Will you play a Shadow Priest in Warlords of Draenor, first (as main character)?

[Caliph]

I played since 1st week vanilla holy/shadow priest all the way until 2 months ago. Priest is 2nd class to all the other classes in utility, pvp, dps, healing (except for omg bubble spec).

Just not the same. There's always issues that don't or can't get resolved expansion after expansion. IF there's something we like they change it. If there's something we don't like they force it upon us until they get it right.

So us vanilla priests who will reroll have had enough of the non sense. Who the hell wants to play a spriest without dots? Why do we have to be either a DD spriest or a dot spriest. non sense. Why's it so difficult to allow us to be competitive or even top dps?

Blizzard is stupid which is why i'm rerolling

[Deleted]

Blizzard is stupid which is why i'm rerolling

- Greg Street

[Maleficara]

Yes, this has been and shall continue to be my class of choice. I healed through progressive server first content back in vanilla even leveling as Holy (I must be a masochist) until reaching Outland and level 62. "Back then" we had true purpose in raid and dungeon adventures, a true identity. It would seem though that as Blizzard made game changing, dynamic decisions such as "standardize the mana pool" that identity was no longer viable.

Fast forward and Blizzard continued on with their legacy of "love/hate" adjustments to classes, specifically the real Shadow Priests, Affliction Warlocks. Having made vast adjustments to classes across the board "Dps and Priest" simply must not have been a priority when considered together. As such, we find now that much love and attention for a similar "flavour" of class, the Affliction Warlock was expressed. However so much love was shown that the other DoT'ing child, the Spriest, was then and is now relegated to the "red headed step-child" position in the DoT'ing family. It genuinely feels as if they simply ran out of ideas and having backed themselves into a corner had no creative path to take with the class what-so-ever.

For those claiming a truly good player is one who can snapshot, DoT clip and all of those other things, just stop. Yes it may increase your numbers but it does not intrinsically make you a better player or dare I say even more skilled. Encounters are about far more then your ability to get as close to a perfect computational machine as possible. There must be a blend between being able to handle mechanics, re-activity, and concepts such as thinking ahead for cooldowns, timing, and general performance that allows balanced standard of play. Playing any class should be, easy. Where a player will truly shine is demonstrating the power of that character in a vast tapestry of encounters and situations where in they can play off the strengths of others and help make up for the lacking characteristics of others.

Call me sideways but a game where in you skip progressive content and stack the "elite tier" with only the most "over powered" classes in an attempt to face roll through mechanics and find progression sort of defeats the purpose and excitement of progressing through content in the first place.

Blizzard all but wiped away the identity of the Shadow Priest and given, as I said, that we're the red-headed step child of classes we really have no way to go but up. The soap opera of nerf and buff shall continue on in its eternal path across the micro-transaction and subscription fee heavens, and one day we'll have an identity again.

[MoanaLisa]

It's rather soon to know how it will play out. Based on tweets, warlocks are apparently going to get hit with a bat, never mind a nerfbat so everyone who's assuming warlocks will be as they are now are likely to be in for a letdown.

I'm leaning towards doing something else since I've done nothing but shadow since BC but that has nothing really to do with the state of the class. There's more satisfaction for me for playing well--whatever the class--than being at the top of a DPS chart.

PVE frost mage (love the spec) or elementary shaman are in the running for a replacement but again, way too soon to really tell. If the class changes for shadow are enough to refresh the play, then maybe. More than anything I'm bored right now and that tends to color everything.

[Deleted]

I'm torn, I love my SP but I need to see what they do with them before I'll make that choice.

One things for sure, with anyone who buys WoD getting a 90, balance is going to be more important that ever, because whatever is seen as the "best" class is going to get re-rolled hard come launch.

For those claiming a truly good player is one who can snapshot, DoT clip and all of those other things, just stop. Yes it may increase your numbers but it does not intrinsically make you a better player or dare I say even more skilled.

Erm...I'm pretty sure it does.

Someone who is more aware of what's happening around them and able to use that to their advantage, that's exactly what "skilled" and "better" in the context of playing means.

[Yvaelle]

I'm leaning towards doing something else since I've done nothing but shadow since BC but that has nothing really to do with the state of the class. There's more satisfaction for me for playing well--whatever the class--than being at the top of a DPS chart.

I'm not so certain of that, all expansion they have been saying variations of 'Our internal testing has revealed Warlocks are way overtuned and scaling way too well with gear, and will soon be nerfed" - and then a week later they push a fix that says something like:

Affliction Changes:
* Malefic Grasp spell icon has received a visual downgrade, the new icon is now slightly uglier than the old icon


I think a lot of people expect warlocks to continue to be overtuned because of the dissonance between what Blizzard has said in the past about them, and what they have actually done to address the problems they themselves identify, or with which they agree.

[l33t]

No, unless it will be made once again baseline competable with locks/mages on ST dps. Because if nothing changes, and we'll still be unmobile, bad on burst, shit on single target spec (and don't forget about the absence of dot snapshotting!), we'll suffer even more due to unability to wear so-called "healer" items with spirit - since there is no more spell hit. So, any person who distributes loot with brains would give items to mages and locks in the first place, since their damage is potentially higher. Which, in result, will lead to even more delta between geared mages/locks and ungeared priests.

