Spriest talents

Classes Priest
1

Isn’t anyone else dissapointed in the talents we have? Most are rly bad and we even have some talents that basicly serve no purpose. Why can’t the Wow team do good talents? The Heroes of the Storm managed to do that just fine, yet here most of them are just filler in a sense.

Tier 1
10% dmg increse and 20% sanity increse - This is not horrible, however, as far as i understand, the Wow team switched to these talents because they offer more diversity in gameplay (and because they did not want to continue to make huge talent tiers where u add 1 point every lvl) when switching talents and whatnot, but…what exactly dose this change? A flat dmg increase on 2 spells and this is considered something good?

Death and Maddness- Why is this a talent? Its not usefull in single target pve or AoE, and its straight useless in PVP. The only place i use it is Torghast, and even then, if they rly want this effect why not just bake it into one of the powers from thorgast.

Unfurling Darkness- This is Ok, not good, just ok, honestly is underwhelming.

Tier 2
Body and Soul- Unplayable
San’Layn- Unplayable
[The talent that makes dispersion good in any way]- It makes Dispersion like 50% as good as it used to be when it was good

Tier 3
Searing Nightmare is the only one that makes sense. Twist of fate is…meh and Misery is …nice but entirely unnecesary honestly. I would much rather have a talent that actually helps .

Tier 4

Pvp tier…Psychic Horror is the only good one.
Mind Bomb is unplayable since its not imediate and can be dispelled.
Last word is only for interupting in pve, otherwise its useless.

Tier 5
All of them are bad, aren’t they? Other than Shadow Crash that can be used to get ppl out of stealth, and Psychic Link is straight out unplayable.

Tier 6
I only use Damnation, the other seem kinda bad, since for Mindbeander, the NPC can just be cc-ed (1 fear/root dose the job just fine), and we can’t dispell it, and Void Torrent is hard to use in a game where every other class has an interupt. But i guess they are all ok for PVE.

Tier 7. Dose anyone use anything other than Hungering Void? The other 2 are literaly dead talents.

The PVP ones are much worse i think, since Greater Fade is Mandatory, so u only have 2 slots left, that u can use on…

Void Shift- I would say this is mandatory too, but maybe not everyone thinks the same

Void Origins- This talent dose soo little its annoying, but its still bordering on Mandatory for burst, especialy since this is a burst Meta.

Mind Trauma- How is this a talent? How can we be expected to fully channel a 4 seconds cast in a game where everyone has an interupt?(u need to cast it at least twice too otherwise even if u manage to cast it, its just 4% haste…)

Void Shield - Is this good? My shield dose not even give me 3k abosrb, it most likely will be destroyed before anyt refiling happens.

Psyfiend- This dose way to little, it would be cool if it could damage trough DMG reduction(so proper % based dmg) and if the healing reduction would work, but otherwise, what exactly is this spell? It deals how much? 3600 dmg flat…, thanks blizzard for this amazing talent.

Thoughtsteal is nice.

Lasting Plague is nice in the open world, but otherwise its not much

Driven to Maddness- U know filler cards in Hearthstone? This is the Wow talent Equivalent of it.(or maybe if u have a healer partner …idk.

Meanwhile Paladins have Guardian of the Forgotten Queen and Divine Steed that grants them immunity to cc and makes so u can’t cast anything for like 5 seconds… All i am saying is that these talents stink.

I would honestly love it if they gave us some Holy spells in the PVP talents. Like the 10% max hp Prayer of Mending would be kickass, or a Flash heal or a dispell, or a Proper Divine Hymn.(the current one is a travesty) Back in Wotlk this spell was Amazing.

2

EDIT: I was incorrect on some things. See Carptica’s post and my reply.

Fortress of the mind:
Flat damage increase always feels boring.

Death and madness:
Great for levelling, soloing and for example Torghast.

Unfurling Darkness:
I have to say my opinion of this is if you want to quick dot, you should be taking misery.

Body and soul I hate mostly because it gives us bad versions of basic utility literally every other class gets base, I still take it. But watching a rouge sprint away, or a demon hunter leap 100 yards every 15 seconds makes an absolute mockery. Dispersion is basically mandatory for PvP to the point it should just be active if WM or your in a PvP setting or should be a PvP talent.

Twist of Fate is a mandatory raiding talent and makes Shadow one of the best specs in the final 30%. Or on bosses with many adds that constantly die. On some bosses its a near permanent 10% damage increase. Searing nightmare is an AoE talent mostly for mythics. Again Misery is a good solo content ability.

Psychic Horror is a horror effect and shares diminishing returns with the dispel on Vampiric touch. A Healer can make themselves permanently immune to psychic horror by constantly dispelling VT. Mind Bomb is essentially for uses against classes that can dump fear like warriors who are basically immune to fear. It can also be very potent especially against double melee that tend to stack up, especially since its now a disorientate and so has far fewer diminishing returns,

T5: yeah I really don’t like this tier at all personally. Shadow crash is good AOE but feels really clunky to use and rotation breaking. As to “removing from stealth”… Only if they are very very bad, its beyond telegraphed. I miss being able to self channel Mind Sear or, better yet now that we can have holy spells again (See desperate prayer), Holy Nova. Auspicious spirits is again one of those talents which changes nothing. You barely notice it and it doesnt change your play at all. Psycic link, again, its part of the AOE build and can only really be taken if your also taking Searing Nightmare which feels truly awful. A talent that only works if you also take another talent is just bad design.

