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  1. #101
    Bloodsail Admiral Frmercury's Avatar
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    I find it hard to believe that anyone found SW, ES or DA compelling game play. These were terrible ramp-up buffs that have needed to go for years now. I find it baffling that anyone would argue against their removal.

  2. #102
    Quote Originally Posted by Celentes View Post
    when it required a decision of sorts to be made (yor'sahj is a good example, for one).
    What decision on Yor'sahj? "Dear god, please let my SW:P proc an Shadoworb while i Mindsear!"?
    /or don't see the current synergy.
    We can't see something that isn't there. It's the same with that one or two guys talked about in a certain book.

  3. #103
    Quote Originally Posted by Frmercury View Post
    I find it hard to believe that anyone found SW, ES or DA compelling game play. These were terrible ramp-up buffs that have needed to go for years now. I find it baffling that anyone would argue against their removal.
    You're a pvp-er, their removal is an undeniable benefit for shadowpriest pvp.
    In terms of pve, they're the only thing that made dpsing with shadow any interesting. I might as well play arcane mage instead for all I care now.

    ---------- Post added 2012-08-21 at 03:35 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaesebrezen View Post
    What decision on Yor'sahj? "Dear god, please let my SW:P proc an Shadoworb while i Mindsear!"?
    We can't see something that isn't there. It's the same with that one or two guys talked about in a certain book.
    You see the ES slowly expiring and decide to prolong it by casting a dps-decrease move such as mindblast in an aoe situation. Much more involving than knowing you're 100% free to mindsear.
    Mind you, the game is very easy. You can as well argue that arcane mages aren't any worse than shadow because refreshing dots doesn't really take any skill. And you would probably be right about it.
    Last edited by Celentes; 2012-08-21 at 01:36 PM.

  4. #104
    Bloodsail Admiral Frmercury's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celentes View Post
    You're a pvp-er, their removal is an undeniable benefit for shadowpriest pvp.
    In terms of pve, they're the only thing that made dpsing with shadow any interesting. I might as well play arcane mage instead for all I care now.
    I'm speaking largely from a PvE perspective because that's what I have the most experience with at various levels. With how many abilities we have baseline, can spec into, and the glyphs we have to chose from in MoP I would suggest panning out and looking at Shadow from a broader perspective to see the complexity. Personally I plan on getting a new mouse just to be able to map everything I'll have.

    More on topic though RNG and dry spells that a player has no control over do not make for interesting game play. At least you could control SW in BC / Wrath AND there was only one, not two with short durations.

  5. #105
    There are multidot situations where you're better off refreshing SWP with mindflay knowing that your ES buff will stay for 2-3 seconds longer. Or recasting dots for that case.
    Same goes for aoe situations. Refresh ES on the last seconds expiring, math out whether you want to refresh evangelism or not, then feel free to mindsear. Figure whether you need a few targets swp-ed to get another orb or not.
    Figure out whether you can stop moving to refresh ES for DP spam to be stronger if you need to move further or not.

    If you know DPET of your spells well, you can mentally eyeball what is better to cast in the very current situation.
    'Keep MB on cooldown' is a rather limited vision of how shadow is supposed to be played. If you didn't do the mental math in tricky situations, you were missing out on dps. You were, possibly, missing out on fun too. I'm not going to be able to do that anymore, because well, the new shadow model will take away the math, there will be no tricky situations anymore.
    I'll probably feel as bored as Kaesebrezen.
    Last edited by Celentes; 2012-08-21 at 09:17 AM.

  6. #106
    Bloodsail Admiral Frmercury's Avatar
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    What Shadow Priest has ever made a decision to refresh SW:P with MF? ES or not you're spamming MF A LOT. Refresh is something that just happens constantly on Live.

    For AoE situations that call for MS ES doesn't really factor in because you're spamming MS. You're also spamming DP on the move regardless of ES or DA being up. You're always keeping MB on CD regardless of the SO count. (all on Live). There's no 'choice' in any of that so I'm not sure how you're getting any choice out of that?

