Whats everyones predictions for shadow priest performing in raid. After most the sims ive seen and ive done myself, were looking like a bottom 5 dps spec. The only saving grace we have is our raid utility and power infusion.
I predict that it will play decently, but be difficult to be effective with and, therefore; it will be viewed as terrible and we will all get to hear the whining over it for 2 years.
Priest will be fine. It won’t be a top killer, but middle of the pack and good utility is a fine place to be. Better than some can say.
Shadow will be where it always is in raid - you only bring one if it’s overtuned or if it’s all you can get. Damage is looking pretty bad right now, but that will change in a week or a month.
Shadow doesn’t have barrier, so fort and PI are better coming from a disc priest.
We had 18 of our 24 core raid members sim their best ST DPS in a Discord channel last week. I was 699,000 on Spriest, but was able to creep to up 717,000 with some mastery replacing haste. I was the third lowest on the team. We had an Outlaw rogue way lower than I was, and we had a poorly geared Dev evoker come in at around 700,000.
Literally everyone else crushed me out, even characters that were demonstrably worse geared. Currently highest sim is a 947,000 Arcane Mage, that I’m also geared better than. We are, without a doubt, one of the lowest DPS specs going into Nerub’ar.
But that’s not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is how actual gameplay will negatively effect our DPS. Bosses like Bloodbound Horror have a HUGE amount of movement, and add phases that will be dominated by specs that can just drop 10mil damage out with two buttons on them. There’s no time for us to ramp on these things.
Even if we’re simming 30% behind numerous other specs, I anticipate we could be even MORE behind that that once you factor in mechanics and movement.
Disclaimer: I don’t think this matters for most players. If your guild isn’t competing for top-100 or whatever, it doesn’t matter.
Utility should only be defined is something that benefits the Raid as a whole that is unique to your class/spec – Power Infusion is just a means to make your Top DPS look better on the Logs at the end of the night… that’s about it.
You could remove Power Infusion right now and bosses will still die.
Our Actual Utility:
- Mini-Lust Power Infusion - For your special someone so they can pad meters
- Stamina Buff - That can be covered by literally any Priest spec
- Feathers - For MS that are normally reserved for yourself since you have the worst MS in the game
- Leap of Faith - Absolutely trash ability that can only be used in very small circumstances that must be spec’d into and otherwise is used only to pull the DK around because they are the only class with worse MS than you
- Halo - Your main themed Damage for Archon, that should only be used for damage as a SP, but may get roped into using it when its inconvenient for you because your healers can’t keep up
- Vampiric Embrace - The only arguable talent that can be used that doesn’t inconvience the Shadow Priest. Pop it for supplemental heals during times of wide raid damage, that only improves with the more damage you do… which you’re currently lacking in because it only applies to Direct Damage.
Could you imagine if SP had an “Aura” like Trueshot, Windwalking, or something similar?
“Whispers of Doubt” - Enemies in your presences are strickened with Whispers from the Void making them doubt their ability - “Enemies affected by Whispers of Doubt take 3% more damage from all sources”
Now that’s a Raid Utility I could get behind.
Padding numbers is when you are doing extra damage that doesn’t actually translate to faster kills in a fight.
PI is a buff that boosts a friends damage, but that doesnt make it “padding” Its just a buff you provide.
There are classes that bring flat damage bonuses, which is fine, but boring. I enjoy the utility priest brings to the table. Some of it is pretty unique. Stam buff, Leap, and Sooth are ones that come to mind. Its not everything I’d like priest to have, but it’s a decent offering.
But that’s not utility - that’s just exporting some of your throughput to another player.
The only utility shadow has in raid is fort, which is guaranteed to be coming from a healer already. You could make the argument for Vampiric Embrace and Halo for supplemental healing, but that’s of dubious, if any, value and maybe once per raid you have Leap of Faith if one of the several evokers isn’t already covering the mechanic with Rescue.
Shadow brings no value to raids unless you somehow don’t have a priest healer. It’s completely subject to tuning assuming you don’t just need bodies to fill the raid.
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This…
I’m the only Priest in our Raid - I provide Stam Buff and Power Infusion to our Arcane Mage.
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