I thought we could discuss some of shadow's mana issues here along with possible solutions for leveling.
I have been leveling my worgen shadow priest quite painfully slow. Part of this is because I'm still playing my main, but the other part is because I have to drink between about every 3-4 pulls. Mind you, those are single-target pulls. My mana is completely wasted on multi-target fights.
Why is this?
Shadow's only mana-regen mechanics come from masochism (pre-shadowfiend/hymn/dispersion) and spirit tap (assuming you've glyphed it). So, my options to get mana back are hurt myself, get hurt, or finish a mob with sw: death and then spend time drinking. VE does help, but doesn't entirely solve the problem, especially when you are repeatedly taking hits <10% of your health (like a mob using a flurry attack).
I have been thinking on the purpose of masochism and it seems backwards. In Wrath, paladins had SoM removed because 1) it made the class too bursty, and 2) Blizzard didn't like the idea of having to damage yourself to do more dps. A line can easily be drawn between these two parallel ideas. It seems odd that Blizzard would remove one ability for those reasons but then turn right around and encourage another spec to repeat the same mistake.
Additionally, the cost of spells is considerably too high. If we look at the cost of dots and spells across multiple classes, we can see that priest dots are considerably more expensive than anyone else's.
Priest: SW : P - 22%, DP - 25%, SW : D - 12%, MF - 8%, VT - 16%, MB - 17%
Druid: MF - 18%, IS - 8%, Wrath - 9%, SF - 11%
Warlock: Immo - 8%, Corr - 6%, BoA - 10%, Soulfire - 9%, Incinerate - 14%, conf - 16%, UA - 15%, chaos bolt - 7%, hand of guldan - 7%, haunt - 12%
This makes me think that at least one of two things needs to happen in order for shadow to not require you to be so masochistic (pun intended).
1) Put more mana regen abilities elsewhere. I think a solid place would be in shadow orbs. Each time a shadow orb is consumed, you gain X% of your mana. Only downside to this is playing against the RNG gods, but that can be tweeked by increasing the amount of mana returned. There are definitely other possibilities, but I am only making one suggestion.
2) Decrease the cost of spells. Holy freaking crap the stuff is expensive. SW : P, DP, and VT all need their costs cut by about half. It is downright silly to have other classes casting spells at significantly lower costs.
It is for these reasons that I have decided to level as disc for now. Strangely enough, I actually kill stuff faster now than I did as shadow as well as being 100x more mana efficient. Penance hits harder than MF (which is amusing to say the least) and smite spamming is quite effective.
What do you guys think? Are you pleased with how shadow (and by extension, priests in general) turned out? Or are you like me and sad to see some truly broken and fundamentally flawed mechanics?
TLDR: If you didn't read this, then troll away! Tell me how bad of a player I am, that I need to L2P, that I should join a guild, and that I should stop living in my parent's basement. I'm sure the rest of us will read just as much of your comment as you did my post.
you never said what level you were. i'll guess sub 60 because of no fiend. you really shouldn't be fully dotting each mob and then MFing to death. dot/dot/dot MF once, turn to the next and begin dotting, end the last mob with a SW : D, and continue.
mana costs are balanced around 85, i hope you know. spriests have 3 ways of regaining a ton of mana, four if you count SW : D, and druids don't.
seems a bit overdramatic to assume you'll be trolled because you posted a pile of qq, but i'll just guess that you'll call anyone who disagrees a troll
My only real experience with priests is lvling a gnome one to 50-ish on beta, but yeah, I noticed that I had no real mana regen to speak of until I had enough talent points for masochism. Still, it was miles better than my pre-cata attempt at a priest which involved dying ALL THE TIME until I got bored around lvl 30.
Your ideas sound just fine, but basically I'm happy with any mana regen ability that works better than what we've got.
My priest never had mana issues, I started her after Cata came out and no lifed it to 85, but once you figure out the best way to kill things, you'll have no problems. Have you seen the Glyph of Spirit Tap, or whatever it's called?
The only time I had mana Issues, was in Dungeons... and OMG is that ANNOYING, lowest damage every single freakin' dungeon, SO annoying!
I did notice while leveling to 85 that I had a lot of mana regen problems until I had the points for Archangel, and then it was cake. I support your decision to level disc.
I'm thrilled someone finally pointed out the outrageous mana issue with Shadow Priests. Pre-cata I leveled one of each dps caster to 80 (frost mage, balance druid, demo lock and shadow priest). In the process of leveling each caster toon to 85 - I noticed I'd consistently drain away roughly 60% of my Sp's mana in a prolonged fight while the other casters may use 20% of their mana at most. This SP mana issue is a lot more evident in battlegrounds where there are less breaks in the action.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that my priest is 49 now. Yay replenishment!
I understand that things are "balanced" around being 85 (which, from everyone I've talked to, spriest is still quite painful at 85 but I can't speak from experience yet), but it isn't fun to be completely broken until 60, or 70, or whenever you gain magic ability X that no longer makes you feel constantly deathgripped by your mana pool. Several of my friends are leveling priests and they all agree that mana isn't a problem for any other class. It feels like pre-4.0 ret before level 40. It would go a long way to move shadowfiend to ~level 30 or any of the mana regen abilities for that matter.
While priest have 3 (or 4) ways to regen mana, druids have 2, mages have 2, and warlocks have an unlimited supply (given enough health). The warlock I'm leveling NEVER has to drink or even stop to eat. Oh, and I hardly consider Hymn's ~9% mana regen "massive". On a 6 minute CD, I consider it laughable since it restores less than one SW : D.
And Syrrah, I don't know why you had to come in here all hostile. I didn't post a pile of QQ, I was fielding legitimate concerns, but perhaps that's what you call it when someone disagrees with you, hmm? I'm guessing you didn't read or understand my tldr. I was quite clearly joking.
I did a few quests with my priest in Vashj'ir after Cata first came out, and it was quite a wake up call. I burned most of my mana on 2-3 fights and it took FOREVER to kill anything. I just assumed I was woefully undergeared (which I am), but now that I read this maybe that's not the problem at all.
Contrast this with my even more woefully undergeared mage and the difference becomes really apparent. No mana problems, hit pretty hard, and it's just a breeze in general.
Of course this is with limited playtime on both chars, and its just basic questing and no dungeons or PvP, but it was striking for me on the first few priest kills I had. I was wondering if something was drastically different. I guess it was.
It's not better as a healing spec. Your regen may be better, but it don't matter much since killspeed is what counts. Considering the cost of heals these days, the moment you need to heal yourself, you already lost. And as a healer, you do.
I am not having any mana issues on my SP, currently at level 70. Even without Dispersion I am able to chain pull mob to mob non stop relying on VT+MB and Spirit Tap. Dispersion w/ 45s reduction glyph is just icing on the cake. I have played around with Disc as well as I tend to use it in BG's more often, and I find it fine for levelling, but not quite as fast as shadow. I also love the survivability I seem to have with bad pulls. I have come out through 4-5 mob pulls of my level and not even had to drink or heal at the end.
I felt too slow leveling as Disc, maybe it's just me but Shadow feels way more efficient especially at the later levels with Spirit Tap glyphed and all of the mana regen abilities.
Haven't had mana issues on my priest either (while soloing). Currently level 66. What rotation do you use? I just pull with vampiric touch, mind blast and then mind flay them untill below 25% and kill them off with SW:D. Pretty much stay around 100% mana. They might get a couple of hits in, depending on crits, but it's usually healed up by vampiric embrace alone. However, as soon as I pull more than 1 mob and resort to using devouring plague/sw:p my mana gets taxed pretty fast.
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