perfect xpac to split shadow and add 4th spec with Void and all the FUN Voidform Gameplay
instead… we get this mix with Searing Nightmare and S2m
sigh
cya in Legion/Bfa Classic Blizzard
My opinions as follows on the class tree:
Tools of the cloth and clerics’ armaments, as shadow I don’t see how this adds anything to the gameplay seen as shadow don’t have access to smite. also, there’s already improved smite earlier in the talent tree and holy already has the option of increased smite dmg in the spec talent tree. Holy doesn’t really need to cast power word shield as it’s not effective as a discipline, so to cast it just for this increase seems very pointless.
As a suggestion, replace these talents with the cataclysm version of evangelism and archangel. Evangelism could then stack the dmg of the main spec spells (smite, penance, mind blast) by a small amount (2%) 5 times. Archangel would then use the stacks to increase all damage and healing up to 15% with a 1.5min cd and reset the stacks of evangelism.
Improved holy nova feels like it wouldn’t make a difference if it’s there or not, but if you’re going to keep it please just add it to holy nova and not make it a talent. instead i offer a fun little suggestion - holy priest have a legendary that has a small chance to proc a Naru that casts spells when you cast holy word spells. This could be applied to disc/shadow’s power word/shadow word spells and summon a naru or void naru depending on what spell procs it.
Dominant Mind should be removed, and replaced with Thought steal (pvp talent) as they both allow the priest to use enemy abilities while in control of their character (this works on NPCS with mana in the open world so could work on NPCS with mana in instances) the obvious difference being one can be used on players and the other cannot.
Shackle undead as a talent should remain as a baseline class ability or be removed.
Twins of the sun priestess, even after the update feels forced. i get people feeling like their missing out if they have to use it on someone else, but i feel there should be an alternative for those who don’t really care for the buff. here, i think the alternative option of divine insight would be nice.
Also, the two paths stemming from twins of the sun priestess require 4 points to get to the last talents, in comparison to the other two paths that require 3 points. I feel this needs to be addressed in the upcoming update.
(1st path )
Charitable soul as currently is very disappointing. maybe increasing the absorb and adding a reduced duration of the weakened soul effect might make this talent more attractive.
Lights inspiration should be added to angels’ mercy or be removed. As this path seemingly focuses on protection, I think bringing back Divine aegis would fit this path nicely.
crystalline protection should be moved to an earlier position in the tree if it’s going to stay (preferably where shackle undead is), and not a final option, especially after spending all those points. As a suggestion, Maybe clarity of will?
(2nd path)
translucent image’s effect should be incorporated into fade and not a talent option. however, a controversial suggestion would be to bring back spectral guise instead.
Tithe evasion feels very disappointing to say the least. not sure what could be suggested here.
Personally, id like to see a name change of “mind games” to “shadow word: manipulation” as it feels more fitting for priests going forward and it already exists with the venthry legendary.
I hope blizz listens to this feedback!
Personally, id like to see a name change of “mind games” to “shadow word: manipulation” as it feels more fitting for priests going forward and it already exists with the venthry legendary.
This is such a small change, but I like this a lot!
Thoughtsteal is staying as a PvP talent, as things stand. I think Dominant Mind should be replaced with the “Vault of Heavens - Leap of Faith instead causes you to leap to your target, and has 2 charges” legendary. One talent point.
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Holy talent tree - opinions.
Censure should be an alternative option to Holy word Chastise and not a separate talent choice that requires one point.
Binding heal should replace prayer of healing (essentially removing it). Additionality prayer circle should then increase the number of players affected by 2 (Healing 5 targets including the priest) and increase the spells healing by a small amount instead of reducing casting speed (since binding heal has a shorter cast time than prayer of healing)
Divine Word should work on serenity, chastise, sanctify, Life and salvation
Runes of healing, fire and mending should be one single talent like the legendary in SL.
Guardian Angel could also reduce the base cooldown of leap of faith by 30secs (like the conduit) or grant an additional charge (like the legendary)
Lastly, I Would love to see the return of fae guardians as an alternative option to Afterlife and a glyph that changes the appearance of the fae’s to tiny Valkyr’s. (like the battle pets)
I dont even care if Searing Nightmare gets removed without a replacement, just remove it.
I will play multi dot cleave and use the prio dmg i have, i dont care just remove SN…
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I personally loved the “Chakra” mechanic in Cataclysm. I would have liked some kind of new mechanic in this style returning for Holy priests.
