State of Priest - The Hour of Twilight (4.3) edition

[Gely]

Okey, we did 10-man normal madness (our second raid ever) and I found myself being able to keep up my mana throughout the fight (was a really low at ph2 for a while but got my fiend up again and everything was fine again). I'm going to try out the 1290 haste cap and keep my spirit level and see how that feels!

Thanks for the tips and i'll be back with result!

Best regards, Gely

[Felade]

Holy feels strong, Disc feels the same, possibly behind in 25s unless you count barrier (but my only 25m experience is LFR these days). Shadow feels weaker, really buff dependent if you don't have the staff, mostly because of the nerf to 4pc t12 and the lackluster set bonuses on t13, and the lack of a truly awesome weapon from deathwing (rathrak and ti'thak are all right, but nothing to write home about like Warriors/Rets and the Deathwing 2h). It is really hard to keep up with melee these days.

[Afflictid]

You think shadow set bonuses are bad for t13? Your execute hits like a truck filled with mini-buses. And when shadowfiend is up, you mind spike/mind blast spam. Not to mention you get significantly more 3 orb Mind Blasts from apparitions as well.

[Felade]

But how often do you make use of your 2pc? More on add fights but on long single target fights (pretty much the first 4 fights in ds) not very.often, certainly not every 6 seconds like 4pc t12. And 4pc t13 is liable to get wasted half the time because you wont use the orbs up fast enough. They're ok bonuses, just nowhere near as good as t12 was for the time, and behind the bonuses of many other classes.

[Kelesti]

But how often do you make use of your 2pc? More on add fights but on long single target fights (pretty much the first 4 fights in ds) not very.often, certainly not every 6 seconds like 4pc t12. And 4pc t13 is liable to get wasted half the time because you wont use the orbs up fast enough. They're ok bonuses, just nowhere near as good as t12 was for the time, and behind the bonuses of many other classes.

How many fights can you not use Shadow Word: Death on reliably, especially a double tap, simply because fight mechanics would result in your death? For your hardest hitting move, removing one such limitation around it is a significant increase in damage potential on any non-raid-finder difficulty.

And 4pc t13 has math behind it that changes the rotation, if you've been following along in other threads, that replace it with a Spike-x3, Blast, Spike-x3, Flay, Blast style rotation under archangel and are actually seeing a significant DPS boost, while using up the orbs fast enough but not too fast for a 0 orb Mind Blast.

Sure, they aren't as direct as "Your Mind Truck now hits 480% harder" but these are both functional differences that not only improve numbers but also playstyle for Shadow. I wouldn't say that's "behind" other classes at all (unless you count Resto Shaman getting a haste cooldown... I'm calling hax).

[Felade]

How many fights can you not use Shadow Word: Death on reliably, especially a double tap, simply because fight mechanics would result in your death? For your hardest hitting move, removing one such limitation around it is a significant increase in damage potential on any non-raid-finder difficulty.

The point still stands that you don't use the 2pc set bonus 75% of the time. No matter how good it is (unless one SWD did 25% of the bosses' health in damage in one hit :P), the uptime on that bonus is just too low. That's the thing about our t13 bonus. Its as if Blizz went on the forums, and decided to find Shadow's quality of life issues and fix them with set bonuses. I'd argue our quality of life is pretty darned good, even without the set bonus. Orb RNG is a minor annoyance, and SWD killing you is an issue whenever there's a damage buff on the boss or lots of damage going out during the burn phase, but that doesn't happen on every boss. There are quite a few bosses in DS where it becomes an issue (I've killed myself on Madness in LFR several times when there's bad healers, Ultraxion comes to mind as well, Maybe Zon'ozz during Black Blood phase, Morchok if your SWD CD and a stomp line up), but again, in terms of raw damage, its uptime is just too low.

Compare to the Warlock bonuses. Or the Mage bonuses (I've seen parses where Mages get *2 extra combustions* every 4 min. If you've ever played a Fire mage you know how crazy that is. 500 haste is just icing.) The Hunter 2pc bonus. Holy Paladin's 4pc. Ret's 4pc. Resto Shammies 4pc is pretty crazy too. Or the tank's 4pc bonuses (which are game changers for the raid as a whole, but do still kind of suck for tanks with a low amount of CDs already - like Warrior - because its another CD they can't use for themselves anymore and have to wait until the raid needs it to make use of the bonus).

