Shadow Priest vs Warlock Self-heal/drain

[Kiniun]

I can't count the amount of duels I've lost down to being feared and the priest throwing in a few flash heals and /loling at me while he's chilling at 70%+

But then again, with the increased mana cost, it might be sensible to increase their self healing moderatly, taking into account the fact they have more defensive capabilities than the average aff lock i.e Dispersion, bubble while the lock relies on his self heals to keep him alive

If you're losing to shadow priests as a lock you gotta be a terribad player. Warlocks have easily the best survability in-game atm. Shadow priests doesn't even come close to that. And just wow, a 7k bubble is insane bro. Healing=oom.

[creamie123]

Just a comparison between Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks:

Damage buffs:

We have
(1) 10-15% from Shadow Orbs
(2) Passive 25% Shadow damage
(3) 15% shadow damage from Shadowform
(4) 3% Spell Haste
(5) Increased 30% SW dmg on near-death targets below 25% HP
(6) 6% Increased SW:P dmg
(7) 100% more damage on criticals
(8) A temporary shadowfiend that deals heavy damage

They have
(1) 20% DoT buff from a spell with a 2 min CD for 20 secs
(2) Passive 25% Shadow damage
(3) 15-20% from Mastery
(4) 15% from 3x Shadow Embrace Stack
(5) 12% more damage on near-death targets below 25% HP
(6) 8% from Curse of the Elements and -165 of all resistances
(7) 12% Increased Corruption dmg, 8% crit on Curses, 15% crit on UA and Corr
(8) 20% Increased DoT dmg from Haunt (23% if glyphed)
(9) 18% Increased drain life/drain soul damage from 3 stacked DoTs
(10) 3% Haste from Dark Intent and up to 9% increased DoT damage (3 stacks) from it
(11) A permanent pet that hits far harder than our temporary shadowfiend
(12) A 45 sec cooldown free instant-cast Soul-fire

Defenses/HP regen:

We have
(1) 2 min CD Dispersion for 90% reduced dmg
(2) 15 sec CD PW:S
(3) Fortitude
(4) Armor increase from Inner Fire
(5) 6% self-heal from VE
(6) 15% reduced dmg from Shadowform
(7) All of our heals out of Shadowform
(8) 300 per tick from Devouring plague (excluding VE)

They have
(1) 20% reduced dmg from Soul Link (25% if glyphed)
(2) 30 sec CD Shadow Ward
(3) 3% self-heal from Fel Armor (6% with talents)
(4) Armor increase from Demon Armor, along with up to 30% increased Self-heals
(5) 15% of all damage heals pet for Soul Link
(6) Up to a 3000 HP/s drain Drain life
(7) Up to 50% chance for 3000 per tick from Siphon Life (which can be spammed on 10+ targets)
(8) 20000-30000 HP from Healthstone?
(9) Up to 5000 on a Deathcoil
(10) Up to 5000 (twice if crit) on Haunt
(11) Harvest Soul (heal over 15 secs if out of battle)
(12) 250% drains on DL at or below 25% HP
(13) A 30 sec CD teleport/blink
(14) A Shield that is 2-3x as powerful as PW:S from Voidwalker sacrifice

CCs:

We have
(1) Shackle Undead
(2) 30 sec CD Psychic Scream (26 sec CD with talents)
(3) 2 min CD Horror for 3 secs and forces weapon drop
(4) 5 sec Silence
(5) 50% Slow on Mind Flay
(6) Momentary stuns on Mind Blast crits
(7) Horror effect from dispelled VT

They have
(1) Banish Demons/Elementals
(2) 40 sec CD Howl of Terror (32 sec CD with Glyph)
(3) 2 min CD Horror for 3 secs and heals themselves for 300% of dmg dealt
(4) 3 sec Silence + 6 sec Counterspell from Felpuppy that can be cast even if the master is CC-ed
(5) 30% Slow on Curse of Exhaustion (can be spammed on 10+ targets)
(6) Spammable Fears
(7) Spammable Seduce
(8) 30% increased cast time from Curse of Tongues
(9) 4 sec silence from dispelled UA
(10) Succubus stun
(11) Voidwalker Torment/Taunt

AOEs:

We have
(1) Mind Sear

They have
(1) Rain of Fire
(2) Hellfire
(3) Seed of Corruption (and empowered Seed of Corruption)

Instant Casts (Direct-damage only)

We have
(1) Spammable 30% of Devouring Plague damage
(2) SW

They have
(1) Spammable Fel Flame
(2) Deathcoil
(3) Instant cast Soul fire every 45 seconds

Let us not get started on the buffs that their 5 or 6 permanent pets can grant them (including a sick 1500? mana per 5 sec regen and a Fortitude-like buff), or their debuffs compared to ours.

