I feel like blizz has failed to understand why spriests are so popular in m+, and nerfed the wrong thing. Spriests are brought because of their excellent utility such as Mass Dispel and Power Infusion, not their damage.
Their AoE is not any better than that of the other casters, and after these nerfs it will be behind the other casters. Yet spriests will continue to be mandatory for the highest keys because of their utility.
I agree when possible, but it is often not possible to do so. Take NL for example. Several passages where you can’t be ahead of the tank due to pulling other mobs and or cleave dmg, then you have avalanche, volcanic, storming, spiteful to contend with when often, the only place you can go is further away.
We can plan all we want but some dungeon designs and rng negate all of that and we’re back to square one of horrible mobile dmg due to getting ranged , los’d, and sc misses.
I’m already seeing posts where both aoe and even ST are performing lower than before these changes. I’ll reiterate that Spriest was quite behind other classes aoe pally/dk for example, on mobility pulls, los pulls, and any affix/ location where shadow crash could miss, or not register on stairs, etc.
Let me clarify, I’m not talking guild ran 20+ keys, I’m talking pug 11-16’s where no matter how much you plan and adapt, there’s always the different tanking styles, routes, pull strats, etc to contend with and some of them just result in trash dps compared to other mobile classes that can adapt on the fly and easily pull +15k dps more overall dps in those scenarios.
Get a good guild group and I agree some of those issues are at least partially mitigated. My point is the entire playstyle should not geared around a 20 guild key with 5 people in disc that are used to doing the same pulls over and over. It’s not as adaptable as some other classes, in those other scenarios, and yet here we are with a nerf.
If you’re happy, good for you. I think the changes are shortsighted and trash in general.
Many others obviously do as well. You’re not changing our minds just because you are ok with it.
The dot spreading as shadow priest feels good awful like shadowlands was bad but this is even worse. Tanks Running away with 20 adds and you manually has to dot 12 before you toss shadow crash and it sometimes miss.
they need to fix this trash system
Remove Pi problem solved buff Shadow.
priest nerfed again
At this point it is obvious that the rework failed again
Priests complaining about nerfs and want 1 button AOE…Funny things. In the same time aff is left in the dust with big button bloat…And in the 20+ bracket there is only 0.3% aff locks(542).
well fire mages happend flamestrike 88mil 1 button dps btw.
this is true 100%
Instead of Removing Pi 
Lets undertone it some more o_O 
Intergrate half of PI into void form and DA and delete that crap talent, thank you.
And what exactly do you suggest happens to PI for discipline and holy priests??
Twins of the Sun Priestess (redesigned)
When cast on self, Power Infusion also grants 20% of its effect (i.e. +5% haste) to 5 nearby allies, preferring dps.
they should just remove Pi and make DA VF instant cast-
thats kind of all blizzard looks at when they decides what to hammer down so it isn’t fun to play anymore.
add back instant cast DA and VF pls.-
I actually prefer aff lock. I’ve ran demo in keys for 3 xpacs now because, yeah, always something with aff in m+.
This xpac with all of the trash/boss mechanics, affixes, and hard cast/ramp up, I gave up on lock at the beginning of season 2 and went to spriest. I’m not a fotm player, liking aff and considering spriest playstyle seemed like a good transition, and it was.
But due to spriest being in the god comp, based mainly on PI and MD. Instead of fixing that problem… Blizzard, in their infinite wisdom, set out on a AoE chain nerf campaign.
Now as you can see in the forums, spriests are heavily “underperforming”, even being beat by blood dk tanks on overall end of dungeon dps.
It’s pretty bad that average to slightly above average players like myself, go from competing (not leading, just competing) on overall dps to having 15% of that dps knocked out and constantly underperforming to most every class, and the exact same guildies you once could hang with.
I agree with you on the lock design as well. I’m convinced that if blizz class devs even play wow, that they play melee classes only. Or at the least the dungeon design team only plays melee.
I have a 70 enh shaman. EZ mode for kiting, adjusting to tank pathing/affix variables, etc. General difficulty/playstyle between classes is soo unbalanced this xpac.
Is there any class devs left??“Class” devs are doing mistake after mistake and in the end of expansion they will go with the mantra “We learn from our mistakes”…Every expansion same stupid mistakes. In SL Natria aff was OP thx to conduits and soulbinds then got nerfed to the ground and never recovered…Now they are releasing broken spec augmentation in the middle of the season without clue how to balance that. Even after the nerfs nothing will change best combo for m+ will be fmage,SP+aug maybe in S3 to…Some classes have zero utility or sinergy or damage some lack both…My main was aff warlock but give up got tired from all declines…In raid situations according to logs SP was in bad place…Now is even worse because devs dont know how to balance classes 
Most of the specs didnt receive single rework in DF alpha or devs just choice to ignore all feedback.
They are nerfing spriest dps to the point it just as well be tank dps outside of cd’s.
If a player is a healer, or has an aug evoker mindset where they can be happy with being a “support class”, then they will probably ok on their spriest due to the utility they bring, which is the REAL problem, not their dps (take a hint Blizz).
If they are a dps at heart, they’re not going to play this aoe-gutted class and bang buttons to run 4, 6, 8 or however many m+ a day to be closer to the tank in overall dps than they are to the dps (depending on the comp). Instead, they’ll change classes/specs, or unsub.
Blizz needs to undo the dps nerfs and address the real problem, what they bring to this exodia comp, specifically PI and MD. And if they do… god forbid that they use a calculator, run some sims, and figure out how much PI haste gives the spriest dps in a basic run, and make the necessary dps buff when they remove PI.
Also, they need to avoid dungeon and affix designs that heavily favor one class/spec over the other.
But I’m sure it will be too logical to do that, and we will be right back where we are now.
Doesn’t shadow still do more single target damage now than it did a month ago?