Shadowpriest 5.1 -Why cant blizzard see all our current faults and flaws?

[Karei]

You seem to forget that no matter how good our gear will become we will never scale decently to the gear we acquire.
With every other spec there is a way in which they scale based on the stats they acquire.

In T16 Spriests will still be mid to bottom pack because the only resource generator we have is is on a fixed timer.
Blowing hero has a lot more impact on every other class than we have. Only three spells really benefit from it. DP is out of the equation. You either take DI and get to cast it a bit more if you get lucky on procs or you get it to cast it twice. The spell that does a hell of a lot of our damage.

It will take till the last raid tier before they realise this. It's been like that in every expansion so why would it be different now.

[Yvaelle]

Additionally, it's frustrating how people keep quoting the absurdly flawed SimC calculations of Priest T14H as proof that we're in some kind of horrible, awful plight to which Blizzard is completely oblivious. But that's on a Patchwerk type fight, of which there absolutely zero this tier. (The closest thing to it is Gara'jal and we actually do pretty well on this encounter.)

I'm advocating minor number adjustments and buffs to neglected talents (Insanity, PI). Also, while people have been linking the patchwerk T14H Simcraft results, I'm actually not using that as a basis for complaint - Ghostcrawler has stated many times he has zero respect for arguments based on third party programs and math, he only responds to world of logs-style reporting. The best source of which, in my experience, is raidbots.com - which averages the top 100 parses for each spec on each fight.

You mentioned Gara'jal:

http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Gara%...14/60/default/

Take note that the top 3 specs on that fight are the three other dot cleave specs (fire, affliction, balance), it's a DoT cleave fight - we should be at the top of our game, but where are we? 27k below Fire mages, 10k below Affliction and Balance - we're below Enhancement and Assassination who spend the entire fight running between targets and dealing single target damage (we're below that), that's not really a movement fight for us - we mostly just stand in the middle of the room DoT cleaving - and we get beat by melee specs operating in their worst nightmare (high movement, single target).

Our Single Target damage is ~10% below what it should be for a dps average - that there aren't wholly single target fights (like Patchwerk) has actually insulated us from that weakness, not exacerbated it - because we get opportunities to execute adds more often has left us with more execute casts, higher DP uptimes, or more DoT cleaving opportunities: all good for us.

The reason Shadow is bordering on the low end of average, is because when it comes time to single target, we're 10% below where we should be: that's all. We aren't crying about the end of the world here, we're splitting hairs and arguing semantics - about a 10% gap off a moving average in a situation (single target), which doesn't even occur in isolation this tier (Patchwerk). It's more about answering a question, "Where is Shadow's biggest area for improvement?" and less "Why is the sky falling?"

[Drye]

The reason Shadow is bordering on the low end of average, is because when it comes time to single target, we're 10% below where we should be: that's all. We aren't crying about the end of the world here, we're splitting hairs and arguing semantics - about a 10% gap off a moving average in a situation (single target), which doesn't even occur in isolation this tier (Patchwerk). It's more about answering a question, "Where is Shadow's biggest area for improvement?" and less "Why is the sky falling?"

Honestly, other than a small single target buff, I think we are fine. I think a lot of the time people are complaining is because they are incapable of maximizing their dps/character and utilizing our talents (something that really sets us above). Just because simcraft says something doesn't mean it is actually true, simC is a great tool for people to use but they tend to think of it as some sort of dumb "bible" that should never be wrong.

Quite funny. Glad to see you look at very distant future.

Now give me my buffs, im going really to think about u next time i get spell locked because i ran out of procs and i still had to fight against that second winded warrior for a whopping 3k damage.

Thank you for proving my point.

[Karei]

It has nothing to do with Simcraft, it has to do with the feeling and seeing numbers on meters at the same time.
Our rotation is already borderline braindead and we still have to play 150% of our capabilities in order to get a mid or bottompack spot as result.
All the proccing is nice and all but it's lost the feel of the class. The way Cata Spriests played was the best it felt for me and I started playing in TBC. Ok we had an RNG resource but it still felt a lot better than what we have now.

