Are Shadow Priests really as bad as people say?

[Dierdre]

Shadow is the worst dps spec to play currently

Yes, that much is true.

as its miles behind all other ranged classes by at least 50k

No. That's hyperbole.

[Relapses]

There are two kinds of SPriests: Those that can suck it up and make the most of a bad situation, and those which are fairly mediocre at the game in general and use "well my class sucks" as a crutch to justify awful play. Guess which group tends to post on the forums more? :P

[Yvaelle]

There are two kinds of SPriests: Those that can suck it up and make the most of a bad situation, and those which are fairly mediocre at the game in general and use "well my class sucks" as a crutch to justify awful play. Guess which group tends to post on the forums more? :P

I think you are mis-attributing skill with forum participation - after all - given that many of the worlds best spriests participate on forums either here, or on the official forums, or on howtopriest - it's probably if anything correlated in the opposite direction (which makes sense, since they have access to the latest information and ideas on the topic).

More saliently though - of the two groups (those who don't speak up and struggle onward in silence, and those who do speak up - and sometimes get a little melodramatic) which group do you think has more influence on the improvement of the class into something everybody enjoys more?

The mages and warlocks and warriors share something in common - they burn down the official forums at the first implication of their classes being nerfed (particularly in PvP). Whereas by contrast, despite that Rets are the single largest spec specific community in WoW by some margin - the singular responses can be the most melodramatic - but overall response is only a few loud voices (easily dismissed): many of them suffer on in silence under the assumption that Rets will never be good. If you imply a nerf to mages, a million mages post in response.

More forum activity, and more twitter activity, and more networked and coordinated lobbying on behalf of our class - is good for the class as a whole: even at the risk of the occasional invocation of Godwin's Law over something as non-genocidal as say, the Vampiric Embrace nerf in WotLK (which resulted in the mass banning of most of the official forum spriest community at the time).

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Wow! I know we aren't top of the bunch but unless your A) An ass B) Absolutely terrible (I'm sure your neither :P). Then I'd say find a new guild for WoD.

This. If you are in a guild that haven't killed HC Garrosh yet (or a guild that killed it within the 3 last months), and you are getting replaced, it's because you are an annoying prick, or you just flat out suck at playing your SP.

[Clrg]

Or because the raid leader is a closed mind and who only want to stack warlocks.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Why would he want to stack Warlocks? You won't get replaced if you are doing good dmg. In said guilds, a good SP will be able to compete, no matter how OP Warlocks are.

[Natrii]

They are in a kinda bad spot this tier. Spriest really need to rampup and settle into a grove. Most SoO fight require heavy movement or constant target switches. Your dps will be lower than players of the same gear and skill, but don't get dicouraged. Most raid groups will keep you if you play well and know how to use the utility you offer. Only the cutting edge really knit picky guilds will frown on you.

[Coolascancer]

Ive been playing shadow since ToC, i like it. I really liked the whack a mole gameplay mop brought out at first but then they raped it with mindless extra mindflay damage.
as to your question shadowpriests have not and never will be (i expect) top dps globally. I've always managed to be top or top 3 in my 25 man guilds over the years though due to probably just being better than most other people that were in my guild (target things faster, know the mechanics of a spriest and the game or the fight, blah blah) plus the use of a few certain add ons now make playing a priest really easy.. i would suggest you have your ui setup to show boss targets and download a mod like affdots (ithink is the name) with the spriest addon. There is also another mod that is more tuned to priests i think but affdots works for me. I also use Debuff filter to place certain buffs/debuffs on my screen so i know what buffs i have. I'd assume this is the same with any caster but once you hit a certain haste threshold your dps just goes up significantly so if at first your numbers suck wait till you have a more balanced item set (or the legendary...) In mop (and since wrath honestly) hitting top notch spriest dps numbers means you got lucky procs along with your Devouring Plague's with everything proccing at the beginning for fiend and later on in the fight as well... typically wont happen (weapon proc, helm proc, cloak proc, cloak proc(tailor), trinket 1 trinket 2 procs) I've always found my beginning burst dps (until mop) to be really lackluster compared to mages/locks/hunters but over the course of a fight my little white bar always steadily climbed up recount until the end of the fight which in my mind means i play solid over a set course of time. If youre going to play an spriest and take it seriously --- Howtopriest.com
lots of useful information and people who know a lot more about inner workings of spriest and how it relates to wow.

[kenn9530]

No. That's hyperbole.

assuming equal skilled and geared players a SP will be last on dps and at least 40-50k dps behind the next dps, this is not even factoring in the top dps classes like locks and mages which can be 100k plus above a SP.

while a SP wont necessarily hold a group back if you can get a lock/mage instead its much more beneficial. Its not as if you need a SP which can off heal either as 4 healing every fight is easy on 25 man and on 10 man 2 healing is fine also.

[Deleted]

Would have meant a year without content if they had fixed the shadow priest class, so they left it broken for the year....no way could we play the same content over and over!

