In the next major content patch, the combat rating, resilience, will also reduce the damage dealt by damage over time (DoT) effects. As it currently stands, each new tier of equipment adds to the amount of damage DoT abilities have, yet that damage is not mitigated through combat ratings found on typical equipment. This change will help ensure that DoT effects do not scale too well compared to other damage mechanics.

The amount of damage reduced will be equal to the critical chance reduction effect that resilience grants.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=0B7895E781612A3D533912266DA9DCCC?topicId=174613179&sid=1

I like it, yet dislike it.

Right now dot classes like locks have it far too easy in pvp when they can have 12k hp and drop 6k+ in dots and just walk away or dot a target up and just walk backwards JUST out of range..etc

I just respecced Sub though and without Dot dmg that spec is damn near damageless lol.

This was really a nice change. And Spriests and Locks can't bitch about it either since they are removing the ability to swap gear in arenas so people won't be walking around in 300+ shadow resist. Getting dotted to hell and chasing after a warlock around a pillar or other LOS shit is just ridiculous.

edit: This change will probably affect 2v2's the most. 5v5 you have more support(heals, dispels, etc).

_________________
Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

Maybe I'm reading into it wrong, but given that it's based on the critical hit chance and 400 resil yields about 10 percent, that effectively means 10 percent less damage from DoTs right? It definitely adds up, particularly in a long fight, but I don't see it making a gigantic difference. Given how much damage warlocks do currently, 10 percent isn't going to render them completely useless I don't think.

I didn't see any post about not being able to swap gear, are you sure about that? If that's the case, this is a buff for 2v2 Lock/Spriest teams, because 300 resist is much more effective than the resil reduction will be. It will be a 5v5 nerf though, since swapping out doesn't work out well vs varied damage sources.

More of a fix. People can farm s.priest/lock teams so long as they queue up, and a lot of them have good ratings. It's a nice combo. Should be a bit more even after patch.

Why the hell would shadow priests bitch? We have 3 DoTs that we're casting only 2 have actual dmg, only 1 of which does any 'decent' dmg, all of which can be easily removed by a priest/pally/shaman if we're up against them.

Change doesn't hurt us one bit. It does nerf the warlock DoTters, and it's about fucking time. Plus this only nerfs them in PvP, which is even nicer for them...it leaves all PvE dmg as is.

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actually, shamans cant cure the DoTs on themselves, fyi. they can only purge buffs from opponents or cure diseases/poisions.

I guess I meant spriest/lock teams running around.

_________________
Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

Well frankly there's not much reason to bitch on either side since it's only 10 percent damage with lots of gear, but shadow priests are the only other class you could really consider to be effected by it by any significant measure(hunters lol?). Shadow priest DoT damage can really add up during a long fight, especially if a few cures are missed(which usually happens during intense fights).

My only bitch is that resilience offers the chance to avoid a crit and then reduces the crits that get by, but this change is a flat out reduction in dots. Dots are removable and nukes and melee damage is not. Sure you can heal through melee and nukes but you can do the same with dots. Warlocks and Shadow priests seem to be hit the hardest, but it's going to affect all dots including bleeds. Personally I think they should of made it so 400 resilience offered a 10% chance of reducing dot damage by 20% rather than a flat out reduction.

The biggest point I think that is missed with every resilience topic (on Blizzard boards) is the intrinsic buff to healing. Every time damage is further mitigated, it means that healing is made that much more effective. People consider warriors to be over powered with MS in arena battles because it halves healing, but the issue isn't the warrior, it's how big a factor healing is. If there alternate ways to lower healing, the focus on MS would fade. Healing should be effective in PvP, but if things continue to progress as they are, it will become too important.

The overarching goal of resilience was never really stated I don't think, but I think if they were to state it it would not be limited to such a narrow definition as "reducing crit damage". It would be "increasing survivability in a small group fight". To do that, you reduce damage from damage sources. Crit is an effective way to do that, but should not be limited to such.

10 percent chance of reducing dmg by 20 percent would be even worse than it would be with this current change. And a total of 10 percent reduction with 400 resil is not a bad nerf at all. The main place it will be effective is in 5v5 group matches where the battles are long and drawn out, and more healer mana will be preserved. You will still be owning those 1v1 and probably the 2v2 battles assuming you were owning them beforehand.

I agree. But why not reduce the base damage from direct damage spells and melee as well then?

Right now there's a 10% chance of avoiding the crit portion of direct melee and spell damage and then it reduces the crit by 20% if it gets by. It doesn't affect the base damage. If your melee and nukes don't crit resilience does nothing. Why are dispellable/removable dots being treated differently?

But again, no biggie and I'll adjust just fine and I actually think the improved survivability from dots will help me more than harm me.

I'm far from being good in arena pvp but I am getting better and my hitpoints and resilience have both gone way up a decent amount these past few weeks. I still do really well in the battlegrounds but arenas are much harder, more so if you don't have a good group makeup. But both are a blast.