Our damage is off. No matter how you may say that the spec feels alright it doesn't account for being rubbish at putting out numbers.
Utility? Sure, lets give utility but if that is the reason why a Spriest is brought to a raid then I'd prefer the RL to take someone else that has numbers to put out.

[Deleted]

I have never had more fun in PvP as a shadow priest. However, in PvE I have had more fun times, especially in Cataclysm.

Skipping the rant regarding the overproculation of our playstyle and removal of the synergy between spells, what I would like to see:

* addressing SW:I and PI and bringing them in line with the other talents.
* working out the dot imbalance between SW:P and VT. VT has a cast time and lasts for much less and has no instant damage component. Odd and awkward. The balance between the two should be similar to UA vs Corruption.
* making our resource scale with haste like with other classes.
* slight single target damage buff. MF seems like a good target

Quite strange to see affliction warlocks cruising ahead on the damage meters right now, especially when you consider how staggeringly similar their playstyle is to that of ours in Cataclysm...

[Purpleisbetter]

I can guarantee you that Shadowpriests are a very balanced Class/Spec atm, with full gear SPs do insane amount of pressure, and unless you get interrupted/dispelled a lot, Spriests do A LOT of overall damage.

Also we are the most viable hybrid spec/class out of all if you compare us, yes we are a Hybrid spec so you cannot really except us to become the new Warriors or Mages.

That's true, the pressure is quite good considering the insane healing.
The thing pisses me off the most is when u actually need to cast the horrible filler for almost nothing in return, since it does very low damage and it could cost you a 4 sec lock on shadow school.
With this kind of damage, at least it should be castable on the move.

Problem is...we scale with gear very poorly.
At least, the former pvp power thing was nice(ok the nerf was needed it was crystal clear, doing 160k crit flash heal from a dps was totally out of mind), healing spells were scaling better then our damage, rofl.


p.s.: i know i abbandoned the ship even before it started sinking, but seriously, i can't really understand how u could stick to this crap with such a fervid passion .

p.p.s.: "The way Cata Spriests played was the best it felt for me and I started playing in TBC. Ok we had an RNG resource but it still felt a lot better than what we have now." Bible. This sentence is a temple.
Rofl at the 6secs not scaling with haste blasts that hits far less There are fights like WotE where i cast much more haunts then priests using their "main -nuke-". Wich there's nothing nuky on nowadays blasts.

[scvd]

I pity shadow in brawlers, rank 7 robot without gear is down right impossible no matter how good you are. MovIng is a big issue and they aren't amazing in Pvp.

[Yvaelle]

I pity shadow in brawlers, rank 7 robot without gear is down right impossible no matter how good you are. MovIng is a big issue and they aren't amazing in Pvp.

I think I'm like almost done Rank 6, I'll give it a try and put it on youtube maybe, to help spriests out

I'm quite concerned about the progressively more insane enrage timers in the higher ranks though, the ele shaman in my guild is in rank 8 and struggling with enrages - she pulls like 200k+ dps with all her cooldowns up, I do like... 120k (not plus, because spriests don't have any good burst cooldowns anymore). So I'm totally expecting to hit a wall at some point that I probably won't be able to pass until future tiers - but I thought I'd make it to at least rank 8.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure it's that much of a problem - ele has huge burst, for like 30s till their CDs drop off, then their normal damage is low. We have steady damage all the time. Over a 3 min fight shadow and ele have roughly similar dps numbers, so I do think you'll be at much of a disadvantage. The massive 200k+ burst is nice for some brawls as you can just burst the target down before the fight mechanics really have an effect though.

I've certainly not got anywhere near enrages so far, but I'm only rank 5 so it's not really been a big test.

[Jervaise]

I think our single/multidot damage are fine. It is only 1-2 damage cooldowns that we lack that builds all the problems. If we had 1-2 damage cooldowns on 3-5 mins cooldown, our patchwerk/light movement/multidot dps would be at a very good spot.

It would also spice up the spec, making the playstyle a little bit interesting at least.

