6.0 shadow priests shining again?

[DiGG]

Last night we went into Mythic SoO, and it felt pretty much the same as "the old heroic", except maybe for the Iron Juggernaut 'Seismic Activity' which wipes us twice. We switched one dps for heals and we killed it on the third attempt.

But the surprising thing was seeing myself in the top 5 all night long. I can't vouch that everyone changed their gems/enchants/talents (but would suspect most of them did), I was becoming used to be in the bottom 4 of the dps, and seeing myself being #1 total damage on Norushen was magnificent hehehe.

Did you all experienced something like that? (Please don't use the excuse "your guild must suck", that's so lame haha) Either way it felt good for the first time in... YEARS! I was wondering if I was gonna change class, but if this damage ratio stays up like that, I'm gonna stick with it!

[Deleted]

Your guild must suck

[Deleted]

No you must suck. Shadow is pretty decent atm, if played with the crit stacking gear, and the mindbender/pi build.

Really enjoyed it tonight aswell.

[wutheals]

586 here. Messed around in "Heroic" last night with my guild (highest other ilvl is a 579 lock). Beat easily by the lock (demo) on protectors and immersius. Didn't even flirt with top 3 on Sha, tied the lock on galakras, and tied a rogue on IJ thats 576. Not BiS, but not far off. On any other night with my guild i would be ahead of everyone just because of the ilvl difference by 15-20% in DPS. Aggravating as hell. There were different classes shining on each fight. Granted i used different talent combinations each fight and didn't flask, but i felt pretty meh.

[Setheria]

587 here. Was in top 5 most fights, topped some encounters.

This is about where I normally am - or a little bit worse all things considered.

The difficult part in getting a sense of how decent we are is that not everyone had optimised UIs, gems, or has worked out the best talents. Adding into the mix our dps comp was carrying some returning players and former alts/new mains. Being 5th in some encounters is probably equivalent to me being last in our old 10 man group, and that never happened to me, not even on the single target fights.

Single target does seem improved, but it's really hard to get a sense of whether our relative performance is based off where we actually stand, or whether or not it is impacted by so many other factors.

[Dawnrage]

Is ToF the go-to talent if you can keep a good uptime of it or does PI/SoD trump it in every scenario?

[Deleted]

I ran with PI Mindbender on all fights. PI gives silly burst when you use it with berserking, pot and bender. lol

[SteveRocks]

I like the new shadow changes. My dps doesn't necessarily feel better, but the rotation feels more fluid if that makes any sense. Things felt a lot more "clunky," before the patch and I'm looking forward to the lvl 100 talents. That being said I feel kinda like a mage now with the lack of self heals; it's not always easy to get a devouring plague out when you need the healing. I thought mages were supposed to be the 'glass cannon,' class...

[Deleted]

It felt better than before the patch both on the damage meters and being able to use new talents. Still annoying to start fights with 0 orbs after you wipe and fiend being on the GCD again.

[Yvaelle]

My damage went down a lot on our mythic clear relative to everyone else - but I was still fixing addons last night right up until Garrosh. Our warriors and fmages were destroying everyone else on the meter, with our feral keeping up sometimes - and then me and the locks behind that lot generally: so I was in ~5th-8th generally (out of like 16-17 DPS, we were 1 or 2 healing the whole instance).

I was also playing around a lot with different talent combos now - and was actually mostly focusing on ToF - given the new Death is far more responsive, so it's easier to land add-death-orb-tof buffs. I also played with PI on a lot of fights - since it no longer snapshots you can get a lot going - then PI - and it feels really quite fun and noticeable

The only fight I was actually top for though was Paragons, and that was the only fight I ran PI for - so maybe I should be trying PI more often. I didn't try Mindbender at all - excited to think it might be back - Insanity and SoD both were not satisfying. I hadn't done any L90 / PTR content prior to 6.0, had only been on the Beta at L100 - so I'm extremely excited for L100 and perks: playing on Live I miss them all dearly now.

Not having an Orb Bank suckssssss - and PI is going to become even better (for those who haven't been L100 yet) once it includes 2-3 DPs in it A lot of our power is now balanced around L100 talents - our mastery is built entirely around CoP now - which we don't yet have access to - and our multi-dot yearns for AS -> DP cleaving. So, 90 isn't very representative of 100 fortunately - some specs retain a lot of their L100 power at 90 (ie. mages), while others are balanced heavily around what they gain between 90 and 100 (perks+L100 talents).

