Will the Least Updated Class (Shadow) Priest Get More Attention?

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
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Hello fellow Priests,

Since I cannot find any posts regarding underperforming Priests in SoD, I’d like to bring this up. If nobody speaks up about this, nothing will ever happen I guess. Although, there’s already a well-explained video by Pantsface on YouTube about this – Big thanks to him. Here’s the link in case you want to understand why I’m posting this here as well to support the Priest community: Video.

In-game, I have met quite a few Priests and initially wondered if it was just me lacking knowledge or maybe I was pressing the wrong keys. However, it turns out that 9 out of 10 Shadow Priests are unhappy and disappointed with the changes introduced in phase 3 and 4. Before the release of phase 4, there was a post about the design of Shadow Priests, noting that they had been performing similar Dps to most tanks in phase 3. Blizzard gave us actually hope with this promising post. Personally, I was super happy and hyped, thinking Blizzard would finally make Shadow Priests a decent Dps. I’m not asking for it to be the best Dps in the game, but ending up at the bottom of the ladder while parsing 99s feels like slaying a final boss and having the loot chest be empty. We were nothing more than zookeepers, managing our Shadowfiend, Homunculi and Eye of the Void. Oh, and we also needed to use Vampiric Embrace to heal, to replace actual healers. I mean, we also need to parse! Nevertheless, I did feel bad for them.

Regarding runes in phase 4, we received the rune “Vampiric Touch”. Being optimistic, this rune doesn’t increase our Dps, but there is some good progression here since we are becoming more than just zookeepers! Aside from this, we are able to use the rune “Twisted Faith” since the rune “Void Plague” has moved from the chest to the legs slot. While this change has potential, it’s not entirely beneficial. This rune “Twisted Faith” only applies to “Mind Blast” and “Mind Flay”, requiring us to be almost hugging melee. Why didn’t you Blizzard just include “Mind Spike” as well which was supposed to be our mana-efficient shadow gap filler that also applies an additional crit chance of 30% (stacking up to 3 times) for “Mind Blast”? As Pantsface explained, imagine you cast “Shadow Word: Pain” with a 36-yd range but being unable to follow up with the cast “Mind Flay” due to its 24-yd range. It doesn’t make any sense at all. In overall, not really promising so far.

Moving on to PvP, the rune “Void Plague” and “Dispersion” are crucial for Shadow Priests. With “Void Plague” in the legs slot, we must choose between the defensive rune “Dispersion” or the offensive rune “Void Plague”. This forces us in a way to pick eventually “Dispersion” for survivability, reducing damage taken by 90%. Another option is the rune “Pain Suppression”, but it shares the same slot as “Void Plague” and “Dispersion”, making it less viable. Defensive capabilities is one of the things that I also want to bring up. Priests just lack tools to be able to survive. Our fear can be trinketed or easily countered by the Horde’s racial “Will of the Forsaken”. Our shield barely withstands a critical attack and “Dispersion” only delays the inevitable by about 6 seconds. It feels unfair that every other class has better survival tools. When “Penance” was a thing back in the day, we could survive much longer. Blizzard shouldn’t have nerfed it for if you are playing a healing spec. I have respecced to Disc/Holy, but getting killed within 5 seconds by most classes – Paladins, Hunters, Rogues, Shamans, Druids, is hard to cope with. In my opinion, aside from the lack in survival tools, it makes more sense that healers should not be easily killable.

Thanks for taking the time to read this ‘bible’. If Blizzard leaves us just to cope with it, I might have to change my name to “Ilostmypatience”. Please, also share your feedback and opinions. I think that’s the only way we can pray for some actual and good changes in the future.

Ilostmybible.

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Good post!

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“Underperformance”? Shadow priests are bonkers OP in pvp, and they are gonna become even more OP with 2-piece T1 bonus, which gives them flash heal while in shadowform.

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Thanks for your feedback. I have updated the title of this post.

Shadow Priests aren’t bad at all, didn’t say that. Not being able to use Void Plague is just a pain in the *** since that’s the one that will do a good burst damage. But if we go with Void Plague instead of Dispersion, it will be a huge ‘challenge’ to win from the classes I mentioned in the post. It’s also not like we will become bonkers OP with this Flash Heal in Shadow Form. It’s a nice add, that’s totally right, but we already use Flash Heal, it just takes then way less mana with that T1 bonus.

