Shadowpriests, raid utility and Cataclysm

[Nican]

So, Blizzard stated that they intend to increase buff/debuff homogenisation in Cataclysm so that raids would "bring the player not the class".

I also remember reading that Blizzard was aware of the somewhat low raid utility provided by shadowpriests in Wotlk.

Yet they intend to nerf replenishement (which everyone provides anyways) and remove misery (the 3% hit debuff) in Cataclysm.

I believe this leaves shadowpriests with a low group heal provided by vampiric embrace in terms of raid utility (yay?).

What am I missing?

[Keosen]

So?

[Danner]

PW:Fort, Sprot, Dispel & Mass dispel, healing reduction, remove disease, Fear Ward, possible movement impairing depending on how glyphs work out, off-healing, on-healing through VE, replenishment in whatever form it takes in cataclysm, the ability to make raids look good, ability to eat massive damage.

Don't underestimate the group healing though. In a world where everyone lives at half HP, this is going to be major.

But no matter how you look at it - raidbuffs are covered by the first 6 people joining the raid. Everyone else just fill the spots. The ones getting those spots will be people who have the ability to not stand in fire.

If GC were to give spriests bloodlust tomorrow, it's not like it would give you a spot. They already have a mage and a shaman doing that.

[Nican]

True, not a big issue in 25 man raids.

Now consider heroic 10 man raids where you need an optimized raid in terms of buffs/debuffs.

Where does the cataclysm shadowpriest fit in?

[Frmercury]

@ Danner

This is a rehashed topic, but short of it that the only real Shadow Priest utility currently slated for Cata is Imp VE, which is roughly an Imp Imp HS Totem.

I don't think any Shadow Priest has suggested we get Hero / BL, but 5% Haste sure would be nice as only one class currently provides it.

[Vook]

PW:Fort, Sprot, Divine Spirit, Dispel & Mass dispel, healing reduction, Fear Ward, possible movement impairing depending on how glyphs work out, off-healing, on-healing through VE

All of this. You're still saying Spriest has no raid utility?

And "everyone" does not provide Replenishment. Only 5 specs provide it. Ret, Destro, Shadow, Survival, Frost. No other class/spec gives Replenishment.

All I see is a "QQ Misery getting removed" thread.

[Abandon]

healing reduction, possible movement impairing depending on how glyphs work out, off-healing, on-healing through VE, replenishment in whatever form it takes in cataclysm, ability to eat massive damage.

Don't underestimate the group healing though. In a world where everyone lives at half HP, this is going to be major.

Since this is a topic about Shadow Priest utility, and not Priest utility, I removed all of the ones which are trainer skills and are provided by every spec, and Divine Spirit is being deleted anyway.

As far as I know, we are the only offensive DPS hybrid spec which provides no damage buffs with the removal of Misery. Of course, half of the talent tree is still under construction, but as mentioned above if we shared the 5% haste buff it could work out quite well, since especially in 10man raids you won't always have a Boomkin.

I agree that the group healing will be much more attractive now that everyone is not just either Max Health or Dead though. With the removal of party restrictions on group heals, they could tweak it to be like Replenishment, healing the 4 lowest health raid members and yourself, which could be quite nice.

[Kaesebrezen]

But for the topic- current de/buff distribution in alpha (and they got changed a lot) :
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...02232337&sid=1

Buffs of each hybrid spec:
Priest: Holy - 2, Disc - 3, Shadow - 3
Shaman: Elemental - 8, Enhancmenent - 8, Restoration - 7
Druid: Balance -3, Feral - 6, Restoration - 1 (Poor resto druids)
Paladin: Holy - 4, Prot - 6, Retri - 7
Warrior: Fury - 7, Arms - 8, Prot - 5
Dk: Blood - 3, Frost - 3, Unholy - 3

This leaves out all restistance buffs. But to be short. Restistance Buffs will Boost Shamans and Paladins even further.
And in an Elemental Setting Addon you should not count Shadow Resistance for obvious reason.

But since this topic is about Shadow Priests, a closer look on Shadow Buffs:
Replenish - Brought by 5 Specs
Stamina - Brought by 7 Specs (counting only destro locks)
MS - Brought by 10 Specs (thats 1/3)
These 3 Buffs are the most brought buffs out of all. So you're pretty much good to say they are available anyways.
We cant dispel diseases, we do not have gimmick spell like GS/PS, we have no access to Hymns and Life Grip without stopping our role.
This currently doesn't look that good.

[Frmercury]

There's a difference between freaking out and being concerned. This is concern.

@ Kaesrezen

Great link. Just a demonstration of how lacking we are currently, and how it relates.

I will disagree with that poster though:

+X% Spellpower
Wrathful Totems(Elemental Shaman)
Demonic Pact (Demonology Warlock)

+X% Spell Haste
(Shaman)

-An additional spec gains [+5% Spell Haste], possibly Frost
-An additional spec gains [+10% Spellpower], possibly Shadow

Yeah, Frost Mages really need ANOTHER raid buff. Seriously? No.