I’ve been having much better luck by staying out shadow form in both settings. Being able to heal myself and others is just too valuable in pvp settings even if I’m not actually a disc/holy priest. Dropping shadow to heal triggers the gcd and sometimes that's long enough to kill you. I’ve been thinking about taking the 6 talent points I have spent in meditation and shadow affinity and spending them elsewhere but that’ll really screw me in pve settings.

To answer your question, they're being treated differently because DoTs are over time, while melee/spell hits are single shot. My math might be wrong here, but I think to be equivalent you would get a 10 percent chance to take away 100 percent of the DoT's damage. For example, you have a DoT that ticks for 100 for 10 ticks, 1000 damage. 10 percent off of that damage makes it 900 damage, while a 10 percent chance to take away 100 percent damage, over the period of 10 of those same DoT's, is 9000 damage/10,000 damage which is equivalent(10 percent reduction total for both).

So indeed you could do a "percentage chance to take away X", but it would result in the same reduction. This is just a different way of doing it. They needed a different way because there is no crit component with a DoT.. this is just one way to accomplish the same goal and get the same effect.

This is how I see it, and let’s just take a single dot as an example to keep it really simple. The base damage of SWP is 1236 over 18 seconds which is 206 every tic, so after the patch resilience will reduce this by 10% (123.6) 100% of the time. Dispelling this dot can reduce 100% of this damage if your dispelling classes are quick on the click, but let’s just say 83% of the damage should be completely avoidable by dispelling it. Pally bubble, cloak of shadows, cleanse, purge, whatever, Dot's are avoidable damage and there's no reason to allow a dot to remain up.

Melee can get around relying on crits by stacking attack power which up their base damage and none of that is avoidable through resilience or dispells. Direct damage nukers can do the same by stacking spell damage instead of crit and none of that base damage is avoidable through resilience or dispells. So when a melee or nuke does 1236 worth of base damage, and I can guarantee they do it in faster than 18 seconds, you're stuck with it.

To try to explain it better, DoTs are avoidable while melee/spell hits are not.

Just to respond to Tarot before I head home, this will reduce SWP, VT and Mind Flay by 10%. That's pretty much the bread and butter of a Shadow Priest's damage.

Frost shock, earthbind, wingclip, hamstring, crippling poison, curse of exhaustion, root, frost nova anyone?

Nevermind the fact that the true DPS of most DoT spells (cast time / damage) is far greater than ordinary spells and melee damage.

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

This seems to be the key to what you're saying, sorry if I missed something in your above post. As noted, melee and spells are avoidable. Spells are avoidable by running around corners, counter-spelling, interrupting, going out of range, etc etc. Melee is avoidable by simply staying out of range/using root spells or using mitigation techniques like bear form, shields, shield spells, BOProtection(immune in this case), etc etc.

Meanwhile, many DoTs are instant cast with great fire and forget capability. You can throw in a few lower level DoTs to throw people off a bit with the dispels and drain mana, much like spellcasters faking spellcasts to avoid interrupts.

But the bottom line is that both are avoidable, they just require different methods to avoid.

SW:P and VT yes, but mind flay is channeled, not a DoT.

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I think they changed the way channeled spells work when they made them affected by spell haste. I expect them to be affected by this resilience change.

Channeled spells like Arcane Missiles are affected by haste, so I assume Mind Flay would be as well. But I don't know if they would be affected by resilience. Though I guess Arcane Missiles are already affected by resilience so maybe Mind Flay will be as well. It's a toss up with Blizzard sometimes.

_________________
Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

From what I understand, Mindflay is affected by resilience on the test server. But I'm not sure if it's going to stay that way. Hopefully this was unintended as mindflay is already incredibly easy to interrupt. This is from a player posting in the resilience feedback thread found here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 1&pageNo=1



I also believe that arcane missiles crit while mindflay does not. That might be the determining factor Blizzard uses. I’m almost positive mindflay was affected by the spell haste proc I got back when I was using Quagmirran's Eye.

The big difference, as I see it, is that dots are avoidable after the fact, everything else you mentioned is not. Dots have the same range and los issues as everything else. Also, not all dots are instant cast, SWP is but VT, Holy Fire, Unstable Affliction, Seed of Corruption all have cast times. I know dots do not stay up on myself or those around me long at all. A dispel is basically a heal and UA isn’t even a factor as a quick Prayer of mending, Renew and Dispel removes all danger and all three of those are instant cast abd doable on the run.

Must be nice to run around with a Paladin/Priest and Druid/Mage all the time whose number one priority is always clearing DoTs.

By the same logic aren't buffs, PW:S and HoTs all useless because they can be purged?

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

It's very nice and shamans are a pita without a doubt, so are pallies. Between stoneform and dispel the only thing that gives me trouble is curse based stuff and that can be taken care of with pots, in battlegrounds anyway.