The whole point is that we aren’t tanky, it’s almost impossible to out heal the insane damage from Ret Pally’s, Boomies, Rogues, Ench/Ele Shamans, Hunters. Maybe a fake cast works and we will be able to cast 1 or 2 Flash Heals, but eventually we will just get stunned or interrupted. If one of these melee is on top of us, it’s just fingers crossed that they don’t crit, because we may even get one shot. Also range wise, we will lose since most of the time we can’t even cast Mind Flay. We can cast Mind Spike, but then knowing that it’s not included in the rune Twisted Faith of 50% increased damage, it won’t be enough damage compared to what they will do to us. So, let’s say that I was able to dot the Hunter with Shadow Word: Pain and that I’m always able to cast unlimited Mind Spikes, I dare to say that we as Shadow Priest will never be able to win that duel. Their Chimera Shot, Explosive Shot etc. will nuke us to the ground. You can’t even heal yourself up since you will get interrupted all the time. Even if we would succeed on 1 Flash Heal or maybe even 2 (if we are lucky), they will basically just continue doing their big burst damage. It’s also not like we can do the kite strategy. Their range is just so much better. Or they have already slowed us down, or they eventually catch-up. I mean, Pally’s have a talent to be faster or they just use Divine Steed, Boomies can just go in Cat Form, Hunters have Aspect of the Cheetah, Rogues have Sprint, Shamans can turn into a Ghost Wolf. Like, even if we dispel their Ghost Wolf, they simply put an Earth Totem on top of us and it’s basically done. The only way where we may have a chance of winning, is to LoS them, but even if that would be successful, the only 1 dot Shadow Word: Pain is not making the difference. It may sound extreme the way I’m saying it, but I face this every single day.

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Shadow priest is a specialisation, not a class.

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It’s updated :slight_smile:

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There were many posts about this 1 month ago.
Same for affliction warlock.
We just gave up and accepted our fate to be raid buffbots and not top damage dealers.

The main problem for us is not some bad runes or misplaced runes, it is the spellpower scaling with dot spells.

Normal spells: 1 spellpower is applied with 100% per 3.5 sec cast time.
Dot spells: 1 spellpower is applied with 100% per 18sec duration.
So for 1 dps gain for a direct spell you need 3.5 spellpower, for 1dps gain for dots you need 18 spellpower. (All modifiers excluded)

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correction, rets dont have the same insane damage as the other classes you mentioned, literally hard rolling a dice for that to happen compared to us getting roflstomped by the ranged classed you mentioned.
I win like 6 out of 10 fights against shadowpriests, depending on my crit rng, blackout and etc.

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Hey, thanks for your remark. I get what you are saying. It’s not that I’m complaining about the insane damage burst you guys (can) do. Yes, some classes/specs need to be nerfed, but that’s not what this post is about. In my experience, you just have enough time to crit on us as you will be on top of us all the time. You can dispel most of our dots, fear can be trinketed, or when it’s off CD again, you can just stun us before with HoJ or decide to bubble it, you can interrupt our healing with Rebuke, a nice toolkit already. There is no rng needed for that. Our silence we probably need to heal ourselves up, or even better we silence you and try to Mind Blast and Mind Flay you with Vampiric Embrace up so we also get healed up while doing damage, but the silence has a 45s CD and it will last only 5 sec. We can’t kill you in like 5 sec. Or when we get stunned, we most likely have to use Dispersion, but it’s just again a delay to the inevitable. Our rng is indeed based on blackout procs, but that will be basically the only way to win against a good Ret.

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be glad you deal with a paladin rather than other hybrids that do not pay any downsides for their insane healing potential, paladins selfhealing potential is lowkey garbage tier, and our mana is even worse with 0 potential returns.

Or if ret is unlucky and you resist the stun, hardly get crits (which does happen quite often for me suprisingly) and more.

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Resist is a rng thing for everyone. And yeah, Rets may be one of the least strong opponents from the list I mentioned. But again, I just really hope that Blizzard will give Priests more attention, because we have gotten basically nothing valuable compared to other classes. I would say introduce a rune that we can pick for more Shadow Damage and reduce something like healing for Vampiric Embrace. Also, they should do something with the range of Mind Flay, give it at least the same range as our dot Shadow Word: Pain. If that’s maybe just too strange due to its design, then they should include Mind Spike to the Twisted Faith rune. What would be nice as well is to be able to use Void Plague next to a defense rune such as Dispersion. And maybe another idea for pvp is upgrading our existing pet Homunculi to be able to slow down the target, so we also have a chance of creating more distance.

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Thank you for your wall of text, but when was the last time you checked how much damage your dots do?

I mean sure, you might have trouble against melee classes when they are on top of you (heck, who doesn’t?) but you still more or less effortlessly destroy everyone else? Don’t you think it’s only fair? It’s a rock paper siccors kinda thing. Or are you expecting blizz to give you tools to destroy EVERYONE? That’s a bit of a wishful thinking, wouldn’t you say?

