From this bluuuue post:
I think Shadow priests will be in a good place. For PvP they got a much-needed tweak to Psychic Horror, but I won't spoil it here.
For PvE, I think the changes will help their scaling in the long run. I suggested in another thread that we might need to make their Shadow spells crit at 200% in order for the Shadowform change to actually be a buff. But we are fully committed to having the dots crit. The game just works better that way.
The Shadow Ulduar 4 piece set bonus is pretty sweet too.
4 piece set bonus!? OH BOY I hope it makes greater heal have an additional 10% chance to crit! Cause seriously, that would be as useful as the Naxx 4 piece set bonus.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound grumpy. I really am liking what I'm reading so far.
Psychic horror... I suck at PvP, this has been established, and maybe it's because I never spec for it. I've never had psychic horror. But for the sake of my fellow shadow priests, I really hope that we become more than a wet paper bag in PvP.
As for the shadowform changes- I am not big on math. I used to be wonderful with numbers and math and equations... anymore, I could care less. So I'm not going to sit here and calculate out the difference between the constant addition to DoT damage based on crit percentage, or the ability to just flat out crit. Instead, I'm gonna just try it out. Once I get my character copied to the PTR, I'll spend 5 minutes with my normal rotation on a target dummy on the live servers, then the same thing on the PTR. And just look at the numbers myself. I'm math saavvy enough to be able to look at two numbers and know which one is bigger than the other.
I'm not gonna QQ too much until I see how things work in practice.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Pain and Suffering
Is it just me, or does the new icon for the Pain and Suffering talent look kind of like a cubicle?
Is Blizz trying to say something here?
Is Blizz trying to say something here?
3.1 WHAT
From MMOChampion:
I am still not sure if this is a nerf or a buff. At first glance, it seems very very buffy- spell that ticks can now crit?! FAAABULOUS
But then.... The old shadow form used to read "Your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch abilities deal increased percentage damage equal to your spell critical strike chance." New 3.1 SF does not have this.
Now, if Shadow Power increased the crit bonus of those three spells in addition to Mind Blast, Mind Flay and SW:D, I think we'd have a real winner.
So I'll have to see which is better, the 25%ish increase in damage from those DoTs, or those DoTs critting 25% of the time.
The change to DP is pretty cool all around I think. It's especially pretty good for PvP where we have little to no front end damage and instead have to rely on the DoTs ticking away, and usually by the time they've ticked enough to do serious damage we have ret pallys and DKs teabagging our lifeless un-shadowy corpses. Not saying that the front-end damage addition to DP is going to prevent said teabagging, but it is a very nice addition, and should be wonderful for DPS in raids as well.
I'm interested to see if that intial damage with DP will be able to crit.... probably, since DP is crittable now. If so, DP is definately back to being combined with Inner Focus. I started using Inner Focus then DP to help conserve mana back at the start of raiding in WotLK. But as my mana regen and INT increased with better gear and I started not having mana issues, I started to use inner focus with Mind Blast, just to get the crit bonus. So now if I can use the 100% mana reduction and make the crit useful on DP, that will be very very nice- and I'll have to not resort to using pots, arcane torrent, or dispersion in the middle of a fight anymore.
Those are my thoughts as of now, and they'll surely change once I come to a few more realizations about the updates- and they'll definately change once 3.1 goes live and I'm playing it.
This will probably be my new build.
- Dispersion (Tier 11) now clears all snare and movement impairing effects when cast, and makes you immune to them while dispersed.
- Shadowform (Tier 7) now gives your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells the ability to critically hit.
- Darkness moved from Tier 6 to Tier 1.
- Silence (Tier 5) range increased to 30 yards. (Previously was 20 yards)
- Vampiric Embrace (Tier 5) now lasts 5 mins. (Previously lasted 1 min)
- Spirit Tap (Tier 1) now increases mana regeneration while casting by 87%. (Previously 50%)
- Improved Spirit Tap (Tier 1) increases mana regeneration while casting by 17/33%. (Previously 10/20%)
- *New Talent* Improved Devouring Plague, Tier 6, 3 point talent - Increases the periodic damage done by your Devouring Plague by 5/10/15%, and when you cast Devouring Plague you instantly deal damage equal to 5/10/15% of its total periodic effect.
I am still not sure if this is a nerf or a buff. At first glance, it seems very very buffy- spell that ticks can now crit?! FAAABULOUS
But then.... The old shadow form used to read "Your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch abilities deal increased percentage damage equal to your spell critical strike chance." New 3.1 SF does not have this.
Now, if Shadow Power increased the crit bonus of those three spells in addition to Mind Blast, Mind Flay and SW:D, I think we'd have a real winner.
So I'll have to see which is better, the 25%ish increase in damage from those DoTs, or those DoTs critting 25% of the time.
