World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Talent Preview - Priest

Community General Discussion
82

45*, 30 with last word.

I’m not the one who blundered the game with these new talent trees, they did.

And since their promise was that utility should be in class talent tree, not in spec talent tree, thia goes against their word.

Either they make them available to classwide via the talent tree or they make them baseline to the spec. You got two choices.

Also the class fantasy argument is a moot one because the whole point of the new talent trees is you are supposed to be able to get and benefit from utility that is normally only available to the other two specs.

If anything I’d enjoy my shadow priest still being a priest, not some old god worshipprr since legion. But that doesn’t matter for the argument.

Almost like it should be baseline in that case and/or Holy/disci should have modifiers in place that cause their damaging spells to generate more benefit from it. Or you could just make it a flat bonus leech for all party/raid members for x seconds, if you wanted to be mega lazy.

Could give them mana for dispelling things instead of insanity, quite simple really. That or you could just make it baseline to the spec.

I’d just remove chastise alltogether and make psychic horror a talent in the class tree.

Almost like they shouldn’t even be choices then because they are not real choices.

1 Like
83

+1. Another great example as to why it’s a good thing that some people don’t design these talent trees.

84

Please, consider changing anything about PI and Twins, especially for Shadow Priest. I have talked to some heal priests in my guild, they dont feel as bad about having a buff to give other players and having some more useful utility that way. But as a Shadow Priest, god it hurts to see those talents. Twins will be mandatory to play in ANY meaningful content, no other talent point comes even close to its current power.
And now you have two different scenarios. A) As a SP, you will have to adjust your cooldown usage to whoever is the best PI target in your raid or B) you play as a normal 2min class but have to track your whole raids CDs and chose (preferably the optimal) target for PI every time you yourself go into CDs.
I cant stress enough that both of these options feel atrocious. It is the opposite of gameplay enjoyment. Lock the Twins talent far in the Holy/Disc tree, remove PI as a talent and give it baseline, bake it into VF or make it selfcast only for Shadow Priest. Please. We have been begging for this since the beginning of SL.

85

As someone who runs an active subscription on PI, here’s a sincere comment on it: f**k you and your design choice.

86

Twins is a talent we have to take no matter what if we wanna hurt ourselves as much, I’ll just say I’ll use it on x player when I’m bursting

87

I… know? And i hate it? Thats why i beg them to move Twins deep in the holy/disc tree or remove it entirely. Or alternatively make PI selfcast only for shadow. If i wanna play a support spec and play around other people, I’ll play a healer, thanks

88

If they move it deep into the holy side, shadow is gonna be even more screwed

89

Why? If we lose too many points on the right side to get Twins, it wont be worth so only Disc and Holy will take it.

90

If you don’t take twins ppl are gonna hate us even more for only using pi on ourselves

91

You should also know that Twins for Shadow is way more impactful than the other 2 specs because with twins now 2 dps are getting mega-buffed. Moving twins onto the holy side will make shadow even worse than it currently is

1 Like
92

Hey there, Shadow Priest player here. I’m just going to list the things I didn’t like or got frustrated after seeing about this Priest / Shadow Tree.

MAJOR COMPLAINTS

I feel like im dropping every little bit of spriest utility in order to get to the good dps nodes at the bottom of the tree. I’m droppping Silence CD node, whole Dispersion kit(which is baseline skill currently), whole Vampiric kit (which is also baseline) just to reach bottom of the tree which has the good damage nodes. And also I have to spend points to get things like void eruption, and whole skills at the second row.

My other complain is, you force us to only play one old god node, i get it but the way of doing it, adding tons of multi point nodes prior to them, makes SOOOO hard for us to reach middle nodes which have cool things like upgraded 4 set or all those apparitions enchancers etc.

Dark Thoughts has been removed from the Shadow Priest toolkit. The reasoning is Dark Thoughts placed a large emphasis on Mind Flay and made it feel mandatory to keep it always channeled to roll for a proc.

After reading the text above which is taken from Priest preview post, encountering 6 different flay/sear enhancer nodes (which totals into 9 points) was a huge contradiction. Which also bring another topic to the table, Searing Nightmare. The button is simply unfun for most of the priests, and remove the characteristic of “strong spread cleave” from the spec.

Having PI as a shadow was already exposed us to toxicity which leads to forcing or CD to use someone else, or being kicked in pugs, now with the twins node, It’s effect gonna increase more so we gonna have much more harder time in group play content. Why cant we simply implement PI into Void Eruption for Shadow only? Current Spriest already stalls their Void Eruption button for 30 sec. in order to align it with PI every fight that takes more then 2mins which is unhealty gameplay.

