On live realms and the PTR, Sin and Punishment was recently hotfixed so that upon dispelling Vampiric Touch, the dispeller and anyone within 10 yards of the dispeller are feared for three seconds, as stated by the tooltip. The fix was a long time coming, and I'm happy to see attention paid to it after numerous bug reports on the cataclysm beta and on live. However, in its current state as dispel protection, this talent is actually DETRIMENTAL to a shadow priest and desperately needs extra attention for two primary reasons:
1. The fear effect is not a horror, as we had assumed it was intended to be, and is thus susceptible to any form of fear immunity available to the dispeller, such as as fear ward and tremor totem.
2. Because the fear effect is not a horror, but indeed a fear, it puts itself in the same Diminishing Return category as not only itself, but Psychic Scream (and other fear effects.) This means that a dispeller can dispel Vampiric Touch three times, and become immune to fear until diminishing returns reset. However, even one Vampiric Touch dispel is bad for shadow priests, because that means that our primary CC, Psychic Scream, is halved to 4 seconds. Not to mention if we psychic scream a target, and they dispel Vampiric Touch within the Diminishing Return window, the Sin and Punishment fear is also halved.
According to Zarhym, (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1827663058?page=3#54) Blizzard is aware of the state of dispel mechanics (particularly cleansing waters) countering shadow priests and warlocks a bit too hard, as well as the strength of warlock dispel protection, hence the 1s nerf to Unstable Affliction's silence. However, warlock dispel protection is going to continue to be a deterrent to spamming dispels, because UA silence can really put a dispeller behind, even at 4 seconds. UA will continue to do its job, and do it well, mostly because Unstable Affliction's silence does not DR with itself or any other silence effect. Only very specific situations will allow a dispeller to dispel UA without worry, because the consequence for dispelling UA will be pretty bad.
This leads to my main point about Sin and Punishment: The only way for Sin and Punishment's dispel protection to be on equal footing with UA as a dispel deterrent is to make the "horror" effect not share Diminishing Returns with anything, whether it be itself, Psychic Scream, or Psychic Horror/Death Coil. Anything less is inferior dispel protection, and will be ignored by dispellers who will spam dispel it with no fear of repercussions. According to Zarhym, Blizzard knows that spamming dispels is currently a very easy and effective way to counter warlocks and priests, and I hope that they can incorporate the appropriate changes necessary to make this ability do what it was intended to do very soon.
