Poll: Do you regret maining shadow priest for this expansion?

[Deleted]

Question is simple. If instead of your SP you could have another class, same gear etc would you make the change? I would do it instantly.

Just think about it. You could be one of those DH/Windwalkers/hunters/mages that do 2 million dps on trash, have multiple fun specs, amazing burst, mobility, fun, etc. Instead we are a clunky mess.


Lets be realistic and bring up our pros and cons

Cons

• Worst aoe in the game
• Worst burst in the game
• Worst spec by far for mythic+ dungeons and ANY dungeons in general, which offer alternate route for gear progression.
• Worst ramp-up damage in the game - warlocks got their rampup issue solved by starting fight with extra shards however no mention of shadow priests who arguably had a bigger problem in that area than them. Imagine starting fights with 60 insanity.
• Only 1 viable level 100 talent, that is only ever usable in raiding due to 10 minute cooldown
• Whole spec balanced around that same level 100 talent, meaning without it we are bottom on both ST and MT, by far.
• One latency spike on 70+ stacks of void form -> dead, raid wipe because of you.
• One mistake on 70+ stacks of void form -> dead, raid wipe because of you.
• Put so much effort in rotation, hunter presses 1 spell, instant 250k dps - no reward for us.
• Absolutely the worst spec in duels, especially vs melee who have 100% UPTIME on you after they trinket the stun/fear
• Old shadowform gone, the bonus damage reduction forgotten about. Same thing happened with blizzard removing aspect of the dragonhawk from hunters, which made them go from having 20% dodge chance in wotlk to having 2% dodge change for the entirety of Cata, whilst other classes still had an average of 20% dodge. Took 2 years to get fixed.
• Balanced with the idea of miltidotting "council style" fights when in reality there are like 2 in 60 encounters
• Have an offspec of holy, which is by far the most dull and uninteresting healing spec in the game. Compare holy to something like misweaver or resto mechanics.
• S2M kills you on fights that your guild has on farm, meaning you lose your rune + food buff.
• Garbage damage while on the move, if not in void form you gotta spam shadow word pain on the boss - lol what?
• Garbage synergy with heroism if used at start - doing 140k DPS + hero while mind flaying for 15k/tick while other classes doing their 600k?
  

Pros

• Probably the most unique, fun and interesting mechanic blizzard has ever introduced - insanity.
• S2M can be used to cheese some bosses and give amazing numbers currentely, if your group DPS is low, for example wrath of azshara where i've reached 460k DPS.
• S2M is fun and engaging.
• Probably 1 of the best artifact weapons - the knaifu, amazing lore and interaction
• We are related to old gods even more than before
• Execute phase burst can be essential in many fights, exactly what S2M build does amazingly well.
• Good on spread out beefy adds during encounters
• Good synergy with hero if used at burn phase

The cons just outweight the pros by so fucking much. I am so sad I almost want to cry. Why did they make such a cool spec just to completely shit on it with bad balancing?

I am awaiting eagerly for the person that comes in here and sais this spec is fine.

[Woop Woop]

Two of the "Pros" you listed are for S2M.
So basically if you don't enjoy S2M, you can't enjoy shadow priest. Which is where I am at, not liking S2M at all.
There is just too many flaws that suck the fun out of shadow for me, at the moment. As you said, cons outweight the pros.

[Deleted]

Two of the "Pros" you listed are for S2M.
So basically if you don't enjoy S2M, you can't enjoy shadow priest. Which is where I am at, not liking S2M at all.
There is just too many flaws that suck the fun out of shadow for me, at the moment. As you said, cons outweight the pros.

S2M is the only thing that keeps me from going - knowing that I might actually top some boss meters. You should really reroll ASAP man. I can't imagine priest without S2M now, literal trash on everything other than some occasional "council style" fights? Nah thanks. Have a look at the sims for ST without S2M, we are literally last to classes that have multiple DPS specs, meaning you won't see these specs in raids, meaning you will be last by far - given that you don't raid with retards.

[Deleted]

The cons is not so much cons depending on your focus. I'll be focusing on raiding mostly as shadow priest.

