[Shadow Priest] How to make us scale ? - Page 12

tedv · 05/06/08, 4:35 PM

Originally Posted by Redcape

The idea is not to reduce overall damage but to make shadowpriests care about more stats so they can scale more usefully.

Remember what increasing critical damage by 100% means: It means you go from a 150% to a 200% critical. I would not suggest a 250% critical because with SWD in particular you would be getting pretty dangerous. The idea here is just to push crit up a notch in desirability and give shadow priests double damage nukes like almost everyone else.

I agree with your intent, but I don't think your suggestion does much. Remember, right now a crit increases damage by 50%. Your change increases damage by 100%, making it twice as good. But right now the basic equivalence is 6 crit rating = 1 spell damage. So your change would just make that 3 crit = 1 spell damage, which isn't remotely enough to consider crit a useful stat.

Even with that fix in mind, a [Runed Tourmaline] (5 spell damage) would be 50% better than a [Gleaming Lionseye] (10 crit = 3.3 spell damage). The simple fact is that both of our spells that can crit have long cooldowns, so crit will only matter once it increases DoT damage.

Zure · 05/06/08, 5:22 PM

I'm not sure if this has been brought up or not, but shadow priest dps rotation in a raid is very similar to their dps rotation in pvp. There aren't really any other classes who face this situation. Mages cannot sit and cast fireballs, hunters cannot spam steady shot, warlocks cannot spam shadow bolts.

Further shadow priests' optimal raid dps build is substantially similar to their optimal pvp build. Again, most mages are not fire in pvp and mages of all builds usually opt for more points in a secondary school than would be required for simply raiding. Hunters cannot generally spec BM. Warlocks cannot generally spec destro.

In other words, it is very difficult to put a scaling fix in place for raid damage without overtuning shadow priest pvp damage. While shadow priests do have their share of pvp problems, it seems pretty obvious to me that increasing their damage output is not a great way of fixing them. So in my very humble opinion, the solution to shadow priest scaling must be something that keeps pvp in mind, as it is very important to the development team.

Given that shadow priests scaling begins to collapse about the time that they become mana sustainable, a high mana cost spell with good scaling and poor pvp usability, along with a small reduction in the mana cost of all other spells (thus solving a persistent pvp problem of severe mana limitation) to partially compensate for the cost of the spell would go a long way to helping them.

E.g., 600 mana, 3 second cast, deals 600 to 700 shadow damage. This spell receives double the benefit from all +shadow damage debuffs on the target. This would allow pve spriests to replace their worst scaling spell, mind flay, with their best scaling spell and would create a spell that generally would not be worth the damage in pvp, due to the general lack of CoS worse Weaving uptime, and lower spell damage on pvp gear relative to its pve equivalent. You could even tack on a +3/6/10% damage talent in shadow affinity for better scaling in a talent that probably would not be worth the points for pvp.

Since WotLK is right around the corner, this is of course not going to happen, but let's just hope that they give some thought to class/spec scaling with gear in the xpac.

Iluminati · 05/06/08, 5:25 PM

Originally Posted by tedv

I agree with your intent, but I don't think your suggestion does much. Remember, right now a crit increases damage by 50%. Your change increases damage by 100%, making it twice as good. But right now the basic equivalence is 6 crit rating = 1 spell damage. So your change would just make that 3 crit = 1 spell damage, which isn't remotely enough to consider crit a useful stat.

Even with that fix in mind, a [Runed Tourmaline] (5 spell damage) would be 50% better than a [Gleaming Lionseye] (10 crit = 3.3 spell damage). The simple fact is that both of our spells that can crit have long cooldowns, so crit will only matter once it increases DoT damage.

Crit on mindflay, not dots.

Kalman · 05/06/08, 5:51 PM

Originally Posted by Redcape

Try reading the post before hitting your respond key.

I suggest buffing priest spells baseline so they do more damage (or get a better % of spelldamage, or whatever) to compensate. The point is to make spellhit MATTER for shadowpriests so they can get actual upgrades like other casters and stop gemming hit and slowly gem in more damage as their hit from base gear gets higher. The idea is not to reduce overall damage but to make shadowpriests care about more stats so they can scale more usefully.

