Priests future in mythic +

[Deleted]

Do you guys think the situation will ever change?

Right now, shadowpriest is one of the worst DPS classes for m+.

Holy and Disc are VERY weak in m+, especially under certain affixes.

If one looks at the statistic's on raider.io for 20-24 keys, priests are already almost extinct. 24 and higher they basically no not exist.

[Deleted]

"BFA will fix it." "They can't change balance right before MDI." "Small indie team" etc.


Most likely current situation will last till end of legion.

[Hugginz]

Do you guys think the situation will ever change?

Right now, shadowpriest is one of the worst DPS classes for m+.

Holy and Disc are VERY weak in m+, especially under certain affixes.

If one looks at the statistic's on raider.io for 20-24 keys, priests are already almost extinct. 24 and higher they basically no not exist.

Disc is fine; people just don't take priests because Resto Druid and Holy Pally are *better* at ... whatever it is they're better at (burst group healing I guess??)
It's possible for priests to do 20+ keys, it exists:

https://raider.io/characters/us/illidan/Jakbcastin

Someone more competent can weigh in.

[Mazzeric]

There's definitely a "meta" mentality that hurts Priest participation from the get-go, but unless there are significant changes to survivability/defensive utility across healers, Priest will continue to be held back at the top end. Jak says time and time again on his stream that the number one thing holding his group back from higher keys is his personal survivability for the more difficult bosses (Xavius, Hatecoil, and Medivh stand out). Once you go high enough it doesn't matter if the boss is Tyrannical or not, Priests will die. The cutoff is pretty binary when the challenge in front of you is just living versus dying to certain mechanics. It's no longer about healing.

I do think that the top teams right now are pushing beyond the bounds of the intended balance, doing keys that class designers didn't think were possible due to the tactics and comps/gear swaps/all the other min-maxing efforts they didn't foresee. Part of that successful equation though is the defensive strength of both Paladin and Druid healers.

Part of the problem with an infinitely scalable system like keystones is that the best at something is going to stand out much more than in a system where a designer has set a cap, especially if those advantages are in the realm of a 20%-30% increase. And especially when raider.io is set up right now to show all the keys a team has done, which makes the meta comps more numerous and pushes Priest and other healing specs down the list a lot.

Something we've seen already in datamining that will help Priest survivability out a bit is their class buff, but it remains to be seen if inscription scrolls are coming back (the ones that replicate class buffs at a slightly weaker value), which would really devalue that advantage.

[Yvaelle]

As far as Shadow goes in Mythic+, the issue is fundamentally Voidform itself - so it's not going away in Legion.

It takes ramp-up to get into Voidform, and then once in Voidform, your haste and Mass Hysteria only begin to ramp-up the longer you remain in it. That 'ramp-up so you can ramp-up' design, will basically always be anti-thetical to the design of a dungeon where new targets are frequent, multiple mechanics like Bolstering and Necrotic encourage dropping combat for even a GCD or two (long enough to end Voidform), and boss don't live long enough (even on high tryannical) for voidform ramp-up to average out the way it does eventually during a raid boss.

The Ramp-Up Is Too Damned High.

Now, theoretically speaking, I'm not opposed to ramp-up - but the point of ramp-up should be that when we do get ramped-up, we win the DPS meter. That isn't happening - we're balanced around raids when our ramp-up is fully achieved, which means we're going to consistently underperform in dungeons - at least until our 'ramp-up to ramp-up' is greatly reduced.

So Shadow would need a total overhaul to ever really become meta for mythic+ dungeons. Compare that Arms Warriors, Subtlety Rogues, Havoc Demon Hunters, BM/MM Hunters, or even our DoT bros - Balance and Affliction - all of whom are good at burst AOE and at single target, and have high survivability, and critically - don't have any of our 'ramp-up to ramp-up' time.

[Rhaxus]

with voidform no longer increasing shadow damage more than shadowform and mass hysteria gone as well as only 50% haste increase, shouldn't the rampup be significantly lower than before?

[Yvaelle]

with voidform no longer increasing shadow damage more than shadowform and mass hysteria gone as well as only 50% haste increase, shouldn't the rampup be significantly lower than before?

It will impact the spec less, but think about the start of a trash pull in a Mythic+, you need to build Insanity to get into Voidform, then you need to stay in Voidform for 50 seconds to get to full ramp-up even with a 50% haste cap. If combat ends and before you pull the next trash pull, Voidform drops and the situation resets.

So the outcome is that Shadow will never run at 100% in a dungeon, because we're still ramping up (Voidform) just to ramp up (Haste buff). That's never going to compete against an Arms Warrior who is going to Bladestorm the first pack, then Bladestorm the next pack, then Bladestorm the third pack, etc.

It will likely our ramp-up cost less impactful than it is today, which will make Shadow better - but we won't be meta because we will still have the same underlying problem - versus the specs which work the opposite way (burst then fall off each pack).

Edit: Think of a comparison between Arms (one of the top dps specs for Mythic+) and Shadow.

