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  1. #1
    Deleted

    Patch 5.3 PTR - Shadow Priest Nerf

    Priest (Forums, Talent Calculator)

    Mass Dispel Dispels magic in a 15 yard radius, removing all harmful spells from each friendly target and 1 beneficial spells from each enemy target. Affects a maximum of 10 friendly targets and 10 enemy targets. This dispel is potent enough to remove Magic effects that are normally undispellable. Can be cast in Shadowform. 13% of Base Mana. 30 yd range. 1.5 sec cast. 15 sec cooldown.


    Void Shift (New) You and the currently targeted party or raid member swap health percentages. Increases the lower health percentage of the two to 25% if below that amount. Priest - Shadow Spec. 40 yd range. Instant. 10 min cooldown.

    If i interpret this correctly Shadow Priests can no longer mass dispel ice blocks or divine shield!?
    The void shift is also on a 10 minute cooldown making it not usable in arenas.

    Delayed April's Fool joke or did blizzard decide to remove shadow priest from the game?

  2. #2
    They made MD glyph do the Immunity dispell instead of lower cast time. Still a huge nerf.

    Bye shadow priests nice knowing you in arenas.
    Last edited by Ace192; 2013-04-02 at 01:17 AM. Reason: I'm retarded and couldn't read

  3. #3
    If you looked they also changed Glyph of Mass Dispel from it reducing the cast time to allowing it to once again remove Block/bubble. So instead of it being a .4 second cast it'll be 1.4 again but it will take off bubble. This is actually a pretty good change, since interrupting a .4 second cast with latency is nearly impossible, and most of the time block/bubble did next to nothing against Priest teams because of how fast it was removed.

    The Void Shift change hurts Shadow, but they'll still be okay. SPriests do a lot of damage and apply a lot of pressure, they also have a lot of off healing capabilities, and with Leap of Faith can help teammates get out of bad situations. The Void Shift ability was completely over the top for Shadow, and it's something that has been relatively overpowered since launch. I'm honestly surprised it took them this long to fix it. SPriests will still be fine in arenas, this change is obviously a nerf, but the class will still be okay. Just as they were okay before they had this skill.

  4. #4
    I'm still not sure if the notes aren't a strange mmochampion aprils fool gag.

    In case they are not:
    Didn't they make skills with a 10min cooldown unuseable in the arena?

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Rutger View Post
    I'm still not sure if the notes aren't a strange mmochampion aprils fool gag.

    In case they are not:
    Didn't they make skills with a 10min cooldown unuseable in the arena?
    Thats why i said "making it not usable in arena"

    This will molest shadow priests HARD...

    Quote Originally Posted by ace1231337 View Post
    They made MD glyph do the Immunity dispell instead of lower CD by 10 seconds. Still a huge nerf.

    The void shift nerf isn't even that crippling TBH. I don't think there are any times where I've needed to use it more than once per arena match. Unless you're playing a 45 minute arena, this shouldn't be as crippling as it seems.
    You high bro?
    Last edited by mmocb47e9d5b09; 2013-04-01 at 11:13 PM.

  6. #6
    Well, as nerfs go, these aren't the worst that could be imagined. However:

    1)- WHY ARE NERFS NEEDED? Are spriests the dominant spec in arena, or something? I think the answer is no.
    2)- Stripping out Void Shift is really lame. This talent is a big part of "hey, you're a level 90 mop priest". Taking it away from PvP players (at the same time they are taking world pvp gear dominance away from PvP players) seems really super lame. I mean, I guess a PvPer will still get to use it in random battlegrounds. But that's silly.
    3)- Taking away the fast cast mass dispel seems like it would be a harsh enough nerf- making the glyph still mandatory versus invincible targets is kind of twisting the knife. I mean, when they took gag order out of pvp, they didn't keep forcing warriors to use the glyph, right?