I would like to rant and randomly comment for the next part of my post, feel free to skip it

I do not believe such a change would make us OP since our scaling is absolutely horrible. If anything, Bliz has to buff spriests 1-2 times every tier to make sure in geared situations spriests do not fall back. And that would cause low geared spriests doing a ton more damage than other classes... and that is due to the same reason why the skill difference doesn't show properly in damage in MOP... and that shows the downsides of the current spec design...

[Enderan]

Interesting thread. I didn't realize Spriests were not working as well as they could be. The last couple of nights, I have watched as an Spriest destroyed everyone in the LFR raids by a sizable margin. Yes, I know LFR isn't really a good place to look, but it's the only source of spriests I have since my guild doesn't run one. I don't know the inner workings of priest, but from the outside looking in, they look okay in terms of damage.

I was playing last night in a MV raid finder and I was top dps above quite a few mages enh shamans and other strong dps, my gear is trash yet still was able to top the charts. I think this is mostly because people are not trying to push their dps as hard as possible they tunnel bosses ignore mechanics and dont really care they just want to blow through it and get out, so basing your judgement on RF damage meters is not really good.

[Deleted]

I do not see why they just can not buff VT and SWP. We are not even in the top when it comes to multi dotting. The change would make us strong in multi dot and increase our single target. It would not interfere with any talent that I can think of.

Right now I do not feel rewarded for playing well. Topping meters is surprisingly hard, even if you play well. We are horrible on single target. And I do not agree with the people in this thread who say that it is a learn to play issue. The class is weak. We cannot compete. Warlocks destroy us on every single type of fight. Their single target is stronger, their AoE is stronger (maybe not now after Mind Sear buff, not sure), their multi dot is incredibly much easier and better. I am fine with being weak on single target if my class can compete on multi dot fights.

And people who quote LFR as a good source of class balance:

[Deleted]

If they made MB cooldown scale with haste it would pretty much fix us (this is definitely possible since they proposed it for pyroblast). That would give orb generation a nice scaling with gear that it currently lacks. Also it wouldn't really change our AoE damage.

[Washuwa]

i being doing the rank 7 "curator" trying to burn the boss ignoring the mechanic and is nearly imposible im 500 ilv pulling 120k on pull, using vampiric embrace for first aoe, but the 2nd aoe forces me to heal myself, and enrage got me at 500k hp left, and if you try to dps moving so u can not proc the mines your dps will drop to the point you get enrage, i was doing the try with only self buffs and arcane brilliance, guess i need some RNG lucky and some mastery and stats buff on me to beat that 500k HP short, im using mindbender and power infusion to burst the first phase with pot, by the time the first explosion happens and he recast the mines hes 60% for me, but the big problem is when u need to heal urself 2 times in the fight.

[Coolascancer]

as an spriest since toc i have to say i disagree, i've always felt that mages and warlocks were better suited to damage than spriests so now is nothing new. To to OP, you talk about using instant cast mindblasts and mind spikes... yeah yeah but have you ever switched your talents up? im of the opinion that if you can in any way get the 15 percent damage increase from twist of fate during a fight you should, and there are plenty of opportunities in todays raids. I pulled about 100k on amber shaper yesterday. (without being a construct) Couldn't tell you if that is a good solid number for that fight or not but i was above our warlock (who i like to think is as good as me) Typically my initial burst is no where near as high as my fellow raiders (and especially lower when the mother fuckin shaman casts bloodlust before my procs are up and before i cast shadowfiend/theotherone) but throughout the fight i climb the charts. Has been that way since i went shadow back in the middle of wrath, start slow but end up on or near the top of the deeps. I am saddened that we have only have shadowfiend as a cooldown.

[Washuwa]

in DS and FL we were the best range class of the game tie with boomkins, at the end of WOTLK when they changed the way haste interact with dots we were also the best range class tie with mages, until now we are really far behind others.. but yeah before 4.0 on WOTLK we were the worst range class, in TOC, ulduar, naxx, Sunwell, BT, etc...

