Opinion on Spriest

[syanid]

Shadow Priests also take less damage than other casters and we heal ourselves. It takes a while for our dps to start being dps due to nature of our spells. There's a lot of moving in Ulduar, there are fights where you have to stop dpsing.

Ignis - casts Flame Jets - that hurts direct dpsers (mage, destro lock, elemental, balance). Even for a bit, they _have_ to stop while our dots tick.

Deconstructor - we just dps our heart out. VE is up, we almost heal everything that gets damaged where poor mages are left at mercy of healers (along with other 3 casters).

Kologarn - when Eye Beam is cast - we run and still dps. If shit hits the fan, there's Dispersion.

Council - a lot of movement involved, direct dps suffers a lot, a sp

Freya - multidotting some of the adds, able to dps more targets at once (not talking about exploding plants, talking about elementals).

Mimiron - a sp is probably the best there - takes less damage, heal from massive damage we can do (5k dps min) and also - when shit hits the fan we just disperse. I also tanked the aerial unit, I was preferred over a warlock. Yes, I know warrior can spellreflect tank but in TBC it were warlocks who tanked such encounters (Illidan, Twins) - now WE can do it too.

Yogg-Saron - we dispel, we abolish, we do nearly everything on the outside that's needed and we dish out a lot of damage.

When I think about it, the sp is the best caster to play survivability-wise and independency-wise in Ulduar. Yes, a mage and lock can do more damage in theory. That doesn't necessarely mean they do it. An encounter consists of things such as surviving. Unless you live, how can you DPS? We're self-sustained most of the time.

I've tried raiding with mage alt that I have - while numbers are larger, the general feel is utterly bad (not to mention utter boredom from mashing fireball). I wasn't able to save myself except iceblocking or using HS / hp pot when problems occured. The damage isn't everything, there's fun factor too.

SP is probably the most carefree ranged dpser in PvE. When played right, it can prove to be a real dps asset. Also, hitting some large numbers is possible if the player isn't a tool (at gimp fights with ridiculous buffs ofc, on a patchwerk-like fight rogue just annihilates like XT).
A well positioned Mind Sear can do funny things to so-famed damage meter.

As I said, I've tried the mage next to the priest and while it has the potential to do more damage - it doesn't necessarely mean it's more fun or more advanced. In the end, this is a game designed for fun (and earning shitloads of money).

The question is, do you play for fun or to be on top of Recount? I played the whole TBC sitting at the bottom of dps meter (except illidan ) and I never had regrets since I enjoyed playing over measuring dps.

[Vexione]

The question is, do you play for fun or to be on top of Recount?

Pretty much this, and I think the answer is (for myself) I play for fun at the moment in the name of progression, but once Ulduar goes on farm (like Naxx) then raiding will be more like a sport of topping meters.

[Strykzor]

I find it very amusing that people say shadow priests are competitive because we have;
Dispels
Buffs
VE (you must be kidding)
Replenishment
Misery

Here are some facts;
Movement Fights don't favor shadow priests, if you think we do, may I remind you roughly 75% of our dps is from spells which have a cast time.

AoE Fights slightly favor shadow priests, not any more than it favors locks or rogues though.

Misery is provided by boomkins, every GOOD raid has a boomkin.

Dispels, every raid has plenty of dispels, mass dispel is unique, but not a shadow priest ability, any priest can use it.

Fort/spirit, same as above.

VE has almost no use at all, and only effective towards yourself. (~4k dps on your average Ulduar boss that is 120 Healing per second to the other 4 people in your group, THAT IS USELESS, if you think its good, you are terrible along with your healers who cant heal with 1 rejuv or renew or FoL every 20 seconds.

Replenishment Every raid has a ret pally or hunter (assuming the hunter is surv which they should be as it is the highest dps spec)

In ending, the only reason you play a shadow priest is because you like playing it.

[Tarien]

The question is, do you play for fun or to be on top of Recount?

Why can't we have both, as other classes do? Do you really think that the ability to self heal some small amount of damage (before you quote what can be healed, check out some actual overheal figures for shadow priests, they are quite high, VE healing is mostly wasted) justifies our low DPS? And what do other hybrids get in exchange for lower DPS than pure classes?

