Spriest Utility

[Lotharfox]

After reading the Shadow Priest guide, and running heroics on my new-ish lvl 85 Spriest, I'm left wondering "what else do they do in PvE?" We have a couple good buffs and deal damage. But do we lack CC (Mind Control is fun, yes, but if we channel that we're losing out on DPS)? Or is there a spell I'm overlooking? Also, do we have an interupt?

Just wondering if there are useful spells I'm ignoring that I should be using to provide more group benefit.

[Eleazar]

We do have a bit of utility.

In a raiding environment, our hymns are of great use, even though they're on a fairly long cd, but it has saved our raids a few times.
Our CC is a bit outdated, since it's only usable on undeads (Shackle Undead), but still very useful on nefarian add management. As of Mind Control, I almost only use it for giggles, throwing people off places, and then ofc, in Throne of the Tides on the naga witches, which does sick damage.

The ability to throw a heal once in a while, is also of great use, although we're not the only ones capable of doing this.

Interrupt wise, you could spec into silence, which works on most spell-casts as an interrupt, but you will sacrifice a bit of dps by speccing into that.

[Fleckens]

Shadowpriests are kinda lacking in utility, the one thing im missing the most is an interupt for sure. We got silence, but it's not really possible to take it in a pve spec, at least not without giving up dps talents. The whole imp psychic scream prerequirement for silence is really just stupid.

[Deleted]

Emergency shields, manaregen channel for the raid, powerfull healing channel for the raid (hymns), abit of aoe-healing, lifegrip, 2min cd damage reduction ability of 90% (2nd phase nefarian this is quite good), short cd aoe fear (very good for cho'gall), only dps class that can dispel allies (for now at least).

Not sure if I'm forgetting something...my priest isnt lvl 85 yet

[worsthitmanNa]

we still can mass dispel son

[Direshadow]

hey now, vampiric embrace heals my fellow raid members for over 45HP per tick...

UTILITY

[Cuzzin]

I was just wondering cus im leveling my priest now how do we look on dps and or will it be better come patch time. I want to roll a dps toon cus i have a healer drood and a dk tank so i figure i can just make my priest straight shadow since its at 78 but was wondering how dps is going?

[schoenkid37]

Lifegrip is AMAZING especially in hardmodes I've found a TON of uses for it. Also our fear is phenomenal on chogall, shackle for nef, multidotting is utility in itself. We have defensive dispels, offensive dispels, our hymns for mana/heals, bubbles can be HUGE especially if you don't have a disc priest in the raid. Hell during heroic Chimaeron when we group up before p2 after our final massacre I pop out of shadowform and PoH my ass off. Our utility is very different from other classes we don't have those defined niche skills such as cc or kiting but we have a lot of tools that when used correctly add up to a lot more utility than it seems.

[Siri]

Divine Hymn is actually pretty shitty, it's nowhere near as good as, say, Tranquility.
Last I checked PoH wasn't far behind it in HPS output, if at all. Granted, may have changed since then.
It's a smart heal, but still, I would expect a lot more from an 8 minute cooldown.

[Cerunnir]

Divine Hymn is actually pretty shitty, it's nowhere near as good as, say, Tranquility.
Last I checked PoH wasn't far behind it in HPS output, if at all. Granted, may have changed since then.
It's a smart heal, but still, I would expect a lot more from an 8 minute cooldown.

People tend to forget raid synergy and only look at their own output.

You are forgetting this aspect of hymn "...and increases healing done to them by 10% for 8 sec." It buffs the other healers output aswell, which is a nice bonus. When you as a shadow priest using Divine Hymn, you are also acting as sort of a 4th healer for a few seconds. The healing done buff + the extra healing ontop of 3 other healers can effectivly save the day.

[Tordenhov]

Well, utility used to be much better when we were mana batteries. I missed Vampiric Touch in all it's bad-ass glory!

[Cerunnir]

Shadow priest utility isnt as clear cut as other DPS' utility.

Leap of Faith: Obviously a powerfull ability with ALOT of uses.

Divine Hymn: The healing buff makes is very powerfull.

Hymn of Hope: Pop in places where healers need mana. Examples is right before transition into phase 2 on chogall, or after phase 2 against nefarian.

Vampiric Embrace: 2-4k effective healing per second should not be overlooked. Its a substantial amount.

Shackle: Situational, but if you want to CC undeads like on nefarian its godsendt.

People also tend to forget that a shadow priest is still a priest, and has access to most healing spells. A prayer of mending or a couple of flash heals, or maybe a prayer of healing or two in the right places can augment strained healers making everyone survive instead of the raid wiping.

[Deleted]

MC = CC that does massive damage, provides additional buffs, and can assist with healing?

Example:

Throne of the Tides: MCing the healer allows you to Hex another target, and assist with healing. MCing a caster allows you to place an insane aoe damage debuff on an enemy, as well as chain lightning 3 mobs. (taking down the whole pack of 5 withouth any other CC).

Vortext Pinacle: The healers there outheal any player healer.

HoO: MCing the runecaster does not only prevent the group from standing in the healing patch; they also deal insane damage with their rune strike.

Shadowpriests can not go OoM; making them a very stable DPS for long fights - they can also off heal if needed, as their heals are quite strong.

A Shadowpriest can pop his Hymn of Hope restoring mana to the healer (whereas a priest healer would have to sac. healing to do so)

A shadowpriest can use Leap of Faith - which has a huge utility.

A decent shadowpriest pulls massive DPS (Doing 20K with raid entry gear in Heroics)

Stamina Buff

Shadow Protection Buff

Mob control: Over aggro + mindflay slow + Fade, Over aggro + mindflay slowagain, fear, tank-taunt, over aggro + mindflay slow again, fade. If executed well the mob only runs between the priest and the tank - without hitting anything.

Restore mana to allies

Can shield allies; could make the difference between life and death. (e.g. the healer can heal up the target while the shield holds)

Reducing healing taken by mobs

Dispell Magic and Mass dispell

[Lerker]

I was just wondering cus im leveling my priest now how do we look on dps and or will it be better come patch time. I want to roll a dps toon cus i have a healer drood and a dk tank so i figure i can just make my priest straight shadow since its at 78 but was wondering how dps is going?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think shadow is #2 on dps, after fire mage

[Irony]

Mass Dispell, Hymn of Hope, 5% haste, 3% Party healing, replenishment, fort, shadow prot, reduce healing and leap of faith.

[Gorebag]

After reading all of this I think I'm gonna finish leveling my priest lol
He's lvl 84 atm, but I'm so lazy

OT: And I love MC mobs in dungeons and CC or deal damage to others mobs with it lol
In Vortex I even MC the mob and jump with it to death LOL

[Siri]

You are forgetting this aspect of hymn "...and increases healing done to them by 10% for 8 sec." It buffs the other healers output aswell, which is a nice bonus. When you as a shadow priest using Divine Hymn, you are also acting as sort of a 4th healer for a few seconds. The healing done buff + the extra healing ontop of 3 other healers can effectivly save the day.

I forget nothing, compare the output of divine hymn with that of tranquility, please.
the 10% buff doesn't even begin to make up for that kind of difference.

[Firedemon]

hey now, vampiric embrace heals my fellow raid members for over 45HP per tick...

UTILITY

I lol'd ...

[Myier]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think shadow is #2 on dps, after fire mage

According to stateofdps, overall shadow is second. We'll never be the mana batteries that we once were though

[Siri]

WoL doesn't account for shadowy apparitions, if it did shadow would be #1.
Damage that doesn't show up on log parsers like that is an anti-nerf mechanic, definitely utility.