Thread: [Priest] State of Shadow - 4.2.0

Dun dun dunnnn....

Okay, so Shadow's seen the most overhaul this time around, and well obvious nerf in place to multi-target, it looks like we're still going to be alright.

Shadow version 4.1 thread

First off, some PvP buffs:

• Sin and Punishment no longer has diminishing returns on itself or other Horror effects
• Psychic Horror no longer has a facing requirement

I don't know about you, but those things seem huge. It'd still be nice if Psychic Horror and Silence traded places in the tree, but hey I'll definitely take this.
Now onto the rest:

• Devouring Plague, Shadow Word: Pain, and Vampiric Touch have had their damage reduced.
• Mind Flay, Mind Blast, and Shadow Word: Death damage has been increased.
• Your shadowfiend is no longer functionally a derptard, and now "Assists" your target instead of wandering around like an idiot.

A shifting of damage that on single target shouldn't effect us, but multi-target (DoT cleave) has more of an impact.

It also has a lessening value of mastery, probably nudging it a little lower than crit now, but I'm no numbers cruncher. I'll leave that to Twintop and the rest of the gang. With more of our damage coming from active sources, hit will probably take an increase in value as well now, but hey don't quote me on that.

That said, what's your take?

Well, now we can kill ourselves on the first cast of SW: D for Chimaeron and H Halfus style fights instead of the second one...

The buff/nerf combos were also each by 12%. To me, it seems pretty tame compared to the crap Blizz was putting shadow through at the start of the expansion. We're also getting back to a niche of single target DPS, though we should still be able to do decent multidotting. It's a nerf, but it hardly makes us want to MS/MB spam instead.

---------- Post added 2011-06-11 at 09:00 PM ----------

Decided to check out our tier stuff while I'm at it.

Here's the post listing our tier 12 pieces: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...TR-Build-14133

2 piece bonus:

While in Shadowform, your Shadowfiend deals 20% additional damage as fire damage and it's cooldown is reduced by 75 sec.

4 piece bonus:

While you have Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch active on the same target you gain Dark Flames, which increases the damage done by Mind Blast by 25%.

The 2 piece bonus is easily obtained and definitely worth it. Bonus damage + mana = win. The 4 piece obviously buffs our single target DPS, but that'd have to be compared against what stats we lose to obtain it. The 12% buff to MB makes me think it'd still be worth it though.

The 4 piece bonus used to reduce the CD on MB by 3 seconds, but that was changed to the current one.

Shoulderwraps of the Cleansing Flame
Vestment of the Cleansing Flame
Leggings of the Cleansing Flame
Hood of the Cleansing Flame
Gloves of the Cleansing Flame

The chest and gloves have haste and spirit, making them easy first picks for the 2 piece bonus. The legs have crit and mastery (ew), but 2 red sockets with a +20 int bonus, so that balances them a bit. Helm and shoulders both have haste, so we'd probably ditch the leggings once we get both helm and shoulders from raid drops (if it works the same way t11 did with tokens).

Originally Posted by Shartadin

Not to mention I'm not even so sure that the legs will be that sub-optimal... I think that crit will see a slight boost in PP rating and haste a slight drop with the changes. Not enough to move crit even close to haste, but a boost. Not sure what happens to mastery though, seems like it could go down. Hard to say, but the two red sockets are nice, and compare to the replacement piece:

http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=70989

Two yellows in exchange for crit/haste. *probably* the better piece, but it won't be by some enormous margin. Four piece is a must, this is without question even now.

I'm inclined to think we'll still ditch the legs once we can get helm and shoulders. Sockets aside, it's a trade of 284 haste for 237 mastery (reforges to 95 haste and 142 mastery). You'd have to sim to get perfect comparison, but I'm thinking the 20 int and 142 mastery don't trump 189 haste. (Barely)

We'll probably still have to suck it up once we get helm or shoulders to get the 4pc until we get the other though. Since the one you linked is a raid drop, we won't have that option right off, but we'll probably be trying to get them in the meantime while working on the tier shoulders and helm.