  7. #107
    Quote Originally Posted by Frmercury View Post
    What Shadow Priest has ever made a decision to refresh SW:P with MF? ES or not you're spamming MF A LOT. Refresh is something that just happens constantly on Live.

    For AoE situations that call for MS ES doesn't really factor in because you're spamming MS. You're also spamming DP on the move regardless of ES or DA being up. You're always keeping MB on CD regardless of the SO count. (all on Live). There's no 'choice' in any of that so I'm not sure how you're getting any choice out of that?
    Mind sear, as well as DP, including its initial damage, are affected by ES. It is beneficial to keep ES up while aoe-ing. It is a decision whether to lose some instant damage by using MB to get ES up, instead of aoe-ing mindlessly, or to use SWP, hoping for it to proc an orb if you know that you'll be aoe-ing for long enough.

    If you're going to run 30+ yards away, and you're not going to die soon enough, it is beneficial to proc ES by stopping and casting MB (which otherwise you shouldn't do for obvious reasons) to keep DP spam doing its maximum possible damage.

    In multiple target (non-aoe) situation it may or may not be beneficial not to use MB on cooldown in favor of spreading/refreshing dots. But you still want ES up for that. You're not reading thoroughly.
    Last edited by Celentes; 2012-08-21 at 01:39 PM. Reason: de-walling

  8. #108
    Quote Originally Posted by Kelesti View Post
    But in continuation of that line of thought: all of the previous "synergy" reasons to cast Mind Flay didn't make you want to cast Mind Flay more than you already did. Sure it reduced the cooldown of your Shadowfiend, but that's already reduced baseline. Sure it was increased when you had Shadow Word: Pain on the target already, why not increase the damage of both to begin with?
    Well aside from Heroic spine, true... It's just feels like having a spell that you only cast because you have nothing better to do at that second is sort of lackluster... I mean the casting it to refresh sw:p was an illusion 99% of the time, but I guess I am saying I enjoyed the illusion ><

  9. #109
    Quote Originally Posted by Arlee View Post
    Well aside from Heroic spine, true... It's just feels like having a spell that you only cast because you have nothing better to do at that second is sort of lackluster... I mean the casting it to refresh sw:p was an illusion 99% of the time, but I guess I am saying I enjoyed the illusion ><
    MF on live:
    Orb procs
    Evangelism
    SF cd reduction on crits
    SWP refresh
    Slow

    MF on beta:
    Slow/speed

    While I generally agree that most of that isn't very involving, its absense doesn't make it better. At least it gave some point to our filler.

  10. #110
    Mind Flay on live: Reduces Shadowfiend cooldown.
    Limits the ability of your DoTs to do their full potential (Evangelism)
    Refreshes a third DoT.


    on beta: Shadowfiend's cooldown is already reduced.
    No longer limits your DoTs from their potential to a bad wind-up mechanic
    Shadow only maintains max uptime on 2 DoTs, a refresh mechanic would be even more boring in this scenario; The mechanic itself is nothing more than passive auto-fire damage. Treat our dot Pain as if it's the old Devouring Plague (with multi-target), instead.



    So the only thing we really have that's missing is Orb Procs. Mind Flay ticks have a chance to increase the damage of your Mind Blast. So did Shadow Word Pain procs. It didn't change when you were casting Mind Blast, you were already doing it on cooldown. So the lack of randomly bigger numbers is what's detracting for Shadow now?
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  11. #111
    Quote Originally Posted by Kelesti View Post
    Mind Flay on live: Reduces Shadowfiend cooldown.
    Limits the ability of your DoTs to do their full potential (Evangelism)
    Refreshes a third DoT.


    on beta: Shadowfiend's cooldown is already reduced.
    No longer limits your DoTs from their potential to a bad wind-up mechanic
    Shadow only maintains max uptime on 2 DoTs, a refresh mechanic would be even more boring in this scenario; The mechanic itself is nothing more than passive auto-fire damage. Treat our dot Pain as if it's the old Devouring Plague (with multi-target), instead.



