GC's tweet for lack of a dps burst cd for shadow priests

[snaxattax]

everything you listed other than movement dps would be improved with a cooldown.

any other change would have impacts on PVP, which the devs seem to be concerned about (and nerfing). a cooldown could be given a -x% mod vs players and not pose these problems. it doesn't have to be flat +dmg, it could be something like making X ticks of your mindflay give you a shadow orb or something, but a flat %dmg mod would probably be easiest to implement. it would also give us some reason to be interested in our tier bonus for single target, as it would be much better to use fillers instead of reapplying dots (assuming dots would be unaffected by the cooldown, because for some reason being 10%ish worse at multidotting than a warlock makes us too strong for dot buffs).

even then, though, if we did similar single target dps to mages/warlocks (like within 5%) our slightly lower mobility dps (which is really not even that terrible unless they make a council fight of le shi + bladelord in 5.2) would be a more reasonable 'flavor' weakness than our current situation of having similar gameplay and yet substantially inferior performance at everything to warlocks. honestly, assuming scorch gets a meaningful nerf next tier our mobility dps will probably wind up a good deal better than arcane, at least.

[Deleted]

everything you listed other than movement dps would be improved with a cooldown.

any other change would have impacts on PVP

stop reading here. big cd will have major impact on pvp, besides i can agree with GC, priest dont really need strong CD like other classes, BUT we need a strong (although decent) single target dmg

as everyone pointed out thousands of time we have three major concerns (i use quote from Cookie post)there are;

-Weak scaling of stats
-weak scaling during lust/hero
-Weak single target dps

i think one simple thing will fix all of them, and dont have big impact on pvp
if we have Mind Blast scaling with haste, we got everything fixed
-Weak scaling of stats- my only worry about this is that haste will be much much much better than crit and mastery
-weak scaling during lust/hero - no need to explain (besides PI will be compared to ToF and DI - or at least so it seems to me )
-Weak single target dps - previous two will fix this one

sorry for cripple english

[Yvaelle]

Making Mind Blasts cooldown scale with haste alone won't fix out scaling issues - it's even bigger than that - but it's on the right path. Since mind blast has a cooldown and only hits a single target it's a single target buff, and since haste is much higher in pve gear than pvp - it has a much bigger impact on pve than pvp.

I'm tempted to suggest raising Shadowform's damage bonus to 20 or 25% (from 15% on live) - that way all stat increases grow together equally because of the generic multiplier.

I don't think a 5 or 10% buff would make our pvp burst anywhere near an issue after the loss of DP's upfront damage - DP would now tick 10% harder - not so terrifying for burst when you aren't taking half of its full damage upfront. In PvE, a 5 or 10% buff to Shadowform would raise our AoE and Multi-dot damage as well as our single target, but since none of these are exceptional right now - I don't think any risk is posed by the resulting 5-10% rise in Mind Sear/Halo damage, or DoT damage.

It's not as exciting as giving us fun new mechanics that make our class more interesting - but it's the sort of change the developers are more likely to make - because it's the easiest kind of change to predict the behaviour of (it takes the least effort to think about).

I'll inform GC, maybe one of these tweets will get through to him.

[Deleted]

Shadowform is currently 20% more damage^^. The reduction is 15%:P And 10% more damage on Mind sear would make us op in aoe scenarios. But we do need better mechanics to improve the synergy of the spec.

[Deleted]

If 10% more Mind Sear damage makes Mind Sear OP (as if suddenly you'd be top damage on 4th boss HoF ) then Mind Sear base damage can be nerfed. Mind Sear is nearly irrelevant for healers. In PvE it allows a bored healer to help out, and in PvP it can be useful to find stealth classes, but the damage situation is irrelevant (far more irrelevant than say a glyph of Mind Spike nerf). So Mind Sear becoming too OP is a non-issue.

archangel buffed all of our direct damage, including SWDeath, and if you were to update it for current shadow mechanics it would probably include DP in some way or another either in the form of a straight damage increase or some sort of short term orb gen bonus.

