Shadowpriests, raid utility and Cataclysm

[gaymer77]

- They indeed do, why rebuff and waste candles?

I don't get why everyone is bringing up disc priests having stronger buffs than us. All three specs pick up the ONLY improved buff priests provide for all three specs (I'll give you a hint, it gives you more health and increases a similar type of buff). Currently that's the only priest buff that can be increased in stats. Come Cata that talent is being removed. Maybe my guild functions differently than your guilds but us priests (all 3 specs) in the raid normally go back & forth for our buffs to save each of us cost of candles. If someone dies during a boss fight & get battle ressed I take it upon myself to recast prayer of fort to save the healing priests some mana to rebuff the dead and if its a class that can benefit from spirit I'll recast that too.

Given SP's DPS ultility is not a high priority. SP in my guild tends to be top of DPS charts with around 13-14K on LK

That isn't that hard to achieve because of phase 3's totally OP AOE we do. Dot & mind sear and you're pulling in mega numbers from phase 3 alone. I would suggest switching to skada instead of recount and then compare his numbers because of how skada calculates its dps numbers. You'll see he's quite lower than that.

[Danner]

Sorry Kaesebrezen, but I will have to bite hard on this.

- [Healings] indeed isn't our job, the only heal button i press is divine hymn in emergency situations

Then why do you play a priest?

I hear the warlocks focus solely on DPS, and affliction warlocks aren't that different from spriests. And they are actually quite good at DPS. A heal-less priests is a bit like aiming for a pet-less hunter or a totem-less shaman. You are cutting away a major part of your class, for no apparent gain but convenience of not having to bind many hotkeys.

- [Vampiric Embrace] will probably overheal less in Cataclysm, but with doubled healthpools and no doubled dps it will have a even less noticeable effect

Following that logic, druids are useless too. The only thing holding druids back right now is the fact that most of the time, people are at full HP. Come cataclysm, hots will be less overhealing - GC stated as much. It also means that hots will be massively OP, which is why they are being nerfed overall.

Nobody has yet said anything about nerfing VE. I suspect it will happen. Because VE is a damned good ability for the same reason you bring a druid to blanket the raid in hots.

If you can convince all restodruids in the game that they are useless, I'll buy your argument here. If not, try again.

- Replenishment will be nerfed hard, that was stated over and over again

It has also been stated that healer mana regen will be nerfed hard. 25% of something nerfed hard is still 25%. Even if it will be nerfed - and for a good reason - doesn't mean it will be useless or un-notable. Far from it. In a world with less regen being thrown around, you cherish and treasure the sources you get.

If you ask me: Right now, replenishment is the best utility a shadowpriest offer.
I don't know if you have ever tried the holypriest, but playing one without the backup of replenishment is a royal PITA.

- Fearward sucks compared to Tremor Totem, so bring more shamans for more totems.

I will give you that fearward is not a brilliant end-it-all solution, and yet, you have no idea how much it has saved me on Blood Queen. Tremor totem just don't cut it there. Even if you think this spell is useless, try giving it to your paladin healers next time around. They will love you for it. Or if you feel very skilled, use it on yourself and precast a mass dispel. Instant tremor totem, only... better. I know, it's a preposterous suggestion to use these spells, but for some reason, actually using the utility you are given is actually sometimes useful.

Who would've thought.

- Indeed, failing Voidzones and stand in fire is near impossible. Those are the widest used mechanics in the whole game, you should not fail them, because you train them in nearly every encounter. I may drop shadowform for emergencies, but i won't drop it to correct someone's idiocy.

Obviously, the spell will not be useful for other things than saving DCing shammies who are standing in fire. You need to think out of the box. Next time Kologarn grabs someone, say no and take them back!

That's the usecase of this spell. Not healing stupid.

- Movement reduction and what glyph?

Whoops. Sorry, baseline ability. My bad. But it's an ability that's great. We sorely missed having a spriest when trying deathbringer HC yesterday. Those beats were all over the place until we got in a third hunter...

- what interrupts do shadowpriests have in PvE?

Well, silence. I know not many spriests use it, it is in an iffy part of the tree. But there are places where it is quite useful, even if most bosses are immune. Don't forget about it even if it's mostly dead right now.

