Shadow: Why don't Spriests have DPS cooldowns?

[villie]

Except that when this once mentioned, reduce the damage of Wings to increase sustained in MoP Beta I believe, Ret screamed to keep its wings... "Now its not worth using!"

No doubt they did, however i would hazard a guess that 90% of the rets screaming for the damage to stay on wings were doing so from a pve standpoint. Ret "double dips" from the cd problem with having two very strong abilities that they have to be balanced around wings and holy avenger so their sustained is pretty low. Good rets stagger their cds and dont swifty them in one macro.

Back on topic tho, the simple fact is that giving a dot based class a strong dps cooldown is going to put their sustained in the toilet. Warlocks were screaming for a cd for ages and when they got it affliction specs suddenly wondered why their dots hit like a wet noodle, as dark soul increased their damage so much with haunt.

The game needs less massive cds, yes they are fun, but they cause so much balance issues when they have to be accounted for when tuning healing and cc etc.

Shadow gets its burst from talents and is dictated by encounter/playstyle/comp/opponents, thats a good thing as the spec has choices on how to do damage that are pretty diverse. Front loading a big chunk of their damage into a large cooldown will just make them even worse at being trained and since you'll never get the damage out and because you are balanced around this theoretical output your sustained dot damage will suck balls.

[Deleted]

Not sure if anyone noticed but in the final boss interview celestialon mentioned that he had people in his office all day long doing things such as discussing priest cooldowns and other cool stuff.


No linkable source sorry

[Terahertz]

Why -would- you even want DPS cooldowns? All they do is promote stupid "one-shot" macros. Besides that, most of the time you'll be using them when your proc trinkets proc.

[Deleted]

Shadowfiend. Fire and forget.

[Yvaelle]

Shadowfiend. Fire and forget.

More like Forget and "You're Fired, Shadowfiend."

[Deleted]

Right, I understand that some consider the 3 orb mechanic to be a cooldown but with that logic chaos bolt and arcane barrage would also be cooldowns. I want something fucking badass that looks like like Dark Archangel but even bigger wings and increase haste, mastery or crit in some fashion. I just feel so weak while playing my shadow priest if I don't have my 2 or 3 orbs @ the pull, which isn't always

[Thunderbleem]

I'm an herbalist troll shadow priest, so when I hit berserking with lifeblood that's something absurd like 80% haste. Sync that with an on-use trinket and Shadowfiend, and suddenly I have a DPS cooldown. In PvP people absolutely melt with this combo, especially if you do it with 3 orbs and perhaps some Mind Spike or Mind Blast procs to go with it (along with a blanket silence if it's a caster or on the target's healer). The best part is it's almost completely unpredictable and can kill or nearly kill someone in an instantaneous swap.

[Calamari]

I'm an herbalist troll shadow priest, so when I hit berserking with lifeblood that's something absurd like 80% haste. Sync that with an on-use trinket and Shadowfiend, and suddenly I have a DPS cooldown. In PvP people absolutely melt with this combo, especially if you do it with 3 orbs and perhaps some Mind Spike or Mind Blast procs to go with it (along with a blanket silence if it's a caster or on the target's healer). The best part is it's almost completely unpredictable and can kill or nearly kill someone in an instantaneous swap.

I don't mean to be snarky when I say this, but only a small part of shadow priests are trolls and/or herbalists. While berserking and herbalism is an awesome combo, it does not fix the general lack of shadow specific dps cds.

Since the general trend seems to be going towards minimal amount of dps cds for dps specs, it is unpleasant to have a primary dps cd that is exclusively a single target dps boost, compared to say a warrior's recklessness, a warlock's dark soul, or a mage's arcane power / icy veins / combustion, all which provide both a single target and AoE dps boost.

