Will Shadow(AS) reach FOTM status in 6.2?

[Lamortykins]

The legacy of the fire mage leads me to believe that being a crit-based spec ultimately results in being wildly overpowered in later raid tiers. Does Shadow scale rapidly enough to be "FOTM" in 6.2 for the first time since..like..Firelands?

[zimboombafoo]

Shadow doesn't stay "good" (and certainly not OP) for very long, at least not since Cata. If it becomes wildly OP we will get hit by the nerf hammer so hard that shadow will once again be at the bottom of the dps charts..they've already nerfed devouring plague in the patch notes.

[Deleted]

Shadow looks pretty good in 6.2 but it depends more on the fight design than the gear tbh (not counting tier and trinkets). DP already got nerfed so they are aware of the potential that AS has.

[Moxal]

Yeah, I don't see shadow becoming "wildly OP" as DP is already on their radar.

[ShasVa]

FotM or not, will this 6.2 nerf make Shadow worth playing still? I was thinking of rolling one on a new account.

[Deleted]

Yes, shadow will be fine at least based on what fights we've seen. The nerf is only about a 3-4% dps decrease overall but they could be balancing us based on tier pieces, trinkets, gear, fight design, future nerfs/changes, who knows. It's impossible to give a 100% answer.

[ShasVa]

Fair enough then. With HB all but destroyed by Blizzard (in a sense), Shadow is viable for me as one of the few specs in the game I could easily learn. It's also one of the few DPS classes I haven't tried (Arms is melee, and not keen on Balance's cycle system) on the live client.

[Dierdre]

Yes, shadow will be fine at least based on what fights we've seen. The nerf is only about a 3-4% dps decrease overall but they could be balancing us based on tier pieces, trinkets, gear, fight design, future nerfs/changes, who knows. It's impossible to give a 100% answer.

It's probably more than a 3-4% if you consider you'll no longer have t17 bonuses and that there's no other tuning announced so far to compensate (I honestly don't expect one). T18 bonuses can suck very much comparatively depending on fight duration. The Archimonde trinket looks fun to play with, but it's ultimately a drop from the tier's last boss, so you can expect to suck during progression if we're balanced around it. Unless you're gear funneling, you might rememeber how long it could take to get e.g. Purified Bindings of Immerseus or Goren Soul Repository, and those were drops from the first bosses in their tier.

[Thirteen]

I've brought this up a few times but the response has usually been "historically, we've sucked, so we'll suck again". Now while I'll give people that spriests may have been bad before, they never scaled off of crit (or had spell interactions with it), and now they do. So I suspect AS-shadow will at the very least be on par with other classes, but I won't be surprised if it's top 5.

[Echocho]

And suddenly, just like COP was the only viable talent during highmaul, AS will be the only one in 6.2.
It would be nice if Blizzard could get their shit together and not let crit based speccs scale out of control every damn expansion.

[Linri]

I hope shadow doesn't become FOTM... I rather enjoy playing my shadow priest, without it being on par to something like a druid / mage / hunter has been.
I like to be the only shadow sometimes, because not only am I good at it, but it's a really fun class that not a lot of people play.

[Deleted]

It's probably more than a 3-4% if you consider you'll no longer have t17 bonuses and that there's no other tuning announced so far to compensate (I honestly don't expect one). T18 bonuses can suck very much comparatively depending on fight duration. The Archimonde trinket looks fun to play with, but it's ultimately a drop from the tier's last boss, so you can expect to suck during progression if we're balanced around it. Unless you're gear funneling, you might rememeber how long it could take to get e.g. Purified Bindings of Immerseus or Goren Soul Repository, and those were drops from the first bosses in their tier.

It depends on the power of the tier bonuses in order to compensate for the lack of the current tier but you're right, they don't seem that good. I don't like the way they balance specs around gear but its the reality of the situation. Despite this, if there are fights with adds that can be dotted like BF and Beast, your gonna have a good time.

Regarding CoP and ST, the archimonde trinket seems to be a way of making us stronger at single-target but again, a poor way to do it.

[Haikus]

It depends on the power of the tier bonuses in order to compensate for the lack of the current tier but you're right, they don't seem that good. I don't like the way they balance specs around gear but its the reality of the situation. Despite this, if there are fights with adds that can be dotted like BF and Beast, your gonna have a good time.

Regarding CoP and ST, the archimonde trinket seems to be a way of making us stronger at single-target but again, a poor way to do it.

I'm worried that even with the 20 ilvl bump that t18 is so bad, t17 mythic=t18 mythic lol. Twintop doesn't seem very happy with either the class trinket or tier bonuses atm.

