2 gearsets needed in WoD for shadow priests.

[Bullettime]

No, because you make a glaring assumption that anyone who doesn't carry two sets at two different break points is somehow trash. That's far from the case and there's more than just "if you're not first you're last"

If you want to min/max, then yes you should have two gear sets.

Luckily, min/maxing to the exact 1% is only really a concern for players playing at the top of the mountain.

The whole deal with having a "go to" stat for single target is nothing other classes won't deal with in WoD nor is it anything Shadow don't already do on live to min/max themselves. If you're not a bleeding edge raider or don't get lucky on drops, then I'm sure Blizzard will have the stats balanced enough to where you're not gimped when using a more "balanced" set of gear.

[Yvaelle]

The whole deal with having a "go to" stat for single target is nothing other classes won't deal with in WoD nor is it anything Shadow don't already do on live to min/max themselves. If you're not a bleeding edge raider or don't get lucky on drops, then I'm sure Blizzard will have the stats balanced enough to where you're not gimped when using a more "balanced" set of gear.

I'm glad you're sure of that, because I wouldn't trust Blizzard to pull that off - and if they did - I think they would view it as us being overtuned.

If that were the case, a full mastery stacking + lucky drop Spriest would potentially be the best single target spec, no? Conversely, if our multi-target is balanced around a balanced gear set with a healthy dose of mastery on it - then our multi-target in the reverse situation could be the best multi-DoT, right?

If either of those scenarios happens, every Spriest will get nerfed until it is no longer the case. What I fear many spriests see in this mastery is a possibility for us to be either great at single target or great at multi-target, or good at both - all depending on gear / drops.

What I think Blizzard sees is a way to give up balancing us - because if either build works they can claim 'Shadow is a single target spec, just stack mastery - you don't need a DoT buff' - or 'Shadow is a multi-dot spec, that your mastery still doesn't make you a good single target spec doesn't matter, just do DoTs'. If either build works, they are not held liable for our class design - bad drops (for all spriests in wow) are the problem - they get to blame RNG.

Which means they don't have to fix us all expansion unless both ST/DoTs fail by more than 13% from the average DPS delta (as happened in the start of this expansion, when I showed Ghostcrawler the 13% we were behind (from average) in single target and he implied it was an acceptable margin - so apparently it has to be more than that).

It's a pipe dream to imagine Shadow being both great at single target and great at multi-dot based solely on how we gem/gear - if it happens they won't be comfortable with it.

I like that they are reducing our raid healing to buff our damage - I expect to gain something from that loss, but I don't trust them with this mastery plan.

[Calamari]

@Yvaelle

I'm also extremely curious how well and if they can pull it off (we have yet to see what the new balancing gurus like Cele are really made of ), I'd like to believe the ST/multidot split on secondaries has the potential to give us the best of both worlds by allowing us to stack our secondaries accordingly (and gathering 2 sets for both ideal ST and multidot).

Of course this has also the potential to leave a SP with a balanced secondaries set merely mediocre at everything as you said. Ideally the difference between a mastery stacked Clarity build's ST and a low mastery/mixed secondaries Clarity/Entropy/Spirits build's ST dps output shouldn't be much greater than 5% in favor of mastery stacking. Not enough to get too worried about if you can't find that ideal BiS set for ST, but enough to reward dedicated min/maxing.

This could of course also turn out to be a real pain with the removal of reforging and greatly reduced gem slots. :P But at the same time we won't have to worry about loosing our hit/haste caps when switching pieces around, which will be such a relief. #GiefBeta

[Greyce]

All I can say is I don't play enough any more to be able to collect 2 sets of gear, but I still play enough that I want to do well in the time I *can* play. Hope it turns out we don't *need* 2 sets to be competitive.

[Sillychan]

Let's go ahead and assume that these alpha patch notes are 100% final and there will be absolutely no changes for the 6-8 months the expansion is in development.

Loved this so much I made it my signature.

[supersnap]

Why? Because you are unable to comprehend what our stats do and how the work with our talents.

