Huge Shadow Priests Changes.....Where are they?

[gaymer77]

It's the first patch notes of the PTR be patient... Them mentioning the issue is great news for you and you'll likely get something by the end of the PTR. Again, be patient, it's day one for Christ's sake.

I'm guessing if you even play a priest at all you haven't played one for that long. Priests players have always & will always be pesimistic about bugs getting changed because Blizzard has a great record of acknowleging priest problems and not doing anything about them & if anything is does its done shortly before the start of an xpact. Look at priest AOE that was not "fixed" until we got holy nova standardized (gg shadow priests doing AOE with a holy spell) and then when shadow AOE was implimented (Mind Sear) it became the most overpowered AOE in the game (I remember hitting 37k dps on AOE pulls in Naxx) until they decided to give rogues FoK. It took them until Cata to give shadow priests something to do when they get counterspelled & locked out of their shadow school other than dropping shadowform and doing holy dps but even then they broke it before we even got it. They looked at how shadow had no burst dmg for when something needs to be blown up (adds etc) and gave us Mind Spike which makes us go oom fast if we have to deal with too many adds that have to be blown up. They said how we had no dispell protection so they first made VT deal dmg if dispelled then changed it (guessing because they thought it was too powerful to do less dmg than Unstable Affliction's dmg when dispelled minus the silence) being a horrow effect but instead of it being a horror effect its a fear that shares the DR with our other CC/survivability tools and has since the horror was added to the talent in.

Yeah priests have every right to doubt that our bugs will be taken care of unless they are directly stated they are being handled specifically.

[KoopDragonblight]

^^ what he said

[sacrypheyes]

so sad but yet so true T_T

[Thranduin]

Single target DPS for us is absolutely fine as long as we're not having bad luck. Shadow Orbs have to be less RNG.(Didn't get an orb today at Chimaeron for about 40 seconds. I know that's an exception but still... so many times I'm desperately waiting for an orb to proc at the start of a fight and it just doesn't happen...)
AoE HAS to be buffed. Either make Mind Sear hit hard again or make it spread our DoTs or at least SW:P.

[ThreeLions]

We need a mastery that is actually useful, I actually miss WOTLK priests atm

[Zorosan]

Add something to Masochism maybe for when we take damage from Death, we also generate 1 orb.

^ This sir is brilliant!!

[Deleted]

Single Target DPS are fine, we're maybe have to sweat a little more, as lets say hunters or DK's. Raid mana is not an issue if you're not facerolling
SP is really about paying attention.

And i agree with all posters above: aoe needs a buff and less RNG on orbs.

[Deleted]

I can agree that the RNG on orbs can be a tad annoying.. But for those who had a "streak" of 40 sec without an orb. Are you really putting up Shadow Word: Pain on the target too?

As for Shadow Word: Death, leave it alone.. I think it's an interesting mechanic!

[YankeePhan1234]

Add a glyph for Archangel or Mind Spike to give Shadow more choices for play style, buff Mind Sear so we can actually AOE.

[Deleted]

Imo the best thing that blizz can do about orbs and mastery is make our mastery increase our damage while in shadowform per x% for each point of mastery and just let the orbs to increase the damage of mind blast by respective amount this will fix our rump up time since we wont have emppowered shadow and pray the gods when the freaking orb will come and mastery will be more desirable for us.

[Casimir]

I think they want us to have a ramp up time. Just make it a bit less RNG and it is fine.
You should have been used to it if you played shadow priest for long time now.
Tbh i'm more then happy with my current shadow priest, only thing that needs to be improved is Mind Sear.
Even the Shadow orbs mechanic i find pretty awesome, maybe a little boost to it so it comes closer to haste but it's fine really.
And people saying they have Mana issues, learn to use Death really...

[Evelyn]

what's with all these changes to disc? no love for shadow priests serious wtf. i dont want to have to go back to disc like i did for wotlk. please blizz make sp like they were in bc when they could compete in arena and 1v1. /sigh

the mastery for shadow priests i.e. orbs was pretty much doomed to begin with and was a horrible idea. lets think about this for a second.. it effects mind blast, yes because shadow priest use mind blast often >.<. oh it also effects mind spike.. cool well since i pretty much open with mind spike in a combo (forced to otherwise i'd lose my dots, which don't do enough damage anyways imo) i'm not going to accumulate orbs nvm 3 until the target is either dead or i am dead (normally i would probably be dead before it even mattered.)

can we get a buff to ve maybe? or possibly give us immunity to stuns and snares while dispersed.. u know since we are silenced for the duration. i mean heck we're a range caster that is being forced to kite yet we don't really have the cc to do so.