[brok3nh3lix]

ive been wondering how were going to fair this next tier. I rolled my priest this expansion to play Disc, but we have so many healers, healers who cant dps worth crap, that i went shadow shortly into BRF. Im enjoying it for the most part, i just feel like for all the effort i put in to push my dps into the 85%+ percentile rankings, that i dont get as much out of it as other classes.

[Deleted]

I'm worried that even with the 20 ilvl bump that t18 is so bad, t17 mythic=t18 mythic lol. Twintop doesn't seem very happy with either the class trinket or tier bonuses atm.

Most people aren't looking forward to the itemization of HFC for Shadow. Very little crit items compared to even BRF (which lacked a few crit pieces) and those that do have mastery which sucks, a weird class trinket that doesn't seem very good and only decent for CoP (nearly useless for AS) and not fun to use, an RNG AoE trinket that doesn't work with Mind Sear and dumb/boring and restrictive set bonuses.

We're really banking everything on the fight design right now.

[Haikus]

Most people aren't looking forward to the itemization of HFC for Shadow. Very little crit items compared to even BRF (which lacked a few crit pieces) and those that do have mastery which sucks, a weird class trinket that doesn't seem very good and only decent for CoP (nearly useless for AS) and not fun to use, an RNG AoE trinket that doesn't work with Mind Sear and dumb/boring and restrictive set bonuses.

We're really banking everything on the fight design right now.

Yeah I personally hope they change our tier bonuses and trinket, they're both so underwhelming really makes you wonder if they have any clue what to do with the spec after this entire xpac.

[Yvaelle]

I'm worried that even with the 20 ilvl bump that t18 is so bad, t17 mythic=t18 mythic lol. Twintop doesn't seem very happy with either the class trinket or tier bonuses atm.

Neither am I, nor should you be. T17 trinkets and tier bonuses were good and fun, T18 is shit for us all around. And yea, the day you earn your T18 2-piece, and have to break your T17 4-piece, is going to probably be a sad sidegrade at best. The Archimonde trinket is really un-fun: it does nothing. Over half our DPS talents are unusable and unaddressed, still.

I'm Shadow for life, but T18 is a slap in the face.

[Thirteen]

I'm Shadow for life, but T18 is a slap in the face.

I feel like this entire expansion has been a mess for the class and all its specs.

[Dierdre]

The Archimonde trinket is really un-fun: it does nothing. Over half our DPS talents are unusable and unaddressed, still.

Archimonde trinket will be the only really manageable aspect we have for t18. About our talents, to be fair only Divine Star and Void Entropy are really unusable. SI, PI, SoD and bender aren't that popular but they're all usable and even situationally good.

- - - Updated - - -

I feel like this entire expansion has been a mess for the class and all its specs.

You might be forgetting MoP too soon. THAT was a mess for shadow, start to end.

[Yvaelle]

Archimonde trinket will be the only really manageable aspect we have for t18. About our talents, to be fair only Divine Star and Void Entropy are really unusable. SI, PI, SoD and bender aren't that popular but they're all usable and even situationally good.

SI sucks. PI has yet to be better than ToF in any circumstance (so it sucks, but theoretically could not suck).

SoD sucks IMO, I know people like it for PvP - but I don't like it there, and despite that some people have found limited success with it in PvE, I think it has a host of problems - short duration on the proc, either procs too much to be usable (goes to waste), or too little to be interesting (sucks single target) - does mediocre damage when it does proc (better than Flay, but still filler, not an exciting proc).

Mindbender is good when we don't have time to use Insanity or SoD, which is to say if your choice is between no talent on that tier, and Mindbender - Mindbender is literally better than nothing (Void Entropy can't even claim that... it's worse than nothing). I like Mindbender as a talent and a friend, it just needs to be good for something beyond "the other talents don't work".

While the set bonuses next tier are unexciting, and the loss of T17 is going to be sad, and the new trinket is only interesting in that we can choose whether to equip it or not - none of that bothers me quite so much as our talents. They balance them all close enough in DPS that they get to cross them off their checklist of things to care about, but they don't balance them enough to allow us to make interesting or meaningful choices: which puts all the emphasis on our tier and trinkets to give us things to think about (maximizing procs, maximizing 4-piece uptime, etc).

It's not the end of the world or anything, I just want more.

I wanna be, where the hunters are,
I wanna see, wanna see 'em dancing,
Choosing around on those...
What do ya call 'em? Oh, talents.
Channelin' your flays you don't get too far,
Procs are required for jumpin', movin',
Strollin' along down a...
What's that word again? ...Looooog!
Up where they walk,
Up where they run,
Up where they deeps all day in the sun,
Wanderin' free,
Wish I could be,
Part of that worldddddd!




This was Disney's design, to create a generation who express themselves through spontaneous song parodies. #DisneyNerds