Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priest changes in patch 4.0.6
by Fox Van Allen 
Jan 19th 2011 at 2:00PM
I'm a big fan of where shadow priests are right now in Cataclysm. We're able to churn out highly competitive damage in just about any fight. Combine that fact with our damn near legendary survivability, and it's hard to imagine why anyone would even think about playing another class.
In the interest of full disclosure, though, shadow priests aren't quite perfect. The spec has some small issues, and by now, we're all pretty familiar with what they are. Shadow priests have to suffer a terribly underpowered AoE, a limp mastery stat, and a weak Mind Blast. The good news: Blizzard game developers are taking a stab at fixing every major problem with shadow priests in the upcoming patch 4.0.6. The even better news: Shadow priests are getting some added bonuses that we didn't even ask for.
That's right: The best is getting even better.
Mind Blast: Now 50% more blast-y
When Cataclysm launched a month ago, I was somewhat surprised at the state of our Mind Blast spell. It was a still a key piece of the shadow priest arsenal, of course -- and so long as Mind Blast remains the spark behind Replenishment, that will never change. Still, the damage behind Mind Blast was surprisingly low.
It's not that Mind Blast suffered a massive nerf. It didn't. The real problem is that the Cataclysm version of Mind Blast just didn't fit in well with the developers' vision of what the spell should be. The Blizzard master plan involves Mind Blast being the shadow priest's most important spell, and that's just not where the spell is currently at.
I'll admit I wasn't expecting Blizzard to charge in on a white horse here, but it did so in spectacular fashion:
Public Test Realm Patch 4.0.6 NotesMind Blast damage has been significantly increased. It should be roughly 50% greater than Mind Spike.
Mind Spike currently hits for over 10,000, so that would put the new Mind Blast somewhere around 15,000, nearly twice as strong as it is now. And that's without any Shadow Orbs active. Start factoring in Shadow Orbs and some lucky crits, and we'll see Mind Blast hitting for 45,000 and up once patch 4.0.6 lands. That damage boost should put Mind Blast right back where it should be -- the cornerstone of our rotation. Beautiful.
That boost to our DPS may sound bigger than it really is, though. In a standard Cataclysm raid environment, Mind Blast makes up maybe 6-8% of a shadow priest's damage. That's partially because Mind Blast isn't a top-priority cast right now and partially because few PvE players consider Improved Mind Blast to be an attractive talent choice. Overall, we should see a solid 8% or so increase in overall DPS because of the change.
A fix to Mind Sear?
In Wrath, the answer to just about every large pull was Mind Sear. It was a simpler time then, of course -- a time when no one crowd-controlled and a time when ... well, a time when Mind Sear was an actually effective spell. It suffered a major nerf to its damage output in Cataclysm. As it currently stands, even when Mind Sear is supposed to be the answer, it's just not as effective as you want (or need) it to be.
Sad as it is to see an old friend disappear, but it's even sadder to see that Blizzard keeps designing encounters where area of effect spells are actually needed. A weak Mind Sear holds shadow priests back on fights like Magmaw and Maloriak, both of which have waves of (relatively) low-health adds.
Granted, AoE damage was nerfed across the board, but it feels like shadow priests were hit especially hard. After all, Mind Sear was always hampered by its inherent limitation: Before we cast it, we have to choose an enemy to exempt from its damage. We were pretty much gambling, placing our bets (and focusing Mind Sear) on the enemy we figured would live the longest.
Area of effect spells may never return to their Wrath glory days, but come patch 4.0.6, we'll at least have reason to put Mind Sear back on our cast bars. It's undergoing a major buff.
Public Test Realm Patch 4.0.6 NotesMind Sear can now be channeled on friendly targets in addition to enemy targets. In addition, Mind Sear's damage has been increased by roughly 15%.
To abuse a cliché, that's two ugly birds being taken out with one PTR stone. Now, one thing to note: This buff probably won't change when you Mind Sear. If the fight has a moderate number of moderate-health adds, you're still going to want to nuke. Reserve Mind Sear for those especially large packs of low-health adds (think heroic Corborus). The buff will definitely change how you Mind Sear, though -- for most trash pulls (and for encounters like Maloriak), you'll want to channel Mind Sear on the tank.
Granted, this buff won't result in a giant boost in your overall DPS -- even in an AoE-heavy fight like Magmaw, Mind Sear only accounts for ~15% of your overall damage. Still, in those fights where AoE is called for, the AoE is absolutely the most important mechanic of the fight. After all, having a 2% or 3% boost to your overall DPS on the Magmaw encounter is trivial; having a 15% boost to damage on the Lava Parasite phase is huge.
And if those damage buffs weren't enough ...