T6: I cant see any good reason to ever take mind bender, its shocking and stems from the old design philosophy where generating insanity actively kept up Void Form for higher stacks. With Insanity relegated to a generic spend it style energy its just useless.
Void Torrent however is amazing single target and does loads of damage. My primary complaint is that this was BASE in legion as part of having Knifu (Xal’atath, Blade of the Black Empire).
Damnation IMO is only worth it in PvP. In PvE in raids its a BAD talent that makes up for poor dot management and its CD is too long to be good in solo content. Better off with misery and taking Void torrent which will allow you too keep DP up on 2-3 targets every pull and itself Void Torrent can just kill mobs in solo content.

T7, its about synergy I think. If you have high crit, with Auspicious spirits on the Auspicious spirits conduit then ancient madness can genuinely push you up to 50% crit. But yeah, Surrender to Madness is just pointless now. EXTREMELY high risk for basically no real reward now we dont reach the giddy heights of DPS we did in legion at 50+ stacks. If something can literally kill you if you **** it up or even misjudge it slightly, it needs to have a seriously high pay-out. They should have just removed it.

My attitude and frustration with a LOT of our talents both PvP and PvE is that we used to have a lot of this BASE. We had talents that did other things. And we lost a lot of flavour and utility to take talents we used to just GET.

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Fortress of the mind: Single target (mostly just used in raids)
Death and madness: S tier dungeon / M+ / Thorgast, its not even close
Unfurling darkness: really strong talent for pvp, interacts with both Misery and Damnation

Do I need to continue? As the the above talents, the rest of the talents are all useful in different scenario’s too.

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  1. Stop Saying Misery is good. Its convenient, but its not good, especialy in pvp where chances are that u wont be able to cast, so presing Pain at the end of the cast wont change anything.

Psychic horror is not a horror effect unfortunately, its a stun , because Blizz hates Rogue-SPriest combo so they made Fear share a DR with Blind and Horror shares DR with their stuns. U are wrong about mind bomb. Fear is a disorient too." better yet now that we can have holy spells again" Ow…1 spell …yeah we have 1 spell in holy…ow nvm 2, with Mass dispell.(holy school)

Why would Psychic link work with Searing nightmare? Psychic Link hits targets u put VT on, not Pain.

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Stop Saying Misery is good. Its convenient, but its not good, especially in pvp where chances are that u wont be able to cast, so presing Pain at the end of the cast wont change anything.

I would argue convenient is good for certain content. But yes for “serious” content its primary effect is compensating for poor dot management.

Psychic horror is not a horror effect unfortunately, its a stun , because Blizz hates Rogue-SPriest

So it is. I just assumed, you know, owing to the name. And of course it use to be (to many complaints exactly for the reason I said. Unstable Affliction was full on cleaving 60% of peoples health when it was dispelled and VT made then immue to our CD -.-). I beg forgiveness for ignorance, owing to many many moons since I really did PvP. I think Season 9 was my last serious foray into PvP. At which point the removal of Resiliance officially made me hate life enough to quit.

U are wrong about mind bomb. Fear is a disorient too."

Again, so it is. Useful. A change probably for the reason I just complained about. Useless against some classes.

better yet now that we can have holy spells again" Ow…1 spell …yeah we have 1 spell in holy…ow nvm 2, with Mass dispell.(holy school)

The point stands. We had all our holy spells removed for thematic reasons. If that thematic reason no longer stands, which it clearly doesnt (they could have easily put in a shadow version of desperate prayer for thematic reasons) then there is no reason at all we couldnt and shouldnt have Holy Nova.

Why would Psychic link work with Searing nightmare? Psychic Link hits targets u put VT on, not Pain.

Hu. No excuse for that one. Just didnt read it properly. Did it used to be on SW:P?

EDIT: Yep, Wowhead says it was on SW:P until the start of BfA. Which is about when I quit.

Tbh, all that does is downgrade my opinion of it. At least on SW:P it had proper AOE utility. 800 damage every 6.5 seconds (which is optimistic for pvp) is absolutely shocking for a talent tier ability and it means you actually have to spam cast rather than use Searing Nightmare to spread the dot. At least Shadow Crash if it crits does decent spike. I suppose it might have some utility on bosses that constantly have two targets to maintain dots on.

6

Idk, I kinda like SP talents cause they’re pretty versatile. There is no “one default build”. From almost every row I use at least two talents, even from last one, StM is fun in torg and keys.
Void Torrent I use as “default option”, Damnation for pvp.
Will take too much time to describe everything but we have different talents/builds for pvp (arena, bg and ebg have different ones), keys (I use two builds for keys based on affixes, more st or aoe oriented), raids (I don’t raid but don’t see any usefulness of Twist of Fate outside of the raid).

