Are Shadow Priests really as bad as people say?

[Clrg]

Which strat are you using?

[buffalowbie]

I wasn't aware there were multiple stats.

We split into two groups for phase 1 until about 25 stacks. Kite him up and down the corridor for phase two. Rinse and repeat. Bats picked up by tank and cleaved down ASAP (I just toss SW:P and sometimes a VT on them-if early in the phase). We ignore the Yeti.

I take Feathers, FDCL, Spectral Guise, DI, and DS as my talents for the fight. My ilvl is 574. 25% crit, 50% mastery (when not raid buffed, 30%, 60% when raid buffed). 14.8k haste breakpoint. I don't have the haste to do GCD haste, nor do I really want to. I like DP3.

[Deleted]

Which class replaced you? What's your comp?

[Zych]

You'll help your healers out a lot by taking Bulwark over Guise.

Your dps is around the median for Thok, if you want to get it much higher you'll have to Mind Sear the bats.

[buffalowbie]

Hunter replaced me.

Raid comp other than me was DK tank, ret pally, frost dk, arms warrior, fire mage, frost mage, holy pally, disc priest, resto shammy.

Edit, ok. I'll try doing Mind Sear next time I get in. Thanks! And switch to Bulwark.

[Clrg]

I wasn't aware there were multiple stats.

We split into two groups for phase 1 until about 25 stacks. Kite him up and down the corridor for phase two. Rinse and repeat. Bats picked up by tank and cleaved down ASAP (I just toss SW:P and sometimes a VT on them-if early in the phase). We ignore the Yeti.

I take Feathers, FDCL, Spectral Guise, DI, and DS as my talents for the fight. My ilvl is 574. 25% crit, 50% mastery (when not raid buffed, 30%, 60% when raid buffed). 14.8k haste breakpoint. I don't have the haste to do GCD haste, nor do I really want to. I like DP3.

Kite phase is what its change, up or down or a circle around the room, the last give ranged dps more uptime in the boss. And some people bl in the bats.

[Dierdre]

Hunter replaced me.

Suck it up. The only thing better than a hunter for 10-man Thok is two hunters. Off-healing and mass dispel are good for 25man, but they just don't offset our crappiness in 10-man.

[Yvaelle]

That said, your DPS can be improved as well - personally I run DI and SW:I for Heroic Thok - when the Jailor is up make sure you are DoT cleaving. When the bats are about to spawn refresh dots on the boss, pre-fade, and immediately spam sear on them until they die - in my guild most wipes begin during bat phase: so much so that we stack and end the phase once bats come out (but we have plenty of DPS to spare, and solo tank it). Generally ranged will DoT cleave jailors and tunnel Thok as best as possible (particularly when he is slow) - while melee go murder the jailors to end the phase.

Be sure to try to push through phases fairly fast as the fight goes on - try to use them all up - as they are all easier the shorter you are in them, and get sequentially harder (more or less) as the fight goes on. The other spots that gave us trouble were during the ice tomb phase (sometimes our tank BoP's off his ice tomb stacks and Thok will nom someone) and during the fire phase - we usually just stack to push fire phase at ~5 stacks and then tunnel the boss and offtank the jailor.

For more appropriate places to post this sort of thing in the future, try the Shadow DPS sticky thread at the top - or the "Fix My DPS" thread - both work just fine

[Dmetrius]

I have been a shadow priest for many years now and am sick of the nerfing. It is one of the last classes in terms of everything right now. In pve the dps stinks on any fight that matters with tight enrages. We wear cloth and our self healing is pretty much gone and destroyed. Half of the classes have better self healing and often times have better then cloth and/or have crazy dps. We can dispersion to mitigate damage but can't dps, when most classes can dps through their biggest Cd's. In pvp we are even worse. Barely any self healing, squishy, All of our dps can be interupted, and lowest in dps. Everytime shadow priests get something that stands them out we get nerfed. It really is just a class you have a passion for because statistically isn't worth trying otherwise. I think it's funny a hunter with one of the highest dps, most cc, biggest dps cooldowns in pvp, and can walk around a pillar and regen 10% of their health. Shadow priests are dead. I'll still play them but there is no reason to bother. It will just make you angry to play.

[Deleted]

One trick with jailer if you really do need the DPS is you can let the melee go on boss and the ranged multidot the jailer, focusing on boss. The tank doing jailer can get vengeance from it (if not, give them more heal or dispel enrage). The melee just need to learn to move and take distance when needed. Once he starts to move a lot faster (6-8 stacks) they will instead finish off jailer if needed and then you open cage at ~14 stacks. This ensures your melee have less downtime.