[Thaylen]

I’m pretty surprised to hear the people saying they think Shadow took a step back with the patch. I ran the first three bosses in Mythic last night and was in the top 3-4 in all the pulls.

That in itself isn’t what makes it interesting. What makes it interesting is that I was a group who was decked out in heroic gear and I’m only 570 (sporting two Flex rings). I do have the 4pc and the Ordos chest piece, plus FINALLY got the Immer trink on Monday. They were a heroic 10m group that was making their first attempts at the 20m format so it wasn’t a night of clean one shots (particularly because they couldn’t keep their monk tank up on Immerseus) and they had a few guild members along that they were trying to gear up, but there were at least 6-8 other dps in 580+ gear.

I ran Insanity and ToF for the talents and for Immer, I always started off in 1st until the adds came. At T minus 1.5 I’d pre-pot, start my 1st Mind Blast, shadowfiend, apply my dots, and then go into flays. What was nice is the timing had changed such that by the time the first pool appeared below my feet and I took two steps to the left to get out of it, mind blast came off CD right at that moment so I could go immediately with it. I’d get my three orbs and go insane for two mind flays just as the adds were coming ashore. Hit halo and mindsear to burn them down (and this is where the sucky part is. Mind sear is stupidly nerfed now which is crap). The two warlocks and frost DK would end up pulling ahead of me on the aoe to the adds. On the Immer kill, I was in 4th with the two warlocks and DK ahead of me.

On Protectors though… the love fight of every shadow priest… I still was able to just edge out top position over their mighty warlock. Multi-dot ftw. Same with Norushen (except I came in just second to the warlock). ToF reigns supreme on that fight with all the adds constantly.

So I don’t know what you guys are experiencing, but for me I really like where Shadow is at right now. SANS the mind sear (which I will begrudgingly admit was only useful on trash groups or to cheese numbers on Garrosh).

I also have to note that in the group last night there wasn’t a single mage (interestingly enough) and both locks were Destro. So the above comment about Demo lock and Fire mages has me curious.

[Deleted]

I was also playing around a lot with different talent combos now - and was actually mostly focusing on ToF - given the new Death is far more responsive, so it's easier to land add-death-orb-tof buffs.

Interesting! I haven't read anything about the new Death? Noticed a couple of priests have it glyphed and wondered why.

[Nixe]

Interesting! I haven't read anything about the new Death? Noticed a couple of priests have it glyphed and wondered why.

It was broken given incorrect sp coefficients, it's been hotfixed so don't bother now. I think he was referring to also the server upgrades in that SW is MUCH more responsive as soon as mobs hit the % needed and not delayed 1s or so so you can snipe sw:d

[Deleted]

I see Nixe, thanks for the clarification. Thought I'd come across some big deeps increase!

[Drye]

RIP I P cata shadow.

[Deleted]

RIP I P cata shadow.

Cata shadow the dream please come back

[Dierdre]

So I don’t know what you guys are experiencing, but for me I really like where Shadow is at right now. SANS the mind sear (which I will begrudgingly admit was only useful on trash groups or to cheese numbers on Garrosh).

Like you said, sans mind sear which blows big time, shadow finally is where it should have been all throughout MoP. Still below warriors (which are broken OP), warlocks and mages, but finally decent.

[Dawnrage]

I felt like I did better prepatch. My damage isn't shitty now by any means but I used to be top 5 easy in my guild before on most fights. Now it's damn near impossible. I doubt my same guildmates from prepatch got more skilled with the patch, and I doubt I'm playing shadow wrong since shadow is pretty simple now.

[Yvaelle]

I guess part of the reason I feel weak though is because we ran 2 warriors, 4 fmages, 3 demo locks, and a feral earlier this week - so I had a lot of OP competition.

[Nixe]

I guess part of the reason I feel weak though is because we ran 2 warriors, 4 fmages, 3 demo locks, and a feral earlier this week - so I had a lot of OP competition.

Those classes/specs are so ahead of others I don't even consider it. Shadow felt 'solid' on all 12 mythic bosses with different classes/specs shining on different fights bar those 4 clearly OP specs. I'm extremely hopeful for shadow in WOD, i think we'll do what we always wanted to do in mop. Not top maybe but consistent and strong.