As for the fight analysis, most the classes and specs you list actually have some form of DoT for Ignis, the stop casting time is in theory less than a second on both Ignis and Freya (with Elders up). We can run and DPS? You clearly don't know your class, as another post stated, 75% of our DPS (MF, MB, VT) requires us to be stood still to cast it. Granted VT is a quick DoT cast, but around 40-45% of our DPS is a channeled spell. Dispersion as a damage mitigation is not unique, mages have iceblock which in some ways is better than dispersion as they take no damage at all. For Iron Council there is barely any movement compared to many fights, and if you can stand in the right runes it's a DPSers wet dream. I honestly don't see how Freya is a good fight for a Spriest. Multi target fights that aren't AOEable are not our forte, we are single target DPS because it takes time for our DoTs to get rolling. You shouldn't be hitting the Snaplasher until the other two mobs are low (unless it's Mind Searing all three, which doesn't increase the stacking damage buff).

Granted with VE and shields and shadowform we have a little more survivability and I cannot remember the last fight that I went OOM on, and yet even with all this I look at DPS meters at the end of the night and I look at other guilds meters and I know that we are underpowered and what we get in return is does not compensate.

At the end of the day, I maintain my original argument: The current position of Blizzard to lower the DPS of hybrids is due to their lack of imagination and creativity in finding some way to make pure classes more desirable without offering them tank/healer roles. It's the easy way out.

[Tarien]

As I pointed out earlier, Patchwerk isn't a good fight to show true dps... it's a very short encounter, BL/Heroism is up for a disproportionate amount of time. Dps dont have to do anything but stand still and push dps buttons... this is the only encounter in LK where you can do that, the other 99% of encounters require dps to move, stand in buffs, switch to adds etc. Therefore you can't quote dps of an encounter that doesnt even resemble the circumstances of most other encounters.

<snip>

This blue says it perfectly and people need to stop using Patch as some form of evidence that our dps is too low. I still am in the top 5 for my Uld raid, so if you can't compete perhaps you should look inwards instead of to blizzard.

Yes, Patchwerk does have BL/Heroism up for a large portion of time, but this affects everyone in the raid and not just the shadow priest. Admittedly some classes will benefit from haste more than others, which brings me around to this handy link someone posted earlier: http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/7.

Here are averages for every Ulduar fight using more data than you can shake a stick at, unless I am misreading something.

I am very happy that you are doing well in your guild, maybe you tell us to look inwards and we're the reason for low DPS, maybe I could point at your guild members and query why they are struggling to beat a class that according to the trends shown in the link above, should not be hard to beat. On no boss are we higher than 3rd, and yet druids and death knights, hybrid classes, are in 2nd and first positions on some fights. For five of the boss fights shown we are 2nd from bottom or bottom.

I have been a shadow priest a very long time now, I know that we have an excellent community, possibly even the most well organized of any spec or class. Our gear is meticulously listed on shadowpriest.com, where you will also find a great wealth of information on specs, rotations, theorycrafting and more. Many of my fellow shadowpriests are remarkably well informed about their class.

So my question is, despite the figures provided by wowmeteronline and the excellent community I am sure we all know exists, why do people persist with the idea that we are fine? If some of you are doing well and topping meters consistently, you are either a very small minority of exceptional players, or more likely just in a guild where you are a better player than most.

The way the game is now, we shouldn't be topping meters (if all players are of equal skill). But as I see it, there is no significant justification for why we are being prevented from doing so.

[Worshaka]

Here are some facts;
Movement Fights don't favor shadow priests, if you think we do, may I remind you roughly 75% of our dps is from spells which have a cast time.

This is extremely conditional on the type of movement... dots continue to tick during movement so there are occasions we do some dps when others do none whatsoever. The flip side being that some movement can still allow classes to add some dps.

I was always the number 1 dps for Sapphiron for example... that type of movement meant my dots continued to tick while others simply couldn't do squat.

[superstargoddess]

Yeah, I gave up on my spriest a while ago and am quite happy with my Boomkin now.

[tomolak]

I'm in a 10 man raiding guild, mostly as shadow, occasionally filling in as holy. I am very happy where I am in terms of PvE. Our guild is halfway through Ulduar and I'm able to contribute in a lot of ways. VE is extremely underrated btw, SPs end up needing less healing than any other clothie.

I still feel we are underpowered when it comes to Arena. I didn't even try in s5, as we had no tools whatsoever for pvp. Trying it now with a Moonkin for s6, but I don't believe we can go higher than 1500, at best. We have a little more survivability and burst, but absolutely no mana regen in pvp, and thus, not built for a long fight.

