Shadow Priests’ enjoyability is rock bottom at the start of an expansion due to squished secondary stats. Especially that play style revolves primarily around haste. Unlike other classes that also benefit from haste, it’s at the core of Spriest’s class design.
If left unchanged, Shadow Priests will suffer again in 9.0, where the fun aspect only kicks in half way through an expansion. Blizzard should really look into this as getting more powerful should understandably be on a progression path, throughout an expac, but the enjoyability of a spec should not be linked to next-season gear.
Secondary stats need to be looked into, at least have them buffed if there is no intention to rework anything (which in itself would be a shame really).
Haste is always a problem, its the same every expac for every class.
I just wish there were more actual useful secondaries, like the tried in WoD but stats that actually matter.
I thought multistrike for example was a good stat on paper, since it behaves similar to crit, but doesnt activate any passives that trigger on crit but instead procs other on hit effects twice as often, it could have been an actual choice between two secondaries based on what they did for your spec, class, and gear.
Just having Haste = Speed of abilities, Mastery = Consistent throughput, and Crit = Inconsistent throughput with Versatility just being redux resilience isn’t fun. And makes the secondaries feel very irellevant
Haste being a stat that makes specs feel so much better and creating this friction of “this item is an upgrade but less haste makes it feel worse to play”
I think some friction is inevitable, and it’s hard to ever truly get rid of the problem without getting rid of haste and that’s not really a good answer either.
Part of it comes from how haste is by default tied to many specs resource generation. I dont pose this as a problem to be solved, more as a statement of fact.
What I would like to see is the relationship for specs that are heavily reliant on haste, with haste, to become something similar to fire mages relationship with crit. The spec facilitates the majority of the stat / enough for the spec to function properly as a baseline, and additional haste is relatively effective for damage but isn’t needed to make it work.
Same feeling i had playing my blood dk after legion. Trash, barely able to press buttons. Now ofc feels smooth again. Shouldnt have to wait a whole expansion for this.
Same feeling i had on my rdruid going from 25% haste to 5% after leveling up. Feeling like garbage.
Sounds mad, but I feel like haste is detrimental to the fun and playability of certain specs such as shadow. If I could, I would remove haste as a stat and give all classes a base amount that doesn’t make fluidity and GCDs feel like complete cancer at the beginning of each expansion due to dirt low haste.
Why the hell should I wait over a year into an expansion for my class to feel decently enjoyable.
I think that might be going too far, it’s something I hinted towards being a every simple fix, but the game loses so much in doing it, and it unnecessarily removes haste from the specs that don’t feel reliant on it.
Imagine if they removed haste, and made class “fluid” on base, or, simply make every single item comes with 3 stats, haste and 2 random ( ofc haste will be lower than other stats, or somehow tuned) so all classes could actualy focus on their main secondary stat without feeling they gona get arrow to knee cuz of slow gameplay
decent rotations without gaps so you’re not forced to stockpile haste
a better scaling of haste so you don’t have to sacrifice everything else to get a decent result. maybe a non linear scaling, so haste is worth less the more you have it.
stop removing stats from items. 3 slot less is huge.
These are all options yes, but they’re less solutions and more goals. They’re what you want to have happen, not how you get there. But I do agree it’s mostly a class design problem.
Yeah it is huge, but the azerite neck also adds a tonne of that back. We lose about 850 secondary stats to azerite, the neck then has double the equivalent normal ring, and primary on top.
TLDR :
From the lowest ilvl BFA item ( lvl 111 & 172 ilvl green) to mythic 8.3 gear (485 ilvl from Nzoth) ilvl was inflated by 182%, but on a non azerite slot like legs the stamina inflation was +2276%, the main stat +1753% and the secondary stat +496%.
There was something really wrong with stat scaling in BFA and while the HP scaling can be explained in various ways i really hope they calm down for a sec and go back to a more … rational increase ? Because the stamina inflation was huge.
I really dislike having to hit “caps”, regardless of whether it is haste or crit or w/e, or the fact that you are so over-reliant on one secondary stat that even an item 20+ levels higher is a downgrade.
There’s multiple solutions to this, though non of them are easy or without their downsides.
Casters don’t have gaps in rotation like melee does and also the fact that we have 3 slots without secondary stats is a GOOD thing. Because it keeps secondary stats like haste within a narrower margin and after we start leveling in SL the drop won’t be as high as it was in the past.
I said this in a previous post but i hope they keep this aspect of azerite gear in further expansions where we have some slots with unique effects rather than plain stats.