Minor Complaints
Twist of Fate node not being “after damaging a target below xx% health”. Still hoping that this is a typo.
Sanguine Teachings-Mental Fortitude nodes exists. And they sound super clungy and uninitiative.
Unleash the Shadows node looks super undertuned, 5-10% chance locked behind a crit roll.
Mind Devourer and Void Touched nodes simply overcrowd the rotation.
Location of Talbadar(Insidious Ire) node and reaching to it.
Shadowflame Prism being target capped to 5(as a shadow espically since all the priests gonna have access to it now.)

Hope you guys listen us. Thanks for reading.

94

I am very confused by the talent trees in general.
Do all of spec’s passives come from the trees and almost nothing is baseline? In that case, we get too little points to spend in the tree, making us miss out on so many cool talents.
Or if these trees are supposed to present actual choices for different builds, why are there mandatory class spells there?
Seems to me like we get the worst of both worlds. Having so few points to spend while some are basically locked in.

1 Like
95

Mained shadow priest for many years, 7/10M and 3300 IO in current season.

Things I like:

  • Looks like some interesting possible builds to fit to different raid bosses or M+

  • Some interesting looking new abilities in lower rows, viability will depend on tuning

Things I don’t like:

  • PI still castable on anyone for shadow - toxic nightmare

  • Surrender to Madness is still there as a dead talent after two expansions - has been proved impossible to balance

  • Having to choose between utility and damage - we were told this would not be the case

  • Not addressing bloated ST rotation when in void form - could even be worse than current depending on talents selected

  • Does not address Searing Nightmare as AoE insanity spender - it takes too long to ramp up when you need to precast VTs and then all CDs to max dps and if you have to move you do no damage.

  • No real choice in class talents for shadow priest as you will always go for Mindgames and SFP end row talents, using up almost all points to get there.

  • Too many baseline abilities included in tree - what is the point of this, give the abilities and make tree simpler.

Thanks for reading.

3 Likes
96

still no way to spec for open world for direct damage instead of slow ramp up damage. I miss Mind Spike spam for open world!

Also no Flash Concentration :frowning: You took away the most fun thing priests had for a while! While you left all the bad…

3 Likes
97

Great analysis of the trees here…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4rXYzTopNM&ab_channel=Maximum

98

Overall, I like the holy priest tree as well as the general priest tree (from an hpriest perspective), but there are things that I feel need to be improved.

1.) Prayer of Mending and Renew being on the general class tree feels a bit strange. For a long time they have been signature hpriest spells, and now disc and shadow getting them feels weird. It’s kind of like putting Penance or Vampiric Touch in the general class tree.

2.) Twins of the Sun Priestess really should be either directly after PI or wrapped into it, though this isn’t a big issue for me since I don’t see any other viable spots for me to put my extra class points (which is a different issue that I am about to bring up)

3.) Almost the entire lower left side of the general priest tree seems useless. The shielded talents are terrible, you would need to fit in 11 casts per shield in order to even break even, the Renew talent is just too unimpactful, and Holy Word: Life seems like it would either hit like a wet noodle or nuke the priest if they heal someone at 21% hp. The only talent there I can see being worthwile is Unwavering Will, but even that is situational since you probably aren’t at full health when the raid needs healing and it requires a lot of investment into dead talents to even reach.
Most of the stuff below Twins is also pretty bad. The only talents I would ever consider taking there are Mindgames and Translucent Image.

4.) The Holy tree needs more variation in terms of builds. Yes, we can add individual smaller things like extra surge proc chance or lightwell, but it’s still all the same one build. The only majorly different build I can see with the current tree is a Holy Fire-centric dps build, but there isn’t really a different healing build. This could be a common thing among healers, but I only play hpriest so idk how much build variety the others have.

Now that I’ve said the main things I dislike about the tree, I would like to say what I like about it.

1.) No more Flash Concentration. FC was a powerful legendary and was fun for, like, a tier. It just oversimplified hpriest into “press Heal, win”, especially coming into 9.2 where tier and higher Resonant Words ranks nearly pushed PoM and CoH completely out of the rotation.

2.) I love all the DPS options available to me. I am the type of healer who full builds into dps whenever possible, so being able to not only significantly buff Holy Fire and Smite, but also get access to Shadowfiend/Mindbender, Mind Blast, and Shadowflame Prism is something I really like. It does seem like it could be a bit overpowered, so some tuning will likely be needed.

3.) In the Holy tree I don’t really feel like I’m having to make major sacrifices to get to my powerful healing spells. Yes, I might need to spec out of Divine Hymn to pick up my big dps options for a m+ build, but I don’t need to sacrifice healing or utility to get Hymn, for example.

Again, I like the trees overall, but I do believe that they could use a decent amount of work.