Look, spriest was strong in PvP which is all about burst this season, so a CD like Archangel would've made us only stronger there. The point is that right now if you spec in PI your average damage is going to be too low (and PI doesn't scale well). They can buff our numbers (in spells themselves; the base damage or coefficient), but that is just band-aid and affects PvP. Instead, what they need to do in long term is fix the scaling issues. The side benefit of this, is that PvE benefits from it but PvP doesn't. For example, in PvP, spriest doesn't get 8085 haste cap, and spriest scaling better with BL barely influences PvP (some situations in rated BG perhaps, not sure if PvP spriests reach their haste cap that way).

If our lead developer really cared he could've fixed this issue 3 months ago (and could've known about it long ago; instead he decided to give mages more diversity in their choice of spec ). Not easily, but he could've done it. If SimCraft and logs show we don't scale, and we can explain the maths and logic behind it, so can he. He's getting paid to do this! And I amwas paying him to play WoW (ie. paying his company to play my priest, my main).

[Drye]

everything you listed other than movement dps would be improved with a cooldown.

Not really. It would all have to depend on what the cd was and how it worked. The only one a cd would fix is the lust problem. Having a 3 min cd that is %dmg based won't affect our stats to a point that is ever as close to a mage or lock. Last I looked we scale off of a 3.2int ratio and mages scaled off a 5.7. That means their abilities scale off int almost double what ours do. Adding a cd won't fix that. They are in the right direction with the changes to DP. One of our largest dmg sources now scales much better with int and all of our secondary stats. The new set bonuses also makes crit and masteryscalung much better. Both of these changes show that they achknowledge that they know what the problem is and that they are trying to find out how to fix it. We have a very complicated dmg system and changing one thing won't fix it. But again they know, or at least it seems like they know, what's wrong are trying to come up with a solution to fix it in PvE.

This is one of the reasons I keep telling people to stop complaining. It's pretty clear what they are trying/will do. It's still early on the ptr and most actual PvE changes have yet to hit shadow. There was a GC post the other day saying that shadows single target might be too low and that some changes should be soon.

So don't worry yet people! Things are in the motion and will change!

[Deleted]

The scaling with int of DP hasn't changed at all. its the scaling with mastery that was increased.

[Xlordhypnos]

Blizzard doesn't know what to do with spriests atm. We are borderline OP in PvP (hence the recent nerfs) and sub-par and single target dps encounters in PvE and we are sitting just right on multi-target fights. Any buff/nerf they make will hugely effect the other side.

I do agree we need some sort of burst cd, but on the other hand, when the stars align and we get 2 x Surge procs, 3 orb DP waiting Shadowfiend MB and SWD x 2, that is a lot of burst to deal with in a short amount of time. Add a damage CD to it and it would be too OP. We are just in a bad spot right now and blizzard knows it and doesn't know how to fix it yet.
That's the problem you get when you load the shadow tree with too many proc based talents.

[snaxattax]

Look, spriest was strong in PvP which is all about burst this season, so a CD like Archangel would've made us only stronger there.

you and blgns keep saying that a 'cooldown would buff us in pvp' but the benefit to adding a cooldown to the spriest arsenal is that you can add 'less effective against players' to the tooltip and have it do basically nothing in arenas and battlegrounds. like have it be a temporary 25% buff (5% pvp) or even just have it do zero in pvp and the pve problem could be largely solved without impacting pvp.

they've done this for several abilities already (off the top of my head, binding shot for hunters is an example and i know some mage abilities have explicitly said they are weaker in pvp) so it's not like it would be a completely new or unique approach to solving the single target and overall scaling problems we have in pve.

And 10% more damage on Mind sear would make us op in aoe scenarios.

the gap between us and demo, aff warlocks, and surv hunters in aoe is currently more than 10%. even if we had a situation where we needed aoe in such a small burst window that halo would be deemed 'overpowered' it still wouldn't come close to double chaoswave + double felstorm demo shenanigans.

[Deleted]

Yes but it is something you want to evade if it is possible. (I wouldn't have evaded drastic changes for 3 months tho.)

Also burst isn't the problem. Heck we got a burst mechanics, CD. In T5 we got 3 talents which increase our damage.

