Shadow Priest 8.0.1. Best Azerite Traits?

[Deleted]

I know that there is a lot of concerning about how is the SP right now. It's quite impossible to compare to other classes, and we still waiting for some important changes on 8.1. Anyway, we should still doing our best :P.

I have been checking recently SimulationCraft for SP regarding the Azerite traits, but the passive traits are not 100% implemented yet to do a decent comparative. Have someone started to give it a try already and test which traits give us the best benefit?

[Ophenia]

In my opinion, and judging from those I've seen, I'd say that :

- Chorus of Insanity (When Voidform ends, gain 4 critical strike for each stack of Voidform. This effect decays every 1 sec.) : Meh, we don't deal a lot of damage outside of Voidform. Can be interesting in M+ so that you can use Dark Ascension / Dark Void with (relatively...) lots of crits after each pack.
- Death Throes (Shadow Word: Pain deals an additional 24 damage. When an enemy dies while afflicted by your Shadow Word: Pain, you gain 5 Insanity.) : Probably a beast in M+. I have one part on my char right now, and it's an additional 1200 damage to SWP.
- Searing Dialogue (Mind Sear deals an additional 134 damage to enemies suffering from your Shadow Word: Pain) : depends on the M+ packs...
- Spiteful Apparitions (Shadowy Apparitions deal an additional 17 damage to enemies suffering from your Vampiric Touch.) : haha nope
- Thought Harvester ( Casting Vampiric Touch increases the damage of your next Shadow Word: Void / Mind Blast by 108) : honestly I don't know what to think about it. The boost to SWV/MB is kinda neat (like a +1000 or +1500, don't remember), but to maximize it you should replace Mind Flay by Vampiric Touch in your rotation, that looks... Crappy
- Whispers of the Damned (Void Bolt increases the damage of Shadow Word: Void / Mind Blast by 40 for 6 sec, stacking up to 6 times.) : Über BiS for Raids, clearly, 10/10 would focus this

TL;DR :
Raids : Whispers of the Damned / Thought Harvester
M+ : Death Throes / Searing Dialogue (?)

Regarding "all-spec" passives, I'd say all those haste-focused are nice. But that will need to be simmed I guess (lots of "proc damage", no idea what the proc chances are nor their damage).

[Deleted]

It looks that Icy veins just updated their Simulationcraft but it's based on raid 385 iLvL: i.imgur.com/sab0qFP cant attach links. Im new as forum user.

I think that Chorus of Insanity still looking really interesting right now that our crit and haste are crap with the current stats. Also, someone have test if the effect stacks? I mean, 2 traits = double crit. If that works in that way maybe a Surrender to Madness + Auspicius Spirits + Lingering Insanity could be a quite good choice for Burst fights.(Being able to get 30+ stacks wil give us tons of shit of crit + haste for the time that we are not getting insanity after StM. Idk, just an idea, I still being a believer that someday StM will be balanced and usefull in some scenarios xD.

[mccord]

warcraftpriests has sim results: https://warcraftpriests.com/shadow-a...rait-analysis/

[Deleted]

Spiteful Apparitions ... do 457 dmg for me... not 17.
I play with 2/3 thunderous blast and it procs very often and does some damage as well. It has impact on my DPS...

[Angrie]

I know that there is a lot of concerning about how is the SP right now. It's quite impossible to compare to other classes, and we still waiting for some important changes on 8.1. Anyway, we should still doing our best :P.

I have been checking recently SimulationCraft for SP regarding the Azerite traits, but the passive traits are not 100% implemented yet to do a decent comparative. Have someone started to give it a try already and test which traits give us the best benefit?

The best answer for you is to keep EVERY piece of azerite gear you find. Every situation will require different pieces. Different specs will require different pieces.

From what i found from beta and live is that:
Thought Harvester, is amazing for questing/WQ/PVP/Multi-dot.
Death Throes, is good for Multidot/PVP. Good for AOE with Dark Void
Whispers of the Damned, will likely be our go to for raids.
Chorus of Insanity, is pretty underwhelming, but might be worth 1 piece for raids.
Searing Dialogue, only worth if darkvoid is talented and only worth with proper set up.
Spiteful Apparitions, not worth it now. Will be good later in the game 8.2 probably.