........oh wait

Think the real problem stems from the fact that Blizzard even after 10 years are incapable of achieving balance in PVP, at the start of MOP we had the forums crying NERF SP they are OP in arena.....We demand you make us OP instead!
This leads back to the same old situation of PVP breaking PVE and then to the shambles we see today.

Almost a year ago blizz started saying " we realise that SP are in a dark place "

.....turn the bloody lights on then

[ThrashMetalFtw]

assuming equal skilled and geared players a SP will be last on dps and at least 40-50k dps behind the next dps

If you have a Rets, Ele Shammies and DKs doing 50k more Dps than you on single target, you must be really bad at playing your Priest.

[buffalowbie]

This. If you are in a guild that haven't killed HC Garrosh yet (or a guild that killed it within the 3 last months), and you are getting replaced, it's because you are an annoying prick, or you just flat out suck at playing your SP.

Don't be so elitist. Not every raiding guild is at the point where they have reached H Garrosh. Some guilds, like mine, have had a rough time this tier. We've had to rebuild our raid team twice.

Am I the best shadow priest out there? Of course not. Do I suck? I don't think so. I may not be able to rank on logs, but then again, neither can half the dps on my team. But to deny a longstanding member of a raid team any chance to learn the fight because they don't want shadow on it until it's on farm just flat out sucks.

Raiding is a team activity, and to have your spot given to an off realm pug because the RL is having a bad day/week is insulting. Not to mention goes against the very reason guilds exist. For the record, until the latest round of rebuilding I was part of the first kill of the majority of the bosses. The ones I missed was because of work travel (can't really raid while on a plane).

[Clrg]

Shadow is incredibly powerful this tier, the amount of misinformation in this thread is cringe worthy. If the shadow is skilled they can keep up with fire mages on single target under even bad RNG circumstances. Under average they can pass pretty much any class or spec on multi target fights by over 23%.

If the shadow is skilled enough and the mages and warlock in the raid are not, then yes, but unless the warlock or the mage are sooo new to the game thats not gonna happen.

[Deleted]

Shadow is incredibly powerful this tier

Well that is odd the people who play the spec disagree. You know when Shadow was powerful? Firelands, and Dragon Soul, and start of T11.

Lets see what you wrote here:

Warlocks are not overpowered in no way, shape or form. They are the most overrated class in the came. Their actual realistic damage output is no where near the widely accepted theoretical output. Their overall damage is actually pretty low compared to mages and priest which are way overtuned this tier. With good RNG fire can outperform any lock by up to 20%

The fact you mention Mage and Priest in the same sentence as saying those specs are OP compared to Warlock together with even the suggestion Warlock are not overpowered shows how little clue you have. Even Blizzard has admitted Warlocks are overpowered.

the amount of misinformation in this thread is cringe worthy. If the shadow is skilled they can keep up with fire mages on single target under even bad RNG circumstances. Under average they can pass pretty much any class or spec on multi target fights by over 23%.

If you don't count SV its the worst multidotter, certainly not the best cleaver (but NOT bad either), and the worst single target DPS accompanied by a few other specs which are also low. Yay, we're good at cleaving and we can do a little bit of multidot if the Balance Druid is on vacation, now explain how that is going to help on Klaxxi and Garrosh progression.

Why you mention Fire I do not understand. Might as well mention Demonology Warlock. Fire Mage is highly dependent on crit, RNG (RPPM doesn't make it easier), amount of Combustion, and requires a COMPLETELY different gearset from the other 2 specs.

[buffalowbie]

My numbers suggest otherwise, my recent evaluations on shadow in BiS 588 item level shows shadow pretty far ahead. Maybe they were mediocre early in this tier but they scale incredibly with gear to the point where at 588 item level shadow along with fire mages are performing way better that every other class by an outstanding amount.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. Try a real argument next time.

[buffalowbie]

Well my numbers come from actual statistical evaluations which is more reliable than any falsified calculations you might be able to present to me.

Put your money where your mouth is and link it.

[Drsolders]

They are not as bad as people make them out to be, yes they are lower dps than other classes but they bring huge cd's to the raid. VE in a 10m is obscene and on garrosh having an spriest spam divine star on stack strat is almost like having 1/2 a healer. The only time it really matter is when they are lower on progression fights in heroic. I know of some who have been benched on heroic garrosh simply because they needed more dps.

[Dierdre]

complicated statistical number analyed data evaluations calculated under advance number data

Just lol. And more lol for tenchar.

[buffalowbie]

Maybe seems to be one of those people that thinks if you wish hard enough for something to be true, it will be.

Awaiting your data so we can all have a fun look at it. Because boy, I must be doing something wrong for being bottom dps on fights like H Malk.

[kenn9530]

If you have a Rets, Ele Shammies and DKs doing 50k more Dps than you on single target, you must be really bad at playing your Priest.

don't raid as shadow but I can play it perfectly. assuming equal gear and skill a shadow priest will be beaten by dks, ele shammies and rets, by at least 10% which its around 40-50k, ele shammies are the middle of the pack for single target and beats out SPs on aoe and single target in 99% of situations.