T12 Shadow Set Bonuses

[Vargur]

Reading some of these posts made me think of variable bonuses; depending on which spec you're in, the bonuses on your tier gear should change.

[Zuziza]

Actually I am hearing from quite a few healers (disc and holy) that they might (depending on stats and stuff) do 2pc of each set. Their 4 pc bonus is sort of lame. Unless they make the fire orb thingy work like toc lightwell (pls don't ban me kel <3) their 4pc is likely to be more trouble than it is worth = /

The biggest concern we would have for these bonuses is that Blizz is gonna nerf the crap out of them or exchange it for some lame bonus so healers won't do that. If they change it so you can only have bonuses from one set then we're safe, but if that's not the case, I can easily see Blizz screwing over the spriests.

[Arlee]

The biggest concern we would have for these bonuses is that Blizz is gonna nerf the crap out of them or exchange it for some lame bonus so healers won't do that. If they change it so you can only have bonuses from one set then we're safe, but if that's not the case, I can easily see Blizz screwing over the spriests.

Yea, it would be interesting to see what they decide... would be super weird if they let people get 2pc in pve but not pvp... not to say blizz has never made a choice that wasn't odd before

[Pontificate]

I came.

Hard.

[ziekatron]

imo 2p shadow is amazing and almost too good

...meanwhile shadow 4p doesn't seem that amazing to me since it offers no way in addition to the CD reduction to increase shadow orb acquisition. If I'm waiting on orbs then 4piece becomes less valuable. If they want me to MB on CD and ignore orb count then the big new mechanic for shadow priests this xpac gets devalued.

simple fix: in addition to 3 second CD reduction increase the chance of gaining a shadow orb by x%


I know this is shadow thread but people have talked healing set bonus too so quick comment:

2p sweet and generic
4p interesting, ok I can see this being cool.... though not a problem with my personal guild, I would like to see a bonus which doesn't rely on other players to maximize its effectiveness.

[Kooja]

i'm super duper excited. a base CD of 75 seconds and a few crits away from casting shadow fiend once per minute!! A huge damage boost and makes us forget we even have a mana bar in case we didn't already!

The 4pc sounds very exciting to me as well. MB has been one of those spells that I'm afraid to cast without orb procs, because my luck would have me casting it just to get a crazy 3x orb proc within seconds and sitting with 3x orb while MB is on CD. Now I won't sit with that dilemma any more and be able to just cast away because it'll be almost impossible to get a 3 stack if casting MB on CD. It will be interesting to see how everything times up and goes together with MF and everything. I'm all for new complicated ways to optimize dps based on gear set bonuses!

And i don't care what anyone says, mechanic changing set bonuses are WAY more fun than passive crit/dmg modifying set bonuses.

[Purpleisbetter]

Wait a second.

My priest is a 359 ilevel gear. Sometimes, it's true, u wast a few global to get a single orb proc, but then, i just float on shadow orbs.

Hernessed shadow states pretty clearly that EVERY crit from our spells actually generates orb.

This new tier has huge load of intellect, new gems with intellect aswell. Raid buff and so on...

4pc bonus will be a huge boost in my opinion, since it will allow us to fire a MB on almost every CD.

2pc tier bonus it's too good to be true. Seriously, thru S&P we actually end with having an almost permanent Shadowfiend. And there's nothing we could desire more then our blacky cute baby with high uptime on bosses.

[Zuziza]

Hernessed shadow states pretty clearly that EVERY crit from our spells actually generates orb.

When we are critically hit by an attack, we have a 100% chance to gain an orb if you have 2 points in the talent. As in, someone else hit us with a crit. We only take that talent in PVE for the passive % increase to proc an orb otherwise.

[Reemix]

Dude. 75 seconds off the CD PLUS Sin & Punishment???? Our Fiend is gonna be out ALL the damn time AND 20% more damage? I just wanna hug whoever had this idea. Maybe even give em a back rub, lol

They'd appreciate a Happy Ending more, I promise you this.

[adezero]

the 2pc is near worthless, considering this patch they nerfed shadowfiend damage by almost half. maybe with the 2pc it'll do 3/4ths the damage it did before. 4pc isn't that interesting IMO

[Deleted]

so wait a sec im a bit confused here blowing mb with 0 orbs is good 2 over mf till you get atleast 1 orb
and what is the theory crafting vs blowing MB on Cd while ES is up vs blowing MB with 3 orbs while ES is up ?

want to direct ppl to this theory crafting for more insight on this 2:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-on-T12-Shadow

[MoanaLisa]

It seems to me to be arguable that the recent reduction in Shadowfiend damage (assuming it wasn't a bug of some kind) was done to accomodate the forthcoming two-piece bonus. One could wonder why it wasn't done when 4.2 dropped I guess.