2 Likes
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“There is no “one default build”.” That is straight wrong.
1-Unfurling Darkness is the only good PVP talent(since madness is nothing and Fortress of Mind does not do enough for pvp)
2-Dispersion upgrade…again, its Mandatory for PVP.
3-Other than misery, none of the other talents do anything for pvp(if twist of fate procs, u probably won allredy) and again, i must state that Misery is not a good talent. Why is there a talent that makes VT lose Global CD, and u ppl look at it and say…yeah thats fine… no its not, its a joke.
4-Psychic horror is the only one that can be used on both caster and melee so again its the only choice
5- Aparitions is the only one that increses single target dmg, so if you aim for single target dmg, u must get this one, Psychic link is just a dead talent and Shadow crash is for Aoe. If u go into this tier wanting either single target dps or aoe, u don’t have a choice
6. I must admit that this one dose have some choice.
7. Do u want DPS? Hungering void, and its not even close. STM is dead, and the other one offers crit…to a Spriest… IF u play PVP, other than tier 6( between Void Torrent and Damnation) and maybe tier 3 for Twist of fate, there is no choice.

If u want single target damage, then tier 2 and 4 largely do not matter and the rest are no brainers.

Also cut the crap on talents being good in thorgast. That would have been excused in pre-nerf thorgast but not now . I remember on pre-nerf, i had to be carefull with each layer 8…now i did both in 1 hour and it was a walk in the park.

Ow , and i am suprised that u people rationalize some of these talents being good, because they have niche use once in a blue moon, if the stars align and u scratch your balls at 2 am in the afternoon.

“Idk, I kinda like SP talents cause they’re pretty versatile.”- No they are not, i come from a WORLK private server. That was when Spriest was versatile.

Back then we had dispells, pseudo immunity to root and slow, 3 schools of magic so u allmost allways have something to do even if interupted, main resource was mana which was great, since managing your mana requied some skilll(and made shadowfiend a skill that made sense… Sf should award 10 insanity and mind beander 20(at least). It would make sense that way) Divine Hymn…ah i love this spell, those sweet moments when u could hide behind a pillar, pop this and save whole arenas, or stabilize raids, it was glorious. Fear ward, Fear that was 26 sec cd base and not a disorient(remember when the only 2 disorients were scatter shot and Dragon Flame from Fire Mage?). A shield that was worth casting, Renew Prayer of Mending and a Vampiric Embrace that was not a disgrace. Vampiric embrace is honestly the one that hurts the most. Spriest came from a class that was arguably second only to DK in self healing and could solo elite NPC’s and bosses, to a class that has close to none. We also had Armor that went up all the way to around 35% dmg reduction, with inner fire, 30% fear, silence ,interupt and stun rezistence basline.

The only things a Spriest from wotlk would want from a spriest from Shadowlands is Leap, Void Shift and Greater Fade…and maybe Void form, but not if it came at the cost of Dots hitting for close to nothing.

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8

Stop saying death and madness does nothing it’s shadows premiere choice in that row for mythic plus.

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Well yeah but the guy claimed the talent tree is versatile and there is no carved in stone path for anything and i gave example to prove that its wrong. Death and Madness is useless in pvp, that was the context i gave. I listed the talents u take for pvp and proved that there is mostly no choice, that was my point.

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And you claimed Death and Madness serves no purpose beyond questing in your initial post. I’ve made no comment regarding what’s been said after that post, merely correcting the incorrect information at the top.

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Can have some use in ebg like Ashran

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Not sure what you’re smoking, but the current shadow priest talent tree offers huge diversity. I think your mind is narrowed to just pvp, there is more in the game than just that.

-there’s multiple talent choices for M+ from start to bottom
-raiding talents change depending on bosses
-even in pvp there are interchangeable talents like body and soul vs intangibility, AS vs Shadow Crash, Void torrent vs Damnation

Also there is no default set of pvp talents you use:
-You dont play Lasting Plague vs disease dispell comps so you switch it with either Driven to Madness for more go’s or Thoughtsteal vs caster comps.
-Void Origins is also interchangeble
-Greater fade is the ONLY pvp talent thats always taken by default.

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misery is actually really good it saves up gcd’s that you can use to purge / shield / lifegrip etc.

well now you can really save arenas by using shadow mend that heals for a lot (15-20% hp per cast) compared to previous expacs.

it’s not much for rps than RMP lol

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But convenience is good…

It allows the spec to flow smoother and I run it happily.

PS: You are very negative.

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For pvp it’s a must have seeing as we only really have what feels like 3 secs to cast between the extremely short interrupt cd’s and along side Unfurling you can add in MG/MB in that short beloved time of hard casting

And yea ik we could cast SW:P after we dotted everyone up with VT, but reality of it is, VT alone for 2-3 secs doesn’t add enough pressure, and as hinted to earlier that would remove one of the few precious moment’s we have to do a harder hitting hard cast

And generally not taking it for RBG’s mens you gimp yourself by not adding sufficient pressure on the entire enemy team. Yes ToF is nice and all but by removing upwards of 10 gcd’s means you’ll be able to go ham on the healers on a whim

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