BOOM, nerfed.

[Tyraena]

Talkin about burst being a problem but then nerf our sustained damage output not our burst
Don't nerf hunters even though their output is equivalent to both shadow and moonkin WITH dark intent, but they don't need any nerfs TOTALLY balanced right?

Did you read the notes that came with this change? The ones nerfing Balance druids, and saying hunter nerfs were also incoming?

Sure it sucks, but don't be stupid about it too.

[Count Zero]

maybe they should be nerfing death knights and not us.

They nerfed Unholy twice.

Anyway ... a shadowpriest in my guild was usually about 5th or so on the meters (give or take one spot). First raid after the patch she was not only 1st, but way ahead of the 2nd. The buff was too much.

[Trenticle]

PS: This nerf is literally 2000+ dps difference (potentially more on multi-target fights, and definitely more on gimmick fights like halfus). Look at your most recent WoL, and subtract 2k dps from the shadow priest and see where it puts him.

if 2k DPS is 8% of your damage on average you def needed a nerf bro.

100/8=12.5
12.5*2000=25000

if you are doing 25k dps on every fight i'm really psyched you got nerfed.

[Solfire]

I'm going to hold the biggest party ever if they just get rid of DI. I'm sick of how much it throws our DPS out of wack. I raid with another Shadow Priest and some of my biggest joy in raiding is working with them to maximize our potential. It's really hard to compare each other when we only have one raiding warlock. We did need a nerf, a nerf to DI. >_< (I say this as a spriest that almost ALWAYS has DI) It's also turning warlocks into the new shaman, we don't care what their DPS is, just for the love of god give the shadow priests DI so they stop bitching every night. T_T

[MoanaLisa]

You can't pretend you didn't see this nerf coming.

I saw a nerf coming but not necessarily to every single damage spell I have.

Realistically, I was hoping for them to do something about DI, eliminate it entirely would have been fine with me, and touching back the MB buff a bit, maybe 10% higher than Mind Spike damage instead if 18%. DI, to me, is exactly the opposite of 'bring the player, not the class' so I was mildly surprised that they left it alone.

We'll see how it plays out. I've posted elsewhere in another thread about what I think is going on with the devs and all of this. Short version is that it's becoming clear that they can't remember what they've buffed or why and they're just lurching back and forth now. See Mind Sear for an example.

[Height]

There are no hybrid classes anymore and there is no reason to make one class do more/less damage than another. Yes my shadowpriest can heal, but when he does heal he looses dps time. That is enough of a tax.

I don't care if shadow does shit DPS if we bring something more to the table such as higher VE heals or a stronger replenishment, but now everyone and their mom can heal up with mechanics and provide replenishment. All flavor is gone and dps justification is gone. Exactly how does blizzard feel each class should be and what are the justifications they use? Or maybe they just nerf and buff people in circles so everyone has a turn now.

The current nerf looks like it will mathematically make us on the lower side again. Lower than the point we were comparatively with other classes prior to them thinking we needed a buff.

And I really hope they aren't basing stuff off dark intent. If they are plz get rid of dark intent. I'd rather not have it because having it be accessible in the game is nerfing me ever more in that I don't play with locks.

[Deleted]

I saw this nurf comming as soon my shadowpriest friend texted me at work saying he did 22k on a single target boss in a hc.... I do also play shadow but we´re only 2 shadow in the guild so we kinda help each other.
Last raid we did halfus and i did 55k dps and closest was i think 39k.... But yeah they realy should have nurfed us in another way!

[TyralisUH]

It's perfect like that

[Direshadow]

You were a bit OP spriests, so you got a little nerf, deal with it.

Honestly, I was never very clear on why we were buffed in the first place. No we weren't amazing dps, but I was never "bad" dps either. I was what a hybrid dps should be. Yes Mind Blast was low, and yes Mind Sear was underpowered.

The buffs to our mastery though was a bit dumb.

[jonish]

Huh?

Survival hunters got a pretty big nerf in 4.06

Marks damage is higher than survival was pre-patch , they got an overall buff by specing marks. so no , hunters did not get a nerf.

---------- Post added 2011-02-12 at 07:10 PM ----------

"Too much" is a bit tricky. For example, the 10% nerf means Mind Sear is now back to being pretty much useless, it gained a total of a 5% increase since last patch. Single target, as long as you are getting Dark Intent you should be alright.

so were outputting the same dps we were pre-patch when we already had dark intent and they thought we were in a bad place(which we were), and thats ok?

---------- Post added 2011-02-12 at 07:13 PM ----------

Yes, dark intent is a little silly right now.

But so are MB crits in pvp, especially when you can get one in every 6 seconds, and when the cast time is crazy fast for a spell that hits like that, considering the free 3% haste through talents. Priests would have absolutely dominated every bracket, especially since disc is so bubbleiscious right now too, because in addition to the strongest DoTs you had a nuke that was hitting harder than starsurge or hand of guldan and coming out faster and more often.

So many recent changes, to all classes, have so obviously been made because of a desire for PVP "balance", and I think this is clearly the case. Spriests were dominating pve meters even without dark intent

they did not change the burst of mind blast , they lowered shadows total damage output , your argument is invalid.

---------- Post added 2011-02-12 at 07:17 PM ----------

Did you read the notes that came with this change? The ones nerfing Balance druids, and saying hunter nerfs were also incoming?