TLDR:
Make a set for CleaveFights/WQ/PVP with 2 Thought Harvester 1 Death Throes (or 1 TH / 2 DT)
Make a set for Single target raid fights 3 Whispers of the Damned
Make a set for Heroics/low m+ 1 Death Throes 2 searing dialogue
Make a set for High M+ 2 Death Throes 1 Whispers of the Damned
EDIT: I can see a set with 2 Chorus of Insanity and 1 Spiteful Apparitions with Auspicious Spirits+Lingering Insanity+Dark Ascension being interesting. Machine gunning spirits.


This is not taking into account all the other azerite abilities... which really complicates it.

[Nokami]

TLDR: Thunderous Blast stacking or Dagger... ez

[Nyel]

Death Throes seems pretty potent, if you stack it 3 times SW: P damage is more than doubled. Seems to be good for multidot situations. I like Spiteful Apparitions but I think it will always be worse than Death Throes so...

- - - Updated - - -

TLDR: Thunderous Blast stacking or Dagger... ez

Like every spec does... Blizzard balancing.

[Deleted]

Pretty sad that the best traits for shadow are not even the "shadowpriest traits". Thunderstorm and Daggers are available for everyone i think.
For example rogues best trait is actually a "rogue specc" trait and not some universal thunderstorm or whatever.

Maybe some shadow traits need a small buff to be more relevant. FOr example the "voidbolt buffs mindblast" traits duration is too short imo. If youre stunned or silenced or whatever, you cannot VB and the buff will expire. Maybe buff the duration to like 10s instead of 6.
Also the VApp and Mindsear traits are pretty weak in numbers.

[Nyel]

Thought Harvester is incredibly strong, especially with SW: V. Just went from ~ 18% (Mind Blast) to 40% (SW: V) overall damage (2/3 Azerite's are Thought Harvester, haven't found a third piece yet - two pieces almost double the damage). I like the way it mixes up the usual rotation, not sure what the priority in Voidform is though. Feels like it's VT->SW:V->VB which seems a bit odd but Voidbolt is quite weak at the moment.

[Skulljin]

Not directly related, but does Death Throes actually affect Purge the Wicked if you play Discipline?

[Foolicious]

It works with both shadow word: pain and purge the wicked for disc priest although it is nerfed for disc and is only about 30% effective.

[sd2400533]

The best answer for you is to keep EVERY piece of azerite gear you find. Every situation will require different pieces. Different specs will require different pieces.

From what i found from beta and live is that:
Thought Harvester, is amazing for questing/WQ/PVP/Multi-dot.
Death Throes, is good for Multidot/PVP. Good for AOE with Dark Void
Whispers of the Damned, will likely be our go to for raids.
Chorus of Insanity, is pretty underwhelming, but might be worth 1 piece for raids.
Searing Dialogue, only worth if darkvoid is talented and only worth with proper set up.
Spiteful Apparitions, not worth it now. Will be good later in the game 8.2 probably.


TLDR:
Make a set for CleaveFights/WQ/PVP with 2 Thought Harvester 1 Death Throes (or 1 TH / 2 DT)
Make a set for Single target raid fights 3 Whispers of the Damned
Make a set for Heroics/low m+ 1 Death Throes 2 searing dialogue
Make a set for High M+ 2 Death Throes 1 Whispers of the Damned
EDIT: I can see a set with 2 Chorus of Insanity and 1 Spiteful Apparitions with Auspicious Spirits+Lingering Insanity+Dark Ascension being interesting. Machine gunning spirits.


This is not taking into account all the other azerite abilities... which really complicates it.

How do you make a set when you only getting ONE AA per week???

[VooDsXo]

Pretty sad that the best traits for shadow are not even the "shadowpriest traits". Thunderstorm and Daggers are available for everyone i think.
For example rogues best trait is actually a "rogue specc" trait and not some universal thunderstorm or whatever.

Maybe some shadow traits need a small buff to be more relevant. FOr example the "voidbolt buffs mindblast" traits duration is too short imo. If youre stunned or silenced or whatever, you cannot VB and the buff will expire. Maybe buff the duration to like 10s instead of 6.
Also the VApp and Mindsear traits are pretty weak in numbers.

Thunderous and Dagger have been best traits for all classes, except in PVP lol did you think those nerfed rogue traits were for PVE? ROFL


Furthermore we can't get any work on Shadow ever because we have stupidity like this where people are "theorizing" against raw numbers. Even with the changes, thunderous, and dagger should sim as the best options. Chorus of Insanity literally loses value as you get closer to 100% crit, as 101% and above do basically nothing. Once the sims are posted, you're all wrong and still considering this and that like religious zealots.