Making a comeback to WoW, and I'm thinking a Shadow Priest full time. Any thoughts?

[Drfireburns]

For some time I had been reading that Shadow Priests were under powered, low aoe damage, and just not a class you would take to 10 man raids. I suppose I'm needing input from the Priest community about our DPS and utilization this far into MoP.

Anyone care to help with this?

[Deleted]

in 10 man raids, shadowpriests are decent. they're not great, but not that bad either. they're middle of the pack, according to raidbots. you're not holding your raid back, but you're not boosting it either.

[Invrnc]

I'm not sure what you're asking... you already seem to know what our strengths and weaknesses are. We are at our best when multi-DoTing, while our single target and mass aoe are both below average, but not atrocious. I haven't yet heard of shadow priests getting mass benched for poor single target dps. Just learn the spec, learn the fights, and you shouldn't have any issues.

[Drfireburns]

I'm not sure what you're asking... you already seem to know what our strengths and weaknesses are. We are at our best when multi-DoTing, while our single target and mass aoe are both below average, but not atrocious. I haven't yet heard of shadow priests getting mass benched for poor single target dps. Just learn the spec, learn the fights, and you shouldn't have any issues.

I haven't played an SPriest full time since mid-Cata, so I'm sure it's a lot different now. Guess I was just needing some more input on the good and bad.

[Lopina]

I've played Shadow Priest, Frost Mage, Feral Druid and a twink Warlock.

Amongst all of them, I find Shadow Priest most fun to play. True, we are not top DPS, however, I believe Shadow Priests provide a touch of utility to the raids, especially to non-hardcore ones. One example is healing in raids. Using Halo and Vampiric Embrace we can "passively" heal the raid, while also being able to use Desperate Prayer and Devouring Plague to heal ourselves at situations, thus helping the healers a bit, which in the end looks pretty good.

But in the end everything depends on what you want your role to be. If it's top DPS, and top DPS only, then you're in the wrong section of this forum

[Drfireburns]

I'm not that concerned with being top DPS. The guild I'm going back to has an opening and wants me to return as their last caster DPS. They have a Mage, but are pretty melee dps heavy. I suppose they need the utility that an SPriest brings.

[Invrnc]

I'm not that concerned with being top DPS. The guild I'm going back to has an opening and wants me to return as their last caster DPS. They have a Mage, but are pretty melee dps heavy. I suppose they need the utility that an SPriest brings.

I think you'll be fine then. As long as neither you nor your guild expects you to be crushing meters, shadow will perform. It's a good consistent spec, there's very few places where it will be abysmal, if any, and as soon as there's a few spread out targets, you are in business. There's no need to worry that your spec is holding the guild back.