  7. #7
    Deleted
    i'm more mad about the void shift nerf in PvE tbh, it wasn't an OP ability by any means, if anything I want to be able to cast it more often, a similar CD to leap of faith considering similar utiity. now it's just another ability that won't be there when I want it thanks to PvP balancing. Just make it have a bigger CD when flagged for PvP k thx

  8. #8
    Deleted
    The priest numbers in the most competitive EU BGs is quite high, though it's Disc and Shadow.
    Last edited by mmocc9639e0326; 2013-04-02 at 12:09 AM.

  9. #9
    Well, you wouldn't expect shadow priests to be in the numbers as say, all death knights, being that many priests are disc. Hrm. Well, if they are overrepped, maybe they need nerfs. These still seem really harsh.


    Quote Originally Posted by Redsparowe View Post
    i'm more mad about the void shift nerf in PvE tbh, it wasn't an OP ability by any means, if anything I want to be able to cast it more often, a similar CD to leap of faith considering similar utiity. now it's just another ability that won't be there when I want it thanks to PvP balancing. Just make it have a bigger CD when flagged for PvP k thx
    Won't this still reset on wipe, like army of the dead?

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Ghostcrawlers mage got dispelled too much!
    So after he destroyed the warrior class next is Spriest. Without Void Shift and Mass Dispell they'll be useless in arena and rbg.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Verain View Post
    Well, as nerfs go, these aren't the worst that could be imagined. However:

    1)- WHY ARE NERFS NEEDED? Are spriests the dominant spec in arena, or something? I think the answer is no.
    2)- Stripping out Void Shift is really lame. This talent is a big part of "hey, you're a level 90 mop priest". Taking it away from PvP players (at the same time they are taking world pvp gear dominance away from PvP players) seems really super lame. I mean, I guess a PvPer will still get to use it in random battlegrounds. But that's silly.
    3)- Taking away the fast cast mass dispel seems like it would be a harsh enough nerf- making the glyph still mandatory versus invincible targets is kind of twisting the knife. I mean, when they took gag order out of pvp, they didn't keep forcing warriors to use the glyph, right?
    1) Actually SPriests are the most versatile and one of the strongest classes in arenas right now. They were all through 5.0, 5.1, and now in 5.2. They just simply have too much utility, and they bring more to the table than any other caster by far. Strong damage, strong survivability, off healing, shielding, offense dispelling, defensive dispelling, Leap of Faith to bring melee teammates back up on Z axis maps or to save teammates from bad situations on any map. No other class has as much utility as SPriests, and that makes them incredibly strong. They aren't nearly as good under say, 2k, because teams aren't as coordinated, but in high tier arenas SPriests are arguably the best class in the game, and they were definitely the best class through all of 5.0/5.1.

    2) I agree it's weird they took away the one new skill MoP gave SPriests, but it's one of the main reasons why SPriests are so broken in arenas. Any team that has a SPriest on it you have to kill someone twice, every time. They're the only class in the game that gives their 3v3 team essentially 4 life bars to burn through instead of 3. It's by far the strongest PvP skill in the game, and nothing else really even comes close. I'm actually surprised they didn't take it away from Disc/Holy as well, but I suppose Disc/Holy isn't represented well enough for it to matter much right now.

    3) A .4 second Mass Dispel was just stupid because it was completely uninterruptable unless you got lucky and guessed correctly. This change is actually really good and I agree with it completely. I'm kind of surprised they remade the Glyph the way they did, I feel like just getting rid of it altogether would have been fine and keeping the ability to dispel Bubble on it would have been okay with the 1.5 second cast, since it could at least be interrupted. Still though, I do kind of see why they did it. Oh, and comparing it to gag order makes no sense because they aren't forcing you to use the glyph either, Mass Dispel is still good for defensive dispels like Polymorph and Sheep. Plus the gag order glyph would have been 100% useless in PvP, whereas the Mass Dispel glyph is still very good, hence why you think it's mandatory. Honestly that comparison was just idiotic.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by saltyharbls View Post
    Thats why i said "making it not usable in arena"

    This will molest shadow priests HARD...



