I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.
Blizzard's record of actions really goes against this statement :-). Of course the logical step after this nerf to DI would be a (slightly less than) 6% boost to Shadow Priests, but I expect them to not deliver it. At least not in 4.1 and not after significant community shout.
edit: Oh god I wish so much I was wrong....
Actually Tyler a WOW insider, writer of both the warlock and moonkin blogs did a very detailed update to the former sp always >boomkin argument. Basically from my understanding after reading that article, it boils down to this.
DI is best used on either or depending on the make up of the fight. Single target fights SP's are way out front in terms of the best use, moonkins however are much better used in fights where multiple targets are involved. The reasoning behind it is in single target fights SP's come to the table with more spells that are buffed by DI, however in multiple target fights there are I believe 2 spells that can only be cast on a single target at a time, making the moonkina jump ahead as the nature of our spells can be cast on multiple targets (as many as is possible) at the same time. Granted there are fewer incidents of multiple target boss fights but ones like malorak come to mind. Also, moonkin's balance is also based in part on receiving DI, and top ranked moonkins will always have the buff in their wol's.
Honestly - my only response is Sigh. It was bad balancing giving Warlocks such a powerful buff that didn't get nerfed. It was obvious that it was inflating certain classes numbers, but they nerfed the classes instead of the thing being the inflation number. The 10% (roughly 8%) nerf was pretty much unneeded with this nerf to DI. It would priests at a balanced level. However, we're sitting at roughly about a 13% nerf all around... That's charming, and not unexpected.
Saw nerf to Dark Intent
Re-checked for Spriest buff
Not surprised at all
They should have nerfed lock's damage bonus as well (and compensated it with other buffs). Locks are balanced around Dark Intent but if you can't get good uptime for the buff, you'll lose significant amount of damage.
So they nerf shadow priests based around this mechanic and then they nerf the mechanic as well. Bet you the nerf to shadow priests won't get reverted.
it never does
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Warning, wall of text inc.
Looks to me like he's saying that on any single target fight give it to the priest, two target fight, give it to the boomkin, and on a fight that has any aoe in it, give it to the boomkin, fire mage or hunter. Pretty much the only thing that this guy was correct about as far as dps classes is that balance and fire's aoes and the non existent surv hunter's explosive shot benefit from the stacks of DI and mind sear doesn't, and he's basing his class choices on that.
He states that Gherkin's results are taken from simmed numbers that don't translate to the real world. In "the real world" the top ranked spriests aren't searing on adds, anyway. They are dotting. He also states "On an encounter such as Magmaw or Maloriak, balance or survival are the best choices". With a cursory look at the world top boomkins on Maloriak 25n, the total of their periodics (including aoe that benefits from dark intent) came to around 35-40% with having dark intent (would be less without it). Looking at Magmaw 25n, the avg. % of parasite damage benefiting from dark intent was around 20%. To forgo dark intent on a spriest for a boomkin because the fight might have a little aoe in it and a small % of that aoe damage is buffed by dark intent is nuts.
Then this guy goes on to say "Once there are at least two targets, balance's DoT damage contribution is much closer to shadow's, to the degree that they would overtake shadow" and "On Valiona and Theralion, balance takes the optimal slot, with shadow close behind it due to the two-target nature of the encounter." Again, a cursory look at the top boomkin parses on V&T, THE defining two target, multi-dot fight, the % of damage that benefits from dark intent was between 36-52% compared to a priests 80+%.
In dude's comments he stated "As balance, I feel nothing but pity for you poor, poor shadow priests. I understand that you feel the need to fight for the one thing that makes it seem like you're worth bringing to a raid. Sadly, I play by numbers, and numbers only. Shadow's better in some situations, they aren't in others. End of story." That right there shows how biased this guy's article is.
Me, I won't trust a balance druid biased article that, even though he says he plays by numbers and numbers only, has no math whatsoever to back up his findings, who seems to think that boomkin's % of periodic damage on two target fights equals or surpasses a spriest's on a two target fight, but most of all, as he said to someone in the comments, this JACKASS didn't even know that MF is a periodic. That whole article is pure conjecture, nothing more.
You said that in multi target fights, druids jump ahead by the nature of your spells, can be cast on as many targets as possible at the same time. Shadow does this with the same number of DoTs as you, applied in the same number of GCDs with DoTs that hit twice as hard as yours, thus gaining more from the dark intent stacks. Shadow is also balanced around dark intent, hence the 10% spell damage nerf 2.5 days after 4.0.6, and every top ranked priest having it also.
Link to the article if anyone wants to read this garbage pro-druid propaganda http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/03/28/bl...h-dark-intent/
As a boomkin with no SP in my 10 man. I am sad.
I think this brings up an important point everyone needs to consider. Just because someone writes articles on a fan based wow website does NOT make what they say true. It's the same as blindly following the the broadcasters on Fox News. While there can be some truth in every article, there can be just as much bias miss information. This is why it's important that you find multiple sources to verify the false between the truth. It's so easy to get swept up in someone's argument when they're passionate. Like the same effect that causes people to stuff unused ShamWow! products in their bathroom closet. Especially on any class loyalty topic such as buffs and who should get what loot (Spirit only for healers debates!), it's so touchy but in the big picture (unless you're riding an enrage timer down to the -5th second) it's just a big Lamadrama for those who want to parse WoL and hug their epeens.
*goes off to hug my epeen and pocket warlock!*