- [Other priests] indeed do [cast buffs], why rebuff and waste candles?

If you refuse to buff up... then you are a useless leecher. Some poor healing priest is going to bear the brunt of your raid expenses. I hope you are pleased with yourself.

What the heck is the point of giving people like you more raidbuffs? You clearly state that you are never going to use it anyway. No point in applying misery either, the boomkin handles that. There is no point in applying replenishment, the retardins handles that. In fact, there is no point in applying DPS either, the other dpsers do that. If you got bloodlust tomorrow, you wouldn't use it. After all, the shaman could do that. If you got Arcane Intellect tomorrow, you wouldn't use it - mage job. If you got every single buff in the game, you would never use them because someone else should. And you would probably still QQ.

I seriously have to question your value to a raid and your mentality as a player. By this point in your mail, I suspect is is extremely low. Why anyone would bring an admittedly useless player like you is beyond me.

Read this thread and after that my post on the 1st page. Then try saying this again. I'm pretty sure you can't.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...02232337&sid=1
First of all, there is a difference between utility and Raidbuffs.
We lost 2 of our Raidbuffs and got no replacement for them.
But i'm pretty sure we will get one or two of either Spellpower, Spellcrit or the Shaman exclusive Spellhaste.
If you do not count Enhancement Shamans, then these are brought by 2 specs.

We already covered buffs, and your flatly state that you don't cast buffs anyway. Giving you more or less buffs is of no consequence as you never cast them.

And we already came to the conclusion that giving you more useful abilities (aka utility) is pointless, because you refuse to cast them.

I do not even understand what you are asking for at this point.

[Kaesebrezen]

Then why do you play a priest?

If we use lore, i scrapped my healing ways to deal damage. But to be reasonable, i stopped being holy once it became the CoH Spamfest.
At the beginning i even dropped shadowform to heal, but in the current healing spamfest i don't do that.

You need to think out of the box. Next time Kologarn grabs someone, say no and take them back!

I don't have to think out of the box. There won't be ability that let you nullify bosses ability.
You won't be able to grap people from his arms, you won't be able to save people from falling on valk's.
Because there won't be abilities that allow you to completely ignore the mechanics of a fight.

Whoops. Sorry, baseline ability. My bad. But it's an ability that's great. We sorely missed having a spriest when trying deathbringer HC yesterday. Those beats were all over the place until we got in a third hunter...

If you have no shadow, i think you have a moonkin. So why not do the standard 2 frosttrap 1 Knockback tactic. I don't even see the need for a 3rd hunter.

Well, silence. I know not many spriests use it, it is in an iffy part of the tree

If you have enough points to waste in a PvE spec, i'd like to see that spec.

and your flatly state that you don't cast buffs anyway

Then where do druids cast Earth and Moon, Warlocks Improved Shadowbolt or Arcane Mages Arcane Empowerment.
One of those buffs is passive, others are brought while doing what you're supposed to do. The (De)Buff fades when you stop your job.
We had one of those buffs and lost it. I want one of this buffs as a replacement. (We could even start the our VT application sucks discussion here)

And we already came to the conclusion that giving you more useful abilities (aka utility) is pointless, because you refuse to cast them.

I do not need more utility, we already have enough of those utility spells.
And where do i say i refuse to cast them? I do cast Hymn when it's usefull, i do cast dispels. I even give fearward to healers.
But i won't drop shadowform and reduce my own survivabilty (and stop the maybe good VE healing) to save idiocy.
Btw does 30 yd range on a spell, when the rest of the holy spellbook is 40 yard, suck terrible.

[Frmercury]

I think what we have here is a misunderstanding.

I believe the intent of the thread and many of the posters in it was to ask for raid buff and debuffs not offered by the Healing versions of Priests. To be specific:

Go Here
Mouseover Shadow
Remove what they're taking out in Cata
Tell me how many buffs we bring
Now remove what Healing Priests bring

Yeah, now you're getting the picture.

[Vook]

Lol...all this arguing/nerd rage over an alpha talent calculator.

/popcorn. Please continue, though.