Our 4pc is nice, especially for burst on things like Yor'sahj oozes or Tendons on Spine, but with Shadowfiend still having a long CD (4 min with talents, probably averages out to around 3 min without 2pc t12 and with Sin and Punishment), we don't see it getting its full use for most of the fight. I've seen the math on MS, but it is a little awkward to have to either cancel Mind Melt (which Mind Spike spam is sort of designed around) or stick a MF in before your MB. Our 4pc is at best an awkward bonus that again is better for add fights (where the extra burst really helps burn down an add) but on single target fights I just don't think it compares to some of the other bonuses.

[Kelesti]

You're forgetting that because of Devouring Plague not ticking, attempting to reapply it immediately when moving often (not always) involves "A more powerful version of this spell is already active" error, which while not remedied, makes pushing Shadow Word: Death during that less of a penalty.

and SWD killing you is an issue whenever there's a damage buff on the boss or lots of damage going out during the burn phase, but that doesn't happen on every boss.

As for fights that could limit yourself from using Shadow Word: Death, let's see...

Morchokk (even if it's not "lined up" with stomp, you double tap and you won't be full health for the stomp, dead anyways).
Zon'ozz adds, while they're doing damage to you. Him as well, especially with a rising debuff.
Yor'sahj, purple limits, but a double tap and getting hit by red can kill you just as fast.
Hagara, lol damage buff

Ultraxion and his ever increasing raid damage
Drakes, Sappers, and Slayers/Dreadblades while soaking Barrage (not even Onslaught). Blackhorn, as his pulses do more and more damage the longer he's up himself, just as you're bringing him into execute phase.

I haven't seen Heroic Spine yet to comment on it, so I'll pass, but let's just say there's enough screenshots of people killing themselves on Madness (normal) that I shouldn't even have to comment on what can kill you.

So yeah, that's clearly not every fight this tier. Sure, the 55% more damage on Death is less awesome than the 25% more damage on Blast, especially when we're casting Blast all the time, but a harder burst phase, especially where harder burst actually counts, can be huge.

As far as comparing set bonuses, I'm going to first off exclude tank bonuses because none of them actually do anything for the tank themselves, just for the groups they run with. You get Mages who have theirs giving them more Combustions (or a 37.5 second cooldown Arcane Power, take your pick). Or Paladins getting more damage off one of the clunkiest cooldowns they have in their rotation. You have Hunters that can focus cap and lose damage off their 2pc faster than Fury Warriors can go from a string of misses to zomgragecap.

Each class set bonus either ties into an ability they don't generally use (or like using) in their rotation, and trying to change the way we play up a little bit. Or it's tied into cooldowns, because those can be made into a bit more fun than they are. We already had the "here's more shadowfiends" from t12, and faster archangel would really break something, so they went the enhancement route with "have some more...uhh... THINGS", and toyed with numbers to make it work. If a set bonus itself can change the way a class is played, without actually breaking it, I'd call that a big success.

And average shadowfiend is 2:48 in my last shadow logs, without 2pc12. As for bringing a single Mind Flay into the "mind spike rotation", it's not that far off. One it refreshes DI for your warlock, two it means that you don't have to delay (or worse, cancel aura) Mind Melt, and three, it puts Evangelism back up for when your DoTs need to be going out.


You're right in that we're lacking a "Here's 400 mastery rating, have fun with it" spec bonus, but those are never fun. Look at Hunters, lolhaste. As you've mentioned before, even without the bonus Shadow's already in a good spot. This makes it better, without tipping the balance too much, and that to me sounds like a win.

[Felade]

The set bonuses are alright, but they aren't propping us up either. Buffs are the problem in 10 man, as well as the staff. Its difficult to keep up with the melee without getting all the right buffs, which is hard to get in 10s.

Shadow is great - if you have every buff, and the staff, and DI - but if you don't, its not so hot. I don't think that's a good place for a spec to be, although I think it says more about the Staff and DI than it says about Shadow.

[Arlee]

Personally I adore the T13 2pc bonus. Going from almost never being able to hit sw: d because it would nearly always mean my death and don't even think about double tapping to hit it as much as you can because you really won't kill yourself at all is invaluable.

I mean if you really want to see the difference do some fights and don't use it at all and then do some and use it. It does make a difference. A bonus doesn't have to be constantly used through out the fight to be a good bonus.