ToF -> Execute, multiDoT, AoE.
PI -> On-demand burst, AoE.
DI -> RNG burst, movement-friendly, multiDoT.

3 unique mechanisms. I like it! Actually during beta I enjoyed the spriest class design (else I wouldn't have rolled spriest ).

Anyway, if they just increased our damage in PvE where we are weak (single target, movement heavy, AoE) so we're in the middle of the pack here (or at least not worst in 5 out of 6 fights in HoF) then raiding spriests don't have anything to complain about. Sure, they may still be the worst multiDoTer (if that wouldn't be affected, which is questionable) but that's fine! Nobody's asking to be hands down 1st DPS in every situation.

I'd like to know when do PvP spriest achieve their haste cap, if ever? Is it achievable in 5.2? If it isn't achievable then Blizzard can just tune the haste values down a little bit, so we reach our next haste cap in 5.2, and scale better in 5.2. Is this correct? For MBl, the damage it does can be directly affected by haste although this would make DI stronger.

[Purpleisbetter]

shadowform changes, i approve.

[Yvaelle]

shadowform changes, i approve.

He responded to one of my tweets (I sent like 5 yesterday) about shadow's scaling and I've run into a bit of a problem in how to respond:

Yvaelle: "Shadow PvE damage isn't scaling well with gear on the PTR, could Mind Blast CD scale with haste, or double orbs on crits?"

Ghostcrawler: "Scaling isn't a big problem unless you can demonstrate say a 10% relative dps loss going through a single raid tier."


Seems like an easy thing to prove by comparing relative stat scaling across specs/classes - but then I thought about the way Ghostcrawler automatically dismisses all arguments citing Simcraft - which makes it challenging to demonstrate to him.

Even just a preliminary look at Simcraft for the current tier patchwerk parses, between the parses for heroic and normal gear:

Class - Heroic BiS DPS - Normal BiS DPS
Arcane - 144488 DPS - 114006 DPS
Affliction - 132064 DPS - 103390 DPS
Subtlety - 124410 DPS - 95147 DPS
Beast Master - 122904 DPS - 95669 DPS
Assassination - 122683 DPS - 87111 DPS
Survival - 119878 DPS - 96348 DPS
Balance - 118091 DPS - 92374 DPS
Shadow - 112931 DPS - 88224 DPS

So each spec gained:
Arcane - 30,482 DPS
Affliction - 28,674 DPS
Subtlety - 29,263 DPS
Beast Master - 27,235 DPS
Assassination - 35,572 DPS
Survival - 23,530 DPS
Balance - 25,717 DPS
Shadow - 24,707 DPS

So in terms of relative DPS gains (which is what he asked for, not raw stat scaling, which is what I want to give him) - Shadow is very clearly one of the slowest scaling specs even after it translates into damage. With that said, I'm not sure he's even willing to admit the final result of simcraft is accurate.

Does anyone have an idea on how we can demonstrate to him a 10% relative DPS loss over the course of the tier? Either we can do it from 489/496 -> 511/515, or we can do it from 522 -> 541, both should serve the point - but I'd like to avoid simcraft if possible so he doesn't stick his fingers in his ears.

[Erolian]

Give him the raw math involved and say nothing of simc. I have a suspicion though that no matter how correct what you say is they won't acknowledge it until they're actually ready to address it and until then it'll just be "We're not seeing that problem it's fine" as always.

[Deleted]

He responded to one of my tweets (I sent like 5 yesterday) about shadow's scaling and I've run into a bit of a problem in how to respond:

Yvaelle: "Shadow PvE damage isn't scaling well with gear on the PTR, could Mind Blast CD scale with haste, or double orbs on crits?"

Ghostcrawler: "Scaling isn't a big problem unless you can demonstrate say a 10% relative dps loss going through a single raid tier."


Seems like an easy thing to prove by comparing relative stat scaling across specs/classes - but then I thought about the way Ghostcrawler automatically dismisses all arguments citing Simcraft - which makes it challenging to demonstrate to him.

