oh hay thar blog

Yeah, I have lacked in updating.

3.3 is practically here, and that means both shadow priest buffs, and me creaming myself over said buffs.

So here's the poop on our buffs. The list looks short, but the effects will be HUGE.

Improved Devouring Plague: This spell now deals 10/20/30% of its total periodic effect instantly, up from 5/10/15%.

In the long run, this probably won't cause a whole lot more damage in PvE. ImpDP usually ends up being only like 3% of my total damage in a raid boss fight. This seems more like a PvP buff. Shadowpriests are tricky in PvP because our dots can get dispelled and blah blah you know this already. With imp DP doing more frontload damage, it's more non-dispellable, non-periodic damage we can do to an enemy player.
I also see this being a lot more helpful for quick burns- such as switching to an overcharged add on Emalon in VoA, or taking down those floaty frosty orbs on Anub'arak in ToC.

Mind Flay: The range of this ability has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
This means you don't have to use "Glyph of OH GOD I HAVE TO GET CLOSER TO THE BOSS THAN ALL OTHER CASTERS OH GOD OH GOD PLEASE DON'T KILL ME MR. BOSS" So what happens to that glyph? I'll cover that a bit further on in this post. (God I wish I had this back in the BC days. I died so many times on Prince, trying to tip-toe close enough to mind flay)

Shadowform: This talent also now causes Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch to benefit from haste. Both the period length and the duration of these spells will be reduced by haste. In addition, the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of base mana.

Here is where you victory. HASTE. DOESN'T. SUCK. ANYMORE! This has been one of the many scaling problems that really made us the bottom of the DPS barrel. This is what will make us competitive DPS again. One of the only issues that I can see with this is that VT and DP will need to be cast more often. (But there's a glyph change that could help with that. More in the glyph section below.)

Vampiric Embrace: This talent now provides a 30-minute buff that cannot be dispelled, instead of a target debuff and only generates healing for single-target shadow damage spells.

While not absolutely necessary in my eyes, this is very nice addition. I can see it being a bit frustrating in PvP-- after dying, I already start running after being spirit rezzed, cast Fort, spirit, inner fire while running, mount up ASAP, and shift into shadow form while riding off. Adding VE to the list of buffs that I should cast will be annoying at most. But I'm sure I'll like it a lot more once I can just dot up every alliance in sight and watch the ticks heal me up.
In PvE this will be, simply put, awesome. I'm a selfish bastard most of the time. I don't put up VE unless I need to move and all my insta-casts are on CD or the DoT is already on the boss. It's just a GCD that could be better spent by an offensive spell. And it just plain ol' throws off my rotation. Everything, for me right now, just clicks into place. Having to put VE in the mix, it's obnoxious. So having it as a buff that I put on myself before the fight even begins? No more selfish bastard Tsululu.


Okay, now for glyphs:

Glyph of Mind Flay: This glyph now increases the damage done by Mind Flay by 10% when the target is afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain.


This used to just extend the range of Mind Flay. (AKA "Glyph of OH GOD I HAVE TO GET CLOSER TO THE BOSS THAN ALL OTHER CASTERS OH GOD OH GOD PLEASE DON'T KILL ME MR. BOSS") With the change to base Mind Flay, there's no reason for this glyph to do that anymore.
But this glyph now does what Glyph of SW:P used to do. So what's that glyph up to in 3.3?

Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain: The periodic damage ticks of Shadow Word: Pain now restore 1% of the priest's base mana with this glyph.

MANA! Not that spriests really EVER have mana problems. Between our replenishment, imp spirit tap, shadow fiend and dispersion (I complain about it, but it really is nice to have and I'd miss it if they took it away. Doesn't mean that it should be the 51 point talent though :p ) we've got a lot of moves to help with mana. Not to mention mind flay being one of the most mana efficient attacks in the game.
But with the changes to haste in relation to VT and DP, we'll be casting those spells a lot more than we used to. And DP is a pretty mana intensive spell (25% of base mana!)
I am hoping that this change to SW:P will be able to keep up with our increased mana usage.

Glyph of Shadow: While in Shadowform, this glyph causes non-periodic spell critical strikes to increase spell power by 30%, up from 10%, of the priest's total spirit for 10 seconds.

This glyph is pretty much the same, just even more useful than before. Not much to say, just 20% more spellpower from spirit than we used to get.


Overall, I'm really excited for these changes. I have been bitching for months. I have been getting wait listed for raids for months. And I have been patient, and I have been devoted to my class and spec. I will not play a mage for easy 8k dps. I will not respec and heal your asses. I am staying a shadow priest, and I will stick to it through the nerfs and buffs, because I freaking love playing it. With 3.3, I will STILL be playing what I love, and I hope that all my hard work and dedication to the class and my character will FINALLY be evident in the DPS charts.