Remember what increasing critical damage by 100% means: It means you go from a 150% to a 200% critical. I would not suggest a 250% critical because with SWD in particular you would be getting pretty dangerous. The idea here is just to push crit up a notch in desirability and give shadow priests double damage nukes like almost everyone else.

I read your post. It was completely incorrect because it assumed that people are balanced from zero. Casters are balanced around the *assumption* of capped hit. As such, losing the hit talent would simply require us to spend more "base" points to reach the initial scaling assumptions than we currently do; it has no affect on the design of scaling. We might as well ask for more scaling from another stat rather than ask to lose our hit talent, as the end result of losing our hit talent would be the same scaling unless design wants us to scale better.

To put it simply: because hit caps, casters are designed around the assumption of being at capped hit. Unless the design goals change (i.e. if they want shadow to scale better), losing hit just fucks us over. If the design goals change, they can be changed to reflect the hit talent being present just as easily, so there's no reason to believe losing it would improve our sitation.

Rampant fucking stupidity ITT.

manly · 05/06/08, 6:52 PM

Originally Posted by Atemporal

Sigh. I didn't want to waste my time, that does not mean I was incapable of linking them.

2836. Now can we get back to the part of the discussion where you defend our scaling as being worth it through limited mana regen that's not always put to full use?

45% shadowbolt crit rate.
8 drums.
Moonkin aura.
COD.
2 pets, which means possibly Summon Infernal -> Enslave Demon -> gain free 200 dps.

No, this is not a standard case by any means.

Amonra · 05/07/08, 8:23 AM

Originally Posted by Kalman

I read your post. It was completely incorrect because it assumed that people are balanced from zero. Casters are balanced around the *assumption* of capped hit. As such, losing the hit talent would simply require us to spend more "base" points to reach the initial scaling assumptions than we currently do; it has no affect on the design of scaling. We might as well ask for more scaling from another stat rather than ask to lose our hit talent, as the end result of losing our hit talent would be the same scaling unless design wants us to scale better.

To put it simply: because hit caps, casters are designed around the assumption of being at capped hit. Unless the design goals change (i.e. if they want shadow to scale better), losing hit just fucks us over. If the design goals change, they can be changed to reflect the hit talent being present just as easily, so there's no reason to believe losing it would improve our sitation.

Rampant fucking stupidity ITT.

I don't entirely agree with you.

Let's look back to the T6 level (by this I mean Hyjal/BT, not the new Sunwell T6) and assume that shadowpriests are overpowered at the Kara level and about right at T6 level. You may disagree with this assumption, but let's assume for a moment that it is correct.

At the T6 level, there is lots of +hit on gear such that shadowpriests are likely to be some way beyond the cap (with full shadow focus). At the Kara level there isn't nearly so much +hit so there is a modest amount of work to just reach the cap (even with full Shadow Focus). Essentially, the general trend behind this is that as gear gets better, it has more +hit on it. That said, Sunwell has confused the issue a bit because a lot of +hit has disappeared from gear

Removing, or scaling back, the Shadow Focus talent would therefore have a greater reduction to Kara level damage than T6 level damage and would help to ensure that shadowpriests scale better with gear.

Given that removing/reducing Shadow Focus would be a nerf to both Kara and T6 gear levels (bigger nerf to Kara) it would need to be compensated by some kind of flat adjustment to both levels (perhaps a modest increase in the Darkness talent). But overall, it would help shadowpriests to scale better as +hit would become a useful stat.

Talander · 05/07/08, 9:21 AM

Sorry, but no.
Shadowpriests are different from other casters, as we absolutely need to be hitcapped. A mage who gets his fireball resisted just lost x damage. A shadowpriest having a spell resisted loses x damage and x*0.05 mana - having to reapply SW:P alone costs us 575 Mana - of which we normally get ~2-300 back. Especially starting out this would leave us bleeding for mana - shadowpriests simply have to be hitcapped at all times and thus the flexibility of Shadow focus is pretty much needed.
The overabundance of T6 isn't the "standard" - it's just coincidence that on the T6 level many items that were good for shadowpriests (due to high +dmg) had a lot of hit on it, so your assumption is somewhat flawed.

