Rets are in euforia, they got upgraded from a meme to a mediocre, but that’s about it.
Not being a meme is a great feeling and given I mained a Paladin in an actual Vanilla, I’m glad - because I had to be a healbot for a year and a half, just because every other Paladin spec was just meming on yourself and teammates.
But when I look at WCL, I’d say there is still work to do there. Their talents are not very good as far as DPS goes and if they don’t get additional help - they probably will slip off too.
move away from focusing so much on WCL
even with mediocre dps paired with raid buffs and strong utility, that isn’t great?
theres a reason why you see rets everywhere, theyre fun, engaging, do good dps and bring a bomb load of utility, id say yes theyre great right now, on top of that many raids use rets as off tanks becasue of how strong they are.
This is funny, because you remind me of myself in Vanilla.
I too was coping hard as a Paladin “Holy Warrior” look at all this utility and all, and reality told me “shut the f up and heal if you want to raid”.
In the end WoW is a numbers game and when meta forms - it permeates all levels of gameplay. It was true in 2005 and it is twice as true now in 2024, when players are much more shrewd and data is readily available.
That is also the reason why starting TBC I decided to never play anything but pure DPS, because I learned on my own back that “utility” is not a compelling reason enough to secure a DPS spot in raid as a meme spec, when that spot is contested by a dozen other people with their meme specs.
And this by the way is the biggest problem, because utility does not really scale well with numbers. Ergo - one Shadow Priest is enough to give all the meaningful utility Spriests provide for a raid and you don’t even need Ret Paladin there at all, because it does not have anything Holy or Prot Paladin doesn’t have.
That’s why in context of this thread - banking on utility as a ticket to a raid in a DPS spot is a very unreliable plan, especially given the competition.
mate you cant compare SOD paladin to classic paladin when mages are running around healing raids, its almost like youre stuck in the past and the only way you can see the present in by starring at WCL,
ive had different experiences that what you mention starting tbc, during my times as a pure dps spec i found it much harder to secure raid spots than when i played a utility class,
what class did everyone want in tbc? it was shaman, no raids were begging for rogues
what class did everyone want in wrath? paladin, no raids were begging for mages ( until icc )
ive always seen pure dps players to be of a selfish nature, its why the most mechanics are failed by the dps, they look at their spells and the dmg meter, thats it.
In the end - it’s still Vanilla and Vanilla rules apply. There is no “replenishment” here and healer Shamans can drop WF totems just as well next phase, in addition to Feral Druids now who actually do good dps now worthy of a DPS spot.
And that is what Shadow Priests and Rets are missing.
Shadow Priests DPS is bad and their real utility depends on other class playing a spec it no longer plays. And Rets are simply mediocre - at the moment they are passable as a DPS spot at least.
And it’s nothing to do with “selfishness” or other nonsense. Raids that form will look to tick the boxes they actually need and they would rather do so by taking specs that work the best for the job.
That’s why in Vanilla, there was ever only one Shadow Priest needed and if what I see now continues - it may become 0 Shadow Priests and not the other way round, even with armor debuff.
Sadly the only way I see shadow priests being “viable” or let’s say “desirable” in a raid is if only they could bring homonculi, and not the discipline priest.
The problem with shadow priests is that they do not have a “main damage” rune like most of the classes do. Maybe if they introduce a rune for it like the retail Mind Spike I could see it viable. Not only will it do shadowfrost damage(why not, since they introduced spellfire already in SoD) , but it will be easily balanceable, since apparently blizzard only balance classes only by their runes, and not their main abilities. I don’t think something like Voidform (if they introduce that) would be enough.
The problem is they cast only their classic abilities to do dmg. Shadowform and Darkness are not gonna be enough, since 25% increased dmg given the dmg they do now is not gonna be much, and the healing from Vampiric Embrace wouldn’t be “required” to kill a boss, even so now when we have so many aoe healers.
Also the 15% shadow dmg taken would not be usefull at all, since all warlocks play fire (again, because their runes are fire spells, that’s why they are the best dps caster right now), and on top of that mages will buff them with scorch for their fire spells, so Shadow Weaving will be completely useless apart from buffing your own dmg.
I must say this debate has been very engaging, i thank you for your time,
we’ll leave it at that, time will tell, so far SOD has brought some crazy changes and will continue to do so, its impossible to say what were going to see and when, considering were only on phase 1,
If you want to cope, here’s a thought you could do it on - blizzard are intentionally not buffing shadow priests, enha shamans (as dps) and ele shamans, because they know what runes they’re gonna give to them at lvl 40
After all, this is Season of Discovery, who could’ve though mages would be able to heal, so why not shadow priests being able to top the dps meters at 60 (or even 40)
I think they should change the armor debuff to a debuff benefitting casters which would in turn also benefit shadow solo play or am I they only one that thinks its weird that a caster got a pet that mostly melee classes benefit from?
As long they increase the DPS value a shadowpriest can bring, it is something.
Probably going to see the TBC stance of 1 SP per raid, but it’s better then 0 SP per raid.
Also, people tend to forget the difference between DPS and DPS value.
A warrior might do 100 dps, with a group of 5 warriors then have 500 dps in total.
Remove 1 warrior and add a Enh shaman that does 50 dps, but increases each warriors dps by 25%
Suddenly the group has a Dps of 550 in total, a 10% increase.
As simple as i can put it, the value of the group and the raid was increased by 50 dps.
Yet on the meter the shaman is dealing 50% of the damage a warrior does.
Get the shaman up to 75% of the dps of the warrior and now it’s increased by 15%
My point is, people need to see past the dps meter and see the overall value instead, because there’s more to the game than just “Zugzug, dps go brrr”
What value SP has though to warrant bring it with its dreadful DPS?
Shadow debuff that nobody uses anymore?
The only 2 reasons in SoD to have SP are armor debuff and fort if you don’t have a decent warrior or healer priest respectively. That’s just not strong enough of a case here, especially when raid sizes will increase.
