Shadow Priest raid importance

[Circumstance]

My girlfriend is a little distraught. She plays a shadow priest, and until the recent bug with misery, she could never top the charts. We're in a top end guild, she's one of the better geared members we've got.. and her DPS isn't really "up there."

Now, this isn't a post to complain about DPS, but a post to question why most of the shadow priest buffs have been given to other classes in the raid now. If i'm wrong, please tell me:

Misery is identical to, if not less powerful than, Improved Fairy Fire.
Replenishment was given to Paladins and Hunters.
Shadow Weaving became a self only buff.
Vampiric Embrace has become more of a threat issue than a group heal, especially in fights where it's applicable.

Shadow priests were never a top DPS class, but have always been one of the most essential. It seems now that buffs have completely been re-written that they lost their "mana battery" title, and with it, alot of their respect as far as raid spots are concerned.

Are there any upcoming plans on shadowpriests to make them a much better raid viable class, and give them an identity?

[Blades2004]

Well lets see here. Imp Fairy fire is rarely taken by boomkins from what ive heard cuz it gimps there dps by puttin points in there where as a Spriest thats one of the points thats a given. Replenishment is yet given by ret pallies, but hunters have to spec for it. And Vamp embrace is a nice little bonus for many fights to help out the raids healers. It however shouldnt be much of a aggro issue. And if ur using a warrior tank he can put Vigilance on her. Not to mention that priests can and should use fade if they are getting that close to pulling aggro.

"Shadow priests were never a top DPS class"....

I disagree there. I have many times been the top Dps/Dmg on many fights. And if im not the top i am always on the top 3. Im sure ur GF has already looked at the EJ forums and Shadowpriest.com. And if she hasnt then she needs to.

If she isnt on the top 3 of the meter who is? Is it melee? Or some other casters? Is she hit capped? If it is melee are they haveing the benefits of a feral druid? There are many factors that could attribute to not being the top on a meter.

Patchwork is a awesome fight to see where you stand on a meter compared to ur other raiders. If you could post or remember what the meters looked like that would be helpful. Also what buffs did the group have? And possibly a armoury link would help also.

[Circumstance]

Well lets see here. Imp Fairy fire is rarely taken by boomkins from what ive heard cuz it gimps there dps by puttin points in there where as a Spriest thats one of the points thats a given. Replenishment is yet given by ret pallies, but hunters have to spec for it. And Vamp embrace is a nice little bonus for many fights to help out the raids healers. It however shouldnt be much of a aggro issue. And if ur using a warrior tank he can put Vigilance on her. Not to mention that priests can and should use fade if they are getting that close to pulling aggro.

"Shadow priests were never a top DPS class"....

I disagree there. I have many times been the top Dps/Dmg on many fights. And if im not the top i am always on the top 3. Im sure ur GF has already looked at the EJ forums and Shadowpriest.com. And if she hasnt then she needs to.

If she isnt on the top 3 of the meter who is? Is it melee? Or some other casters? Is she hit capped? If it is melee are they haveing the benefits of a feral druid? There are many factors that could attribute to not being the top on a meter.

Patchwork is a awesome fight to see where you stand on a meter compared to ur other raiders. If you could post or remember what the meters looked like that would be helpful. Also what buffs did the group have? And possibly a armoury link would help also.

I'd like to point out that I only go based on Patchwerk DPS. Any other boss isn't going to give an accurate showing of everyone's DPS.

1) Our vigilance goes to our high threat classes that don't have a decent threat drop (ret pallies or enh shamans)
2) Our moonkin takes imp fairy fire, and I don't believe his DPS is hurting much for it.
3) Vamp. Embrace is at best 'alright.' It's not a spell that anyone will miss if it's not cast, and that's my point.
4) Meters arent the issue as much as sheer DPS. Our first 3 are always the same. #1 is our unholy DK, on patchwerk i'm pretty sure his average week-to-week is around 5300. Below that would be our Mut rogue / FFB mage / Enhance shaman / ret pally / fury warrior. We've got a balanced raid, with no one missing necessary buffs.