    So the only thing we really have that's missing is Orb Procs. Mind Flay ticks have a chance to increase the damage of your Mind Blast. So did Shadow Word Pain procs. It didn't change when you were casting Mind Blast, you were already doing it on cooldown. So the lack of randomly bigger numbers is what's detracting for Shadow now?
    I do treat the new 2-dot as the same as 3-dot we used to have, except for the multidotting part. Recasting swp manually doesn't require timing, unlike keeping it up with timed mindflays.

    I don't get the argument about SF cooldown already being reduced. It doesn't make it any interesting. It's like, you have the system full of interaction, then you gradually remove different parts and make them static.
    Remove cooldowns, buff damage passively. Remove synergy, buff damage passively. Remove abilities, buff other abilities. Remove everything but mindflay. Make mindflay instant cast. I think I've just found a way to make shadowpriests awesome!

    You can treat ANY interaction between spells, ANY kind of interesting mechanic as something that reduces your potential because ultimately you'll be balanced around mages which will do more damage without pressing all these buttons or watching anything.


    I agree that we aren't exactly the most interesting class on live, in terms of what buttons we push and how we push them. But if you get into a situation which isn't written in the book, you either go standard way and lose dps, or reinvent the priority according to the task at hands. It is interesting, really.
    If you think there aren't any situations like that in three tiers of cataclysm, you aren't really playing shadow to its maximum.
    This is what I will miss. Because mechanics are removed, these situations will vanish. You will always go with the priority written in guides, since there isn't much to think about - every spell is on their own, and they don't make each other better or worse - you can virtually rank them from best to worst in terms of DPET and build priority around that, and it will always work.

  12. #112
    Quote Originally Posted by Celentes View Post
    Recasting swp manually doesn't require timing, unlike keeping it up with timed mindflays.
    Refreshing DoTs with Mindflay is as easy as manually refreshing them. "Timing" usually equals "refresh VT and follow with a Mindflay". It's pretty dumb to do it any other way, and you need a full MF because S&P is only a 60% chance. That's following the standard priority list of "cast Mindflay if you have nothing else to do". It didn't require any more input from the user than manually applying the DoTs.

    I don't get the argument about SF cooldown already being reduced.
    If you need a cooldown for a specific boss phase, you can plan with spells that have a set cooldown. You can't plan with SF. You can take the gamble with the MF-Crit-RNG-Gods and hope it will be available, or you play save and keep SF off CD until you require it. S&P was not fun to have, because it made using a CD a hassle, not fun. It wasn't tied on how good a player was, but on how much luck with RNG he had on Mindflay.

    Also, Mindbender has the same effect as S&P, with the upgrade that you can count on the CD being ready when you need it.

  13. #113
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frmercury View Post

    For AoE situations that call for MS ES doesn't really factor in because you're spamming MS. You're also spamming DP on the move regardless of ES or DA being up. You're always keeping MB on CD regardless of the SO count. (all on Live). There's no 'choice' in any of that so I'm not sure how you're getting any choice out of that?
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    It's not necessarily the lack of choice as the lack of complexity that annoys people. In the past, because of mechanics like Evangelism and Empowered Shadows - our DPETs were constantly in flux. Arlee mentioned the happy illusion of refreshing Pain with Flay as feeling like she was doing something more than just spamming a filler - that's the keyword I think to understanding the perceived problem: illusion.

    In the past, our DPETs were constantly in flux because of short-term buffs like Empowered Shadows and Dark Evangelism, even if this didn't significantly impact what spell you should cast next, I think we all got used to the process of tracking our short-term buffs and thinking about what benefit they were supplying - which spells became stronger thanks to their presence. This is especcially true because while some classes can build up their ramp-ups and maintain them the rest of the fight, we were constantly consuming and rebuilding ours: every Mind Blast (orbs), every Dark Archangel, every target swap in the case of old Shadow Weaving.

