Raiding and Me

[Schrodinger]

Last night I was asked to step out on Kil'jaeden, and rightly so, my dps was abysmal. I have never been asked to leave a raid before. In hindsight I shouldn't have gone on the raid. If I had known it was Kil'jaeden I wouldn't have. I was already stressed and had taken anti-anxiety meds. When I was raiding three plus nights a week, I was always in the top 2-3 dps and then switched to healing and again it was my shaman against a druid as to who could out heal the other. But that was all before Cata. Blizz's decision to mana starve healers to force dps to put out more damage burnt me out badly, So I left. I never intended to come back and missed the Panda expac. But I did come back for WoD, but health issues forced me to stop before I started raiding. Then came Legion, as most of you know I, like everyone else ,was getting all their toons to 100 and geared through invasions. Just when Legion was to drop...bam 4 surgeries in 8 months.

So I worked hard to catch up, and granted the catch up mechanics made my trip much less of a grind, but I also have had very little time in dungeons and have only been on a few raids with any of you. So I'm a bit rusty. But it also could be I'm getting a bit too old or just too stressed to do any raiding. I used to be the guy that showed up early to raids with not only pots and bandages for himself but extras for those that forgot or ran out, as well as a couple of repair bots. Yet tonight I showed up with a new cloak I forgot to enchant. I was going to then forgot during the 4 hour battle with my PC that suddenly refused to recognize any USB based microphone. (which I know think I have fixed - turns out it was my Avast AV which I uninstalled and installed a different AV)

When I chose a shadow priest as my main I was enamored with the cool mechanics. However, Blizzard has made some changes that have pushed them down on the meters. According to theory crafting I should be doing about 620k and I exceed that on raid dummies. But dummies are not raids.To have decent dps a shadow priest has to be in void form, the longer the better. Even with talents that let you get into VF with 65% insanity, you're faced with increasing rapid decay of it. The problem is the two spells that build insanity have to be cast standing still. I'm sure a really good player can squeeze out good dps, but the spec is unforgiving. If you focus on getting and keeping insanity you can easily tunnel on the boss and die to a mechanic. If you move to get out of the fire every step you take beyond what is absolutely necessary to get out is wasted time that could be used to increase your insanity. I have tried to improve, practice, use TellMeWhen ( I hate Weak Auras) , use ellipses to track multiple target dots etc. But the spec is proving so demanding that it takes all the fun out of the raid. That brings me to hard choice. I am going to have to change mains if I'm going to keep raiding.

To complicate matters I was planing on having my fifth surgery in August so I could raid until then and recover before 7.3 drops. However, getting a new toon ready for raiding will upset that plan. Now I have a number of 110s all in 830+ but none have completed their order hall campaign to unlock the third relic. I'm struck with indecision. I can't afford to make another wrong choice. So here are my thoughts:

I could go back to healing - if I did it would be a shaman. I have 100s of hours healing on one and they are in a good place right now. Moreover, I am loving enhancement right now and it would be a good off spec.

If I go dps, the only ranged I would consider is my lock. I love the my hunter but not really excited about MM - heart is still in beast.

If I go melee dps that';s where the choices get hard. I love my rogue, it was my first main through 60 and there are these great nostalgia vibes. I'm playing mostly assassination, but with the changes to Outlaw you can dump RB and pick up slice and dice - which brings the spec closer to the old combat rogue I played. I haven't ever played subtly, but I'm messing around with it. I also love the DK, a lot of that is not only fun to play , but the lore is some of the beat in the game. I was playing Frost but switched to Unholy, which is the spec I have always played. I have a warrior. FIrst time I leveled one. Played fury but am now specced arms and it's fun as well. Note I do not want to tank so none of the tanking specs interest me (okay blood DK does, but I still don't want to tank) The only other choice is my monk. She's only 102, but that is easily fixed. I was talking about some of the things in this post on TS last night and was encouraged by a Monk recruiter coughshaggycough to consider the class.

So there is my long winded dump of my thinking. Any comments - and yes I know, play what you enjoy. That's good advice, but I enjoyed leveling and playing a shadow priest, I just don't want to have to take a Xanax to raid with her. And I like a lot of classes equally well.

[Jackburton]

From my understanding priest is hard, it isn't just you. They are also very gear dependant. Heals are great if that's what you want to do and shamans are amazing but also quite difficult. Many many healing cds to manage. Ele will be no different than SP as far as movement and enhance is the squishiest class in the game.

Bottom line is come play bm hunter with the rest of us. It's very simple (although more complicated with certain legendary), there are zero casts, your pet still does a ton of dps while you're doing mechanics, and you're ranged so you can see and react. You also have decent movement and defensive cds. We have 4 or 5 hunters raiding and we all raid in bm, mm technically can do more damage but in reality with movement mechanics and gear bm is one of the most effective raiding specs in the game.

I'll let others talk about dks, but dk is melee and this isn't a melee friendly raid. You can talk to me, allabe, or lorenai any time in game and get more info. GL in your choice!

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[Torvi]

I am not the best at shadow and still make mistakes but I am more than happy to try hitting the dummies with you any time I am on. Just wsper me if you are interested. Shadow is a bit different and does have a ramp up, if things die fast it is really hard to have you dps show up at all.

If you are at all interested in giving your priest another shot.

[Agatong55]

Honestly, Play what you enjoy playing, it all comes down to preference, For the classes that you have on your list there actually some of the hardest to play classes this expansion.
Some of the best resources can be found actually on wow reddit, discord and the basic icy viens.
While you can also ask guild members for help also, someone is always will to help.

For the classes you have listed:
Shaman healing is fun and is prob one the easier ones you have chosen
Warlock is very gear dependent aswell as rotation heavy, but right now one of the best dps in the game
assassin rogues - I really cant say much about them, i really havent played one nor played with one, but from what i see there good single target dps but very cooldown heavy
Death knights right now are just beastly
Warriors are a good class also, right now arms is just insane
Monks are another good dps class, they just keep getting buffed, very gear dependent tho

if you want to talk to someone about classes:
Death knight - Saintk, Serkaa or Relictus
Monk - Cata, Shaggy or Dhaxis
Warriors - Elyana, Elzwar
Shaman - Mystic, Shamboome
Warlock - Pipwink, Dirtydotz
Rogue - Daozi
Those are some of the guildies you can talk to if you have any questions about the class.
Also dont be afraid to ask!

Hopefully this helped, I also may be wrong about some of these, just saying