6.1 Shadow Priest changes and the future of shadow

[alencarandreh]

What are you talking about? haste is king anyway.

Because many ppl are using a little hast and more Mastery.

[Alanar]

Because many ppl are using a little hast and more Mastery.

Pve thing I guess, misread it.

[Jaigar]

Just leveled my spriest to 100, haven't really played shadow since Wrath (still have my heroic dislodged foreign object on my other priest).

Clarity feels so weird to me. I've been experimenting with playstyles, and I'll sometimes get 10 second stretches without a single cast/channel, all instants with surge and twist.

Insanity change is definitely nice for AoEing. I'm still in the habit of dotting up my main target then searing..

I was hoping for some DoT love. Void Entropy feels like lazy design to me. They could have added an interesting mechanic to it, boost DoT damage, or something. Its disappointing to see shadow priests go from a DoT class to a direct damage class with no decent DoT option.

AS change... I still don't like this talent. Its so hard to justify giving up all the mobility CoP grants (and its AoE damage boost).

[bicycle]

I think many people have the old mentality of "One talent build is better than the rest because X" but the specific way they have now set up the game is that with every boss fight you want to make adjustments to your build. Taking a look at BRF, there are a selection of single, duo and multi target fights, so you should not just make one build and leave it at that for the rest of the instance. So you always have "choices" or whatever they are selling.

Also i think the biggest issue with Mind sear: I is the fact that we build orbs with single target, so we dps one target to get decent aoe? da fuck. what about fights/mechanics where you have to dps evenly(Like core hounds MC for example), means we basically cant ever use it in those situations because our damage is wack. If we have a way to generate orbs through mind sear itself say, it might be good.

Spec AS, dot things, and searing insanity at 3 orbs. How is this not obvious?

[Bullettime]

http://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/Raid_T17M.html

Those are the current sims. You just have to use some simple math to figure out the DPS for AS and VE.

I would argue that those sims are kind of unreliable given the stat priority shift and how it impacts the overall picture. Like that sim is still showing using crit enchants for Entropy, despite Haste simming better, using Insanity when the other two options sim better, and when more "personal" sims are showing the race to be relatively close between VE and CoP when making adjustments such as taking SoD for multitarget or PI/MB for single target given the interaction between Haste and those abilities.

There's no denying that CoP will be our best for single target focused encounters, as it should be. But I wouldn't put too much stock into the broad sims like that that still clearly have errors or in the case of our 100 talents, are trying to just swap the end talent without looking at combinations that could/do work better.

[spiritsurge]

Tank god!!!

Now we can play as shadowpriests again!!! I might actually roll back from being disc!!

You say this as though everyone thinks the same as you. Myself and many others very much enjoy the CoP play style, CoP is the entire reason I swapped to shadow from disc. The very design of the CoP talent is highly focused on single target which is why its the best talent at this time. What it looks like and what i'm hoping for is that they buff the other talents enough so that they don't entirely beat out CoP on single target situations but become the most viable during fights with multiple targets.

My feelings VE are that it is a huge pain to use and is more trouble than its worth. But because of the AS buff it gives another multitarget option for players that don't like VE but still need to fight many targets at once. Maybe this will give some love to the people who won't stop complaining that they can't use dots anymore. Overall I feel like these changes are good.

[Adepressedrobot]

You say this as though everyone thinks the same as you. Myself and many others very much enjoy the CoP play style, CoP is the entire reason I swapped to shadow from disc. The very design of the CoP talent is highly focused on single target which is why its the best talent at this time. What it looks like and what i'm hoping for is that they buff the other talents enough so that they don't entirely beat out CoP on single target situations but become the most viable during fights with multiple targets.

My feelings VE are that it is a huge pain to use and is more trouble than its worth. But because of the AS buff it gives another multitarget option for players that don't like VE but still need to fight many targets at once. Maybe this will give some love to the people who won't stop complaining that they can't use dots anymore. Overall I feel like these changes are good.

The entire reason I stopped playing my shadow priest that I have been playing since BC is because of CoP. If I wanted to play a mage, then I would have played a mage from the beginning. Shadow was always a dot class and should have never been exposed to a direct damage play style. VE if my favorite talent at 100 but since it isn't viable, I don't play shadow anymore and started playing a rogue. I have been saying since dreanor launch that they need to buff VE to make it on par with CoP to give players a choice. I don't think 80% is enough and should be 100% with VT, SW:P, DP, and MF doing 50% more damage while VE is on the target. But then again I'm an old shadow priest and I'm dot class person.

[Biomega]

The entire reason I stopped playing my shadow priest that I have been playing since BC is because of CoP. If I wanted to play a mage, then I would have played a mage from the beginning. Shadow was always a dot class and should have never been exposed to a direct damage play style.

Totally understand where people are coming from there, and I don't fault anyone for not liking the CoP/DoTWeave play style. I personally do, though - I've played SP since TBC, and right now it's one of the most interesting "rotations" I can recall. Just my own preference of course.

[Thaylen]

I think the answer for many, including myself, is just don't DoTWeave. I'd be interested to see if anyone has actually sim'd out a fight of DoTWeaving vs not DoTweaving. I'd be surprised if it were over a 5% increase in dps.

If you don't get caught up in trying to DoTWeave and just stick with the MB:MS:Insanity rotation, you will still do extremely well and have a much simpler (and for some, enjoyable) rotation.

Having said that, I'm still in the "Shadow should be DoTs" crowd. I LOVED playing my shadow priest at the end of MoP and wished they'd not have screwed with the rotation and just buff'd the damage a bit. To me Blizzard really took a step backwards not just on Shadow Priest, but a few different classes by screwing with the rotations. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Vyndria]

im really hopeful for 6.1!

