Oh, Blizzard. Why? Why must you torment me so? I stood by
Shadow Priests for so long, so
very long. I debated their numbers, mechanics and playstyle until my fingers stopped functioning. I picked apart combat logs and damage/healing charts for hours and hours, trying to get the absolute most out of my talent spec. Then I just grew
tired. I'm not ashamed to admit that it broke me. I'm not ashamed that I decided to switch to raiding on my Retribution Paladin last month. I'm a man, I can own up to what I've done. But your torment continues! You were waiting for
just this moment to buff the unholy crap out of Shadow Priests, weren't you? You were waiting for my patience to run out.
And that's enough melodrama for now. Let's actually break down
the new changes on the PTR, shall we?
- Shadowform: This talent also now causes Devouring Plague, Shadow Word: Pain, and Vampiric Touch to benefit from haste. Both the period length and the duration of these spells will be reduced by haste. In addition, the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of base mana.
I find this one somewhat interesting, because Ghostcrawler mentioned DoTs and HoTs benefiting from Haste was
likely to come in the form of a glyph for now. Shadowform is most certainly not a glyph. I'm pretty okay with this though, because Shadow Priests needed that Haste. DoTs are a little different from HoTs. I can understand the glyph for HoTs, making a Druid's
Rejuvenation and the like tick faster could actually impede their ability to raid heal. DoTs, though? More damage is
always good.
There's always mana concerns, since Shadow Priests will be applying their DoTs quite a bit more often. Those concerns are almost immediately dashed by this next change, however.
- Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain has been changed. The effect now reads, "The periodic damage ticks of your Shadow Word: Pain spell restore 1% of your base mana."
In the current game, this glyph would be complete overkill. It's pretty hard to run out of mana as a Shadow Priest,\. You can only really manage it in encounters that have a lot of different targets you're multi-DoTing. In patch 3.3 though, when Haste is speeding up how quickly our DoTs will fall off, mana might become an issue. Right now, I probably wouldn't use this glyph at all. In patch 3.3, we'll probably need it.
These are, again, straight DPS buffs. Glyph of Shadow will add a few hundred more spell power in high-end gear (roughly) and Improved Devouring Plague is just a bonus mini-nuke. This just makes it a slightly larger bonus.
Overall,
patch 3.3 is looking to be a great patch for Shadow Priests, now that they've finally recognized they're underperforming. I'm not among the ranks of the Shadow Priests anymore, but I'm rooting for you guys. Hopefully by the time patch 3.3 launches, we won't need to feel bad about playing what we do in the end-game.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Tags: dots, glyph-of-shadow, glyph-of-shadow-word-pain, glyphs, haste, hots, improved-devouring-plague, patch-3.3, patch-3.3-changes, patch-3.3-wow, shadow, shadow-priest, shadow-priests, shadowform, world-of-warcraft-patch-3.3, wow-3.3-changes, wow-new-patch, wow-patch, wow-patch-3.3, wow-patch-news
Filed under: Priest, Patches, Analysis / Opinion
Oct 13th 2009 at 7:00PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
zhong_chu Oct 13th 2009 7:10PM
WOW.....finally some real preists buffs. I think I may need to dust that old bugger off.
Lets see how long this lasts.
Squirr3llywrath9 Oct 13th 2009 7:11PM
All I can say is about freakin' time. Maybe now we'll actually be competetive.
sdville Oct 13th 2009 7:14PM
squeeee!! I literally screamed with joy when I read this earlier - DoTs scaling with haste is huge for us and I'm so glad that Blizz finally listened!
Eisengel Oct 13th 2009 9:46PM
This is not a good idea:
"Both the period length and the duration of these spells will be reduced by haste."
This is a good idea:
"This talent also now causes Devouring Plague, Shadow Word: Pain, and Vampiric Touch to benefit from haste."
There are 3 way this could work out:
1. The haste to duration reduction is too high, increasing DPS a lot, increasing mana use a TON, and making SPriests very weak on multi-mob fights.
2. The haste to duration reduction is too low, making 1% to 2% difference, when we need about a 30% boost.
3. The haste to duration reduction is perfectly balanced, because Blizz has demonstrated their mastery of SPriest gameplay, knowledge of difficulties and nuances of the spec and willingness to tune it carefully.
Besides the fact that I think that option 1 or 2 is vastly more likely, if haste is affecting DoT duration, as you gear up, you'll gain tons of haste (because is haste is friggin everywhere), changing your rotation and priority balance a lot as you gain each piece of gear. Even more, buffs, food, fight mechanics, and anything else that affects your haste will affect your DoT times... so not only do you have to do the SPriest spell priority dance, but the parameters will not only change as you gear up, but may change in an instant during a fight.
Haste affecting DoTs is a good idea, the way it is done is not.
kabshiel Oct 13th 2009 11:39PM
I'd suggest actually trying it before you decide it's bad. Just a thought.