On a pull, an Arms warrior can potentially open with Shockwave (20s cooldown, aoe 4s stun), then drop Warbreaker (1m cooldown, deals AOE burst and increases damage to everyone nearby by 30%+ increased by mastery), then Ravager (deals sustained massive aoe damage in an area, 1m cooldown), then Battle Cry (1m cooldown, everything crits for the next 5 seconds), then Bladestorm (1m cooldown, massive AOE damage). No matter how many things you pull into that group, no matter how high a mythic+ you are doing, that combo is going to blend trash.

Then you run to the next pull or next room (reducing the cooldown on their burst cycle), and repeat.

For shadow, you do that first pull, and you won't hit high Voidform stacks before the pull ends, you'll probably won't even hit 30 stacks. Then the pull ends, you run to the next room, and start fresh. Even on weeks with like Bolstering or Fortified where things live a long time, we'll never get close to doing what specs that burst and fall off can do for a Mythic+ group (ex. Arms, Havoc, BM, MM, Balance, etc).

[Nefarious Tea]

It will impact the spec less, but think about the start of a trash pull in a Mythic+, you need to build Insanity to get into Voidform, then you need to stay in Voidform for 50 seconds to get to full ramp-up even with a 50% haste cap. If combat ends and before you pull the next trash pull, Voidform drops and the situation resets.

So the outcome is that Shadow will never run at 100% in a dungeon, because we're still ramping up (Voidform) just to ramp up (Haste buff). That's never going to compete against an Arms Warrior who is going to Bladestorm the first pack, then Bladestorm the next pack, then Bladestorm the third pack, etc.

It will likely our ramp-up cost less impactful than it is today, which will make Shadow better - but we won't be meta because we will still have the same underlying problem - versus the specs which work the opposite way (burst then fall off each pack).

Didn't they change it to 0.5% haste per second, so you'd actually need to stay in Voidform for 100 seconds to hit 50% haste? From what I saw in the datamining, it looks like they want to massively skew Spriest DPS away from high voidform stacks - which right now without tuning is just an incredibly harsh nerf, and if nothing changes SPriests will be worse off than they are now.

[Yvaelle]

Didn't they change it to 0.5% haste per second, so you'd actually need to stay in Voidform for 100 seconds to hit 50% haste? From what I saw in the datamining, it looks like they want to massively skew Spriest DPS away from high voidform stacks - which right now without tuning is just an incredibly harsh nerf, and if nothing changes SPriests will be worse off than they are now.

You are right, so you would need to stay in Voidform for 100 seconds, not just 50 - which is even longer when you add on the ramp-up just to get to Voidform - before you get to 100 stacks (if it's even possible without S2M).

Don't worry about the 'harsh nerf' issue, they will balance numbers. They won't balance numbers perfectly, but if we're more than 10% below the top spec and we cry and get our pitchforks out they will fix us - they are good about that, generally. So yea - it would definitely be a massive nerf if it occured today without compensation - but my point is there will be compensation before (or within a month of expansion launch, typically).

[Rhaxus]

of course shadow won't be close to a burst machine as others, but we have options now to close the gap. faster void eruption, shadow crash usable outside voidform helps; the only thing messing up really fast trash kills would be VT application to trigger dark void and the reward is hopefully a higher sustain post-burst compared to warriors etc.

this would put shadow way above affliction at least for m+15 etc

it still needs some qol changes, but to me it feels like voidform stacks will not be as valuable to gear around ( aka haste over everything) as it is now. going for max stacks might only be valuable for boss fights with stm and tof if they balance spriest right.

edit: after checking some changes once again, i realised i made some glaring mistakes: void eruptions cast time has actually been increased ( <.<), which i find incredibly annoying, dark void doesn't even need VT application beforehand and mind sear + shadow crash should get us into voidform within 2-3 seconds.
for high m+/ raids we have shorter runtimes on dots, which should increase their DPA if they didn't also weaken them at the same time.
we'll have to see how many times we will have to reapply them though, with their duration AND void bolt's refreshrate reduced

[Ophenia]

You are right, so you would need to stay in Voidform for 100 seconds, not just 50 - which is even longer when you add on the ramp-up just to get to Voidform - before you get to 100 stacks (if it's even possible without S2M).

Don't worry about the 'harsh nerf' issue, they will balance numbers. They won't balance numbers perfectly, but if we're more than 10% below the top spec and we cry and get our pitchforks out they will fix us - they are good about that, generally. So yea - it would definitely be a massive nerf if it occured today without compensation - but my point is there will be compensation before (or within a month of expansion launch, typically).

I think they will change the design of the Void Form to what it was supposed to be.

Originally, it was like a long set-up to build Insanity, then you pop the Voidform, and you hold it but not too long.
Today, you're out of Voidform for like 5 seconds (2 seconds if you did a 50+stacks before), Voidform has like 90% uptime. That's why we're not balanced and will never be balanced if we can't manage the ramp-up correctly (so dungeons, outdoor content, and some raid fights (hello Imonar)).

