I like new tree, there are really nice builds. What I like the best:
Class Tree
Prayer of Mending and Flesh Heal being class ability again. That will help both shadow and discipline in their own ways. In PvP, shadow suffers from interrupts greatly, since vast majority of its toolkit is on shadow school. Now, we can at least do something when interrupted. PoM back in disc toolkit seems quite good too.
Mindgames stay, as well as most of good Shadowlands conduits.
We have decent number of mana regeneration tools now, which will be really valuable for both holy and discipline.
Holy Word: Life looks interesting. I guess it will be potent in PvP as another CC break in adition to SW:D and depending on itâs numbers, it could be good life saver too.
Important utility spells like Mass Dispel and Power Infusion are easily accesible. We even get Twins of Sun Priestess, which will hopefuly ease the PI drama.
Shadow priests will finaly have chance to spec into Angelic Feather, helping our mobility greatly.
Discipline tree
I really like the idea of âholyâ focused discipline and âshadowâ focused discipline. So far, holy part of the spec seem to be great for raids and RBGs, while shadow can be really great in M+ and PvP, thanks to Wicked Star silence.
Inner Light / Shadow PvP talent moving to regular talents is unexpected, but really welcomed.
New Shadow Covenant feels way less clunky and might actually give us meaningful playstyle. We can now build toolkit composed mostly of shadow spells.
Holy tree
I really like that we can mix many ways how to reduce CDs on our holy words. Looks like rotating holy words will be central to our spec in DF with Flash Concentration gone.
More mana regeneration through Cosmic Ripple looks really great too. It looks like we will not have mana issues most likely.
I like that our holy talents are not pure healing, but we have some interesting damage talents as well.
Shadow tree
Reworking Dark Thoughts into Vampiric Insight feels to be way better, especially for PvP. We will no longer be required to root ourselves in place to proc this.
We have more AoE tools, since we can combine Auspicious Spirits and Psychic Link
Our sustain also looks way better, in adition to returning holy spells in our toolkit
What I would like to improve:
Shackle Undead in its current form is not really attractive pick. Either make it baseline or rework it to Shackle Evil and allow us to shackle also demons, aberrations and maybe even elementals?
New talents which requires you to be shielded feels a bit weak, considering our PW:S is usually absorbed almost instantly. Perhaps changing them to work as long as we have Weakened Soul would be betterâŚ
Some really interesting talents, like Unwavering Will, are locked behind rather uninteresting picks.
We will lose Fae Guardians and Boon of the Ascended. Both of these had itâs use across all specs in both PvE and PvP. Losing Boon will definitely hurt our healer damage in M+ for both disc and holy. Iâd at least give us choice node for Mindgames or Boon and put Fae Guardians in place of Crystalline Reflection
Holy also loses Flash Concentration, which was really popular legendary. Instead, we got meme Lightwell back.
Searing Nightmare is still there. That talent is extremely clunky and unpopular. Rework it please. Instead of this mess, give us a tool to apply Vampiric Touch on more targets at once.
Also, give shadow more burst oriented build through Mind Spike and Mind Blast nukes.
Overall good impression. Thereâs a few things I hope are mistakes?
Twists of Fate lists as only triggered by healing targets, despite being in the shadowy side and currently available to SP from damaging enemies. I like that talent, I can live with choosing between Misery and SN but not with Twists.
Itâs also unclear if Mindbender receives the benefits from Shadowfiend related talents, but it doesnât seem to replace Fiend as before, shorter duration. So itâs an extra CD that does kinda the same?
Itâs also tricky to not pick any healing spells from Priest general, which I guess isnât a problem. Most hybrid classes have been a little more generous with the healing spells their DPS/tank specs get than just shadowmend (for QoL Iâd pick Renew for instance).
Responding to another thread to keep tree talk here;
I canât really tell without knowing the CDs and timings of things, but no it would seem like the mashing spam of DP+MB+VB will stay. Which is how I play it, which could be totally wrong.
I would say for holy that the tree is unstable. What i mean is that if you pick the talents as discipline what you need gives you more freedom to complete 2 rows of talents. So you can get mindgames and shadowflame prism very easily wheres holy is a bit difficult from what i tried maybe i did a mistke with the talents but pls somebody comment on my post about it so that i can be fixed. Shadwo i think is good nws there
I noticed Mindbender does not replace Shadowfiend now, which might be a mistake⌠but given the position of talents in a row does not really leave you much space to opt out of Mindbender if you donât like it and want to go Shadowflame Prism. If all talents refering Shadowfiend apply to Mindbender as well, then it makes Old God Idol talents way more interesting.
