Why to take shadow priest over other casters?

[Deleted]

Im just wondering why people should take shadow priest over other caster classes. Let´s compare to others (in a view of arenas):

Shadow priest:
Mobility - zero, Fade - its a joke, everyone can just refresh their movement impairing effects on us, and we are done (try to escape from DK, warrior, rogue etc.)
Survivability - well, we have dispersion, but its 5s cd, we can be ccd in that and after this, we dont have anything.
Dmg - ok, it´s the only place we can compare to other casters, we have pretty good damage from dots, but no dot protection here (SnP is again, JOKE!!), spamming mind spike isnt a solution, u gonna get oom very fast if u do it
Mana efficiency - shadow priests go insanely fast oom, especially when they try to heal in arenas
CC - psychic scream (u have to be next to who u want to fear), silence (45s CD) and psychic horror (1,5m CD), only class that doesnt have spammable cc ...

Mage:
Mobility - greatest mobility from all casters, maybe from all classes
Survivability - shields, blinks, 2 ice blocks, evocation
Dmg - insane burst, u all know it
CC - increadible spamming cc, polymorfs, counterspell, frost novas, deep freezes, circle, bla bla bla ...
Mana efficiency - never saw mage who got oom in arena ...

Warlock:
Mobility - same problem as shadow priest, but they have at least portal
Survivability - Healstones, portal, dispel from pet, heal from dots, soul link ...
Dmg - same as shadow priest - dots, but they have great dispel protection - 5s silence + increadible dmg
CC - howl, spammable fear, silence from felhunter, death coil
Mana efficiency - well, no need to explain


So, my question is, where the hell are shadow priests (without friendly dispel now) when we compare them to other casters? We have worst mobility, worst dot protection, worst cc, ... Why to take shadow priest now?

[iceberg265]

Personally I bring a shadow priests because I like the guy that plays it.

[Gillun]

you're tellin me spriests doesn't have Psychic Scream, Silence or Psychic horror?

oh and locks cant devour magic on friendly targets anymore, am just saying, and lock dispell protection is horrible atm, any healer is gonna dispell your UA which hits for pathetic dmg atm, the silence off it isnt nearly enough to be a threat unless you dispell it while you or your partner is severely low on hp.

[shags the penguin]

Because you didnt want to take the moonkin ?

[Deleted]

you're tellin me spriests doesn't have Psychic Scream, Silence or Psychic horror?

oh and locks cant devour magic on friendly targets anymore, am just saying, and lock dispell protection is horrible atm, any healer is gonna dispell your UA which hits for pathetic dmg atm, the silence off it isnt nearly enough to be a threat unless you dispell it while you or your partner is severely low on hp.

No, im telling u, that warlocks have also psychic scream (howl of terror) and silence (from felhunter), but in addition, they have spammable fear ...

[Deleted]

Good players will always use whatever abilities they have to devasting effect.

My advice is take a look at your abilities/spells, read the tooltip and learn to use your imagination in different situations. You'll be suprised

[Deleted]

QQ moar plix

[Tjonke]

CC - psychic scream (u have to be next to who u want to fear), silence (45s CD) and psychic horror (1,5m CD), only class that doesnt have spammable cc ...

Have you taken a look at shamans lately? We have a 45sec CD CC as well that also has a casttime. (40sec if glyphed) and Bind Elemental. Sure against druids in treeform we can spam Bind Elemental but lol..

[Deleted]

Well, great posts, but i really want to hear objective opinions why to take shadow priest over other classes, not replies like "QQ moar plix" (that was really logical and it really helped me) ...

Shamans? Ye, u have 45s hex, but its not as easily removed as psychic scream, u have ranged kick, u wear mail, great mobility with wolf ...

Im not saying shadow priests completely suck, just saying shadow priests are very fragile and weak when we compare it to other caster dps classes ...

[Ananan]

Your view is very skewed I'm afraid. In the survivability category you counted "mage shields" but not Power Word: Shield, Evocation but not Flash Heal or Divine Hymn, "dispel from pet", but not Dispel Magic, "heal from dots" but not Vampiric Embrace, Soul Link but not Shadowform or Inner Fire...

If you think that something can be gained from sorting abilities from different classes into categories for the millionth time, please do it properly. I'm sorry, but this is hardly the first time a post like yours pops up, and they all tend to be very, very skewed.

[Deleted]

Mana efficiency - shadow priests go insanely fast oom, especially when they try to heal in arenas

Compared to Mages and Warlocks who can spam heal for ever and stay at max mana?

