Shadow form mana cost

[Mstone2005]

I was just curious as to what the reasoning was behind the high mana cost of shadow form. It kills our DPS to not be in form, and we cannot heal while in it. Those penalties alone should grant a low mana cost on that spell. I dont believe it should be a free spell, but it should be on par with a Druid as far as mana cost.

Druid Tree of Life - 28% of base mana + 30% reduced mana cost from Natural Shapeshifter.
3496 x .28% = 978.88 (.70) = 685.219 mana

Priest Shadow Form - 32% of base mana + 6% reduced mana cost from Shadow Focus.
3863 x .32% = 1236.16 (.94) = 1161.9904 mana

The start numbers are the class base mana from http://www.wowwiki.com/Base_Mana

As you can see, Druid tree of life form is nearly half that of a Priests shadow form. Why?

I posted this on the wow forums, and figured i would post it here as well. I might get a quicker answer here.
Original post is at : http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...43305735&sid=1

[Kelesti]

First off, Shadowform is supposed to be expensive by design. If it's cost was negligible, who's to stop the power-shifting every 6 seconds for empowered DoTs/MF/MB, and then a heal, bouncing between the two constantly.

Shadowform is also one talent, and while Tree of Life is one, Natural Shapeshifter is another 3, that increases just that one function. Before Nat-Sh, they are the roughly the same cost, whereas Shadow Focus actually affects our functionality.

[Mstone2005]

Then lets compare it to an shadow form to a roughly equal function. Moonkin form.

Druid Moonkin Form - 22% of base mana + 30% reduced mana cost from Natural Shapeshifter.
3496 x .22% = 796.12 (.70) = 538.384 mana

That's less than Tree of life. Special talents aside, the base between Moonkin and Shadow Form is a 400 mana difference. Thats too large of a gap.

[Worshaka]

Making direct class comparisons is never going to win an argument because blizzard have stated that classes are balanced on their overall abilities and talents not specific ones singled out.

However in the current environment, where spriest survivability is so low in pvp, I can see an argument that we are required to heal a significant portion of the time and perhaps there should be some pvp talent that helps us out with mana conservation with shifting forms. After you put up 3 dots, finding a 4th GCD for VE can be difficult and pumping enough damage into someone to make VE heals worthwhile is somewhat difficult atm.

[taek]

Shifting is something i believe Blizzard allows & encourages w/ druids as a major class aspect. I don't think that statement is true for priests.

It's like asking why a Blood DK's heal is on a 60 sec cooldown whereas Paladins can spam HL.

[reinx]

waaaaaaaaaaaaah we're getting buffed, you should be happy...

[Nezoia]

First off, Shadowform is supposed to be expensive by design. If it's cost was negligible, who's to stop the power-shifting every 6 seconds for empowered DoTs/MF/MB, and then a heal, bouncing between the two constantly.

But the problem is the last two years of Arena PvP, you'd spend more time out of shadowform than in it.

Otherwise I agree that you cannot compare shapeshifting to shadowform.

[Direshadow]

...inner focus?

[cynical]

It also costs us 1.5 seconds to switch back into shadowform and we do not gain any benefit besides stat changes whereas druids gain immunity to polymorph effects and snare/root removal. It is not always appropriate to compare class abilities, but I don't see a good argument for the high mana cost when the lost damage/mitigation and time wasted shifting back seem like high enough of a penalty.

[Fuggle]

Hmm we get 15% dmg reduction, 15% shadow dmg, 30% less threat, dot dmg increased by crit % (soon to be ability to crit in general), 70% dmg pushback (talented), movement impairing effects removed by fading (talented) all by hitting that one button. That's a biggggg button.

[Arbito]

Shadowform mana cost is high because blizz knows we can deal with it! We are the mighty Shadow priests and yes we suffer on multiple fronts for being our purple translucent spec but it doesn't kill us, we get stronger by it! Harharhar ;D