Is (Nelf) Shadow Priest irredeemably screwed?

[Guillaume]

Dunno how to preface this, CC2 was harsh to Shadow Priests. NElf priests are absolutely beyond the pale.

1) Why was Fear Ward given to the Horde, yet Devouring Plague was not given to the Alliance?

Shadow Priest racials are HEAVILY skewed in Horde’s favor, to the point where Undead SPs are mathematically superior to all others by a HUGE margin. Devouring Plague accounts for so much damage and healing output in SP’s rotation, it transcends racial flavor and becomes an indispensable utility if you are serious about playing the spec. Imagine Recklessness was only available to orc warriors, that’s literally where things stand with Devouring Plague for Shadow Priests.

My suggestion : make Devouring Plague baseline for all priests, the numbers can of course be tweaked. Our (alliance’s) most valued defensive cooldown was given away, it's only fair we get something in return offense-wise.

2) Nelf bow specialization is poorly thought-out and even worse executed.

WC3 nelf priests are an exclusively female, tiger-riding, chain-mail wearing, bow- and pet (the scouting owl) wielding Agility-based class. They don’t even have a single healing ability, let alone shadow spells. Healing duty in nelf society is traditionally relegated to druids. No connexion to WoW priests whatsoever.

Bows are completely out of place in a Priest's toolkit. Not only wielding bows creates unnecessary competition with Hunters, it provides zero value : no Shadow Weaving boosts from Shadow Wands, no Mana regen, nothing. It is straight-up dead weight on NElf priest shoulders.

Better bring back Elune's Grace, only make it continuously regen mana over time instead of forcing a caster (!) class to DODGE.

3) Stop torturing Starshards and make it a dot. This ability was borderline useless and you slapped a 30 sec cooldown on it.

4) Shadowmeld's utility does not warrant a 1 min cooldown, not does it need any "improvement" (aka can be cast in combat/allows you to cast one spell/allows you to move etc). Revert it to vanilla form please.

5) Make Psychic Scream a Horror effect, rather then Fear effect (similar to Death Coil). Decrease its duration to 4-5 sec if necessary. Do not increase the cooldown.

With PvP trinkets now dispelling any CC, SPs are in a particularly tough spot, as being the least mobile class in the game period, they have zero other means to widen the gap (MC is unreliable and 3 sec cast time, besides it's channeled). The situation is the direst for (again) Alliance Priests who now have to face fear-warded undead warriors with trinkets, with predictable results.

[Turboman]

Good post, too bad that devs probably don't care that much since they've pushed live all these "thoughtful" cc2 changes for ne priest, not to mention shadowmeld.

[Drubarrymooer]

Spriests were nerfed hard because pvpers qq'ing. Overall pve-wise, though, we're outputting higher DPS than cc1.

[Turboman]

Spriests were nerfed hard because pvpers qq'ing. Overall pve-wise, though, we're outputting higher DPS than cc1.

That's not the point of op.

[Drubarrymooer]

Spriests were nerfed hard because pvpers qq'ing. Overall pve-wise, though, we're outputting higher DPS than cc1.

That's not the point of op.

And? What's your point? What was wrong with what I said? Regardless, DP is almost never used in pve...costs too much mana, low so coeff, a lot of mobs and bosses are immune to it, etc. NE priests got FW too.

[Turboman]

Spriests were nerfed hard because pvpers qq'ing. Overall pve-wise, though, we're outputting higher DPS than cc1.

That's not the point of op.

And? What's your point? What was wrong with what I said? Regardless, DP is almost never used in pve...costs too much mana, low so coeff, a lot of mobs and bosses are immune to it, etc. NE priests got FW too.

Nothing wrong, you're changing the subject from "nelf spriests are bad" to "general spriest viability" which wasn't what op complained about.

[Drubarrymooer]

That's not the point of op.

And? What's your point? What was wrong with what I said? Regardless, DP is almost never used in pve...costs too much mana, low so coeff, a lot of mobs and bosses are immune to it, etc. NE priests got FW too.

Nothing wrong, you're changing the subject from "nelf spriests are bad" to "general spriest viability" which wasn't what op complained about.

Wasn't changing the subject. Was just saying why we were nerfed.

[Szarszag]

I like it, if u want to be shadow a rotten corpse fits nicely. No reason to have everything for everyone, uniqueness is cool. However gnome priests should be allowed!

[Mayson]

I like it, if u want to be shadow a rotten corpse fits nicely. No reason to have everything for everyone, uniqueness is cool. However gnome priests should be allowed!