Regarding the "give items to other casters first":
Luckily we don't have that much competition on some of our items in sunwell -
- Reign of Misery, Heart of the Pit, Pantaloons of Growing Strife are pretty much SPriest only;
- T6 depends on your token distribution
- Wand is from Trash, so should be doable
- Sunfire Robe is from Trash as well, although with a horrible droprate :/
- the jewelcrafted ring is pretty low priority until you have most of the other drops and need the +spell hit
- Shoulders and Neck of Twins are about the only bossdrops you have to "fight" for before Kil'Jaeden
and once you kill him, the item priorities shouldn't be that important anymore.

So while I agree that the situation is somewhat disappointing, for Sunwell atleast we should be fine (itemwise) and then there's WotLK, where most things are going to change anyways.

Kalman · 05/07/08, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by Amonra

I don't entirely agree with you.

Let's look back to the T6 level (by this I mean Hyjal/BT, not the new Sunwell T6) and assume that shadowpriests are overpowered at the Kara level and about right at T6 level. You may disagree with this assumption, but let's assume for a moment that it is correct.

At the T6 level, there is lots of +hit on gear such that shadowpriests are likely to be some way beyond the cap (with full shadow focus). At the Kara level there isn't nearly so much +hit so there is a modest amount of work to just reach the cap (even with full Shadow Focus). Essentially, the general trend behind this is that as gear gets better, it has more +hit on it. That said, Sunwell has confused the issue a bit because a lot of +hit has disappeared from gear

Removing, or scaling back, the Shadow Focus talent would therefore have a greater reduction to Kara level damage than T6 level damage and would help to ensure that shadowpriests scale better with gear.

Given that removing/reducing Shadow Focus would be a nerf to both Kara and T6 gear levels (bigger nerf to Kara) it would need to be compensated by some kind of flat adjustment to both levels (perhaps a modest increase in the Darkness talent). But overall, it would help shadowpriests to scale better as +hit would become a useful stat.

No.

It wouldn't.

Again, the assumption is that casters are hitcapped, and scaling is based off of this, because you *can't* scale based on hit, since there is a finite, reachable, and required cap in play. Again, advocate for other methods of scaling, sure. Leave hit alone. It's not a scaling method we want, because it isn't actually scaling, it's just an additional base requirement.

(The additional issue with scaling off of hit is how badly we get hurt by resists due to our mana mechanics.)

Pheus · 05/07/08, 1:51 PM

Originally Posted by rooj

but that's the problem. The issue isnt' that i can't get a raid spot, the issue is that i can get a raid spot with inferior gear. I honestly don't think VT scaling in the future is an issue... but it can be. If as you say my utility is so high regardless of whether i am at 60% or 80% of a mage's dps, than why in the world would i need to get any sunwell gear outside of maybe a few trash drops. Why waste tier tokens and top end slot items? A SP with just VT and Hyjal gear, and perhaps a new trash wand, and maybe a crafted hands could do the "job" so to speak, and there is no reason to deprive the mage from the extra dmg that scales so much beter.

I think it would be a pretty hard struggle to get someone to consistently show up to raids with no hope of gear progression apart from leftovers at lowest priority. As long as there are people playing the shadow priests and not computers, you will have to give them a reason to show up to raids, and gear (character progression) I think is a fairly important one for alot of people.

tedv · 05/07/08, 3:08 PM

Originally Posted by rooj

but that's the problem. The issue isnt' that i can't get a raid spot, the issue is that i can get a raid spot with inferior gear. I honestly don't think VT scaling in the future is an issue... but it can be. If as you say my utility is so high regardless of whether i am at 60% or 80% of a mage's dps, than why in the world would i need to get any sunwell gear outside of maybe a few trash drops. Why waste tier tokens and top end slot items? A SP with just VT and Hyjal gear, and perhaps a new trash wand, and maybe a crafted hands could do the "job" so to speak, and there is no reason to deprive the mage from the extra dmg that scales so much beter.

Originally Posted by Pheus

I think it would be a pretty hard struggle to get someone to consistently show up to raids with no hope of gear progression apart from leftovers at lowest priority. As long as there are people playing the shadow priests and not computers, you will have to give them a reason to show up to raids, and gear (character progression) I think is a fairly important one for alot of people.