But I'm not calling buffs useless, those are your words. Not much of a priority, just something that's easy to do. I'm probably one of the few shadow priest that stays out of shadow form in battlegrounds so I can heal those around me and I buff my own party in battlegrounds or arenas with shadow protection, fear ward and fort as often as I can. Always start out buffed, don't you? I get my buffs dispelled all the time. I know I use mass dispel fairly often in battlegrounds and arenas and not just for getting rid of pally bubbles. I hit rogues with a normal dispel as soon as I see my dots gone and then reapply them. I reapply my dots quit a bit in both, but you don't need to reapply a nuke or melee hit just like I don't need to reapply a Mind Blast or a Shadow Word Death. The damage is already done and as such, unavoidable. Any class can use potions in battlegrounds and rogues can clear dots as well. It's also more mana efficient to dispel rather than heal through dot damage.

Sorry, let me rephrase that, is PW:S and HoTs lesser forms of healing because they can be purged?

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Well PWS isn't a heal, it's a shield that absorbs damage which can usually be one shot through in the first place. My renews tic for about 380 (1900 total) in my pvp gear over 15 seconds which way to long to save anyone in a pvp situation. Obviously they help but I would say they’re lesser forms of healing by their vary nature. It depends on the situation, but I tend to use them in combination effectively all the time. I use Desperate Prayer, Prayer of Mending, Renew, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Power Word Shield all the time in varying circumstances. I don't understand the point you're trying to make or how this has anything to do with resilience reducing dot damage across the board. If a renew or PWS is dispelled then of course it’s less effective than a direct heal that lands. Like a direct damage nuke or melee hit, when a direct heal lands it’s a done deal and unavoidable.

Re: Mind Flay....that's good to know and obviously I wasn't aware of it. I really do hope that it's unintended, especially given that shadow priests already had their damage heavily nerfed a few patches ago.

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I still don't understand why people feel their forms of damage should be exempt from resilience, the defining pvp statistic. (And I think 'balanced' is the appropriate word, not 'nerfed'... even though it's still unbalanced in favor of the Priest.)

Back to Jateki, my reason for bringing up HoTs is that they're the identical mechanic as DoTs with just the opposite affect. I can say with absolute certainty that HoTs are as good or better than traditional heals in the PvP environment (try killing a Priest running circles around a pillar spamming PoM, renew and shields)for the same reasons DoTs are as good or better than conventional nukes.

You seem to place little value on the ability to deal damage (or heal) while on the move when in fact this is a tremendous boon to you and your team, combine that with superior throughput and the inability to be countered effectively (earth shock, counterspell, spell lock, etc.) and you have yourself a very potent spell.

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

First of you can't spam PWS, there's a 15 sec debuff called Weakened Soul, and POM has a 10 second cool down and can only be up on one target at a time. Spamming Renew is just flat out stupid because you don't get the first heal from it until it tics the first time 3 seconds later. Desperate Prayer has a 10 minute cool down. Now you can spam Flash Heals, Binding Heals and Greater Heals if you're able to get them off without being interrupted but you got to stand still to pull it off.

I'm also not saying that my form of damage should be exempt from resilience and it wasn't exempt as it was already affecting our crits, just like it was affecting everyone else’s. I would be fine if resilience was flat out removed to be honest and there’s a number of players calling for exactly that from a variety of classes. The original reason resilience was added was to avoid people dying immediately from burst damage caused by crits and no one is going to die immediately from a dot and there are numerous ways to counter dot damage. I'm actually saying the opposite, if resilience is going to now affect the base damage of a class then it should affect everyone's base damage, DoT, Melee, Nuke, Ranged. But if it’s going to only offer the chance of reducing a crit, which is only a chance in itself to deal bonus damage on top of base damage, then it should only have the chance at reducing DoT damage as well. Same rules, guidelines and criteria applied evenly to all.

As for being able to deal damage or heal on the run, isn’t that what hunters, warlocks and mages do with their pets or shield? Don’t mages, pallies and locks have instant cast and extremely short cast time nukes? Aren’t numerous crowd control and slows in the game already by both melee and caster to prevent people from running around pillars and using line of sight to their advantage already?

As a hunter, I’m sure you’re aware of how easy it is to pvp with that class. You’re one of the most dangerous classes out there. With the right spec, hunter pets are immune to fear and can multishot targets, drain mana, slow, freeze traps.

Priests are normally targeted first and usually get taken out pretty quickly unless there is another healer in the group. If you want to talk about great PVP healing spells, you need to look at Holy Nova and Circle of Healing which are instant cast group direct heals that heal the entire group. The Disc/Holy spec is pretty much the arena spec of choice in the priest community and more so when you get into the 5v5 bracket. But then again, that has absolutely nothing at all to do with this DoT nerf. Also as a hunter, I’m sure you’re aware that many of your own damage sources are getting hit with the nerf bat.

The top horde 5v5 team in my battlegroup doesn't have a lock or a shadow priest, but they do have a kick ass mage.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/team- ... ts=5&t=MIC

The top alliance 5v5 team in my battlegroup doesn't have a lock or a shadow priest, but they do have a kick ass hunter.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/team- ... ppers&fl=1

No lock or SP on the top 3v3 either:

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/team- ... ekted&fl=1

The top 2v2 is a lock and a rogue, but no shadow priest on it:

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/team- ... tdown&fl=1

Yes, clearly this nerf was desperately needed. As Tarot already mentioned, the Shadow Priest/Warlock combination was already nerfed in a previous patch by blizzard nerfing the shadow priests.