Was there ever really a resolution to what the 4.1 stealth nerf to Shadowfiend damage was all about? There was some discussion right after the patch dropped about whether it was a bug or something else and then not much else.

I don't see everything though. Anyone know for sure?

---------- Post added 2011-05-05 at 06:36 PM ----------

so wait a sec im a bit confused here blowing mb with 0 orbs is good 2 over mf till you get atleast 1 orb
and what is the theory crafting vs blowing MB on Cd while ES is up vs blowing MB with 3 orbs while ES is up ?

want to direct ppl to this theory crafting for more insight on this 2:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-on-T12-Shadow

I think I understood what you said so I'll try to give you my take.

Keeping ES up is good. There's no argument about that. Never ever let it drop off due to waiting for 3 orbs. If you have no dots up, I suppose that's different but if that's the case, you have other issues.

Further, when MB damage was significantly buffed it became viable to run it on CD in any case although there are some risks if ES is coming off very soon (less than 7 seconds or so) and you have no orbs. In that situation, there are risks anyway so that's your call.

The idea of not casting MB until 3 orbs are up has been discredited for a while now. Bottom line, if you have an orb up and ES needs to be refreshed, you should do it.

EDIT: edited to reduce evasive confusing language and logical incoherence, i.e. I messed up and corrected stuff.

[Dave131]

They'd appreciate a Happy Ending more, I promise you this.

And ya know what, they'd deserve it too

[Rustie]

A better shadow 4pc would be ' Your Shadow Word: Death now generates a Shadow Orb '

There are far too many fights where I don't have a shadow orb up to even use Mind Blast, whats the point in making that problem more common place?

[Arlee]

A better shadow 4pc would be ' Your Shadow Word: Death now generates a Shadow Orb '

There are far too many fights where I don't have a shadow orb up to even use Mind Blast, whats the point in making that problem more common place?

casting mb without an orb is only a problem if you have less than 6.5 sec left on es (b/c that is the cd on mb) with the reduced cd you can cast mb more often without worrying about that. oh yea, also if you proc any orbs during the cast you still get credit for those orbs...

[Deleted]

Actually I am hearing from quite a few healers (disc and holy) that they might (depending on stats and stuff) do 2pc of each set. Their 4 pc bonus is sort of lame. Unless they make the fire orb thingy work like toc lightwell (pls don't ban me kel <3) their 4pc is likely to be more trouble than it is worth = /

I'm thinking I'll go double 2pc bonuses as disc - having sf on a 2:45/3:45 cooldown will be awesome.

[Rustie]

casting mb without an orb is only a problem if you have less than 6.5 sec left on es (b/c that is the cd on mb) with the reduced cd you can cast mb more often without worrying about that. oh yea, also if you proc any orbs during the cast you still get credit for those orbs...

I would agree with you however no fights are static, with heavy moving Heroic fights you tend to mindflay alot less which directly impacts your shadow orb proc rate. There have been several places where I've been caught with MB on CD and an orb proc's. Sure it will help in that situation, but best practise states to wait for an orb to proc before Mind Blasting.

[Deleted]

so rotation wise its going to be dot up, keep mb on cd (orb or no orb even if you have no ES) mindflay in between & refresh dots

kinda start to feel like a mindspike spamm with out the negative effect of removing dots

[Purpleisbetter]

Oh...so i misread the tooltip from the very beginning ^^'.



However i think this change gonna value more Mastery, and i can forsee it performing really cvlose to haste.

These set bonuses are really too good to be true. Will cost us a train of infinite nerfs =(..

[Arlee]

I would agree with you however no fights are static, with heavy moving Heroic fights you tend to mindflay alot less which directly impacts your shadow orb proc rate. There have been several places where I've been caught with MB on CD and an orb proc's. Sure it will help in that situation, but best practise states to wait for an orb to proc before Mind Blasting.

As with the hit cap debate if you can't manage to do this correctly or idk maybe recast VT and DP before the es would come down then yes... you should only be casting MB with one orb. And no it's not a best practice to wait. It might be a best practice when you know you will be moving a lot and oh yea when you are running a lot you can't cast MB anyways. Being a good spriest is not at all about always doing anything. It's about being able to react to different situations and change what you are doing based on these things.