Has anyone played both in beta or prepatch? I’m pretty torn between the two to be honest and would love some insight. I play all forms of game content, but in raiding, will be exclusively dpsing and want to be very competitive.
If you plan to ONLY DPS I’d always suggest a pure DPS class.
Go lock, we’re full on fotm spriests
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Shadow priest is really durable right now, like really durable. Focused will passive, pw:shield, two spells in our regular rotation that heal us (devouring plague and vampiric touch), plus vampiric embrace… I’ve had an easier time killing tough rares on my priest than other classes that used to slice right through them. You can choose between a talent that gives you a mini sprint when you use pw:s or a talent that heals you for 55% of your maximum hp when you use dispersion; I prefer the former for pve and the latter for pvp personally. The rotation is nice and smooth also. You have two healing specs to use if you prefer variety, although disc is doing much better overall; holy is still good, just not as strong as disc. And both are very different healing styles… disc is kinda like being a dps and a healer all in one, which is pretty fun.
Warlocks are also great. No baseline interrupt sucks if you’re aff/destro. In group content you’d run with your felhound, but outside that, you’re likely using your void, soooo yeah. 
However, with fel domination you can make a simple macro to use FD and whatever pet you want to summon to push one button instead of FD then the demon menu then the summon demon, which is sort of a workaround if you play in Warmode and don’t want to get stuck with your void out.
Destro is a straightforward spec and tons of fun, and affliction is good but I feel like there’s too many dots to manage for pve, which makes it less enjoyable (for me personally), which is why it’s my go to pvp spec.
How much content other than raiding will you do? M+? Priests bring fort, but warlocks bring health stones and battle rez (one of only 3 classes than can), and in pug raiding having a warlock for summons is the best. I’ve been in pug raids where I had no business being, simply because they had no lock and REALLY wanted summons… if you’ve ever pugged a raid, you know how often people cycle through. They also have their gateway, which is useful for some encounters. Would you want to heal in pvp? If not, if your main priority is dps, go for the lock. Out of 3 specs, one will always be solid. With priest, if it gets nerfed, that’s it, you’re stuck with a nerfed dps spec and nothing to fall back on, other than rerolling.
Priest might also be FotM for a while because of the rework and it being so strong right now. If you pug, that could make it harder to get into groups, because there will be lots of other priests as well.
Both play really well and are enjoyable, but if you have no intention of healing you may as well stick with the lock unless you hate all 3 specs. And if you hate managing pets then that’s an issue as well, grimoire of sacrifice is a talent not often taken, so you can run with a unfavourable talent or learn to manage pets.
If you’re subbed right now, all the class changes are live, so you can try both classes out right now and see which one you enjoy playing more.
For example, I hate dot classes in pve, but the spriest rotation feels so smooth it doesn’t bother me at all, but I only knew that after trying it out.
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Yep. I’m your guys cause I played both spec till lvl 30. So There SP and the only good spec right now, Aff.
I love SP and all but got nerfed a bit bad. The way you self heal through your dots and Devouring Plague is nice too. They can do good AOE damage, as well as single target. For pvp Shadow is nice as you got a lot of utilities like Desperate Prayer or Power Word: Shield.
But you can mostly die easily if you do the wrong things at the wrong time.
Affliction warlock is probably my fav out of the 2. I think Malefic Rapture is a very strong AoE spell. They can do very well at single target and basically melt entire teams down in AoE. For pvp it’s really fun! You can also self heal GREAT by lvl 15 talent Inevitable Demise which increase damage and healing done by Drain Life stacking up to 50. Also you got hearthstones, soul stones. With Unending Resolve, Demonic Gate (if used correctly) and Soul Leech (powered by talent Demon Skin) you have a good chance of surviving stuff. Also some good mobility by Demonic Circle.
Both spec have abilities to melt faces but I would recommend Affliction. Choose what YOU like!
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If you don’t like wildly swinging between being trash tier or OP every minor patch, go shadow priest.
If you like that your dots do damage or easy to spread go shadowpriest else pick warlock.
I really dislike when people use this as an argument. Of course lock dots do less damage when they have malefic rapture as the execute for them. If they buffed the damage of the dots and we still have MR on top of that, we’d be off the charts ridiculous. And if they compensate by nerfing MR damage because of buffed dots, well then what’s the point of having MR at all?
Stop focusing on one thing, like weaker dots, while ignoring the rest of the toolkit.
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The point is rapture isn’t needed and wasn’t asked for affliction at all. We’ve been asking for stronger dots and UA spread. That’s been the epitome of affliction since the dawn of time.
One could argue that since shadow priest can fully dot 4 targets in 4 globals (2 of which are instant btw), while an affliction lock needs at least 4 to fully dot 1 target, SP dots should be weaker, not stronger. Especially given the ridiculous free triggers on apparitions and procs that DONT interrupt your filler.
I personally hate rapture, all we needed was stronger dots, drain soul filler Baseline, and replace dark glare with malefic GRASP as the baseline dps Cooldown.
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Druids also didn’t ask for eclipses to return, but here we are.
Sure Spriests can get their dots out in less time - with talents, mind you, none of that is baseline (damnation, unfurling darkness and searing nightmare) - and their dots do more damage because they only have 2 until 50 sanity when they can use DP. So yeah, their dots kinda need to hit harder.
You can’t take two different classes with dots and ask for them to play the same and have the same impact from their spells, it’s like people complaining that ferals play so much worse than rogues even though they’re both stealth/bleed specs. They’re two different classes with similar types of abilities, sure, but they’re still different.
