Shadow Priest in Classic

[Lillchillers]

I applaud enyone who managed to lvl a priest to lvl 60 in vanilla. I quit lvling my priest around lvl 25, couldnt stand the downtime. Still have nightmares about ooming = dying :P. (Feral lvl 60 main, Hunter lvl 60 alt)

[Deleted]

fury warriors, mages and rogues.

Hunter is solid, you are also guaranteed a raid spot due to tranq shot.

I mained a rogue while I was raidleader, later in classic I raided with For the Horde on another char , a hunter. Always had a raid slot, always had minimum 2 hunters usually 3 in Naxx. I was top 10 in damage on World 4th Loatheb eventhough I only had the quest bow and T2 since they geared me through twink raids after I rerolled on their server.
While Hunter was not anywhere as good as Rogue, it was still ok and required and actually really fun in PVP especially Alterac. I used to have Alterac games where I had 260 kills and 0 death, it was awesome.

[Shifterstorm]

If you want to ignore everyone else and only acknowledge the posts that you want to listen to, that's fine. Bust just remember, 1/40 and 0/20 raid spots will be filled by a Spreist.

Additionally, "switch to healing" means spending up to 50 gold (which is a lot) and carrying around a completely different set of gear.

I did ignore everyone else's responses as they did not answer my question while this guy did. i didn't ask if priests were good or not. I asked if the 16 debuff slot was going to make them worth a raid spot to help warlocks. Instead I got a bunch of elitist telling em to roll mage if I wanted to top the meters which was never my intention. I plan to mostly pvp with some raiding on the side in classic and wanted to see if I could prevent myself from switching all the time or if I could be viable as a buff bot. Thanks for your troll response though as it gave me a reason to respond again

[Deleted]

I did ignore everyone else's responses as they did not answer my question while this guy did. i didn't ask if priests were good or not. I asked if the 16 debuff slot was going to make them worth a raid spot to help warlocks. Instead I got a bunch of elitist telling em to roll mage if I wanted to top the meters which was never my intention. I plan to mostly pvp with some raiding on the side in classic and wanted to see if I could prevent myself from switching all the time or if I could be viable as a buff bot. Thanks for your troll response though as it gave me a reason to respond again

you are interpreting as you want it to

16 debuff slots does not change that shadow priest will not be desirable for many reasons and that includes debuff slots.

It has nothing to do with topping meters. Shadow Priest is not viable.

Even if you have so many Warlocks in your raid to make it worth buffing them, guilds would simply take a Healer Spec that puts 20 points in the shadow tree for shadow weaving and keeps the buff up while being a healer.

There was only one thing that Shadow Priests were good at and that was honor farming in large scale PVP by putting shadow word pain on as many people as possible.

[wholol]

isn't 1.12 the patch where rolling ignite became a thing which encourages stacking Fire Mages?

Yeah but rolling ignites was a bug afaik might not even be in classic.

There is also the fact that for the first 2 raid tiers mages go frost so warlocks will be in a very good spot, around naxx if rolling ignites are a thing and considering how locks scale it could be that they end up the way they were but still would mean locks are about as equal to mages in dps over all during the course of the game.

[AeneasBK]

I'm sure there's enough difference of opinion here for someone to say "You're wrong"

I didn't think that any "shadow" priests were brought to a raid, but one of your healing priests would spec into shadow as much as was required to get shadow weaving but was otherwise specced and geared to support/heal. They would be primarily healing except to maintain the uptime on the debuff. That way the warlocks would benefit from a healthy DPS boost.

Something like this

[Kanariya]

Yeah but rolling ignites was a bug afaik might not even be in classic.

There is also the fact that for the first 2 raid tiers mages go frost so warlocks will be in a very good spot, around naxx if rolling ignites are a thing and considering how locks scale it could be that they end up the way they were but still would mean locks are about as equal to mages in dps over all during the course of the game.

Rolling Ignite is not a bug (and was in game for all of Vanilla), it's intended because of the 16-debuff limit. I can also personally confirm that Ignite is stacking in Classic, as intended.

Back on topic: Spriests are viable and provide good damage, but you won't see more than two brought to a raid; even one is enough. Not bringing any is very foolish though, Warlocks are a great DPS spec (especially since we have end-Vanilla threat mechanics) and it is absolutely in the raid's interest to have Shadow Weaving available. If you raid, you'll have to learn how to maximize your limited mana pool, but since crit is worthless for Shadow you can chase spirit/mp5 dmg gear that other casters will completely pass on. The nice thing is Mind Flay's cost is actually pretty low. At very high gear levels, your raid may even let you put Pain on the boss (this is the best dot aside from Ignite in game), but that is very mana intensive.

Spriests are also one of the most powerful specs for PvP. Insane damage, CC, dispels, off-healing, defensives... if you can get into a raid to get geared you should absolutely do so.

[LazarusLong]

I was the raid leader of the #1 guild on my server in classic. I even had a Priest twink early and played shadow a few times on Ragnaros for instance.

Shadow Priests brought nothing to the raid, Mind Control is also never needed by a shadow priest.

*Cough* instructor Razuvious *Cough*

But yes, SP were useless in raids.

[krl]

Priest are needed and they are healers. End of story.
Shadow weaving is a novelty and maybe the RL e-girlfriend will get to do this. Roll a fucking mage if you want a caster.