    The other conceptual part of Shadow that I think people feel is missing but can't put their finger on, is the non-intuitive choices we frequently made. This was accomplished through the multitude of synergies we had built up over the years - almost all of which are gone now. For most classes, if you want to maximize your AoE DPS - you maybe save up some resource (energy, focus, rage, but rarely a secondary resource like orbs or DE stacks) - but mostly you just target the things you want to AOE and spam your AOE as fast and as hard as possible until everything is dead. For shadow, maximizing your AoE dps means building up orbs and not blasting until right before the AoE, it means finding something to roll pain on (and preferably stand near) for the whole duration - and while praying for orbs during Sear isn't skillful, noting that your Shadow Empowerment and Dark Evangelism are going to drop and refreshing them is. The same is true for constantly shifting DPETs in single target, is it better to get VT on another target or to Mind Blast? Where this might be a straight question for other classes (which DPET is higher?), for us the question involves "do we have ES/DE up? do we have orbs? will the target live for at least ~16 seconds?

    These might be illusory, but knowing all these synergies and how they interact in real-time makes us better at our class, and keeping track of the oddities of our spec - was something we all came to enjoy. That doesn't mean that I want random shadow orb proc mechanics back, or annoying evangelism stacks (or worse, shadow weaving), but when all of that is gone - and we're left with a spec that is just "this is a dot that deals this much damage" rather than "this is a dot that deals this much damage, under the following circumstances".

    What I dislike about shadow right now, is that the spec is too simple, and can be too dependent on whack-a-mole style gameplay. I want a higher skill cap. We can point to Cataclysm and WotLK shadow and denounce the complexity as not being rocket science, but - looking at world of logs for any of these periods - it apparently kind of is. In the past, Shadow was balanced around 'what a good, but not necessarily the best players can do', it's been so simplified now that we're getting balanced around 'what the best players can do' - because there is no significant difference between the performance of the majority and the performance of the highest echelon.

    There are some things that I really like about Shadow in cataclysm (and obviously, I'm a shadowpriest lifer - so I'm not going anywhere regardless of how it launches), but if you thought WotLK or Cataclysm Shadow wasn't rocket science - then MoP Shadow is faceroll - for a community of particularly obsessive math nerds (which Shadow kind of is), simplifying our spec is itself an attack our spec: that's what's on everyone's tongue that they can't express. Who would complain about having an easier time? Shadowpriests.
    Last edited by Yvaelle; 2012-08-21 at 04:46 PM.
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  14. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaesebrezen View Post
    Refreshing DoTs with Mindflay is as easy as manually refreshing them. "Timing" usually equals "refresh VT and follow with a Mindflay". It's pretty dumb to do it any other way, and you need a full MF because S&P is only a 60% chance. That's following the standard priority list of "cast Mindflay if you have nothing else to do". It didn't require any more input from the user than manually applying the DoTs.
    You use mind flay on certain targets at certain time to be most effective. And you have to use it before the dot expires. It's not hard, but it requires maybe three times more effort than reapplying swp at any given time. Sure, to be most effective, yet again, you can time it perfectly. But it's not tied to mechanics and it's not punishing in any way to not do so.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaesebrezen View Post
    If you need a cooldown for a specific boss phase, you can plan with spells that have a set cooldown. You can't plan with SF. You can take the gamble with the MF-Crit-RNG-Gods and hope it will be available, or you play save and keep SF off CD until you require it. S&P was not fun to have, because it made using a CD a hassle, not fun. It wasn't tied on how good a player was, but on how much luck with RNG he had on Mindflay.
    Same with the old SF. If you needed it for a phase that is up every four minutes, you can have it. Phases haven't been designed around SF being up for every one of it. Neither will they be in the future. There was only one atrocity of a fight which absolutely required you to have SF up for every single phase, and it was achievable with S&P. But that was a bad encounter design, which doesn't really diminish the beauty of dynamic CD reduction.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaesebrezen View Post
    Also, Mindbender has the same effect as S&P, with the upgrade that you can count on the CD being ready when you need it.
    Mindbender as a talent is simply insulting. Here, have another shadowfiend, our designers worked hard to present it to you.