Sure it sucks, but don't be stupid about it too.

apparently your reading comprehension is bad , they said they were nerfing Aimed shots burst potential not lowering the classes dps output by 10%.

[Irony]

Great now I'm literally gonna have to blow our Warlock for Dark Intent.
Oh well, we deserved it and I saw this coming. We should never win on single target fights >.>;

[Bullettime]

Dark Intent should never have given a 9% periodic damage increase and players, especially shadow priests, warned and begged Blizzard after it was announced to change it since it was just asking for trouble and terrible balance issues. They didn't listen. DI should have just been a haste version of Focus Magic as a class baseline instead of talent. Also it should have a limit where only 1 DI can be active on a player. Blizzard still didn't listen. Now shadow gets nerfed over a WARLOCK ability that we've been warning Blizzard about since Dark Intent's inception. Now we're competitive with the other tops like hunters ONLY if we have the buff and middle of the pack/lower end (if you're in 10 man raiding with no warlock.) It seems quite stupid to be nerfed and balanced around a warlock buff instead of hitting the heart of the problem before it rears its ugly head once again next raid tier when gear goes up and the benefit multiplies exponentially.

---------- Post added 2011-02-12 at 07:31 PM ----------

Another little fun bit is one of the big reasons shadow was looking forward to 4.06 was to have mind sear finally worth using. After this nerf, mind sear will go almost to where it was before as the 15% buff gets reduced overall to only 7% buff to what mind sear was before patch. 7% increase to shit is still shit....

Blizzard even said that shadow was possibly doing too much in pvp to help warrant this nerf but last I checked this is more of a nerf to our sustained dps than to our burst potential. Dropping our mind blast/spike damage 8% still hits pretty heavy thus voiding 1/2 of their argument.

[Count Zero]

DI should have just been a haste version of Focus Magic as a class baseline instead of talent.

Dark Intent is baseline and not a talent.

Edit:

Oh, re-reading this I see maybe you're talking about Focus Magic being the talent. It is worded rather vaguely.

[ibprofin]

gg mind sear, I enjoyed using you for exactly 1 week.

[zsun]

The hotfix has already gone live. My Mind Spike is hitting for 9777, whereas before it was hitting for 10620 under the same conditions.

My raid single target DPS literally went up by 4 - 5k from pre-patch to post-patch. I had DI on both occasions. Even if this nerf means a 2k dps decrease, it would still be a 2 - 3k buff from pre-patch.

The thing about DI is that the extra DPS it provides depends on how much DPS you are already doing. The more DPS you are already doing, the more extra DPS it will give. Since we have received a buff to our DPS in the latest patch, the benefit of DI is now even greater, which has caused people to claim to nerf DI. Hoewever imo DI isn't really the one to be nerfed because it would've been a nerf to other classes which DI is placed on. Instead the nerf should be placed on the overbuff we just received, which is what blizz did. And by doing so, mind Sear would definitely be rather useless again.

[Deleted]

You chose to roll a hybrid and hybrid you will remain. If nerfing a class for someone else's buff makes it OP feels unfair, it also feels unfair for pures to have hybrids not only beating them but even being on par with them.

[Le0]

Last night I found myself top 1 at Chogall 10 kill with 10M damage done. Previous kill it was like 6M. Kinda expected nerf, it's ok except for Mind Sear.

[Abandon]

You chose to roll a hybrid and hybrid you will remain. If nerfing a class for someone else's buff makes it OP feels unfair, it also feels unfair for pures to have hybrids not only beating them but even being on par with them.

That doesn't really make any sense. We don't have the option to reroll another DPS spec when our one gets nerfed, you do. Nerfing the buff would have lowered our damage as well as not making us dependent on another class which may or may not be there for DPS. And could you explain why being a hybrid means we should have to have one other specific class in a raid to do proper DPS?

[Unizo]

You chose to roll a hybrid and hybrid you will remain. If nerfing a class for someone else's buff makes it OP feels unfair, it also feels unfair for pures to have hybrids not only beating them but even being on par with them.

Blizzard hasn't held that view on hybrids since the end of Burning Crusade.

[Jedimindtrx]

my boomkin and spriest taking a hit. Shadowpriest = OP? lol.

For once we get a gift, and they take it away. Remember when spriest weren't considered for raids Classic/BC, when smitespec > shadowi n BC, PVPwise all BC- mid LK, no aoe until LK, our dps when TOC just came out... Whatever, spriest is a against all odds spec, or against all stigma and nerf spec. Our dps is earned and thorougly managed (multidotting/swp,vt always up on all targets). I only know 2 instances where our dps was amazing, LK fight (mindsear works on the ghosts, no else could do that, so why were people hating on us bc our dmg was so high on LK) and 4.0.6 pre-hotfix.

I find using an spriest rewarding over my mage which (seriously) isn't that hard at all to pull high numbers, I even went arcane in 4.0.3 for a challenge. I haven't played my lock in cata so I can't say anything.

Side note: 25 to 15%? WTF while locks still hold 25% shadow mastery. Aren't we suppose to be the true "shadow masters". I'd rather have base dot dmg reduced like what they did with aff locks.

Then again, whatever, we're spriests. We've been dealing with nerfs and "underppoweredness" for a long time, but I'll still stand by this spec. /rant