Evangelism and Archangel? Stance dancing as Holy didn’t feel great.
[https://rpgworld.altervista.org/talentcata/eng/?PR]
Discipline tree, 2nd teir talents.
are you gonna address the boring having no aoe stuck channeling clucnky fiesta aoe searing Nightmare problem?
What if they made Shackle undead baseline but made the talent like an upgrade for it. For example, make it so it affects demons and aberrations too. Call it “Shackle Evil” or something. Similar to how the Censure talent upgrades Chastise into a stun unbroken by damage.
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Personally, i don’t think this is something many people would spec into if it was an option. It would pretty much just be one of those talents that never gets used once you consider the more meaningful talent choices. Furthermore, classes like warlocks (banish) and paladin (turn evil) already have that utility as baseline, so if your in a raid/bg i don’t see when you (as a priest) would need to spec into that if they (your team) already have that?
However, if the upgradeable version did something more meaningful I could totally get behind it.
For example, if “shackle undead” became “void tendrils” (which was previously an AOE shadow priest spell that was instant and useable on all targets) I could see myself using this in PVP, seen as priests don’t have many ways to get away from melee classes.
In PVE, there arnt many ranged classes that can root multiple targets at the same time (as far as i know its Shamans and druids, mages can but it does not last as long) which was important vs some old raid boss mechanics or trash packs in mythics.
I don’t see the fantasy favouring holy or disc priests using the void but it think it would be more favoured then shackle undead being buffed to just shackle demons and aberrations.
Thoughts?
Hi fellow Holy priests.
I think the Holy tree needs more options, and more choices/paths (specialize in either AoE, Single Target, HoT or Shields). I have gathered some lost gems from the past and some new ideas as well, that I think Blizz should look in to. Sorry in advance for long post! I REALLY hope to see some of these things implemented. I already agree with a lot of your feedback on the current talents, so I will focus on new suggetions here.
Old Azerite traits, that can be brought back:
Prayerful Litany: Prayer of Healing heals extra to the most injured.
Promise of Deliverance: 10 sec buff to heal/flash heal after u cast serenity.
Sanctum: When you cast Fade, gain a magic dmg shield.
Old spells/talents, that can be brought back:
-Cascade (everyone loves this spell)
-Inspiration (direct critical heals give physical dmg reduction buff)
-Divine Aegis (direct critical heals gives 30% absorb shield for 12 seconds)
-Final Prayer: Anytime a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your total health lasting for 20 sec.
This effect cannot occur more than once every 90 sec.
-Spectral Guise (invis for 6 seconds)
-Divine Insight: Your Heal and Prayer of Healing have a 40% chance to make your next Prayer of Mending not trigger its cooldown and jump to each target instantly.
Old tier set effects:
Vestments of Faith: On Heal critical hits, your target will gain Armor of Faith, absorbing up to XXX dmg.
Vestments of the Purifier: Your healing on targets affected by your Power Word: Shield is increased by 20%.
Gilded Seraph’s Raiment: Prayer of Healing increases the healing done by your next Flash Heal or Heal by 60%
and Your Flash Heal or Heal spells increase the healing amount of your next Prayer of Healing spell by 30%.
Torghast effects:
-Flashbox. For every 30 seconds that you do not cast Flash Heal, the healing of your next Flash Heal is increased by 100%. This effect can stack up to 6 times.
-Schaden Fluorite: When Shadow Word: Pain expires on a target, all party members within 20 yards of the target are healed for 10% of their maximum health.
My personal ideas to make Holy Priest more fun:
Procs! We need procs to make gameplay interesting. Surge of Light feels good. More of this pls. Everyone likes a flashy proc, that makes you happy to cast a glowing spell.
For example Prayer of Healing has x% chance to give a buff (maybe renew has y% chance).
The buff resets the cooldown of Circle of Healing or Prayer of Mending, and gives you 1 free cast without triggering CD (synergy with holy words)
For further reference, we can call it Holy Epiphany.
Holy Nova viable please
Talent idea: x% chance per effective healed/damaged target, to trigger Holy Epiphany (see above). Makes Holy Epiphany increase the size and effect of your next Holy Nova.
Mobility talent please
Talent idea: When Levitate is cast on yourself while in combat, angelic wings will propel you x yards forward. This effect has a 60 seconds cooldown.
It’s like the old Path of the Devout but more fun.
Power Word: Shield. It’s on our bars, but rarely used. Make us press it!
