Shadowpriest - how to easily improve PVE dps without harming balance

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
1

Hi there. Shadowpriest, is once again last on the DPS rankings, slightly above tankrogues and below all other dps builds.

Now before i will complain about doing low DPS, i am aware that even with a Shadowpriests low PVE DPS, the spec in itself is actually not in a bad spot - we provide the best grouphealing for sustained raiddps income, we are good in pvp, we are good in sologameplay, we have easy mana management.

I would still like to have the option to go for a more competetive DPS approach in a PVE scenario.

Now doing so we must consider aspects where we do not want to improve a Shadowpriests power:
-Do not raise Shadowpriests AOE dmg, as it is basically the peak AOE dps atm considering its immense Output combined with its sustainable approach by having no cooldown, low manacosts, no setup.

-Do not raise Shadowpriests PVP strength, as it is strong enough. People already complain about Shadowpriests in PVP, and while i dont think shadowpriest is oppresively strong there, it certainly is not at all weak.

-Do not raise Shadowpriests Vampiric Embrace healing, as it is already the best group healing ability in the game providing 150% of our dps as Raw HPS on our group. If we raise our DPS output without doing something about VE healing, it might become the meta to just heal literally every dmg taken in the raid, including dmg taken on Tanks, completely with Shadowpriests. And while i think that would be funny, it would probably only lead to complaints and nerfs.

So how to deal with this situation ?

Rune: [Generic Shadowpriest Rune Name] (Boot-Slot).

Effect: Exchanges your spell Mindflay with the new Runespell “Mindbogglingflay”.

Mindbogglingflay:
-Profits from all Talents and Runeeffects that have an effect on Mindflay.
-Is a 5 second channeled Spell that Deals increasing dmg, starting low and ending high.
-If Vampiric Embrace of the casting priest is effective on any Target in Combat, your mind will be be boggled, reducing your dmg output by X%.

And thats basically it.
-The combination of being on bootslot (thus removing Dispersion) and having a rampup channel basically makes this either completely useless in a PVP scenario, or it makes it an alternative that gives high rewards for high risk, since it forces a stationary gameplay without our major defensive CD.

-The penalty on Vampiric Embrace is an easy fix to prevent VE from being the crutch that impedes a shadowpriests DPS from being competetiv. Either you profit from VE´s groupheal and deal lower DPS, or you deal high DPS and lose the supporting ability.

-And since its an improvement that increases DPS output based on a single target abilitys use, it does not increase AOE output.

Any Feedback, especially regarding oversights from my side, are welcome.

Edit: Since Aggrend tweeted about Feedback for shadows, Title has been adjustet.

1 Like
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From what i can see, we are below Tank Warriors, Tank Pallys and Tank Rogues.

BuT wE aRe A sUpPoRt ClAsS.

Im sure a our soon-irrelevant support is more worth then a Tank who does more damage.

3

Its because its close to impossible to balance shadow priest for both pve and pvp without one of them suffering.

The only thing that would solve it would be to increase power while having the caveat of the spell doing 50% damage to players.

SP are worst at pve now but also best at pvp.
If they were to do mid to high parses in pve they would destroy people in pvp with 1 dot.

4

Its not like a valid solution to that has been postet, in, you know, the opening post in this thread. Not having any idea on how to properly balance abilitys and a total lack of imagination should be reserved for the SoD developers, you dont have to parrot this stance.

Shadowpriest support in PVE is actually extremely good. Its more of a player based problem, not utilizing this. People do not bring a shadow and thus scrap one healer out of the roster for another dps, even tho that is what makes shadow support as strong as it is, the ability to play raid encounters with far less healers then otherwise necessary, and swapping healers for dps (or utilizing dual spec on healers).

5

Its because everyone are obsessed with parsing.

6

Im personally obsessed with parsing. Lower killtimes generally tend to improve parses, bringing shadows instead of healers lowers killtimes. People generally are not obsessed with parsing, they are obsessed with their parsing number, which i would split apart from each other. Obsession with parsing includes understanding whats going on, reading your number and being proud of it does not.

7

People generally do not understand Parsing. They are not obsessed with it.

This Paladin here got an allstar ranking between rank2 and <1k on all of Wotlk content.
And my parsing fever basically died with ulduar, because i just did not want to hussle with parsing optimization anymore.

People that critizise parsing, mostly critizise people that do not understand parsing.
Being at the very top in parsing means you have to play in a very clean way. To be dead even on one encounter ruins your whole parse.

8

Completely missing my point.

Point being: People give support classes hate since those classes parse badly at the cost of making their teammates parses better, parses are not what wow is about, its about teamwork.

9

You are proving my point, of not understanding Parsing. Parsing literally is teamwork cranked up to the maximum, outside of the very few ones like allaundoh that parse in a way where they focus on one person getting the absolute maximum parse by potentially sacrificing everyone elses.

A support class parses against their own class, like every class (spec) does.
Playing a Feral druid is probably the easyest way to find a raid in SoD on Alliance side, and they are super popular. Why ? Because of their support. Nobody cares about the ferals dps, all they want is that jucy windfury.
I´ve never seen people concerned about a ferals parse in sod so far.