Also, Shadow Mend seem to does not replace Flash Heal too. Shadow and Discipline having access to Flash Heal and Holy having Shadow Mend is useful when interrupted and spell locked. I does not really suspect Flash Heal will become stable part of Disc toolkit unless it triggers atonement too.
Iâd like to see Door of Shadows in there somewhere. Itâs such lovely movement and weâre not the most mobile of classes.
For Holy I think a lot of the âchoiceâ is really just stuff we have as baseline already. So it looks like choice but in practice is not. I imagine the same is true of Discipline and Shadow. In the Holy tree it looks possible to have Light of the Naaru and HW: Salvation together which could potentially be very overpowered.
Overall itâs alright as a first run, but I think it needs a lot of refinement before itâs allowed out. And just let Lightwell die. Please.
There is actually a lot of new stuff in discipline tree. Also as you say, even though we got many things we can already talent into, there are combinations which are now impossible (that is the case of Shadow free). That alone can lead to new playstyles and builds.
From a shadow point of view, the class tree looks amazing.
All the new stuff in the shadow tree looks amazing as well. But the problem is we wonât have our CC and defensive when speced for ST
And when it comes to aoe, theyâve locked most of the tree behind a VT talent, and VT and aoe doesnât go hand in hand, and the last 3 rows wonât be touched if weâre to maximise our aoe kit
And for pvp which is primarily ST oriented, why are we forced to take MS just to get our CC and defensive kit
Iâm instantly struck by the lack of agency in the Holy tree. There are not enough nodes at the top of the tree resulting in a lack of choice. I didnât want to take Holy Fire and Holy Word: Chastise, but you âhaveâ to in order to attain 8 points to progress further down the tree. It has the lowest number of pre 8 point required talents of any tree so far, a measly 10. That means pre 8 points required you only have a choice of 2 talents. Overall the entire tree looks a little anaemic compared to other trees until post 20.
Secondly after the damage abilities of Holy Fire and Holy Word Chastise you have Guardian Spirit then Symbol of Hope before returning to damage abilities. I understand that these have to go somewhere though.
So give us more choice earlier on in the tree and dedicate the right hand arm to more damage based abilities freeing up Guardian Spirit and Symbol of Hope for more left and central arms.
Two things stood out to me in the shadow tree:
-The âwhen shieldedâ talents (especially those below the 20 point-line) seem underwhelming.
-Idols of Yogg-Saron and YâShaarj should switch places probably. Yogg needs apparitions and those are more prominent on the left side of the tree, while we know now, that YâShaarj is mostly single target, which is on the right side of the tree.
As I understood it, it was basically meant for the âMental Fortitudeâ talent, that makes overhealing from âVampiric Touchâ into a shield. But naturally it would also be active during PW: Shield.
Sure, but then it makes little sense to have talents which increase smite and holy nova dmg, which will shadow priests almost never use. Also, these talents are on the very left side of class tree, far from stuff attractive for shadow.
Right now, I guess it will work best for disc priests in combination with Charitable Soul. You frequently shield to apply attonements, So you can actually keep the shields up on yourself. Still, itâs a bit underwhelming.
Thinking about that, Iâd move these talents on a path to Crystalline Reflection and Charitable Soul, so it would have some natural synergy.
I am just at a loss of words at them keeping searing nightmare in the game
itâs such a boring, clunky mess of a spell and it makes you choose between that or misery
i really really hope they rethink of this decision
It has its use for giga-cleaves (but not everyone needs to giga-cleave) and I do find it convenient to be able to target my AoE. I really liked it before I got better at the rest of the gameplay, not itâs just??? bleh.
When other classes get AoE that does âdecreased damage beyond 5 targetsâ is it more like saying we have weak damage to any number of targets?
I like most of what I see. I like the new healing options that disc and shadow have. Plenty of choice for disc to spec into ST healing with Holy Word: Life, Renew, and Renewed Faith.
9 utility points in shadow is a lot. Having utility points that require other utility points (i.e. psychic horror needs dispersion needs silence) also feels restrictive.
Could mind sear, silence and last word could be put in the base tree? Silence would probably need to require filler points to make it not too cheap for disc.
In exchange maybe Shadowflame Prism and Rabid Shadows could be put into the shadow tree.
This would ease the pressure of the shadow tree to contain so much utility, while giving more utility options to all the other priest specs. Or maybe Iâve just broken PVP.
Throes of Pain (row 6) looks OP in m+, but I donât expect it to go live like that.