Hell, look at Elidrin's mage Avelle which kicks ass in all three brackets. The only shadow priest on any of his teams are on his 2v2 and that's a pretty accurate statement of the way things are.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/chara ... a&n=Avelle

The simplest thing to do would have been reducing ALL dot damage by 20% and then giving dots the ability to crit. Then resil affects them just like anything else. Overall damage without resilience would be the same since the crits will make up for the reduced damage and the DoT classes would have a reason to have the +crit stat. There, problem solved.

I thought resilience reduces the enemy's chance to crit and adds a flat reduction in the damage taken from crits that is active 100% of the time.

Sarissa Candyangel

That is how it works with everything except dots. Since dots don't crit, it currently does nothing to mitigate their damage. The change with the next patch has a percentage reduction applied to all dots based on your resilience.

100% of the time is misleading as no one crits 100% of the time. If a player has a 30% chance to crit then 400 resilience will reduce that chance by 10% to 27% which is a 3% percent reduction in the chance to crit. Now a player still crits for 27% of the time and the crit portion, which is extra (bonus damage) and not the base damage of the spell, is reduced by 20%. Take a nuke that does 1000 base damage and it crits for 2000 the player with 400 resilience will get hit for 1800, a 20% reduction of the crit. If you want to reduce the base damage of a spell, you use resists and if you want to reduce the base damage of melee you use armor. Stamina is always good to stack regardless of the situation. Now blizzard is saying that a dispellable dot that only has the potential to deal 1000 base damage, as it can be removed prior to running it's course, will be reduced by 10% to 900 total damage 100% of the time guaranteed to any player with 400 points of resilience. This after they just got done reducing a shadow priest’s, and potential warlock’s, damage by 5% when they nerfed the shadow priest talent Shadow Weaving in a previous patch.

It's also important to remember that a shadow priest can only heal themselves when they drop shadow form and by doing that they lose 15% of all damage they deal and take 15% more damage from melee.

So adding it up I lose 10% against players with 400 resilience, another 5% was lost from the shadow weaving nerf, and then 15% from needing to drop shadow form, or just not use it all because I need to heal or fear ward. That’s a 30% reduction and that's why you don’t see very many shadow priests on top ranked teams. Why would anyone take us? You’re better off taking a mage or a lock for dps, and if you do take a priest over a paladin, druid, or shaman for healing they’re Disc/Holy spec.

And to add to what Jateki has already written...MIND FLAY IS A CHANNELED SPELL.

It's easily interrupted, and there is no specialization for shadow priests to reduce interrupts of shadow spells. It is also the primary damage dealer of a shadow priest, because mind blast has a cooldown (and is not an instant), PW:D has a cooldown and while an instant does damage to us if it's not a killing blow, and SW:P is an easily purged DoT.

We have one AoE fear, on a 30 second timer (which can be specialized to drop 4 seconds off that timer woofrickenhoo). Oh and we can bubble.

Fear ward can't be cast in shadow form, neither can any healing or holy spell. And a shadow priest doesn't want to be outside of that form generally because again...15% dmg reduction, 15% increased dmg to you...and our heals are rather gimptastic if we're shadow spec'd and in dps gear.

Shadow priests are far from overpowered either in arena/pvp or in PvE. In PvE the only area in which they were overpowered was the reasonably high dps coupled with restoring health. It's great for raids, and the mana restoration is nice, but slight enough to be only a nice bonus, not anything one depends upon.

I would have been far happier to see the nerf have not been so great on our dps, and been maybe half (or less) on the dps, and nerf to the amount healed by vamp. That would have been more balancing. The shadow healing doesn't affect that much in arenas and pvp because it's a non-dmg DoT which again is easily dispelled and the amount healed is so marginal short term.

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Many DoTs are instant cast, though, especially Warlock DoTs. There are only a select few direct damage spells with other classes that are instant cast, and most of them do limited amounts of damage. Melee attacks as well are avoidable by keeping range, so whether those are instant or not is somewhat irrelevant to the point. Are you checking the make the rank of the DoT in question is low or not? If they're not staying up long I assume you're just dispelling it and forgetting, so that gives them an opportunity to throw in a few fakes. In a really tough fight, it's almost unavoidable that at least a few dots will get through and cause some damage due to the fact that the healer(s) must do 2 other things in the meantime: avoid getting killed by potentially kiting around, and keep everyone alive from other sources of damage.

I'm sorry Tarot, and I don't mean to be rude, but for you to make the above statement with regards to PvE specifically shows how little you understand or appreciate with regards to 25 man raids.

Quite simply no single class or spec comes close to bringing to the table what a Shadow Priest does; Shadow Priests do competitive damage relative to all other classes, Shadow Priests are capable of healing almost comparable to that of fulltime healers on fights with AoE (Gruul, portions of Magtheridon, Lurker, Morogrim, Karthress, etc.) and contribute no less than 35% of my mana spent on any given fight (that's counting mana back from crits, chain potting, BoW, mana spring and in combat regen).

