Shadow Buffed in build 10571Follow

MMO-Champ came out with the latest build, which included some rather major changes for Shadow:



Source.

This is going to be awesome. But honestly, I foresee a nerf on the Glyph of SW:P. 1% every three seconds (less, with the haste change) just seems like too much. That's WAY more than replenishment, and spriest aren't having mana issues anyways. Maybe it'll let us drop it in favor of... um... I'm not sure, actually. We don't have a lot of options.

Edited, Oct 13th 2009 10:32pm by IDrownFish

I'm very very happy with these changes. The haste scaling should fix a lot of issues we've been experiencing for a while now.

Ok, so now that haste will affect all dots, Shadow will get their dots scaled just like the direct damage abilities. During a BL/Hero, can you see a problem keeping dots up and getting off a MF tic to refresh SW:P every 12.6 seconds? That's even without any additional haste from gear. Keep in mind that the other dots will be falling off early as well.

I think we will see a new skillset needing to be developed for Shadow. Instead of a somewhat easy priority system, Shadow's spell selection will become a a bit more varied. Haste certainly will jump up as an itemization priority. With different types of haste procs, Shadow casting will require a bit more attention instead of relying on that time awareness that you develop regarding dot times.

In regards to Bloodlust, here's the fine line between realizing the use of 'a rotation' and 'dealing additional damage'. What you're saying is that it might be extraordinarily hard to keep your normal rotation going if everything scales up 30% with Bloodlust, but what you're forgetting is that keeping up the normal rotation at a 30-50% increased speed would make a spriest jump enourmously in DPS. Since Bloodlust adds DPS anyway, it (depending on your class and gear) might not matter if you have to shave off your rotation. Your normal rotation is what would be optimal, but since it isn't, it's not. I realize how weird this sounds, but all I'm trying to say is that as long as Bloodlust increases your DPS by an amount roughly equal to how it increases the DPS of the other classes, it's purpose is served. Complaining about not being able to keep your rotation going while gaining a haste boost is like complaining that there's a cooldown on Mind Blast seeing as if there weren't, a Mind Blast > Mind Blast > Mind Blast etc rotation would be the most optimal for DPS.

Basically, the message I'm trying to convey is that as your haste goes up (to obscene levels with Bloodlust), there's a good possibility that you might need an alternative rotation for optimal DPS. We simply don't encounter a situation like this very often because no matter what you stack (crit, int, spellpower), your rotation itself generally doesn't change (and haste was never stacked for any class before this change). Be sure to not let the idea of "having a rotation you need to keep going" sink in over the main sentiment which is "I need to deal as much damage as possible".

On the other hand, now that I reread the above two posts, I seem to be saying more or less the same as Try.