Maybe if we gain a stacking power-up buff, and casting will consume the stacks for extra/double duration/absorb.
Would fix our dmg reduction problem as well. Some current talents (and some of above suggestions) also lean towards a Shield path for Holy.
Immunity talent please! I’d prefer if Desperate Prayer was a short immunity rather than a big heal, I rarely use.
For Spriests, even if it might seem like flavour, I’d personally love to see something done with our insanity bar, since it’s supposed to be an indicator of how far into madness/insanity we are/have fallen, but it currently serves no purpose other than being a resource for one ability(DP). I have no claim to be expert on tuning and what-not, but for one idea, could be MB or DP having a slightly lower cost, but increase in potency/effect depending on insanity amount used. Another could be to have increments on the bar, to alter effect of certain abilities depending on where on the bar we’re at. 
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Yo that could actually be super useful, devouring plague dumping ALL your insanity and scaling by it. It has potential.
Or is this too much like hand of gul’dan
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The focus of my thoughts will be from a PvE Heroic Raiding Holy priest perspective.
Priest Tree:
Power Infusion. I can understand where other players are coming from when they say it feels bad to be pressured to give it to others. Personally, I don’t mind giving it to others. This will be a mandatory point so maybe make it base-line or remove it entirely to stop the argument surrounding it.
Renew. I can see what you are trying to do. Maybe trying to encourage people to use what has been a dead spell. It could make for interesting interactions with spell choices, but would need to see how it feels to play.
After the first 8 points I am at a loss with where I would choose to go next.
Holy Nova has been a dead spell forever. The only time I use it is when I am doing old content to farm stuff. I can’t imagine when I would to choose to use it over sanctify/coh/poh in an actual raid environment - so this leaves me stuck, unable to go further down the tree without picking things I am unlikely to even put on my spell bar.
The chains that follow on from there are also choices I wouldn’t make. I don’t mind doing damage as a healer, but for some of these choices being shielding myself boosting my damage feels, wrong and a waste of GCDs - especially as Holy.
Unwavering Will. I really don’t like abilities like this.
I would never use Holy Word: Life especially in a raid environment because there is a high likelihood if someone is below 20% health others are going to spam. So chances are I will end up taking the damage myself and potentially dying.
None of the four end talents are the slightest bit appealing.
Holy Tree:
I like the gameplay prospect of using the Holy Words and all the various spell interactions, however I’m concerned around how mana hungry this play style will be. Could we maybe move the shadowfiend and improved shadowfiend closer to the middle? Would probably need Enlightenment/Symbol of Hope/Cosmic Ripple mana gains PLUS Improved fiend to sustain good Holy Word play.
I am in the camp of people who really enjoys Flash Concentration play, but can also see the perspective of those who don’t want their entire play to be dictated to in increments of 15 seconds.
Nice to see Binding Heal back.
Maybe replace the Holy Nova choices with Cascade (that was a very cool spell I know I’d love to have back!). Or maybe add something that works more like the Necro ability Unholy Nova.
Overall
I am very disappointed in the priest tree and am underwhelmed by the holy tree - it is at best - just ok. For both trees, there are chains where, in order to get to a potentially useful option, you have to choose something that I wouldn’t use, or feels like such a waste of points that they both feel bad.
ETA: I am not a fan of the chakra playstyle - let’s stay away from that please.
Intro
Welcome to my Shadow Priest rant that I’ve been holding in for the whole expansion.
The feedback is coming from a mythic raiding and M+ PoV. I will try to mostly focus on the bigger picture of ideas transitioning into a new expansion, not repeat stuff that has been repeatedly posted (like Shadow Word: Feedback) and not go into detail (there is much more to be said).
Quick summary of what I (personally!) enjoy
and would like to see retained come Dragonflight:
- Both fresh and proven ideas appeared in Shadowlands that are fun with lower haste levels and less borrowed power clutter. Devouring Plague dot spender, instant Mind Blasts, Void Form gcd weaving, Shadowflame Prism, Living Shadow.
- The macro and micro complexity of the spec. It is hard to do everything right – correct ability usage order (under pressure), track and manage dots, manage 4 major cds, plan for mechanics and movement in advance. Each point has huge potential for optimization. That complexity resulted in huge differences between a normal Shadow Priest and an excellent one, I dare say much more so than other classes (also it’s part of the reason why I struggle to get invited to a +15 key).
- The ‘shadow’ feel. All the void and tentacle stuff is rather terrible.
