It’s well known that Shadow Priests are not favored in M+. Do you think it would change if priests received a battle resurrection?
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What do you mean?
I deleted my post but whatever. I don’t think this would change anything as a lot of tanks running high keys are DKs who already have a battle res. Also but that’s down to personal preference I don’t think we need extra utility. We already have utility, it’s just not meant for M+. There’s only 3 damage spots in M+ there’s no way you can give a spot to all classes so basically unless you’re strong af like Demon Hunters you won’t be “flavoured” as people will only try to run with those classes in pugs.
Well i whould not mind shadow getting a bit more utility you know.
But tbh if we were to look into something more reasonable it whould be more reasonable to not give Shadowpriest any more utility. If any utility whould be added it should be either;
A substitute for DH’s or Monk’s +Damage buffs, since these are impossible to be provided in any other way. Tbh any candidate out of the ranged specs whould be nice.
Or;
Give Vampiric Embrace a mana recovery portion.
Sure these are probably more beneficial for a raiding enviroments but atm. shadow priests utility “slots” are pretty much full. Mass dispell, Vampiric Embrace, Leap of Faith, some off healing, stamina buff etc. are all concidered utility. But their not part of the meta atm. since most of these things are very situational or substituted by scrolls.
If we were too look at a sort of utility for mythic+ we could probably also concider some other extra stuff; Maybe add a “Gorefiends grasp” like effect to Dark void making it possible to spec into a substitute for tanks who lack a grip etc.
Another alternative could be to instead of having leap of faith, shadow priests could have some dark pull that pulls enemies to their target. ![:rofl:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/rofl.png?v=6" ":rofl:")
Shadow priests are fine in M+
Just because they are not part of the top 100 groups does not mean they are bad.
Hard disagree. Shadows damage is fine, and for keys where that’s all you really need then sure the spec is okay. But the lack of useful utility causes serious problems once you’re trying to do anything past a weekly 10.
Shadow lacks a…
Interrupt on an interrupt level cool down.
Cc for infested.
Aoe stun.
On demand damage for ghuunies.
Unique utility that allows for time saves.
Physical or magic damage buff / debuff.
Group kiting tools.
Battle Rez.
Group wide damage reduction.
Not having some of these would be fine, expected in fact, but all of them? That’s a disgrace. Utility balance in general is horrendous and the problem is much bigger than shadow, but if the problem were solved, shadow would likely benefit the most.
I didn’t say that Shadow is bad. I said that people (pugs) don’t favor shadow priests. Yesterday I spent about 1 hour trying to find a group. I’m gearing up a druid now because apparently balance is much better for M+. I like my priest. It’s very rewarding to apply all the dots on all targets and watch them melting.
Interrupt on an interrupt level cool down.
With Last Word Silence has 30sec CD, which sure is twice as high as other interrupts, but it wasn’t made for PvE and we can not expect Blizz to design encounters around our interrupt. Can you point me to a encounter in which this is THE reason not to bring a Priest? Considering every tank has short CD interrupt and unless you are just bringing boomies and spriests you have plenty to go around.
On demand damage for ghuunies.
If you just manage your insanity you can have eruption for most of the spawns, which should be more than enough help from you
Group kiting tools.
What about Searing Dialogue?
Group wide damage reduction.
But we have VE
Anyway you are not bringing a group full of just SPriests mate. Lack of any of this has never caused issued in my groups and in fact we bring the best pubby tool imaginable Leap of Faith. I can’t count on my fingers how many times I’ve saved the group from a wipe with clutch “life grip”
Well what priest could use which ain’t really “OP” are some slight adjustments too already present abilities.
If they changed Vampiric Embrace to be a true sort of embrace; aka it adds a shield instead of health(even at a lower rate) to the whole group. We could if used properly wield it as a group wide defensive CD.
Shackle should probably be a bit remastered, to shackle “evil” which easially could involve what a priest itself conciders evil and thus add humanoids to the list(at least for PvE content).
Adding a slow portion to mind sear similar to mindflay could also work.
Theres so many things which could be done to improve things for priests overall. Disc are still fairly good in myth+ but the nerfs have caused even more bias, bad discs are even worse now which affects all healer priests even if holy priests acctually are fairly decent these days.
I don’t blame people for avoiding priest in myth+ content since the utility you bring as a priest are very situational at best and requires a decent player behind it most of the time.
Yes and people will always favor the 3 best damage specs for M+ so you still have to be lucky enough to play one of the 3 specs out of like 25+.
As I understood what Ellipsis said - and I already stated it on some other topic - it’s more a design/balance issue than a Shadow issue.
I think the spec by itself is fine, could use a utility buff maybe, whatever. The real issue lies in dungeon completion prerequities and dungeon design. They favor the same toolkit, toolkit that a small bunch of class can tick almost completely.
Instead of removing stuff from classes they could just design modifiers and dungeons so they’re not “trivial” when running a specific comp - that isn’t even specific since everyone and their mother are trying to run it.
Chances are that Shadow will never be interesting in BfA M+ because of their design. I also think the damage meta won’t really change an inch unless they seriously tweak damage, but I don’t see that happen neither.
