Shadow spec useless in pve for Wrath?!?

[Tribu]

I play wow cos its fun when i play and i play character i play cos its difrend/fun from other not becous its best in something i dont care if im best DPS by 100 over the second its just stupid!

[say10]

I'm more than happy to let pure dps classes rule in dps and i'm happy enough to play my spriest knowing I can't top damage meters. To me the competition isn't with other classes but with the same class within my guild. If I can out dps the other spriest in the raid that is good enough for me.

I Agree with this it is the same for me but thats because im not there to do dps im there to restore mana to the people in my party. In WOLTK this role is no longer mine and my ability to restore mana in quite the same way is significantly increased to the point where that utility offers nothng greater than what all other classes can give. At this point I would want my dps to be consistent with other pure dps class dps.

[Sonic018]

right, beacuse if it isn´t the case, you won´t get a raidspot. So it doesn´t matter if you care about your dps or not (but if you want to raid high end instances, you should . If your char isn´t able to compete with the other classes, you will be out of any serious raid. Now, I´m waiting for the next build, which includes the new changes I hope, and then I´ll see, if they did the balancing thing right or not...

[irdaq]

are u worshaka from jubei? if u are,



/wave ;D

Remember the days before TBC? Every hybrid and even priests were forced to spec for healing. Every hybrid class was limited to one of their trees. What was the point of the remaining two trees anyway? Just a "level up" tree?

Blizzard tried to address those issues by giving "off-specs" utility. Their formular was something like "utility + hybrids DPS = pure class DPS". And it worked. The DPS of an enhancement shaman is lower than that of a rogue (same gear) but the enhancement shaman has nice buffs to boost the DPS of the pure classes. Same for shadow priests. Their DPS might be lower, but they compensate the lack of DPS with their mana regen tools.

The side-effect was, however, that suddenly certain specs were required. Suddenly you needed x shadow priests, one enhancement shaman and so on. So Blizzard is trying to "fix" this again by spreading unique abilites to other classes, making each class/spec replaceable.

So if hybrid DPS is lower then pure class DPS the formula will result to this:
utility + hybrid DPS < utility + pure class DPS

Besides, why roll a mage when you can roll a lock? Or why roll a lock when you can roll a rogue? Or hunter? If these classes are all about DPS (as you say) why are there four different pure DPS classes (more or less - but they neither can heal nor tank)? Maybe "flavor" and class unique abilites play some kind of role as well?

this.

as for the TS, no. we are not going to be obselete in WoTLK. i play in the beta and altho i havent had the best gears, we are doing fine in terms of mana regen (altho its kinda buggy atm)


and try asking any raiding sp in SWP and they will tell u that VT deserved the nerf. it was too damn good to begin with(with end game gears). the main REASON it was scaled back more (2% dmg to 0.5% max mana pool) for this nerf was raid stacking. we were so good in mana regen and raid dmg soaking in SWP that guilds usually bring 3 shadowpriests from kalec to KJ. try explaining that to your mages. granted, its unfair to design the mechanics based on a single end game instance like SWP, but theres no reason the guilds in WoTLK wont do the same damn thing.


vanilla wow to TBC we went from 40mans to 25mans. from TBC to WoTLK its gonna be from 25man to 10mans. so the raid composition changes. its naive to think that the mana regen role was solely ours to begin with. 10mans was a success for TBC and will be the main improvement in WoTLK but if it is still tied to TBC specs/class requirements, it would flop big time. its gonna have 30 specs for 25/10 spots.


how often a 10-man pug call it because they couldnt find a shadowpriest? maybe its np for kara as most of us can outgear it easily but try doing normal or bear za run and most of the time the RL gonna crap himself to find a sp so that his healers wont oom. in wrath u can find a surv hunter or a ret pally to do the very same job. hence less "oh crap we dont have <insert class spec here>" rants.


obselete? no
less desirable and stacking? yes
is it still fun? certainly. altho i kinda i miss wand spec


just my 2c

[rod_gomes]

Remember the days before TBC? Every hybrid and even priests were forced to spec for healing. Every hybrid class was limited to one of their trees. What was the point of the remaining two trees anyway? Just a "level up" tree?