So basically, you're hitting like a wet noodle for the 5 out-of-Voidform seconds, then like a normal noodle for the 30 first stacks, then you start dealing okay-ish damage for 20 seconds, and if you can reach 50+ stacks, you start dealing over-the-top damage.
We should deal okay-ish damage out of voidform, and over-the-top damage during the Voidform. But to achieve that, the Voidform should be more balanced. We should be, like, 60% of the time building our Insanity, and the Voidform should drain quite faster than today, giving us a better buff from the first second.

Current design is complete nonsense and is impossible to balance between contents.

Edit : The only thing they SHOULD HAVE done, and I still don't understand why they didn't do it, was to balance Dungeons with different template than for Raids. The thing that definitely killed Shadow Priests in MM+ was the last -12% damage on DoTs, which was apparently mandatory due to Shadow Priests being nearly as powerful as Afflocks (that's impossible !). But they could have limited this nerf to Raids.
They have proven during Legion that they can do stuff like that, with their PvE/PvP templates. Maybe it's time to start separating Raids from Dungeons and Outdoor content.

[Annesh]

Now, theoretically speaking, I'm not opposed to ramp-up - but the point of ramp-up should be that when we do get ramped-up, we win the DPS meter. That isn't happening - we're balanced around raids when our ramp-up is fully achieved, which means we're going to consistently underperform in dungeons - at least until our 'ramp-up to ramp-up' is greatly reduced.

Exactly what I've been complaining about for years: in this game where the only truly long fights, raid bosses, are balanced across all specs, whether ramp or burst, ramp-up is not a playstyle to differentiate specs, but a straight-up disadvantage that should be compensated for. How many times have they promised to reduce Shadow's ramp-up time? And here we are in Legion where Shadow's ramp-up is worse than ever.

They have three options to make the game in general not be completely unfair to ramp specs. They could:

A) Eliminate ramp entirely and allow all specs to be strong in the same ways, thereby taking a giant step toward homogenization.

B) Give ramp specs talented access to bursty playstyles, tuning to make sure the ramp options are 5ish% better for long fights. Shares similarities with A, a bit less pronounced.

C) Make sure ramp specs are legit OP for raid bosses - not by a ton, just always comfortably top 5 across the board. Allow ramp specs to be better at more types of boss fights than burst specs - top tier single-target AND council, for example. Then, when the burst specs complain that they're being benched for raids, tell them to go fuck themselves because ramp specs have been benched for Mythic+ since it came out. Allow the game to become ramp = raids, burst = dungeons. Does this sound as bad or worse than the homogenization of A? Yeah, it's a nasty problem, but it definitely needs to be addressed.

[Yvaelle]

Exactly what I've been complaining about for years: in this game where the only truly long fights, raid bosses, are balanced across all specs, whether ramp or burst, ramp-up is not a playstyle to differentiate specs, but a straight-up disadvantage that should be compensated for. How many times have they promised to reduce Shadow's ramp-up time? And here we are in Legion where Shadow's ramp-up is worse than ever.

Yea you always get my upvotes on the official forums when you post about this

They still delete my posts sometimes from the official forums, but my vote function works

[Volitar]

I find it especially funny because they are nerfing Arcane Torrent and AOE stuns for their new 'esport' but I'm sure they will leave Sprest in the dust.

[Annesh]

Yea you always get my upvotes on the official forums when you post about this

They still delete my posts sometimes from the official forums, but my vote function works

Lol thanks for the support, frend. Too bad I haven't figured out how to be succinct or interesting enough for more than 10 people to actually read and reply.

[Yvaelle]

Lol thanks for the support, frend. Too bad I haven't figured out how to be succinct or interesting enough for more than 10 people to actually read and reply.

General communication tips:

1) Get to the point, helps to write your essay (I do this too), then stick the TL;DR at the top, then edit out whatever isn't necessary after the TL;DR
2) Use bullet points or numbers to structure your message into separate topics
3) Pose a question or a provocative comment for your audience to consider/respond

[Jaewalk]

Now that M+ is more popular than raiding or pvp I really do hope they give all priest specs the tools to be successful in M+ I really don't want to reroll druid.

[Deleted]

Now that M+ is more popular than raiding or pvp I really do hope they give all priest specs the tools to be successful in M+ I really don't want to reroll druid.

it's mainly the ramp up time with spriest, by the time you get something decent going everything is dead except maybe bosses on tyranical +15 keys

[Biosync]

I run mostly 18-22 key with my Spriest. What I noticed helped my cause tremendously, was two proper aoe trinkets. Prototype + Terminus is a insane combo. Since in higher keys, the groups tend to be bit better and pull quite alot of trash at once ( depending on affixes ofc ), with those two trinket i dont fall that much behind even. And by the time terminus has ended doing its dmg, and if the mobs are still alive, the ramp up time starts to kick in. Sure some instances are significantly worse than others, but overall nowadays I dont think SP is that bad anymore.
Prydaz + VT shield + PW:S is a huge soak for tyrannical mechanics, mind bomb is strong, and our dmg isnt that bad in ST either.

[Yvaelle]

Huh - I like Prototype for M+ AOE definitely, but hadn't really considered Terminus.

I think I have a 965 Terminus in my bag I've never even equipped too - I'll give that a whirl this weekend thanks!