heel

Damage is not that much of an issue for us on Patchwerk - we never see the enrage. Healing, on the other hand, is at a premium. We use a only single HS tank, so if either of the two warriors taking hits happens to die, it's an immediate wipe. As a result, it's important that healing be stacked on the those two tanks as much as possible. Being in the tank group allows me to put out 400hp/s in healing, which is only a little bit worse than I currently put out as Holy.

 

◊ Bekah

Loatheb will be hilariously fun with a shadow priest after Tuesday. Currently you can justify your spot being dps if you're good by having 30 full seconds of VE by weaving in and out your VE every 30 seconds. You have to have pretty precise timing to get the most out of it though because it's a curse and is dispelled.

After the patch it's a magic effect. 1 full min of VE to go with one full min of the healing debuff that you get for casting it. Effectivly you've doubled the hps output the shadow priest is capable of while losing nothing in return. At 300dps, that's a 5400 hp return over 60 seconds. At 600dps (much more likely for a fully kitted out shadow priest) that's 10800. That's pretty much a guaranteed #1 in effective healing.

 

◊ Bury

Mindflay doesn't crit, sadly, which would make Loatheb a poor comparison IMO. Mages and Warlocks would own face critting 50% more, and spriests obviously can't spam mind blast. mb dpm is worse than mf dpm as well.

Thaddius may actually be a reasonable fight, since improved VE would shine healing the lightning bolts. My guild still has people spam regular Nature protection pots, and when people die, we get a beserk thaddius, so the damage+healing would certainly be useful.

In addition, you might be able to VE heal the people on the other side of thaddius more effectively than a prayer of healing. This is untested, obviously, but anecdotally in beta, if the whole group has taken ~1500 damage, i've been able to use VE to heal the group up in a more effective fashion than unshadowforming and POHing. i'm thinking of the first boss in mechanaar (the big robot), the second boss in ramparts (the demon), and the last boss of shadow labs (murmur) if anyone from beta is playing along from home.

Stochastic, Priest | Berkeley, Shaman | a few other 70s on Argent Dawn & Tichondrius

 

◊ Bury

The priests in my guild have run a shadow priest rotation for a while, letting one priest spec shadow, changing once a month.

Some quick thoughts about spriest viability in Naxx fights, with the assumption that VT/VE debuffs are possible. suggestions/corrections appreciated.



-Anub'rekhan: excellent dps on adds, VE healing would be useful on melee who happen to get cleaved and are thus taking constant amounts of small damage. Not so great on Anub'rekhan, since at 24 yards you're vulnerable to impale and can't DPS during locust swarm unlike, say, a fire mage.
-Faerlina: decent opportunity to dps, but with the -resist talent you're taking, you might be better off MCing an add and using that to your advantage, and then free up the disc/holy priests to heal rain of fire/enrage spike damage.
-Maexxna: good opportunity to dps, and imp ve would be great to heal the group up after a web wrap occurs. dps would be particularly valuable during the 30% enrage.

-Patchwerk: as someone else mentioned earlier, my guild wipes on Patchwerk because of a healing deficit, not due to lack of dps. we've had several farming run wipes above 50%, so mana wasn't the problem either. since healing is the limiting constraint for us, i would not replace a healing priest with a priest who is going shadowform. but it's possible that if we ask a mage to sit and give the spot to a spriest, with 4 warlocks, it might be more useful. VT+VE should ensure that warlocks are able to work with a lot more mana to dps.
-Grobbulus: seems like a decent opportunity to dps, but I've never tried standing within 24 yards of him. I assume it's not a problem, though you'll have to reposition yourself a lot more than the mage/warlock and thus lose some dps. imp ve healing would be great vs. slimes.
-Gluth: again, seems like a decent opportunity to dps, but at 24 yards I think you'll be vulnerable to fears. would be useful for post-decimate healing, but i wonder if you'd pull zombie agro.
-Thaddius: I think a spriest could do really well here. The damage buff from Thaddius will increase your damage, while simultaneously increasing your healing output (since VE is a % of damage). In theory, you could be really good at healing people through chain lightning, an effect that we seem to lose people to all the time.