[Qualia]

I didn't think this topic can grow so fast...

About wowmeteronline, to be honest, I doubt that it's accurate, or most SP playing in top 50 meter over there must be bad. I haven't checked all the numbers, but when I saw top Shadow Priest DPS on Hodir (10.2k) and on Yogg (5.6k), I knew something was wrong. In my private WWS last week, I got 5.4k on Yogg and 9.6k on Hodir, lower numbers I know, but my gear is no where close to BiS as the top SP should be - even using 2 pieces 7.5 and 1 piece t7 atm since I took a long break after my guild cleared 3.0, not to mention playing with a 500 ms, I guess these should account for more than few hundred dps.
Don't misunderstand me, no offense here, but if some of you are constantly in 10-15th place and you sure that you have proper spell "sequence", you must be missing something or not pulling out all of shadow priest's potentials/tricks (for example, do you multi-doting in multi mobs fight that can't MS? SWD when moving? make sure DoTs will still be ticking while you are moving? etc.)
We can DPS while moving, easily dps multi-target no matter if they are gathered or spread out, we also have nearly no mana issue and MF "trick". If Blizzard give us a big buff that make our DPS come in +-5% with a pure DPS classes, then we will crush damage meter with small competition from other classes in Ulduar =)

I play for fun, and one of my "fun" is competiting with other players. Even so, personally, I like the changes about mana battery and DPS. I don't prefer being a mana battery over a DPSer and vice-versa, I just enjoy playing Priest class. In TBC sometimes even bad SPs can get in raid as long as they bring enough mana, and good SPs can only top damage in a few selected fights - there aren't much differences between between a good and bad SP generally and both are guaranteed a slot as long as the guilds lack SP. At the moment, we not only give out some utility such as replenishment / dispels / survivality , etc. but also doing pretty well on WWS/Recount.
True, some fights when in farm status (not progressing) may favor other classes more than us, but most of them probably won't. This is one of the case that "Bring the player, not the class" was true.

Just went over SP.com to check, and this is what top SPs said:

Shadowpriests truly is the best class to bring for Ulduar progress - the 3 of us top meters in nearly every fight.

I am comparing the values there (wowmeteronline) with our internal WWS parses and the dps I do is up to 3k higher on some bosses.

We had 6 priests on Mimiron. 3 Holy and 3 Shadow. All shadowpriests ended up top5 in damage done, and obviously lower in damage taken than other classes (due to shadowform). You mustn't measure how good someone is by looking at Patchwerk WWS parses, but by looking at survivability, ability to dps while moving, multitasking etc.

Not fanboy-ing, but since I guess there will always be this argument

If some of you are doing well and topping meters consistently, you are either a very small minority of exceptional players, or more likely just in a guild where you are a better player than most.

So I just copy and paste his idea, since I doubt there are many bad players in Nihilum, and they brought 3 SPs to Freya, Hodir, Mimiron & probably Thorim =) And they are not the only one.

[Nezoia]

Actually hunters and warlocks seem to be more efficient in Movement fight.
Even I DoT up everything I can, those two classes still beat me on Mimiron.

[syanid]

Why can't we have both, as other classes do? Do you really think that the ability to self heal some small amount of damage (before you quote what can be healed, check out some actual overheal figures for shadow priests, they are quite high, VE healing is mostly wasted) justifies our low DPS? And what do other hybrids get in exchange for lower DPS than pure classes?

Name the classes with wws parses that have both.
VE heals a decent amount of damage.
What is low dps? 5K dps? 6K dps?

As for the fight analysis, most the classes and specs you list actually have some form of DoT for Ignis

If you compare Living Bomb or Ignite with VT, SWP and DP then I have no words for you. 3 of the most powerful dots vs something that ticks for nothing.

We can run and DPS?

Yes. You have 3 dots up on the target, you move, you continue with your other 2 spells when you reach the safe position.

You clearly don't know your class

I'm tired of reading such retarded replies. Please, go to your corner with Strykzor and play with castles in the sand. Don't pull that card on me please, I'm too old to be arguing in this tone with a wannabe.

Granted with VE and shields and shadowform we have a little more survivability and I cannot remember the last fight that I went OOM on, and yet even with all this I look at DPS meters at the end of the night and I look at other guilds meters and I know that we are underpowered and what we get in return is does not compensate.

So you look at other guild's meters, where YOU don't play. Nice going.

