#0 - June 21, 2009, 12:24 p.m.
Shadow has been stuck in a painful cycle of getting a complete class overhaul for each expansion and then slowly getting either nerfed or ignored every patch so that by the time the next expansion rolls around we have fallen in to uselessness.
Let's review:
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.0.3 (01/09/2007)
--Ignored
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.0.6 (01/23/2007)
--The bonus coefficient for "Shadow Word: Pain" has been reduced by about 9%. This should result in about 5% less damage done by "Shadow Word: Pain" for the typical priest.
(nerfs)
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.0.12 (04/3/2007)
--The base healing percent from "Vampiric Embrace" has been reduced to 15% from 20%. In addition, this ability can no longer get critical heals.
--"Silent Resolve" no longer reduces threat generated by Shadow spells
(nerfs)
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.0 (05/22/2007)
--Shadow Weaving (Shadow): Effect reduced by 1% per rank and Mana Burn will now correctly trigger this talent.
--Shadow Word: Death: Cooldown increased to 12 sec and will now properly damage the casting Priest when it is reflected.
(nerfs)
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.2 (06/19/2007)
--Ignored
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.3 (07/10/2007)
--Ignored
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.2.0 (09/25/2007)
--Ignored
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.2.3 (10/9/2007)
--Mind Control duration against PvP targets has been reduced to 10 seconds.
(nerf)
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.3.0 (11/13/2007)
--Shadow Word: Death: Resilience no longer reduces the backlash damage from this spell.
(small nerf...otherwise ignored)
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.3.2 (1/8/2008)
--Ignored
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.3.3
--Ignored
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.4.0 (2008-03-25)
--Fear Ward is now usable while in Shadow form.
(one teeny little fix)
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.4.2 (2008-05-13)
--Ignored
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.4.3 (2008-07-15)
--Ignored
World of Warcraft Patch 3.0.3
--Devouring Plague: The bonus coefficient has been increased to be on par with other DoT spells. Base damage on ranks 7,8,and 9 decreased to partially compensate for better scaling.
--Shadowform: Devouring Plague, Shadow Word:Pain, and Vampiric Touch cast in Shadowform deal increased damage percentage equal to the player’s chance to get a spell crit on their target.
--Vampiric Touch: The Spell power coefficient has been doubled and no longer triggers Replenishment when other priests cast Mind Blast.
(yay! some buffs and fixes...but really this is just adjusting the expansion overhaul changes)
World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.0.8
--Dispersion: This ability can no longer be cast while affected by Cyclone; doing so consumed the cooldown to no effect.
(small nerf and some bug fixes)
World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.0.9
--Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.
(meh, tiny buff to the entire class overall, but nothing for shadow specifically)
World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.1.2 - (2009-05-19)
--Ignored
World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.1.3 - (2009-06-02)
--Ignored
World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.2.0
--Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
(nerf)
The only patch left off this list (apart fomr 2.0 and 3.0--the revamps) is patch 3.1.0 which, to Blizzard's credit, did contain several attempted fixes to our futility in arenas. Sadly, the changes were underwhelming and we remain next to hopeless in arenas and nothing has been done to address our PvE scaling concerns.
Top shadow priests in BC began posting about their concerns about shadow dps scaling in BC around the time BT was released (summer 2007) and as they predicted we fell to the absolute bottom of the dps pile by a wide margin by the end of BC (we were just lucky everyone needed mana battery or we would never have seen the inside of Sunwell).
It wasn't until over ONE YEAR later that patch 3.0 finally went live and we got some drastic fixes to things we complained about for over a year...
Welp, here we go again in Wrath. We came out of the gates looking pretty solid and now have spent several patches either being ignored or minorly nerfed.
Blizzard, again many of the shadow priest community are coming to you with concerns about our scaling and the direction our dps, specifically our single target dps, is heading versus all other DPS classes. If it weren't for mind sear allowing us to bloat the meters on certain fights, our overall dps would be abysmal.