Don’t get me wrong, I already said affliction has way too many dots to manage for my own personal taste, I enjoy SP play style much more, but it is what it is for now. Highly unlikely anything will change before SL, and several specs are in the same boat which is a bummer. I personally would rather play the priest, but it’s going to be so overplayed, at least at first, and if it continues to be god tier it’ll get nerfed eventually… so I’ll just stick with the underdog right from the start -the warlock- and eventually we’ll be back at the top again, like always.
You missed misery too, and those talents are so strong that ever SP is bound to play with at least 1 so let’s not kid ourselves. Any mandatory talent pick might as well be baseline from a gameplay perspective.
Just because you have 2 dots doesn’t mean they should hit harder. You already admitted they can get them out way faster than a warlock can. On multiple targets mind you. There’s no reason for them to be that strong.
This was the exact reason why warlocks were stripped of soul swap and first edition malefic grasp. Our dots were on steroids and we could instantly apply them to multiple targets. Not to mention our insane toolkit at the time that included grasp.
I stand by what I said. Your dots shouldn’t be stronger if it’s easier to apply them AND spread them
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Ah yes, I forgot about that one. And yes, most people will go with misery and unfurling darkness, because it’s even good on single target. Damnation is likely also going to be default, because you get all 3 dots instant cast with a short cooldown. As strong as it is, it feels bad to have so many mandatory talents.
And yes, if they have fewer dots, they do need to hit harder, otherwise they’ll be doing too little damage overall. Warlocks have more dots and an execute for them, which is fine, but we definitely need a way to spread them easier. I’ve always felt that by the time I cycle through a pack of mobs and get them dotted up, there’s no time to do much else.
I’m not disagreeing that former iterations of affliction were way better, but Spriests just got reworked, so right now they’re way OP. There will be more tuning passes and it will all balance out, and I’d be surprised if they weren’t knocked down a bit by the 2nd tier. We’re stuck with MR though, at least through SL. While the play style may not be everyone’s favourite, the overall damage isn’t bad, so you gotta make a choice… go with the new shiny FotM specs, or play the class you love because it’s awesome.
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I’m more so just talking about dots in a vacuum, not considering whatever BS toolkit blizzard decides to implement.
We can agree to disagree at this point which is fine. I hope you reach whatever goals you set for yourself in SL. Farewell.
I mean, I pretty much agreed with everything you said (aside from saying that less dots = each one hits harder, more dots = each one hits weaker, which is basic math) but ok, farewell. 
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If you’re gonna quote me, quote everything that’s relevant. If you’re going to insult me, do it directly and not veiled.
I said I was talking about dots in a vacuum. Regardless of how many dots your class can put out, if you can apply a full roll instantly to multiple people, those dots should be weaker, period. It’s simple math.
You’re arguing against a point I’m not making. Slow down and read carefully in the future
I quoted everything relevant to me, and I explained that I agreed with your points aside from how hard dots hit. Nowhere did I insult you, not even veiled.
You’re forgetting lock dots hits weaker because we have an execute for them, and priests don’t, so yes it’s basic math that straight dots without an execute should hit harder, especially if there’s less of them.
That’s where we both agree that MR wasn’t needed, but it’s what we have now. Hate it all you want, but we have more dots plus an execute that rewards us for keeping lots of dots up, and we also agree that if we need to maintain so many dots we need a way to spread them much more efficiently.
So perhaps it’s you that needs to slow down and read, because you’re accusing me of arguing with you and insulting you when I’ve agreed with almost every point you’ve made.
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Just so you know, “not considering” is the same as “not taking into consideration” so idk why you keep trying to bring the toolkits into it.
This is a veiled insult. Implying that I don’t understand the flawed logic of dot quantity correlating to amount of damage required for balance.
These are all on the same train of thought which you seem to have missed so I’ll expand a little here.
Shadow priests are NOT a true dot class as they are a hybrid. Dots are NOT their identity or gameplay focus (insanity build/spending is), a shadow priest CAN function without having dots on target (Build insanity with flay and blast, spend on DP).
Affliction IS a true dot class and CANNOT function without dots applied. You even get an error message if you try to MR without dots.
Affliction dots should by default be stronger than shadow because our entire spec revolves around them. SP should be weaker because it is not their primary focus. End of story.
The quantity of dots literally mean nothing, just take a step back and look objectively at the classes. A hybrid class that can apply dots, and a true pure dot class. A hybrids dots should never do more damage than a pure dot class.
I understand why that isn’t the case currently, never have I suggested that I didn’t so idk why you keep bringing it up. I’m explaining why IT SHOULDN’T be that way. Ever.
I really dislike when people don’t understand warlocks.
We didn’t have MR in BFA either, and our dots still did bugger all damage by themselves.
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If course they did more damage, because there was no execute for them (malefic rapture). If they hadn’t added MR, they wouldn’t have needed to lower dot damage. They can’t keep every dot that powerful PLUS have an execute for them, that would be ridiculously OP. Should they have given us MR? No, I don’t like it either, but at least I understand why they reduced the damage of dots when it was added to our toolkit.
…
He’s saying that they didn’t do damage btw. So now it’s starting to look like you’re trolling. If you are, kudos. You got me hella good.
Its true though. Our dots were pathetic in BFA even without MR. UA stacking doesn’t count because we are talking about pure dots and not spenders