This neglates many of your points:
* Worst aoe - only true for short lived mobs on encounters
* Worst burst - this doesn't matter in lengthy fights in a raid environment
* Worst spec for mythic+ - I find spriest with S2M perfectly fine as I can have 100% uptime on S2M on most bosses.
* Only 1 viable level 100 talent - S2M and Legacy are both legit picks.
* Dying with S2M - Playing with S2M is kinda like a gamble where your "skill" is put to the test. The skill will differentiate the "bad" players from the good. Which I like.
* Our complex rotation based on min/maxing voidform stacks/time WILL be rewarded once the encounters become lengthier (in raids).
* Offspec - Disc is probaly one of the most fun healing spec if played correctly. In mythic dungeons you'd need to overgear in order to make it, ut once you hit that threshold it's really fun and I can only imagine disc fitting in a raid environment better.
* Losing food buffs on S2M death - I agree, this should be fixed.
* Damage on the move - this is an issue that all ranged characters will have (more or less).

Also one of your Pros "Most unique, fun and interesting mechanics" weighs more than all the cons and is enough for me to play the spec.

[Woop Woop]

S2M is the only thing that keeps me from going. You should really reroll ASAP man. I can't imagine priest without S2M now, literal trash on everything other than some occasional "council style" fights? Nah thanks. Have a look at the sims for ST without S2M, we are literally last to classes that have multiple DPS specs, meaning you won't see these specs in raids, meaning you will be last by far - given that you don't raid with retards.

I mean, I'll pick S2M for raids, sure. But there's so much content outside of raids where we just simply suck at compared to other specs (mythic, mythic+, world quests not that it matters but even so).
And I tried to reroll, but I just couldn't find a class I really wanted to stick to.

[Deleted]

The cons is not so much cons depending on your focus. I'll be focusing on raiding mostly as shadow priest.

This neglates many of your points

That would be fine if doing mythic+ didn't offer gear equal or in many cases better than Emerald Nightmare. If you look at the loot tables EN only has I think 3-4 good pieces of gearing, with the rest being jacked up full of mastery, crit or versa. While we can get trinkets like Chrono Shard at ilv 870-880 from mythic+.

* Worst aoe - only true for short lived mobs on encounters

If you look at encounters in EN, pretty much all adds that need to be nuked are shortly lived, for example cenarius or the tree

Only 1 viable level 100 talent - S2M and Legacy are both legit picks.

Legacy a good pick? You mean talent that makes you from 10-15th best spec to last spec in terms of DPS is good?

Our complex rotation based on min/maxing voidform stacks/time WILL be rewarded once the encounters become lengthier (in raids).

Wrong. If you look at dps simulations you can see most classes maintain their average dps for the whole fight, meaning little difference willl be displayed between 5 mins and 10 mins fights. Different for us. The longer a fight goes the lower overall DPS we will do because we will have S2M only for 20-25% of the fight, as opposed to having it for 35-40% of the fight in 5-6 min fights

[Deleted]

Legacy of the void is a perfectly fine talent for mythics. Sure it does a little less theoretically damage, but if you feel yourself struggling with min/maxing S2M using Legacy is fine, and probably prefered as S2M is only usuable every second boss in mythics.

[Deleted]

Legacy of the void is a perfectly fine talent for mythics. Sure it does a little less theoretically damage, but if you feel yourself struggling with min/maxing S2M using Legacy is fine, and probably prefered as S2M is only usuable every second boss in mythics.

It is a good talent to pick for mythics yes, but that doesn't change the fact that we are utter garbage for them. I don't get why you are trying to argue with something that is a fact.

[BadguyNotBadGuy]

Imagine starting fights with 60 insanity.

I actually think it would be pretty cool if they changed LotV to make you generate 70 insanity at a rate of about 2 insanity per second when you are out of VF, and once you are above 70 insanity, the generation would stop.
That way you would start nearly with voidform available, you would have a little bit more uptime on VF, and LotV wont actually be that shit of a talent. (I honestly think that the effect you get out of LotV is quite garbage compared to some of the worst level 100 talents of other classes, it gives us very little).

[Deleted]

I mean, I'll pick S2M for raids, sure. But there's so much content outside of raids where we just simply suck at compared to other specs (mythic, mythic+, world quests not that it matters but even so).
And I tried to reroll, but I just couldn't find a class I really wanted to stick to.

Yeah I hear you. I would hugely recommend any melee leather class atm, if you haven't tried them already.

