I feel sorry for shadow priests!

[Shahad]

They could have easily balanced locks better instantly if they used their brains a bit more frequently.
The devs did a good job on the redesign but totally sucked and failed at every other aspect when it came to locks.

They should have never given them the ability to cast anything other than fillers on the move, from the start.
Their AoE talent should have been a CD from the start of the expansion.
Their current double dark soul talent is way too overpowered and shouldn't have made it live either.

They should have fixed doom critical ticks to not guarantee imps, they wouldn't have been OP in tot.

They should have never given chaos bolt buffs because for a resource spell it hits too hard.
They should have never given incinerate buffs because which classes their fillers hit for 500-700k at a 1sec cast?
They should have given shadowburn a cooldown, which class can spam 4x +1 million executes in a row (even more with havoc).

A lot of these suggestions would have kept them more balanced, if only devs had the potency to think before doing things.

Mannoroth's Fury never was that strong.
Archimonde's Darkness grants an extra Dark Soul per fight. That's hardly OP and is actually beaten by KJC because of the damage you lose while moving otherwise.

Doom worked fine, it's the addition of UVLS that screwed it up.

Chaos Bolt is SUPPOSED to hit hard because of it's resource cost. That's the whole point of the spec.
Incinerate hits for 160k in top Destro logs. Calm your tits
Shadowburn would make no sense with both a cooldown AND a resource cost. It's either or.

Destro doesn't need any mechanical changes, just some a few nerfs here and there.


Now, I would like to mention that outright bitching and whining about other classes is incredibly counter productive. Your time would be better spent thinking of ways to make Shadow better.

[tohuvabouhou]

Incinerate hits for 160k in top Destro logs. Calm your tits

You seem to be confused here.. you're trying to argue that warlocks AREN'T op here.

[Frozenbeef]

I used to love my shadow priest when it was a mana battery/ face melter... loved seeing all the little healers/ helping the group regain mana...now i just feel incredibly useless

[Granyala]

Your time would be better spent thinking of ways to make Shadow better.

The shadow community tried that through the fu*** entirety of MoP.
The DEVs have 0 interest to balance shadow.
They panic as soon as they see some normal mode numbers within the first ID and swing the Nerfbat so hard that shadow is gimped for the rest of the Tier.

I seriously doubt we will ever see a properly balanced, competitive shadow priest outside of permanent multidot encounters such as Protectors.

I really miss the days where my damage was half that of a rogue but my support was awesome.

[Prag]

It boggles my mind as to why mind flay isn't cast on the move by now..
Warlocks have theirs, mages have theirs, kinda. Shamans have theirs. Hunters have theirs.

Wow, now I feel sorry for shadow priests too, but I guess balance druids are in the same bo... Nvm they get ss procs like hell.

Mages have a terrible implementation. Icy Floes is not the answer and I suspect Mind Flay on the move isn't either. Kill two birds with one stone and add another ability with some sort of mechanic that rewards skilled use and doesn't punish for movement.

Removing Insanity is just another shot in the foot to PvP SPriests. It's not like the tiny bit of burst needs to be nerfed further.

- - - Updated - - -

The shadow community tried that through the fu*** entirety of MoP.
The DEVs have 0 interest to balance shadow.
They panic as soon as they see some normal mode numbers within the first ID and swing the Nerfbat so hard that shadow is gimped for the rest of the Tier.

I seriously doubt we will ever see a properly balanced, competitive shadow priest outside of permanent multidot encounters such as Protectors.

I really miss the days where my damage was half that of a rogue but my support was awesome.

Healing and tanking have outgrown the need to consider support in a raid. They all have their CD's, active mitigation, etc. Blizzard very clearly does not want any class to be brought for support reasons alone.

[mmokri]

SPriest was most represented dps during early 5.4 progression. Check www.worldofwargraphs.com.

[Granyala]

Mages have a terrible implementation. Icy Floes is not the answer and I suspect Mind Flay on the move isn't either. Kill two birds with one stone and add another ability with some sort of mechanic that rewards skilled use and doesn't punish for movement.