Blizzard tried to address those issues by giving "off-specs" utility. Their formular was something like "utility + hybrids DPS = pure class DPS". And it worked. The DPS of an enhancement shaman is lower than that of a rogue (same gear) but the enhancement shaman has nice buffs to boost the DPS of the pure classes. Same for shadow priests. Their DPS might be lower, but they compensate the lack of DPS with their mana regen tools.

The side-effect was, however, that suddenly certain specs were required. Suddenly you needed x shadow priests, one enhancement shaman and so on. So Blizzard is trying to "fix" this again by spreading unique abilites to other classes, making each class/spec replaceable.

So if hybrid DPS is lower then pure class DPS the formula will result to this:
utility + hybrid DPS < utility + pure class DPS

Besides, why roll a mage when you can roll a lock? Or why roll a lock when you can roll a rogue? Or hunter? If these classes are all about DPS (as you say) why are there four different pure DPS classes (more or less - but they neither can heal nor tank)? Maybe "flavor" and class unique abilites play some kind of role as well?

Take it from other side... if you roll a priest, u can choose 3 spec, and fight for 1 spot for each spec in raid, one for shadow, one for holy, one for discipline... not all guilds will take all 3 specs, but all brings something diferent.

Look at mages, we have 3 spec, but there is any reason in any raid for you bring a particular spec? No, you need one mage, for what, for impscorch OR winter chill, and for bring the other utilities (ai, food), nothing more. At some time, one spec will prove better than others in dps, and if it can take IS or WC that will be the only one "viable" in good guilds.

If mages dps isnt at least near top, all raids will see only 1 or 2 mages, with MUCH luck AND lack of others dpsers 3. Buy wtf, we have 3 specs, if isnt any particular spec required we have the right to fight for 3 spots, like any hybrid can have. Druids will see often all 3 specs in raids, shamans too. Those can have even more slots in raid, 2 only for heal.

Sh. priests arent in so good place too, but look druids. Restos are healers, and bring nice heal utility in raid, that spot is safe. Ferals can be dpser or tanks, and bring nice buffs too, one innervate and one battle rez, rarely we will see both in raid, but at least one will be there for melee auras, ot, etc. Moonkin are the best buffer/debuff class in game, one spec can fill the job of cast 6 types of combat buffs/debuffs (mark not inclued in combat buff) and can brez and innervate.

If a moonkin bring almost the same dps than mage, u will even see the point that guilds will bring a 2nd one, even with a feral and restoration, intead a 2nd mage. Even rogues now have more stackable utility than mages with Tricks of the Trade.

[malfeas]

Based on the assumption that the greater the Boss utility, the less DPS provided, I would say the mana battery classes should look like this in comparison to one another.

Highest DPS: Surv Hunter - By far the lowest utility, because they ONLY provide mana regen and nothing else.

Frost Mage - Mana regen with limited uptime, Intelligence buff, Spell crit chance debuff

Shadow Priest - Mana regen with full uptime, Stamina buff, spell hit debuff

Lowest DPS: Ret Paladin - Mana regen, Blessings, Ret Aura (Haste and damage percent buffs), melee and spell crit debuff

This progression seems pretty natural to me. It follows in order of which classes bring the most utility, but it also happens to follow in order of which classes are consider Pure DPS vs. Hybrid DPS. Frost Mages should have an edge over Shadow Priests because while they bring the same number of utilities, the Frost Mages mana regen has limited uptime, not to mention that they are pure dps versus hybrid dps. And frankly, AI is the most disposable raid buff in the game.

The argument that a hybrid class should be able to match a pure dps class because a Shadow Priest or a Feral Druid can't heal worth a damn makes no sense to me. The reason they should do less dps is not because they can perform multiple roles as a single spec, it is because they can respec to that additional role and perform it exceptionally. In the case of a shadow priest, you probably don't even require an additonal gear set! You can simply respec Holy and pull it off in the same gear with the spellpower changes. A mage or hunter that respecs cannot take on an additional role. They can only exchange utility talents for dps talents and vice versa.

While Hybrids should do extremely comparable dps to a pure dps class that brings similar utility, they should not surpass them in the standard case. I believe this is the way Blizzard intends to balance PvE and I believe they are absolutely correct in doing so. However, I'm open to other arguments as to why this should change. WotLK is thankfully not set in stone quite yet.