Main pain points
Parts of the spec go directly against each other,
forcing you to choose one over the other and creating a weird feeling for the player. Basically every time you choose, you feel like you are missing out on the other part:
- Shadowflame prism vs SN spam
- SN spam vs anything
- Void Torrent vs Voidform (or anything, really) – inevitably sitting on CD or not getting a full use
- Applying dots vs anything – dots themselves are weak, all the power is in cast abilities and re-applying dots feels like missing out on those high-value parts
- Insanity overflow vs e.g. Dark Thought proc
- Monomania and the whole ‘empower the filler’ charade
Many spells do not interact in any way
and act as extra clutter in the rotation and the spec tree. In most cases, raw damage != fun:
- Void Torrent - if it at least procced Dark Thoughts or something
- Shadow Crash – if it at least applied dots or cost insanity or something
- Mindgames – if it at least acted as a glorified Mind Blast and spawned Apparitions
- Shadow Word: Death – if it at least spawned Apparitions or generated insanity
- Shadowfiend – if it at least cleaved (somewhat remedied by investing in Shadowflame Prism)
- Void Eruption – this glorious explosion does nothing, if it at least applied some dots or had no cast time (see the opening effect of Evokers’ Dragonrage for perfect interaction or Syzygy for Balance Druids for dot application)
- Searing Nightmare – by itself it is fine: an insanity spender that applies dots is awesome, but 1. mind sear + CWC and 2. talent competition with Misery are terrible problems
So many pets
Please stop giving us pets. The problem is that it is very hard to make them feel good and the damage they do is mostly additive (i.e. they have to be interactive or integral to the toolkit to alleviate both problems)
- Necrolord pets – gone (did not scale with mastery, afaik)
- Shadowfiend – we never asked for it (although it was undeniably cool back in BC), but I’d expect it to be made interesting and up to today’s standards. Extremely low (pve) damage on extremely long CD. It feels very bad to press as an extra GCD
- Void tentacles/Idol of C’Thun – unreliable, unimpactful, : low proc rate, low effect and mediocre insanity regen
- Living Shadow – this is the only example of a good interaction, where for the Shadowlands version you at least felt the weight of the effect (and could play around it) and for the DF talent version it ‘does what you want it to do’
- Idol of Yogg’Saron – delayed gratification, additive damage, not impactful (funnel talent for cleave is too situational and somewhat contradictory)
Lack of choice
- We were mostly considered the ‘single target spec’, all because of the 30 level talent row: ToF vs Misery/SN and lack of baseline AoE spender. Unless our baseline kit is complete with built-in ways to deal with diverse pull sizes (and talents further positively expanding on that), such choice will always have to be there and will never feel good (again see Evoker toolkit with baseline tools for everything and talents improving that in certain areas)
- Hungering Void vs Surrender to Madness – surrender is something outside of your control (bugged/despawned/summoned enemies or teammates having change of heart during a pull would kill you). It is not a choice and it is not fun
- Vampiric Insight is an incredibly single-minded design. This does not need to be Vampiric Insight specifically, but the kit as a whole could allow us to choose on the fly – spend proc on Mind Blast for ST, spread Vamp Touch to extra target or do some extra aoe with whatever (see Ele Shaman’s Surge of Power for great design openness).
- Class tree is much different from any other class hybrid in several ways:
- in e.g. the Shaman and Evoker trees, you want everything, because it is impactful, efficient (one point nodes) and interesting, which forces you to choose (in a positive way)
- in Priest tree, you don’t care about the ‘holy’ or ‘disc’ stuff, because it has 0 value. Similarly, you don’t care much about ‘utility’ stuff, because it is too situational and mostly borderline bad (talenting into Shackle Undead is borderline desperate)
- there is much throughput in the form of Twist of Fate and Shadowflame Prism that you simply cannot omit – class tree + throughput = bad
- you can never leave out PI and Twins
- the bottom part (read ‘the strongest’) talents give us 10% damage reduction for 5 sec. How can you justify that, when shaman get ‘2% avoidance & leech’, ‘8% max health’ and ‘4% magic dmg reduction’ just casually lying around
- on a similar note, Shadow loses damage in talents (and in combat) for 6 sec of 75% dmg reduction, while ‘20% dmg reduction in ghost wolf’, ‘15% max health from Earth ele’ and a casual ‘55% Astral Shift’ are all in the first part of the tree
Tickling damage profile
It is typical with Shadow that all damage occurs more often in lesser chunks (compared to blasters such as Arms or Arcane). But even with this in mind and even with the focus shifted very much away from dots, our ‘blaster’ abilities, like Mind Blast and Devo Plague feel like a wet noodle to press (12k Devo Plague total avg vs 25k Starsurge avg).