If you're outgearing it, its sometimes better letting the boss transition to kite phase, especially if your raid CDs aren't up yet because you were bad at kiting in the previous phase or made it transition too early. This flexibility, due to gear, makes the fight a lot easier.

Hunter replaced me.

Raid comp other than me was DK tank, ret pally, frost dk, arms warrior, fire mage, frost mage, holy pally, disc priest, resto shammy.

Edit, ok. I'll try doing Mind Sear next time I get in. Thanks! And switch to Bulwark.

From 25 PoV, I don't agree about Bulwark. You can't control it. Guise allows you to break the kiting if needed, and DP gives a nice self heal when you are baiting and needing it or that time where you really do need the heal during stack because otherwise you die. Since the situations from DP are rare I'd go with Guise. AB just is one of those "it wasn't my fault" talents and it isn't good here.

If you want to use FDCL and DI try to use them while following the boss. This ensures someone else will bait kite (healers should, generally).

Your raid comp... you guys don't like ranged do you. You're sporting a lot of low single target DPS classes and you're 3 healing which means your healing isn't going to be valuable, neither is your Mass Dispel. Hunter is very good for the fight, and can provide spell haste. You still won't have spell damage taken debuff tho. Replace the Arms Warrior (why is he Arms anyway) or Frost DK with a Rogue if you can. Your Frost Mage should save their Frost Bomb for the bats and the Hunter can help out there too. Melee are great on bats. Do track Devotion Aura. You got two. It allows you to DPS during it. With your talents that means reapplying VT, hard cast MB, and chaining MF. I never liked Mage at all on Thok. All specs suck.

[Alroxas]

1) You won't be able to farm tertiary stats that easily.
2) If it really goes live with us NEEDING (as in making a significant difference) 2 equips for different encounters, it's a major design epic fail.

Well it shouldn't be that bad. First you consider having the post item squish flasks of mastery or flasks of MS. Then of the items enchantable (rings, neck and cloak) that's only 4pcs. I suppose if you threw in trinkets that might make 6pcs. Maybe if you were going for HC progression you might have a full set of single target and multi-target gear but I think people would be ok with just swapping out 4~6pcs.

[Simmias]

wtb WoD already

[Zoulis]

Most likely just swaping around enchants will be fine. For most fights mastery is never going to be a "dead" stat since you'll always be MFing (insanity) or MSpike-ing (surge of darkness) the target. Also for the first tier having 2 sets of gear is going to be probably impossible for progression. For progression on the next tiers it's going to be more doable.

[Deleted]

No, I can still pull decent enough DPS depending on what my task is, they also bring useful things ofc with the 5% spell haste and embrace

[Deleted]

Use MFI on Thok, not FDCL.

[Dierdre]

No, I can still pull decent enough DPS depending on what my task is, they also bring useful things ofc with the 5% spell haste and embrace

That's because your group couldn't get a boomkin, who does everything you do except mass dispelling, does it better, and doesn't take loot from your mage/locks.

Sure, shadow is viable, but the spec is just not ok when it's the worst choice on any scenario.

[Simmias]

maybe you need to be more friendly towards your guild mates/friends. That way, they take you instead. It's not that hard to figure out.

[Deleted]

That's because your group couldn't get a boomkin, who does everything you do except mass dispelling, does it better, and doesn't take loot from your mage/locks.

Sure, shadow is viable, but the spec is just not ok when it's the worst choice on any scenario.

Boomie doesn't have something akin to Mind Sear but this isn't always important. Actually, its almost never important. Just gets Lock or Ele for that.

[Relapses]

Hurricane AoE isn't bad for a Boomkin when used properly. It's not as good as Mind Sear (or Warlock/Ele AE), but it's definitely not something which is non-existent. Boomkins are still generally in a better spot than SPriest, but mostly because Starsurge damage gets to be absolutely retarded once you have gear.

[Deleted]

Hurricane AoE isn't bad for a Boomkin when used properly. It's not as good as Mind Sear (or Warlock/Ele AE), but it's definitely not something which is non-existent.

Shadow single target isn't bad when the Priest is a good player. Its not as good as Moonkin's (or Rogue/Feral ST), but it's definitely not something which is non-existent.

My point being, yeah, its garbage and if used properly its a little bit less garbage, but still garbage.

Boomkins are still generally in a better spot than SPriest, but mostly because Starsurge damage gets to be absolutely retarded once you have gear.

They scale much better than us, yes. We scale, but our single target is intentionally scaled as low as it is. Apparently due to our off-healing.