Damage Control

So Frozen Shadoweave and Spellfire got nerfed.

The + damage changes, from what I've been told (can't get on PTR at the moment) are:

For Frozen Shadoweave:

50 -> 39 on shoulders.

72 -> 60 on chest.

57 -> 46 on boots.


For Spellfire:

50 -> 39 on belt.

72 -> 60 on chest.

50 -> 39 on gloves.

Both sets gained some intellect.

Screenshot here --> http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=142.0

And as far as I can tell, the Battlecast and Spellstrike set appears to remain the same. Still double checking though.

So instead of buffing their tier sets, they nerf tailoring. Which sucks for those of us who have always been tailors, but for people who changed professions and then spent tons of gold leveling it up -- talk about a kick in the nuts.

I'm disappointed. Not surprised, just disappointed.

Hopefully the nerf to crafted items will be limited to those two sets.

Curse you Blizzard!.....Please don't nerf my primal mooncloth.

They already gimped us as healers at least let us keep our gear stats.

>Flesh

Goddamn it! That makes it 4 pieces of my gear that they're nerfing this patch. I'm also losing 20 crit on my boots! I believe I read that spellfire is also losing some crit. Unbelievable. They couldn't even give spellfire just a little bit of stamina... just had to be more int. Gah! I need to go find some puppies to kick.

Blizzards itemization team deserves to be sacked. Seriously, how could they a) make crafting sets better than Tier 5, and b) decide that the right thing to do is nerf the items people devote so much time and resources to craft. G effin' G, Blizz.

On the same note, they're increasing the mats needed to craft epic BoE Blacksmithing weapons, such as the Fel Hardened Maul and Fel Edged Battleaxe. Most of these weapons take 10 Fel steel bars, 8 Primal Might and 2 Primal Nethers. Next patch, they're adding 10 Khorium Bars and 2 more primal nethers to 1 handed weapons, and 4 more nethers to 2 handed weapons.

This is it for me. I'm not wasting any more time on this class. I feel like I'm spitting into the wind with this.

mindflay coeficient reduced back to pre 2.0 levels
shadow word pain coeficient reduced by 9%
vampiric embrace nerfed by 10%
silent resolved nerfed to no longer affect non-holy spells
ve/vt crit chance removed
paladins getting mana back from ve nerfed
shadow weaving reduced by 5% (= ~15-18% overall damage loss)
shadoweave set nerfed which was the only gear in the game itemized for shadowpriests. Everything else wastes stats on crit, spirit, etc. which are useless for a shadowpriest.

There is literally no upgrade for a shadowpriest outside of shadoweave even past tier 6. All of the tier sets are lolsmite garbage that are itemized for holy/disc damage.

I went to the ptr last night with my same gear, same spec and I lost over 100 dps. I lost 2100 damage on my normal cycle. I lose about 20-26 per tick of ve healing and about 10 per vt tick. The nerf is up around a 15-17% damage loss. This will only get worse with more gear, not better.

I'm cutting my losses at this point. It's just not worth it to me, it's a losing battle. It's the way blizzard does business, they make you a powerhouse then yank the rug out from under you. Luckily, my rep and gear pretty much sucks and I haven't spent enough time raiding to steal damage gear away from the real damage casters.

I get it blizzard, you don't want priests to be a viable utility damage class. You win.

I'm going back to my rogue and not wasting anymore time on this red headed stepchild. I don't care if I don't have a slot in raids or whatever.

And the name and forum avatar are now changed.

Our grumpy green rogue is back and stabbin' poopers left and right!

I so hate this game sometimes.

Thanks to all of you for helping obit during his month and a half stint...

now that I am back to playing my rogue, I'm sure they'll update the 2.1 patch notes to reflect that all the great rogue changes they put in will be promptly removed before the patch goes live.

Grimmus to the rescue.

Also, more.

Obit needs a hug.

/awkward man hug, followed by a few slaps on the shoulders.