[Abandon]

Mind Flay doesn't need fixed. Mana doesn't need fixed. Priestilence will still keep Shadow terrible on fights where things "MUST DIE RIGHT NOW", which is why we AoE in the first place. Being balanced around ticking DoT damage is counter-productive to the cause!


The only thing Shadow needs is Mind Sear to do more damage than it does (including the potential instant tick), and potentially a glyph of Dark Archangel for Mind Spike to not remove DoTs when it's active.

First one's mandatory, second one would be awesome.

Everything else is extraneous.

Well, Mind Sear still has a few issues in it's design, like it requiring a mob to be targeted on, the channel breaking when that mob dies, no damage to the mob you are hitting, and being unable to choose where your AoE hits if, for example, someone else pulls aggro on the add you are Searing and drags it (and your damage) away from the rest of them. More damage wouldn't fix any of those issues, but would be nice for it to feel like it's worth casting again. It just feels clunky though.
If I could change one thing about it, I would change it from being Channelled to being more like Flamestrike with a cast time and leaving the Mind Sear effect on the mob, and making it single target like Devouring Plague so we can't just throw them on everything. I doubt that would happen though, but it's fun to dream.

[Veiled]

Shadow Priests are fine aside from the AOE. If anything we need a TINY buff across the board if they're intending on us having the output of everyone else but overall, I am keeping up with people just fine, I have ZERO mana issues for single target, and overall I think that SPriests in general need to just be happy with all the work they've done to us.

[Casimir]

Well, Mind Sear still has a few issues in it's design, like it requiring a mob to be targeted on, the channel breaking when that mob dies, no damage to the mob you are hitting, and being unable to choose where your AoE hits if, for example, someone else pulls aggro on the add you are Searing and drags it (and your damage) away from the rest of them. More damage wouldn't fix any of those issues, but would be nice for it to feel like it's worth casting again. It just feels clunky though.

What you say is true, but having a AoE spell like this has also its benefits. We got like the only mobile AoE spell in game that follows the pack automatically, very nice imo. Tried playing lock and having to lock on the ground to AoE and hoping they don't move etc. I really liked my mind sear a lot more then.
It sucks to use Mind Sear on packs with low HP cause you barely can AoE at all if your target dies fastest. But overal i really like the mechanic behind Mind Sear, too bad its just is shit atm.

[Kiry]

I wouldn't mind a review of our overall damage. I do still find we are lower than compariable dps. I'm pushing it and still one of the lowest caster dps in raids. I manage to be very close, but I feel like I have no ability to do utility if I want to do compariable dps to those that are doing things like...interupts!

There's a lot of movement in the fights and other ranged now have abilities to cast while moving. What can we cast? DP, SWP, SWD......everything else is channel or cast time. Those two spells aren't big stacking dps spells.

And yes, please an improvement in our AoE - just a little. On a fight like Maloriak, I do the least AoE dps compariable to mage, warlock, hunter, even our fury warrior. They are doing 2 - 3 spells, I can dot up, but they are dying before it's worthwhile.

[Casimir]

I wouldn't mind a review of our overall damage. I do still find we are lower than compariable dps. I'm pushing it and still one of the lowest caster dps in raids. I manage to be very close, but I feel like I have no ability to do utility if I want to do compariable dps to those that are doing things like...interupts!

There's a lot of movement in the fights and other ranged now have abilities to cast while moving. What can we cast? DP, SWP, SWD......everything else is channel or cast time. Those two spells aren't big stacking dps spells.

And yes, please an improvement in our AoE - just a little. On a fight like Maloriak, I do the least AoE dps compariable to mage, warlock, hunter, even our fury warrior. They are doing 2 - 3 spells, I can dot up, but they are dying before it's worthwhile.

You are pushing it etc, but you clearly fail to understand class mechanics.
What other caster dps has big stacking instant cast spells? Imo spriest are 1 of the better movement classes, hell 1 of the best even.
Due our very weak AoE we can fall behind other dpsers easily. Look at Magmaw, we lose a lot of dmg done because we suck with Aoeing.
Doesn't mean we suck with single target dps, or multiple target dps even. As long as the adds have enough hp though!