Patrick Oct 13th 2009 7:17PM
As a long-suffering shadow priest who has never seriously raided with any alt (just got a DK to 80 like 2 months ago and thats my only max-level alt) and has NEVER raided as holy or disc, this is the best news I could imagine. Back in BC I was already advocating having haste effect DoTs -- now it's finally looking to be a reality. The buff to Glyph of Shadow helps me a ton since I'm a human priest -- The Human Spirit racial never looked so good.
I'm already cranking out fairly decent DPS in raids because I'm pretty geared, but this should help me finally avoid the "You should have rolled a mage/lock," crap I get every time a PuG needs a healer and asks if I can switch specs. NO. I rolled a priest because I loved the complexity of shadow DPS. Not to heal. Find a real healer and watch me dominate your DPS meters instead.
In short, LOVE this news. Even more excited for 3.3 now -- and I hadn't thought that was possible.
Arkkis Oct 14th 2009 2:18AM
I've been playing my Shadow Priest since I started the game and he is the only character I really playl. After recent times that I've felt ignored it's nice to see some interesting changes being introduced. Very exciting!
lsschwartz Oct 13th 2009 7:18PM
I make your words mine. I just switched my main from spriest to resto drood this week. Was tired of being bottom of the food chain and my guild was happy to see me get my druid out.
It's too late for me though, I'll keep raiding on my druid and my spriest will become an alt I'll work on when I am bored.
Hexen Oct 13th 2009 7:24PM
Woah. Finally, some real damage.
While I'll certainly miss my 10% powered up mind flay the hastey DOTs and 20% extra SP from spirit will more then make up for it. Maybe I can finally stop doing bottom DPS with similarly geared players :p
Sengir Oct 13th 2009 7:34PM
My heart goes out to my dot-based brothers and sisters.
I'm just wondering why Blizzard decided against applying this change to affliction dots, too, as aff locks have been just as miserable as you guys.
Rollo Oct 13th 2009 8:50PM
It makes sense that they would try it on a guinea pig class first, then maybe change how all dots work.
This is still just changes for the PTR, not patch notes!
Craig R Oct 13th 2009 7:37PM
Ghostcrawler promised me an ACTUAL PONY!
I hope Starbreeze likes purple carrots.
Jon Do Oct 14th 2009 8:53AM
In spite of the fact that this was probably the most-asked shadow priest question, GC failed to address it in the priest Q&A. At all.
Perhaps someone at Blizz that knew something about priests was put in a design capacity, because it sure 'feels' like that up to this point the Blizz B-team has had a dearth of priest knowledge.
shaun Oct 13th 2009 7:39PM
I am very close to giving up on my priest, we have a lot of healers in our guild so I mainly DPS and I just dont feel like I am contributing enough damage. I am mostly at the bottom of the charts and while this might be because I can not squish out that last few hundred DPS from this apparently hard to drive DPS class it is just not fun feeling like you have to hide when people start linking recount logs.
Lets see if these changes help, I am not going to count my chickens before they hatch though.
I am not sure I want to level a new toon so will see how blizzard treat the spriest before I go down that long and slow path.
phearis Oct 13th 2009 7:40PM
Shadow Priests are the most unloved class in the game by Blizzard. It's about time they gave us some buffs.
McCombs Oct 14th 2009 8:50PM
I have a Priest, Warlock, and Pally all in Outland and I've been leveling my pally and lock because my priest sucked. Now however, my priest will finally have reason to make it to Northrend!
Kyle Oct 13th 2009 7:57PM
First, lemme say: OMG YAY BUFFZ! I leveled my priest as shadow and loved it, but ended up making my main spec Discipline, since healing priests were much more popular than shadow, with its under-performing DPS compared to other classes and lack of unique contribution to the raid. Hopefully this will give us a real shot at becoming competitive, at least on par with other hybrids. It does raise some questions, though. How will the hasted DoT's interact with temporary haste buffs (trinkets, haste pots, the 4-pc t8 set bonus)? Will it simply speed them up for the duration of the buff, or will it be an important part of your rotation to make sure those procs are up before casting to gain the buff?
mirilene Oct 13th 2009 8:06PM
who says they havent decided to buff locks in a similar fashion?
The PTR's are itterative. They might just be seeing how it works for priests before making changes to warlocks as well.
Gigantor1960 Oct 14th 2009 11:20AM
Help me Blizzard...I don't know how much longer I can hold on! UNLIMITED POWER! O.K. maybe not unlimited but this is great news! Long overdue.
I hope these changes make it to live realms. I too have taken to playing my 80 Rouge as a co-main as Shadow DPS was just to depressing after much neglect from Blizz. Now i can finally retake my place as a true dealer of damage along side my peers. Yay! Shadow Priest don't cry but I am moist on the inside...LOL.
Kadamon Oct 13th 2009 9:19PM
...
I am in shock and awe at these changes.
My secondary spec just got mad lovin'.