-Noth: I view noth as basically a dps zerg that isn't very healing intensive. this is probably the safest fight to ask a spriest to go shadow for these reasons.
-Gothik: spriest should heal AOErs in the trash beforehand, maybe dps the plague beasts in non shadowform. for the actual boss, I'm not sure if a spriest can effectively dps Gothik from 24 yards without taking the disease damage. If they can, great, if not, then it's a dealbreaker. Silence would be useful for eyestalks, as would the shadow word death spell that we don't have until L62 :P
-Loatheb: spriests would do particularly well here in theory. with a trinket like zhc, an spriest can pop off a nice heal when it's their turn and then use that trinket effect to dot up and dps. in addition, 8pc transcendence ghealing MAY be more useful post patch, with the changes in HoT stacking. VE healing would seem particularly useful, and not subject to cooldown limitations via corrupted mind. VT on mages seems quite effective too.

-Razuvious: should have the spriests MC with shadow focus, imo. dps is obviously viable, but is by no means needed.
-Gothik: My guild hasn't beat Gothik, but it seems like there is a lot of standing around for healing priests live side. perhaps spriests can be more useful there by providing dps on riders/deathknights. unfortunately shackle undead is in the disc tree, so shadow focus doesn't really help.
-4H: My guild hasn't attempted 4H. I anticipate that tank death will be the most prominent issue, though, and we'll ask the priests to spec disc/holy to learn the fight.

Stochastic, Priest | Berkeley, Shaman | a few other 70s on Argent Dawn & Tichondrius

 

◊ Bekah

-Anub'rekhan: excellent dps on adds, VE healing would be useful on melee who happen to get cleaved and are thus taking constant amounts of small damage. Not so great on Anub'rekhan, since at 24 yards you're vulnerable to impale and can't DPS during locust swarm unlike, say, a fire mage.

I rarely dps on this fight for the limitations mentioned, even with excessive healers in the raid. That said, I probably could dps without harming the raid at all, and if we were constrained by any of the three, it would make the decision easier. (Constrained by mana or dps? I should be shadow. Constrained by healing- I should be healing). This fight isn't limited by healing/dps/mana constraints for my guild atm, which leaves the min/maxing at the door pretty much. I usually impale heal since I'm pretty good at it (It's always been my job)

-Faerlina: decent opportunity to dps, but with the -resist talent you're taking, you might be better off MCing an add and using that to your advantage, and then free up the disc/holy priests to heal rain of fire/enrage spike damage.

Our shadow priests always MC the add, healing the person who brings the first add to them (usually a paladin) MCing, then either DPSing or healing between MCs depending on what the raid needs in terms of DPS or healing. Can't use SW:P or Renew due to +threat over time generation which is more likely to break the MC, so whatever you do is kinda limited. I prefer to DPS/top off the warlocks with VE. With the interrupted time frame and +threat over time constraint you get more healing "punch" out of a healer who's not MCing or a DPSer who's not MCing. In an effort to min max towards one of our constraints of the fight (healing) we keep the healers doing what they do best. =) DPS about 50% of the time, low healer reqs.

-Maexxna: good opportunity to dps, and imp ve would be great to heal the group up after a web wrap occurs. dps would be particularly valuable during the 30% enrage.

VE on web wrap is most excellent. When I do dps this fight, I'm in with the warlocks who are assigned to the wall (although I dps on Maexx), so there's limited synergy outside of me giving them hp. That said, I still do a pretty solid healing job and add in decent dps. I dps on this fight about 25% of the time- otherwise I just heal the MT or the walls because we're shy healers. if I'm healinging the walls they are abandoned at 30% so I usually turn back to dpsing Maexx for the enrage.

-Patchwerk: as someone else mentioned earlier, my guild wipes on Patchwerk because of a healing deficit, not due to lack of dps. we've had several farming run wipes above 50%, so mana wasn't the problem either. since healing is the limiting constraint for us, i would not replace a healing priest with a priest who is going shadowform. but it's possible that if we ask a mage to sit and give the spot to a spriest, with 4 warlocks, it might be more useful. VT+VE should ensure that warlocks are able to work with a lot more mana to dps.

Will be better at 2.0, will still be dicey though. This is an incredibly healer centric fight. If you have the numbers to trade out folks and stack the raid with one spare priest for dpsing, that'll probably be an excellent option. If you can't stack raids intentionally (my guild has 45 raiders. We raid with whatever shows up.) then you either heal or dps depending on what's needed.