You can even ignore their excellent damage and strong potential for healing and just look at the mana. Think how crazy powerful chain potting is for a healer or damage class and then multiply that by two and half times, that's a Shadow Priest, good for 10,000 to 15,000 mana on any given fight.

Back on topic, rather than ramble on some more, I'll leave you with the following:

Top 20 Teams From Each Battleground

5v5

Paladin: 140
Warrior: 138
Priest: 106
Shaman: 89
Mage: 78
Warlock: 69
Hunter: 35
Rogue: 29
Druid: 22

3v3:

Priest: 57
Warrior: 54
Warlock: 51
Paladin: 48
Mage: 41
Rogue: 35
Druid: 29
Shaman: 27
Hunter: 2

2v2:

Warlock: 57
Priest: 38
Rogue: 31
Paladin: 27
Druid: 27
Warrior: 25
Mage: 14
Shaman: 9
Hunter: 1

Sum:
Warrior: 217
Paladin: 215
Priest: 201
Warlock: 177
Mage: 133
Shaman: 125
Rogue: 95
Druid: 78
Hunter: 38

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Those numbers mean nothing without pointing out the spec, most of those priests are disc/holy. But hell, why aren't Paladins and Warrior being nerfed as they are clearly overly represented. Bringing in our pve utility to a pvp resilience discussion is meaningless as well. But, for the sake of discussion, shaman bring one hell of a lot of utility to the raid through added dps, mana, chain heals, agro reduction.

What class do you actually play man? I thought hunter from your sig.

Surely they mean as much or more as you pointing out that Elidrin only plays with one Shadow Priest in all of his 3 arena teams or that a Warlock isn't present in the number 1 spot in any of the brackets in your battlegroup? You're the one who drew some fairly drastic conclusions based on an incredibly small sample size.

Fact is, Warlocks are the second most represented damage class of all the brackets, second only to Warriors (who certainly have their share of issues). Do you honestly think it's coincidence that Warlocks near-immunity to resilience has nothing to do with this? And yes, a Paladins effectiveness in arenas is being nerfed (see the 2.2 PTR patch notes).

Back to the PvE discussion, Shamans are indeed an excellent, well balanced class with all three specs being viable contributors to a 25 man raid. However they still don't come close to improving their group by 35+% (this isn't counting VE) via buffs and totems; enhance might do 20% at the high end for your melee group, elemental does around 12%, throw in bloodlust and that's another ~6%. As for restoration, an excellent healer for sure but certainly balanced relative to a holy paladin/priest or a restoration druid wouldn't you say?

As for me, I play a restoration Shaman for my 3v3 arena team and part time restoration, part time elemental for PvE. My signature was merely a way to tie myself back to the community when I created a new user name, sorry for the confusion, heh.

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

On the note about shadow priests, few things burn me down faster as a warrior than a shadow priest and a warlock at the same time. The *combination* of the two is devastating, but they also stand well on their own. My raid group usually has a shadow priest with it, and he's almost always near the top of the dps charts. There's another shadow priest I know on my server and have pvped with a few times(without a warlock), and he absolutely brings the pain. He has full gladiator, 450ish resil, etc and pretty much never dies even with several people on him for a duration of time. I wish I could say SP's suck, but they absolutely rock for BOTH pve(raids, 5-mans) and pvp unlike many other class-specific specs.

Not much confusion, just more curious and more so after the chugging mana pots statement. It was clear that you weren't playing a hunter. What class do you play Venen?

I made the statement about priest specs in the 5v5 bracket because I've spent the last two weeks reviewing hundreds of teams, mainly the top rated, across all the battlegroups. I'm faced with the decision of dropping out of my pve spec and going with something truly better suited for pvp. The reason I'm seriously considering this is that I personally find pvp, arenas and battlegrounds, much for fun than pve raiding. Sure pve is fun and challenging on first kills, but it gets back to mindless playing really quickly. You never know what you're going to get in pvp, so it's more fun. As it stands now, I can easily be close to the top in damage during raids, but I’m not usually at the top. I can’t say that I'm never at the top, but it’s rare. Normally it’s the locks, and the rogues. But clearly just being in the top 10 of a 25 man justifies a shadow priests utility.

Both of you seem to fall back to warlocks in your arguments, and maybe that’s the class that needed to be looked at. I can tell you that I personally think MS warriors are way to overpowered in pvp and they haven’t been nerfed. Hunters are being looked for a buff in pvp, and to me that’s absurd. The rogues took a recent hit in pvp but I know of 4 that still own arenas. Right now the top 2v2 on my server is a warlock and druid combo.

Basically, I don't think the change was needed and neither is the entire resilience system. But either way, I'll adapt and move on.

For Tarot:

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=mazfviqsvnxqq&s=2781-3280

Don't want people thinking I'm pulling numbers out of my butt.

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I've seen my own stats on Gruul. What part of 'I didn't have a problem with a nerf, just how they did it' was unclear though?

