healers... That sucked.

[Dareos]

Nice pic there, is it your big sister?

Nah, it's actually me after seeing the priest changes

[jkw]

Removed[*]+5% Spell Damage to all attacks (Misery).[*]+2% damage to all Shadow attacks made against your target (5/5 Shadow Weaving).[*]+10% hit with Shadow Spells.[*]+6 sec duration on SW:P.

Added[*]Mind Flay scales better with Spell Damage and each tick can crit.[*]+10% more damage to SW:P.[*]3/3 Shadow Weaving = Same as old Shadow Weaving but only 3 talent points and only the Priest benefit from it.[*]2/2 Imp Spirit Tap = 50% bonus to spirit each crit with SW/MB and regen mana at 50% rate for 8 secs.[*]5/5 Twisted Faith = 30% of Spirit => Shadow Damage and +5% damage to MF/MB for each Shadow Damage Dot on target (+15% to undeads while DP, 10% to others)[*]2/2 Improved Shadowform = 100% chance to remove any movement impairing effect by using Fade and -70% spell pushback while casting a shadow spell.[*]3/3 Pain and Suffering = MF refreshes SW:P and -30% damage from SW.[*]Dispersion = Reduces all damage taken by 90% and Regen 6% of hp/mp every sec for 6 sec, 3min CD. Can't attack or cast spells, but you can run around.

Changed[*]Vampiric Touch - From 2% of damage to mana to 0.5% of damage to mana. (To make up for the dps increase)[*]5/5 Shadow Power - -5% crit on MB/SW but added +20% damage bonus on crits.[*]3/3 Misery - +5% hit to all spells if (trigger: SW:P, VT or MF) and +15% spell damage bonus to MF, MB and MS.

Did I miss something?

I'll be Shadow as now. If I don't get raidspots in wotlk cause they think Shadow Priests sucks, I'll find a guild that has a good RL instead.

[622killer89]

Reasons why i will and always stay shadow

1. Because it takes more skill to master than other classes

2. I Like most of the changes (though misery was the biggest nerf they could have done)

3. We have been begging for an AoE and Spell pushback resist and we got it

4. We still have alot of utility even if most of it did get nerfed


If they normalize the VT affects, it will actually be a buff instead of a nerf as it scales with mana pools (which generally increase as you progress)

[Doomwalker]

You're not gonna gimp the raid only because they changed 2 of your abilities...

The only point that is true in your post is:

ShadowPriest players will need to be skilled to get in raid( LIKE EVERY OTHER CLASSES/SPECCS ), instead of having a spot because we lack mana regen.

BTW, I remember a ShadowPriest with mostly green and blues, stepping in our BT run for 2weeks in a row because all of our SP were absents, and we needed at least 1 for healers... That sucked.

1. its not only Spriests changes who gimp us, i dont think you got the point here..
2. OFC everybody in the raid should be skilled. I did never say anything else. But tell me, why take a shadowpriest to raids, when you can get the same utility but more DPS from a frostmage?
3. Ye, taking undergeared players to the raid just for 1 utility was very bad, thats why Blizz are changing this now, and its a risk that Spriests wont be a PvE spec IF we cant do as good (DPS, Spriests are a DPS spec after all) as the other manaregen classes, thats my point.

[Chaoslux]

Changed[*]Vampiric Touch - From 2% of damage to mana to 0.5% of damage to mana. (To make up for the dps increase)

I thought it was changed to 0.5% of total mana when doing damage (to match all other mana battery skills which are total mana), this is a huge buff to +Int, and it makes SPriest have to care about more than SDamage....

For me, WotLK means: "Why bring a [Spec] [Class] to a raid when [Other Class] ... " dies.
Whoever still stick with that stupid mentality just need to die in a fire, and that they can keep their "hardcoreness" to themselves, ill enjoy the game in casual raiding if needs be.