[LazarusLong]

I'm sure there's enough difference of opinion here for someone to say "You're wrong"

I didn't think that any "shadow" priests were brought to a raid, but one of your healing priests would spec into shadow as much as was required to get shadow weaving but was otherwise specced and geared to support/heal. They would be primarily healing except to maintain the uptime on the debuff. That way the warlocks would benefit from a healthy DPS boost.

Something like this

Yep, spirit buff provider with Weaving and PI. We always brought a single priest like this to the raid.

[AeneasBK]

Yep, spirit buff provider with Weaving and PI. We always brought a single priest like this to the raid.

Secretly I knew it was the right answer

[wholol]

Rolling Ignite is not a bug (and was in game for all of Vanilla), it's intended because of the 16-debuff limit. I can also personally confirm that Ignite is stacking in Classic, as intended.

Ignite rolling in classic is often confused with the bug that allowed multiple fire mage ignites to bake into one super ignite and that ignites damage was only counted for one mage on the meters propelling them far and beyond any other dps class, that was a bug and not intended mechanics, the normal rolling ignite where multiple fire spell crits ignites stacked instead of overrode each other is indeed intended gameplay mechanics but wasn't what made fire mages "broken".

[KaPe]

*Cough* instructor Razuvious *Cough*

But yes, SP were useless in raids.

You mean the boss where a healing priest could just wear some +hit gear because his adds weren't skull level enemies? And it would still break randomly, because 100% hit was not possible in vanilla.

[jackofwind]

Shadow dps is often underrated due to it's insane mana costs and the fact that debuff slots are limited, shadow can output incredibly high dps so long as they have the mana to do so.

I don't doubt that if shadow had less mana issues and was free to use their full rotation they would be among the top dpsers ( the same thing can be said about elemental shamans).

They don't scale off crit anywhere near enough to be able to touch Locks and Mages in caster DPS after BWL.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I loved shadow in BC. In Vanilla it gives a great debuff that helps your warlocks.. and while you have mana you do good damage.. the problem is you run out pretty quick.. I know the one I played with speced deep shadow and enough healing to still heal well enough but keep the debuff up. That was about it. But it takes the type of healer that understands their utility instead of jerking off for the meters.. and that is kind of a rare breed.

[jackofwind]

Yeah but rolling ignites was a bug afaik might not even be in classic.

There is also the fact that for the first 2 raid tiers mages go frost so warlocks will be in a very good spot, around naxx if rolling ignites are a thing and considering how locks scale it could be that they end up the way they were but still would mean locks are about as equal to mages in dps over all during the course of the game.

Rolling Ignites weren't a bug at all, they were intended to work that way. They only work after BWL though since Fire as a spec doesn't work in MC/BWL.

Basically if you stacked Fire Mages the one who got the Ignite stack would outDPS everyone because he was getting loaded by all the other Fire Mages. However, the other Fire Mages would generally sit below all the Warlocks, and in a contest between an individual Warlock vs an individual Fire Mage (assuming equal post-BWL gear) the Warlock would generally come out ahead (barring terrible crit RNG).

- - - Updated - - -

I loved shadow in BC. In Vanilla it gives a great debuff that helps your warlocks.. and while you have mana you do good damage.. the problem is you run out pretty quick.. I know the one I played with speced deep shadow and enough healing to still heal well enough but keep the debuff up. That was about it. But it takes the type of healer that understands their utility instead of jerking off for the meters.. and that is kind of a rare breed.

Unforuntately you're still better off bringing a Holy Priest that's specced down into Shadow Weaving and spams R1 SWP at the start of a fight to get SW stacks than giving a raid spot to a full Shadow Priest.

- - - Updated - - -

Ignite rolling in classic is often confused with the bug that allowed multiple fire mage ignites to bake into one super ignite and that ignites damage was only counted for one mage on the meters propelling them far and beyond any other dps class, that was a bug and not intended mechanics, the normal rolling ignite where multiple fire spell crits ignites stacked instead of overrode each other is indeed intended gameplay mechanics but wasn't what made fire mages "broken".

The only difference is how the damage is displayed on meters, the overall damage remains the same. IMO that wasn't ever confirmed as a bug by Blizz.

And hell, if they change it then Warlocks will be hands down better DPS than Mages in end-game gear, so cheers to that. The only downside will be threat throttling but that's a non-issue on Ally side because of Salv.

[wholol]

Rolling Ignites weren't a bug at all, they were intended to work that way. They only work after BWL though since Fire as a spec doesn't work in MC/BWL.

Yes one mage taking credit for other mage's dps seem totally like "intended" gameplay mechanics, please...

Just because blizzard didn't admit to it being a bug doesn't mean it wasn't, like rogue's vanish being partially invulnerable for half a second, or stealth spawning completely recreating characters from scratch, a lot of things that players thought were intended were in fact, not.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Unforuntately you're still better off bringing a Holy Priest that's specced down into Shadow Weaving and spams R1 SWP at the start of a fight to get SW stacks than giving a raid spot to a full Shadow Priest.

So we agree. Cool.

[EternalBany]

So much misinformation here
I am a classic shadow priest with anathema

If you roll one, getting items will be very difficult, some guilds may accept you random pugs wonjt; you can dps yes but so "can" ret paladins and enhanc shamans if you get my meaning. Mind blast threat is insane.
Your utility is buffing warlock dmg by keeping up shadow weaving, which takes up a slot
King of 1v1, ok in bgs

[Holtzmann]

Yes one mage taking credit for other mage's dps seem totally like "intended" gameplay mechanics, please...

In fairness, the final damage being the same it shouldn't make a difference. The game wasn't designed with Recount in mind.