They need to REMOVE all that movement cast crap from casters again.
Give melee back their niche and even things out among the casters, then balance from there.

To be fair: they tried axing warlocks KJC, but a huge outcry scared them off.
I hope they have the balls to do something in the WoD beta.

[Ayarea]

I used to love my shadow priest when it was a mana battery/ face melter... loved seeing all the little healers/ helping the group regain mana...now i just feel incredibly useless

I really miss that too. I always had healers asking the RL to have me in their group as I always managed to keep their mana high. Was something I was competing in as well as DPS back then.... back then when I was actually a good spriest heh ;p.

[Silversorrow]

My spriest's horrid dmg on high movement fights is what finally made me switch to disc this patch and have my first healer character ever. I have 11 lvl 90's, have been playing since wotlk, and this tier is the first time I have ever healed, and my first character I have ever had without a dps spec, just because the horrible damage on high movement fights drove me to it. Other than shadow word pain/shadow word death, the only spell you can cast on the run is if you get lucky on proccs, or have 3 shadow orbs (good luck generating more on the run).

[Prag]

They need to REMOVE all that movement cast crap from casters again.
Give melee back their niche and even things out among the casters, then balance from there.

To be fair: they tried axing warlocks KJC, but a huge outcry scared them off.
I hope they have the balls to do something in the WoD beta.

I agree with you to some extent, but the past few years have looked like:

Casters not mobile enough -> snares/roots added
Melee no longer mobile enough -> temporary immunity, roots and snare breaks added
Casters slightly more mobile but not enough of a threat -> buff damage
Melee dying too quick -> ArPen

They've buffed and rebuffed and re-re-rebuffed so many times that they'll have to tone everyone back down... Then people will cry about being "nerfed back into BC".

[Granyala]

They've buffed and rebuffed and re-re-rebuffed so many times that they'll have to tone everyone back down... Then people will cry about being "nerfed back into BC".

Well, with WoD the numbers squish is coming anyway, so this would be the perfect time to negate that arms race.

[Purple]

They need to REMOVE all that movement cast crap from casters again.
Give melee back their niche and even things out among the casters, then balance from there.

To be fair: they tried axing warlocks KJC, but a huge outcry scared them off.
I hope they have the balls to do something in the WoD beta.

The move toward mobile casters came about for a reason. You're talking about a massive re-balance, retool and even the occasional gutting of all manner of class mechanics, abilities and talents. Not just on the caster side, but for ranged physical and melee as well. The continued push by Shadow Priests for this mechanic, that every other caster, except us, in the game has, is for a reason, and it has nothing to do with class homogenization, but the simple fact that in the current environment casters need to be mobile. Period. No exceptions.

And yes, it would be a massive change to get rid of mobile casters again. Casters, hunters, melee and their talents, abilities, gear set bonuses and various raid boss mechanics - and likely all manner of mechanics and issues I'm not thinking of - would need to be re-balanced, retooled, redesigned and just plain removed.

The reality in which a non-mobile Shadow Priest actually works is one in which we're still tanky, where we still have a passive toggle that heals us off all damage, where we still have far more damage mitigation from shadow form, where people don't have all manner of ways to completely ignore fear and horror, where damage our didn't break these effects, where standing still while channeling a snare was EVER a good idea, where all those things and more . . .were actually sensible, actually true . . . That's not the reality we're in right now. Anyone that believes otherwise just doesn't have a clue what they're talking about, and that includes blue responses.

Mind you, I'm not saying we should be mobile. In a way, even if I don't think it's sensible, I agree with you. However, if we are to be the non-mobile caster we need the passives, talents and abilities to actually make that work in the existing spectrum of other classes, their abilities/passives/talents and the fight mechanics of various raids. We don't have them. We don't. The end. Any mobile fight proves it over and over and over and over and over again, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. There are ways to make up for that, without giving us mobility, but Blizzard haven't shown any more interest in doing that, than doing anything else positive for Shadow. Heck they've even removed some of those things from us (and given those things to other classes, in a few cases).