[MaritnR]

1. its not only Spriests changes who gimp us, i dont think you got the point here..
2. OFC everybody in the raid should be skilled. I did never say anything else. But tell me, why take a shadowpriest to raids, when you can get the same utility but more DPS from a frostmage?
3. Ye, taking undergeared players to the raid just for 1 utility was very bad, thats why Blizz are changing this now, and its a risk that Spriests wont be a PvE spec IF we cant do as good (DPS, Spriests are a DPS spec after all) as the other manaregen classes, thats my point.

Just so you know

Frost mages
mana restore is 0.6% of max mana every 5 seconds while elemental is out, which is for 1 min with a 2min30 cd, (with one extra cd every 8mins due to cold snap)

pallies
Its thier judgements which cause the 0.5% per second , so compairble to ours,

Hunters
arcane, steady and explosive shot CRITICALS cause 0.5% mana per second.

shadow priests
while vt is up and we are dealing shadow damage 10 raid members gain 0.5%mana per second.

Ours is BY FAR the most constant and reliable, and compaired to frost mages its way way more powerfull.

Pallies judgements are on a cd, so dependant on how long the buff lasts which it grants (anyone on beta know?) it may not be up 100%

and hunters are reliant on crits of certain shots, no crits, no mana.

so you CAN take one of them classes and get mana back, but a SP as far as i can see, is still the best, and most reliable.

I wish people would read more before they presume the world is ending, its not that hard to do.

Ohh and as an edit
Hunters need to be heavy SURVIVAL to get mana regen... and pallys need to be retribution mages need to be heavy frost(and even then there mana regen aint great)

so your choise of a mana battery is
SP
Ret pally
Survival hunter

to a lesser extent Frost mage

hmmmmmm, ret pallys and survival hunters aint renowned on live for thier dps, but this will change as well as ours.

can people PLS stop compaing SWP marksman/BS hunters and SP dps, a marksman hunter in WOLK will still give little utility (no mana regen)

[Chaoslux]

so you CAN take one of them classes and get mana back, but a SP as far as i can see, is still the best, and most reliable.

Same thing, another example:

Alot of classes have CC, You CAN take any classes to do CC, but a mage's polymorph is about the most reliable you can get.

So the ShadowPriest is to mana regen what the mage is to cc... not that i want to get on any mage discussion over here, or cc, or anything else, just saying how i see Shadow Priests so far, and i remember seeing it somewhere:

If you rolled a class/spec because it would be easier to get in raids, instead of playing who you want to play... You're doing it wrong too!

[firefly31]

Removed[*]+5% Spell Damage to all attacks (Misery).[*]+2% damage to all Shadow attacks made against your target (5/5 Shadow Weaving).[*]+10% hit with Shadow Spells.[*]+6 sec duration on SW:P.

Added[*]Mind Flay scales better with Spell Damage and each tick can crit.[*]+10% more damage to SW:P.[*]3/3 Shadow Weaving = Same as old Shadow Weaving but only 3 talent points and only the Priest benefit from it.[*]2/2 Imp Spirit Tap = 50% bonus to spirit each crit with SW/MB and regen mana at 50% rate for 8 secs.[*]5/5 Twisted Faith = 30% of Spirit => Shadow Damage and +5% damage to MF/MB for each Shadow Damage Dot on target (+15% to undeads while DP, 10% to others)[*]2/2 Improved Shadowform = 100% chance to remove any movement impairing effect by using Fade and -70% spell pushback while casting a shadow spell.[*]3/3 Pain and Suffering = MF refreshes SW:P and -30% damage from SW.[*]Dispersion = Reduces all damage taken by 90% and Regen 6% of hp/mp every sec for 6 sec, 3min CD. Can't attack or cast spells, but you can run around.