Even just a preliminary look at Simcraft for the current tier patchwerk parses, between the parses for heroic and normal gear:

Class - Heroic BiS DPS - Normal BiS DPS
Arcane - 144488 DPS - 114006 DPS
Affliction - 132064 DPS - 103390 DPS
Subtlety - 124410 DPS - 95147 DPS
Beast Master - 122904 DPS - 95669 DPS
Assassination - 122683 DPS - 87111 DPS
Survival - 119878 DPS - 96348 DPS
Balance - 118091 DPS - 92374 DPS
Shadow - 112931 DPS - 88224 DPS

So each spec gained:
Arcane - 30,482 DPS
Affliction - 28,674 DPS
Subtlety - 29,263 DPS
Beast Master - 27,235 DPS
Assassination - 35,572 DPS
Survival - 23,530 DPS
Balance - 25,717 DPS
Shadow - 24,707 DPS

So in terms of relative DPS gains (which is what he asked for, not raw stat scaling, which is what I want to give him) - Shadow is very clearly one of the slowest scaling specs even after it translates into damage. With that said, I'm not sure he's even willing to admit the final result of simcraft is accurate.

Using your numbers. Please verify the math.

The first thing I did was check the percentage of the shadow difference versus the arcane difference. Shadow's at is 81% of the highest, Arcane. My mouth fell open.

T14 Normal BiS

Total -> 772269
Median -> 96534 -> 100%
Lowest (Shadow) -> 88224 -> 91,14% <- almost 9% below median
Highest (Arcane) -> 114006 -> 118,1% <- more than 18% above median
Difference between Arcane and Shadow -> ~26,95%

T14 Heroic BiS

Total -> 1007449
Median -> 125931 -> 100%
Lowest (Shadow) -> 112931 -> 89,68% <- more than 10% below median
Highest (Arcane) -> 144488 -> 115,74% <- more than 15% above median
Difference between Arcane and Shadow -> ~26,06%

Which also means, Shadow scales compared to median 1,46% worse on HC compared to N. Which is indeed not 10%.

I didn't check the other 6 specs. Remember I used median of all 8 specs, so this shows more than enough for me...

Actually, an arcane mage in BiS normal gear does more damage than a shadow priest in BiS heroic gear. On patchwerk (and yes arcane does not like to move, but we don't like to move it either).

Does anyone have an idea on how we can demonstrate to him a 10% relative DPS loss over the course of the tier? Either we can do it from 489/496 -> 511/515, or we can do it from 522 -> 541, both should serve the point - but I'd like to avoid simcraft if possible so he doesn't stick his fingers in his ears.

we can't. We don't have numbers from T15. We need logs to parse (e.g. via WoL, recount). We can only use SimC there.

Yeah, you could go to PTR, do one of the new fights during raid testing (nobody wants to do the old ones), and log, analyze but your sample size is then 1, on one fight, and you can't compare this with SimC. Also, you wouldn't have gear. You're probably scaled to an ilvl of 496 or something (T14 / N). Maybe your character is full BiS T14 / HC, but it doesn't matter, since you can't scale up in any way unless if you do bosses and gear yourself up and then sit on a target dummy with your new gear.

TL;DR with PTR you must use SimC.

That's why its so mean that he doesn't accept SimC numbers. He basically tells you: "Your numbers are wrong" to which you ask: "How are they wrong?" to which he replies "Ehh... I'm not telling you!!" to which you ask "Ah please, tell me so I can fix the sim" to which he replies "*Ignored*". Its an appeal to authority.

[Yvaelle]

Math looks good, but I just eyeballed it

Those numbers aren't mine actually, and if we're going to present them as you're showing, we should probably pull relative DPS for all specs for each gear level. All numbers taken from the official simcraft patchwerk sims linked below.

