wow_ladies

I'm not a spriest, but speaking as someone who has pugged a metric fuckton of heroics, your chances aren't that great; only one or two of my pugs EVER had a spriest. People on my server tend to pug priests ONLY if they're heals. Or if the party is in desperate need of dps... which doesn't happen terribly often, as it seems that 90% of the freaking server is dps (pvp server + hunturds and rogues = ftl).

Granted, I'm from the server equivalent of Pluto: tiny, dead, and no one gives a shit about it anymore. Hell. It might get demoted from actual server status one of these days... so if you're on a higher pop server, your chances might be better.

"If people only realized that they would get a constant stream of mana so that their group never had to stop to drink, I think they would want shadow priests more often. I just think people don't really realize just how useful they are."

Seriously! I had a mage during heroic bf whisper me that he loves me because we never had to stop to drink (well cept me). Helps when the tank puts out good tps (LOVE THOSE GUYS!) so I'm not having to wait too long to go all out.

Um, Shackle Undead? Mind Control? They're restricted because Blizz hates us, I swear (MC is damn unreliable), but we DO have CC. Heroic Slabs or Sethekk you will want a spriest, or even Steamvault.

It's a crapshoot, honestly. I *know* I do good dps (not tooting my horn but just to illustrate the point) and I have a hard time finding a group, except crypts or the easier ones (mech, sp). Usually if a group has a good tank they're more than willing to take me along - but it's the 80% of other pugs who snub a shadow priest.

Maybe it's those pugs I should be glad to miss out on? Should start saying - I have cc - mc!

Ahh well, at least there's farming, dailies, and pvp to occupy my time until I can get a guild run going.

I'll try to get into a pug if i can, but I don't expect my chances to be good.

I've considered respeccing, but I am the only shadowpriest in the guild and I've spent tons and tons of gold building my dps crafted gear so it would suck to switch.

Don't respec! Noooo! :)

It's a mixed bag... I pug'd a bit as an spriest but usually I went with guildies. It helps if you know lots of people on the server and have made a name for yourself for being a good player. Also, I find pally tanks to be much more amenable to spriests than others...

Well I've tried to do a good job. I haven't played for very long, though, so there are still dungeons I need to learn. I helped finish a Kara pug a few days ago, though, and we cleared Shade of Aran, Illhoof, and Prince without much trouble. These were all first-time kills for me.

They liked me a lot and put me on their friends list for future pugs. They even asked me if I wanted to join their guild if I wasn't happy with mine, hehe, so I must not have sucked :)

For Kara, having a spriest means everything becomes 100% easier. You won't get turned down for any Kara groups. :) Shackle has a use!

MC tips:

Keep a list of what can and cannot be MCd in instances, and remind the tank to give you a mark (also, MC doesn't break under damage like sheep or sap or seduce, so AoE is cool).

Some mobs have nifty abilities (like the ones in Bot that have the awesome buff, or the shadowpriests in Slabs that do ridiculous deeps).

In heroics, a good rule of thumb is: if it doesn't have a mana bar, it can't be MCd.

The chance of MC breaking depends on 1) your hit rating-- be capped! and 2) your distance from the MC'd mob. If there's a mob you need to keep locked down, keep it close to you. Better to hold onto it with no dps than to have it get away and wipe the group.

MC pulls are terribly useful in H.Slabs but be prepared to bubble and/or die.

God I LOVE using MC in Slabs. I mean, you have the Acolyte that heals and the superpowered Shadowpriests. It's great.

Yeah, my first priority when gearing for raids was to get hitcapped. I'll probably reach the magic number of 101 soon and become able to take a point out of Shadow Focus. I'm going to switch to Aldor someday for the better enchants, though, so I'm gonna have to find a spellhit replacement for the Scryer's Bloodgem eventually. I took Scryer to get the tailoring and enchanting stuff for my guild, and since I'm really patient when it comes to grinding I'm not bothered by having to switch.

Personally spriest is awesome for many kind of groups.
Paladin tanks I know love shadowpriests, less downtime. Any class that is a spellcaster, esp warlocks benefit. You can try making groups yourself. Become buddies with some paladin tank, and then get a healer, and 2 other casters. Mage+lock, 2 locks.. ele shammy.. etc. Your group will have little downtime and dps is great.
If you try to get into existing group, don't just tell your dps is great but tell how you can buff the group/debuff the monsters and use MC as CC when needed(mc pulls ftw!)

I had no issues finding a group as an spriest. Healers love me, and so do pally tanks. And if you're good at mind control you'll wow them. The first time I cc'd two mobs with mc (MC one, tank the other) with a tank friend of mine he was shocked, as no spriest he had run with before had done that.

What will make your reputation as a good shadowpriest is your MC abilities and your willingness to off-heal/spot heal in tight situations. DPS is good, but any class can top the meters. Not every class can MC pull and off-heal. :)

Well they would be in luck if they take me because I love to offheal. I've saved a party from several wipes by dropping out of shadowform to heal.

I also enjoy using MC, though with the instances I'm less familiar with I may not always pick the best targets. Usually I try to read up on a new dungeon to see which mobs are best to MC (i.e. healing mobs, high dps casting mobs, etc.)