I as a warlock have trouble fighting priests and to a lesser extent paladins. If I ran a felhound (I run felguard most of the time) so I could use UA then I’d have a better fighting chance. But that’s fine you can’t be prepared for any situatiuon, and I’m doing very well against other classes. So I think in the end it all evens our and as such is more or less fair.

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It would be amazing if they make SP the OP spec for once like Ele/Ench Shamans! They can do basically everything that you can think of. That is a bit too OP, but no, I’m not asking to let Blizzard make us like Shamans, I’m asking if they can buff Shadow Priests a bit so they can use Void Plague AND Dispersion for example. As you are saying, Void Plague is amazing! But that also means we have to give up OUR ONLY defensive runes we have; Dispersion and Pain Suppression. For PvE you’re right, it doesn’t matter at all, we don’t need Dispersion since we have Vampiric Touch now :slight_smile:

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they already did it in P2 , you could one shot everyone with shadow word death .

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Yeah, that was fun though. Anyway, I was completely fine with Blizzard nerfing that, it was too OP. But you can’t blame us for that. It should also not be the argument to say that because of SWD too OP, we aren’t allowed to get attention anymore. Now we are in phase 4, with this post I’m trying my best to come up for the (Shadow) Priest community and I believe it’s better than doing nothing. Some Priests that I met in-game quit the game, some respecced to Disc/Holy and some aren’t a Priest anymore. If this keeps going, I will most likely continue playing Shaman or Hunter since Blizzard like these classes a lot.

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Like i said, it’s only fair that you can’t have both. Wanna do more damage? Sure, but you have to trade something for it. High risk - high reward. I also wish that I cod use both felguard AND unstable affliction for example, and while it would be super fun ot would also be quite OP.
On a side note. You’ve said it yourself, that the vast majority of your damage attributes to a SINGLE ability - void plague. Don’t you think that this in itself is kinda wrong? Food for thought.

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Hey man! Good to see you here too, haha.

Either way - even the rune for us disc priests and how to get it really sucks. It’s pretty tough if you have to rely on a group that goes Stratholme and just wants to zugzug, instead of help out a bit.

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Hey Orizza, I get your point. There’s indeed always a compromise to make, but let me remind you that in previous phases, we could use Void Plague and Dispersion at the same time. For those who enjoy PvP, it’s fair to say we’ve been nerfed, even though Dispersion is nothing more than a mana regen spell and a defensive ability that doesn’t increase our damage at all. I’m repeating what Pantsface mentioned in his video(s), but in the class changes that Blizzard made, we Priests haven’t gotten anything particularly cool or valuable. This could maybe explain why we’re getting outburst so easily by (good) Pally’s, Hunters and Shamans (especially the last 2). Or maybe these classes are just too OP? Additionally, like some time ago, Blizzard Devs asked for Priest feedback and input. Also, considering we ended up in the same Dps ranking as most Tanks in last phase, it’s disappointing to see that we are apparently a low priority for them.

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You can hope, you can pray but most likely blizzard will never balance this game properly.
Look at the t1 set that gives you shadow spell dmg, and then the 2 set bonus is you can cast flash heal in shadowform… Have not tried it but i bet my sweet butocks that flash heal in shadow will not scale off your shadow spell dmg.

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Just because you’ve had something at one time, doesn’t make it fair. It’s only an indication of devs’ poor balancing. Lots of classes had some insane stuff going for them which was subsequently nerfed, and rightfully so:
Druid starsurge in p1 costing almost 0 mana while getting the full spell power scaling like a 3.5 second cast spell but it was an instant cast.
Hunter pets being able to literally solo players while hunters were watching youtube or reading these forums.
Hunter frost trap launcher cancer.
Enhancement shaman self heals and buff scaling, which enabled them to solo entire dungeons.
Mage aoe farming and healing.
The list goes on, you get the point I hope.

The problem with Dispesion is not that it’s purely a defensive ability that does no damage. The problem with it is that it give a HUGE advantage in HP race, which is often the key thing in any pvp encounter.
Pretty much like paladin bubble cheese. These days you engage a paladin and they pop bubble almost instantly while bashing you with all they’ve got (and boy blizzard has given them alot, but that’s another topic entirely). Do you know why they employ this tactic? HP race. Sadly since paladins are blizzard’s precious little flowers this is unlikely to be nerfed. But the idea is exactly the same here.

I guess point being here is that no class should be able to damage their opponent while that latter has no way to respond. And dispersion and paladin bubble enable exactly that. And before you refer to rogue stuns, that can actually be countered with trinket, potions, etc. How do you counter a paladin smashing your face while his bubble is on or a priest who put a full complement of dots on you and hit dispesion? Well, there’s ice block which is available only to one class in a specific build, but that’s about it. And don’t even get me started with flask of petrification, noone’s gonna use that, unless you’re the 0.1% of the most tryhard pvpers.

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