[Radux]

Lol...all this arguing/nerd rage over an alpha talent calculator.

/popcorn. Please continue, though.

Actually, if you read any of this, the argument is over Priest utility (shadow in particular). If a Disc priest and a Shadow priest (in cataclysm) are brought to a 10 man, their buffs would be redundant because (hint: no more +3% hit from Misery in the new expansion) they have the same utility. What people want is something that makes us worth bringing utility wise. Giving us a Wrath of Air type aura, or even what Kelesti mentioned, JoW type thing?

So to recap, this wasn't started because of the alpha calculator, it was started because they took away Spriest utility and have yet to replace it with something else, thus making us sub-par locks with the same buffs as a good healer.

[Bloodbath]

I like how people talk about utility in Cataclysm and utterly fails to mention Cataclysm talents. Like Power Word: Barrier.

noobs

[fizikz]

paraphrase of OP's post: QQ they're nerfing shadow's raid buffs! blizz said they wanted raids to bring the player not the class but i need a new buff to bring or no one will bring me omg!!!!


be good to be brought to a raid. not good at the class/character select screen.

[Frmercury]

I like how people talk about utility in Cataclysm and utterly fails to mention Cataclysm talents. Like Power Word: Barrier.

noobs

You have to sacrifice a bit of personal DPS in order to pick that up. All the same that is not a raid buff.

See the "Raid Composition" button the left hand side to see what is being referred to.

paraphrase of OP's post: QQ they're nerfing shadow's raid buffs! blizz said they wanted raids to bring the player not the class but i need a new buff to bring or no one will bring me omg!!!!

be good to be brought to a raid. not good at the class/character select screen.

Alright, lets say there's 12 good raiders of equal skill. Now there's already a Priest healer in the 10 man. Skill / Gear being equal who are they going to bring: The Shadow Priest or another class / spec that will increase the DPS / performance of the other 9 people?

Troll if you want, but the concern is valid.

[Danner]

Look at it at the other end of the fence.

Say there are 12 great raiders. And one very very sucky shadowpriest, who is prone to stand in fire, refuses to buff, never dispels anything and thinks healing is for losers.

In your world order, the shadowpriest would be secured a spot. Because everyone need imba buff X which only the shadowpriest can provide. Is that really fair?

How about bringing the player, not the class? I think that is a good world order.

It's not like every other class brings OP buffs. The only unique buffs left in the game is BoK and MotW. GC talked about merging the two. You will see that every class is crying for OP buffs.

Heck, over at the holypriest threads, the argument goes like this:

"Why would anyone want a holypriest? We got no utility, can't heal for squat, and all our buffs are brought by the spriest!"

Try shooting that one down, and you will face yourself in the mirror.

[Bloodbath]

You have to sacrifice a bit of personal DPS in order to pick that up. All the same that is not a raid buff.

See the "Raid Composition" button the left hand side to see what is being referred to.

All I had to sacrifice was range... Affliction warlocks can live with shorter range, Shadows priest should be able too...
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/7...1010190504.jpg

[Vook]

paraphrase of OP's post: QQ they're nerfing shadow's raid buffs! blizz said they wanted raids to bring the player not the class but i need a new buff to bring or no one will bring me omg!!!!

^This

[Elothie]

When will people understand that the argument 'I won't be brough to raids because I don't bring utility' can't stand in the world of bring the player not the class.Really people just perfom well and you will be viable.I can't understand that,there haven't been in a single patch since WotLK that I haven't be brough to raid because I don't bring heroism or super awesome wtf pwn 100% dmg buff though I've seen locks and mages getting denied because they were dieng in fires,not doing enough dps,not understanding tacts etc.

[Kaesebrezen]

When will people understand that the argument 'I won't be brough to raids because I don't bring utility' can't stand in the world of bring the player not the class.

This won't work because damage is balanced around buffs being present. (I don't like extrem examples, but hey - it's bring the player and not bring the class)
You can't hope to beat an enrage timer with 4 Shadowpriests and 1 Frostmage when an equally skilled group of 4 Moonkins and 1 Frost mage barely beats it.
(Warry/Dk tanks and Healer mix of priest/shaman)

The Reason for this is quite simple: Shadows have no self brought damage buffs.
Moonkin on the other Hand bring 6% Stats (Intellect), 8% Magic Damage Taken and 6% Spellcrit.