In fact looking at that list I don't see a reason why they shouldn't give us both of those.

[waddlez]

maybe SPs will get less utility and more dps

You don't see rogues asking for more utility...

[Frmercury]

You don't see rogues asking for more utility...

Because they have 5...

lul

[jonish]

the only problem i see with removing specific raid utilities and handing them out to a bunch of people or removing very specific utilities that only a few classes have like 3%hit is that they will have to make every dps spec do the same dps, and honestly that is going to open up a rediculous can of worms. You think people complained before the last wave of spriest buffs wait till cata. We are way better off than we were before but we still arent where we actually need to be, and they havent mentioned anything about spell mechanics changes needed to fix the pre-existing issues, but there removing utility.

No point in hashing it all out yet as what we have been given is just pre-pre-pre info as of yet.

The only thing i thought looked funny is the moving down of all the smite spec talents in the holy tree to make a hybrid disc dps build possibly viable. we shall see.

[Purple]

PW:Fort,

Provided by any and every priest, augmented by a disc talent (or it was). It's one of those that's there in every raid in my Guild whether the shadow priest is there or not.

Sprot,

Provided by any and every priest. Not necessarily even needed for non-shadow damage encounters. Absolutely worthless to bring up, because, like the above, in my guild it's always there whether the Shadow Priest is there or not.

Dispel &

No.

Mass dispel,

Better from a disc priest, and again: No.

healing reduction,

Yes, count the moronic PvP bandaid that no PvP Shadow Priest I've ever met has considered all that great. With or without this our functionality is pretty much the same. I'm amongst the shadow priests that wanted it removed and replaced with a PvP buff that we ACTUALLY needed.

remove disease,

Breaks shadowform again in Cataclysm, No.

Fear Ward,

No.

possible movement impairing depending on how glyphs work out,

Movement impairing? Are you actually suggesting that my Mindflay Snare has EVER WORKED ON ANY BOSS?

off-healing,

Oh, great, we're bringing up the, "Horrible heals with horrible mana costs that will run us dry of mana in seconds" ability. It's always such a great idea to have shadow priests come out and heal.

You know when a Shadow Priest is asked to come out and heal?

When nothing can possibly save the raid anyways, especially not a Shadow Priest running themselves dry of mana in no time flat on sub-par healing.

on-healing through VE,

Nerfed several times over the course of various expansions and patches. The main benefit is to the singular shadow priest. Its effect on the group is so low now, even in the best of gear, as to be non-existent, and what is left is almost always OVERHEAL.

replenishment in whatever form it takes in cataclysm,

This is the only legitimate thing you've brought up so far.

the ability to make raids look good,

What?

ability to eat massive damage.

WHAT?

If GC were to give spriests bloodlust tomorrow, it's not like it would give you a spot. They already have a mage and a shaman doing that.

Bloodlust. Bleh. Here's a hint: We actually used to bring a damage % raid buff before they took it away from us and gave it to OTHER CLASSES. That's PLURAL.

[iLive]

People prefer having multiple classes and roles, because there's some raid utility, but also because encounters can be so different and therefor some classes can master it better than others. Shadow Priests might lose something, but they will still always be in need for some encounters like they do today.

[Qualia]

Before WoTLK: "OMG, they are nerfing VT, we are no longer an utility class. Wait, they removed Dispersion's damage bonus & healing as well? Moreover, we will still be doing less damage than "pure" dps classes??? So we only have Fort, SP, a weak replenishment that hunters&pallies also have to content with? WTF is this QQQQQQ I'm being told that I will lose my raid spot in WoTLK" (those are the first I could remember, there were so much tears were shed that a certain forum had to made its own thread for pepople to cry in in WoTLK beta)

WoTLK came: "suprisingly", good SPs still find themselves stable raid spots in progress (xlate: racing) raid. Guilds were still recruiting good SPs left and right. But hey, when contents become farm contents (aka: who cares?), our dmg slowly went down in damage meter! (still, we kept our raid spots unless you were raiding with 3 or more SPs)

Before Cata:

So, Blizzard stated that they intend to increase buff/debuff homogenisation in Cataclysm so that raids would "bring the player not the class".

I also remember reading that Blizzard was aware of the somewhat low raid utility provided by shadowpriests in Wotlk.

Yet they intend to nerf replenishement (which everyone provides anyways) and remove misery (the 3% hit debuff) in Cataclysm.

I believe this leaves shadowpriests with a low group heal provided by vampiric embrace in terms of raid utility (yay?).

What am I missing?

and the like. Guess I'm not suprised *shrug*

Cata: just wait and see, and adapt to it if need be.

[Abandon]

Yes, count the moronic PvP bandaid that no PvP Shadow Priest I've ever met has considered all that great. With or without this our functionality is pretty much the same. I'm amongst the shadow priests that wanted it removed and replaced with a PvP buff that we ACTUALLY needed.

Well, our Mortal Strike effect is going to be just as strong as every other classes, and at least of some use in PVE for bosses which heal themselves.

Movement impairing? Are you actually suggesting that my Mindflay Snare has EVER WORKED ON ANY BOSS?