I'd say my main weakness is not pulling off dispels as quickly as I want. I've hotkeyed them but I still think I can be faster. I'm thinking about dueling with a friend to put dispellable stuff on me to get in practice.

Find a pally tank to constantly run heroics with.

Paladin tanks LOVE shadow priests. LOVELOVELOVELOVELOOOOOOOOOOVE shadow priests. Moreso than anyone else you'll ever group with.

In your comment in the LFG state how much shadow damage you have. It really helps.

Took the words right out of my mouth. Tanking a 5 man is so much more of a mana hog than a raid, not only because you have to consecrate more to hold the attention of a ton of mobs at once, but also because if you're geared for tanking Karazhan or beyond, you're just not getting hurt enough --> not getting enough heals to regen mana. Having a shadow priest along makes everything so much smoooooooother.

Yessss. God I hate it so much.

I have to bring a mage *OR* a shadow priest. If I don't have the spriest I'm drinking every damned pull, or else I'll go OOM in the middle of the next. Even in heroic MgT where there's lots of spell damage. >_<

Yeah I thought about doing that. I should have over 1k unbuffed once I get the Spellstrike pants on me (just looking for a trustworthy tailor). I also use a lot of Wizard Oil and spelldamage food.

As for Flasks of Pure Death, well I save that for Kara as they are just too expensive to use for Heroics, but I will use Adept's Elixirs if I'm in a group that doesn't wipe constantly.

I love shadow priests in Kara PuGs - between them and some totems I never need a mana break. :D But I've never seen many in heroics (and I PuG everything, but I'm a frost mage too). I dunno if it's because group leaders just don't pick them up or because they're not PuGing heroics on my server, though. :x

I agree with the folks who say to find a pally tank to run with. A resto shaman might like the grouping as well (all I ever hear is that they run out of mana too much, but I've never played one so I dunno). Fill out with your caster DPS of choice. I don't know how easy this'll be if you're on a low-pop server though.

my spriest pulls aggro from 95% of pug tanks with a standard dps rotation

I choose not to pug as shadow for this very reason.

and my dps gear sucks, I'm actually only shadow until I finish making my PMC set

<3 sp on heroics.

They make mana users happy and can mc, I would totally take you!

My main was a Shadowpriest for a long time, and it was a pain in the ass getting groups.

The problem is, we suffer from lower than normal DPS output, and a lack of much Crowd Control in a lot of instances. While we do have Shackle, and Mind Control, Shackle has limited use, and Mind Control means you are busy trying to control a mob and you aren't DPSing. Whereas the other DPSers that have CC can CC and then DPS on top of it. A lot of people don't even consider MC a valid method of CC as a result of this, and oftentimes will pass Shadowpriests by in lieu of a "better" DPSer.

The only times I got groups were when no other DPSers were seeking in the LFG channel, or from someone who knew me from a previous group. It was pretty disheartening.

I think shadowpriests suffer under the "tyranny of the damage meter." They might not be quite as high as other "traditional" dps classes on the damage meter, but with MC, spot healing, and free mana what is not to love?

I've had great luck with mind control by having the main healer MC a mob and then letting his buddies beat him into the turf and with having a shadowpriest MC one mob and then tank another. I bet pallies would do great with the former by using Righteous Defense. With my warrior, I can still pull the remaining mobs off the priest, but it is a little harder.

The only problem I've had with our guild's S-priest is the amazing amounts of threat he generates. Then again, he's good enough to hold off when he needs to and is about finishing the instance, not topping the damage meter.

Yeah, that's why I use Omen and try to team up with a pally (Salvation FTW!). I'm also putting Subtlety on my cloak asap. I've just been spending all my gold on the Spellstrike set and the Belt of Blasting mats, hehe.

The funny thing is alot of the dps I've gotten in PuGs aren't exactly geared to the teeth so there have been several times when I've topped the meters.

To be honest, if you're in Kara/crafted gear and doing anything before mid-T5, you *should* be topping meters. :) We are OP at that gear level, as Bliz made the itemization absolutely ridiculous. Once the other classes get gear, though, they catch up in a hurry.

If you're having problems with tanks, drop MB/SW:D from the rotation and don't use VE-- just a light VT/SW:P/MF.

Oh yeah, I know that we don't scale well so I'm enjoying my brief moment in the sun :) I can't wait to see what I'll do with full badge gear/belt of blasting/spellstrike/epic gems/all spelldamage enchants, mwahahaha.

Yeah, I always use caution with a tank I'm not familiar with during the first pulls, slowly adding spells to the rotation to assess the level of threat he/she can take. I usually cannot add VE to the rotation most of the time, and I usually ask the healer if it's ok to use SW:D before I do so. Thankfully, a lot of people use Omen, but if no one is using it then I have to be really really careful. I pugged for months without anyone using a threat meter, though, so if I'm in this situation I can usually adjust.

As someone who has in the past had a full heroic running group that DID include a shadow priest...all I can say is people who take someone else over you are missing out on the wonderful CC tool called Mind Control. Effectively take two mobs out of every pull! Now obviously it doesn't do wonders for your DPS chart, but oh man, it made heroic MGT a cakewalk back before it was a cakewalk.