Every damage dealing class but shadow priests currently has at least one self provided damage buff.
Hybrids tend to have 2-4 , while pures have 1-2. For soloing this equals hybrids having the same dps as pures (hi @ tax)
Shadow priests have 0 of those buffs. Their solo damage is the worst of all classes. And this won't get better when you stack Shadowpriests.

If you go further: The whole priest class has no damage enhancing buff, while the other Healer Specs bring 1.

The solution is simple: Either remove Enrage Timers (Yay at endless fights) or give Priests as a damage buff, and 1 additional damage buff in the Shadow Tree.

[Radux]

The solution is simple: Either remove Enrage Timers (Yay at endless fights) or give Priests as a damage buff, and 1 additional damage buff in the Shadow Tree.

Alright, it's not that extreme. Spriests definitely do need something, though.

[Vook]

Alright, it's not that extreme. Spriests definitely do need something, though.

Ahem:

blizz said they wanted raids to bring the player not the class but i need a new buff to bring or no one will bring me omg!!!!

And also once more This is just Alpha. They could very, very likely add something between now and release, if they feel the need to.

[Frmercury]

And also once more This is just Alpha. They could very, very likely add something between now and release, if they feel the need to.

Well why would they announce buff replacements / additions for other classes if they were planning on giving us something? I know it's still early, but they've only responded with "Player not the class". If they were planning on giving us something, why wouldn't they say it?

[Sefa]

All I had to sacrifice was range... Affliction warlocks can live with shorter range, Shadows priest should be able too...
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/7...1010190504.jpg

and threat reduction talent ( considering SF don't give it anymore )..
considerinf SP don't have any aggro reset spell ( only Fade that dump it )...i doubt you will be able to stay below tank with threat...exp considering VE

[Keosen]

Shame shit different day.
The ones who whining about VT and VE nerf and prologing Shadowpriest spec failure before WoTLK are the same who are whining now asking for more utility beause "omg sps are losing raiding spots".

If you are good player you will get a spot,maybe you won't get 3 sps in Paragon's group for ex because they min-maxing their comps to get worlds 1st but you still gonna get your spot if you know what are you doing.

"Bring the player not the class" this is what Shadowpriest represents.

[Snes]

Provided by any and every priest, augmented by a disc talent (or it was). It's one of those that's there in every raid in my Guild whether the shadow priest is there or not.

Provided by any and every priest. Not necessarily even needed for non-shadow damage encounters. Absolutely worthless to bring up, because, like the above, in my guild it's always there whether the Shadow Priest is there or not.

No.

Better from a disc priest, and again: No.

Yes, count the moronic PvP bandaid that no PvP Shadow Priest I've ever met has considered all that great. With or without this our functionality is pretty much the same. I'm amongst the shadow priests that wanted it removed and replaced with a PvP buff that we ACTUALLY needed.

Breaks shadowform again in Cataclysm, No.

No.

Movement impairing? Are you actually suggesting that my Mindflay Snare has EVER WORKED ON ANY BOSS?

Oh, great, we're bringing up the, "Horrible heals with horrible mana costs that will run us dry of mana in seconds" ability. It's always such a great idea to have shadow priests come out and heal.

You know when a Shadow Priest is asked to come out and heal?

When nothing can possibly save the raid anyways, especially not a Shadow Priest running themselves dry of mana in no time flat on sub-par healing.

Nerfed several times over the course of various expansions and patches. The main benefit is to the singular shadow priest. Its effect on the group is so low now, even in the best of gear, as to be non-existent, and what is left is almost always OVERHEAL.

This is the only legitimate thing you've brought up so far.

What?

WHAT?

Bloodlust. Bleh. Here's a hint: We actually used to bring a damage % raid buff before they took it away from us and gave it to OTHER CLASSES. That's PLURAL.

Oh look, a shadow priest who thinks he's good at the game because he pads meters and won't sacrifice any DPS to help dispel or off heal.