I've never really PvPed as a Shadow Priest, I just misread the title thinking that you wanted help deciding on rolling a Shadow Priest alt so I've got nothing useful to tell ya

[mustangzs2]

Im just wondering why people should take shadow priest over other caster classes. Let´s compare to others (in a view of arenas):

snip

So, my question is, where the hell are shadow priests (without friendly dispel now) when we compare them to other casters? We have worst mobility, worst dot protection, worst cc, ... Why to take shadow priest now?

Worst mobility? Worst dot protection? Worst CC?

Apparently you've never heard of an elemental shaman.

---------- Post added 2011-03-06 at 07:09 PM ----------

Well, great posts, but i really want to hear objective opinions why to take shadow priest over other classes, not replies like "QQ moar plix" (that was really logical and it really helped me) ...

Shamans? Ye, u have 45s hex, but its not as easily removed as psychic scream, u have ranged kick, u wear mail, great mobility with wolf ...

Im not saying shadow priests completely suck, just saying shadow priests are very fragile and weak when we compare it to other caster dps classes ...

Yeah we have great mobility with wolf when we can move at 100% speed and not attack..right.
45 second cooldown on a shitty cc that doesn't stop the target from chasing us..
I have even seen a video of arena where lightning bolt hits for 5k. Don't qq.

[matherl]

you seem to ignore the fact that yes spriests run out of mana fast, but they can regen it soo many ways. lets see disperse fiends wings and hymn... all give back like 30% mana

[hikamiro]

Shadows actually a really good compliment class. Strong instant cast CC, Strongest offensive, and defensive dispels. Mass Dispel. Mobility between 4 piece and fade (when used together) is actually pretty good. Fairly strong burst if you can manage to not get spam dispelled.

[sennzlol]

Reason to take a SP over anything else? To counter out the other Shadow Priest via dispelling his dots.


Also, Locks unlimited mana? Just tunnel him so the he has to think WHEN to lifetap :P

[Deleted]

best damage dealer ingame

[Violent]

Spriests are awesome, don't get mad, deal with it.

[eternalwhitemoon]

Because you guys look awesome.

[Koridian]

Why take a Shadow Priest? Oh yeah, their Dispell capability, but there's an expiration date on Dispell (thanks Blizzard for making me useless against Mages).

You're pretty much right. I've always played a Shadow Priest as a main and now I'm looking for another class. Compared to Druids, Locks and Mages, our mana tax is off the charts bad. Dots are constantly dispelled in BGs. I adapted with Mind Spike/ Mind Blast spams which does great dmg, but greatly sacrifices mobility and taxes mana. We're not supposed to be stunned or snared while in Dispersion, but that's not a reality. They nerfed our Spirit which hurt mana regen. They nerfed our passive heals with Vampiric Embrace. As far as CC's - all of ours have a CD while Locks can spam fear and mages can spam Sheep all day long. Both Locks and Mages (Frost) possess perma pets. Our pet lasts half the time of a TV commercial. Both Locks and Mages possess better mobility, demonic circle and blink, respectively. By comparison, we possess inner will which sacrifices protection and spell power to move as fast as everyone else (boot enchant). And, we can easily be shut out shadow spells (something Mindspike was supposed to remedy, but doesn't).

Overall - our dmg capability is arguably among the top 3. No one can really complain about that. However, in a PVP setting, our mobility sucks and cc ability lacks. Sure, we can heal ourselves, but doing so while fighting taxes our mana even more.

[gaymer77]

Strong instant cast CC, Strongest offensive, and defensive dispels. Mass Dispel.

Someone hasn't read patch notes about how non-healing priests are losing defensive dispells and Mass Dispel as a defensive dispell is going to be hugely mane ineffecient for a class that is already having huge mana problems in pvp.

oh and locks cant devour magic on friendly targets anymore, am just saying, and lock dispell protection is horrible atm, any healer is gonna dispell your UA which hits for pathetic dmg atm, the silence off it isnt nearly enough to be a threat unless you dispell it while you or your partner is severely low on hp.

Wrong about locks not being able to defensive dispel anymore. All they need is an imp out who does Singe Magic and it removes it off friendly targets the way a felhound used to. As for lock dispel protection being horrible atm....couldn't be more wrong. Its the second best dispel protection out there...second to an unholy DK who you literally can't dispel his dots if he uses deathcoil on you. UA still have a silence that shares absolutely no DR with any other silence in the game including itself and it still does damage. I would trade spriest protection for UA's protection any day.