Shadow Priest vs Mage 7.1

[Agahnim 0]

  Hi all. Looking to reroll from Warlock in 7.1. Looking to start right now. I currently have a priest that I've played for around a decade, but I've always wanted to try mages. Right now, I'm judging them based on viability in Heroic/Mythic Raids and high end mythic dungeons. With the projected buff to shadow priest coming with shadowform coming back with a flat 10% damage bonus, do you think priests will be beating fire mages? 

  I'm already aware that spriests are weak on mythic+ for lack of aoe, but I have no clue if mages are good at mythic+ either. Just curious if you guys think this 10% boost will bring them up to par. 

tl;dr If I want to do well in mythic raids/dungeons, would you guys recommend shadow priest given the 7.1 buffs, or fire mage?

[Valks 2,373]

Unfortunately, predicting a class' viability in a future patch isn't really possible. We can't tell whether the buffs will stay the same. It's at least a few months until 7.1 drops, which means everything could completely change by then. 

I'd say Mage is more reliable to be better, since there are 3 possible specs, so 3 chances to be good. Spriest is either good or bad.

[Siiana 1]

I'm pretty sure Shadow Priests are weaker than Mages in Mythic+. Mages have less ramp-up and better AoE.

I think it's pretty clear that there will be more adjustments from Blizzard when it comes to Shadow priests, at least regarding S2M. They pretty much said it themselves when they published their revised changes that this is not their end goal changes but that they don't want to change too much too fast.

Quoting a guy from Reddit who said it pretty well:

A few days ago I had my doubts, but their walkback seems more in-line. Surrender to Madness (S2M) is going to get nerfed. There is no doubt, so know going in that of all the classes, specs, and talents, it is in the tier1 group for changes. It will be changed, and that change will lower its potential. How they plan on doing it, no one can really say. But what it appears from the most recent notes is that they are not completely blind to SPriest problems outside of S2M. As predicted by many S2M has caused a problem with balancing the class.

In short, the rollercoaster ride is far from over. If you are a SPriest, or plan to play one; buckle-up buckaroos