This is bullshit, how can you say any non trash player is willing to go different haste break points but not willing to use 2pc 3wf in another thread. Since im pretty sure going 2pc 3wf would favor dp3 or gcd. Also going 2pc 3wf would make it easier to swap between the gear, but you made no mention of that fact until this shit mastery came out.

[Deleted]

Hopefully this wont make it to live, cause it seems really stupid.

What is stupid about it? I've almost always had more than 1 gearset and I see the need to have different gearsets as a good thing because it allows versatility. It sounds a lot worse than it is because you need to put it into the WoD context: no reforging, no enchanting, barely any gemming, every stat is good.

As it is right now mages need to have completely different gearsets right now as well it is just for different specs. Us too, if we want to heal.

[Sillychan]

This is bullshit, how can you say any non trash player is willing to go different haste break points but not willing to use 2pc 3wf in another thread. Since im pretty sure going 2pc 3wf would favor dp3 or gcd. Also going 2pc 3wf would make it easier to swap between the gear, but you made no mention of that fact until this shit mastery came out.

Pretty sure it's all over most theory sites, including HowToPriest. Most great Spriests I know are doing this if gear allows.

[Drye]

We've had our differences, but i think what we can agree on is that people will always see the sky falling without having the slightest hint of what one might call substential class knowledge. People will always focus on possible bad changes while completely ignoring the obviously great ones.
They will do what they always do: Cry about until the expansion comes and curse everyone who seems to sense a silver lining to the specc, then they will be confused when the addon hits because they are too stupid to figure out dpet values and rotational/gearing tweaks by themselves and then most of them will , as always , look to other people that actually know shit for advice. Over and over and over again.Simply because they are mostly lazy crybabies that need to be spoonfed in order to function properly.
/endrant.

Well said.

This is bullshit, how can you say any non trash player is willing to go different haste break points but not willing to use 2pc 3wf in another thread. Since im pretty sure going 2pc 3wf would favor dp3 or gcd. Also going 2pc 3wf would make it easier to swap between the gear, but you made no mention of that fact until this shit mastery came out.

Non Trash was probably a harsh word to use, but lets be very frank here. For players who are not at that top level of play, your gear sets are not going to matter. You playing the class and maximizing it to its fullest will. Which you probably are not able to do or you would be at the top level of play. This is relevant to current time and once 6.0 hits.

[allianceTrade]

Non Trash was probably a harsh word to use, but lets be very frank here. For players who are not at that top level of play, your gear sets are not going to matter. You playing the class and maximizing it to its fullest will. Which you probably are not able to do or you would be at the top level of play. This is relevant to current time and once 6.0 hits.

This is also an inaccurate assumption. There are many competitive and competent players who are not at the top level of play for various reasons. There are also many people at the top level of play who are not competitive or competent.

There is also the disparity between definitions of "top level of play". As of this post, according to WoWprogress there are 345 25m guilds who have killed Heroic Garrosh and 520 10m guilds. That's 13,825 players. Out of WoWs current subscription number of 7.8 million players, that's .01% of the subscriber base. It is a fair and safe assumption that of those 13,825 players, there are not many that have to maximize two different gear sets or two different gear sets at different haste breakpoints (specifically for shadowpriests). Even if you're top 10 you don't have to do that. You choose to do that, because that might be the difference between rankings at that high level of play, but it's not the correct way to play and everyone not doing that isn't automatically terrible or wrong.

One of the earliest FinalBoss episodes was interviewing Sparkuggz from Method and he said something that's very poignant and very relevant to this conversation. There are people that play this game that are good at understanding how things work and why they work (theorycrafters) and then there are players that are good at just applying "what works". Sparkuggz said in the interview that he is one of the latter types -- the kind that plays and tests things out and just knows what works and what doesn't. That's not to say he doesn't understand theorycraft but you don't need to be a theorycrafter to be good at this game.

[Drye]

This is also an inaccurate assumption. There are many competitive and competent players who are not at the top level of play for various reasons. There are also many people at the top level of play who are not competitive or competent.