It'll be so fun to explain why we want the pants to RL's if we're using tier legs for 4pc in the meantime. We'll likely be stuck with 5 pc to farm thse legs unless people are passing on it already and we still don't have the shoulders/helm.

Originally Posted by Zuziza

I'm inclined to think we'll still ditch the legs once we can get helm and shoulders. Sockets aside, it's a trade of 284 haste for 237 mastery (reforges to 95 haste and 142 mastery). You'd have to sim to get perfect comparison, but I'm thinking the 20 int and 142 mastery don't trump 189 haste. (Barely)

We'll probably still have to suck it up once we get helm or shoulders to get the 4pc until we get the other though. Since the one you linked is a raid drop, we won't have that option right off, but we'll probably be trying to get them in the meantime while working on the tier shoulders and helm.

It'll be so fun to explain why we want the pants to RL's if we're using tier legs for 4pc in the meantime. We'll likely be stuck with 5 pc to farm thse legs unless people are passing on it already and we still don't have the shoulders/helm.

No doubt we'll want legs as the off piece. I guess the rest depends on how your group does loot. Depending on who wanted them, I'd be fine with passing for a while... not even sure they'll be that hard to get, they drop off Alysrazor, who should go down fairly quickly depending on your group, I think. I'd probably even want them to use until a 4th piece to go with chest/hands/legs.

Slightly off topic, but do we have any idea which bosses drop helm/shoulder tokens? My guess would be Baleroc and Staghelm, with Ragnaros dropping all the boss 384 loots and trinkets.

On topic: Compared to what happened to locks/boomkins (which seem to be minor to significant changes in playstyle - the soul swap seems like it'll make aff lock quite a bit more involved, which is fine) I think we got off fairly well on this patch, to be honest. I still disagree in principle with not buffing our single target DPS at all (slight nerf to neutral change is what we're getting), but I'm fine with the DoT changes for PVE overall.

I might be missing something obvious Shartadin, but I don't understand how buffing out MB damage, sw: death damage, and MF damage by 12% doesn't equate to our single target dps not getting a buff.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2723732#priests

That's interesting Rezeh. When I was playing with a copy of my toon a couple of weeks ago in BWD on the PTR I noticed on Chim and artremedes my dps/damage was actually higher than it currently is on live, which made sense to me at the time. I'll have to see if I can get back in and take a closer look though.

Oh yea I was definitely take in account those as possibilities, the only thing which made me think it had something to do with the buffs was when I went back to live my dps was back to where it was before and it was only about a 2k difference. It's hard to do any real consistent testing though because there are so many variables in play.

I was using skada, which at least seems to be working without an issue. I had heard something about recount doing a recent update that works on the PTR, but I haven't tried that yet.

Edit- That makes sense Shartadin. I honestly hadn't thought about it in that way.

Originally Posted by Shartadin

It is somewhat complicated and definitely more difficult than many classes, especially in multi dotting fights. That's exactly why I like playing shadow in raids. I look at Arcane damage spreads (85-90% AB? lol) and feel actually a little sorry for them. Even if you get good numbers, you know you're not really working for it. I know I felt like that, playing arcane on my alt mage in Wrath pugs. Shadow is so much more satisfying, when you really nail a fight.

Although i agree it is somewhat harder then most classes, but warlock hands down beats shadow in terms of Dot cleaving and maintaining it. My spriest is now 85 and i must admit after playing a warlock for 5 years why did i not roll a spriest to begin with???????????? quality of life is much more in favour of a spriest lol

Now you guna go OH soul swap blah blah, well yeah you soul swap once then you have to manually apply dots afterwards (do not want to clip yo shit with SS) then maintain SEx3 on 2 targets to rank nowdays as a warlock.

