A few of the major issues with Shadow Priest in Classic Era were the following:
Low damage output
Poor mana regeneration
Based on what’s been made available, and wanting to possibly play a priest for Season of Discovery, based on what is currently available in terms of Runes for Priest specifically, it doesn’t seem at all viable to play one.
The runes don’t solve either of the two issues mentioned above, and sadly that really does put a nail in the coffin. Many other classes and specs have things provided to them that help alleviate their problems, whereas Shadow Priest is not provided with one.
An alternative rune could be to add the cataclysm talent Masochism combined with Shadow Word: Death as a rune, it would provide some single target damage and some mana regeneration.
I don’t want to spend time on a class and specialization that may or may not be viable later on and that kind of makes me consider if I want to play Season of Discovery at all. If I were to play Season of Discovery, it certainly wouldn’t be as a Shadow Priest (nor any other priest specialization for that matter).
So either I spend a bunch of time on another class and specialization that seems like it will be fun to play in Season of Discovery Phase 1 and re-roll later (unlikely) or I skip the Season of Discovery entirely.
It is also very problematic that you’re adding yet another version of the game, where the classic player base is already spread thin between Era, Hardcore and Wrath Classic. The addition of Season of Discovery will further dilute the player base possibly rendering may of the different versions unplayable. It would be great if you devised a proper strategy for better connecting the versions together and players ability to easily flow between them (or simply remove a few).
I don’t get the hate from blizzard to Spriest. Its such a cool spec both visual and play. Twist of fade should have been different. If SwP is on the target. MF does 100% more dmg and cost 100% less mana, just like wrath for druids.
I do not agree. Are you sure you’ve seen the runes?
There are Shadow-oriented runes which gives better damage either directly or indirectly:
+20% damage if SW:P is on
SW:P spreading
AoE spell
Another DoT
So SPriest have clearly more options here.
On the mana regen, I’m pretty sure this will be the case for everyone at first and I’m sure Blizzard will add a bit MP5 gear in their Raid during the leveling.
Also, it’s important to note that we’ll have a long period before we play end-game. Maybe 1 or 2 months at Lvl 25, then 1 or 2 months at Lvl 40. So I’m sure we did not see all the Runes.
Shadowpriest damage was never a problem until others started to get some good raid gear. Spriest spells scale sooo poorly with gear and thats when other classes pulled ahead alot.
While farming prebis in dungeons i was usually near or top dps.
The one and only problem were mana pool. I had to get full bags with mage water and keep drinking between server ticks to keep up with the party.
I think at low levels damage will not be a problem but constant mana problems will. I hope blizz will give some mana runes later on. Like replenishment from vampiric touch + mind blast like in wrath
Yup, this! And nothing in what’s provided as Runes helps fix this issue. Perhaps something else comes later on, but as it stands right now, the poor scaling with gear combined with mana problems it just looks completely unviable.
I think the runes we know of for the 25 cap are promising, not to mention new gear we know zero about. Cards are being held very close to the chest at the moment, I’d save the ‘nail in the coffin’ comments for when we’ve hit 60 and the same problems still exist.
#1: Cap on how many dots a target could have at once #2: Mana regeneration and cost #3: Dot scaling
Season of Discovery is removing #1, if I understand correctly. #2 is still a significant concern, even when looking at all the available runes. #3 is the biggest question, and it doesn’t seem like Season of Discovery will change the fact that Dots don’t scale with gear. This is why Affliction Warlock is likely to still drop as a rock at level 60, just like Shadow Priest.
Wand is still pretty good at level 25, so unlike boomkin i dont think Spriest needed any help at this level.
Better mana generation will certainly come at later levels.
Un-popolare opinion perhaps, but: I don’t think spriest needs to be top dps. They provide usefullness in other ways. More shadow damage for Warlocks and off-healing(that will be even better) through Vampiric Embrace.
Ofc, fix the mana issues, but hey we’ll just have to wait and see
IDK, it is not that easy to balance spriest dmg. I was shadow all classic and you can’t compete with top DMG for sure (maybe early), but it was enough for casual raiding. But I was a monster in PVP.
If you want to see a shadow somewhere on top of the DMG in raids, in the BG it would be so insane that one dot would be enough to kill. And healing from VE would be crazy. You can add something that would work only in PVE, but I think that would take some charm from vanilla gaming. Where you have the same dmg in PVE and PVP (no resil), and I love that.
But more mana reg would be great.