    You high bro?
    Sorry I'm retarded... Damn totally overlooked the fact that it makes it so you can't use it in arena. Um, what the fuck.

  13. #13
    Should reduce the CD of Void Shift and add a Forbearance-type debuff so you can't Dispersion after it. Complete removal seems... drastic.

  14. #14
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    I'm still assuming it's either wholly or in part an April Fool's joke, Blizz often warns us against the accuracy of data mining info. If it's still the case in a day or two I'll go to war.

    Here's what it Should be:

    - Mass Dispel no longer removes undispellable effects, base cast time changed to 0.5 seconds
    - Glyph of Mass Dispel allows it to remove undispellable effects, but increases the cast time by 1 second
    - Void Shift now has a 5 minute cooldown, down from 6 minutes
    - Shadowpriests can no longer use Void Shift in Arenas

    Explanations:

    Re: Mass Dispel
    MD is absolutely critical to many PvE encounters in which it is spammed nearly on cooldown, at a rate that is either hard or impossible for a Disc or Holy priest to do because of the high mana cost, the trick of doing so is managing the mana cost with VT's and Dispersion and SF/Mindbender - making the cast time longer is a direct nerf to PvE fun on these fights (which are already not really fun)
    During these encounters, we are not dispelling undispellable effects - the undispellable effects bit is only used during PvP. However, it should be a choice whether we are using Mass Dispel to offensively and defensively dispel against a team, or using it to remove immunity effects - that's a good space for a glyph to exist - landing MD's to remove CC on teammates is an accepted function of Shadow - in fact, I'd go so far as to say it's the core reason we are brought to any arena team - making it 1.5 seconds means it will probably never happen for any spriest who isn't playing God Comp or Shatterplay (mage babysitter): as good players use CC on the spriest to prevent mass dispel (or healing) when CC'ing a spriests healer. This glyph would allow spriests to choose, are you going to use MD for offensive purposes - to dispel bubbles - or defensive purposes - to dispel your teammates.

    Re: Void Shift
    6 minutes is a bizarre length for any cooldown, 5 minutes sounds nice This is the nerf spriests need in arenas - Void Shift in itself wasn't too powerful - but taken in totality it was too strong with our other options - I'd be happy to see it go, despite being obviously a colossal utility nerf.

    Re: Real Problem
    But let's be honest here about why we are nerfing Shadow for arenas, because it's not solely Shadow's problem - ~85% of top spriest teams are Spriest+Resto Shaman, 10% of Spriest teams are Spriest+Rdruid+Fmage - our synergy with Resto Shamans is a big part of the problem. Second, over 60% of our top comps are Spriest+Fmage - we need those babysitters to function (all of whom spam AoE roots so we can not have melee on us). The real problem here is Shadow freecasting, and the comps which premise themselves around always allowing a spriest to free-cast: particularly Shatterplay and God Comp (Spriest+Fmage+Rsham or Rdruid, respectively).

    Shadow needs a utility nerf, not allowing us to Void Shift in arenas is just that - Mass Dispel nerf is proposed wrong for the PTR, the emphasis should be on making the glyph a choice for PvP between offensive and defensive purposes - not on making it not work in arenas above 2k. Further, if the real problem is comps that allow Shadow to freecast, then nerfing Shadow isn't going to be the solution - Shadow isn't the only caster that is monstrously decisive if left alone. If Shadow is no longer what those comps need of it, the same comps will just begin using Affliction locks in Shadow's place: to precisely the same effect, and to the dismay of all.

    Nerf Frost and Rshaman peels as well, or these nerfs fix nothing except make Shadow non-viable without them present (which just means you will see even More Shatterplay / God Comps, by killing all alternatives / selection pressure).