The change to DP is pretty cool all around I think. It's especially pretty good for PvP where we have little to no front end damage and instead have to rely on the DoTs ticking away, and usually by the time they've ticked enough to do serious damage we have ret pallys and DKs teabagging our lifeless un-shadowy corpses. Not saying that the front-end damage addition to DP is going to prevent said teabagging, but it is a very nice addition, and should be wonderful for DPS in raids as well.
I'm interested to see if that intial damage with DP will be able to crit.... probably, since DP is crittable now. If so, DP is definately back to being combined with Inner Focus. I started using Inner Focus then DP to help conserve mana back at the start of raiding in WotLK. But as my mana regen and INT increased with better gear and I started not having mana issues, I started to use inner focus with Mind Blast, just to get the crit bonus. So now if I can use the 100% mana reduction and make the crit useful on DP, that will be very very nice- and I'll have to not resort to using pots, arcane torrent, or dispersion in the middle of a fight anymore.
Those are my thoughts as of now, and they'll surely change once I come to a few more realizations about the updates- and they'll definately change once 3.1 goes live and I'm playing it.
This will probably be my new build.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
My gear wishlist
Head:
Hood of Rationality
Chest:
Gown of the Spell-Weaver or Robes of Mutation
Neck:
Cosmic Lights
Wrist:
Bands of Impurity
Trinket:
Illustration of the Dragon Soul
Weapon:
Torch of Holy Fire or Hammer of the Astral Plane
Offhand:
Accursed spine
Hood of Rationality
Chest:
Gown of the Spell-Weaver or Robes of Mutation
Neck:
Cosmic Lights
Wrist:
Bands of Impurity
Trinket:
Illustration of the Dragon Soul
Weapon:
Torch of Holy Fire or Hammer of the Astral Plane
Offhand:
Accursed spine
Friday, February 13, 2009
Oh thank god.
Good news everyone.
The ice stone has melted.
I know you were all worried about it, but it's melted now so we can all relax.
The ice stone has melted.
I know you were all worried about it, but it's melted now so we can all relax.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Topics I want to cover
- The new and improved (as of WotLK, and as of 3.0.9) Inner Fire!
- Threat reduction via shadow affinity, and shadow form
- Shadow form in general
- Love is in the Air!
- WHAT? I have to worry about crit now too?!
- "Mana battery" no more?
- Mana regen- dispersion, arcane torrent (I DO LIKE BEING A BELF SOMETIMES,) shadowfiend, etc.
- Spirit
- Glyphs
- Lore
- i suck at pvp
Shadow Focus and Misery
This may be a bit of a "duh," but spell hit is one of the first stats you should stack at 80. It doesn't matter how hard your spells can hit or how often they crit if they're missing half the time.
Shadow priests get two talents that increase hit:
Misery at rank 3, which increases your chance to hit with spells by 3%, and
Shadow Focus at rank 3, which is another 3%.
Here are the numbers for how much hit you'll need:
Back in Burning Crusade, it was okay to add more hit on your gear then take points out of Shadow Focus to put into other talents. Now that we're in WotLK, it's just dumbtarded to take points out of either of these skills.
Shadow Focus, in addition to the hit, reduces the mana cost of your Shadow spells by 6%. I guess if you've got nearly 400 hit, and like a bazillion mana that you can afford to throw around, feel free to drop Shadow Focus and pick up, I dunno, like Improved Psychic Scream and Silence.
Misery... don't throw this out. Even if you do have the 446 hit (which I don't know WHY you would stack that much hit.) Misery is a debuff that goes on the mob that you're fighting, which not only helps you, but every other caster in the raid. But here's the really great part about Misery: it increases the damage of your Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Mind Sear spells by an amount equal to 15% of your spell power. And what, you hate when your spells hit for a buttload or something?
Because of the wonderful bonuses that come along with the hit of Shadow Focus and Misery, there is really NO point to go for more than the 290 hit cap in order to put points anywhere else.
My guess is that shadow priests in BC were complaining about how Shadow Focus (which used to be,.. what was it, 8%? and that was our hit talent) was kind of useless compared to other talents that we could take to up our DPS, and other casters were complaining that SPriests got SO much free hit just out of talents.
I honestly had no problem with the way it was in BC, it made getting hit capped easier than hearthing. I was OVER hit capped without even trying, which meant I was free to stack as much spell power as humanly possible.
Now, in WotLK, I'm still a few points short of the hit cap, and I'm having a bit of trouble managing to get the hit without sacrificing too much crit or spell power.
Though, I am hitting like a semi-truck now, compared to the motorbike that I was back in BC. So out of BC hit talents vs. WotLK hit talents, I'd take WotLK any day.
Shadow priests get two talents that increase hit:
Misery at rank 3, which increases your chance to hit with spells by 3%, and
Shadow Focus at rank 3, which is another 3%.