Unique is cool, the issue right now is that there is not enough of it.

You have to go all the way or not at all. But going halfway gets you to funny places.

That said, I like that there are class race unique spells. I would hate to see that gone. They should just undo the nerfs or scale them back a little.

[Halfgeek9]

I've been saying since 2003 that NE Priests got shafted hard. The vanilla racial bonuses for NE Priest was useless, and it is still useless on Turtle after 6 years.

Starhards NEEDS TO BE A DOT like in TBC when the devs realized how awful it was originally designed.

As a DoT it will still be weaker than Devouring Plague or Shadow Guard (Troll).

Elune's Grace is fine as a mini Evasion. The Turtle bow mechanic is just failure. Zero synergy with the class that needs to wand during leveling for mana & the fact mobs are always in your face, and wands do not have minimum range unlike bows. Wands also have talent boosting hit + dmg, and doing magic dmg ignores mob armor, unlike crap bow attacks.

[Springboards]

s priest went from very good to good idk what you are on man. yes you have to channel to get damage now. yes you are still going to rip faces off. only when maybe facing enha shamans the channeling can become a bit of an issue but you got more than enough tools to make up the gap(unless its tauren for bigger hit radius)

[basednoob]

the low range of mind flay ruins the dps during raid on several boss fights where you can't get close enough. such as Zeliek, Heigan, Kel thuzad in naxx.
the cast time on Vampiric Embrace makes the spell almost useless on trash. and it seems to be buggy when you have multiple shadow priests.
sometimes mind flay gets misdirected to cast on friendly shamans totems in raid making you lose dps.
It's also impossible to see if these debuffs are up when there are so many other debuffs on the targets. It would have been nice if they fixed that.

[Terexin]

Just wanna add - devouring plague is an extremely costly spell, with a 3 min cd, and overall a weak dot. In PvP, it definitely helps, since VE can sometimes be really hard to cast. In PvE, not much. Can be casted once per encounter and very mana expensive. I'm not familiar with nelf priesting so I can't add any input there.

I think spriest lacks another dot, something like vampiric touch from original wow. Unfortunately, with mind flay being scaled so high, VE would become too powerful in pvp. I hope too it was just a temporary solution, and we can start benefiting from haste/crit at some point.

[Bigsmerf]

5000 hours

[Noephix]

Just wanna add - devouring plague is an extremely costly spell, with a 3 min cd, and overall a weak dot.

It's still a DPS increase. Weak dot is infinity times better than no dot at all.

[Terexin]

Just wanna add - devouring plague is an extremely costly spell, with a 3 min cd, and overall a weak dot.

It's still a DPS increase. Weak dot is infinity times better than no dot at all.

True, but minimal. Very minimal. Especially on longer encounters. Maybe adds 100 dps for the first 18 seconds. If an encounter lasts 3 min, the overall addition is 20ish. Nothing particularly of note if the shadow priest is skilled.

[Noephix]

True, but minimal. Very minimal. Especially on longer encounters. Maybe adds 100 dps for the first 18 seconds. If an encounter lasts 3 min, the overall addition is 20ish. Nothing particularly of note if the shadow priest is skilled.

How many boss encounters actually last that long? Average boss dies in 40-60 seconds in my experience.

[basednoob]

they could add damage to Vampiric Embrace

[Halfgeek9]

Revert the nerf to NE Priest abilities. No bows. Wands work better for the class, with mana return.

Give us Elune's Grace back, its at least more useful that the crap bow.

Make Starshards a DoT, not channeled.

UD gets a great DoT, Troll gets a great dmg shield.

[rakescar]

I think that bow racial has a lot of potential, but it would require a lot of dev time and balancing to make it come anywhere close the utility of shadow guard or damage of DP.

However, I have to say that I don't dislike the idea of the new disc tree having a bow spec, but that's a different topic.

[Noephix]

Give us Elune's Grace back, its at least more useful that the crap bow.

Elune's grace was useless. The only place NE priests actually used it was during Benediction quest, against skeleton archers. Most NE priests didn't even remember they had it, that's how useless the spell was.

[Halfgeek9]

Give us Elune's Grace back, its at least more useful that the crap bow.

Elune's grace was useless. The only place NE priests actually used it was during Benediction quest, against skeleton archers. Most NE priests didn't even remember they had it, that's how useless the spell was.

