02-24-2009, 01:01 PM
I'm trying to decide if the shadow changes are a nerf or not. Old shadowform had all three of my dots deal x% more damage, where x=my crit %. So all my dots were dealing ~38% more damage 100% of the time. Now my dots all have x% chance to crit, where x= my crit %. So now my dots will deal 50% more damage ~38% of the time. Now I'm no theorycraft expert, but to me the math seems pretty obvious; that a passive +38% damage modifier would be much greater DPS than a RNG-based damage modifier that's only ~10% higher than my passive one, but only occurs 1/3 of the time the other one did.
But what baffles me is Blizzard has said several times that they thought shadow DPS was too low, and they were working on ways to give us a little boost. It leads me to believe that both the new shadowform AND the new Devouring Plague talents are primarily for PvP use. Critting dots would be good burst damage, but I thought Blizzard was steering away from burst now? I don't know, I don't PvP at all. Gladiator Zoia, can you help me???
But what baffles me is Blizzard has said several times that they thought shadow DPS was too low, and they were working on ways to give us a little boost. It leads me to believe that both the new shadowform AND the new Devouring Plague talents are primarily for PvP use. Critting dots would be good burst damage, but I thought Blizzard was steering away from burst now? I don't know, I don't PvP at all. Gladiator Zoia, can you help me???