She is 5/5 valorous, with plenty of best in slot, and the rest is damn near close (valorous isnt always BiS, but shes a chick, and chicks dig angel stuff). She's probably our 2nd best geared member in the guild, and sure, on some fights, she destroys meters because mind sear is embarassingly good. But, she can't pull 5.6k like our DK, and she hardly ever gets close to 4k like the other classes I listed. She sits right around 3500, keeps EVERY dot well above 95% uptime, keeps MB off cd, and has gone through every website possible trying to figure out what the next best move is... Hell, she's even gone to farming destruction potions and macro'd them to SW: Pain for boss fights.


EDIT:

Like I said before, this post is not necessarily us complaining that her DPS isn't high enough. Sure, with that misery bug, her pushing 4500 DPS was REALLY nice, but it wasn't necessary. What WOULD be nice is the old VT back, or maybe even something else to make shadow priests a class that people want again. If a moonkin has to take a kick in the teeth to pick up imp FF, it's almost worth it now to have another unholy DK or FFB mage in the raid, because not only do you still have every buff, but you have almost 1000 more raid DPS.

[Thunderball]

Classes/specs are not important anymore. It doesnt matter which class you represent you should be putting competitive damage. If you can't provide that kind of damage, you are not needed, very simple. But ofcourse RLs and GMs dont expect you to top damage charts but you should be near to say that you are actually needed.

[Circumstance]

Classes/specs are not important anymore. It doesnt matter which class you represent you should be putting competitive damage. If you can't provide that kind of damage, you are not needed, very simple. But ofcourse RLs and GMs dont expect you to top damage charts but you should be near to say that you are actually needed.

I don't know if I agree with that. Specific class/specs are almost essential now. With raid buffs not stacking the way they used to, a raid composition has to been well thought-out. And if she doesn't possess the tools a raid needs, or they can get it elsewhere, AND her dps is sub-par, then it's not something on our end that needs tweaking.

[Blades2004]

Question, is she having lag/fps issues? And if the armory's up could u post her profile? If everything is right there. Then i dont really know what to tell you if she is doing everything right.

[Almightyone]

If her gear is as good as you say it is, and the DPS is still so low; then it's either play style, lag, or intangibles imo. On Patchwerk, I'm around 4500 DPS, with 4 BiS. After the MF bug, it was more like 5800 or so. There has to be something that's missing.

[atf]

Our two raiding boomkins REFUSE to take imp ff, true story.

Spriests are fine. Ther certainly have the best AOE in game.

[Thunderball]

@OP
Well really the content is easy at the moment so most of the buffs are not really needed to kill the bosses. You might need a specific setup for some achievements and stuff, but it's the other story. Shadow priest don't bring something that can actually change things drastically. Some of the buffs bring a lot more to the table, I mean 13% spd (E&M,EP,Imp.CoE) or major spd buff (DP/ToW) for example, shadowpriest doesnt have this sort of buffs so you cant expect to be brought in for them. Shadowpriests are viable even if you dont consider buffs, especially if you play it well, we could get some tweaks and fixes but generally all of our tools are on par with others.

[Circumstance]

I can't post her armory, blocked at the workplace. And one thing I have noticed is, since wrath, her raid FPS has dropped to about 10-15 on boss fights. I could be wrong, but in the past it wasn't really a huge issue.

http://wowwebstats.com/6xfm6zevtrpse?s=188252-219886

This is last weeks WWS for patch, you can armory her from that info.

[Thunderball]

@OP
Um... Well... If you talk about Lea than her DPS is completely fine. Your timer is 4.40, typically it's around 2.50-3.20. I would actually say that she's the one of the few people pulling adequate dps on the fight, probably with the top DK. Other are too low.

EDIT: I also see that her gear is far from optimal so I think she's pulling ok dps on the parse.

[Sausagefan]

I'd like to point out that I only go based on Patchwerk DPS. Any other boss isn't going to give an accurate showing of everyone's DPS.

How many fights are "stand in one place and pew pew as hard as you can"? Not that many. "Accurate DPS" is a term completely relative to the type of encounter. We've got the best AoE in the game (which is absolutely non-trivial for Sarth 3D), we can still heal while melting (non-trivial for Sapphiron and other AoE damage fights) and we still bring important buffs.