At the end of the day, I maintain my original argument: The current position of Blizzard to lower the DPS of hybrids is due to their lack of imagination and creativity in finding some way to make pure classes more desirable without offering them tank/healer roles. It's the easy way out.

Then quit?

Also, about hybrid low dps and so on - there are only a few fights in Ulduar where I didn't come in top 3, one of them is XT where rogues massacre it, the other one was Kologarn. Naturally, smartasses will pull "your guild has to l2p if you're on top" comment - however, enjoy your whiny last spot that you see on other guild's reports.

[Tarien]

Name the classes with wws parses that have both.

What? Classes that are higher average DPS and fun to play? I should imagine any class is fun to play. I certainly enjoy playing any one of the five I have, and two of them are pure DPS. I think you missed my point here tbh.

Also, about hybrid low dps and so on - there are only a few fights in Ulduar where I didn't come in top 3, one of them is XT where rogues massacre it, the other one was Kologarn. Naturally, smartasses will pull "your guild has to l2p if you're on top" comment - however, enjoy your whiny last spot that you see on other guild's reports.

If you want to ignore data showing averages, play ignorant and stick your head in the sand then so be it. But again you're stilling missing my point, which is that what we gain as hybrids does not compensate for loss of DPS, a loss that Blizzard tells us is there by design. So yes, if YOU are topping out meters every fight then yes, your guild mates are slacking. Warlocks, Mages, Rogues and Hunters should be raping your damage and dps figures. Death Knights and Warriors tend to put out a lot more damage then we do too (as an average).

I understand that not every fight is a stand still and nuke it, not every fight is caster friendly, the playing field is rarely level and there are different fights that play to each classes strengths. That will never change and to make this level would make for some ridiculously boring fights. But what I have said all along is that nothing that any hybrid gains warrants a DPS reduction, because in less than 1 in 100 fights do I drop out of shadow form and heal and save the day, and in less than 1 in 100 fights do I see a resto druid swap to bear form and tank or any other similar scenario.

Oh, and please don't compare me to Strykzor, I've read some of his posts and don't believe I am showing any signs of rabid lunacy just now ;D

[AetherMcLoud]

Just get those 5% out of your fucking minds. Hybrids doing 5% less isn't put in stone. There will be fights were ranged does more dps than melee because of concept, there are fights where melee does more than ranged and so on. There are fights where shadowpriests have to dispel, which decreases dps, mages have to decurse and so on.

To quote GC:

Yes. This is a tremendously important concept that a lot of players seem to miss. When you only focus on Patchwerk or training dummies or simcraft, you can come up with a number that may be higher or lower than other specs or classes. The problem is that number is meaningless in many other fights. Do you have to move? Do you have to deal with adds? Do you have to swap out gear to improve your health? Do you run OOM? Is your threat too high? Do you need to free NPCs? All of those are "real" considerations on the actual bosses you're trying to kill.

The real questions, which have somewhat frustratingly fuzzy answers, are: Do you justify a raiding slot? Are you pulling your weight? Would your group be better off replacing you? Does the rogue beat you because your class is undertuned or because it's a perfect fight for a rogue (or because you need to L2P)?

[syanid]

that what we gain as hybrids does not compensate for loss of DPS, a loss that Blizzard tells us is there by design. So yes, if YOU are topping out meters every fight then yes, your guild mates are slacking. Warlocks, Mages, Rogues and Hunters should be raping your damage and dps figures. Death Knights and Warriors tend to put out a lot more damage then we do too (as an average).

I never said Blizzard did balance things good, they have way too many balance issues and they will always have them. Yes, we as "hybrids" (a stupid word, it's not like a SP will pop out of the form and heal for the sake of it) don't bring much. We bring 3% hit and replenishment, something that Moonkins can do and "pure" ones such as locks and mages can replenish from 3.1 too.

Regarding my guildmates slacking.. simply not true. There's a theoretical maximum of casts you can reach during the fight, which the mage I'm "competing" with does really good. However, RNG, movement and my qqing for focus magic sometimes plays in my favor

And no, I'm not getting raped by pure classes but yea, we got a few DKs who output near 7k dps which is what I can't reach on a single target. But still, I'm not going to bark at Blizzard for screwing me over dps. Ulduar is perfectly doable with the dps we can output, it's not like we're doing half the damage of a warlock as we used to.

