Shadow priests: What are your wotlk plans?

[jkw]

I will stay Shadow until the new dual-spec interface arrives, then I will be Shadow in PVE and Disciplin in PVP.

The only thing I'm confused about is that they don't want to make Shadow Priests a DoT-class, but still we only have 2 decent nukes (Mind Blast and Mind Flay). And Dispersion is a "meh"-talent. It's not bad, it's actually awesome, but it feels like a "meh"-talent because it's a 51pts talent which does nothing more than regen mana and reduces damage by 90%.

I'd like to see another nuke spell there instead of a survival talent, since Shadow Priests are ment to be facemelters.

[Hallis]

Well the Shadow DPS sucks right not but we bring other utility to the raid. Since they promise to boost Shadow DPS in WotLK im going to wait an see. I REALLY dont want to re-spec as a healer though. If i did that to any of my toons it would be my druid.

So as long as the shadow priest doesnt become LESS useful then it is right now i'm happy to stay with what ive got.

[rikken]

Sadly once they changed the need for shadowpriests i decided to respec holy. Since our current holy priest was going to play his warrior, and since there really was no reason for me to stay shadow, we already had two people saying they were playing boomkins.
So holy it is, sadly, but you as it turns out all my shadow geared turned into a pretty killer holy set. With coh and pom both becoming smart, priest healers have never been better =p

[Sonic018]

I think you are not up 2 date actually. In 3.0.3, if they don't change anything to it, Shadow DPS is awesome. I tested it on the puppets. Yes the new spellrotation isn't that much amazing, because it's mostly the same as before exept that you switch sw with DP. After all VT is doing crazy dmg (more then sw and DP) and with the 2 new glyphs it's really awesome. I tried it out with almost 20% crit unbuffed (only with inner fire), and got more than 1800 DPS with lvl 80 single target nuking. Thats more than any warlock does atm, and quite competitive with mages and hunter s too. The thin is, that we are now sclaing in a good way with crit. Crit gives us more dmg on mf and mb and also more dmg on dots. Also haste will be very important to get even more crits through, after all it's really funny to play it on beta now. And finally the 3 priest specs are okay. Discipline is awesome in PVP, viable in PVE, Holy is the other way around (awesome in PVE viable in PVP) and now shadow seems to be a competitive damge dealer.

So after all, Blizzard found out their mistakes and made the needed changes. Finally I hope they don't go nerfing it again ....

[Donjohn]

Hmm think i will play Spriest im just now trying out holy it looks cool aswell.. Im really in troubles on this one :S

[Deleted]

well my choice is easy for me
i like priest, especially shadow, i dont play it to allways win with it. I just love the ideea of the class spells, if blizzard will take half of the power from sp i will still play one, maybe less time than the others classes i play.
you will probabily say i'm a freak, well maybe i am but some players dont choose the class just by his powers, for me play style is more important(i'm some kind of a role player, not the kind that acts his role by speaking roleplayish, but the kind that apreciates the lore, read quests, i admire my toon's animations, spell tooltips, whatever)

so conclusion i will have the priest at max lvl, maybe i will play other toon more often it priest will be too weak for any in game utility, but the priest will still be there at char selection screen waiting for the big day of class balance to come

[Gahijnu]

I'm doing the other way around... going from disc/holy to shadow. Well, she is shadow now (hence I answered to this poll) as I respecced to shadow for the levelling to 80. Been shadow earlier but I'm taking this time now until the expansion to 're-learn' how to proper play a shadow priest.

Then when I hit 80 I re-evaluate and see if I wanna stay shadow or not. Right now it looks like I'll respec back to disc/holy or holy/disc but I might enjoy shadow too much not to!

[AetherMcLoud]

They should change the silence on dispersion to "cannot cast shadow spells while dispersion is active". So it would stay the same for PVE meaning you cannot dps while active, and in PVP also. But it would enable you to have a real OH SHIT button for pvp. Cast dispersion and heal yourself to 100% before it ends. It would be awesome.

[Worshaka]

I really enjoyed playing a spriest in TBC, even though I orginally rolled my priest to play as holy and did so through Kara content and only changed to shadow when we hit Gruul's.

I don't have to top dps charts to feel satisfied, I liked the fact that playing a spriest properly was sophisticated (I didn't have to throw up CoE and click shadowbolt, shadowbolt, shadowbolt....). While spriest dps fell dramatically behind in SWP I enjoyed the competition I had with the other spriest in the raid and we found our dps was very even (around the 1600 dps mark on a pure dps fight like Brutallus).

I don't actually prescribe totally to the new philosphy to reduce class utility. I understand the reasoning and it feels like the new raid environment will be more inclusive but personally I think making choices to sacrafice dps to bring something was interesting. Now all that is being eliminated and spriest viability is going to boil to whether our dps numbers are comparable to other classes. To me this is a bit of a negative but i'll get over it.

I think the sophistication still exists in the class, however not a lot will change in terms of how we will maximise our dps, we will still be casting the same spells with a slight tweak to our priority. This may well be the same for other classes but I think it would have been nice for how we deal damage to change a bit as to not feel old and stale.