Changed[*]Vampiric Touch - From 2% of damage to mana to 0.5% of damage to mana. (To make up for the dps increase)[*]5/5 Shadow Power - -5% crit on MB/SW but added +20% damage bonus on crits.[*]3/3 Misery - +5% hit to all spells if (trigger: SW:P, VT or MF) and +15% spell damage bonus to MF, MB and MS.

Did I miss something?

I'll be Shadow as now. If I don't get raidspots in wotlk cause they think Shadow Priests sucks, I'll find a guild that has a good RL instead.

Doesn't Inner Fire now give spellpower? Definite addition )

[Worshaka]

"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." Well, thats not a good argument imo, its not fun to raid when you know that you are gimping the raid, and dont bring anything needed to make it easyer.

Using your quotes... if "you won't notice the difference." then how exactly are you "gimping the raid"? My definition of gimping the raid would be, this class isn't able to perform at a level that allows us to clear the content. But by stipulating that "you won't notice the difference" you are therefore not gimping the raid.

It all comes back to the point that if hybrid classes could dps at the same level as pure dps classes it will make the pure dps classes redundant. On the flip side as someone correctly pointed out, if the hybrid classes aren't able to dps to a reasonable rate in comparision to a pure dps class that they would become redudant as the effectiveness of utility has been reduced.

The answer is to balance the output of both so pure dps classes are desired for what they can bring to a raid (DPS) and hybrid classes are equally desired for their ability to change specs/provide utility that justify's what they lose in dps.

Without understanding the WotLK environment completely i'd say that hybrid classes should be able to output 90% of the DPS a pure class can. As it stands spriests in SWP do rougly 1600 dps and most of the pure classes are doing 2500 meaning we're at 64%. If spriests were doing 2250 dps in SWP I don't think many people would complain... except a few like yourself.

[joyu]

Just so you know

Frost mages
mana restore is 0.6% of max mana every 5 seconds while elemental is out, which is for 1 min with a 2min30 cd, (with one extra cd every 8mins due to cold snap)

pallies
Its thier judgements which cause the 0.5% per second , so compairble to ours,

Hunters
arcane, steady and explosive shot CRITICALS cause 0.5% mana per second.

shadow priests
while vt is up and we are dealing shadow damage 10 raid members gain 0.5%mana per second.

Ours is BY FAR the most constant and reliable, and compaired to frost mages its way way more powerfull.

Pallies judgements are on a cd, so dependant on how long the buff lasts which it grants (anyone on beta know?) it may not be up 100%

and hunters are reliant on crits of certain shots, no crits, no mana.

so you CAN take one of them classes and get mana back, but a SP as far as i can see, is still the best, and most reliable.

I wish people would read more before they presume the world is ending, its not that hard to do.

Ohh and as an edit
Hunters need to be heavy SURVIVAL to get mana regen... and pallys need to be retribution mages need to be heavy frost(and even then there mana regen aint great)

so your choise of a mana battery is
SP
Ret pally
Survival hunter

to a lesser extent Frost mage

hmmmmmm, ret pallys and survival hunters aint renowned on live for thier dps, but this will change as well as ours.

can people PLS stop compaing SWP marksman/BS hunters and SP dps, a marksman hunter in WOLK will still give little utility (no mana regen)

i think all 3 give a 15 secs duration buff,but each tick of vt renews it(about 3 secs or less) pallys judge every 8 secs, so if they miss the buff fades, and hunters need at least 1 crit every 15 secs.

Another thing is maybe a 1 shadowpriest can keep the buff in all the raid, but i didnt tested yet

[Faladrath]

SP's will still have the best mana regen by a mile in wotlk vs any pally or hunter and will still get a spot not from pity but from need.

Guess why they whine is due to the fact they wont be as special as they are now, not as desired. Still needed but guess that's not enough for some.

Any if their dps comes on par with mages and warlocks why bring mages and warlocks, just such a silly thing to say we need competitive dps with mages and warlocks cause they fixed your mana regen to compensate for the dps increase vs mana pools ou will have at 80.