-Grobbulus: seems like a decent opportunity to dps, but I've never tried standing within 24 yards of him. I assume it's not a problem, though you'll have to reposition yourself a lot more than the mage/warlock and thus lose some dps. imp ve healing would be great vs. slimes.

Positioning is annoying but not a serious problem, once you've figured out the sweet spot you can simply stand slightly closer and rotate so your MFing in a cone over time rather than a rectangle. This fight isn't limited by any constraints and I DPS 75+% of the time. We rarely assign more than 12-13 healers having all the spares from Patchwerk dps. It's usually me, another priest, and the moonkin having fun =)

-Gluth: again, seems like a decent opportunity to dps, but at 24 yards I think you'll be vulnerable to fears. would be useful for post-decimate healing, but i wonder if you'd pull zombie agro.

I get zombie aggro aaaall the time, but we've managed to work out a consecrate circle oblong enough to get me at the front of the group and I can heal back from 1-2 hits really quickly. I usually end the fight with anywhere from 2-3 zombie debuffs (more that have faded over time) and die about a third of the time. =/ that said, I'm great for healing up groups after decimate. I'm pretty much DPSing all the time on this fight atm unless we come up drastically short on healers for some reason.

-Thaddius: I think a spriest could do really well here. The damage buff from Thaddius will increase your damage, while simultaneously increasing your healing output (since VE is a % of damage). In theory, you could be really good at healing people through chain lightning, an effect that we seem to lose people to all the time.

No one in my group ever has to consider nature pots or nr gear. I was the #2 effective healer (and #1 pure healer by a LONG run) and higher than some pure dps classes in damage. I always dps Thaddius. 1-2 shadow priests are very very solid on Thaddius. Actually... 8 shadow priests would probably be most excellent on thaddius... >.>

-Noth: I view noth as basically a dps zerg that isn't very healing intensive. This is probably the safest fight to ask a spriest to go shadow for these reasons.

DPS constrained, I usually dps. Solid top 15 turn out- with the mages and druids occupied decursing it's good to be dps. I rarely heal on this fight anymore unless we've got an abnormally low number of priests handy. Slap me in a warlock group and they'll have pretty much unlimited mana for dotting up all the adds with tons of dots. (which is all they do- run around putting stacks and stacks of dots up) At blinks I weave rank 1 SW:P on a random warlock dotted up add and watch it's hp drop like a rock before I go back to Noth.

-Loatheb: spriests would do particularly well here in theory. with a trinket like zhc, an spriest can pop off a nice heal when it's their turn and then use that trinket effect to dot up and dps. in addition, 8pc transcendence ghealing MAY be more useful post patch, with the changes in HoT stacking. VE healing would seem particularly useful, and not subject to cooldown limitations via corrupted mind. VT on mages seems quite effective too.

VE is limited by corrupted mind. always has been, always will be. That said, today it is removed every 30 seconds by the decurse. Tomorrow it will last the full duration as a magic effect. You're a fool if you have them drop shadow form to toss out a heal. We can do many times more healing if we're free to VE and never drop shadow form. Unless a gheal priest can turn out the equivilant of a 10,000hp hot over the 60 seconds of thier debuff, you're probably better off with thh shadow priest assuming you can fit them in an appropriate group.

-Razuvious: should have the spriests MC with shadow focus, imo. dps is obviously viable, but is by no means needed.

Pretty much yeah. I've dps'd in this fight while we were teaching the other priests the MC, but I'm on MC 90% of the time.

Never been to Gothic or 4hm, so I can't comment on those. =)

 

◊ Bury

Thanks for taking the time to write a detailed writeup Bekah. In your experience, how often do you find VE being pushed off, and what do you expect the debuff situation to look like post-patch with VT/VE?

Stochastic, Priest | Berkeley, Shaman | a few other 70s on Argent Dawn & Tichondrius

 

• Snowy

At least for Anub, you can just DPS the crypt guard hard each cycle, then put a dot up on Anub and maybe toss in a MB or two if mana permits.

Not Naxx, but one of the fights I particularly enjoyed DPS'ing was Ouro. Visc in theory VE should do very well too, but you have to be a bit careful after each reformation about pulling aggro via DPS + VE healing.

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Gryn(AD EU)

Vampiric embrace has a high priority, so almost never gets bumped off. Shadow word:pain in my raid gets bumped off very fast. I am around the same progression as bekah and i can agree on his points.

in the patch we get 40 debuff slots, so i hope VT and SW:P can stick on longer.

