Before I start, I just want to mention that I play at high ratings and have earned the Gladiator title on my Shadow Priest in multiple seasons. Right now, I’m sitting around 2300–2500 rating in 3v3 and around 2500 in Solo Shuffle.
I’m only mentioning this so my feedback isn’t dismissed as someone complaining without actually understanding high-level PvP.
Shadow Priest in PvP is a complete joke right now. The spec does meaningless damage and simply can’t kill anyone. Even into three targets, it deals about the same damage as any A-tier melee.
We don’t have a stun anymore, and Void Shift is gone… Okay, so how exactly are we supposed to set up CC now? Oh right…
You can set up CC with other classes—for example, Fear after a teammate’s stun, followed by Silence on the healer. There’s just one problem: mobility.
Shadow Priest has the worst mobility in the game. Every class can kite us with ease, which makes it incredibly difficult to even get to the enemy healer for a Fear. Sure, we have Fade to remove slows, but almost every class constantly reapplies them. Half the time you get slowed again a second after using Fade.
And even if you finally reach the enemy healer, there’s another problem. Fear is currently one of the weakest forms of CC in the game, and about half the classes have an answer to it. Warriors can pull their healer out of Fear, Shamans have Tremor Totem, Evokers seem to be immune every few seconds, and the list goes on.
Then there are melee DPS. Even if you successfully fake cast, farm Precognition procs, cast Flash Heal, and get your 10% damage reduction, melee classes still have nearly 100% uptime on you. You simply can’t create any distance because Shadow Priest has no tools to peel melee off without help from a teammate.
I’m not saying I want Shadow Priest to suddenly become overpowered. I’d just like to see the old playstyle come back.
We don’t need more damage—which we’re supposedly getting in the next patch anyway—because our damage is already fine. What we actually need are tools to survive against melee comps and some meaningful crowd control.
When you compare Shadow Priest to other specs in terms of CC, we currently have some of the least. And yes, a 5-second Silence is an incredibly powerful ability, but Fear is an absolute joke in the current meta