[MoanaLisa]

With regard to PVE, I dunno. I've seen a lot of posts here and elsewhere implying that shadow won't be good enough until we can top charts. That just seems wrong to me. We're a hybrid class with an enormous amount of utility with regard to crowd control and off-healing. It's not like when you choose the shadow tree, you all-of-a-sudden lose all of your healing spells. And besides, the game should be less about topping meters. I've seen really terrible players that could top meters but couldn't be bothered to pay attention to any other aspect of the game like not standing in stuff. Topping meters doesn't make you a good player.

Mind Sear needs to be fixed and will apparently will be. For everything else, it feels like we're fine. I don't mind the RNG surrounding orbs since if you take out RNG, it's less like a game and more like rats running through a maze. That's what Wrath was like in the end and that was just really, really boring.

Forcing an orb through some series of actions that would take up a few GCD's is a great idea. That's a choice. Choices are good and exciting.

It's easy to understand understand the point-of-view that we shouldn't be doing off-healing. I just mildly disagree with it. Having a lot of utility and not being so one-dimensional should be valued. There's a lot of assembly-line "I should only be doing one thing" thinking in WoW, most of it a detriment to the actual game experience.

[Casimir]

With regard to PVE, I dunno. I've seen a lot of posts here and elsewhere implying that shadow won't be good enough until we can top charts. That just seems wrong to me. We're a hybrid class with an enormous amount of utility with regard to crowd control and off-healing. It's not like when you choose the shadow tree, you all-of-a-sudden lose all of your healing spells. And besides, the game should be less about topping meters. I've seen really terrible players that could top meters but couldn't be bothered to pay attention to any other aspect of the game like not standing in stuff. Topping meters doesn't make you a good player.

Mind Sear needs to be fixed and will apparently will be. For everything else, it feels like we're fine. I don't mind the RNG surrounding orbs since if you take out RNG, it's less like a game and more like rats running through a maze. That's what Wrath was like in the end and that was just really, really boring.

Forcing an orb through some series of actions that would take up a few GCD's is a great idea. That's a choice. Choices are good and exciting.

It's easy to understand understand the point-of-view that we shouldn't be doing off-healing. I just mildly disagree with it. Having a lot of utility and not being so one-dimensional should be valued. There's a lot of assembly-line "I should only be doing one thing" thinking in WoW, most of it a detriment to the actual game experience.

I agree mostly with you, but saying; We're a hybrid class with an enormous amount of utility with regard to crowd control.
Well that's a big facepalm >.<

[gaymer77]

I agree mostly with you, but saying; We're a hybrid class with an enormous amount of utility with regard to crowd control.
Well that's a big facepalm >.<

Couldn't agree with you more on that. Our CC is limited to upto 8 seconds of fear (3 seconds if you count Psychic Horror) and Mind Control which takes the priest out of commission while he is doing the CC. Also Blizzard has stated something to the point that they are doing away with the notion that hybrids are supposed to do less damage than the pures do simply because they are a hybrid. The reason for this is with the shift to 10 mans being viable and so many of the buffs that hybrids brought to the table being spread around A LOT the only reason to bring the player is because of the player not his class (remember "Bring the player not the class" motto?). BTW our "utility" that we brought was either stripped away from us (prayer of spirit & the raid-wide damage reduction that disc provided that I can't for the life of me think of its name, misery...eventhough druids got to keep their spell damage debuff while losing their spell hit debuff), given to other classes (shadow prot, fort & replinishment), nerfed into the ground (replinishment & VE healing), or brought by any spec of priest (divine hymn - breaks shadow forms, remove disease - breaks shadow form, shackle, hymn of hope - breaks shadow form). As for the whole "off-healing", that's a crock if I ever heard one. Our healing spells have no reduction in cast time and don't heal for near as high as either healing spec does. The only time our healing is beneficial is when our healer/healers are failing to do their job of keeping people alive (granted some blame can sometimes be placed with the dps for taking unnecesary damage but more than 1/2 the time the healer is just too undergeared to be healing or is a bad healer).

tl;dr We don't have utility that most other classes already bring & we don't have any real CC and Blizzard said to get it out of your head that we should no be competing/beating in damage the pures simply because we're a hybrid.