Gryn: http://ctprofiles.net/194916

 

• Snowy

VE almost never gets knocked off. SW:P on the other hand does, and I usually avoid using it in most cases since the effective damage to mana ratio turns out to be very poor. All depends on the boss.

edit: Beaten to it.

P.S. Certainly 40 debuff slots is going to be a boon for dots, that means us!

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• Chicken

Umm... Could you go into more detail about this? First time I've heard something like it.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

◊ Bekah

Virtually never in my experience, it has one of the highest priorities of any debuff I've ever seen. (as in I can't recall one time that it's ever been pushed off for me, but I acknowledge that it may technically be possible).

I take VE, VT, Misery, Weaving, SW:P, MF for debuffs. Each shadow priest shares misery and weaving stacks, and mindflay has a super low priority, and can occur without a visible debuff at all. (IE it won't push other people's junk off, everything pushes it off but it doesn't actually stop damaging. If you've got open debuff slots for showing, however, it will show the slow icon).

So 3-4 personal debuff slots + 2 shared debuffs. (so 1 SP would have 5-6 debuffs, 2 would have 8-10, etc depending on whether you count mindflay).

Aff warlocks are chewing up 5-6 ea + assorted random debuffs from other classes NO STINGS. HANDS OFF MY DEBUFFS HUNTERS.

Should be fine for raiding assuming you're not using stupid debuffs and the non warlock/priests are careful. We have 5 warlocks usually and if all specced heavy aff that'd be 25 + 2 shadow priests would be 32- which leaves just 8- HOWEVER atm each warlock has thier own curse (5) + 2 shadow priests for us (5) = only 6 debuffs left for the other classes. Warlocks aren't being stacked by most raids atm though so it's probably not as big of a concern if, say, you only have 2 warlocks on each raid. Essentially it's very flexible. 40 feels about right since I'm not expecting the warlocks to all go dot heavy (got at least one planning to try out destro) and 2 shadow priests is somewhat more rare.

 

◊ Bekah

As I understand it (and I could be wrong) if you do something to increase your threat while you are mind controlling a mob, the chance of breaking it increases. Say a shadow word pain tic that you cast 5 seconds earlier causes 200 threat while you're MCing, from what I understand that would increase the chance for your MC to break.

Edit:
HER HER I'm a HER! >.>

 

Crepusculu

I'm not too sure about that. I respecced shadow for fun to do a clear of AQ40 clear after killing KT, and I was noticing my mind flays would simply cancel. We came down to Fankriss and I positioned myself such that nothing would nothing would interrupt my casting, but I still had interruption. I highly suspect that the raid's constant stream of debuffs was pushing mind flay off and effectively gimping my half a flay average (which probably was bumping off dots itself, so I cannot say I was really "adding" to dps, but rather "replacing" one for another), leaving me with mind blast.


Since I'm speaking about shadow anyways, might as well let it all out.

My biggest problem with shadow is that its designed around catering your raid to suit the priest and damage multipliers -- oh yes, and expecting to having them all up at the same time, which is unrealistic.

1) VE is a slow stream, whereas most damage is received in bursts. You won't see me casting renew on people after taking a blow-- I'm flashing. Thusly, you aren't really a backup healer using VE, nor are you productive when the other healers heal your party members to full. Either you have warlocks get into your group for lifetapping (meaning tanks cannot get imps), or you force all your other healers to not cross heal your group (and risk losing your members). In both sensing, to make the shadow priest viable in healing means you have to limit others in the raid. I don't find that acceptable. Shadow priests should NOT have to push everyone aside for their special place in raids.

2) Debuff count. Either you are pushing off someone elses', or they are pushing off yours. It you are at the point of fighting over debuff slots, you can probably just drop one of the raid members and it won't affect the raid at all because all the debuff slots are being utilized anyways. I mean, you would have to tell the mages to all spec either frost or fire, hunters aren't allow stings, warlocks are not allow to allow any dots, and druids cannot use theirs either. Now you've clear space for your space in the playpen. Luckily the 40 debuffes fixes this.

