Shadow Priest PvP in 4.0.6 (More BG oriented than arena) - Holy subspec, perhaps?

[Kreuz Kontrol]

So I've been mulling over all the changes our class as gotten, as well as some of the changes other classes have gotten.

At the moment one of the classes that gives me issues in PvP is a Warrior. We lack the ability to peel/snare/root that some of the other classes have, and Warriors have the ability to make themselves immune to our one and only CC for the most part. That and it seems like their charges are endless. 'Tis a sad time fighting a Warrior as a Shadow Priest indeed.

One thing I've noticed though is we have the "potential" to have FAR more survival after 4.0.6 from the massive PW:S buff alone, not to mention the new 4 pc. "4 Sec of Snare Immunity" PvP set bonus.

That being said, there's some "new" things us Shadow Priest have not traditionally used.

# Glyph of Spirit of Redemption has been converted into Glyph of Prayer of Mending, which increases the healing done by the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 60%.

Of course us Shadow Priests use Prayer of Mending, but rarely do we glyph for healing spells in a PvP setting. With all the new changes, I can see myself glyphing this.

# Surge of Light now also procs from Flash Heal and Greater Heal.

We have traditionally subspec'd into the Discipline tree for the increased damage from Twin Disc., and spec'd into Evangelism and Dark Archangel. Honestly, though, after these new changes I am considering giving up those talents to subspec into Holy. More on this later.

# Desperate Prayer now heals the priest for 30% of their total health, up from a very subpar value.

30%? Wow. Self buffed I have around 125k health. 30% of that is "almost" 40k. A 40k instant heal on a spec. that's already going to have a ton of survival after the patch? This honestly sounds too good to pass up.

The spec I am looking at is http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bbZchbZhrMdrkrddMo

Keep in mind the 4.0.6 changes when looking at this talent build. "Improved Power Word: Shield" is going to give a 30% increase to the absorb of PW:S. When you add that to the considerable buff PW:S is getting, that's extremely nice. Then there's the talents from Holy. Increased healing and faster cast times on healing spells. Those talents speak for themselves. Then there's Surge of Light. It's being changed to work with Flash Heal as well. So, occasionally, while we are healing ourselves we'll get an extra free heal out of it. This, to me, just seems to give us absolutely AMAZING survival. Of course mana will come into play, but we have the best mana gain out of the three Priest trees with Masochism and Dispersion.

I'm really looking forward to 4.0.6 and trying some of these new things. How about you guys?

Edit: It would seem I made a booboo. I forgot to include Desperate Prayer in that spec. Hm. The only way around it would be to give up a point in Surge of Light. Tough call!

[Ttam]

I feel like shadow got nerfed more than anything, the pw;s buff helps, but its increased mana cost doesn't and really thats the issue with shadow we oom.

Only thing that helped efficiency for us was renew cost being reduced.

The nerf though obviously was PH glyph.

Also, youre forgetting shadows flash heals heal for 12-13k and greater 16-17k is it worth missing out ona 25% mana rgeen on a 2 minute cooldown for just that? When even in battlegrounds we rarely die

[Kreuz Kontrol]

I feel like shadow got nerfed more than anything, the pw;s buff helps, but its increased mana cost doesn't and really thats the issue with shadow we oom.

Only thing that helped efficiency for us was renew cost being reduced.

The nerf though obviously was PH glyph.

Also, youre forgetting shadows flash heals heal for 12-13k and greater 16-17k is it worth missing out ona 25% mana rgeen on a 2 minute cooldown for just that? When even in battlegrounds we rarely die

Shadow heals for 12-13k without the talents to prop. it up by 15%, and we also don't traditionally take the talent to reduce the cast time.

Then there's that 40k heal from desperate prayer as well. Archangel is nice and all, but I wouldn't mind sacrificing some burst on a 2 minute cooldown for far greater survival.

On your comment about OOM.. I don't traditionally run into that problem unless I'm doing some Mind Spike spam to burst someone down. With Dispersion and Masochism, I rarely run low on mana. Then again.. I also have 80k mana which is a decent sized mana pool.

[Ttam]

Shadow heals for 12-13k without the talents to prop. it up by 15%, and we also don't traditionally take the talent to reduce the cast time.

Then there's that 40k heal from desperate prayer as well. Archangel is nice and all, but I wouldn't mind sacrificing some burst on a 2 minute cooldown for far greater survival.

On your comment about OOM.. I don't traditionally run into that problem unless I'm doing some Mind Spike spam to burst someone down. With Dispersion and Masochism, I rarely run low on mana. Then again.. I also have 80k mana which is a decent sized mana pool.

I just don't think the healing is needed, since flash heal takes away around 7ish% of a mana pool greater heal the same it'd just not be worth sacrificing damage to get a little bit of healing which won't matter when we oom anyway.

[Auro]

Eh, they're not changing our main issue: we're a mana hog...

i feel more like an OOM priest i BGs more often than I feel like a shadow priest, especially since people so rarely die from my 2 shadow word deaths... they always seem to have 1k health left which means the dot tick kills em.... and I get no mana. If I'm lucky I can snipe someone else's killing blow, but that seems under handed.

We're also really under powered against anything melee. The second they get in range its pretty much over half the time, they can interrupt/stun/snare/etc until kingdom come, and our clothy-ness is just too weak compared to the plate wearers.

When I play a dk/warrior/paladin I notice my survivability at least double, with no necessary skill increase. In fact I'm worse at my warrior than my priest because I hardly play him.

And I still see archangel being more powerful than holy subspec. Losing shadowform loses 15% of your damage reduction and you have to blow a GCD to go back to shadow, along with 1600-2400 mana (depending on inner fire or inner will).