I said before that nerf that Shadow Priests were overpowered given the dps and the amount the dps heals. There were instances where shadow priests were out dpsing rogues in raids. Granted some of those rogues probably sucked, since I raid with a rogue that I only out dps if he dies early on. Still, we shouldn't even be 2nd to rogues on the dps meter given that we're also restoring hp/mana. Change was needed. Mana restoration is certainly nice, it's absolutely beneficial...but it's not making or breaking raids, especially given that it effects only the group the spriest is in. The best mana regen we do affects paladins, obviously. Other than that, anyone grouped with me is just saving some money on a few potions. The healing though is pretty substantial, ignoring the high overheal rate (which is going to happen with vamp.) it's huuuuuuugely beneficial both in long fights, and in fights where everyone is taking dmg now and again (HLEP CAVE IN). That also helps manage healer mana when they're not having to heal as often, or side heal non-tanks.

However there is more to WoW life than raiding, amazingly enough. As is being discussed in this PvP thread. As such, I would have liked to have seen the nerf not be a specific damage nerf (which was substantial) which also has the effect of nerfing the overall healing/mana restoration as it's based on % of shadow dmg...but didn't nerf the mana/hp regen that much when you do the overall math (Going from high 500s to low 400s on mind flay tics hurts my dps...but my % of hp/mana restored isn't as largely affected as it's a smaller number anyway).

It would have been better (IMO obviously) to have lowered the dps, but also modified the health restoration. I don't think the mana restoration is OP at all, and wouldn't have cared if they had similarly lowered it. That would have resolved the overall shadow priest 'overpowered!' issues, while still maintaining good dps for PvP/PvE non-raids.

Obviously the better geared one is, the less of a problem this will be. I went primal mooncloth expecting to go Holy at the end game. I like shadow too much and it's a viable option for me to stay shadow, so I'm switching to Shadow weave. Once I have those 3 items crafted, combined with my loots and a few enchant changes (such as +shadow dmg on my Prince dagger, the heroic badge +shadow offhand, etc) my dps will be back to pre-nerf levels...I'm close now anyway, if not exceeding it. I may start SSC very soon, and that will only add to it.

That's not the 'average' player. Even if we assume the average shadow priest at least avails themselves of shit they can make themselves, and gets decent Kara loots...their dps is still substantially nerfed from the SPriest changes.

Again...not saying changes weren't needed, they were...simply saying that the dps nerf was too much and I'd have prefered to see it done differently to resolve the problem that existed.

As far as back to the original 'mind flay' being hit with this nerf resilience change...it's stupid, and hopefully an error. Especially given that it's not a DoT, nor does it require nerfing. It's simply not overpowered in PvP. I have no problem with it affecting our DoTs, as I don't overly rely on them anyway. The change was intended to balance warlocks specifically in PvP...something that was needed as anyone who's been up against an affliction warlock in 2v2 or even 3v3 knows too well. When they can DoT you up, use their 3 fears, and break LOS around shit (depending on which arena you get) to the point where you will die and cannot even hope to counter it...it's an 'I win' button. No class should have that. Rogues are my next pet peeve when it comes to overpowered in such matches...but even they aren't so grossly unbalanced. And my perceptions of them are biased on my priest because stun lock + cloak of shadows + vanish + stealth so long maybe they'll get bored and leave the match...annoy me greatly. My general dislike of rogues in PvP certainly shadows my opinions about them I'm sure.

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Rogues aren't even on the same page as Warlocks (or Druids or Warriors while we are on the subject) with regards to unbalanced in PVP.

While clos is an annoyance to casters, I think the one of the only classes they actually give trouble to is priests. Rogues could probably use a bit of a buff to be more competitive in 5v5s, I'm not sure how they fair in 2's and 3's. It is said however that the flavor of the month for 3v3 is rogue mage priest(holy).

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Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

Cloak of Shadows definitely helps against Warlocks and Priests, but most people who complain about it don't even know the mechanics. I am not going to get into the "blah blah Rogues are underpowered in PVP plz fix it" whiny bullshit, but I will say that alot of classes have it much easier than Rogues in Arenas. Trinket out of Sap? Trinket out of Kidney Shot? Trinket out of Cheap Shot? Trinket out of BLIND (which still costs a regeant to use)?

One thing that really disappoints me is that with the upcoming changes to CC across the board, Rogues will no longer be able to ninja a flag in AB, which I used to absolutely love to do. So even in that old school BG, our role will be diminished even more to simply DPS. No CC (which was rarely useful in group warfare to begin with), no ninja, etc. Just DPS and hope you get a heal. Fun stuff.

Yeah as I said, I'm sure my opinion about rogues is completely biased. It's the one class that almost always trumps my priest, even a poorly played rogue can almost always beat me. It's frustrating to not stand any chance. But there are classes my shadow priest trumps (I eat warriors for breakfast without even trying hard). However some warriors will manage to also get my health low before I kill them. I can die to a rogue without having much of a chance to do anything. Which just frustrates me.

On my hunter I giggle when a rogue attacks. So I get my revenge then.