99

Thank you! Read through everything, and from a Spriest perspective, I’m very excited to see everything in action. Especially excited for some of the choice talents in the later rows, and also that we finally have a reason to spend time casting Mind Flay. :smiley:

100

I would also like to ask druid and dk mains or ppl who watch this closely. Since the talents were posted. Did anything changed, got tweaked, moved to baseline, removed, changed positions etc etc on these trees for druids or dks after giving a feedback? It is a very long time since they posted them.

Im just asking if theres any point of making a feedback at all.

Why is vt, dispersion, devouring plague, silence, vampiric embrace, shackle, leap, mass dispel, pi, mind control, stun in a talent tree…

If anything dispersion Vampiric embrace devouring plague and VT should be baseline toolkit of shadow…not in talents buried deep down under the useless stuff making it dead talents since you wont have enough points for it, because we have too expensive bottom part of the tree where you have to spent 3!!! points in useless bullcrap like sanguine teaching.

You have to choose between utility and troughput…which shouldnt be the case- your words.

I as sp loosing all the toolkit and tools that yes…were niche…but you atleast had something…now you will be a damage bot…because nobody will take VE for example or shackle…its too pricy to get there and we have too many damage options. So ye…exactly what shadow needed. Get stripped of all its “tiny” utility it had and call it a day. Ill love to see us getting into the groups.

Also dev note on removing dark thoughts from mind flay…because it would make us cast more mindflay…
Also devs…making 4+ talents that enhance and revolve around casting mindflay…
Were you high when writing the dev notes or were you high when making these talents?

Another point. While i get that this is possible propably only if you realy do it on purpose. So you can make a build without picking up vampiric touch - while half of the talent tree revolves around it making your build not just bad…bud straight up disfunctional, useless.

And you can make a build without devouring plague. So the insanity will be for?? How is it even remotely possible to create build this :poop: ?

2 Likes
101

PI and searing nightmare… those I could do without. The rest is shaping up nicely tbh.

102

This is a few changes that will make the shadow tree more or less perfect in my eyes

Move Mindsear up to be part of the MF node - It’s two sides of the same coin, don’t make us pay double

Move around Fortress of the Mind and Death and Madness - It makes more sense to have our “mass” death placed alongside our AOE, and MF/MB buffs on the ST side of things

Searing Nightmare - Replace it with a standalone version of Void Eruption

Make two or all of these free nodes, Silence, Dispersion, Vampiric Embrace or Psychic Horror or at least add their secondary nodes into the primary, to make it easier to justify picking them - We’re currently the only ones that have our CC and defensive in our spec tree, so making them free will be the right way to go about it - Even with them given to us for free we won’t have enough points left over to justify the secondary nodes

Void Form - Should be a standalone instant cast

Monomania - Make it a permanent debuff applied by Mind Blast, basically make it work like Fae Guardians - This needs to happen otherwise we end up in a constant MF spam fishing for procs again

Damnation - Rework it to apply SW:P and VT to all targets within 15 yards of the main target - We really need this seeing as you devs for some reason keep locking a lot of our AOE behind VT

Surrender to Madness - Just remove the death part already and and make it a passive modifier then it’ll make a fine talent - Like it’s only the cast while moving part that’s really good about it - Maybe add an interrupt shield for PvP purposes - The choice between 10% more damage or moving while bursting, will equate to roughly the same power while bursting, but be a net loss in total, with the MF proc VB talent

Psychic Link - Move it up to Mind Sears location - will be a very easy AOE tuning knob

Shadow Crash - I don’t see why it’s still a thing, but if it is to remain, make it track the target, rather than it hitting the targeted location long after the tank has moved the enemies away

Mental Fortitude - Rework it to apply a stacking shield for 10-20% of all shadow damage or rework it to make PW:S a passive that reduces all damage taken by X% spellpower per attack. And if chosen Body and Soul becomes permanent but at a 10% penalty

Sanguine Teachings sounds more like a flat leech buff like 10-20% and it should be a 2 point talent - Or leave it as is and implement one of my above mentioned ideas

Abyssal Knowledge, make it a 2 point talent as well

Separate AOE and ST talents better, as they are right now it looks like a hot mess

And just to remove bloat from the tree, add Shadowy Apparitions to our mastery. With damage and proc chance increased based on mastery %. And can be proc’ed by any shadow damage - This will remove 4 pure bloat talents. Or remove at least 2 of them, and let the other 2 buff it after mastery
While on the topic of mastery, remove DP from it and let it stack a bit faster - This will also make us feel like we’re not missing out on as much damage in AOE - Or buff our over all damage a bit and just go with the above mentioned idea instead of keeping the three part mastery

As for the class tree

I only really have one problem, and that’s Shadowflame Prism still being target locked at 5 targets - In a world of uncapped AOE this cap can’t stand!

And a suggestion. Make Leap of Faith a choice node and add instant cast Door of Shadows as the second choice - Yes IK everybody have access to that, but thematically it fits priests better especially shadow priests