Normal:
http://simulationcraft.org/510/Raid_T14N.html

Heroic:
http://simulationcraft.org/510/Raid_T14H.html


Just so we have some scale factors to look at as well, here is Shadow scale factors in 509 BiS:
Int - 4.04
SP - 3.21
Hit/Spirit - 2.63
Crit - 1.72
Haste - 1.75
Mastery - 1.65


Arcane Scale Factors in 509 BiS:
Int - 5.09
SP - 4.13
Hit - 4.00
Crit - 2.09
Haste - 2.42
Mastery - 2.75


Affliction Scale Factors in 509 BiS:
Int - 4.96
SP - 3.98
Hit - 2.54
Crit - 2.08
Haste - 2.39
Mastery - 2.76

Comparing these to shadow in single target is basically comparing the best specs to the worst, since we're second bottom and arcane and affliction are the top - it gives a pretty good picture of how wide the scale factors actually are, and explains why Shadow's DPS is as low as it is. For the uninitiated, a scale factor is a multiplier of how much an increase in a stat increases your DPS, higher is therefore much better.

As we can see, an equal upgrade of Intellect results in a ~25% bigger gain in DPS for Arcane and Affliction than it does for Shadow, an equal Spellpower increase gives Arcane 28.66% more damage than the same increase for Shadow and 24% more Affliction. An upgrade of hit is worth 52% more for Arcane than for Shadow and Affliction. An upgrade of crit is worth 21.5% more for Arcane and Affliction than the same crit rating increase for Shadow. An upgrade of Haste is worth 38% more for Arcane and Affliction than it is for Shadow. An upgrade of Mastery is worth 67% more for Arcane and Affliction than the same mastery rating increase for Shadow.

Shadow is tied for last place of all DPS specs on Patchwerk, both in 496 gear and in 509 gear. This has been justified on the grounds that there are no Patchwerk encounters in the current tier. Since Shadow has an execute our damage goes up the longer / more often there are execute chances in an encounter. During fights with frequent adds or prolonged low health boss phases, Twist of Fate allows us to maintain a 66-90% uptime on a 15% damage buff on a number of fights this tier. In encounters where DoT cleaving is possible, SW:P and VT on secondary targets is a DPS bonus over our single target rotation (multi-DoTing), and many fights require a high amount of healing - where Shadow provides good utility (even though Support specs officially do not exist).

For reference, here are the other caster specs scale factors:

Balance Scale Factors in BiS 509 gear:
Int - 4.24
SP - 3.33
Hit - 3.86
Crit - 2.04
Haste - 1.61
Mastery - 1.91

Elemental Scale Factors in BiS 509 gear:
Int - 3.86
SP - 3.13
Hit - 3.94
Crit - 1.47
Haste - 1.27
Mastery - 1.59

Fire Mage Scale Factors in BiS 509 gear:
Int - 4.73
SP - 3.55
Hit - 4.10
Crit - 2.92
Haste - 2.27
Mastery - 2.30

Frost Mage Scale Factors in BiS 509 gear:
Int - 4.59
SP - 3.67
Hit - 6.23
Crit - 2.00
Haste - 2.09
Mastery - 1.92

Destruction Lock Scale Factors in BiS 509 gear:
Int - 4.28
SP - 3.39
Hit - 3.09
Crit - 1.94
Haste - 1.75
Mastery - 2.21

Demonology Lock Scale Factors in BiS 509 gear:
Int - 4.35
SP - 3.47
Hit - 3.07
Crit - 1.89
Haste - 1.51
Mastery - 1.86



TL;DR:
The concern about our single target damage isn't a worry about the possibility of fighting Patchwerk 3.0 - we are concerned that as our gear continues to benefit us less than it does our competitors, we will fall further and further behind. Since we started in last place, it's hard to demonstrate how far we slip without verbose numbers, for which I apologize.

---------- Post added 2013-02-03 at 07:33 AM ----------

That's why its so mean that he doesn't accept SimC numbers. He basically tells you: "Your numbers are wrong" to which you ask: "How are they wrong?" to which he replies "Ehh... I'm not telling you!!" to which you ask "Ah please, tell me so I can fix the sim" to which he replies "*Ignored*". Its an appeal to authority.

Too true :/

I'm tempted to just link him to this thread-page and pray that he's willing to read more than a freaking tweet for once, that or... <mischievious grin>
... DDoS his twitter accounts with complaints until his mind is flayed by my Shadowy will

[Deleted]

Well yes, I can do that, but I don't find it fair to compare shadow priest to arms warrior (they have viable fury 2H and fury DW) or BM (they have viable SV and viable BM).