That by it's self is an inaccurate assumption because I fully agree with those statements. There are plenty of players that are in top guilds that I personally do no respect and there are plenty of players at low rank guilds that I do.

blah blah blah. It is a fair and safe assumption that of those 13,825 players, there are not many that have to maximize two different gear sets or two different gear sets at different haste breakpoints (specifically for shadowpriests). Even if you're top 10 you don't have to do that. You choose to do that, because that might be the difference between rankings at that high level of play, but it's not the correct way to play and everyone not doing that isn't automatically terrible or wrong.

Oh hey look, another incorrect assumption. I'm not talking about ranking, I'm talking about progression. Ranking is a completely different subject, which rely's more on your strat or getting fed a parse than which gear set you'll use. How is changing gear around for fights or talents not the correct way of play? Hey, this isn't something new here buddy. Changing your gear around per fight and in it's current state, per talents, is nothing new to this game and has been around or at least relevant since BC/Wrath(probably in vanilla as well but we all know how TC was back then). The only reason it hasn't been as dominate of a thing to do was because of reforging/gemming. It just made everything very easy. We just Wont have that option anymore. We don't even know how big of an increase it will be to change gear per fight/talents. Stats are getting a giant nerf come 6.0/warlords.

One of the earliest FinalBoss episodes was interviewing Sparkuggz from Method and he said something that's very poignant and very relevant to this conversation. There are people that play this game that are good at understanding how things work and why they work (theorycrafters) and then there are players that are good at just applying "what works". Sparkuggz said in the interview that he is one of the latter types -- the kind that plays and tests things out and just knows what works and what doesn't. That's not to say he doesn't understand theorycraft but you don't need to be a theorycrafter to be good at this game.

You do realize your statement makes my point valid, not yours, right? The type of people he was talking about in the latter part of your statement are the people who are resourceful and are going to be doing what they can to improve their dps aka changing around gear. They're the type of people who will test things in game and search till they find a valid answer/reason as to why things work the way they do, they switch around talents per fight to find what works best. Who wants to bet, these are also the people who go and look at their logs and compare them to other people. They find out why they are doing inferior dmg and why someone else is beating them. They're the type of people who will switch everything around until they find what works best. These are the exact people who I'm talking about. I've never said anywhere in my post that you need to understand theorycrafting in order to maximize your dps. I've simply said that players who care about their play and their dmg will gear swap regardless and that this is nothing new.

[Spinalcrack]

I 100% agree with Drye. Players have done this to one degree or another for a long long time. Have you never swapped out a trinket for a fight? Or put in 4pc for a few fights but gone with 2pc the rest of the time?

Players that want to min/max 100% will build two sets, no different than mages that want to min/max, play both Arcane and Fire, or Locks play Affliction and Destro. Probably some overlap in gear, but mainly need different sets for different specs.

Shadow having different builds as opposed to different specs isn't really much different.

As I've said in other threads as well, the fact that mastery affects mind sear, means only on council fights this will be an issue. Single target fights, or AoE fights, for everyone but the most hardcore, you will most likely be able to run with Mastery/Haste gear or w/e secondaries for Aoe come out on top. How many council fights do we usually get per tier? A couple?

If you don't want to build two sets, I wouldn't panic during alpha. It'll be ok.

[Deleted]

Another reason why removing reforging was the dumbest idea Blizz has ever thought of.

Because atm it looks as your level 100 talent choice will be decided by the current gear you have and not by yourself.

Gear have a lot of crit on it but lack everything else? Auspicious Spirits is now mandatory.

Gear have a lot of mastery on it but lack everything else? Clarity of Power is now mandatory.

Dumbest shit ever.

[systm]

From what I understand the only choice you get in wod is going to be what gems you use, because the gear that drops can't be reforged. How can you get two gearsets until well into farm content? I don't understand, no upgrade will go to your "aoe set" over the mage who is upgrading a 5man piece.

[Deleted]

I am pretty sure i'll be running a mastery build for the whole progression since ST damage is never wasted while MT forces you into a niche that exists in about a third of the fights , tops. Look at ferals, multitarget is mediocre at best, but theit Singletarget damage is about as good as Shadow MT if not better.
I like having a pure st specc with multitarget elements, finally makes me useful 100% of the time.

[Deleted]

From what I understand the only choice you get in wod is going to be what gems you use

Gear with gem slots are a rare drop so you won't really get that much choice.