I picked out some of the things and tbh Shadow has all those in a way.
Quickly hitting on the interrupt CD thing: Our interrupt is a silence so you can use it to desync casters in a group and get added value on casters using multiple schools (shrine springs to mind). This may not justify the 45sec CD but should still be considered.
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I’m using shackle undead often enough to cc infested … undead. Some other cc like prison & incap is just too versatile and unrestricted in comparison.
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We have a 4sec ST “stun” and can aoe interrupt casts and displace mobs with the fear, for example giving your group another 1-2 sec to kill ghuunies that are stun-immune. This does not share diminishing returns with other stun cc. As most groups go stun-immune before all stuns are used anyway as every class has an aoe stun, a regular stun would give us nothing.
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I think shadow has more direct and useful ghuun-damage as several other casters. On demand slow too.
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Time-saving utility is existent in the form of mind-control. Not in the traditional way of skips or invisibility, but moving a broken CC away or a mob that got infested out of a group can save lots of situations. Especially in pugs im more than happy to have that utility.
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Searing dialogue gives shadow a 30% aoe slow. Mindflay is a potent ST slow. Hitting a pack that comes close to your necrotic dropping tank with a fear when the group is already stun immune and so on.
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You can shield people expecting heavy damage and drop 250k heal with a single global, smoothing out aoe-damage-heavy fights for your healer.
As i agree that shadow utility isn’t on par with boomie or hunter for the absolute highest keys, the super black picture you are painting baffles me tho. Maybe this comes included with the negativity of someone not liking voidform, i dont know, but it certainly isn’t helpful in a productive discussion.
Since the 8.1 Patch i had a blast during the M+ runs i did and had no complaints from my teams, as i basically dumped a hot load on them in aoe damage thanks to SD & TH and we planned our setup and routes around the classes we had. I have no problem with the VF playstyle tho, so my experience may be different from those who have.
I did consider it. I doesn’t do much in very large pulls where multiple casting mobs have access to dangerous spells that need to be consistently locked down.
That it is, I’m not specifically advocating that we should have access to it. The problem is more blizzard designed a season wide affix that near enough demands it.
I’d rather my utility be useful if the run is going well, and made the run smoother or faster, instead of trying to tidy up or correct mistakes. I’ve also used MC a couple times to walk a mob away that broke on CC, but so many other classes could just re cc it and we move away.
Having spoken to Matt about this, because I also thought it would be good, he honestly doesn’t see the slow doing much. It’s a 30% slow, and it doesn’t linger at all when the sear is cancelled. It’s a cool addon but nothing more with how much you interrupt sear to maintain dots with void bolt and other things.
I don’t think shadow’s even close to moonkin or mage utility. And I think the problem mostly comes from the design of the dungeons / affixes themselves, and the incredibly limiting design of class buffs / debuffs. Blizz dropped the all across the board here, not just with shadow.
I’ll admit, I was maybe overly glib, but it ultimately represents the opinion of the people we have to argue with to even get a chance to perform. Damage is great, possibly even too great with how scaling might shake out in the next raid tier, but your ability to do the things groups very often demand of you is significantly worse than other options.
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It’s still a 30% slow and does just that: Slow mobs by 30%. Permanently. Without a cooldown or set effective area. You asked for a kiting tool and if your tank is kiting and the trash is still too close, just keep chaining sears and he can kite all day all night. What other class can slow without any limitation on a ranged cast?
Even when I was interrupting my sears for the gcd-second to shoot another VB, the packs did not instantly leap onto my tank. Then again is our slow rarely the only one of the group and communication helps to bridge a gap for you to reapply DoT’s or whatever.
In any situation, for me atleast, it’s far more interesting to think about how one can make the most out of the tools already available. Shadow is absolutely viable in M+ at the moment and with most groups going DH+Rogue+Ranged anyway, most of your criticism is void, as the utility of eg. a boomie is overkill in anything but the absolute highest keys.
Damage with the reworked traits is amazing. If you have a shadow get those traits (both on emmissary reward pieces i had mountains of) and have fun.
Demanding to get the best specs abilities for a certain niche, while neglecting anythink you bring to the table yourself, is simply depressing and seems to be a common chorus in the wow community. One i understood for shadow before the patch, but not for where it is atm. As the class with the two strongest heal specs, buffing shadow to top tier would just result in heavier nerfs long term.
No one says that Shadow isn’t viable. However, as I said, I tried to find +10 and couldn’t. Nobody wanted to invite me. I completely understand that M+ is meant for groups that know each other, but here we are. We either should have outstanding damage or some utility which is a must in some keys. Could you clarify what week Shadow is more useful than other ranged classes?
But indeed shadow needs some love. Right now you can carry one if you know him and he is God. But if he is not a friend… why pick a Shadow over (for example saying a class with dots) a warlock?