I still have some concerns about spriest viability in arena, however it's all too hard to judge at the moment... certainly in the current environment we can get smashed far too easy but that goes for quite a few classes.

I enjoy playing my spriest so I intend to give it a red hot go before I conclude that spriests won't be viable. Experience is always > than guessing/theorising and at least with the priest class you can always respec to a 2nd raid role (healing) to break the monontiny or do something different. If I was to change classes Druid/Paladin would be at the top of my list for the fact they can fill multiple roles.

[Ophilia]

If you feel that your guild will decide whether to bring you or not will be based on your dps, I suggest talking to your guildies. I don't know anyone, even in hard core guilds that won't choose personality over DPS if otherwise correctly geared. When I first came to WoW I knew I would never make it as a healer and I hate PvP so shadow I became. It is not the best dps but the fact that we can do two healer 10 mans because of my shadow heals, the fact that I bring mana to the table, the fact that I am good at it and I am fun to be around...I know for a fact my guildmates will never choose a mage, warlock, rogue, etc. over me. I love shadow and am really excited about the new buffs we are getting as a class. Blizz knew what it was doing in making the decision to get our dips up to par with other straight classes. I have run into problems before while pugging where the other party members felt I was going to be useless....until I showed them my spriest awesomeness. We need this as a class so we won't be discriminated against by those who have never played with a spriest before. I also think it's neat that we can finally bring some real face melting to the table! (Thank you designers for making our Mind Flay really melt the face btw) I hope that when they finally get us straightened out, we will get more of the appreciation that we deserve.

[Masennus]

I'm staying shadow, heading for more pew pew and realm first kill on Kel'thuzad in Naxx 25.

Hardcore raiding at it's best.

Got nothing more to say.

[Deleted]

I am undecided at the moment, but with mainly t4/kara/badge gear my dps is truly underwhelming. I was hit capped pre-patch. I have a resto shammy and a rogue, which without a doubt is more fun to play for me. If the damage gets a major boost I'll consider playing again. So for now, the toon is mothballed.

[Nabs]

Been shadow since the launch of TBC and all the way through Sunwell, most of that time the only raiding shadow priest in the guild and got to attend literally every single raid I could because of that. Yeah I liked being wanted for raids, but at the same time I think it was stupid how many terrible resto shamans and warlocks got invited over better players just because they had important stackable abilities and could spam one button. Personally I always tried my hardest even knowing my raid spot was assured, simply because I hated the stigma of being at the bottom of the meters, and I loved the shadow priest roll of pumping out mana like no tomorrow (and I admit I liked beating people on DPS who I knew should be above me if they were trying.) ;D

So they're supposedly doing away with that and leveling the playing field for raid spots. VE will soon be pretty much worthless, VT already is. What real utility do shadowpriests have left? Misery, which Boomkins also bring, in addition to battle rez, Earth & Moon... not to mention they also scale better and use a far easier rotation. So why would I bring a shadow priest as a raid leader now? I wouldn't, unless I couldn't find a boomkin or I absolutely needed a Mass Dispel or a shackle or an MC for some gimmick fight.

They keep saying hold on, shadow will be buffed to a competitive level, but I'm not holding my breath this time around. A month before the expansion they change the class drastically and I have to blow tons of gold and DKP to regear just to become slightly less mediocre dps with gimped (soon to be gone) utility while rets with terrible gear and zero skills dominate the meters? Great.

Luckily I have four other 70s to choose from, but I'm really dissapointed with what they've done to Shadow. It could be a really fun spec, but it's obviously a couple expansions behind the other casters, not going to get the attention it needs. It's lost almost all it's unique abilities and become a gimped affliction lock. Meanwhile the zealots will just call you a doomsayer and tell you how great it will be to finally have a viable AoE. :

[Ntrails]

So they're supposedly doing away with that and leveling the playing field for raid spots. VE will soon be pretty much worthless, VT already is. What real utility do shadowpriests have left? Misery, which Boomkins also bring, in addition to battle rez, Earth & Moon... not to mention they also scale better and use a far easier rotation. So why would I bring a shadow priest as a raid leader now? I wouldn't, unless I couldn't find a boomkin or I absolutely needed a Mass Dispel or a shackle or an MC for some gimmick fight.

Theory crafting shows SP will scale perfectly at 70 and 80 with new gear. We are doing very sold DPS on PTR and Beta.

Stop whining. Boomkins are not an easy rotation, by all accounts, nor will they be topping DPS at 80 (nor should they at 70).

Nuff said. Take the SP cause they know how to play.

[Priested]

http://dwarfpriest.com/2008/09/07/wo...s-comparision/
3rd on the caster DPS chart, I know its only a caster spreadsheet. We will be fine, especially since the VT coefficient was doubled.

[Addictions]

I loved playing my SPriest before all the patches and the expansion. I played it because the rotation was fun and challenging, and because raid members would say that having a shadow priest around for the mana battery was great. The VT changes are depressing. After the patches and the expansion every time I look for a group, I get the 'who needs a Spriest now?' remark. I don't need to top the DPS meters, and I don't want to. I want to be an important class to the game, a class that raids need for PVE. Sadly, our day is gone Spriests. Time to spec holy.