Additionally, even if extra mana isn't useful (and I disagree-- mana is a huge issue in every progression fight), the health return is immensely important. For example, I hit 1644 DPS on Brutallus last night (as measured by recount, not WWS, so no issues with low presence inflating numbers). I also beat both holy priests on the healing meters by reasonable margin. And it wasn't a stacked group either-- I got 1 bloodlust, no drums, no weird moonkin or Power Infusion. Our casters were averaging 2200 DPS. So for that fight my job was to do 75% the damage of another caster *AND* more than 100% of the healing of a healer. Surely a gear upgrade helps me MORE than a mage, simply because my upgrades increase damage, healing, and mana regen, while a mage's upgrades just increase damage.

Pure casters have damage that scales better with gear than priests, but a shadow priest's healing and mana regen scale WAY better than a mage or warlock with upgrades. These factors are not meaningless. In fact, in many fights they are more important than damage. Remember that most guilds learning Twins bring 10 healers in addition to 2 or 3 shadow priests. Clearly healing matters on that fight.

Morogoth · 05/08/08, 12:14 PM

My guild has only killed Bruttallis, but with Sunwell, shadowpriests have come back into our own again. With the fights as tightly tuned as they are in Sunwell the healing from VE has become something useful again. Raid leaders are actually incorporating into their strategies, instead of this annoying thing that adds to our aggro. I know all of our shadow priests have respec'd into improved VE with Sunwell. Also with the raid healing requirements on a fight like Bruttalis if you have good shadowpriests going with 3 shadowpriests so you can drop an additional healer is a completely viable strategy.

I think where the complaining is comming from is there were a lot of people who re-rolled shadowpriests at the start of TBC because we were along with warlocks at the top of the ranged DPS pyramid. Since that point, all that they see was our damage numbers decrease. It seems to me, in a perfect world, at equal gear levels we would always do 70-80% of the damage of a pure dps class and provide enough utility to make up for that at each gear level. This would mean each classes scaling co-efficient would be the same with all the gear and stats available, it would be the starting point that would be different.

Morthoul · 05/18/08, 2:47 PM

remove please

PiousFlea · 05/18/08, 3:08 PM

IMO, it is likely that Vampiric Touch scaling will be changed sometime in Lich King, and it's because of the level 80 factor. A level 60 nuke is more mana efficient than a level 40 nuke. A level 70 nuke is more mana efficient than a level 60 nuke. I see no reason for this trend to fail at level 80.

The current VT mana regen is fixed at 5%, and this really will become more and more out-of-whack as characters level up. Already the group mana regen from a 70 shadowpriest is an entirely different order of magnitude from mana tide, innervate, or other mana buffs. It will only get more ridiculous with level scaling.

Once VT mana return is dissociated from actual damage dealt, Blizzard can improve shadowpriest DPS without breaking raid mana dynamics.

ThoSenk · 05/21/08, 3:52 AM

I hope this is the right thread to post this, sorry if not:

I read some of the unofficial changes to talents/spells in WotLK and two of the talents sound very interesting in my opinion:

Name: Growing Pains
Description: Converts 20% of your bonus healing into bonus spell damage. In addition, your Mind Flay has a $h% chance to refresh the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain on the target.

Name: Dark Spirit
Description: Increases your Shadow damage by up to 30% of your total Spirit.

It sounds to me like Shadow Priests rolling on healers' gear. Of course all assuming these changes really make it into the final release. What do you think?

Endahl · 05/21/08, 5:57 AM

Originally Posted by PiousFlea

IMO, it is likely that Vampiric Touch scaling will be changed sometime in Lich King

It looks as though Blizzard wants to change the percentage from 5 to 2. From the WotLK F&F alpha DBC. Not sure what to make of the fact that the tooltip uses a human-readable, fixed percentage and the spell description has the percentage only as a placeholder string.

Spell 34914
Name: Vampiric Touch
Description: Causes $o2 Shadow damage over $d to your target and causes all party members to gain mana equal to 2% of any Shadow spell damage you deal.
Description2: Priest's party gains mana equal to $s1% of Shadow spell damage caused by the priest.

There also appears to be a healing priest ability that converts healing done into party mana, which will further reduce dependance on VT if it does go live. It seems we're being given AoE dots and survivability in return.

Other points of interest are that Shadow Power increases crit bonus on MB/SWD by 10% per rank, and Shadow Focus caps out at only 3% hit (3 points, down from 5) while reducing shadow spell costs.

But we all know how much the priest trees changed during TBC development... from Misery being in Disc to VT replacing Shadow Mend. So all this needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt.