Benchmark for Spriest dps?

[jhemfl]

I used to play a Sunwell Raiding Shadow Priest. We've all had our QQ's due to our bad scaling and low dps and whatnot so I did something about it. I leveled a Mage to make my main in WotLK. I used to raid as a Rogue right when TBC came out, then I took a break and came back as a Shadow Priest. I guess I miss the pure dps aspect of raiding which is why I chose Mage. I know Mages might not be top dps or whatever, but that's another topic. I really liked my Shadow Priest but their low dps (but excellent utility) just didn't suit me.

I started seeing all these posts the past few weeks about how Shadow Priests damage has substantially increased which gave me hope that maybe I will go back to raiding Shadow if I can keep up (not be on top, but not be 15th either) with the big dogs. Then I read this:

While Dispersion might not drastically increase your raid damage, not all talents are designed as such. We experimented with giving it some added DPS to it, but we had to take it off because the Shadow Priest was exceeding our bench mark for DPS. It was also strange gameplay (what if you got hit while it was channeling? You'd feel really bad. Also its supposed to be your defense mechanism in PvP, but yet now you want to use it for DPS


So apparently Blizzard has a specific spot they want Shadow Priests on the dps scale. Which is cool but Shadow Priests always had an issue with gear scaling. Meaning that if they put Shadow Priests lower than Mages, Locks, Hunters, Warriors now...Just think of how bad it MIGHT be when we're in the higher end game content (remember Shadow Priests were near top dps up until about late t5 content mainly due to The FSW set, who knows if another set like this will become available). Seems like they're digging a hole for themselves by setting a place they want Spriest dps at, because in the long run they are going to have to perfectly tweak Spriest gear to scale them properly. This has me leaning back towards maining my Mage for Wrath.

I was just wondering what other people thought about this 'benchmark'.

(Again, I'm not saying a utility class should be topping the charts or anything. Also, the gear scaling speculation I had about Wotlk is indeed only a speculation.)

[firefly31]

While I see where you are coming from, another key point from that blue post is:

"We test single target DPS with blue, epic and green gear. In all trials the Shadow Priest was doing more than expected DPS, I believe it was around ~2500 in epics. This was solo in a 5-minute trial (without raid buffs). In a raid setting, your DPS would probably be significantly higher. In a nutshell, we feel we've made a lot of progress in our goal of bumping the Shadow Priest DPS numbers/scaling to where we want it to be. Unfortunately players won't really be able to see these numbers on their characters because you are using low tier PvP gear. (Referring to the pre-mades we have on Murmur)."

I'm personally excited as this is a significant upgrade from anything we can possibly think of doing now.

[oceandive]

Excited about 2500dps, but what are the other dps classes at. Way higher from what I hear. I'm with OP. I noticed all the same things, keeping up with DPS till T5 and later, then drastic disparity.

[Darkspectre]

I think blizzard learned from the mistakes they made in TBC with spriest scaling. They've made alot of progress in changing how the mechanics of an spriest works, such as giving more of our spells the ability to crit, and also changing how VT works. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things play out as our gear gets better, but i'm not worried.

[jhemfl]

It's definitely not a need to QQ about.

I just got a strange feeling when I read, 'benchmark dps' and I don't really know how to put that feeling into words or if its bad or not. >.<

[Lynxz]

Looking at WWS and SWS parses for 25 man Naxx. I am seeing that rogues are pushing 4000 to 4800 DPS and hunters slightly behind at 3700 - 4300. Once again the SP is falling behind and picking up the tail end of the charts. I'm not QQing, just stating what I have seen.

However, it should also be noed that the SP is having A LOT of issues with threat at the moment and that alone could be what was holding the SP's I have seen to exceed the 2500 - 2600 DPS mark.

[Ntrails]

I suspect it is a general DPS benchmark as opposed to a specific SP benchmark.

All these are gear levels well below SWP.

[paracelsus]

All these are gear levels well below SWP.

Uhm ... what? SWP gear is around blue 78 gear for itemization. Epic 80 clears SWP by a significant margin.

[Azreell]

Excited about 2500dps, but what are the other dps classes at. Way higher from what I hear. I'm with OP. I noticed all the same things, keeping up with DPS till T5 and later, then drastic disparity.

Our warlocks atm do 3k on brutallus granted with almost or full t6 etc etc.

Keep in mind that is @ level 70.

So how are we suppose to get excited by 2500 at level 80?

[Worshaka]

Looking at WWS and SWS parses for 25 man Naxx. I am seeing that rogues are pushing 4000 to 4800 DPS and hunters slightly behind at 3700 - 4300. Once again the SP is falling behind and picking up the tail end of the charts. I'm not QQing, just stating what I have seen.

However, it should also be noed that the SP is having A LOT of issues with threat at the moment and that alone could be what was holding the SP's I have seen to exceed the 2500 - 2600 DPS mark.

You can't take logs like that and use it as evidence without understanding:
1. the nature of the encounter, was it friendly to spriest dps or was it a low armor target?
2. What buffs everyone had
3. What was the gear disparity between the spriest and the rogues/hunters?
4. Was the spriest in an optimal dps group in comparison to the rogues/hunters?
5. How many logs did you view? How do we know this spriest was doing the max possible dps?

I've personally seen logs of spriests doing in excess of 3K dps, I have seen locks above 4K but the above questions apply and perhaps locks/rogues/hunters are above their 'benchmarks' as well. One of the latter blue posts indicates that hunters are the dps kings and i'm still inclined to believe that pure dps classes (ie. classes that can't spec for anything else other than dps) are going to get a slight dps advantage... whether you agree this is fair or not is a different argument. It seems apparent this is the stance of the developers so you might as well
1. get on board and build a bridge
2. quit
3. If you want to top dps charts, roll a pure dps class

Fact is good guilds never use cross class as comparisons... spriests get compared to spriests, hunters to hunters, rogues to rogues... if your a spriests and can out dps the others spriests in your guild you're gonna get chosen for raids aren't you?

[Worshaka]

Our warlocks atm do 3k on brutallus granted with almost or full t6 etc etc.

Keep in mind that is @ level 70.

So how are we suppose to get excited by 2500 at level 80?

Read the information... 2500dps solo, no raid buffs, no consumables, no bloodlust/heroism... do your locks do 3K dps with no buffs when they solo brutallus?

[Lynxz]

You can't take logs like that and use it as evidence without understanding:
1. the nature of the encounter, was it friendly to spriest dps or was it a low armor target?
2. What buffs everyone had
3. What was the gear disparity between the spriest and the rogues/hunters?
4. Was the spriest in an optimal dps group in comparison to the rogues/hunters?
5. How many logs did you view? How do we know this spriest was doing the max possible dps?

Fact is good guilds never use cross class as comparisons... spriests get compared to spriests, hunters to hunters, rogues to rogues... if your a spriests and can out dps the others spriests in your guild you're gonna get chosen for raids aren't you?

I am a Guild Master / Raid Leader for a #1 Alliance ranked guild IN Sunwell currently and I raided up to The 4 Horseman Pre-BC. I know full well how to put a balanced raid group together, what the fights entail and the mechanics of both Patchwerk and Grobbulus. These were the bosses that were in the parse. Performance has more to do with anything when it comes to a SP's DPS. I've seen you in 2 threads already ripping individuals trying to belittle individuals and it's rediculous. I simply answered the question of another reply. I wasn't comparing rogues and hunters to SP's. If you get off your soapbox a second and (in your terms) READ the material you'd realize the answer I provided vaguley answered the question Oceandive had asked. Excited about 2500dps, but what are the other dps classes at

[Nezoia]

As long as we'll provide replenishment, we'll do lower dps. I'm pretty happy with the changed mechanics, that'll allow us to SCALE alot better.

The current problem is not that shadowpriest dps is to low, because my dps is totally based on how good the tank is, even with BoS and Tranquil Air. No, it comes down to our abilities doesn't upscale enough with gear, compared to the other classes, and thus we do to little damage compared to our threat level.

But ofcource, from a community that look at the highest DPS values and nothing else (such as dps time, group setup and boss encounter) what could one expect

[Worshaka]

I wasn't comparing rogues and hunters to SP's.

Your words, not mine

"I am seeing that rogues are pushing 4000 to 4800 DPS and hunters slightly behind at 3700 - 4300. Once again the SP is falling behind and picking up the tail end of the charts."

How is that not a comparison? Pray do tell... if you want to compare numbers then provide some decent numbers to paint the full picture... my point is those numbers dont really exist and half the complaints made on these forums are done so without much thought or evidence to back them up. I'll trust Blizzards blue post about spriest dps benchmarking over people who struggle to make objective informed opinions any day.

