Today's
Wrath beta patch has a few Shadow Priest changes, but nothing particularly substantial. It seems like a nerf across the board, but this is something we should be used to by now. The devs say that, in level 80 epics, our damage is competitive to other classes, but we'll have to wait and see when we're in those epics, I suppose.
This isn't too big of an issue if the coefficient is still high. If this is/was coupled with a lower coefficient again, it would be utterly ridiculous. As it is, maybe not such a big deal. Lowering the base damage may actually allow the spell to scale better without becoming terribly broken. It may level off nicely once you're out of greens.
This one is a little more problematic, because there's no coefficient changes to offset it. It's just a nerf. As long as our damage really is competitive, I won't cry about this too much. We
did get
another DoT recently, remember.
Simple nerf, not much to say.
- Twisted Faith now increases your spell power by 2% of your total Spirit, and your damage done by your Mind Flay and Mind Blast is increased by 2/4/6/8/10% if your target is afflicted by Mind Flay.
Uhh. What? I don't get it. If you're channeling Mind Flay, you can't
Mind Blast. Maybe this is tied to some other change we haven't seen in the patch, but right now it makes no sense at all. Is this meant for dual Shadow Priest synergy, or was it a silly oversight? I'm confused.
[ Unofficial patch notes via MMO-Champion ]Tags: devouring-plague, dots, mind-blast, mind-flay, shadow, shadow-priest, shadow-word-pain, twisted-faith, wrath-beta
Filed under: Priest, Analysis / Opinion, Wrath of the Lich King
Sep 24th 2008 at 6:00PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jewbanks Sep 24th 2008 6:09PM
I hope thats on oversight I cant see it ever being a common practice to have 2 shadow priests in a raid a priest of every flavor would be nice more than that is overkill.. also its situational at best even then.
Andrew Sep 24th 2008 6:14PM
My guess would be it is supposed to say SW:P rather than the second mind flay.
Heilig Sep 24th 2008 6:25PM
This is where I'm putting my money.
Brasson Sep 25th 2008 1:21AM
There's a blue post in the Priest forums to this effect.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10539063807&pageNo=2&sid=2000#32
Tyrnas Sep 24th 2008 6:14PM
I give up Blizzard, you win.
I'll go tank on my warrior, SPriest can sit in a closet.
...can we just have our utility back? It was never about dps.
Manatank Sep 24th 2008 6:24PM
"...can we just have our utility back? It was never about dps."
So you liked that raids had to bring you for your utility instead of a damage contribution? Well sorry to break it to you, but it is annoying to need to have shadow priests in a raid, so instead of having irreplaceable utility, they now have competitive DPS. If you are included in a raid now it is because of your ability instead of your utility, doesn't that make you feel better rather than worse?
Balasan Sep 24th 2008 10:33PM
I've already said this before: Blizz wants to move away from making any single class compulsory; only certain roles are needed.
In TBC - "HAHA you don't have a SP in your raid- you suck. Noob. Can't go to Sunwell without a SP. "
That's not something nice to say, especially if you're telling it to, say, a boomkin (hated by traditionalists everywhere).
So hey, if your entire purpose of playing a shadow priest is because you want to feel so needed, and you want the raid to stop raiding just because you can't make it today, screw you.
Now on the other hand, Blizz said that by taking away the SP utility, they want to buff the DPS instead. Doesn't seem that way, with these nerfs.
dpak Sep 25th 2008 10:50AM
It depends on if someone feels their player skill and class execution is good enough to get a raid spot.
shadow946 Sep 24th 2008 6:15PM
Are you sure that it isn't just a tooltip gaff, or has the change actually been made?
WatcherZero Sep 24th 2008 6:16PM
I noticed that contradiction right away as well. The only possible way it can make sense is if it works on anothers mindflay, and while a cool concept (the More of you hitting the boss the more it hurts) I belive its got to be some sorta typo.
Electro Sep 24th 2008 6:29PM
Seems I have
Manatank Sep 24th 2008 6:18PM
"The devs say that, in level 80 epics, our damage is competitive to other classes, but we'll have to wait and see when we're in those epics, I suppose."
No I'm sure they are lying... Why would they just make that up?
Alex Ziebart Sep 24th 2008 6:27PM
Who said they're lying? I just said we haven't seen it ourselves.
WatcherZero Sep 24th 2008 6:23PM
For the same reason they say DK ghouls scaling at 100% of str when warlock/hunter pets scale at 30% is overpowered, then turn around and add a glypth that increases it by another 20%?
Heilig Sep 24th 2008 6:27PM
That would only be OP if the ghoul were out permanently, which only applies to one spec, which has significantly less damage output than the others and relies more on debuffs.
I'll gladly let your felpup scale better if you only get to keep him out for 30 seconds.
Manatank Sep 24th 2008 6:29PM
Wow WatcherZero. Not only is that not an example of lying, it makes a lot of sense. If they are going to nerf ghoul scaling in general, then this glyph will give players who want them the option of having relatively strong ghouls at the expense of one of their 3 glyph slots. Sounds consistent to me.
Manatank Sep 24th 2008 6:33PM
I'm sorry Alex. Perhaps you didn't intend a suspicious tone to the "I suppose." I interpreted it to mean that you wouldn't trust their assessment until you see it for yourself. It wasn't so much that you called them liars, as your statement displayed a lack of trust. I apologize for overstating my claim.
bentwhisker Sep 24th 2008 6:39PM
Do you even play a shadow priest? Why are you trolling the responses here?
Saranthe Sep 24th 2008 7:42PM
You know, maybe that isn't what Mr. Ziebart meant, but I'm not sure it would have been a misplaced sentiment. We have gotten one buff this entire beta that has not been coupled with an even bigger nerf. So excuse us Spriests if we're not in the mood to be trusting Blizz right now. Mages, scoot over, and hand us the QQ torch, it's our turn.
Dispersion is now an interesting ability, but nowhere near the quality one would expect of a 51 point talent. Mind Flay has been nerfed AGAIN, our mana return abilities have not just been nerfed, they have been violated- the list goes on and on. The way Blizz does betas is they buff up a class, and then bring it down again to reasonable levels. Warriors have gotten it, Mages have, Death Knights have... and it's a month and a half to release, and Priests of all sorts, Shadow especially, have been going nowhere but downhill.
Every time Blizz turns their attention to us, it is for another nerf. Were we that overpowered? Really? Do you have to cripple our utility AND our DPS? I don't like to just sit and whine all day, but this is getting ridiculous! So I'm gonna be one of those who rolls a DK as their new main, it looks like, because raids won't touch a priest with a 20 foot pole, and why should they? What can we do that some other class can't do better? In fact, what can we do period? We're not dps anymore, we're not utility anymore- what are we, Blizz?
Sincerely, extremely jaded and bitter Spriest
Manatank Sep 24th 2008 7:47PM
"We're not dps anymore"
That simply isn't true. They buffed shadow priest damage so much they have been needing to nerf it down to a reasonable level. SP dps is supposed to be competitive, and if it isn't as gear scales they will fix it to be. They can do this because the changes to replenishment wont cause increases in SP damage to break the game as it would on live.