Shadowpriest, to come back to the topic, is a complicated matter since a shadowpriests support is not really giving direct support like windfury to their teammates.
A shadows support is the ability to switch healers in the raid in favor of dps (or have the healers switch from healing to dpsing with dual spec).
Its arguably an even better supporting ability, especially giving the flexibility on an encounter to encounter basis - you can either have the shadows for raidhealing while splitting them up, or if its a classic tank and spank with close to zero raid dmg, having a group made up of 3 shadows + pally + warlocktank is also something thats worth considering.
The problem is that most people are not sweaty enough to utilize this kind of support from the shadowpriests. Healers that do not want to go dps, Raidleads that do not want to reduce the number of healers, Healers complaining about shadowpriests “taking away their heal”, Dps that do not understand that support can come in forms that are not directly related to a Dps increase of existing DPS players.

10

Shadowpriest support in PVE is actually extremely good.

Thats a Point id argue against.

Is it bad? No.
Is it extremely good? Absolutley not.

In p3 Shadows support has fallen off significantly and in p4 it will drop off a cliff.

Itll boil down to the same old classic support: Weaving and in unexperienced groups Embrace.

Armor Debuff - Rogue is doing better already and youll have a Pumper.

Attackspeed Debuff - Warrior doing as controlled AoE instead of brainless Minime’s and youll have a MT or a Pumper.

Attackpower Debuff - See Attackspeed Debuff.

Curse of Shadow/Elements/Tongues - Warlock will do better (p4) and youll have a MT or a Pumper.

Vampiric Embrace - Heals one group and is basically a hit or miss.
Your group gets damage? Mediocre heals incoming.
Your group actually plays mechanics and gets just a little damage? Better save the CD for damage.

And then we have it:
Shadow weaving - The 1x Classic-Raid-Invite-Ticket for one Shadow Priest per Raid. Its worth the half baked DD.*

**IF YOU HAVE WARLOCKS DOING SHADOW DAMAGE INSTEAD OF FIRE.

11

It was when warlocks where shadowbolt spammers. Now they are all fire.

12

Can you elaborate on that? Im trying to understand the benefit.

Positives i see:
Much passive heal on one MT.

Negatives i see:
3 Spots gone for really bad DDs. You are basically missing 1.5 DDs
3 Shadows offer the same support like 1 Shadow.
Youd still have to heal the WL in times of damage spikes cause VE is barely controllable.

What would make you pick that over:

Ignore the passive heal on the WL.
Kick 2 shadows. Invite one real MT heal and take things like +25% armor on crit heals, big Panic Heal CDs and other things like that.
Invite one real pumper DD like a Warrior or a Rogue who brings even better Armor reduce.

Am I missunderstanding smth?

13

Yes, Shadows can only hope that this will change in p4, otherwise youd have to explain why 10% extra shadow damage for basically only the shadow priest is worth anything over a real DD.

14

idk why they wanna buff priest in pve while all caster are performing poorly this phase (except mage as usual) just lower the magic resistance of the raid

15

People still compare classes against each other, you realize that?

16

Can help you with that.
Spriests and Balance doing less damage then Tanks and bring less to the raid then a MT.

17

i know i play boomy , but tbh it’s just like when melee where underperforming in gnomergan due to boss having too much armor.

also melee having way more consummable this phase than casters.

18

Most felt bad about it in p2.
From my pov there is still no need to “revenge” the misstakes from the past.

Shadows were dogsht in p1, doesnt mean i wanted to make other classes sht in p2. Was enough to make shadows viable in p2.
Now in p3 its p1 reloaded.

19

Shadow preistsd are under tanks and warrors can deal out 3 times the ammount of damage. what is the point in this class?, they sid they wont totch the meta thats insaine to me. we arent talking about 100 dps , here and there, we are talking about 3 times the ammout.

20

Well, i just checked my last ST log.
On every single bossfight, having 3 shadows in a Doubletank grp would´ve been enough to completely heal the tanks without any other healer needed. On all bosses , only Dreamscythe and Weaver did even remotely enough dmg to even come close to the healingoutput 3 shadows provide, and that is because our tanks basically do not know how to tank that fight.
On 7/8 fights in our logs, 3 shadows would be overhealing the tanks by 50-150%.

As for dmg spikes: Ive checked every encounter log. There would be no dmg spikes that the shadows could not have healed. And btw, VE healing is not really spiky, given that shadows deal dmg with dots and fast casts.

You could literally clear the raid without any healing input whatsoever outside of shadowpriest healing.

But all of that is theoretical. What raidgroup would rather only use shadowpriest healers and no real healers ? Probably none. Also due to insane disparitys of DPS, shadowpriest still would need a dps buff, given that warriors, rogues and meelehunters basically tripple+ a shadows dmg, but that is a general balance problem.

But still, do not underestimate VE´s healing power. A SP as yourself (or my SP) that can dishout 500+ dps on each encounter is healing 150HPS on every target in their group, multiplyed by 1.[Spellcritchance*0,5], because for whatever reasons the heals can crit seperately.