Ok, so Shadow is looking to be bottom dog 4th phase in a row. I know that currently on PTR we are mid to bottom on logs, and it is looking better than it did in P3, but it won’t last long simply because shadow does not scale with gear. The spell coefficient on shadow spells are super bad, we have no crit from talents, and no crit-modifier from talents or runes which could help.
We had Aggrend joining the Shadow discord explaining that the Classic dev team wants to keep Shadow as more of a utility “swiss army knife” spec, and that we should not expect anything more to boost Shadow damage or scaling.
But Shadow isn’t the only class who brings support buffs/offhealing. Far from it. Except for VE that is unique in how it works, several other classes bring off-healing, buffs, debuffs and other unique things too. But for some reason Shadow is the only spec that has to pay the hybrid/ support tax in terms of lower damage output.
…And I simply don’t get it. It’s a seasonal server which supposedly aims at making classes more fun/stronger/viable, and the devs have said that they are listening to player feedback, but just in our case they don’t want to listen and instead go their own “utility” route that people just aren’t interested in. I know for sure that a lot of people in the Shadow discord are either quitting, or rerolling class which means you will see a lot fewer shadow priests. And I can’t imagine that being what the devs want.
We are simply asking the Classic devs if they can please look into Shadow one more time and see if they can do anything to make the spec scale better, or we will end up below tanks on damage output once again pretty soon.
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Wth are you talking about… shadow priests did insane dps on testwerk raids i was in.
2200-2600 dps. Only 1 rogue and 3 fire mages were above that.
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Totally agree with you. I posted this below in the US forums but figured it’s worth reiterating here as well.
Shadow in classic has always been a support/utility spec. You’d think SoD would have been the perfect opportunity to flip the script and allow shadow more freedom in its PVE role.
Shamans have a ton of utility, warriors are getting world buffs, hunters have kings, ferals have windfury, rogues have occult poison. EVERYONE has utility. BUT shadow is the only spec where the strength of our utility is tied to our damage output. That’s the real issue. Shadow will always be forced to pay utility tax UNTIL the strength of VE and VT are no longer tied to our damage output. Changing these effects (VT becomes replenishment from wrath/cata and VE heals a smaller percentage or percentage of health) allows shadow to be tuned differently so their utility isn’t insane if their damage is high.
I think it was a huge failure on Blizzards part to give VT as the TBC version of mana regen, based off of damage, as opposed to the wrath/cata version of replenishment (1% of max mana returned every few seconds).
Shadow priests aren’t advocating to be top damage or anywhere near TBH, we’re sick and tired of being below the tanks and being hamstrung by our utility especially since no other class seems to pay the utility tax that we do
By decoupling VE and VT from the shadow priests damage it…
- Allows finer and easier tuning of the mana and health returned by VT and VE without negatively impacting the priests damage
- Allows Shadow to benefit from scaling without worrying about their utility becoming overpowered as their damage increases
This isn’t hybrid/support tax, this is “have been the most OP spec for 2 phases” tax
I hope I’ll never see “LFM STV Spriest / boomie” ever again in my life
This is more of a OP in pvp tax that they have to have. Else SP would dominate pvp and they cannot allow that as shaman is supposed to dominate. Spam purge + self heal should make it still shaman favored, but i guess they do not want competition for the spot.
My thoughts for you SP players though. I really wished they made them good (S or A tier) for raiding. They confirmed they won’t.
Arcane is far worse. And arcane has nothing to offer outside dps.
2200 seems to be on the high end of shadows on PTR. I have yet to see a 2600 dps shadow. Can you link that log?
I’ve seen a 3000+ dps rogue, which i asume to be a bit of a statistical outlier and fire mages beating the 2600 on the regular.
Do not have a logs link, but i can explain there were 2 affli warlocks in the raid so there was a pretty high uptime of the improved shadow bolt debuff. (Wich is blasted away by a shadow priest within few seconds because of 4 hits limit)
So it is a talent for warlocks but 75% of the effect goes to the shadow priest damage)
I think right now and sadly also going forward that debuff gets eaten by a large number of random low damage shadow effects. Shadow oils and DMC:D come to mind without any gurantees.
Warcraftlogs has too little data to reach a final verdict. Just pointing out that theres no evidence that any shadow prased that high.
Anyone complaining about SP having scaling because they are strong in PvP has to have failed 5th grade math class. Shadow priests dominate in PvP for the exact same reason that their damage suck big time in PvE. With item progression SP falls further behind in both areas.
At present itemization, that is tier 0.5 on the PTR, Shadow Priest might end up as a middle of the pack dps. That is perfectly fine as an OUTCOME. We arent asking to have the outcome changed, we are asking to changes to the PROCESS by which the outcome is achieved.
Reducing flat damage on shadow spells in exchange for improved scaling would make shadow feel less oppressive in PvP, improve the situation in PvE and best of all, it would make itemizing and equiping your character ACTUALLY FUN. Right now getting tier 0.5 over phase 3 gear is a meaningless and performative act with nigh zero impact on damage.
I am not about to spend lord knows how many hours farming dungeons, rep and whatever pre-raid progression activity there will be, just so I don’t get called a bum for showing up in phase 3 ST swag.
If somebody could tell me how to find ptr logs then i could find the evidence.
Ptr char name is Qqaa
As of right now the first place shadow on PTR is Merccy with 2,161.3 dps on testwerk in a 3:30 fight. That is in line with what I have observed myself.
I dont think you can search for characters on PTR via the usual search bar. The PTR is at the bottom of the main page below all the other raids.
Yes maybe me recount just showed some weird numbers, this addon is not really good .
Maybe on logs the dps was far lower, did not check logs that some guy linked
Recount does indeed produce some scuffed results. But sometimes it is the best we have at the moment. I’d asume that is the reason for the large gap in measurements.
But even if it tracked perfectly in game, things like a PI wouldnt be filtered out like they do on WCL.
1 thing still is 100% sure… all SP did more dps than we affli warlocks 
Because you cannot buff shadow priest PVE without making the already powerhouse that shadow priest pvp is, even stronger. Reducing mana cost of shadow spells in shadowform by 50% WTF?
They will need the cheap spellcosts when they cant get dispersion as a bonus
They are literally gods of aoe and pretty good ST and still complain. SMH
Pretty good in ST? Wth are you talking about? Have you even looked at the dps rankings? We’re below tanks.
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You ever heard the tragedy of darth afflictius the weak?
He needs to pay hybrid tax even though he is not even a hybrid class.
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