[noz3r0]

I only saw one other person catch the fact that 2500 DPS was single target and that the other posted DPS numbers were from fully raid buffed WWS reports. I don't know about you guys but I push roughly 1k-1.1k on a single target if I get lucky and get a lot of crits (T6 gear). Not sure how any of the others classes push on a single target but I notice I scale to around 1.5k during a raid so that's a 150% increase =O Not saying this will happen for WotLK but theoretically if things scale the same that puts a raid buffed Shadow Priest at 3750 DPS. So it stacks well with other classes and puts us not so far behind a pure DPS class like a Mage or Rogue.

Bottom line, we're going to be doing a lot more damage and not eating the bottom of charts anymore. The utility aspect of a Shadow Priest has dropped a little bit and the DPS aspect got a nice buff. Also, in lue of recent patch notes we do see a decrease in some of our talents +% modifiers but most of the also classes took a bigger hit.

[Lynxz]

As long as we'll provide replenishment, we'll do lower dps. I'm pretty happy with the changed mechanics, that'll allow us to SCALE alot better.

The current problem is not that shadowpriest dps is to low, because my dps is totally based on how good the tank is, even with BoS and Tranquil Air. No, it comes down to our abilities doesn't upscale enough with gear, compared to the other classes, and thus we do to little damage compared to our threat level.

But ofcource, from a community that look at the highest DPS values and nothing else (such as dps time, group setup and boss encounter) what could one expect

I couldn't agreee more.

As for the previous gentleman, I will just agree to disagree with you. You missed the point of both of my posts and I refuse to argue a moot point with you being the "new guy" on these forums.

I think we have taken a few "nerfs" unnecessarily but that is MY opinion. The bottom line is this. Where does Blizzard want us to be and where the happy medium between where they wish us to be and the players skill to perform on that level.

[Worshaka]

I agree that arguing of semantics is pointless...

While you believe we have taken unnecessary nerfs i'd just like to point out that the developers have obviously got a comprehensive plan of where DPS should be for every class. Spriests were above that benchmark, so is it really a nerf if the way they did the numbers created a more powerful effect than intended?

So the logical step is to disagree with the developers benchmarks but considering that information isn't released in detail it's kinda hard to present an informed opinion about how that could be incorrect.

So I think its fair for people to put a bit more faith in the developers who probably know what they're doing. I'm just a bit sick of hearing people sook without really providing any decent evidence to back up their claims. And my orginal point was to point out that simply looking at this dps figure vs that means nothing until you provide a context.

[Spoonerism]

what I've been seeing almost every week on MMO front page is blue posts saying 'class X ability Y damage reduced.' over and over for several classes, I suspect the tuning is based on a general DPS benchmark for all classes and that things are being tweaked so that your not able to do good raid dps in greens while everyone else who gets beaten is in naxx epics.

I dont play Spriest, but I do play a feral druid raiding BT/MH atm I often need to dps and need to do as much dps as possible when I do so - but its another class that does not scale well in terms of dps beyond BT. They are buffing it for wrath but from everything I have read I wont be beating rogues on dps charts unless I outgear them.

I also cant take WWS reports too seriously as when I raid I might need to stop DPS, offheal, combat rez, innervate a healer, and my sustained DPS plummets because I did something else during the fight then went back to DPSing - equally how do you know in a raid scenario the Spriest hasnt had to help with healing or run like mad to avoid being instagibbed rather than channeling mind flay or whatever.

all I would like to see is that any class scales well with gear upgrades, not like oh we cant take class X because their dps is too low :

[Ntrails]

Uhm ... what? SWP gear is around blue 78 gear for itemization. Epic 80 clears SWP by a significant margin.

Yes and no.

Perhaps I was unclear. Gear of much lower PvE quality? Also - tests were made in greens and blues and the arena purples afaik.

I do not care about the item levels them selves - only about how well made the piece is. Also without consumables/buffs/raid utility etc etc.

[firefly31]

While I understand the questions regarding our dps vs the other classes, the qq is unnecessary I think. They are working on scaling our dps, and I think the updates they have been doing are a step in the right direction. Our class is a utility class. While other classes may have replenishment, ours is the most constant form of mana return to the parties. if you want to hit 4k+ dps, roll a lock. If you like raiding on a shadow priest, then you hopefully understand the role we play when in a raid.