Would kind of wish Power Infusion and Fiend would swap places, as PI is a much versatile and reliable dps cd. That would free up Mind Bender's spot for that AoE finisher talent *wink wink* *nudge nudge* *wink wink* @ Blizzard

[Thunderbleem]

I don't mean to be snarky when I say this, but only a small part of shadow priests are trolls and/or herbalists. While berserking and herbalism is an awesome combo, it does not fix the general lack of shadow specific dps cds.

No snarkiness detected, good sir. I guess I wasn't really trying to excuse the lack of a DPS CD, I was just pointing out that being a troll herbalist spriest is AWESOME and if you want a "DPS CD" you might be interested in trying it. Because it owns. And stuff. In fact, if I had a DPS CD ability to add to that, it'd probably be horrendously overpowered.

[Dierdre]

No snarkiness detected, good sir. I guess I wasn't really trying to excuse the lack of a DPS CD, I was just pointing out that being a troll herbalist spriest is AWESOME and if you want a "DPS CD" you might be interested in trying it. Because it owns. And stuff. In fact, if I had a DPS CD ability to add to that, it'd probably be horrendously overpowered.

If you're a troll herbalist, I have TWO bad news for you... :P

[Thunderbleem]

If you're a troll herbalist, I have TWO bad news for you... :P

I confused

[Dierdre]

I confused

For WoD berserking is getting nerfed and lifeblood is gone.

[Dalverick]

I'm pretty sure the actual reason shadow doesn't have a true "DPS" cooldown is because of homogenization.

I'm positive this question was asked and GC said "we don't want every spec to have a dps cooldown because then it feels like homogenization" or something similar. So his rationalization is shadow is unique because it does -not- have a dps cooldown apparently.

[Vargur]

In Cataclysm we had Dark Archangel - so we actually did have a DPS cooldown going into MoP which we lost this expansion.

Overall, I do agree with the argument that as a sustained damage class - having strong cooldowns is problematic for balance, and will most likely make us weaker overall.

With that said, I think we should start with full Orbs - over a 5-15 minute boss fight the damage gain is trivial, but the feel of starting every fight without them is just 'not fun' and makes us feel hard done-by (and rightfully so even). Starting with orbs would make the class feel more 'fun' without really altering our overall DPS: that's the sort of fix that should be a no-brainer.

Cataclysm was awesome, CD wise. Even if it did include the 4p T13.

[Keosen]

For WoD berserking is getting nerfed and lifeblood is gone.

Yeah huge nerf, 5%
Still you'll be forced to go troll if you raiding with hardcores.
Blizzard has a really distorted view of equality.

[villie]

Yeah huge nerf, 5%
Still you'll be forced to go troll if you raiding with hardcores.
Blizzard has a really distorted view of equality.

Isn't it actually when you factor in snapshotting is going away, and dots will update dynamically?

5% is huge in pvp if it allows you to make otherwise unobtainable breakpoints that add DP ticks during your burst not to mention being able to channel 4/5 full insanitys.

Its all relative to your gear, 1%haste is more powerful than 5% haste if it tips you over breakpoints, as its value drops off until to start to approach a new breakpoint. All that is going away in WoD, as it stands wouldn't the troll racial would be totally overpowered compared to the other WoD racials? however with the changes to haste its still good, just in line with the others

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

no need to bloat the game even more ._.

[Drye]

Yeah huge nerf, 5%
Still you'll be forced to go troll if you raiding with hardcores.
Blizzard has a really distorted view of equality.

With dot snapshotting gone, it won't be that strong. Best racial for horde will most likely be either gob/be at the start and Tauren for later. Tauren might just win overall because of the extra hp for progression.

Finger crossed that UD racial is finally viable.

[BooQT]

With dot snapshotting gone, it won't be that strong. Best racial for horde will most likely be either gob/be at the start and Tauren for later. Tauren might just win overall because of the extra hp for progression.

Finger crossed that UD racial is finally viable.

It will still be useful to speed up your fiend at least. I really...really don't want to be a cow

[Dierdre]

5% is huge in pvp if it allows you to make otherwise unobtainable breakpoints

No breakpoints in WoD either.