Shadow Priest DPS impressive since 4.0.1?

Dcully

Resubbed yesterday and unsure of what will be a main, so many toons
Holy Priest was always my main but i reckon i might change for Cata and more than likely going with a caster DPS.
Off i went and played my Lock for a few heroics, DPS was ok my gear isnt the best but was enjoyable.
Next up i specced shadow on my priest and also ran a few heroics and topped the DPS charts while really enjoying it.
In or around 5k on heroic bosses single target, i never remember shadow being anywhere near that good
Ive always enjoyed shadow over the years so if im correct and shadow is very decent now it could be a main.
Also while i havent fully read up on all the changes with 4.0.1 that S priest DPS was with my raiding holy gear :eek:,have they worked on stats so much that holy and dps are very similar now?

Im torn between a lock,S priest,Moonkin as a main, also considering levelling a mage up from lvl 40.

Dcully

Thanks for that mate, your spot on about playing what you enjoy.
Far too often in the past id worry about playing a class that benefits a guild or raid more than something i enjoy personally, more fool me.

Dustaz

play what you enjoy the most and most of all IGNORE the numbers.


Everything at the moment is balanced around a talent tree and patch thats more or less aimed at level 85. These numbers make no sense at the end of an expansion.


Play what you enjoy.

2 Espressi

There's gonna be so many changes over the next ooh, say, six months or so that it doesn't really matter what you roll right now.
I'm flitting between levelling alts at the moment, it's hard to settle on one.

KilOit

Love playing shadow priest, i rolled it a month after BC came out after getting sick of rogue, although a weak dps class at the time i fell in love with how good they were in a raid and all the mana they gave back, my spriest was very powerful in wrath and was able to compete for top dps slots while still being really fun to play, their survivability is amazing too and generally last to die when things go tits up

witless1

I have played and raided as shadow since getting into the game at the end of Vanilla. TBC was lacklustre in terms of damage potential but the class filled a vital role as a mana battery and it guaranteed a raid spot.

Purely from a PVE point of view this is how shadow faired in WOTLK, the beta and where it is going:

WOTLK was very much mixed. In Naxx it was amazing but the better gear that people received the more noticeable that shadow was standing still in comparison. This happened btw in Kara --> SSC/TK back in TBC so it wasn't exactly a shock. Gear was saturated with haste which benefited one of our spells so our chance of scaling depended on a change in design. So Ulduar, for me personally, I had to go Disc to get a raid spot. On gimmicky fights (hello Yogg!) shadow priests absolutely ruled the world but for the most part my place in a raid group was more valuable by going Disc. ToC was similar as well but eventually the haste change came in and shadow started moving towards the top of the charts. ICC was good to shadow priests, the fight mechanics for the most part suited shadow, switching to adds was still pointless due to ramp up. As KilOit said the survivability of the class stood out, self healing from VE was strong enough to mitigate strong boss damage -- particularly on BQL when we were learning the fight I was bitten first which resulted in 2k HPS on my group. Dispersion had it's uses after being off the bars for most of the expansion as a mana regen tool it now became a survivability tool. ICC saw shadow priests regain a good deal of dignity and placed them in a strong place for the expansion. The community consensus had the following concerns for Cata:

- A button to press to increase our DPS during a burn phase
- An execute ability -- Sub 25% every class pulls away
- A new spell to use, preferably on adds -- the rotation was the same since TBC and technically was dumbed down by removing SWD from the rotation
- A change to the final talent as Dispersion in comparison to other classes didn't bring anything (community in general wanted this, I like the talent as it saves my stupidity at times!!)
- Good Scalability.

Now numbers never really mattered much to me having played the class when it's role was utility rather then DPS but it's nice to compete and helps keep your raid spot in the whole bring the player rather then the class mentality. Why bring shadow if we can bring XYZ?

Initial beta testing showed shadow priests to be in a strong place. We got paladin style wings as our push button, initially with a long ramp up but subsequently speeded up. SWD came back into the equation as an execute. Mind Spike became our new spell which could be used on newly spawned targets. Dispersion was never considered instead we got Shadow Orbs (which boosted the damage of Mind Blast and Mind Spike) and Shadowy Apparitions. Scalability was not mentioned but the maths geniuses pointed out months ago that our Mastery stat was scaling horribly and would be avoided like the plague.

In 3 months or so of beta testing Mind Spike has become completely useless and won't be on a PVE players bar. First it had a high threat mechanic which was removed when people pulled aggro. With shadow orbs -- which boost the spells power -- players were calling for a battle res while casting. Now it removes all DoTs on a target which might make it irrelevant in PVP as no one will remove their DoTs and risk a player getting healed up if you fail to secure the killing blow with a Mind Spike. If a low health add spawns we might tab dot them but for the most part I think we won't switch. If the add is higher health it warrants a full rotation anyway. SWD has been nerfed into the ground because they overtuned it, now we can't spam it sub 25% which is how they implemented it through a glyph, now we spam it twice and wait 10s or so. The risk of SWD is death! So if you spammed it on beta you fell over from the lashback not to mention the strain on healers. At level 80 where mana isn't an issue people were doing a high percentage of their damage from SWD because they had healers spamming them. Our mastery still hasn't been fixed and is being reforged on sight in comparison to other classes. The latest patch hit our personal self healing from VE dropping it from 15% to 6% which is a blow to our survivability but 6% is still better then nothing.

From a personal viewpoint the class still hasn't changed in 4+ years, we now get one button more to play with come level 85 when we want to pop wings. Shadowfiend has become a DPS cooldown and is available every 45s due to talents and you spamming MF. Shadowy apparitions add a few % to your overall damage but require no thought process. The same with orbs they are just graphical and boost a spell in your rotation, where as the orbs could have been used to enhance other spells and give you a decision to make. They could have done so much with the apparitions and shadow fiend, making them temp pets or something that requires you to think or act. Mastery is a big concern due to the scalability factor, from having seen two expansions where we were powerful in the first tier of content only for patch x.1 to come along and watch everyone's gear level push them further along while we wait for a patch to address something. The only hope is this time the community have flagged it but it's been flagged for 3 months with minimal changes (only number tweaks) to shadow on the beta since then. I'd encourage you to play a shadow priest if you like a complex enough rotation, they are a brilliant class to play and certainly the most fun class I have played. If you are concerned about numbers and want to compete on the meters they may be the wrong class for you from a historical point of view. Play what you enjoy and if you are enjoying it now go for it in Cata.

I'm probably going to go Elemental Shaman for Cata just to change things up as the game got quite stale the last few months but the priest will quickly follow to 85. Elemental was in a terrible place in WOTLK up until ICC -- in a worse place then shadow actually. The changes for Cata are amazing and the class looks to be in a really nice place and quite fun to play as well. The community posed serious questions and concerns and each one seemed to have been addressed which makes me optimistic in the next 5 weeks before Cata launches. And by optimistic I mean make me sweat over my decision and jump back and play the priest again

Hope that helps!

Onslaught

I find them much harder to beat then before.. and come cata they are suppose to be one of the best casters in pvp