    Honestly, from what I've seen in your posts, nothing ever requires skill, everything is simple, everything is shallow. I have only one way of presenting your point of view to the world:
    Shadowpriests are extremely simple. Mind blast on cd requires no skill. Pushing DP button requires no skill. Keeping dots up requires no skill. Mindflaying requires no skill. You shouldn't play shadowpriests because they require no skill and are easy anyway. Reroll arcane mages.
    I cannot fathom how boring the game must seem to you.

    Just trying to lure some objective thoughts in terms of what requires input and what doesn't.
    Take any class, any dps spec. What you can do with it as a designer is a) remove mechanics; b) add mechanics and c) alter mechanics. First two seem pretty straightforward, the last one is more or less a combination of the first two. Generally, removing mechanics makes classes simpler, adding mechanics makes classes more complicated. Neither are good or bad, depending on how good or bad the current mechanics work. You don't make classes more interesting by removing mechanics, you can only make them more playable.
    Now, from what I've heard from you, the current shadow model is already easy, shallow, boring, and ultimately bad. But not hard. So what your point is, is it becoming better by having mechanics removed completely?

    Correct me if I'm wrong in any of this. I'd like to hear what you actually find exciting.

  15. #115
    Quote Originally Posted by Celentes View Post
    You use mind flay on certain targets at certain time to be most effective.
    Since VT and SW:P duration align perfectly, the simpliest (and most effective) way is just to reapply VT followed by a MF. That's stupidly easy to do.

    You do loose damage when you manually reapply SW:P too early (you're wasting GCDS), you do not loose any damage when you refresh with MF (not counting loosing damage at your primary target, because that happens in both cases).
    which doesn't really diminish the beauty of dynamic CD reduction.
    There is no beauty in a dynamic CD reduction. Either you don't need a CD for a specific fight phase, then you use it on cooldown. Or you need it for a specific fight phase, then you keep it off cooldown after a certain point. The second option is not possible with S&P. Further there was no skill involved in S&P, since MF is the Filler spell, there was only luck on MF crits.
    Shadowpriests are extremely simple.
    The general gameplay has always been: Keep your two DoTs up, use MB on CD, else Mindflay. Nothing (actually the T10 set bonus and super high haste values did, which resulted in damage buff for MB combined with Shadoworbs) ever changed that.

    So what your point is, is it becoming better by having mechanics removed completely?
    What i've been trying to tell you for how many posts is that the mechanics were removed because they didn't have any impact on gameplay at all.
    Generally, removing mechanics makes classes simpler, adding mechanics makes classes more complicated.
    That is the flaw in your way of thinking. More mechanics doesn't automatically mean it's more complicated.

    Evangelism didn't do anything, S&P didn't do anything to make the class more complicated. P&S didn't to anything on normal fights (when P&S was implemented DP replaced SW:P as a recastable DoT), while on gimmick fights it was OP by increasing your Orb generation and providing a DPS increase over manually applying it (and what i wrote above), even ES was completely neglectable at T13 unless you had to Mindsear (which is usually one boss per raiding tier), i'd say it was also neglectable in T12 due to encounter design.

    All those mechanics were removed because they ultimately had close to no (positive) impact on gameplay.
    I'd like to hear what you actually find exciting.
    What made shadow interesting during BC (and WotLK) was not to DoT-clip and correctly clipping MF for MB. That was far more rewarding then the bunch of mainly passive/ignorable effects put onto MF.
    Last edited by Kaesebrezen; 2012-08-21 at 07:28 PM.