Originally Posted by crazyness

Although i agree it is somewhat harder then most classes, but warlock hands down beats shadow in terms of Dot cleaving and maintaining it. My spriest is now 85 and i must admit after player a warlock for 5 years why did i not roll a spriest to begin with???????????? quality of life is much more in favour of a spriest lol

Now you guna go OH soul swap blah blah, well yeah you soul swap once then you have to manually apply dots afterwards (do not want to clip yo shit with SS) then maintain SEx3 on 2 targets to rank nowdays as a warlock.

I think I'm more confused on how Soul Swap works now than I was before. =|

We'll see how Firelands raids favor different specs though. It's a bit difficult to compare a warlock and a shadowpriest because a warlock is very likely to switch around between the 3 specs depending on the fight. It makes them more flexible with AOE/DoTs/Burst, but it's much more difficult to master 3 specs than one. However, if we're only comparing particular specs, I still wouldn't say it's as clearcut to say one's harder/more difficult to play than another. (I do have a destro/demo lock alt, but I've never tried affliction.) Demo feels clunky compared to Shadow, and Demo feels very jumpy, but that's just my take on it. I just enjoy shadow more.

Keep in mind though, this is a priest thread, so try to keep it relevant to priests. =)

That said, is there anything else we're forgetting about for 4.2? We covered buffs/nerfs, tier, the legendary has its own thread.... I feel like we're forgetting something.

Originally Posted by YankeePhan1234

Stat weights perhaps? With the nerf of DoT damage I foresee the weights going like this:
4.1= Int>Haste>Mastery>Crit
4.2=Int>Haste>Crit>Mastery

I really don't get how mastery would get a bump when we only like mastery for the ES buff. Wouldn't it's weight go down? Or does crit go down somehow?

Edit: I misread that. Why do you have Mastery > Crit for 4.1?

The problem with patchwerk is that we only really stand around for Chimaeron, and even then we have to periodically move and we have the hit debuff... =\

And I repeat, why would mastery get a bump for MB? We get more out of mastery for ES and we cast MB whether there's a orb or not. When you simmed, what was the command for casting MB? On CD, with 1 orb, 2, etc? And wouldn't the 12% switcheroo change your sims anyway?

Edit: Not trying to be overly critical/mean, I'm seriously asking these questions. Also, since BiS lists are kinda varying, exactly what did you have for all the gear? Or at least, which BiS list do you mean?

Edit 2: What buffs did the sim include? (DI particularly)

Has the PTR sim been buggy at all (besides the .31haste/.68 SP thing, which seems low)? I know the meters and dummies have been supposedly, so I'm a bit skittish about taking anything PTR at face value. =\

Also, is there any way to command the sim to do MB on CD, but with an orb if ES<6.5 seconds (as we do now, which may change when 4.2 goes live)? It'd be long and annoying, but more reflective of how we play currently.

Is there any logic to why haste takes such a dramatic dive? 20% base haste would get you around 33ish% with shadowform and DI, which isn't that uncommon for 359 gear. The 12% nerf to DoTs doesn't seem like it'd affect haste scaling that much. Could it be just one of those dips due to a new tic?

Edit: Looked over at HTP for some Simcrafting of 359 gear for 4.1 (live), and yeah, SP and haste are incredibly low in yours in comparison.

http://www.howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=75

He has multiple scalings listed, look at the 359 ones (one is t11 4pc and another is not).

The 4pc one lists SP at .78 (.10 above yours), and haste at .41 (barely above mastery, just below crit). The BiS one (non-4pc) lists SP at .78 and haste at .42, crit at .41, and mastery at .39.

Scrolling further down to the Patchwerk testing, crit and mastery scale at .377 and .315 respectively....

So, if we just compare straight across, haste has to drop .10-20 in scaling somewhere along the way, SP has to somehow drop ~.10 in scaling (for no logical reason...?), and crit and mastery flip flop around because they don't make sense....

I'm very inclined to think PTR Sim is buggy...

Edit 2: The SP scaling is actually at .78__ for every one of his listed sims, even 372/379 BiS.... That .10 drop in your PTR test is what's really hooking in me as a reason that it's not quite right.