Get a grip and get real if u can't see that.

[Doomwalker]

Well, after the latest shadowpower change (100% critdamage bonus) we end up like this:


Not all range DPS classes included, but you get the idea. Its from Simcraft, and the DPS charts are pure theoretical.

Looks fine to me, and are where Spriests should be imo.

As you se, Spriests scale worse still, and the more stats gear get, the more we fall down in the charts. The danger is that we might be VERY high on DPS compeared to other classes before we get the end game gear...so a fast nerf is a risk, and that will kill our engame raiding. Remember retri pallys the 2 weeks before TBC? Got nerfed right away, but now they are allmost changed back as they where back then.

[Chastise]

ShadowPriest players will need to be skilled to get in raid( LIKE EVERY OTHER CLASSES/SPECCS ), instead of having a spot because we lack mana regen.

about that whole "like every other class" - a great ret pally i know once said two things on our guild website that i thought you might enjoy - they are

"I told you before, never use the word 'skilled' when talking about Warlock DPS. You can put a chimpanzee that has been hit in the head with sledgehammer and is doped up on crystal meth behind the keyboard of a destruction Warlock and it would probably match the DPS you put out. Destruction Lock is stupid proof in PvE other than pulling aggro because you hit your '1' button too hard due to being too illiterate to read Omen."

"Warlocks can be played by emotionally abused penguins with cerebral palsey and still be top 5 DPS. Warlocks never, ever, get the chance to brag about their DPS, no matter the situation, because they don't even have to manage their mana, or juggle pot/mana gem/demonic rune cooldowns. They just mash shadowbolt till they run out of mana and then hit lifetap and do it again."

yeahhh - his pre-raid speeches were epic...

[Worshaka]

Do you seriously take say...a priest with both holy and shadow gear and expect him/her to respec to what you need? If not then why the hell should we be doing 10% less damage just because we 'might' respec holy and heal. You take a shadow priest to do dps and a holy/disc priest to heal you can't heal and dps at the same time (ignoring VE) therefore asking for less dps for this reason is silly. Plus there is no pure dps any more, rogues have posions, 'misdirect'-thing as utlity, hunters have traps, scorpid sting and misdirect as utlity, mages have sheep, massive aoe and control abilitys as aoe and warlocks have pets, banish and massive aoe as utility.

Shadow priests have minor aoe, mana regen and shackle as utility.

We dont have priests doing that in SWP currently, but we certainly have Paladins switching between all 3 specs and shamans between 2 specs in any given SWP raid.

However that's not what i'm suggesting... if a spriest does the same damage as a lock and due to the new buff/debuff changes those 2 classes don't bring anythign to the raid that can't be brought by someone else. Why roll a lock? I could roll a Priest and DPS and then one day my guild says, we need to recruit more healers but we have an excess of DPS. Plenty of people change their main spec, I did in TBC from Holy to Shadow. If Hybrids bring the exact same DPS as pure DPS classes they would be made redundant and everyone would roll Hybrid classes so they could adapt as required. Let the pure DPS classes have a slight advantage in order for them to be worthwhile and if that is going to bug you then you rolled the wrong class.


Just so we're clear
Pure DPS definition - The inability to tank or heal for end game raiding, leaving the only role I can perform is DPS.
Hybrid definition - The ability to tank, dps or heal for end game raiding.

[Doomwalker]

I get your point, and im realy think we are talking about the same thing.
The thing i say is, why should a "pure" DPS class, that take the worst DPS spec, do more DPS than the hybrid class, speced the most DPS?

Ofc should the pure DPS classes, if they spec pure DPS, do most DPS but if they spec utility...im not so sure.

[woeye]

Remember the days before TBC? Every hybrid and even priests were forced to spec for healing. Every hybrid class was limited to one of their trees. What was the point of the remaining two trees anyway? Just a "level up" tree?

