(RANT) Shadow Priest

Classes Priest
21

[Spectral Guise] is and was an ability I would certainly vote for to bring back to Shadow Priest. It was a game changer in 1v1 and useful in 2v2 and 3v3. Attempting to land a [Psychic Scream] on a a healer can literally lose you the game, it is so obvious to do it’s not even worth it… sometimes anyway.

As for being cooked I cannot help you on this one.

The instant cast Shadow Priest build for me gave me a little excitement playing against double melee cleaves where using [Void Tendrils] and [Psychic Scream] didn’t always work for peeling and doing consistent/burst damage during created windows as I would have liked. Taking the increased [Flash Heal] with [From Darkness Comes Light] is not enough, maybe in a dream game where you are not pressured for 90%+ of the game by one player anyway.

I have said that [Body and Soul] and [Angelic Feather] are more than enough mobility for Priest because in honesty, they are. Why add a blink? IT is a Mage spell and should remain a Mage spell. The classes who have a teleport, Warlock and Monk are reasonable and I will not go into them right now. Introduce a blink or teleport to Priest and it will create something where they become more like a Warlock or Mage… what is next? Castable [Psychic Scream] or [Void Horror] which has already been mentioned as a potential introduction for [Shadowfiend] or [Mindbender]? I am open to changes for Shadow Priest and may return to playing the as a Spriest in the future, for now I will not return even given the ‘’‘‘Void’’‘’ expansion.

22

The attention Retribution got in Dragonflight is not what Shadow Priest want, not in PvP anyway. It doesn’t help the player at all.

23

Im just gonna refer your other comment i replied to… it’s is litteraly.
If you don’t understand the pain points, litteraly every single glad+ SP are bringing up - you are simply lost.

If you want pure old school SP or any classes for that matter, go play Classic.
What SP needs right now with the current design of other classes, is a blink/port like ability - non casted spells /damage on demand / And a buff to our insanely gutted utility.

And the attention retri got in DF was great for Retri, what are you talking about hahaha. Especially now after its been tuned and talents have been moved around a bit.

  • any attention to SP right now would be a blessing
24

The Reason why feathers and Body and Soul are not enough is that both is negated by any slow/snare effect which basicaly every class has nowadays.
You can spam shields for speed buff but it is without effect with a DK spaming Chains of Frost on you constantly, so you can’t move.
Combine it with a fact that we actually need to hardcast our burst, cooldowns included, and you can see the issue here.

We don’t have effective mobility to create distance to hardcast our burst. We don’t have mechanics to prevent our cast from being disrupted. If we are to be turret style caster, I am fine with that, but then we need some tools for us to let us cast.

What I would suggest is to remove cast time from Halo and Voidform/DA, so at least our burst is more fluent and not scripted behind casting 2 spells before doing something.

Another thing I would like to see is that as long as Voidform/DA is active, we may move while we cast/channel spells. It used to be part of Voidform identity before and I enjoyed that. With all the mobility creep other classes are getting, this would only make our playstyle a bit better and would be still within our class fantasy.

Another fairly popular suggestion is to add Doors of Shadows to Priest class, as it is thematically fitting and it is not particularly overpowered mobility. It would still go a long way for us for many reasons.

2 Likes
25

Someone gets it<3

26

And I mean, regarding this hill to die on that we cant have x things because y classes have them.

Fundamentally, I don’t disagree. And yet, that is how the game is balanced rn.

Mages and warriors both have self healing, when previously they had none.

Rogues have cloak bubble, where previously it just stopped magical effects. Also vanish removes seemingly any and all manner of dot these days.

Hunters traditionally had no damage reductions, until now. And boy are they strong too.

Do I need to go on? Plenty of classes have things they “shouldnt have”, which itself is a subjective view. Hunters are certainly still hunters with damage reductions.

But yes, I would prefer a modern take on spectral guise. Maybe if it gave you like an absurd speed boost, cleared all snares and made you invisible until your guise was killed, that would be great.

1 Like
27

How comes noone even mentioned that the dispell protection is none existent and even if you manage to hardcast a VP on an enemy it will Just be dispelled bc the consequences are a Joke.