[Proudfoot]

The argument that a hybrid class should be able to match a pure dps class because a Shadow Priest or a Feral Druid can't heal worth a damn makes no sense to me. The reason they should do less dps is not because they can perform multiple roles as a single spec, it is because they can respec to that additional role and perform it exceptionally. In the case of a shadow priest, you probably don't even require an additonal gear set! You can simply respec Holy and pull it off in the same gear with the spellpower changes. A mage or hunter that respecs cannot take on an additional role. They can only exchange utility talents for dps talents and vice versa.

That's like arguing that because a Mage can respec to frost and PVP his PVE damage as Fire should be weaker... it doesn't make sense. Hybrid DPS must be compairable to so called "pure" dps classes or they will be left out of raids save for a few to get all the buffs. What's the difference between providing utitlity and just benifiting from it, there is none. It's irrelevant where the utility comes from when nothing stacks anymore.

Skill should be the determining factor in deciding which DPS players to bring not class.

[malfeas]

That's like arguing that because a Mage can respec to frost and PVP his PVE damage as Fire should be weaker... it doesn't make sense. Hybrid DPS must be compairable to so called "pure" dps classes or they will be left out of raids save for a few to get all the buffs. What's the difference between providing utitlity and just benifiting from it, there is none. It's irrelevant where the utility comes from when nothing stacks anymore.

No, what I said is nothing like arguing that, mostly because this has nothing to do with PvP. PvP balance is an entity all its own and has no bearing on what I was saying. (Not to mention that Frost is no longer the clear PvP spec for mages in WotLK.)

I don't know if you managed to get to the end of my post, but I did say the two classes should be extremely comparable. I'm talking like, if Mage theorycraft shows that a frost mage does 2000 DPS, then a Shadow Priest should be hitting 1900-1950. In that situation, a shadow priest would easily beat a mage on fights that require movement, or multiple targets. However, in the standard case, the mage does better dps. Seems fair to me.

[Desc12Whisp]

IN STRICT PVE terms this is how I believe blizz is trying to exemplify in their beta:
Hybrid/Pure dps doing comparable dps, while allowing pure dps to still come up as first in the race (however, not so significantly as before.)
It WOULD (no matter how much you argue) be redundant to roll a dps class, if a hybrid class could do the same, if not better. A lot of you take for granted that you have that talent spec and spells that allow you to heal, and yes, just because you "could" heal, does take a small amount of damage off of your raid dps.(And yes, I am an enhance shaman. But I *NEVER* expect to be #1 on raid dps, nor should I. When I see a guy who may have been #4 or #5 on the DPS meter previously get moved into my group and then shoot up to #1 I realize that my dps is secondary only to my overall contribution to raid dps.)

BUT, that is only speaking in large term raid scale. They are adding more utility to dps classes so that hybrid classes will be able to compete. Sure that rogue may be #1 still, but that cat druid won't be 20% below them either.

Anyone who looks at a damage meter to gauge their overall performance in a raid is an idiot. Frankly, if you really want to be #1 that badly you just are going to have to re-roll.
Signed,
a fellow HYBRID

[rod_gomes]

That's like arguing that because a Mage can respec to frost and PVP his PVE damage as Fire should be weaker... it doesn't make sense. Hybrid DPS must be compairable to so called "pure" dps classes or they will be left out of raids save for a few to get all the buffs. What's the difference between providing utitlity and just benifiting from it, there is none. It's irrelevant where the utility comes from when nothing stacks anymore.

Skill should be the determining factor in deciding which DPS players to bring not class.

Its would be unfair.

The part, "save a few to get all the buffs" is the same for pure class, but you have others spots for others role already. Should not have more than ONE hybrid dps from same build in same raid, because will be other from same class in raid. There are 30 trees, 25 spots in raid, to be fair a raid should have at least 2 from same class.

It skills is the only factor, will be normal u see raids with 2 shadow priests and only 1 mage, but wait, if we had the same number of players in all classes, with hybrids spreaded in 3 trees, we have 3x more mages than sh.priests!!! Should have some reason at least to u bring 2 that pure dps from same classe or the hybrid population will raise to much more.

Even with a little lower dps, hybrid dps will have raid spot for the sake of diversity, so it isnt something to worry.