[kelevandros]

Excellent and mildly depressing post creamie. Haven't played a lock and it seems they have a full bag of tricks.
So far my impression is that the new cata healing model has tilted the scales of balance to favor classes that are pure dpsers with some healing utility compared to hybrid dpsers who also have healing spells. Healing utility integrated into damage / utility spells >>> pure healing spells right now in the game. Until we see a fix there, locks will be overpowered. Which will be tricky, because they won't be able to buff the heals to support us (that would affect our healing aspect). They will have to do something with our dps/utility function.

[Abandon]

Excellent and mildly depressing post creamie. Haven't played a lock and it seems they have a full bag of tricks.
So far my impression is that the new cata healing model has tilted the scales of balance to favor classes that are pure dpsers with some healing utility compared to hybrid dpsers who also have healing spells. Healing utility integrated into damage / utility spells >>> pure healing spells right now in the game. Until we see a fix there, locks will be overpowered. Which will be tricky, because they won't be able to buff the heals to support us (that would affect our healing aspect). They will have to do something with our dps/utility function.

That's it exactly. Hybrids seem to have lower passive healing because we have the option to cast direct healing spells, however since people who actually spec healing are having a hard time healing through the damage that DPS can do, we really don't have a chance considering we have absolutely no talents to back it up.

Compared to other damage classes, our self-healing is quite badly designed, since it is quite low and requires us to be actively doing damage to get any healing from it. Our main source of damage is DoTs and our current Dispel protection is very lacking, to the point that it encourages people to dispel it in order to become immune to Psychic Horror or become immune to Sin and Punishment itself because of the Diminishing Returns.

In the next patch Death Knights will be able to glyph to instantly heal themselves for 15% of their health in exchange for lowering their damage slightly for a short time by using Death Strike. Rogues can do the same with Recuperate, an instant which heals them over time without requiring them to be constantly doing damage to gain healing from it, from a renewable resource.
An acceptable compromise would be if we had a heal that consumed our Shadow Orbs. Then we would be reducing our damage by using a renewable resource for self-healing instead of damage, just like they are.

And Lebored, nobody is asking to be made overpowered. I would just quite like the ability to actually heal myself as well as classes which have no healing trees can.

[Lebored]

And Lebored, nobody is asking to be made overpowered. I would just quite like the ability to actually heal myself as well as classes which have no healing trees can.

Look I get that, right now I'm playing an Ele Shaman right which has the same issue with casted heals you do, but even less passive healing. So I'm not a Lock or Warrior protecting my self healing status.

But all healing hybrids basically have had the ability to keep themselves alive using casted heals removed. This seems intentional on Blizzards part so I'm not sure it's going to change. So if we also assume they aren't going to nerf other classes the only solution to hybrid healing viability is passive self only heals (to prevent you from being able to keep other people alive as a dps spec not just yourself).

Things like boosts to PW:S, VE, and perhaps Devouring Plague are really the only likely ways to increase your self healing.

But this all seems like a pointless discussion to me because Spriests problem isn't lack of self healing it's dispel protection and the new dispel system healers got in Cata.

So instead of creating laundry lists of Lock vs Spriest abilities and getting steamed about small buffs to survivability, it would seem to me that focus be put on the real problem. A real problem that can be fixed.

[Evelyn]

Things like boosts to PW:S, VE, and perhaps Devouring Plague are really the only likely ways to increase your self healing.