Oh yea, I'm a dps whore and I tend to take care of taking all the buffs I can and I hunt down for all dps goodness at those gimped dps fights (hodir, vezax) :>

[Tarien]

Just get those 5% out of your fucking minds. Hybrids doing 5% less isn't put in stone. There will be fights were ranged does more dps than melee because of concept, there are fights where melee does more than ranged and so on. There are fights where shadowpriests have to dispel, which decreases dps, mages have to decurse and so on.

I believe it's more than 5%, but depending on the fight, gearing of different players, player skill and of course RNG it may seem like we're balanced out with a 0% difference or maybe as bad as 20%. My point is that there's no real justification for Blizzard intentionally dropping our DPS except that all the pure classes would scream and whine that they don't get to tank and heal, so to preemptively shut them up Blizzard gave them a damage boost, instead of finding them something fun and useful (in a raid) to do. Lack of creativity.

I really can't be arsed to find the blue post and link it where Blizzard tells us hybrids do less damage by design. We both know its there.

Regarding my guildmates slacking.. simply not true. There's a theoretical maximum of casts you can reach during the fight, which the mage I'm "competing" with does really good. However, RNG, movement and my qqing for focus magic sometimes plays in my favor

And no, I'm not getting raped by pure classes but yea, we got a few DKs who output near 7k dps which is what I can't reach on a single target. But still, I'm not going to bark at Blizzard for screwing me over dps. Ulduar is perfectly doable with the dps we can output, it's not like we're doing half the damage of a warlock as we used to.

Oh yea, I'm a dps whore and I tend to take care of taking all the buffs I can and I hunt down for all dps goodness at those gimped dps fights (hodir, vezax) :>

Heh, I wish a mage would give me Focus Magic, they tend to give it to each other, goddamn cheaters.

Yeah, Ulduar is perfectly doable with our DPS, and no, we are not gimped to the point of being passed over in a raid. In many ways we are a unique class that is fun to play and because of these factors many will say, as you and others in this post are doing right now, that we are fine. If we weren't fun and raid worthy I would have swapped mains a long time ago.

But then there are fights, fights I know I did everything right (and I do know my stuff) and I got great DPS, but yet there are mages, warlocks and rogues (but not hunters since the nerf, hehehe) with a damage output far over mine, beyond what I can achieve even under ideal conditions, and it really yanks my chain that we are designed do be less.

So this is me protesting that Blizzards preemptive answer to the great outcry from pure classes that dual spec is meaningless to them because they can only do damage, they can't tank and heal, this is me protesting that what they did was wrong because in reality hybrids gain nothing from hybridism except maybe a little fun trying another role, this is me protesting that what they should have done is implement useful, fun features for pure classes instead of reaching for the nerf bat.

[beatcore]

I can just add that i absolutely like my spriest. The dps is really high and i'm usually amongst top5. We provide 3% spellhit for all casters, have a nice offhealing with VE, have Dispersion which is just great to clear for example mines on Mimiron Beside this we provide a Stam Buff, Spirit and Shadow Protection. We have Mind Sear which is just a great AoE. We are capable to offheal in certain situations and save the day. The balance is good for me, and mages/locks/rogues are not that far away from us, and only if they play well, sometimes they're better, sometimes not We can dispell on fights like Iron Council to save the tank and let the healers heal. We also provide Replenishment. We have enough to do, high dps and lots of fun. Best class ever tbh The mana battery times were great but with our recent dps buff i have no problems aswell ^^

[Sleeves]

Everything matches in shadowform. That's really what it comes down too.

[Worshaka]

Actually hunters and warlocks seem to be more efficient in Movement fight.
Even I DoT up everything I can, those two classes still beat me on Mimiron.

Mimiron has an add phase and we are poor at add dps because dots are highly ineffecient against targets that don't get their full duration and we have no burst spells to use in their place.

Our feral druids are streets ahead for mimiron but i'm on par if not ahead of our lock and just behind one of our mages.

[sirpn5]

Everything matches in shadowform. That's really what it comes down too.

LoL, I'm sold.

[Strykzor]

I'm tired of reading such retarded replies. Please, go to your corner with Strykzor and play with castles in the sand. Don't pull that card on me please, I'm too old to be arguing in this tone with a wannabe.

Why so cut?
I know my class, you don't.
I have the ability to actually understand my class and not preach what is posted from Spriest.com which is usually 99% crap.
I play to be Elitist, 2nd best is not good enough.