[Tonath]

I agree, shadow preists should be able to move and cast, even if its a CD or something.

[Xorn]

They need to REMOVE all that movement cast crap from casters again.
Give melee back their niche and even things out among the casters, then balance from there.

To be fair: they tried axing warlocks KJC, but a huge outcry scared them off.
I hope they have the balls to do something in the WoD beta.

They may not have axed KJC, but no one uses it now. Having 2 charges of DS to always line it up with the Binding proc is FAR too good to pass up. As it is now, I wouldn't mind seeing it replaced with something a bit more interesting.

Also, the problem with the "OP" Destro lock is not just that they buffed the crap out of it to make it better (compared to Aff or Demo is was thoroughly unplayable in ToT) but also one of gear. The 4 set bonus is insanely good for Destro, and so are things like PBoI and KTT. Without those things, it's about an average spec. However, with them, it's a damn monster.

[Shahad]

They may not have axed KJC, but no one uses it now. Having 2 charges of DS to always line it up with the Binding proc is FAR too good to pass up. As it is now, I wouldn't mind seeing it replaced with something a bit more interesting.

Also, the problem with the "OP" Destro lock is not just that they buffed the crap out of it to make it better (compared to Aff or Demo is was thoroughly unplayable in ToT) but also one of gear. The 4 set bonus is insanely good for Destro, and so are things like PBoI and KTT. Without those things, it's about an average spec. However, with them, it's a damn monster.

KJC remains the nearly default choice for most SoO encounters. It is used by both Destro and Affliction far more often than AD.

[kardacz]

It boggles my mind as to why mind flay isn't cast on the move by now..
Warlocks have theirs, mages have theirs, kinda. Shamans have theirs. Hunters have theirs.

Wow, now I feel sorry for shadow priests too, but I guess balance druids are in the same bo... Nvm they get ss procs like hell.

The answer is pretty simple really - the snare part of the spell. Imagine the outcry in PvP of SP's having a 50% ranged snare that you could cast while kitting.

But with that removed I see no problem with it. Other sollution would be making Mind Spike instant or just giving priests a whole new spell they could cast while moving similar to Fel Flame.

[Xorn]

KJC remains the nearly default choice for most SoO encounters. It is used by both Destro and Affliction far more often than AD.

According to whom? Brusalk (who has been the go-to Destro lock this entire expansion) advocates against KJC as far as I know, and I can see that he, Zinnin, and other top locks are using AD over KJC. If KJC is the "near default choice" it's only because the majority of people are lazy, terrible at moving/positioning, and/or don't know how to cast Fel Flame. The DPS loss of casting Fel Flame instead of Incinerate is more than made up for in AD.

[Dierdre]

No one uses Fel Flame anymore.

No one keeps the priest forum priest-related anymore.

I don't mind people acknowledging the existence of non-priest classes in the priest forum ;p

~ Yva

[Wondercrab]

I'd really like them to get rid of caster movement penalties in a big way across the board and start designing PvE (and I guess PvP) around it in general. Turret gameplay just doesn't hold a candle to challenges that involve both movement and DPS rotations at the same time. The Brawlers Guild is an excellent example of how fun the majority of the fights in the game could be if they were built around high mobility requirements.

[Bigbamboozal]

They took away all MEANINGFUL way for locks to move and cast at the same time, because it was too good.
So I dunno wtf you are on about OP and fellow let the spriests cast and move brigade.

tldr: mmmno.

- - - Updated - - -

No one keeps the priest forum priest-related anymore.

Well it's fair, if you're going to use other classes as a reason to crutch your class, don't be using misinformation/bullshit/old mechanics that don't work anymore.
If they had adhered to that simple ideal, no one would have needed to bring up nonpriest stuff in the priest forum.
In short, don't blame the iron forge fact checker for debullshitification, thank him/her for bringing clairity and reality to the table.