3) The multipliers--- I don't know where to start. First off, due to the multipliers, you cannot go halfway down the shadow tree. You simply cannot to *begin* competing in useful dps because shadow damage is designed around having them all. Not only does this greatly limit talent choices, since all the multipliers are so far down in the shadow tree, but in actually game play, not all your multipliers are working. Trash packs are my least favorite - You have ~5 mobs, which you can dot them all, however its likely most of them will have 1 weaving stack, no curse of shadows, and each of these dots is likely to *not* have any VE or VT benefit. Well, there goes half of your functions on a multi-target fight. Yes, dotting up everyone gets decent dps, but by design its not helping focus fire (just your meters). When you do decide to help with the focus and utilize your leeching abilities, you'll find that you aren't really fighting the mobs, you are fighting your global cooldown timer. Pain, VT, VE, MB, Fl---- dead mob. As such, you have to drop the pain since it's hardly effective because the mob dies before half its duration, but still you have VT, VE, MB, and flay -- and you have 3 weaving + half of the VT duration used and that it. Now you are retargetting fighting that GCD for the next mob just to setup your debuffs.
Then of course, if you want to have that healing option, you are out of shadowform, doing mild dps. And I know some of you will respond like "You cannot expect to heal and dps well at the same time", well my friend, you should have a look-see into holy where it doesn't depend on self-limiting forms or stacking debuffs, and you can readily switch between nukes and heals-- something I practice on loatheb everyweek. Granted dps holy fails as mana becomes the issue. Perhaps sustained dps is the sacrifice.


Sigh @ raiding shadow dps and utility

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krucifix85

Quick response:
1) VE's slow stream is extremely useful on the above mentioned fights (Loatheb, Thaddius, Noth, Anub, even on the MT on Patchwerk). Sure you wouldn't use it as OT1 healing on Patchwerk, but it will effectively free up another healer off the MT, allowing another healer on to OT1.

2) Your Hunters use Stings? Your non-Balance Druids use Moonfire? VE, Flay, SW, SWP are your debuffs. The warlocks won't mind not being able to Siphon Life (your VE heal does that) and all they will be using is Curse + Corruption (Possibly adding Immolate if deep Destro, but unlikely).

3) Yes, the Shadow Priest needs to invest deep in the tree to get any decent DPS rewards.

But complaining on trash that dies <15secs about a 24second DoT not lasting on the mob for the whole duration? Cmon...
If the mob will die in that time, that's why you have Mind Blast. DoT the offtanked mobs, and lay into the the tanked mob (use fade, priests have it for a reason).
-OR-
You can go the selfish but higher DPS route, of SWP all the offtanked mobs, then rotating Flays and Mindblasts on them all, for reduced aggro, and increased Shadow Weaving applications on each mob.
Obviously be smart about your MBlast usage, but that's a given (and not applicable come tomorrow).

http://ctprofiles.net/13134

 

Crepusculu

I should have more stated that VE is a healer that cannot counter burst damage, which is what tends to kill most people in raids, and that is what I'm most concerned. All of those fights VE works, but the only true advantage is seen in thaddius and the upcoming loatheb, whereas the others operate well because the damage is predictable-- which is easy to handle in any spec. The problem is fitting it into fights where damage is more random.

1 sunders
2 demoralizing shout
3 coe
4 cos
5 shadow v.
6 imp scorch
7 ignite
8 winter's chill
9 mark
10 jow
11 joh
12 faery fire ?
13 cor
14+ deep wounds, fire ball dots, serpent stings, moonfires, siphon life, corruptions, insect swarms, tier bonus procs, thunderfury, thunderclap, etc etc

insert whatever you perfer, it always maxes out. We had some problem during loatheb due to ignites being pushed off, and that was without adding the 3-4 more a shadow priest would bring. We aren't a military raiding guild, so telling people they cannot play their class to make room for a shadow build isn't an option.


true, although the mages could say they want to AE to max their dps as well, and the warriors would want to whirl wind... and by that attitude you lose the divide and conquer focus fire because everyone is playing the meters game = /


But points taken

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◊ Bekah

You seem very sure of the mechanics of MF being different than dozens of other priests would report back based on a respec on a lark. I can assure you that mindflay does not normally cut off in mid stream, nor is the debuff required to be visable, nor is it pushed off in my experience. I've spent many many weeks/months raiding as a shadow priest at the Naxx level- please allow me to reassure you that I'm not making this up =)

1) Never claimed that shadow priests were a healer alternative in any but a very select number of fights. Thaddius/Loatheb being the prime examples. While some shadow priests will claim that they've done simply amazing things involving singlehandedly keeping a raid alive while in shadowform- I, frankly, don't have anything to prove. ^.^ I get to play my way regardless. No, we're not dark healers. We can, however, lessen the necessity for splash healing in many cases (trash especially- although some trash is inherently unsuited to single target dps. Ask your rogues!) which can take strain off your pure healers. Put us in shadowform and we're dps.