[1Snail]

I think the answer for many, including myself, is just don't DoTWeave. I'd be interested to see if anyone has actually sim'd out a fight of DoTWeaving vs not DoTweaving. I'd be surprised if it were over a 5% increase in dps.

If you don't get caught up in trying to DoTWeave and just stick with the MB:MS:Insanity rotation, you will still do extremely well and have a much simpler (and for some, enjoyable) rotation.

Having said that, I'm still in the "Shadow should be DoTs" crowd. I LOVED playing my shadow priest at the end of MoP and wished they'd not have screwed with the rotation and just buff'd the damage a bit. To me Blizzard really took a step backwards not just on Shadow Priest, but a few different classes by screwing with the rotations. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Priest_Shadow_T17N_COP_Dotweave : 30530 dps
Priest_Shadow_T17N_COP : 29418 dps

Those are the results I'm getting; a ~3.6% difference.

[Deleted]

I'm afraid VEnt will never be viable if they don't add to it an orb generation mecanism ( 1 orb generated every 10 ticks of VEnt for exemple, or something like this)

ATM i find it still too low, compared to AS in multi and COP in mono

[Deleted]

The entire reason I stopped playing my shadow priest that I have been playing since BC is because of CoP. If I wanted to play a mage, then I would have played a mage from the beginning. Shadow was always a dot class and should have never been exposed to a direct damage play style. VE if my favorite talent at 100 but since it isn't viable, I don't play shadow anymore and started playing a rogue. I have been saying since dreanor launch that they need to buff VE to make it on par with CoP to give players a choice. I don't think 80% is enough and should be 100% with VT, SW:P, DP, and MF doing 50% more damage while VE is on the target. But then again I'm an old shadow priest and I'm dot class person.

CoP is still very much about dots. Its just that dots are not your hard hitting abilities anymore, even more so with CoP where you need to work around your dots or weave them into your single target damage. If you use CoP and you never dotweave you are doing it wrong. If you use CoP and there are two targets and you never use dots you are, depending on how long those two targets are alive, doing it wrong. If you don't use dots on Imperator, you are doing it very, very wrong. More so, should you decide to spec SoD (which is viable on some fights), you benefit directly from the procs of one of your dots. Sounds an awful lot about dots. So if you could stop the bullshit that CoP isn't "for a dot class person", TYVM. The game has changed. Dot snapshotting is almost completely gone, and dots don't hit as hard as preMoP anymore. You need to accept that and move on, go play on a private server, or reroll to something else. For reroll, I suggest demonology or fire mage since those are respective dot specs for their class, and if you liked or miss preMoP shadow, affliction.

Also, stop calling VEnt VE. VE = Vampiric Embrace. If I start an ape country called United Kingkongs I can't call it UK either cause that abbreviation is already taken by United Kingdom. The same applies here.

[drivertz]

also, stop calling vent ve. Ve = vampiric embrace. If i start an ape country called united kingkongs i can't call it uk either cause that abbreviation is already taken by united kingdom. The same applies here.

trolololol

[Deleted]

Been toying around on PTR with the new talents.

COP is still easily top dog. Unfortunately i have not been able to test fully raid buffed. The new mind bender is really good damage though and Cascade seems to be a pretty strong talent since it double taps now.

[Bonkura]

If I don't have to use CoP on every fight I might start playing my Priest again. I miss using dots. =(

[Dierdre]

If I don't have to use CoP on every fight I might start playing my Priest again. I miss using dots. =(

Oh we still use DoTs, they just hit like wet noodles. It surprises me how they're not buffing them a bit for 6.1. On weekends I play my kitty just to DoT the world the way my priest should be able to.

[Succath]

Oh we still use DoTs, they just hit like wet noodles. It surprises me how they're not buffing them a bit for 6.1. On weekends I play my kitty just to DoT the world the way my priest should be able to.

I dont understand how blizzard could have screwed up the entire class that bad. It looked fine for a while in WoD Beta and then all things went to hell.
Well apart from CoP obviously. which is still hate to this date. its not shadow priest imho.

[Deleted]

I dont understand how blizzard could have screwed up the entire class that bad. It looked fine for a while in WoD Beta and then all things went to hell.
Well apart from CoP obviously. which is still hate to this date. its not shadow priest imho.

Why not? If you play CoP correct, CoP is all about dots but in a reverse or supportive way. SoD and SI are about dots (VT and SWP respectively). SA is about SWP, AS is about SWP. While dots don't hit as hard as they used to, they are still key to class mechanics. You need to move on and accept dots are not as strong as they used to be and our reign from Cataclysm is over. We're a different spec now. Its not coming back, so you are better off 1) rerolling 2) quitting the game 3) playing on a private server.

That's an entirely different issue than the reasonable opinion only playing 1 level 100 talent on 7 bosses is boring. Each class should have 2-3 viable choices on every row for PvE, not 1.

[Bullettime]

I dont understand how blizzard could have screwed up the entire class that bad. It looked fine for a while in WoD Beta and then all things went to hell.
Well apart from CoP obviously. which is still hate to this date. its not shadow priest imho.

CoP is fine. There's nothing wrong with more playstyle variety. The issue is that it's a large playstyle shift from the classic Shadow appeal and is effectively a mandate and not an option given the terribad balance on that row.

Luckily, 6.1 is addressing that to an extent. Void Entropy, even with the buffs, is meh but AS will be an option.