You have several talents that boost smite dmg. Holy have several talents to increase both smite and holy fire dmg. Disc have reworked Shadow Covenant to ramp up shadow spells, or they could go for Lightâs Wrath. Both specs also have access to Shadowflame Prism.
We donât know numbers yet, but even without Boon, these could be decent replacements. Alpha/beta will show us more.
I like the phylosophy of the class tree, I could do again some builds I was not able to make since BC, WotLK as holy priest, and I absolutely love that, plus I can try again my âinfinite mana buildâ, itâs great. That means everything is good?, far from it. Holy spec tree need a few tweaks, but I like it overall, Shadow priest spec is the loser here, both in the class tree and in the spec tree, the shadow spec tree is an absolute hiperbloated mess in which, in order to pick our utilities, like dispersion or vampiric embrace, our only choice is to lose DPS, a lot of DPS, same for the class tree, but shadow loses a bit less of DPs there. But letâs go with specifics.
CLASS TREE:
61 talents to choose, a bit too many (druids have 57, and they have 4 specs), the tree feels a bit bloated, and empty once you have finished picking things.
To force us to pick a very seldom needed ability, âpurify diseaseâ as a prerrequisite to pick our movility talents (body and soul/angelic feather), which are a highly needed pick, feels terribly bad, if you interchange the position of those 2 talents, it would feel great, as we could do builds for dungeons/bosses in which we need âpurify diseaseâ or not, without lose our âmust pickâ mobility talents.
Taming the shadows in the tree, when we already have Masochism, makes little sense.
The ârenewâ specific part of the tree is a great idea, good job there, I like it.
I hope âDominant mindâ is a version where we can actually MC elites in M+, if it is the version which only allow us to MC crappy mobs, not useful enough.
âTwins of the sun priestessâ⌠this talent must be erased from existence, period. It is too good, and feels 200% mandatory, it is specially bad for shadow priests, who will be forced to pick it, keep control of other classes CDs (as if it was not difficult enough to keep control of everything else) losing DPS for themselves and messing their rotation, even if they use it with their own CDs, instead of the other class, they will have to mess their rotation in order to select another memeber of the party/raid and then come back to boss. Blizzard, if you really want to remove toxicity, you must remove this talent, because it only will give us bad moods and toxicity. Remove it, please, please, please.
âClerics armamentsâ and âTools of the clothâ, not fond of them, maybe if the increased damage is while weakened soul last, but really not fond of them.
âTithe evasionâ this 2 point talent forces holy priests to pick also âShadow word: deadâ in order to not make it 100% useless, replace it with âImproved mind blastâ and you will be helping shadow priests at the same time.
âHoly word: lifeâ is not worthy for holy priests, we already have 2 panic buttons with Holy word: serenity and Guardian angel, it is kind of interesting for discipline priests, but the price to pay vs risk is too high, to make it not damaging under 35% instead of under 20% might make it actually a good choice.
âCrystaline reflectionâ probably would need a small buff to compete with âMindgamesâ (because nerf mindgames could make it irrelevant, so donât do it).
HOLY PRIEST TREE:
I like it, but it is too bloated in the third part of the tree, I would move all the âRune ofâŚâ to the middle part of the tree, and it would be ready (at least for me).
SHADOW PRIEST TREE:
This one needs a full rework, letâs go with the reasons:
It is bloated as hell, 55 talents to pick and only 30 points (next spec with most talents is discipline with 52, and none of the other goes over 49) makes it feel terrible.
To be forced to pick âMind bombâ/âPsychic voiceâ in order to be able to pick âVampiric embraceâ feels bad.
I understand you do not want us to pick both âMind bomb/Psychic voiceâ and âPsychic horrorâ without have to reonunce to some DPS, but to put âpsychic horrorâ with âdispersionâ as prerrequisite is bad.
It is impossible to pick 2 core utilities like âVampiric embraceâ and âDispersionâ at the same time without lose a DPS talent, to have to sacrifice DPS in order to have our utilities, feels bad, and goes against your own philosophy of, dont put utilities vs DPS in the choices.
Too many talents empowering âmind flyâ, even removing âdark thoughtsâ from the ecuation, we can find that is more interesting keep using mind fly over void torrent.
Too many talents in the third part of the tree, 22 talents to pick, and only 10 to use, overbloated.
I love the âIdolâ spells, they can give a lot of variety to our gameplay and allow us to do some really crazy things, good job there, pity itâs hiding under so many issues with the rest of the tree.
I hope this reach you an helps you fix the issues the tree have.
