VE nerf, DPS buff for shadow priests in beta
by Eliah Hecht 
Oct 14th 2008 at 10:30PM
In the wake of sweeping alterations to shadow priests going live tonight, the inimitable Ghostcrawler has posted about a few more changes that will be making their way into the Wrath of the Lich King beta.
- Vampiric Embrace is getting nerfed to bits. Fully talented, it currently heals group (not raid) members for 25%. It's being changed to 5% to the group and 25% to the caster, again fully talented. A bit confused about this given GC's statement that "we don't want it to be terrible for priests in small groups" - 5% is pretty terrible.
- Vampiric Touch's coefficient is getting doubled, from 20% to 40%. Cool, though I don't expect this makes up a huge part of your damage at 80.
- Big DPS change: "Your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch do an additional percentage damage equal to your critical strike chance." This is crittable DoTs, basically, with the randomness taken out. Instead of critting (say) 25% of the time for double damage, you just hit for 125% damage all the time. And of course our other damage spells (Mind Flay, Mind Blast, SW:D) can already crit normally.
I can't say I'm pleased by the massive VE nerf, but it's nice to see them picking up on promises of grade-A DPS for us now that we have less utility. Going from a state where two of our damage spells benefit from crit rating to a state where all of them do will be interesting.
Filed under: Priest, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
iluvlamp Oct 14th 2008 10:35PM
And then.......
Cow Oct 14th 2008 10:38PM
QUICK! Write something for the site to distract them from the 'servers still not up' post!
Zep Oct 14th 2008 10:43PM
Wait a sec...
don't warlocks have to spend 3 talent points deep in affliction to get critting dots?
That seems.... wrong.
Madoce Oct 14th 2008 10:51PM
GC also mentions here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11224022301&sid=2000 that they're looking to make dots crit or at least do something fun with with crit rating and dots.
So all is not lost :P
Diabla Oct 14th 2008 10:58PM
Imagine the damage that a Demo/Destro 'Lock already puts out. Now give them DoTs that crit.
Affliction needs a talent like that *but* it really does need to be deep enough that the other two trees can't snag it. Plus, critting dots are a selling point on deep Affy. 21/40 has been the serious raiding spec through BC once you had the gear for it. Affy just didn't scale as well. Gotta give reason for people to even consider something different. :)
Diabla Oct 14th 2008 11:02PM
@ Madoce
Critting DoTs are already here. Pandemic does crits for DoTs in the Affliction tree. Mind flay crits for SPriests
(and soon the DoTs mentioned here in this article)
Faar Oct 15th 2008 2:28AM
It's not even crittable dotS either is it? As I recall, doesn't it only affect corruption?
Still, it's not really comparable, because warlock DPS = guuud. Shadow priest DPS = terribad. So priests need a big shot in the arm, and this could be it.
I don't even really care about the VE nerf - it's always been a giant aggro magnet for the shadow priest, and since priests lack a real aggro dump it can get you killed, quickly. It's good it stays at 25% for the priest to help cover any unfortunate SW:D backlash damage, any other healing is just a bonus really and no group should count on a Spriest to heal the group.
Overall, changes look good. Maybe even great actually.
offday Oct 14th 2008 10:45PM
Off topic, but does anyone know what's up with the Bejeweled addon? They said it was totally compatible with 3.0.2. and it totally isn't.
Luke Oct 14th 2008 10:48PM
Well I will be completely honest here...I think these are all good changes, especially the dps buffs. I never ever put up VE on any trash as it simply wasn't needed, and then during boss encounters it was always a guild decision b/c of the rediculous threat it caused (even after 3/3 shadow affinity). Hopefully now this becomes a definite normal part of our spell rotation on every mob and only healing for 5% should drastically reduce its threat caused.
shinken Oct 14th 2008 10:49PM
who uses VE anymore? who cares?
muffin_of_chaos Oct 14th 2008 11:20PM
Exactly. No one.
I'm kind of wishing dots could crit, normal-like. That would be awesome. And I guess a bit overpowered, I admit.
But at least thank god crit actually affects dots now.
Hoho Oct 15th 2008 4:27AM
I use it. I can solo-heal my group from meteor slashes on Brutallus.
jonito Oct 14th 2008 11:07PM
Uhm i know this is gonna sound noobish :P
but the coefficient on VT has changed, what coefficient?
Pfooti Oct 14th 2008 11:15PM
The spellpower conversion coefficient, I imagine.
David B Oct 14th 2008 11:11PM
How are you finding this out? I can't even get the forum pages to load?
Jason Oct 14th 2008 11:32PM
Stop turning Priests into Warlocks and focus on the priests primary role: Healing
I want to play a healer not a petless warlock
Kassel Oct 14th 2008 11:40PM
If you want to play a healer, then don't specialize in Shadow. Simple enough?
For those of us that play shadow priests, this sort of change has been a long time coming. It is nice to finally be promised that we will be able to do competitive dps. I'm sad that our utility is being reduced so dramatically, but I understand it and aprove of its sacrifice for better damage!
Besides, healing for priests is fine. They're constantly getting little tweaks and Holy is a great raid healing build.
Spirit Oct 14th 2008 11:44PM
I agree with you there, as a Shadow Priest even though I didn't do much DPS, my utility made me unique, and made me feel desired in a raid. Now we're just Mages and Locks with less fun gizmos. Why you would pick us over one of those classes now, who knows? The slight mana regen? Let OP Ret Pallies take care of that.
Veneroso Oct 14th 2008 11:51PM
Paladins have 2 non-healing/damage specs.
Druids have 2 non-healing/damage specs.
Shamans have 2 non healing/damage specs.
Why shouldn't priest's 1 direct damage spec not be improved?
Spirit Oct 14th 2008 11:56PM
But the problem is is that Shadow Priests will do just as much damage as the other classes, with less utility. In BC, Ret Pallies did pretty decent DPS, but their lack of CC or other utility made them unwanted. Now it will be like that for Shadow Priests, we will be the Ret Pallies of WotLK, while the Ret Pallies in WotLK will be a whole 'nother story.
/qq