One could say that assumes we should also reroll to disc (which is OP) and yeah fair point but it is a completely different role. The only fellows I feel compassion for is the ones who also have only 1 DPS spec for that gear set ie. the other classes who can heal shaman, druid, monk, paladin.

A pure who has 2 viable DPS specs has nothing to complain about. A pure who has 1 viable spec neither. All pures share loot with their specs.

So I will provide 2 versions:

1) One based on every DPS spec. I find such statistic unfair to all classes who can spec healer; see above.
2) One based on the best DPS specs + the other spec of the druid and shaman (since those don't share gear). This is more realistic in terms of progression focus. This means 11+2=13 specs in total.

* In the second statistic I won't include the specs with alternative weapon either (I always assume the best weapon in a BiS build).
* I won't include healers DPSing, but I will eventually cover shadow healing.

T14N BiS "incl all specs" -> Raid DPS is 2546339 / 26 = 97936.11 median (shadow is at 90,08% (!!) of the median)
T14N BiS "sans bad pure" -> Raid DPS is 1291500 / 13 = 99346,15 median (shadow is at 88,80% of the median)
T14HC BiS "incl all specs" -> Raid DPS is 3206303 / 26 = 123319,35 median (shadow is at 91,58% of the median, an absolute increase of 1,5%)
T14HC BiS "sans bad pure" -> Raid DPS is 1628577 / 13 = 125275,15 median (shadow is at 90,15% of the median, an absolute increase of 1,35%)

Shadow DPS compared to itself:
T14N BiS = 88224
T14HC BiS = 112931 -> 21,88% increase

Debunking the hybrid tax is justified tax:

88224 / (88224 DPS + 3611 HPS =) 91835 * 100 = 96,06% of our output is DPS, meaning 3,94% of our output is healing.

112931 / (112931 DPS + 8923 HPS =) 121854 * 100 = 92,68*% of our output is DPS, meaning 7,32% of our output is healing. An absolute increase of 3,38%.

Shadow HPS compared to itself:
T14N BiS = 3611
T14HC BiS = 8923 -> 40,47% increase

Our raid healing scales almost twice as good as our damage.

Keep in mind the old VE did 6% on caster 3% on party members.

So why are we ~10% below the median? It must be our INSANE healing and utility…

T14N of the 3-role hybrid classes (= those with healer spec) we have...

Above median: wind walker, enhancement, feral. All three are agility specs.
Under median: elemental, balance, shadow, retri. All three caster/spirit user, retri strength.

The same is true for T14HC. And they're not right under it.

Now, if I had Twitter, I would ask mr Crab Why is there a hybrid tax for spirit-based casters and retri paladins?

Lets see, Occam's Razor... maybe... because with same gear... they can also spec healer...?

[Yvaelle]

Thanks for the excellent write-up Lolalola

I think we've covered most of the math we need, now we just need to know how to get him to look at it and see why we're concerned.

[Verain]

I don't think mind blast scaling with haste is a great idea. This is a melee mechanic on a caster. When you put that on a rogue, you hasten the entire rotation. Similar (with integer breakpoints) on a ret. For shadow, I think it deforms the rotation, and leads to confusing breakpoints that will affect different shadows unevenly. Also, shadow dots scale with haste, unlike melee dots. Rets don't shorten their cooldowns- they gain more resources. It just so happens that their resource happens to be cooldowns, so Blizzard was stuck with that.

I'm with Yvaelle- a bigger multiplier on shadow form would be the easiest modification to make, unless there's something related to the rotation that is broken. It would give the desired result the fastest. You can see such mods for sub and combat on the PTR already, for instance.

Based on his most recent tweets, this is what shadow priests should probably do to demonstrate the issue:

1)- Sim a few specs, including shadow, in 476 gear. Make sure to NOT include outliers such as arcane and affliction, and also not to include things that likely aren't comparable, like pure melee (mutilate). So check balance, elemental, fire, BM, destro, whatever.
2)- Then do the SAME sim in like 509 or at least 506-ish gear. Any scaling issue should show up here.
3)- Link to that.