You good, bud? Alright.

The changes were a bug or something on the PTR. Eyonix said the items will be reverted to their original stats when the patch goes live. Link

Eyonix:

The changes players have noticed on the public test realms concerning select tailor-crafted items, such as the Spellfire set, will be reverted before the patch is live on production realms.

This means your item sets will remain just as they are now.

Also note, to address the feedback we've been reading this morning concerning the idea of simply “buffing tier 4 and 5 equivalent slots”, the reason we do not is because improving those 3 slots for tier 4 and 5 would force a change to all other tier 4 and 5 items as well (weapons, melee sets, everything)

So put your pitchforks and torches down, no need to lynch anyone.

Yeah, I saw that blue post just a few minutes ago. Obit...er... Glassjaw is still unsatisfied.

Let the awkward man hug continue.

Thanks Ruz,

I just feel like I'm going in circles over and over again with this crap. I don't feel that it's right to be switching all the time and I feel guilty for doing it. The only positive is that we are a very young guild and everyone is familiar with both my characters. I just don't feel right switching around so much, but at the same time I'm not going to pay to play this game and be stuck with a class I'm not happy with.

It's great that they're leaving the tailored stuff as it is in game right now. But I'm not an idiot. All this says to me is that they saw the backlash from all the casters (locks and mages) and decided to back off. Now, while that's great, it just says to me they will find another way to take it out of the shadowpriests' ass.

If you want my honest opinion.. VT is next. If they don't nerf it in 2.1 it will be the next hotfix after it. I just don't trust them as far as I can throw them... this class (the shadow tree) has been consistantly nerfed literally every hotfix and patch since tbc, with no signs of stopping. I am just not going to be happy playing a class that gets pot-shot every month until I'm relegated to go back to healing duty because my dps viability is gone.

If I ever wanted to heal (even in the very back of my mind) it wouldn't be a problem, but I never want to go back to it. I see this spec eventually dead ending, it may not be right now, it may not be a month from now, but it's coming. And I'd rather not waste my time. If blizzard were really serious about shadow priests being a staple in the raiding game they would have gear specifically made for shadow priests... we would have a shadow tiered set, which we don't. Currently there are 3 pieces of gear that are made with a shadowpriest in mind and they're all 3 crafted.

If they wanted us to raid, there would be drops with some stam, a medium amount of int, and a large amount of shadow damage. There simply aren't any items like this in the game. I don't think blizzard ever counted on shadow priests to be as strong as they have been for the last couple months and I think that Nihilum and DnT are sealing the nails in the shadowpriest coffin.

Globit,

I can understand your frustrations. Nobody likes playing class that is consistently nerfed with every patch. When 2.0 rolled around and the warriors were hit with the massive rage nerf, I was pissed and depressed too. I actually thought of abandoning my beloved Ruz and making a pally as my main. A Pally, of all things.

But things now aren't so bad. The rage nerf was tweaked slightly and I have no problems building rage. Other changes happened that make playing a warrior fun again.

What I'm trying to say is have a little faith. I don't agree with Blizz's policy of knee-jerk reaction to nerfing, but at least they will go back and try to correct excessive nerfs. It may not be immediately, but they do try to remedy bad situations. For example, on the PTR they decreased the pally Illumination nerf from 50% to 60% mana. Not a world of change, but they're moving in the right direction.

About the Shadow Priest gear problems, they're not alone. The raid Tier sets and drops are horrible for specs like Fury Warriors, Feral and Balance Druids, Enh Shammies and others. I can't speak for other classes, but to get the best DPS gear, I have to mix and match greens and blues, PvP rewards, use mail and leather, and raid gear. Again this is the fault of crappy itemization, and again every member of that team should be kicked in the junk by an angry donkey.

For the record, I think priests of all specs need love. A squishy cloth class that is intended to be the primary healer but with no real escape means (except a fear which has also been nerfed repeatedly) is just bad class design. Blizz should redesign the whole class, but that takes work and they'd rather have unhappy customers than put the effort into fixing the core of the problems.