If all you're looking for out of patch 4.0.6 are damage buffs, then there's one more major present under the tree. Blizzard developers are taking one more shot at fixing our long-broken mastery stat:
Public Test Realm Patch 4.0.6 NotesRight now, each point of mastery is worth a 1.3% bonus to your damage over time spells when Shadow Orb Power is active. Mastery also affects the value of each Shadow Orb you consume through Mind Blast or Mind Spike, so any buff to mastery means an across-the-board damage increase. It's a bit early to say what this means for overall stat balancing, of course, but we should see mastery edging out critical strike as our second-most preferred stat. It's probably not time to empty your bank account reforging for mastery, but I'd keep an eye out for new gear with both haste and mastery on it.
Like the Mind Blast and Mind Sear changes, a buff to mastery should only provide a modest increase to your DPS on its own -- a couple of percentage points at most. Taken in combination with the Mind Blast and Mind Sear changes, though, shadow priests should enjoy a fairly noticable jump in their DPS the moment patch 4.0.6 goes live. Considering that shadow priests are already in a good spot on the live servers, a great spec is about to get even better.
... but that's not all!
Since the shadow priest is a DPS spec, we're naturally going to want to focus on the changes that make us better at what we do best: melting faces. But there are a few other great changes coming in patch 4.0.6 that add convienience, survivability, or both.
- Power Word: Shield is getting buffed. If you're anything like me, you regularly cast Power Word: Shield to protect yourself from unavoidable damage. Right now, that cast of PW:S protects against 7,000 damage or so. Once patch 4.0.6 goes live, that number is set to triple. That's a massive benefit to shadow priests. And better yet, there's a shadow priest-friendly overhaul to Improved Power Word: Shield. It now increases the effectiveness of the spell when cast on yourself by 30% with a two-talent-point investment. Granted, there will be an increased mana cost to casting PW:S, but it's worth it, at least for shadow priests -- a single cast can ward well over 26,000 points worth of damage in 4.0.6. (UPDATE: New PTR datamining from MMO-Champion suggests that Improved PW:S will offer 20% more absorbtion on anyone with a two-talent-point investment. The patch notes still say 30%, so take this info with a grain of salt.)
- Levitate will now last 10 minutes. That's up from Levitate's current 2-minute duration. Admittedly, I can only think of one place where this would prove useful: avoiding Crystalspawn Giants' Quake attacks in The Stonecore. I guess it'll make fishing easier too, if you actually care about that sort of thing.
- Vampiric Embrace now lasts until cancelled. A minor convenience, but a convenience none the less. (Can we have the same change to Inner Fire, please?)
- Glyph of Mind Flay is getting less complicated. Once patch 4.0.6 goes live, the glyph will buff Mind Flay by 10% without requiring Shadow Word: Pain be cast on the target. For long fights, the change won't matter. For brief fights and soloing, this glyph just got a whole lot more valuable.
- Our buffs will cost significantly less mana. I dread having to cast Power Word: Fortitude and Shadow Protection -- those two spells alone can eat up 15% of my max mana. That's way out of line with other buffs. Patch 4.0.6 should bring an end to having to drink after buffing -- terrific news indeed!
UPDATE <4:48PM EST>: Since this column was written, MMO-Champion posted about some datamined changes to the PTR. Since it's directly related to the meat of this column, I wanted to insert this addendum.
The main point: Don't get worked up over what's been datamined. The numbers don't represent a change over the live server value, just a change in the PTR numbers to match the patch notes.
To wit: Mind Sear has been "cut" to "104 to 113." On the live server, Mind Sear's tooltip says "91 to 97." That represents a 15% buff over where it is now on live. Exactly what the patch notes say.
The same goes to the "cut" to mastery. Right now, we benefit 10% per orb. That's being buffed 16% (see patch notes above) to 11.6%. The 21.6% number was not "real." It's still a buff. Remember too -- the buff to Mind Blast will make the new buff to mastery even more powerful. It's a synergistic change.
And speaking of the buff to Mind Blast ... the MMO-Champion notes suggest it's now a 60% buff instead of a 50% buff. You can't complain about that, but let's wait to see the official patch notes get updated before we start setting off fireworks.
Are you more interested in watching health bars go down than watching them bounce back up? Think it's neat to dissolve into a ball of pure shadow every few minutes? Hunger for the tangy flesh of gnomes? The darker, shadowy side of Spiritual Guidance has you covered (occasionally through the use of puppets).Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Rin Jan 19th 2011 2:11PM
From the new PTR build
"Mind Sear damage has been reduced by 30%. Now deals [ 104 to 113 ], down from [ 146 to 158 ]."
):
Rin Jan 19th 2011 2:17PM
In other news, I totally agree with "Mind Blast should be stronger than Mind Spike". YES, it should. It should have ALWAYS been that way. Right now my Mind Blast hits for less than my Mind Spike when Mind Spike does its LOWER end damage. MB, really, is only hit for the replenishment...
Jawn Jan 19th 2011 3:07PM
If this is true (about mind sear), i believe the problem lies with this method of thinking:
"The buff will definitely change how you Mind Sear, though -- for most trash pulls"
I don't think MS is intended for trash pulls, and if it was effective there, that's not likely how it's supposed to be. They did mention before that they do not want us to just AOE pulls out of existence, like in Wrath. MS should be for pesky little elite adds swarming the place. They will need to find a proper balance between an effective AOE fly swatter, and an effective trash pull strategy that would replace our other spells.