Blizzard tried to address those issues by giving "off-specs" utility. Their formular was something like "utility + hybrids DPS = pure class DPS". And it worked. The DPS of an enhancement shaman is lower than that of a rogue (same gear) but the enhancement shaman has nice buffs to boost the DPS of the pure classes. Same for shadow priests. Their DPS might be lower, but they compensate the lack of DPS with their mana regen tools.

The side-effect was, however, that suddenly certain specs were required. Suddenly you needed x shadow priests, one enhancement shaman and so on. So Blizzard is trying to "fix" this again by spreading unique abilites to other classes, making each class/spec replaceable.

So if hybrid DPS is lower then pure class DPS the formula will result to this:
utility + hybrid DPS < utility + pure class DPS

Besides, why roll a mage when you can roll a lock? Or why roll a lock when you can roll a rogue? Or hunter? If these classes are all about DPS (as you say) why are there four different pure DPS classes (more or less - but they neither can heal nor tank)? Maybe "flavor" and class unique abilites play some kind of role as well?

[Worshaka]

I get your point, and im realy think we are talking about the same thing.
The thing i say is, why should a "pure" DPS class, that take the worst DPS spec, do more DPS than the hybrid class, speced the most DPS?

Ofc should the pure DPS classes, if they spec pure DPS, do most DPS but if they spec utility...im not so sure.

I guess this raises an interesting point... but i'd surmise that when the pure dps classes do spec into some form of utility (lets use the hunter surivavl mana return as an example) they don't provide the best kind of that utility. I think it's fair to say that the mana return a survival hunter will generate will be less than a spriest.

Still the point you make has merit... as long as they can balance the utility they bring in comparison to what another spec can do in terms of raw dps. The idea is to promote a playing environment that would ideally see an equal representation of specs and classes at the end game level. To see 0 of a class or spec indicates that the talents/mechanics for that class/spec failed.

[Worshaka]

Remember the days before TBC? Every hybrid and even priests were forced to spec for healing. Every hybrid class was limited to one of their trees. What was the point of the remaining two trees anyway? Just a "level up" tree?

Blizzard tried to address those issues by giving "off-specs" utility. Their formular was something like "utility + hybrids DPS = pure class DPS". And it worked. The DPS of an enhancement shaman is lower than that of a rogue (same gear) but the enhancement shaman has nice buffs to boost the DPS of the pure classes. Same for shadow priests. Their DPS might be lower, but they compensate the lack of DPS with their mana regen tools.

The side-effect was, however, that suddenly certain specs were required. Suddenly you needed x shadow priests, one enhancement shaman and so on. So Blizzard is trying to "fix" this again by spreading unique abilites to other classes, making each class/spec replaceable.

So if hybrid DPS is lower then pure class DPS the formula will result to this:
utility + hybrid DPS < utility + pure class DPS

Besides, why roll a mage when you can roll a lock? Or why roll a lock when you can roll a rogue? Or hunter? If these classes are all about DPS (as you say) why are there four different pure DPS classes (more or less - but they neither can heal nor tank)? Maybe "flavor" and class unique abilites play some kind of role as well?

I still feel the utility being offered by the clasical hybrid classes > than the utility some of the pure dps classes are able to bring. If you get the opinion of most priests they believe they should be the best healers in the game... so if we gave what a lot of the spriests want we'd have a class that is the best healer and equal dps in the game... that kinda makes the class unbalanced imo.

I'm more than happy to let pure dps classes rule in dps and i'm happy enough to play my spriest knowing I can't top damage meters. To me the competition isn't with other classes but with the same class within my guild. If I can out dps the other spriest in the raid that is good enough for me.

Just on that thought, a lot of these changes is going to limit one spec to a raid... it's going to be hard to understand where a spec shoudl be in terms of healing/dps when you more than likely won't have an equivalent in your raid to measure against. A large portion of my dps gains can be directly attributed to the friendly competition I had with the other spriest in our raids.