That is precisely the point. Bow on Priest which doesnt scale on spell power, has a dead zone unlike Wands, which has talents to boost it making it actually great.

Elune's Grace should be a +25% dodge cooldown, mini Evasion. Done, viola.

[Noephix]

[Elune's Grace should be a +25% dodge cooldown, mini Evasion. Done, viola.

Dodge is still useless for a priest. It's good on a rogue who stacks agility.

[Halfgeek9]

[Elune's Grace should be a +25% dodge cooldown, mini Evasion. Done, viola.

Dodge is still useless for a priest. It's good on a rogue who stacks agility.

We're not asking for OP abilities. Just less useless things.

The bow is useless to a priest class that has wands & talents to boost wands.

[Noephix]

We're not asking for OP abilities. Just less useless things.

The bow is useless to a priest class that has wands & talents to boost wands.

You're asking for something that (arguably) is even more useless than a bow.
Bows at least unlock Searing shot, which is an extra damage spell. And it's not like 19 spellpower is a lot in endgame.

[Ataika]

Dude just think a minute about it - giving horde (swarm of undeads) alliance fear ward looks like a retarded idea that could have happen only in wierdest dream yet devs did this. On a server where raids are mixed and every raid has shaman to fight fear mechanic if your warriors are too bad for stancedance.

Do you think these guys who are able to perform such decisions do care about your pvp problems ?

Dodge is still useless for a priest. It's good on a rogue who stacks agility.

25% dodge could have helped a lot for pvp healing priests to prolong meele encounter
Or not getting pushbacked hard by hunter pets

Unlike your searing roleplaying garbage no1 uses in pvp

[SvenS2]

Having it only for Dwarfs in vanilla was super dumb. Now that it's baseline, alliance won't stop complaining.

Solution? Remove it from all priests and add it deep down as a holy paladin talent

Alternatively, properly buff Searing Arrows, or add another skill to compensate. Because despite being cool thematically, it's hardly practical, and is worse than wands

[Noephix]

Dude just think a minute about it - giving horde (swarm of undeads) alliance fear ward looks like a retarded idea

Fear ward was too op. It had to be either removed (RIP Alliance PvE then) or made baseline.
Ad Turtle is a 90% PvE server, so PvE comes first.

[Forumdweller]

Nah the dodge talent on night elves is completely useless since you can't dodge while casting
otherwise it'd be somewhat useful.

what are you gonna do. stop pressing your buttons for 5 sec so u maybe just MAYBE dodge a 5 sec kidney?

[Ataika]

You do not heal under meeles, you cast hots/shields/grenades and straferun to the nearest party memeber for assist, because in this case rogue cant backstab you and you are running fullspeed with an ability to dodge in the same time.
Dodge would have help a lot in this situation, at least its more useful than searing arrows (lol)

With shadowmeld nerf Nelf priest is prolly the worst pick for pvp
Always has been but now its twice worse, has to be reworked for sure

[FrankFankledank]

Night Elf Priests using Shadow are as effective as Undead/Troll Priests healing without the exclusive buff utility of Avatar or the High Elf power infusion-type buff.

Now the problem is that there is no reason to play Shadow over Discipline, and if there was, Humans would be the actual sleeper PvP stompers with buffed Feedback.

[Halfgeek9]

You do not heal under meeles, you cast hots/shields/grenades and straferun to the nearest party memeber for assist, because in this case rogue cant backstab you and you are running fullspeed with an ability to dodge in the same time.
Dodge would have help a lot in this situation, at least its more useful than searing arrows (lol)

With shadowmeld nerf Nelf priest is prolly the worst pick for pvp
Always has been but now its twice worse, has to be reworked for sure

Precisely. A 25% dodge cooldown is a huge lifesaver vs melee. It's a shame people think its useless even worse than the already useless bow on a priest.

This is why we can't have nice stuff.

[Forumdweller]

you cant have nice things because alliance gets shafted as usual 25% dodge chance is a joke when all horde now gets fear ward ontop of DWP, trolls also have it nice with MS & shadowguard. theres no reason to not make the dodge chance to work while casting for this one ability. having to run away for the duration of an ability to get help from someone else doesnt make the ability good lmao

hell why not even make it work while being hit while stunned or hit from behind

[Forumdweller]

have you seen the horde towns btw

those horde guards fucking rip you to shreds and theres a billion of them that are level 55 elites

look at morgans vigil and compare it to the new horde flight path in burning steppes :)))

morgans vigil npcs just look at you while t3 rogues rape u the second u get off the FP