Jawn Jan 19th 2011 3:08PM
bah!
"MS should be for pesky little elite adds swarming the place"
should read as:
"MS should be for pesky little adds swarming the place"
:|
Cameron Jan 19th 2011 2:12PM
Overall I'm happy with this changes.
Although I really would like our Mastery to be passive, rather than actively juggled. Instead of having to stack Shadow Weaving, now I'm playing with Evangelism *and* hoping orbs proc.
Plus a minor glyph to turn the orbs into ravens would be pretty cool too. /wishful thinking ;)
anderson.horn Jan 19th 2011 2:25PM
At least you have a proc. On disc, I don't really get procs unless I take Surge of Light, everything else is totally based on what I do...wait, does divine aegis count as my proc??
I wish I got instant proc smites at some point.
Cameron Jan 19th 2011 2:36PM
Disclaimer: Have never been Disc, and not qualified to comment really. But the orbs aren't procs in the sense that Holy can have through talents, making things better; the orb procs are actually a *part* of our Mastery.
When on my Holy Pally, Kitty Druid, Fire/Arc Mage, I don't have to keep the Mastery going -- it's always there. But as shadow if I get unlucky with the RNG Gods, my core damage will noticeably drop through no fault of my own.
And our Mastery can be dispelled in pvp as well, which is unfortunate.
Saeadame Jan 19th 2011 4:51PM
Yeah SPriest mastery is... interesting. I kind of like it, but it's very odd that SPriest is the only (correct me if I'm wrong) kind of mastery like this. I wouldn't mind if there were more masteries like this, especially for classes that have crappy masteries already (read: resto druid, though I'm sure there's others...). It would be cool if, as a resto druid, my heals caused me to gain stacks of a buff that I could expend for, say, a guaranteed critical heal or something like that.
sinshadow1993 Jan 20th 2011 7:09PM
Elemental Shamans also have this time of effect for their mastery, which is a change for a second spell to be cast that does 75% damage of the original. So RNG can screw us over too.
flint Jan 22nd 2011 9:01AM
I absolutely despise our mastery. The RNG is completely terrible, and we can actually go several DoT cycles without actually seeing an orb at all, crippling our dps. Our dps fluctuates greatly because of this, and it just adds needless complication. Add that to the fact that we already have to stack Evangelism before casting our DoTs, and we have the longest potential rampup time in the game.
I would much rather just get a passive DoT bonus.
Saeadame Jan 19th 2011 2:12PM
Question, can mind sear be channeled on yourself? Or is it friendly targets other than you?
The question is mostly for adds like in the Corborus fight, when there is quite often no one standing on the adds themselves... you could run over there, channel mind sear on yourself and blow up the adds (if you're in a group like I often am and no one seems to AoE the adds)
anderson.horn Jan 19th 2011 2:21PM
I assumed it meant that you could channel yourself, since they word flash heal and stuff as "friendly target"....but then i looked at binding heal, it says friendly target as well...so I dunno. I want to know though, but I don't do PTR's.
Necromann Jan 19th 2011 2:33PM
I was going to ask the same thing, I hope so.
Alithoe Jan 19th 2011 2:40PM
The most important time to AoE is for the exploding crystals, which I do not recommend you go and hug. If you're the only one burning them down, just Mind Sear 'em all down except your target, then throw a couple mind spikes.
Saeadame Jan 19th 2011 4:46PM
True, but if you're fast enough to AoE them before they pop out of the ground and start moving, they're easier to deal with (in my opinion). It's true that it would probably be faster to just AoE centered on one of them and then use single target abilities like Mind Spike to kill the last one, but I was grasping for a specific example of where Mind Sear centered on yourself could be useful... it certainly SOUNDS useful, anyway.
Serrath Jan 19th 2011 2:16PM
"Levitate will now last 10 minutes."
As if we weren't the best before... now we're even better!
Vacasta Jan 19th 2011 2:40PM
Sweet. Looks like I chose wisely in rolling a Goblin Priest instead of a Goblin Mage upon returning to WoW for Cataclysm last week. I'm a time-challenged casual so Holy will get me into raids, but Shadow will satiate the yearn to DPS in dungeons and PvP. Though, who knows, I haven't even dinged 20 yet.
Jeff Roisum Jan 19th 2011 2:26PM
How about some decent mana regen blizzard. Battlegrounds I spend a lot of time finding a quite place to drink or dispersing - waiting for someone to kill me when i phase back.
Chad Jan 19th 2011 2:32PM
Gear helps. Use your cooldowns. Not too much of a problem then.
Xzavier Jan 19th 2011 2:27PM
I'd also like to see what everyone thinks the proposed changes on mmo mean to us if they go live.
Mind Sear damage has been reduced by 30%. Now deals [ 104 to 113 ], down from [ 146 to 158 ].
Shadow Orb Power now Increases the damage done by your Shadow Orbs by 11.6%, down from 21.6%.