3 Likes
28

Very very very true, you are forced to play with Elem or Affli to use thier dispell protection. i honestly forgot to mention it because im just used to " it is what it is " but you are totally correct, our dispell protection is horrible.

29

Very true. My dream is for us to apply Mindgames debuff on a person which dispels, with addition of instant dmg as well.

30

I think the Main Problem is, that Shadow currently is balanced around a methodical, supporting 3s Team that can enable the spec for its full potencial. Shadow is a turret spec that has several build in DMG negations but in shuffle or random BGS you have to Play so much better than everyone Else to achieve the Same Outcome, since you cant rely on Support by randoms.

But if you simply buff the DMG, sp will probably skyrocket in coordinated groups.

Kinda the reason why Riot has Problems with balancing Champions Like ryze for solo Queue.

31

thats what they want us to do… NEVER! :smiley:

32

Boosting damage would be nice but the spec would be still playable only by a few experienced people that might also enjoy masochism. If thats blizzards goal then they should add info about Spriest being class/spec for more advanced players (same as evoker had, not sure if its still true though).

33

To be fair, right now if you get to cast DA, Halo and PI you can absolutely Crank with the Flay damage . but it takes 3 globals + cast to even get ready to burst.

But i’ve had a few times in Test realm where i cranked people death with 3 insanity flays in a row. The problem is getting there without being kicked, stunned or taking any kinda of CC which completely ruins your go.

  • dont even get me started on how bad Voidweaver is.

So i don’t think it’s a damage issue, its a toolkit issue.
and let me be clear, any caster will oneshot you right now if you let them freecast. The thing is that other casters have ways to make windows to get cast off - or thier instant cast dots ( looking at affli/destro wither ) will proc thier burst.

  • Where when playing shadow you need 3-4 globals of pure freecasting before you can even start cranking out your dps , which then also can be CC’d.

  • This would to some degree be fine if shadow had anything else to offer, like crazy team utility or offheals. But currently we have “nothing”
    Ofourse the Silence , fear healer . stun go target is always strong - but its also very telegraphed and easy to counter. And we don’t bring gateways or healthstones like locks, our offheals are trash ( like legit wasted GCD )

and the whole Stun, fear, silence combo also requires you to somehow weave in your burst between that, which currently is so hard with our requirements to cast everything.

I hate PI and want to see it burn, it’s been a stable explanation to why shadow cant have anything.

at somepoint in time shadow had really decent dot pressure, and on thier go’s had lethal damage on demand to put on top of thier CC combo’s. so that if you executed it well it was damn straight amazing. outside of go’s you were trying to keep up dots and apply pressure, while supporting your team with offheals, dispells etc. Currently dispells and especially mass dispell ( which used to be crazy good ) have gotten nerfed so hard into the ground that they are barely worth casting. And offhealing is completely gutted…

I mean i dunno, i just wish they would fix some of the problems all SP players have been raising for years now.

  • if you look outside pvp, there are major issues for SP’s in PVE . majorly being a long CD kick/silence - weak CC compared to a lot of other classes, lack of mobility .
    and then the fact that it takes far to long to ramp up damage, and that they currently do not have access to any sort of AOE Spender abiliity . I love and adore DP, but thats not gonna help you a lot when you are doing packs in Mythic +20 then you want to be able to do some big aoe cleave damage. ( all other classes have access to some sort of big / spender ability for this )

Shadow priest just seems like a spec stuck 10 years in the past, with developers that dont know what they are doing.

I think Destro and affliction warlock have gotten exactly the right kind of tools they need to thrive in modern wow over the last year.
That being instant cast for most of thier damage, heavy dispell protection ( healer actually needs to think before dispelling )

and other QOL stuff, but for some insane reason shadow have gotten nothing of this.
Like i want a sp version of jinx where i can instantly apply all my basic dots with 1 Global !?
i have less mobility and are less tanky than a warlock, they can have it, but i can’t ? - How does that makes sense.

Why do Warlock get to instantly cast they burst cooldowns, while i have to full cast 2-3 globals before i can even start bursting?
Why do they have a permanently applied 50% slow, while i have to hard cast to slow for that amount ?

I hope people see my point here.

