Help me choose!
I have a priest and shaman, both at 25 with max profs and decent gear. Priest (as a whole) looks like it’ll be in a great spot for both PvP and PvE. But… Shaman (ele) has chain lightning, overload, lava burst (which procs off flame shock in a new rune) amongst others.
Hoping for a PvP focus and running raids in a casual environment.
What would you do?
Both shadow and ele/enh are going to be insane at 40 for PvP. Pick which you enjoy more.
Seriously, feels like spriest is somehow being underrated by some. SW:D already half-shots people, and according to the datamined patch notes they’re nerfing its backlash by 50% and potentially buffing its damage more. Then we get +40% shadow damage via talents… plus hotswapping runes between Dispersion & Pain Sup.
Shamans runes aside 2h mastery and decoy totem look like utter trash compared to what priests are getting, and resto vs holy there is no comparison.
Go priest.
An RNG chance to proc an instant cast with a 5% rate of flameshock is not anything to write home about. It will likely proc when something is already dead, you don’t need, or when you’re oom already and can’t cast CL or the full heal anyway.
Priest seems safer bet but if Ele calls then play it.
You should go with the one you like the most, however from a pure dueling perspective, Ele might be hard to beat if you have the initiative and get the jump on people, as it will likely be able to global most people down, however of the two its also going to be a lot more squishy. A priest on the other hand isn’t likely to kill anyone quickly, but they have far more tools in their toolbox, and if they can outlive another classes alpha strike, they will likely have the upper hand against all but a few classes.
Bro, SW:D literally half-shots people right now. In P2 they get +40% shadow damage via talents. Spriest gonna global people just like ele.
PvPing with other shadow priests is already fun AF. Get 3 together and all SW:D the same time and it’s an instant kill depending on who crits.
You’re right. I think my big blocker to playing priest is the actual leveling and how boring the current tools are. Hopefully we’ll get some early runes to make it less wand focused
Embrace the wand is it the best tool.
A wise little mexican girl once said, “Why not both?”
Shaman isn’t any better, and arguably more boring until you actually hit 40.
It is amazing, especially when I SW:D crit someone for 537 damage but then die because it just did 60% of my HP as backlash and I wasn’t on full HP.
Shadow Protection potions will hopefully get a lot cheaper next phase to help with the SWD damage to self. Sometimes PW:S is enough but sometimes I roll with shadow protection pots.
Shaman go brrrrrrrrtr
According to datamined patch notes, they might be reducing the backlash by 50%.
I’ve played a priest for several years on classic and retail back during the beginning… But since learning Shaman. I’ll never play Priest again. However, some here have reported that the shaman is having issues within the game is just weak. I’ve not encountered that on retail and this is one reason why I can’t wait to get back to doing a shaman as it was back when cata first dropped. I did however try a orc shaman a few weeks ago and made it out of the starting zone felling confident about how it was working. Just couldn’t over come playing a horde.
Omg that is amazing. Shadow Priest gonna cause a lot of QQ in P2.
I would say play a shaman just because you can now tank, heal, RDPS and MDPS. It gives you lot more variety and shamans look like they are gonna have a good time next phase with the 2h weapon mastery rune and power surge/maelstrom weapon whether you go enhancement or elemental.
Of course Priest are amazing fun and give you the option of DPS or Heals. Although I am still concerned about their PvE capabilities as DPS because we possibly might only be getting Mind Spike and Dispersion, and I don’t feel like Mind Spike is going to solve all our problems unless it is extremely low cost (like SS) and high damage. While Mind Spike might not solve our problems it will probably make MF irrelevant outside 1v1s in PvP 
.
Blizzard only teased the waist and the feet runes and in my option the most important rune data-mined is Despair (your periodic spells can crit) is on the wrist slot and it is unclear if we will actually get them.
Of course Priest will be wonderful in PvP as they have always been.
Hard agree. Resto/ele runes seem super half baked and uninspiring. A stark contrast to priest which is consistently getting the most juiced and well thought out runes in the game.
PvP will be a nightmare for ele/resto come phase two. They more or less have the same toolkit with a little more burst, while every other class has gotten nice additions to their toolkits. Melee got more sticking/engaging power while shaman got no form of hard CC to keep them off.
Coming from someone alting a resto shaman, you are way better off picking priest. I actually startes leveling my own priest which will probably replace my alt shaman for future expansions. Shadow priest is HYPE right now. Also as a mage main, i consider that the most fun for heals. Maybe you’d consider playing that as well. Mages FTW
I may sound like a doomer, but as a resto sham, i kind of have a right to be disappointed right now. SoD dev team just has no idea what theyre doing with the class ATM. Shaman is supposed to be the king of offensive utility and so far we’ve gotten none of that.
which ever one you never main’d before