The devs don't trust sims, but if you can show that shadow is scaling worse than similar specs as gear level increases (and there's no reason to assume 5.2 would change this), they would look into it. They would likely take it a lot more seriously because instead of it being "the sim of the fire mage versus the sim of the marksman hunter" or whatever, you're using the same sim (shadow priest, or fire mage) twice, and only looking at the delta. That's a much narrower point.

How much a shadowform buff should go up I'm not exactly sure.


I think the scale factor analysis leaves out some things, and you definitely don't want to cherry pick stuff like "affliction and arcane", which are the only two specs GC has stated that are DEFINITELY too high and will be nerfed. I think the sim stuff you are running is the right path.

---------- Post added 2013-02-03 at 08:08 AM ----------

A pure who has 2 viable DPS specs has nothing to complain about. A pure who has 1 viable spec neither. All pures share loot with their specs.

Combat specific weapons say hi. Your dagger doesn't drop, you have two dead specs. Your fist doesn't drop, you have one dead spec. Nowhere close to suboptimal reforges on all int cloth gear.


More importantly, this is a hateful and uninformed opinion. All specs deserve to be viable, especially all pure specs, as damage as all pure classes can do. Goofy math that pretends sub doesn't exist and mutilate doesn't exist on Garalon and Combat doesn't exist on Vizier will be seen through by literally any non super biased source as being goofball biased bullshit.

You don't need deception and lies to ask for buffs to an under performing spec like shadow, so don't go there.

---------- Post added 2013-02-03 at 08:27 AM ----------

Specifically, I think the reason you should have a compare point without counting affliction and arcane isn't because they are pures (that bonus is much smaller than the edge those two have)- it's because of:
https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...88907180613632

Comparing yourself to stuff that they think is too high will just make them say "Oh, it'll be FINE once we fix the overpowered specs". You need to show that you need buffs compared to the specs that they think are fine currently, which thus far appears to be everything but those two.

[Deleted]

Right because combo points are a melee resource. Our resource should scale with haste too, or crit, or even mastery. I don't care but it should scale, we are the only spec in the game that doesn't have more of X when we have more haste. Only thing we actually get during BL is more mf, 2 hits of SF(i think), and a few more tics, and 1 addional tic of DP. This means that we got like 90% of DP that doesn't get a boost, MB doesn't get a boost. Those two spells represent something like 40%+ of ours dps in single target damage. So during BL 40% of our dps stays the same.

As for the last part, the fact that some specs are not viable is not necessarily a top concern, but having every class should be. Being viable at a reforge/geming is clearly not a obstacle, if you compare it to leveling a char 90, reps, gear, legendary quest and all of it. And the fact that your loots don't drop is completely irrelevant to the problem at hand.

[Verain]

Those two spells represent something like 40%+ of ours dps in single target damage. So during BL 40% of our dps stays the same.

I think a better question would be "how much does your dps go up during lust" and then start comparing that. Even then, that's a burst value- you're going to get a bigger boost than a mutilate rogue (likely over any rogue I think?), but not close to an elemental shaman.

Our resource should scale with haste too, or crit, or even mastery.

A move on a cooldown is only arguably a resource. Your resource is execution time. You get a smaller global, for instance, with haste (a rogue does not), and you get more globals in a set of time, and your abilities cast faster. That you don't get a faster mind blast cooldown doesn't even seem to be the problem- as Yvaelle's numbers show, your haste return is actually just fine- it can even be the highest, in fact. Why have a solution that skews that with uneven rewards that you may not be able to realize (aka, a shorter mind blast cooldown can crash into the rest of the rotation- you could end up having to use another ability and not actually get to cast your mind blast any faster because even though it was off cooldown, you were doing something else like casting or watching a global spin). That means that you get some other goofy cap that no one here is mathing out.

Do you really feel your rotation is fucked? A 30% shadowform is like 8% more damage than you do on live, with no rotational goofiness, unpredictable integer math, broken rotations, or skewed stat preferences. Why not push for something simple and understandable?