    Edit: Alternatively, leave Mass Dispel and the glyph as is, and remove the ability for Shadow's Mass Dispel to dispel undispellable effects, but leave it in for Disc and Holy. Either solution would work far better than the proposed.
    Last edited by Yvaelle; 2013-04-02 at 03:36 AM.
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  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Rucati View Post
    but in high tier arenas SPriests are arguably the best class in the game, and they were definitely the best class through all of 5.0/5.1.
    Warriors had nearly double their rep above 2200 in 5.0/5.1, so I know that's bullshit. The rest was pretty good points- spriests are strong- but I'm more wondering if they are really dominant enough to warrant these nerfs.

    2) I agree it's weird they took away the one new skill MoP gave SPriests, but it's one of the main reasons why SPriests are so broken in arenas. Any team that has a SPriest on it you have to kill someone twice, every time. They're the only class in the game that gives their 3v3 team essentially 4 life bars to burn through instead of 3. It's by far the strongest PvP skill in the game, and nothing else really even comes close. I'm actually surprised they didn't take it away from Disc/Holy as well, but I suppose Disc/Holy isn't represented well enough for it to matter much right now.
    Ring of Peace is pretty strong too, and is pretty similar in terms of what it buys. Many abilities serve as strong resets or peels. I would just think that with life swap as a promised thing, that they would get to keep it. Like, each expac everyone gets some stuff. I feel ripped off having to spec deadly throw, because that was a BC skill from the old wow forums. I don't feel ripped off having to spec nerve strike. Void Shift is even a shadow ability, right? It just seems really backwards.

    3) A .4 second Mass Dispel was just stupid because it was completely uninterruptable unless you got lucky and guessed correctly.
    I'm sure that was the point.

    This change is actually really good and I agree with it completely. I'm kind of surprised they remade the Glyph the way they did, I feel like just getting rid of it altogether would have been fine and keeping the ability to dispel Bubble on it would have been okay with the 1.5 second cast, since it could at least be interrupted. Still though, I do kind of see why they did it. O

    Oh, and comparing it to gag order makes no sense because they aren't forcing you to use the glyph either, Mass Dispel is still good for defensive dispels like Polymorph and Sheep.
    No, you'll have to use it versus mages and paladins still.

    Plus the gag order glyph would have been 100% useless in PvP, whereas the Mass Dispel glyph is still very good, hence why you think it's mandatory. Honestly that comparison was just idiotic.
    No, it wasn't. Here's an example:

    > Mortal strike no longer reduces healing to the target.
    > Glyph of Gag Order now is Glyph of Mortal Wounds, and mortal strike reduces healing to the target.

    There. That's the priest treatment- you don't even get a spare glyph out of the nerf.


    But thanks for calling it idiotic when you don't understand something. You'll go far.

  16. #16
    I'm glad I'm not playing this season. I stopped paying blizzard to get nerfed every patch looong ago.

  17. #17
    So im seeing this as the most represented and probably most overpowered spec in arenas currently is getting its incredibly strong utility brought down a notch. I guess im not seeing why this is so bad. Priests overall need to be toned down as they appear to be in 5.3, im not sure how accurate crosslader is atm but its showing 17 priests in the world's top 20 teams.

    I do like yavelles suggestions though, and I dont think disc should be punished with mass dispel not working on bubble/block as thats one of the few perks they bring over the other healers.

  18. #18
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by thisnamesucks View Post
    So im seeing this as the most represented and probably most overpowered spec in arenas currently is getting its incredibly strong utility brought down a notch. I guess im not seeing why this is so bad. Priests overall need to be toned down as they appear to be in 5.3, im not sure how accurate crosslader is atm but its showing 17 priests in the world's top 20 teams.