But this all seems like a pointless discussion to me because Spriests problem isn't lack of self healing it's dispel protection and the new dispel system healers got in Cata.

i can't say i agree completely. we ARE lacking self heals and that IS a problem. if they do finally fix sin & punishment.. awesome! we wont be wasting our mana on dots that normally just get dispelled. then maybe we'll have more mana to drop shadowform and heal cause our self heals through ve and devouring plague are horrible.

i don't understand why they went ahead and gave other classes dispels that only priest and pallys should have. it just makes for more imbalance issues then anything else. also by balanced i don't mean give every class the same type of abilities but call them something different, though i think that is what blizzard has been doing over time. which is bad imho.

[Abandon]

Look I get that, right now I'm playing an Ele Shaman right which has the same issue with casted heals you do, but even less passive healing. So I'm not a Lock or Warrior protecting my self healing status.

But all healing hybrids basically have had the ability to keep themselves alive using casted heals removed. This seems intentional on Blizzards part so I'm not sure it's going to change. So if we also assume they aren't going to nerf other classes the only solution to hybrid healing viability is passive self only heals (to prevent you from being able to keep other people alive as a dps spec not just yourself).

Things like boosts to PW:S, VE, and perhaps Devouring Plague are really the only likely ways to increase your self healing.

But this all seems like a pointless discussion to me because Spriests problem isn't lack of self healing it's dispel protection and the new dispel system healers got in Cata.

So instead of creating laundry lists of Lock vs Spriest abilities and getting steamed about small buffs to survivability, it would seem to me that focus be put on the real problem. A real problem that can be fixed.

I agree with you about how the only way to buff Shadow Priests healing without it becoming overpowered would be to increase their self-healing only, and Devouring Plague and VE would probably be the best choices since they are not available to the other Priest specs. Improved Devouring Plague increasing the self-healing from Devouring Plague back to 100% like it originally was would be a nice buff (possibly restricting it to the periodic damage to prevent spamming it to heal yourself up).

Another suggestion I saw on the forums was giving us some sort of ability to consume Shadow Orbs for self healing or consuming them to increase the health return from Vampiric Embrace, since at the moment they seem depressingly passive considering they were supposed to be one of the more interesting Masteries. It would fit in with Blizzards apparent idea for DPS classes to give up some damage in order to heal themselves, and they could put the skill itself on a cooldown to prevent over-use.

It's not really a pointless discussion though, since our self-healing really is lower than DPS classes, which is a bit depressing considering we are the only class in the game with two healing talent trees. Even if they flat out refuse to Dispel any of our damage, our self-healing is still lower than the other DPS classes. This is all the more evident when you notice the uproar Warlocks are causing because Fel Armor is being nerfed to be as weak as Vampiric Embrace instead of being far stronger.

Also, Vampiric Embrace scales with damage done, which has not increased anywhere close to how health has this expansion, which is what makes the skills which return a % of total health so powerful. Well, that and VE got nerfed from 25% health returned to 6%.

[kritisk]

creamie

I play both classes with warlock being my main and priest the one I play most of the time when not raiding. Both have "issues" that are beyond the scope of this thread.

You really do need to readjust your list above though. You list warlock abilities from all 3 specs in your pros and cons. Yet on the priest, you neglect things that shadow can use even if not "optimal." You lump all the heal spells together, list 'em out each one as you have the lock. You don't mention your silver bullet against many locks (esp aff) which is dispel one of the single most powerful tools in the game as things are now because of lack of dispel protection that is really viable anymore. You have prayers for massive health and mana on a long cooldown. Where is archangel? Mind Control? How about our apparitions which are quite powerful when using our mobility. It sounds like you don't play your priest to its full potential.

In one on one, it's dependent upon spec, as it should imo, as to which stands a better chance of survival considering "equal" gear and skill.

I do think priests need some tweaks and locks do as well. But it's not nearly as dire as some of you are making out. On my spriest, I see no reason to fear locks as most often just confront them when I see them and more often than not come out ahead. I have far too many tools at my disposal to just lay down for a loss.

[Abandon]

I do think priests need some tweaks and locks do as well. But it's not nearly as dire as some of you are making out. On my spriest, I see no reason to fear locks as most often just confront them when I see them and more often than not come out ahead. I have far too many tools at my disposal to just lay down for a loss.

While I don't really think that a direct comparison between every Priest ability and Warlock ability was particularly helpful, this thread was not really a "who would win in a fight" type thread. It's more about how the differences between our self-healing, and in fact self-healing from most Hybrids compared to most Pure DPS classes, seems to put us at a disadvantage.