[Deleted]

It is a good talent to pick for mythics yes, but that doesn't change the fact that we are utter garbage for them. I don't get why you are trying to argue with something that is a fact.

Your argument why you don't like is basically "I don't like shadow because the spec is too complex and I can't top the dps".
My argument why I like shadow is because it is complex and i am still being able to top the dps. I'd never see myself playing a spec like BM hunter and feel proud over my accomplishment.

I'd say it's too soon juding the spec based purely on NUMBERS. Because this is all you complain about, that the numbers produced is not what you think (I don't share this feeling with you). That aside the spec is amazingly fun. I always find myself on top of the meters, but then again my guild mates might just be utter shit.

[Onyd]

Spec is fine.

The disadvantages are part of gameplay.

[Deleted]

but then again my guild mates might just be utter shit.

Word.

And never did I say that I don't like shadow because the spec is complex.. After playing it for 2 weeks now I can say I've pretty much mastered it, can easily keep 4 enemies dotted with VB, get to 150 seconds with S2M(41% haste), and do normal single target rotation.

And honestly, if you are first on trash then you are running dungeons with some really unskilled/ungeared people. My guild hunters/monks do around 1-1.2 million dps when we are pulling 2 trash packs in some mythic dungs.

[whywhatwhowhenhow]

I did a bit at first, but after opening the third relic and getting a bit of gear, it's fine. I even do ok on trash. I recommend trying one of the trinkets that has a burst AoE damage proc for trash. I use Caged Horror, it does decent damage on the big packs of adds. Got a 7 mil shadow crash the other day, aint no DH pulling 7 mil

Plus the priest campaign, shadow artifact and class hall are all amazing!

Could have been worse. Could have stuck with my lock lol.

[Deleted]

[*]Have an offspec of holy, which is by far the most dull and uninteresting healing spec in the game. Compare holy to something like misweaver or resto mechanics.

The shadow priest from my guild did the same, he offspec'ed Holy. I already told him that, for me, that was an error.

And now I ask, why would you go Holy when Disc shares almost the same priorities in terms of gear?

Disc needs: Int >> Haste >~=Crit >> Mastery >~=Vers

I'm guessing you think Disc is shit and you are afraid to play it.

Also, Holy have more depth than you may think.

[Deleted]

I regret leveling my priest as my first toon in Legion. Shadow has many problems being designed around S2M which itself can really screw you if you get a lag spike. Our ramp-up mechanics and lack of burst damage mean that the better other DPS classes get, the worse our performance will be. This is our design. Lack of AoE and mobility, weak survivability and insignificant utility just rub salt into the wound.

I simply refuse being carried from boss to boss just so I can shine on boss fights every 10 minutes. And you get this moment of glory only if other DPS classes are undergeared, playing suboptimally or playing inferior specs (e.g. Frost DK).

I wish I could switch to Holy but its toolkit and mechanics (including Holy legendaries and artifact weapon) seem boring and unimaginative. Revamped Disc I find too experimental to put my faith in it (sorry for the pun).


I rerolled a week ago. Lack of any acknowledgment for our issues by Blizzard (since alpha) and no planned improvements for 7.1 seem to support my decision to reroll. I don't expect Shadow to viable outside of some niche cases. I believe the design of Shadow to be broken and don't forsee it being repaired in this expansion. Especially when we have so many conformists and uninformed apologists in our ranks so we can't even voice our concerns with one voice. Seems the priest class attracts such personality types.

[zenkai]

I hate the new playstyle, I don't care if Spriest was top dog dps, I am happy I changed to healing, other than having to deal with morons who doesn't realize they should do boss mechanics.

[Dahti]

I think we are currently over valuing aoe damage for mythic+, single target will have its place when raging affix is a factor. Granted, without S2M shadow priest isn't very good at single target but I'd expect that to change when they do the balance patch.

[Santti]

I'm not saying the spec is fine. What I'm saying is that we're likely to have decent amount tuning across all classes after raids happen.

[LeGin Tufnel]

I'm not saying the spec is fine. What I'm saying is that we're likely to have decent amount tuning across all classes after raids happen.

Yes - but, if Blizz's form is consistent, in Shadow's case the tuning you're referring to will take the form of a nerf to StM. Nothing else will be changed.