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Rogues and Warriors are the two classes that give me the most trouble in pvp. They can lock me up pretty bad and quick and are the main reason I'm thinking of doing a slight respec to put two points into holy focus so I have a 70% of getting a heal off. This is also a good example of where casting a renew is a waste of a button push. I'm better off hitting myself with a Healthstone, Potion, bandage, Shield, Desperate Prayer, POM (whatever instant is available at the time) and then trying to land that flash heal. Basically, if a rogue tries to gank me in a battle ground, I hit my fear, Nether wing ally, Shadow fiend and dot him up. The rogue trinkets out of the fear almost instantly and sometimes literally never moves and then clos to lose the dots and it's time to either heal myself or reapply dots and hope I can make it to the next fear. But I think it's fine for any of the classes to have counter classes that gives them a very bad time.

If I run up against an affliction lock and it's 1 on 1, I'll probably opt out of that fight and gtfo. Though I've been purposely picking fights with locks in BG's to get more experience. Honestly 1v1 will probably never be balanced so you'll most likely always have those classes that trump the shit out of you. :/

Out of curiosity Tarot, what does your PvP gear look like for your shadow priest? Do you PvP in your PvE gear or do you have some resilience/hp stuff? It really does wonders against melee.

edit: Oh lol, I just looked you up and saw we're on the same Battlegroup. Maybe I'll bump into you in a BG sometime, I've been solo queuing a lot lately unfortunately.

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Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

Must have missed where you stated that, all I saw was you referring to it as a nerf which is a direct implication that it was unwarranted. Apparently we both have parses showing Shadow Priests at or close to the top of the meters with the other pure damage classes in their current state but yet you feel that they should be higher than what they're currently placing while providing the two largest secondary benefits of any class (VE/VT)? Even if they cut VE/VT both in half, it still wouldn't have been adequate as your suggesting, what else do Rogues (and Hunters for that matter) do besides beat stuff up? Even the other things that Warlocks and Mages do still wouldn't compare to a halved VE/VT.


Look at this this log of our first Karathress kill and tell me with a straight face that that Shadow Priest wasn't hugely influential (click my name, Argrax, to show what he returned). You can also see that he's not just saving me a few gold...


Wow is balanced around raiding and arena, your comments extended beyond PvP which I why I brought up the PvE aspect of things.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Two Shadow Priests can keep up a group for a long ass time on the third phase of Essence of Souls btw. Shadow Priests are amazing and I thank god every raid I have one in my group.

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Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

Look, mind flay costs next to no mana. With good gear, a good spec, careful management (of using my pet to regain mana at the optimal point that it will restore the most mana/not die/and repop soon) THE LONGER THE FIGHT THE HIGHER MY DPS. Why?

Because shadow priest mind flay is the most efficient form of consistent dps and even lower dps if CONSTANT ends up being higher over a long time...it has minimal mana cost, if the mana is managed properly (again I'm also using pots btw) I should never be out of mana...I *might* have to wand briefly depending though...and if I never use mind blast that's unlikely though I do use it at times if a group takes a chunk o' dmg for a higher hp regen....and constantly keeping up the 3 DoTs which restore mana/hp and SW:P...my dps is consistent.

Versus what other classes? Rogue has good dps. There's a rogue I raid with who no one will ever beat on dps if he lives through the entire fight and he usually does. He's also a very good player, with good gear. Not that he doesn't get upgrades still...he's just one of those players that is REALLY good. So okay I'm never beating THAT guy if he lives. Mages? Great burst damage, but the longer the fight the lower their dps. Warlocks? Same thing usually, and they're often restoring their own health/mana as well...and they're rarely in the Spriest group (usually in a tank group with an imp). Most other dps classes the longer the fight, the less their dps as they run through their instants, have to deal with the pool of power they use for their dmg, movement during the fight, etc.

I'm mind flay looping~ usually 3 mindflays and a round of restoring DoTs (and during that round a mind blast burst if I have the mana).

Okay now let's jump back to every other fight besides a major boss fight. My dps is far lower than everyone else. I have 3 DoTs (2 of them are instants) to put on a mob...if I want. Depending on how long that mob will live v. how many people are on it, v. if I will take dmg...determines if I'm putting those on there. Usually I hit the hp restore vamp, and SW:P, and ignore the mana one on trash. Then it's mind flay, because even though mind blast does more 'burst' damage, the casting time makes it slightly inefficent for overall dps/hp restore. If we look at parsing for shadow priests through everything else, their dps is lower than most dps classes.

Which is still fine, they're not there for pure dps. Their dps could be much lower than that and people would STILL want them along, purely for the hp/mana regen even in instances. Especially if you have a pally along.

Soloing? Just takes longer.

It's not unplayable, it's not broken I'm not QQing with sand in my v-jay. I simply do not like how they implemented the "fix". I said before the nerf, I said during the nerf, I said after the nerf shadow priests were overpowered. There is absolutely no fucking reason they should have been top or near top dps while also healing and restoring mana. That was stupid and unbalanced. Most people didn't care, as it benefited everyone. The people bitching the most though were some of the dps classes that were clenching their asses crying, "Noooooo, we must be the top dps!!!". I don't disagree with them btw, just that I thought some of the whining was overdramaticly funny. But *no question* it was OP and needed addressing. However it was OP not purely on the dps issue, but also on the vamp issue.