I think this was more, for example, on the Blood Beasts in Saurfang than on actual bosses.

Oh, great, we're bringing up the, "Horrible heals with horrible mana costs that will run us dry of mana in seconds" ability. It's always such a great idea to have shadow priests come out and heal.

You know when a Shadow Priest is asked to come out and heal?

When nothing can possibly save the raid anyways, especially not a Shadow Priest running themselves dry of mana in no time flat on sub-par healing.

I've saved our raid a couple of times by dropping Shadowform and healing until we get a Battleres off on the healer who died, but that can't really be counted as utility since it's the reason for the Hybrid Tax. This is in tenman, of course, but it's still an option and not completely useless.

Nerfed several times over the course of various expansions and patches. The main benefit is to the singular shadow priest. Its effect on the group is so low now, even in the best of gear, as to be non-existent, and what is left is almost always OVERHEAL.

It's almost always overheal because at the moment, either you are full health or you are dead while raiding. There's almost no middle-ground where you will be hurt and not healed accidentally by Chain Heals, CoH, Wild Growth, ect. In the expansion it could actually be a bit of a benefit, even though it's not huge.

WHAT?

Dispersion, for things like the green Ooze explosion on PP, or Alganon.

In general though, I agree with the rest of your points, the utility listed is pretty sub-par for a hybrid class. Any type of offensive buff we could provide would be very welcome, especially with ten-man raiding being as difficult and 25man in the expansion and with less chance of having every buff covered.

I'm not too worried at this point though, considering the amount of talents still left to prune in the Shadow tree there's going to be plenty of room to add in a raid utility talent to replace the utility lost from Misery.

[Purple]

Well, our Mortal Strike effect is going to be just as strong as every other classes, and at least of some use in PVE for bosses which heal themselves.

I think that's a technicality. It was still introduced as a PvP bandaid that didn't actually address the problems we had at the time (note: at the time).

I think this was more, for example, on the Blood Beasts in Saurfang than on actual bosses.

It's still sort of a laughable idea; given the chance do you pick someone for a snare that they stand still and channel in place.. or one that allows the user to be mobile during or after the application? If the Shadow Priest ever moves, his snare goes away instantly.

I've saved our raid a couple of times by dropping Shadowform and healing until we get a Battleres off on the healer who died, but that can't really be counted as utility since it's the reason for the Hybrid Tax. This is in tenman, of course, but it's still an option and not completely useless.

I just can't buy that saving a raid, when everything has gone wrong, as utility. If the Shadow priest had to save your raid.. you shouldn't have beaten that encounter anyways. There was an inherent problem with the rest of the raid somewhere. If it gets to the point a Shadow Priest has to heal your raid, something has gone horribly wrong..

I'm not even trying to be rude here, I'm really not, you seem perfectly respectable.. but if a Boss happened to be low enough that a Shadow Priest's mana was able to actually hold out.. that's more luck (and likely a sign of a good player, that can manage their casts/mana) than anything. Not a sign of utility.

It's almost always overheal because at the moment, either you are full health or you are dead while raiding. There's almost no middle-ground where you will be hurt and not healed accidentally by Chain Heals, CoH, Wild Growth, ect. In the expansion it could actually be a bit of a benefit, even though it's not huge.

I doubt this, especially since every expansion so far has seen a VE nerf shortly before or shortly after release if it really was showing things in the range of true benefit. Maybe you're right, but this one I'd have to see to believe.

Dispersion, for things like the green Ooze explosion on PP, or Alganon.

All six seconds during which you do nothing? Meh. Dispersion has always had niche use. I can't call niche use utility, when you don't see that on most raids. All I have to do to prove my point there is point at all the unavoidable aoe that completely ignores Dispersion in some encounters.

In general though, I agree with the rest of your points, the utility listed is pretty sub-par for a hybrid class. Any type of offensive buff we could provide would be very welcome, especially with ten-man raiding being as difficult and 25man in the expansion and with less chance of having every buff covered.

I'm not too worried at this point though, considering the amount of talents still left to prune in the Shadow tree there's going to be plenty of room to add in a raid utility talent to replace the utility lost from Misery.

Oddly enough I'm not on the band wagon one or the other, it was just the general suggestion of the post that irked me. I like replenishment. I like VE. Don't get me wrong. You're right; any sort of offensive buff would be a nice addition to VE and Replenishment. I'll quit before I go on about VE's effect on the the group being so minimal again though.

[sacrypheyes]

i may be wrong about that but wasn't there a bliz announce where they told shadowform'd priests wouldn't be able to cast dispells (magic, disease) and fear ward in cata?

[fabian]

i may be wrong about that but wasn't there a bliz announce where they told shadowform'd priests wouldn't be able to cast dispells (magic, disease) and fear ward in cata?

I do remember reading that. Disease is covered since it is holy, but dispel magic and fear ward are disc spells.

[Abandon]

They said that they would make Cure Disease unuseable in Shadowform, but they didn't mention defensive/offensive Dispels or Fear Ward.