    I do like yavelles suggestions though, and I dont think disc should be punished with mass dispel not working on bubble/block as thats one of the few perks they bring over the other healers.
    I'm not sure whether it's accurate right now either, plus a lot of those teams are Russian and have very suspicious win ratios - not saying they're win trading, but it's pretty rampant in Russia: hard to tell. Let's assume it is accurate though right now, over half of those 17 teams are Disc priests, not Shadowpriests - this nerf does nothing to Disc - RMP and Thugcleave's make up most of those top 20 comps. Also note that all the shadowpriests in the top 20 are either playing God Comp or Shatterplay, with one exception (Shadow / Arms / Rsham) - so like I mentioned, nerfing Shadow is just going to turn those into MLS / MLD comps if it doesn't also involve nerfing Frost and Resto Shamans.

    Also, if you look at overall 2200+ rated PvP representation, Shadow is just 6.7% overall, which means even though Shadow is very strong in 3's - our low representation in 2's and 5's and that either there is 1 or 0 in RBGs means our representation overall is actually only slightly above "balanced" representation between all DPS specs, if that were ever to exist: 1 (Shadow) / 17 (Viable DPS specs) = 5.88%. Frost Mages by comparison are 9.5% overall, and Arms is still 9.1% even after extensive nerfs.

    If you look at 3's specifically, where Shadow is at its best, Shadow is up at 11.4%, while Frost Mage is at 8.9%. But there is something else worth noting here, Shadow is at 4.7% global representation for arena participants - 30% higher than Frost Mage representation, and in fact - Subtlety Rogues have 7.3% over 2200+ representation with only 1.8% of Arena participation. This means that there while there are 40% more shadowpriests than frost mages playing arenas, frost mages above 2200 are nearly as common as shadowpriests - even more shocking, while there are only a third the number of subtlety rogues playing arenas as shadowpriests - there are 65% as many subtlety rogues above 2200 as Shadow.

    In absolute terms, Shadows representation in 3's is the highest of all DPS specs, and well above "balanced" representation at high ratings (a utility nerf is thus justified) - but in relative terms there are a LOT of spriests playing arenas this season - almost more than any other spec of any other class, and relative to the Spriest population size - our high-end representation is frankly dwarfed by frost mages and rogues.

    So, we can conclude that while Shadow representation % is high, it's because there are a LOT of people who FOTM'd to Shadow lately, in addition to the existing spriest fan club - and that what the FOTM's should have been rerolling to was Frost Mage or Subtlety Rogue, based on how many many of them there are at high rating for the population size (that is, if you are going to succeed by virtue of your spec alone, you are more than twice as likely to do it as Frost, and almost three times as likely to do it as Subtlety, compared to Shadow).

    Edit: Oh, one last thing about the analysis - all these tools that detect specs of arena players draw their stats solely from WoW Armory scanning - Priests are the only class who have two heal specs, therefore whenever a priests goes DPS for dailies or random bgs or w/e, they go Shadow - which is not true for Druids or Shamans, and not as true for Monks and Paladins (who only have 1 DPS spec, but also have a tank spec to choose, which is common to run tank spec with dps gear for dailies especcially on pvp servers). As a result, Shadow will always appear disproportionately represented in large-scale scanning tools like Worldofwargraphs.com, because it will consistently mis-identify disc and holy priests as shadow based on their behaviour when they logged out (where for druids it would mis-identify them as feral, or boomkin, or guardian about equally). It's not a large skew, but it's a skew unique to Priests, and thus deserves mention.
    Last edited by Yvaelle; 2013-04-02 at 07:50 AM.
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  19. #19
    Deleted
    These nerfs will ruin alot of teams, if it goes to live...
    Sure SP is a strong spec, but there's plenty of strong specs in 5.2. Why is SP targeted like this ?
    The nerfs we got in 5.2 was more than enough, considering most other specs were buffed.
    Priests will all go disc for pvp if this goes live. Or ofc reroll.

  20. #20
    my eyes bleed while i read those patch notes. My priest is only 84 and i won't be able to have all the fun =( still hope for april fools =)

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