Debuff cap has been removed for tomorrow. But I don’t personally know how much that’ll help in the end. Thats why I was a healer on my priest character some years ago. Until TBC…
It helps even more without the debuff limit, because shadow weaving will be a buff to locks who can now also use more of their debuffs
Almost tempts me to have a go at a priest again, until TBC and shadow mana battery dream.
Give it a go. Shadow is a fun levelling spec, so your journey to 60 will be decent.
At 60, it suffers a bit in 5-mans due to mana issues, but its perfectly viable and you will have no issues getting groups.
For raiding, firstly we don’t know what the removal of the debuff limit in the Fresh servers will do to the raid meta exactly, but it will definitely benefit Shadow priests. Will it be enough for them to compete with Mage/Lock for a pure DPS spot? No, that’s unlikely, but the viability as a utility spec will improve.
Raids that run warlock heavy often like to take a shadow priest for the increased shadow damage debuff that benefits them too. Warlocks are likely to be popular this time around because:
- Removed debuff limit also makes warlocks better.
- Warlocks are strong in TBC
So if you are prepared to put in the effort to farm good gear, use consumes, and probably take engineering for the extra damage/utility, then I would say you have an excellent chance to justify a raid spot in Fresh vanilla.
In TBC, Shadow priests are strong and popular, with 1-3 in almost every 25-man raid.