Renew is considered an exceptionally useful spell. It's pretty mana efficient, and it's instant cast allowing the healer to manage other members more critical damage. It's exceptionally useful (as an example) on that abom trash with long timered cleaves, slimes with small recurring damage components, gargoyles with acid spit, and generally anything that will generally reduce the health slowly and steadily of a certain segment of your raids population.

Anywhere that renew is useful- you can find a use for vampiric embrace.

Second part. The raid is not compromised by a shadow priest with a good group maker- it is complimented. Not all of the warlocks need to be in the same group. Perhaps some rogues would be better off with the VE. There are many places to stick a shadow priest. Not all are quite as theoretically ideal as others, but the usefulness of it comes down to this question- are you getting enough out of that raid set up to justify the shadow priest dpsing? Our dps isn't limited by our group benefits- if no one needs splash healing on a fight and all my VE goes to waste it's hurt nothing. If a fight can't utilize a mage using every last one of thier mana gems + evocation or a druid can't utilize every innervate immediatly- there is opportunity lost, but no inherent harm. =P

Our viability is not a function of our strength as a healer in shadowform. You can't look at it and judge it wanting only because we are not strong healers in a specific situation. Mages certainly aren't viable aoe'ers in every situation. If you need a burst healer- by god tell them to drop out of shadowform and heal. =P

2) Less than 24 hours until this point is pretty much irrelevant. No, moonfire, and stings will never have a place on the mob. Until a hunter can put out 150 m/5 to a party of 5 with one of thier stings or a moonfire is capable of producing as much damage over time as a shadow word pain- those debuffs will be relegated where they belong- the trash heap. It's all a matter of priorities though. 5% caster dps to the raid? or 30 extra dps to the hunter? Hrm, choices choices choices. Assuming your shadow priest is appropriately geared for the encounter, we have some of the strongest debuffs in the game- up there easily with warlocks.

3) No, there's no halfway for shadow preist. there never has been and I believe that is a very intentional design from Blizzard. You cannot have your cake and eat it too as a shadow priest- that's for the holy smiter. We cannot reasonably climb the holy tree and still be viable in shadow dps. At least 31-41 of our talent points are required to be in talents that will never touch our healing in any way. For that sacrifice we gain massive increases in our dpm, sustainability, and the offerings we can make towards raid damage and survivability as a whole. We are, essentially, our own class. We can behave like holy or disciple priests with proper gearing, but we go into shadow form and we sacrifice everything but dps.

AS far as your points towards our viability across a wide spectrum? Consider your points from the vantage point of a warlock... a mage... a rogue... a hunter. There will always be times when a class cannot be used to the fullness of it's strengths. 5-10 trash mobs with medium to low hp? Even your rogues are limited in thier usefulness- they can't build up 5 combo points (or whatever they do there) mages can't stack up 5 fire vulnerability- warlocks can't get full benefit out of their dots. Sometimes when the trash is numerous enough and low hp enough to make casting frostbolts/firebolts at it ridiculous the raid leader calls for them to aoe. It's a different mode of damage dealing and to do it you make all of those talents you spent making your bolt of choice strong go to waste. Why is it any different to have a priest come out and heal when the trash isn't suited for them than it is to have a mage start to aoe? We all bow to the limitations of our classes in different ways.

Usually when I'm called out of shadowform to heal, I skip the dps gear and, you know, heal. With 4/9 faith and my other solid accessories. If the trash isn't suited for my dps or we need my healing- why am I bothering to do it halfassed? So I can get a little higher on the dps charts and prove my worth? The raid's success matters far more to me than my personal score on the dps charts =P

As far as the holy smiter being able to do everything and more? The strengths of holy dps is also its weakness. Burst damage with no efficiency- not sustainable for any serious length of time. Flexibility to heal and dps at the same time swapping with no cost, but lacking in both compared to a pure healing spec or a pure shadow spec.

Open your mind to the possibilities, it doesn't sound like you've had experience with an excellent (knowledgeable, geared, experienced) shadow priest.

 

Vytae