Part of the problem is that as we get more diverse abilities and damage sources (and additive damage clutter from pets), each of them has to be weaker and ‘less interesting’ to fit the global ‘budget’ of class tuning and instead of feeling like a bone grinder, you feel like a jelly grinder (this also mostly fits Fury warriors 
).
The good parts
- 2pc Dark Thought proc was great – it added meticulousness to the rotation and weight to spenders (proc occurs semi-deterministically), you had to think on your toes, you had more chances to cast while moving, – sad to see it go
- Idol of N’Zoth – although void shizzle again, the principal design is outstanding. I get the Epidemic N^2 scaling vibes. The proc rate is low and targets dying are huge problem, but all can be remedied
- Living Shadow – for reasons already mentioned
- Mind Restrain (absorb damage from enemy on Mind Blast) – the ultimate way how to combine damage and healing and correctly hybridize shadow (not by casting Renews, even though I looked forward to slapping instant impactful PoMs around)
- Vampiric Embrace – if it behaved more like Ancestral Guidance – no GCD, more splash healing and a sane place in the talent trees
- Shadowy Apparitions – finally a build to embrace focus on ghosts
- Twist of Fate – finally independent and
easily accessible – enables deeper levels of play optimization - Rot and Wither – another way to extend dots (than Void Bolt). I’m looking forward to what you guys come up with, since it probably cannot stay tied to filler damage
Side notes
From my scouring of all Shadowlands and Dragonflight content, one thing is clear: you switched to a development approach that incorporates the users and is not only driven internally. This is an extremely good direction that you took as game devs. There is nothing more valuable than maximizing your feedback and failing as early and as often as possible (huge for Hunter designers). I still, however, think that you guys do not understand (or much worse don’t want to understand) how the players feel.
This ‘feeling’ is what you get from players posting on forums, rambling about on streams and discords, by actually playing the game (even the most raw features). It is not the same as analytics data, usage % of talents, winrates, deathrates, killrates, balancing etc. Going against such feelings is the best way to drive players away, reduce retention and earnings (as confirmed again and again by player feedback about many shadowlands systems).
Hand in hand with this is the ongoing disparity with PI. You ‘designing for the so-called game 1’ again goes against the user ‘feeling’, instead of trying to find a common ground that benefits both and empowering those ideas. I totally agree that this is a good thing for the top 1% high-end players (that are the most publicly visible ones) and a decent percentage of the rest of us. But otherwise, it directly poses real issues wrt. subscription motivation.
Either make Shadow a support-first class (it used to be a passive healer + mana battery + mediocre damage back in the day) or Shadow’s PI castable only on self. Again please note that this is solely from Shadow standpoint, healer personas mostly have the support mentality in their blood .
2 Likes
Even from a pvp standpoint, I agree with pretty much all your points. Good rant.
Agreed- If it at least counted as casting mindflay, so it’d proc things, and not feel like wasted time.
Such a visually beautiful ability. As others have mentioned before, could possibly split it from Voidform, and make it another AoE spender.
What would you think of rather than static 50 insanity, Devouring Plague had a lower insanity cost for lower effect, but then could consume more insanity(possibly even 100+) to dump it all for increased effect, based on amount consumed? And then possibly rather than all the utility clutter in our spec tree, a talent to increase our total insanity. (And then possibly other insanity interactions/spending options).
Although, just want to say that I for one want us to head into void territory- Being the dark cultists we are, we borrow our given powers from praying to, or tabbing into the biggest and baddest darkness we can find, which is the void and it’s lords. 
Hey Blizzard, instead of making the worst talent in the game with literally 0 pick rate (Contrition) obligatory to access Evangelism/Spirit Shell, you could simply accept the fact that it sucks and remove it or at least rework it. Or place it in the side branch that wouldn’t force us to pick it since it’s so bad that no sane person ever picks it.
PS: Contrition heals all your atonement targets for a VERY low amount when you use your penance defensively… Considering how rare penance is used in that way, it’s simply hilarious… Also, it’s a forced pick if you want to have access to Purge the Wicked, which is cringe
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Now that the monk talents are revealed, does it seem that every healer besides priest will now have an interrupt?
I think holy paladins also don’t?