Which is why it would have been nicer to see them address both, rather than heavily nerf one of those. Reduce the amount vamp is restoring on both hp/mana, up the dps. They could even address the long term dps issue by making mind flay more mana intensive. That would be fine too, and would address the 'omg they do so much dps on really long fights QQ' that people still bitch about. And would make the class easier to do the shit we do 90% of the time we're not raiding, while keeping it in balance.

Again, just *my* opinion. And I'm not one of the people screaming 'Noooooo we're worthless now!' as I have seen some morons whine. Or people who bitch that they're quitting priests because both holy and shadow are now gimped. 0_o I think those arguments are beyond moronic.

The only other thing I would really really like to see...is this...tiered instance armor for shadow priests. Shadow priests are a completely distinctive class, it really is. If you're wearing the ...I think it's tier 3 instance, but whatever it is, sets...you're wearing Oblivion/warlock armor. It's a petty whine, I'm not saying 'zomg they need to focus on this now!' or anything of the sort...I'd just like to see it. And yes, I know they have in some higher tiered shadow priest gear, I have some of it, and some of it is craptacular. Just a pet peeve, just something else I'd like to see for the class.


Look at this this log of our first Karathress kill and tell me with a straight face that that Shadow Priest wasn't hugely influential (click my name, Argrax, to show what he returned). You can also see that he's not just saving me a few gold...[/quote]

It's not essential to the raid. It's super nice to have, I hear constantly on any raid I bring Sylvara on...constantly mind you...how much they LOVE shadow priests. When I started taking my hunter on my Kara run instead, I subbed in Syl on another raid with the guild I raid with when they almost had to call it over loss of ppl. I heard from that raid who never has an Spriest on that run how much they LOVE shadow priests.

Part of that is, and I'm saying this without ego or snobbery, how I play. I know this because I've seen another shadow priest who is *better* than I am (so who I try to learn from) and I've seen many others who just suck. Their suckage isn't so much 'play strat' since how fucking hard is it to cast DoTs and mind flay...but their inability to multi-task well (shackle, FOR THE LOVE OF ..>SHACKLE!!!) and because they make shitty gear choices. I actually need to retool my gear, I have some shit choices in there that I chose for very specific reasons (or sometimes in laziness)...but which are 'bad' how I'm playing Syl atm. I've seen some with gear that would make baby jesus cry, and when they're getting 20% resists...well...

Anyway, that's always part of the game, for all classes. There are fights where I've looked at the logs and I've seen how much Syl mattered, how essential she appeared on that fight. Curator down on first evo with me off tanking the entire time? Woot! Much fun too! Yet, I've seen that same fight on my hunter...slightly slower (down at the end of first evo, woo!) without a shadow priest. Results are still great, strategy is just going to play out a little differently with class make up. And Redfeather wasn't the 'essential' role there, in fact her dps was super shitty because of serious lack of gear at that point. (And she still lacks in gear but she's WAY better than she was...this was without any kara loots, and without a lot of instance loot even...hell mostly greens).


Wow is balanced around raiding and arena, your comments extended beyond PvP which I why I brought up the PvE aspect of things.[/quote]

Right, but the balance I'm talking about that *I* would prefer to see is IMO more balancing when considered for all those factors. It's just about what I would have rather seen. Is it likely to happen? Meh, probably not.

And one thing I always fail to consider is the continual 'dumbing down' of the game. Kara is already being pugged...so it's not like Kara loots will be out of reach to even casual players. That gear has to be taken into consideration when considering 'overall' dps of classes. Then they have to also take into consideration the very high end gear. My perspective is based on what I see and do, as is every player's. They may have chosen to nerf it the way they did because of a longer view than I have...I dunno. It's simply what I would have prefered to see.

And mind flay does not need to be affected by the resilience change. As a channeled effect, it's easily disrupted by many many many methods. DoTs did need a change, and as I've said repeatedly, I don't give a shit if that also affects Spriest DoTs. That's fine.

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I fucked up quotes and I'm too lazy to fix it.

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Wall.
Of.
Text.

I forgot how impressively large your posts can get Tarot, good show.

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Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

In short: they'd better not toss in mind flay with the upcoming changes, or I'll QQ.



My arena team sucks anyway. We have fun though, which is all that matters. Especially since we suck. ;D I play both my characters in the team, and hunter + anything in 2v2 often sucks. Though I'm surprised how often I can do well on some combos! If a paladin pops while my hunter is on the team...we're just toast though.

My 2v2 team is named "Second Place", and I play with someone from Lanys. I tried for the name, "I was faking it" but it was already taken. If I get points every week, I'm happy. Maybe we'll improve and start moving up in rank...who knows.

So it's not like the changes are going to affect my Arena rankings one iota or anything.

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Who worries about damage on trash mobs?

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

Depends on the Hunter. I do 2v3 sometimes with just a Hunter and we tear shit up. Granted, he's no ordinary hunter, but still...