I hear ya ruz, but my gut tells me blizzard wants shadowpriests to be where they were pre 2.0 (read: only token freaks like Beckon are effective). I don't believe blizzard ever intended on them being as good as they are.

The difference between a dps warrior and a shadow priest pre 2.0 were vast, and they still are. The only difference I could see was that dps warriors remained a VERY strong class when they got good gear/weapons even if they weren't meant for them (wearing some high crit mail, etc.). Where shadowpriests were left in the dust because +shadow only damage just plain doesn't exist. Unfortunately the item budget spent on +dmg/heal just does not cut it for a shadow priest. It's like you trying to get attack power out of agility as opposed to strength.

Now imagine if there were only 3 items in the game that had strength on them, and they nerfed them, because you were too strong.

As fun as it is to imagine, and as great an opportunity of being the shadow priest is, it is going nowhere but down from here IMO. Like I said before if you liked to heal too, you'd always have something to fall back on when the water got rough, but for me.. I don't have that luxury.

PS thanks Ruz

I wasn't too happy when guilds would rather bring a paladin to main heal and only bring a priest in the form of a shadow specced one to raid. So at first I figured shadow priests needed to be nerfed. Then after mulling it over a bit more and reading up I think that maybe paladins needed a slight nerf in regards to the amazing mana regen they get with a shadow priest in the group, and the priest's holy tree could really use some solid top tier talents, not a bunch of shadow tree nerfs.

I don't like being a lower class priest for a group because I'm specced holy. Holy sucks for soloing so it sure better not suck for grouping too. I think the reasons why shadow priests were so awesome in TBC is because the holy tree is so.....unspectacular, and the amount of mana paladins were getting was a little ridiculous. I hope Blizzard one day finds a place to make holy priests the best healers in the game and shadow priests a very viable addition to any raid. I'd also like to see a cameo by Optimus Prime.

Sevin, that's an excellent point. A cameo by Optimus Prime would be awesome.



Shadow priests have gotten the crap end of the stick here, it's true. But holy priests had that stick first. Prayer of Mending got nerfed, remember? And the gear itemization is an issue. Priests need better mana regen, more spirit gear, etc.

How about instead of ruining the synergy that shadow priests and paladins have we buff holy priests so that they can share in that synergy a bit? Or give holy priests a talent to help with in-combat mana regen..?

Sucking down mana pots is not a solution. That's an "oh CRAP!" kind of thing or "WTF? When will this boss just DIE already?!" kind of thing. At least in my mind it is. Though I think Blizzard disagrees.



And also, Horde needs fear ward. Not that 'fear' is a regularly seen game mechanic from various mobs in the expansion or anything...

In my opinion, VT should probably never have been a shadow talent. The shadow tree already had VE which is a great spell, I have always thought that holy should have gotten the mechanic of VT (read: mana equivalent of VE)... obviously it wouldn't have been called Vampiric Touch.. but something like a 'blessed word: replenish" that does the same thing as vampiric touch.

Though sevin, in your case, I can honestly say there has never been a time in tbc where I said I wish I had a paladin over a holy priest. As a melee class primarily and one that got the ever living crap beat out of it (before they fix stuff in 2.1), I love priests. Both pallys and priests are awesome healers, granted with a shadow priest paladins were pretty imba (pre 2.1 anyway). But that will change.. bigtime.

I think holy could use a ton of work... Especially in the solo viability aspect. They could stand to move some of the discipline/holy damage talents up in the tree so they're easily attainable and maybe make them cost less. The problem is though, even when you get all the smitedps build talents and you can hit pretty hard with some dmg gear... holy damage is WILDLY inneficient mana wise. It's much much MUCH worse than shadow. Which is why VT should have gone to holy imo.

...also, do I need to say it? I feel like I'm rewinding a year and a half.. silence and mind flay need to be trainable!!!