NB. im 4 beers in today, sorry for the lack of cohesion.

<3

2 Likes
34

Thats what you have to do to stay sane while playing shadow priest.

I agree with the rest. We just need more instant casts and casts when moving, especially during bursts.

35

Well tbf you can apply your dots with Shadowcrash.

36

give spam able back mind sear give back instant Halo and void form and dark ascension and casting while in Dispersion. Ty.

37

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ RELATIVELY LONG POST - RELATIVELY LONG POST - RELATIVELY LONG POST - RELATIVELY LONG POST ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

Loss of [Mind Sear] is a major one, it has been known as the only Shadow Priest AoE for some time and manual application of damage over time effects then using [Mind Sear] is pretty cool.

Another suggestion is to create another passive talent which works with [Shadow Crash] which then increases damage of [Mind Sear] based of number of dot applications OR overall dot damage/tick rate based on number of dot applications on targets whilst using [Mind Sear]…

Casting [Mind Sear] on targets that have [Shadow Word: Pain], [Vampiric Touch] and/or [Devouring Plague] increase the damage of [Mind Sear] by 200%. A minimum of three targets must have at least two of three damage over time effects in order for this to operate at maximum effectiveness

OR

Casting [Mind Sear] on targets that have [Shadow Word: Pain], [Vampiric Touch] and/or [Devouring Plague] increases all damage by 66% or damage over time effects tick rate by 66%. A minimum of three targets much have at least two of three damage over time effects in order for this to operate at maximum effect*

Example 1: When [Shadow Word: Pain] is applied to at least three targets: [Mind Sear] will operate at 33% increased effectiveness OR 33% increased dot tick rate.

Example 2: When [Shadow Word: Pain] and [Vampiric Touch] is applied to at least three targets; [Mind Sear] will operate at 66% increased effectiveness OR 66% increased dot tick rate.

Example 3: When [Shadow Word: Pain], [Vampiric Tough] is applied to three targets: and you have [Devouring Plague] on at least one target [Mind Sear] will operate at 99% increased effectiveness OR 99% increased dot tick rate.

Example 4: When [Shadow Word: Pain], [Vampiric Tough] is applied to at least three targets and [Devouring Plague] is applied to at least two targets: [Mind Sear] will activate [Mind Sear: Insanity] causing your [Mind Sear] to open an [Entropic Rift] increasing all damage done by 300% for the remaining duration of [Devouring Plague], this effect can be extended by reapplication of [Devouring Plague].

The MIN/MAX with these suggestions are really important between casual / hardcore / mythic player Shadow Priests, I think there is viability with them and as with every class, knowledge and experience will allow you to top DPS in many groups.

Moving on…

Applying 5-8 [Shadow Word: Pain]'s to match [Shadow Crash]'s [Whispering Shadows] dot application isn’t exactly difficult and would be nice to have that much ramp up during a few cast’s or [Mind Sear]…a nice reintroduction to the ability. for sure.

[Mind Flay: Insanity]…[Mind Spike: Insanity]… dare to dream of [Mind Sear: Insanity], check above for my suggestion on how this could work in unison with several of the other talents and abilities of Shadow Priest.

Note: The main Priest talent tree [Holy Nova] combined with [Rhapsody] is technically an AoE damage/healing ability still yes.

38

For PvP shadow is in a odd spot, you have ZERO mobility slows are most of the time autoapply makes feather or your shield sprint not there

Mean shadow need too be tuned that meeles have 100%uptime so your pws needs to hit for 2 mil or you can have a perma 30%wall up if you get out flash heal

But atm its too low, Shadow is like evry seson big fun if people ignore you

39

For players to ignore you it is down to the Shadow Priest and how they choose to prioritise stats… higher versatility means they are more difficult to kill and higher dampening means easier kill for their team mate (Rogue/Mage/Warlock/Elemental Shaman)…this is why they are such a good utility class which is why I am a little confused as to why people are disliking how Shadow Priest is playing right now.

The new slow is major with up to 70% I think it is… that is inescapable if you use it at the right time…no blink, teleport, heroic leap, dash, sprint or other movement avoidance abilities.

40

You litteraly have no idea what you are talking about…