Unless her guild is demanding higher performance and/or she's doing poorly on other non tank'n'spank encounters, it's mostly a non-issue. If she's not keeping the group back from a 3 min kill achievement, it's mostly just e-peen.

[Ineras]

3) Vamp. Embrace is at best 'alright.' It's not a spell that anyone will miss if it's not cast, and that's my point.

The raid healers should miss VE if it's not cast. Healing yourself for 25% (with improved VE) of the shadow damage you do will help keep you topped off and a bit less that the healers have to worry about is always good. It basically becomes your own personal renew.

[billynomates]

http://us.wowarmory.com/character-sh...alfurion&n=Lea

hope i got the right one ,,
sorry can not give you an answer to your Q as im new'ish to SP but i am reading the posts

[Blades2004]

http://us.wowarmory.com/character-sh...alfurion&n=Lea

Thanks for the link. Well from what that shows, she has good gear. She could replace her purple gems with a Purified Twilight Opal or Misty Forest Emerald as said on Shadowpriest.com. She is hit capped. And spec is good. From the armory everything looks good to me.

Also from the WWS u posted. Looking at the patch fight, she is at the top. Unless im looking at it upside down...Im honestly not seeing a problem here. You did say something about her FPS. That would mess up her rotation a good bit. Possibly look into a few upgrades on her comp to help that out i guess.

[mutantboy]

Unless her guild is demanding higher performance and/or she's doing poorly on other non tank'n'spank encounters, it's mostly a non-issue. If she's not keeping the group back from a 3 min kill achievement, it's mostly just e-peen.

I'm gonna disagree with that to some extent - because we are not going to be raiding easy content too much longer.

A friend got cut from his raiding guild last night because they are building the best team possible. Their training runs have included trying to do some of the acheivements (9 in a 10 man, undying etc) just to see who fails (or doesn't measure up). They want to be hitting new raids 5 min after server opens and they are available...

Not everyone needs to be that extreme. but if you are on the bottom of the DPS charts compared to another person in the same class and your guild wants to be sure progress will not be impeded you need to fix it or risk being booted.

Mind you I saw an example of retardedness the other day when (pre patch) an ele Sham was compared to a mage. Some comparisons just don't need to be made. And sometimes you just need to admit you aren't cutting it and it aint the class. (I'm super casual and just there for the ride - but when the othe SP in the raid out DPS'd me by an average of around 800dps I had to admit i'm a way better healer than DPSer)

[Circumstance]

Thanks for the link. Well from what that shows, she has good gear. She could replace her purple gems with a Purified Twilight Opal or Misty Forest Emerald as said on Shadowpriest.com. She is hit capped. And spec is good. From the armory everything looks good to me.

Also from the WWS u posted. Looking at the patch fight, she is at the top. Unless im looking at it upside down...Im honestly not seeing a problem here. You did say something about her FPS. That would mess up her rotation a good bit. Possibly look into a few upgrades on her comp to help that out i guess.

This was with the misery bug last week. Hence why it looks right. Half the raid wasn't doing everything right, she was and got top. But apparently the class was bugged, and Blizzard had to put her down a notch, back to 9th... where her gear/effort belongs, right?

[Blades2004]

Imo no. 9th is very low. Unless the others are running around in T8...which they dont have. Personally, its either her play style or her FPS thats limiting her dps output. She has some slots that are better than mine, and im usually in the top 3-4 on all fights regardless of 10-25man. Not sure if anyone else has any thoughts tho.

[Circumstance]

We're both great wow players, her gear could use some uprades, and if all you guys are saying is true... That she can easily match SMART FFB mages/mut rogues/DKs... Then i'm completely lost. We've tried everything, changing rotations.. Clipping and not clipping MFs... Destro pots on SWP...

If it's her FPS, could it really be doing that gimping her output that much?

Any math on FPS vs. dps output I can look at?

[Blades2004]

Well im not sure of the numbers. But if ur fps is rly bad on boss fights, and specially fights with alota AOE. Then it can be just as bad as having tons of lag. But yes. If she has about the same gear level of the other players she should be able to atleast be in the top5, and probubly somewheres in the top 3.