The warlock has same or more damage, interrump, aoe stun, can battleres, the warlock stones to help with heals, portal… What provides a shadow? nothing xD
Also the void form is a really bad thing on M+, forcing you to enter on that form to be able to do some damage…and enter on that state does an aoe attack that not always is the best option haha
its partialy true but why did u pick a shrine. Which is exactly the place where u need intterupt chains to prevent wipes with short cd. So if u group up with f/e boomkin your life become way more stresfull in that particular dungeon. I just dont get why talent ,last word" cannot be ,your silence cd is now reduced to 15sec but no longer silences the target". I know, i know…it would make homogenization a thing again…but in modern wow, in time of m+ i dont think there is too much space for class identity and uniqueness to make sure all classes are ± on par.
Or make another set of talents. Like its for pvp. M+ talents. Which would be imo taking things way too far and restricting us even more.
I wouldn’t invite a Level 89 Priest to my +10 run either.
I had no problems to get invited last week and damage-wise shadow is outperforming other ranged specs due to the changes quite easily. Especially on sustained aoe-damage what the reworked traits do is just bonkers. If you need to get carried in M+ you are personally performing far under the possibilities of the spec.
With a meta tank+melee setup the utility asked for here is nice to have but not really needed. To clarify: Not needed until you reach the highest of keys, where nothing but 7 specs are really looked after anyway.
This was hit on higher up in this thread already, but if you, as a priest, need to ask what your class provides … also considering your opinion on void eruption in M+ … you should maybe not partake in balancing/tweaking conversations about a spec you clearly don’t play.
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I wouldn’t invite a Level 89 Priest to my +10 run either.
Do you think it’s my only priest?
I had no problems to get invited
Do you by any chance have high rio? My main has 950 and I was instantly invited when I wanted to join a key on my druid, but failed to find a key on my priest.
What if I know what my class provides and how much damage I can deal? We provide nothing useful and many consider it crucial.
I’m using shackle undead often enough to cc infested … undead. Some other cc like prison & incap is just too versatile and unrestricted in comparison.
I use it too. It’s cool, but as you said it’s not versatile.
We have a 4sec ST “stun” and can aoe interrupt casts and displace mobs with the fear, for example giving your group another 1-2 sec to kill ghuunies that are stun-immune. This does not share diminishing returns with other stun cc. As most groups go stun-immune before all stuns are used anyway as every class has an aoe stun, a regular stun would give us nothing.
You never do pulls and use all stuns at the beginning. At least one saves it for Ghuunies.
I think shadow has more direct and useful ghuun-damage as several other casters. On demand slow too.
Mage can froze them, warlock can stun them. What exactly can we do?
Time-saving utility is existent in the form of mind-control. Not in the traditional way of skips or invisibility, but moving a broken CC away or a mob that got infested out of a group can save lots of situations. Especially in pugs im more than happy to have that utility.
How often does it happen?
Searing dialogue gives shadow a 30% aoe slow. Mindflay is a potent ST slow. Hitting a pack that comes close to your necrotic dropping tank with a fear when the group is already stun immune and so on.
Druids can Typhoon, mages can slow, warlocks can stun without stopping their rotation.
You can shield people expecting heavy damage and drop 250k heal with a single global, smoothing out aoe-damage-heavy fights for your healer.
What? How?
Shortly speaking, you don’t realize that our utility is useful in rare situations while most pugs expect these situations not to happen therefore they consider our utility useless.
Can we agree on that?
Person 1: Shadow has bad ghuunie damage.
Person 2: Shadow has direct ST damage with no buildup.
Person 3: bUt WarLoCk CAn sTuN derp
Useless to talk to people refusing anything positive a spec brings, just do delve in their depressing state of self hatred and animosity towards developers.
Think about that this may also be the reason you underperform.
Your highest keys are all healed, aside from one, and you’ve said you have a group you run with. Your keys are also still fairly low, the same as mine. Have you tried to get into 13s etc in LFG as shadow? Have you compared it against your experiences doing the same thing on a class like mage rogue or DH?
Maybe I overstepped a tad listing shadow’s lack of useful things to bring to a group. (And should have said shadow is generally bad at dealing with ghunnies, which is pretty true). But I’m standing by shadow’s poor position in M+, and the community perception being even worse than that. That’s partly the community’s fault, certainly, but it doesn’t mean the spec isn’t drastically under equipped for making a dungeon run faster, and ultimately I’d like to see that change.
Shadow’s utility tends to be good when things have ALREADY gone wrong. Nobody when building their group thinks “Oh what if a CC breaks, better bring a shadow priest for that mind control” or “What if the healer dies are can’t keep up in a dodgy pull, better bring shadow for that VE offheal”. People want mass stuns, people want aoe slows / ring / vortex for tank kiting, people want sap / cage / incap / sheep for infested mobs, people want mass stealth for skips, people want damage buffs, battle rezzes, and dungeon specific timesaves like lockpicking or warlock gate.
They don’t want things their group shouldn’t need. And that’s all shadow really brings.
That’s the thing though. My damage is great, I use my utility and CC that I do have, when it’s good to do so. I don’t underperform. But trying to get into groups is an absolute nightmare nonetheless, and when I ask what people are looking for, it’s never anything shadow can bring.