[Felade]

The quality of life change of the 2pc is great, I'm not denying that. In terms of how much that affects our overall DPS though...well, that's why they had to nerf 4pc t12, because they knew the pre-nerf version was flat out better in terms of raw DPS (again, ignoring the admittedly nice benefit of being able to be safe with SWD). Personally, the lack of the bonus hasn't prevented me from using SWD in execute phase, and the only time I've ever had a problem with it was in one LFR run. But it is there, and I do have to delay a SWD every so often to let healers catch up. I also use PW:Shield on myself a fair amount as Shadow which helps counteract the reflected damage. Perhaps it is a bigger problem in heroics, but I've had to go heals for heroics now most of the time, and our guild really doesn't have much of a heroic team anymore anyway

Again though, the fact that you don't use this bonus for most of the fight still hurts in terms of raw DPS. It makes the bonus a nice quality of life change, but a DPS wash with post-nerf 4pc t12. And my original point was, that, while nice, the set bonuses aren't so stellar that they can make up for our lack of DPS buffs we can cover ourselves in 10 man.

[ramennoodleking]

Then just stay in 4pc t12 and get outperformed by shadow priests who go ahead and upgrade. It's your prerogative, anyway.

[Felade]

I'm wearing 2pc t12 2pc t13 with the gloves off normal spine, and waiting for my 4th piece to drop, currently. I sat on 384 2pc t13 until I got 397s because 391 4pc t12 simmed better in pretty much all cases.

Also, from Kilee's work:

Tier 12 4p - adds 170pp
Tier 13 2p - adds 170pp

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that means the bonuses themselves are roughly equivalent (not taking things like gem slots and raw item level into account).

It is an upgrade. Just not much of an upgrade, and it isn't as good as several other bonuses from other classes in terms of DPS (Mages, Warlocks for instance).

[Arlee]

Mmmm the PP value is for the bonuses themselves. The upgrade aspect of switching comes mostly from increased Int on the higher level gear. Which is why in general if you had heroic 4pc T12 you wouldn't to switch those pieces for the LFR version but it is an up to switch to the normal T13 pieces.

[Felade]

Mmmm the PP value is for the bonuses themselves. The upgrade aspect of switching comes mostly from increased Int on the higher level gear. Which is why in general if you had heroic 4pc T12 you wouldn't to switch those pieces for the LFR version but it is an up to switch to the normal T13 pieces.

This is really pretty much all I am saying. Whereas for other spec's bonuses you had top end guilds exploiting the LFR to get access to as quickly as possible, 384 or not. Admittedly, that was probably mostly due to tank 4pc bonuses which are pretty OP (from the raid's perspective if not the tank's), but I definitely don't think they were going in there to get Shadow's bonuses :P

[Purpleisbetter]

Taken from Kilee's guide

"Under this action list, the PP value of the set bonus goes from 190 PP to 500 PP." (while MS-MB rotation, SF up).

[Toroc]

Hmm

Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time

This staff has been in the back of my mind the last few days.

Healing priest (more so decent progressed ones), what are your thoughts on this staff?

[Noradin]

Use it when your raid has problems with the enrage timer, or when content is on farm status. Basically, you will heal less but your raid will do more damage.

[Deleted]

Hmm

Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time

This staff has been in the back of my mind the last few days.

Healing priest (more so decent progressed ones), what are your thoughts on this staff?

From a Holy point of view, I think it is quite useless. You can get all the haste you need to feel comfortable through gems/reforging, so the best weapon so far I think is Maw of the Dragonlord. When I am positioned properly the proc makes from 8 to 10% of my total healing.

[zakaluka]

Hmm

Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time

This staff has been in the back of my mind the last few days.

Healing priest (more so decent progressed ones), what are your thoughts on this staff?

Bad, in general.
The proc interval will be about 1 minute. Time average: 1.8% personal haste and 0.35% haste on 3 random raid members. 70% chance of hitting a DPS on easy encounters that you happen to be doing with 1 tank/2 healers. 10% chance of hitting the tank (about half the value as landing on a dps). If proc lands on a healer or tank, obviously it benefits raid dps less.

Basically, the proc is worth about 0.7% overall raid-DPS. That's even a best-case scenario where most procs go to classes that scale well with haste, and are already stacking haste heavily. ~1.5% personal HPS gain from the self-proc is easily outdone by the proc on Maw, or the spellpower and haste rating on a 410 dagger.

Use Ti'tahk if you consider a particular encounter really easy healing-wise and just want it to be over more quickly.

[Edoran]

I'm not a priest nor have I ever played one at any level, so forgive me for being a noob...

In 10M normal DS, what spec is ideal?