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 06:25 PM ----------

I pulled about 100k on amber shaper yesterday. .

the dps depends of how your guild managed to stack de debuff on the boss, but 100k is pretty low, but again it depends of the stacks your raid can stack on the boss, as for me, i did 210k on Heroic, but we did 45 stacks for the heroism burst phase.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 09:38 PM ----------

I just beated the 3rd boss of rank 7 i just burned the boss ignored the mechanic, i used a flask, didnt use food, got kings and dark intent, used power infusion with mindbender and waited for some npcs to get hostiles so i could start with 3 orbs, i dps trhought no stop until 4 millions, first explosion was healed by vampiric touch, second one with prayer of mending, renew and pws and 1 healtstone and by the time i got the 3rd explosion boss was 1 million left so i full dot him, and healed my self everytime i got damage, at the end my dps was 85k and 2 million healing with 1:58 time, hope this help everyone

[Juicebox]

Honestly, other than a small single target buff, I think we are fine. I think a lot of the time people are complaining is because they are incapable of maximizing their dps/character and utilizing our talents (something that really sets us above). Just because simcraft says something doesn't mean it is actually true, simC is a great tool for people to use but they tend to think of it as some sort of dumb "bible" that should never be wrong.

That's what I've been saying... But good luck getting players to actually try to improve. It's obviously the spec that's bad if they don't see results.

If they made MB cooldown scale with haste it would pretty much fix us (this is definitely possible since they proposed it for pyroblast). That would give orb generation a nice scaling with gear that it currently lacks. Also it wouldn't really change our AoE damage.

It's not that simple. This impacts on our talent Divine Insight and it'd had to be changed as well.

[Washuwa]

That's what I've been saying... But good luck getting players to actually try to improve. It's obviously the spec that's bad if they don't see results.



It's not that simple. This impacts on our talent Divine Insight and it'd had to be changed as well.

can you please link us your armory + logs to see how an amazing shadowpriest toping the meters you are because honestly it looks like(with your comments) that you must be the greatest shadowpriest with an awful group of players raiding with you.. as for me im raiding with 2 really good mages, 1 really good warlock, and in almost imposible to catch them no matter how good is my rng and how perfect my rotation is done... so my thoughts is that you raid with bad players or you are just a troll

[Nestar]

can you please link us your armory + logs to see how an amazing shadowpriest toping the meters you are because honestly it looks like(with your comments) that you must be the greatest shadowpriest with an awful group of players raiding with you.. as for me im raiding with 2 really good mages, 1 really good warlock, and in almost imposible to catch them no matter how good is my rng and how perfect my rotation is done... so my thoughts is that you raid with bad players or you are just a troll

His armory is in his sig http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Cham/advanced
logs are http://worldoflogs.com/guilds/184593/

He's geared with a solid rotation. But the reason he's consistently ranking is it appears their guild is cheesing most every fight. Looked at grand empress for instance, They kept reavers alive in the last stage to cleave off of, as opposed to trapping them. Sure it boosts his dps by 20k and into the top 200. But really that's kinda cheap. If you narrow it down to boss damage I do better than him in 4 ilvls lower.
That's unfortunately how it goes now days, In order to get ranks you're almost gonna have to cheese (us shadow priests in particular tend to do a lot of this by the looks of it) Many fights have ways of doing this (staying in shield phase H-feng as long as possible, keeping adds up through the fight, stuff like that.

[Washuwa]

My comment about he being amazing shadowpriest was sarcasm, if you look at every post he mades he always states that everyone sucks and thats why we feel shadowpriest are not ok, so that lead me to think that he may be raiding with awful dps, being inside the top 200 means nothing, the main reason this post was made is to realizes that shadowpriest are behind other dps classes in equal circunstances, and almost everyone top 10-20 world of logs of each class is normaly that, getting help for boss mechanics + rng luck , but it doesnt reflect skill, you can check top guild with world first kill after a while when everyone is killing all bosses they are not even in the top 10 of each class parses, you may see them now in world of logs leading those ranks in heroic sha of fear for example because theres not that many guilds killing those bosses so rank means nothing.