So, no. I'm waiting on beta feedback at the moment. If nothing changes, I'm ready to switch to lock. I'm tired of being second-sort. Affliction warlock gives almost the same gameplay as shadow priest, while having way more ST dps, sweet resourse management system, fine burst and mobility abilities, cool demon to have alongside, badass class mounts, and raid utility every raid leader will die for. Not to mention two competable specs to play if someone in Blizzard will smash his banhammer

[Ihnasir]

No, but I have 2 alts with Shadow spec that I'll definitely be playing.

[Dierdre]

It's rather soon to know how it will play out. Based on tweets, warlocks are apparently going to get hit with a bat, never mind a nerfbat so everyone who's assuming warlocks will be as they are now are likely to be in for a letdown.

I'm willing to bet, even with all the boosted locks, that theiy'll remain OP due to pop balance. Good times coming for monks too.

[villie]

Definitely switching!!! Geared my priest before start of the season and now having the most fun I've had in ages playing wow. Been playing a lock since TBC and SP feels like a cross between affliction and destro if I was to compare, but there is so much more to the spec now I've been playing it for a month or so.

Few things I'd change, take Psy Horror off orbs and VT needs better dispell protection, either increase the cc to 5s or add damage as healers just don't seem to be scared if dispelling it.

Sp is everything I wanted my lock to be, just wish I'd realised earlier!!!

[Aamu]

I'll most likely continue to play my Spriest. I'm rather attached to her after playing the same character for many years, and could only see myself switching specs at the most.

As for our mechanics, I'm fairly content with the class overall. I would love to have a baseline CD to use during bloodlust/burst, and an alternative to spamming SW:P while moving though.

My thoughts summered in this.

[Volitar]

Nope, I don't have any attachment Spriest. In fact even seeing my Priest leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I rerolled to Spriest after see how fun of an alt it was in Cata and now I just can't stand it. Only reason I log on it anymore is because it still has decent PVE gear for soloing stuff.

[MHSmooth13]

Probably won't be my first toon I level, but will be the second. I always find myself enjoying playing a Spriest (since vanilla), but ever since raiding in WotLK that I would get frustrated by work my butt off and never reaching the top of those meters. I leveled my feral druid (who I also really enjoy) and within a month was beating my Spriest by a lot, and then went disc/holy for the rest of the expansion.

[Deleted]

Yes, I will. I don't care if they get shitty DPS....I like my Shadow Priest.

This. Except I do care if they're shitty DPS ;< I don't feel like it is currently as bad as a lot of people make it out to be though.

I was really close to rolling my mage in late ToT. Had it fully bis geared and stuff. But I just missed the priest too much..

[Deleted]

No because with snapshotting gone, shadow priest will be impossible to play without falling asleep.

[FluFF]

No because with snapshotting gone, shadow priest will be impossible to play without falling asleep.

*Implying that non dot classes got more to play with than 6 buttons* also your comment kinda boils down to '' not gonna play anything cause snapshotting is gone ''

Non dot classes got the same 6 buttons to press than priest will without snapshotting, I was gonna ask what your stance was on Assa and combat rogues or elemental shamans or mages but I doubt it will matter.

Maybe you will fair better on a Balance Druid, 95% of the fight is Wrath or Starfire spam ( totally not boring ) but Eclipse will keep it's snapshotting.

[Deleted]

*Implying that non dot classes got more to play with than 6 buttons* also your comment kinda boils down to '' not gonna play anything cause snapshotting is gone ''

Non dot classes got the same 6 buttons to press than priest will without snapshotting, I was gonna ask what your stance was on Assa and combat rogues or elemental shamans or mages but I doubt it will matter.

Maybe you will fair better on a Balance Druid, 95% of the fight is Wrath or Starfire spam ( totally not boring ) but Eclipse will keep it's snapshotting.

The difference between spriest and majority of the other dps specs is that dot snapshotting is more big of a deal with shadow. Not snapshotting correctly on a destro lock, frost mage, hunter etc is MUCH less of a dps loss than it is for an aff lock or an spriest. Dot snapshotting is literally the only big skillcap spriest have left (should I refresh these dots before my trinket procs wear off or should I try and squeeze this last insanity in). So with snapshotting gone it'll literally be impossible to tell the difference between a really good spriest and a really semi bad one.

[FluFF]

And like 95% of the so called snapshotters use an addon that flashes big numbers and bold colours when it's optimal to refresh, which is probably one of the main reasons it gets canned anyway.
I don't know a single Aff lock that I used to raid with proclaiming themselves snapshotters which doesn't use Affdots.

A bit like failing your drivers exam 25 times and going back with an automatic gearbox and proclaim yourself the next Michael Schumacher.
Well based on your feelings you could always play Paladin or rogue I suppose.

[Deleted]

The difference between spriest and majority of the other dps specs is that dot snapshotting is more big of a deal with shadow. Not snapshotting correctly on a destro lock, frost mage, hunter etc is MUCH less of a dps loss than it is for an aff lock or an spriest. Dot snapshotting is literally the only big skillcap spriest have left (should I refresh these dots before my trinket procs wear off or should I try and squeeze this last insanity in). So with snapshotting gone it'll literally be impossible to tell the difference between a really good spriest and a really semi bad one.

hmm I do think there is some merit to this and I do think there is also some for the fact that there is addons which help so the skillcap is lowered a bit, I did read some interesting tweets from celestalon regarding enhance shamans not having a big enough gap between ok and great (paraphrasing) ideally that logic would continue over to the dot classes if the snapshotting does go

[Kanariya]

No. I stopped playing my Shadow Priest after 5.0.4 came out and changed up the spec considerably. I find it to be painfully boring and unenjoyable. It's almost as bad as what they did to Affliction.