Priests' Shadowfiend gets a nice boost in 2.3
by Dan O'Halloran 
Nov 18th 2007 at 11:05AM
For those who don't play Priests, Shadowfiend is a level 66 spell for Priests that summons a short duration pet to attack a mob. The damage the pet does comes back to the Priest in the form of mana. It's Blizzard's way of giving Priests some form of mana regen in a dps form.Player Xanthin of the Gnomeregan server noticed something odd about his Shadowfiend pet after the latest patch. In a fight, the Shadowfiend returns about 350-450 mana from the pet's crits. But after the patch, his pet returned much more mana to him. In the neighborhood of 800 mana and as high as 1260. What had changed?
CM Nethaera stepped in to enlighten confused priests: Shadowfiend scales on +damage gear. Since all +healing gear got an extra boost of +dmg, the Priests' pet is returning much bigger numbers than before. This Burning Crusade spell that was only used by some Priests may have just been upgraded considerably in popularity.
Filed under: Priest, News items, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
wowmistr Nov 18th 2007 12:04PM
his Burning Crusade spell that was only used by some Priests may have just been upgraded considerably in popularity.
What sort of priest is not using shadow fiend? This is kind of a free half-innervate. When timely used, it can regenerates 50% of my mana bar (~5k).
The only downside is that it's on a 5 minutes cooldown so you I can rarely use it twice in same boss fight. Usually 25-man boss fights last round 8 to 10 minutes.
andyjay220 Nov 18th 2007 12:21PM
Great, now if they let priests have this in Arenas, my shammy should be able to bring out my elementals too.
Melissa Della Nov 18th 2007 12:47PM
@1 My question exactly. What kind of priest wasn't using their shadowfiend before?! Even before 2.3 it did more than return its base cost of mana, making it an efficient regen for longer fights. It was naturally popular with anyone who went to fight Curator of course, but even in 5-mans there were situations it was beneficial (it's even nice if your group is moving quickly and you don't want to drink and know there won't be any mana-intense situations coming up).
Kevin Nov 18th 2007 2:29PM
Shadowfiend is also great when your grinding mobs, you can continue to kill without having to stop to drink. Just slap a shadowfiend and wand the mob to death and you'll get at least 75% of your mana back.
hpavc Nov 18th 2007 3:42PM
Its a great spell, always was. Getting the right mob to put it on isn't always possible though and in aoe/whirlwind encounters it short lived. But when used right its a evocation and then some.
Charlie Nov 18th 2007 4:22PM
What inspirired the last line of your posts?
I guess in solo/pvp not as much, but any time your in an instance or raid its one of a priests best abilities.
RaydenUni Nov 18th 2007 4:26PM
So this buff only applies to healing priests then and hot shadow priests right? Boring.
Kaygee Nov 18th 2007 4:35PM
It goes off of shadow damage. Of course it's good for spriests.
uncaringbear Nov 18th 2007 5:13PM
This is a nice buff for non-shadow priests who have invested heavily in +Healing gear. With 2.3 giving them the bonus +Dmg as a percentage of their healing, it's logical that their Shadowfiend now returns much more mana. For Shadow Priests, Shadowfiend remains unchanged. 2.3 has been a very nice boost for priests, but Shadow Priests have little to cheer about. I'm happy for my healing brothers and sisters, but I wish Blizz would toss Shadow Priests the odd bone.
Alcevious Nov 18th 2007 5:46PM
So Shadowfiend is one of the only BC spells Priests get that didn't get nerfed? Neato.
Ben Nov 18th 2007 6:05PM
I'm a little surprised that this is news. I'm guessing a good 90% of priests level as shadow, meaning they were shadow when they got this spell. Even without doing all the math, it was obvious to me that Shadowfiend was more effective when I was geared for damage than when I switched to healing at 70. In fact, the only aspect of the new +damage buff that really excited me was what I knew would be improved returns from Shadowfiend.
Gemski Nov 18th 2007 6:13PM
"This Burning Crusade spell that was only used by some Priests may have just been upgraded considerably in popularity."
Yea, this line ruined the post. Research!
Slayblaze Nov 18th 2007 9:07PM
Aw c'mon, why are you guys all pretending to not understand the topic here? You all know as well as I do that Shadowfiend is incredibly under-used by most Priests!! I hardly ever ever ever see them being used, its a *huge* rarity - and even the Priests I've seen use it seem to forget about it most of the time and only use it very inconsistantly. I see them so seldomly that they usually make me 'jump' a little when I see one rush past me on its way to a mob or boss. The I remember what it is and end up asking myself "why doesn't that priest use that thing all the time?"
Now that +heal gear does some +spell dmg too, it's perfectly helpful to point out that the Shadowfiend works even better than before, and to spread the word so that those who aren't utilizing it can start to do so.
aisenfaire Nov 19th 2007 12:49AM
@13:
Exactly.
Sooooo many priests often stand around just saying, "oom" without calling out the shadowfiend. In fact, I'd say I've seen only 1 out of every 10 priests I've run with (and I've run quite a few raids, heroics, etc.) use it at all.
I'm actually surprised to hear the rest of you guys saying it's commonly used.
Chiemi Nov 19th 2007 6:54AM
@13:
Are you seriously saying there's priests who don't use it whenever its cooldown is up? Wow...
Kaygee Nov 19th 2007 9:05AM
When instancing, I tend to save mine for bosses. Otherwise, I use it whenever I need it, or know I have 5 minutes or more until the boss.
Alootrinn Nov 19th 2007 10:39AM
I always use this my Shadowfiend. I am surprised to hear others don't.
Mick Nov 19th 2007 1:09PM
Are there actually people who didn't understand the mana regen scales with damage? Have they never used their fiend on Curator during his evocation and noticed he regenerated more mana? Gnomer priests fail at their class.