[Lebored]

i can't say i agree completely. we ARE lacking self heals and that IS a problem. if they do finally fix sin & punishment.. awesome! we wont be wasting our mana on dots that normally just get dispelled. then maybe we'll have more mana to drop shadowform and heal cause our self heals through ve and devouring plague are horrible.

i don't understand why they went ahead and gave other classes dispels that only priest and pallys should have. it just makes for more imbalance issues then anything else. also by balanced i don't mean give every class the same type of abilities but call them something different, though i think that is what blizzard has been doing over time. which is bad imho.

Well it is A problem, its just not THE problem.
And they gave every Healer magic dispel for the same reason they homogenized buffs.
It's their "its not OP if everyone has it" mentality.
They just forgot to properly compensate the effected classes who lost individuality to homogenization.

[C9R9D]

I'd say its about even, if the spriest and warlock are both evenly geared it all goes down to skill, locks might have better healing but a spriest can fear+flash heal or use dispersion

[Lebored]

It's not really a pointless discussion though, since our self-healing really is lower than DPS classes, which is a bit depressing considering we are the only class in the game with two healing talent trees. Even if they flat out refuse to Dispel any of our damage, our self-healing is still lower than the other DPS classes. This is all the more evident when you notice the uproar Warlocks are causing because Fel Armor is being nerfed to be as weak as Vampiric Embrace instead of being far stronger.

My point is that some classes made it thru multiple expansion with no self healing at all, because they had other abilities to compensate.
So if Spriest self heal went from good to poor, all they need is the similar compensation to make that not an issue. Maybe like Locks we need to look at how much damage is coming in and adjust damage reduction rather than just healing. Maybe Shadow form or Inner Fire needs a boost.

In my opinion tho other classes just have too much self healing, I'm not sure why they got the boosts they did to the level they did. But outside of a couple of classes I'd rather see other classes nerfed.

[Bullettime]

The only issue with shadows self healing (since we're balanced now around having actual heals) is the fact that casting our actual heals depletes our mana incredibly fast, usually interrupted, and by the time the heal goes off, we really only healed back some of the damage we took during the cast since we lose 15% damage reduction to cast them. It's more of a way to delay the inevitable and pray someone else jumps into the fray for you before you go OOM trying to fight out. If they want to keep our self healing low and keep us balanced for having being able to cast our heals, they should add something, whether glyph, talent, or baseline, that a heal cast within 5 seconds of breaking shadowform will cost half mana or something along those lines.

Personal opinion is just to lower self healing on everyone else across the board to similar levels. I don't think shadow self healing is too low (other than in comparison to past xpacs) but it's more of other classes have too much. Warriors, rogues, and death knights get insane amount of self heals + interrupts + burst + more mobility and can heal better than most all casters who can "self heal" minus an affliction lock with appropriate ramp up time with none of the other benefits and tools melee seem to have gotten (minus frost mages.) Trying to even get the self heal off is bad enough trying to fight a barrage of interrupts, stuns and incapacitates. It's worse when the heal does absolutely nothing in comparison to the burst we take during it as a sitting duck and we can't create a gap to get the heal due to melee anti cc counters.

[Direshadow]

I'm sorry if warlocks are jealous at our ability to wield dark energies. Also, dispelling your dots and getting healed for it is also a gas (Glyph of Dispel)

[Diaxx]

You are correct, I have both and I leveled my Priest first, but my lv 80 lock self heals for much more.

[creamie123]

Looks like they do not really intend for Shadow Priests to be on par with Affliction Warlocks once again. From the next patch on, the following will hold true:

Shadow Priests' mastery shadow damage bonus got reduced from 25 to 15%.

Affliction Warlocks' mastery shadow damage bonus got buffed from 25 to 30%, on top of a theoretical 162% increase to their Felhunter's special attack, with a 4x mana refund that will put to shame our Shadowfiends. They get a tremendous 50% damage buff to their Doomguards, and a 30% attack to their main Affliction direct hit.

[thebbandit]

Bah Stupid changes make me mad. Damn you blizzard! come out with Diablo already cus i am sick of this bs.