Here are the numbers for how much hit you'll need:
- 289.55 hit is the cap with 6 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
- 314.78 hit before you can go to 5 points
- 341.02 hit before you can go to 4 points
- 367.25 hit before you can go to 3 points
- 393.48 hit before you can go to 2 points
- 419.71 hit before you can go to 1 point
- 445.94 hit before you can go to 0 points
Back in Burning Crusade, it was okay to add more hit on your gear then take points out of Shadow Focus to put into other talents. Now that we're in WotLK, it's just dumbtarded to take points out of either of these skills.
Shadow Focus, in addition to the hit, reduces the mana cost of your Shadow spells by 6%. I guess if you've got nearly 400 hit, and like a bazillion mana that you can afford to throw around, feel free to drop Shadow Focus and pick up, I dunno, like Improved Psychic Scream and Silence.
Misery... don't throw this out. Even if you do have the 446 hit (which I don't know WHY you would stack that much hit.) Misery is a debuff that goes on the mob that you're fighting, which not only helps you, but every other caster in the raid. But here's the really great part about Misery: it increases the damage of your Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Mind Sear spells by an amount equal to 15% of your spell power. And what, you hate when your spells hit for a buttload or something?
Because of the wonderful bonuses that come along with the hit of Shadow Focus and Misery, there is really NO point to go for more than the 290 hit cap in order to put points anywhere else.
My guess is that shadow priests in BC were complaining about how Shadow Focus (which used to be,.. what was it, 8%? and that was our hit talent) was kind of useless compared to other talents that we could take to up our DPS, and other casters were complaining that SPriests got SO much free hit just out of talents.
I honestly had no problem with the way it was in BC, it made getting hit capped easier than hearthing. I was OVER hit capped without even trying, which meant I was free to stack as much spell power as humanly possible.
Now, in WotLK, I'm still a few points short of the hit cap, and I'm having a bit of trouble managing to get the hit without sacrificing too much crit or spell power.
Though, I am hitting like a semi-truck now, compared to the motorbike that I was back in BC. So out of BC hit talents vs. WotLK hit talents, I'd take WotLK any day.
Intro
Hello. In real life, I am a fifth year college student, studying communications media. I am currently lacking in the imagination needed to produce a better introduction.
In World of Warcraft, I play a blood elf shadow priest that goes by the name of Tsululu (The "Tsu" in Tsululu is like the "Tsu" in tsunami. So it's best pronounced as if the T wasn't there at all. )
I often times wish that I had picked a troll instead of a blood elf. Though I certainly would miss my arcane torrent if I were a troll. But a troll would be so much more badass.
The server I play on is Farstriders, an RP server with little to no RP ever taking place. Alliance outnumbers Horde about 3 to 1, and their guilds are always higher ranked than ours. This server is absurdly slow at raid progression. Seriously. No one on it killed Illidan until about a month before WotLK came out. And I'm pretty sure that to this day, no one has killed Kil'jaeden on Farstriders. At the end of Burning Crusade, this server was ranked last out of all US servers.
The guild that I am in, Ex Obscurum, is the top ranked Horde guild on this dinky server. We are one of two guilds that has killed 25-man Malygos, and the only Horde guild that has done so.
We started out in February 2008 as a sort of casual raiding guild, to just do Karazhan, ZA, and other such raiding. But thanks to some dedication on part of guild members, (and Blizz nerfing all the health of the raid bosses at the end of BC) we became the only Horde guild on the server to kill Illidan.
In World of Warcraft, I play a blood elf shadow priest that goes by the name of Tsululu (The "Tsu" in Tsululu is like the "Tsu" in tsunami. So it's best pronounced as if the T wasn't there at all. )
I often times wish that I had picked a troll instead of a blood elf. Though I certainly would miss my arcane torrent if I were a troll. But a troll would be so much more badass.
The server I play on is Farstriders, an RP server with little to no RP ever taking place. Alliance outnumbers Horde about 3 to 1, and their guilds are always higher ranked than ours. This server is absurdly slow at raid progression. Seriously. No one on it killed Illidan until about a month before WotLK came out. And I'm pretty sure that to this day, no one has killed Kil'jaeden on Farstriders. At the end of Burning Crusade, this server was ranked last out of all US servers.
The guild that I am in, Ex Obscurum, is the top ranked Horde guild on this dinky server. We are one of two guilds that has killed 25-man Malygos, and the only Horde guild that has done so.
We started out in February 2008 as a sort of casual raiding guild, to just do Karazhan, ZA, and other such raiding. But thanks to some dedication on part of guild members, (and Blizz nerfing all the health of the raid bosses at the end of BC) we became the only Horde guild on the server to kill Illidan.
THIS
This is my World of Warcraft-y blog. More specifically, this is my shadow priest-centric World of Warcraft-y blog.
That will be all for now.
That will be all for now.
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