  16. #116
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Arlee View Post
    Well aside from Heroic spine, true... It's just feels like having a spell that you only cast because you have nothing better to do at that second is sort of lackluster... I mean the casting it to refresh sw:p was an illusion 99% of the time, but I guess I am saying I enjoyed the illusion ><
    Logically though, isn't there always going to be a spell/ability that gets cast/used because you have nothing better to do at that second? The nature of a priority system is that something has to be at the bottom of the list. I think the difference now with a more proc based skill set--should you talent that direction--is that there are occasions where you never get near the bottom of the list.

  17. #117
    Deleted
    is it confirmed that the racial bonuses from pandaren goes live? double bufffood? i cant realy think this go on. because all progress raider will change to pandaren.

  18. #118
    Quote Originally Posted by hanswc View Post
    is it confirmed that the racial bonuses from pandaren goes live? double bufffood? i cant realy think this go on. because all progress raider will change to pandaren.
    If a healer's race-changing for profession bonuses, they should be going to Blood Elf. No exceptions. Double Food doesn't even come close.

    Edit: Lolz, forgot which thread I was going in.

    Anyways, how close is Undead/Troll simming?
    Last edited by Kelesti; 2012-08-23 at 03:37 PM.
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  19. #119
    @Kaesebrezen

    Well, comparing to how they changed spriests between BC and wotlk, I guess all of this really does seem minor.

    Still, I stand by my point. I would like them to give us something involving and rewarding instead of mainly passive/ignorable effects that was our synergy for the 'common' situation, but they didn't, and yet they removed them as well.
    If it's one fight per tier, one specific trash pack, one small situation where I was required to alter the basic priority and think, I would play exactly for this. And once you've learned the way of dealing with those, you never stop watching all of the things you're supposed to watch, even if that would make no impact on the normal play. I guess this is what I am missing. And I personally don't think that it's a good idea to remove mechanics that make little impact on the game. I'd rather see them make more impact by widening the amount of situations they would matter for.

  20. #120
    Deleted
    I'm in agreement with Celentes and SkillOverKill here.

    On live, if you don't make the little decisions, the very small changes in the priority that is required from how the class works (especially in multidot/aoe scenarios) mean the different between 40k dps and 35k dps. The fact that if you make a mistake at high-end gameplay can mean your dps suffers a bit.
    I think that Blackthorn was the most fun fight I've ever played on my priest, and I'm sure it was up there for most of you guys aswell. The main reason is the amount of stuff going on, the amount of decisions to make, the dot refreshing (NOT via MF half of the time) tracking ES, keeping Evanglism up cause you werent MFing because of the dotting. It was so much fun tracking everything, adapting to what was up and what we needed up. Then you can also factor in trink proccs. I've never played a more engaging and fun fight simply because the skill cap to do great dps was a lot higher than most classes. If I wanted to beat out a combat rogue I would have to do a lot more intelligent gameplay than simply hitting Blade Flurry and lolling all over SS and Evis. To me that was about as rewarding as the game gets. Knowing you have to play well, smartly and calmly to get to the potential great dps.

    When 5.0.4 goes live, go and try blackthorn with the new build, sure its still engaging and fun to dot everything and hit MB off CD but there is no real test of the players skill aside from targetting several mobs and pushing two dots.

    Another example; If you want your shadowfiend off CD for spine or something you HAVE to mindflay, you have to go out of your way to mindflay. This was, for me, a lot of fun. Sometimes it's not about over all dps (like spine isnt really) its about being intelligent about how you can play to make sure you get what you need when you need it most.
    Sure in the new build it will be a 1min cd if you take MBe so it would be up every time but I dont find that as fun or rewarding. There is no skill or pre-planning involved in pushing Mbe every 1 min.

    I've said this time and time again. To play a shadow priest on live it really isnt that hard but to be a great shadow priest and squeeze every last part of dps out of your character then its becomes quite difficult, engaging and ultimately fun and rewarding. The learning of BETA shadow is so rediculously easy and it doesnt take much more effort to play it theoretically perfectly.

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