Bumping my own thread
I guess I’ll go Futher explaining these requested changes. And why I think these are important. We are less than a month out from getting the rework and Shadow has its downfalls in pvp bad and doesn’t make the spec feel fluid to play at all. You’ve moved a lot of our damage into DoT effects. Not that this is a bad thing, but while how currently easily it is to shut down DoT specs It’d be nice to see some adjustments.
First off Shadow is seeing a HUGE amount of nerfs towards our insanity generation, And this is getting doubled down with how hard you guys are trying to make
Distorted Reality of any value. And while I personally don’t care for making our spec very DoT damage heavy its something I can live with. But dispels completely shut the spec down. We’re seeing this first had with how judgment of the Pure interacts with vs shadow priest. (Glad its finally not a teamwide dispel, but still makes killing the ret VERY difficult.)
So we, 1. Have much of our damage being moved into over time effects. And, 2. also getting a damage nerf because of the interaction of our mastery. While most Spriest in PvP are stacking haste, we do still gain value from the mastery we have which can be anywhere between 5% - 10%. Meaning we can do anywhere from -15% damage to -30% damage.
On top of this Vampiric Touch dispel adds to the game one mechanic that is universally hated which is the Micro CC’s. Along with this it is very unimpactful in everyway. If it gets dispelled, our DoT’s get removed and we lose a good majority of our damage anyway. And most healers worth their salt will do something prior to make sure the dispelled player will be safe during the 3 second horrify.
Shadow Priests dispel protection is old and outdated. Its an unfun mechanic needs to be reworked. It wouldn’t be that difficult to balance because similar to the UA dispel blizzard would always be able to adjust the number value of the preposed changed. Please please please either change the dispel debuff or Make Devouring Plague Un-dispellable which I also don’t like because I do think counter play should be a thing. But its so one-sided right now its non enjoyable. And for how much our damage is being tied into DP along with the unneeded insanity nerfs, a change is needed.
I really don’t know why this just isn’t a thing. In so many arenas currently Void Origins (VO) is MANDATORY. Spriest is the primary target in most arenas right now due to the lack of mobility the class has, we are easy to stick to. The only comp I’ve seen where VO is not taken is Shadowplay, because letting a warlock free cast is the only thing threatening enough to cause us not the be the target.
Being forced to cast our BURST cooldown kills any fluid setup the spec has to do damage. On top of that if we are running Dark Ascension the spell itself doesn’t even do any damage to add to the burst. It only Amps our casted single target spells and SW:D. The spec already feels clunky to set up your burst just having to: Manage Dot’s (15% damage buff), DA / VE/ PI / Mindbended. All before casting ANY damaging spells. You actually can spend your entire duration of Psychic Horror Setting up your burst before you do any damage. OR you start your pre-burst rotation and they have 3 seconds to react to it and pop a defensive before you can horror.
Shadow hasn’t prioritized crit since ____ ?. Stop making talents that revolve around it, its okay for a class to have 1 dead stat. Bring back Surge and make the changed modifiers above, every Spriest is looking for something to do while moving. Also WHY not make it a choice node? let the players decided what type of filler ability they want to see. literally 0 impact on how it impacts the game.
Finally
Get rid of body in soul in the priest tree and bring back Door of Shadows. Not only is it fitting of the theme of the class but it solves some of the mobility issues that priest in general have been having. It had counter play in Shadowlands and will continue to have counter play in Dragonflight.
Also many priest would like a glyph that makes shadowform less visual. Better than the current one.
Please guys if you have any rebuttals or even if you agree let it be known. We’re less than a month away from the rework and it seems like every change that I’ve seen the community suggest has been completely overlooked / ignored. We haven’t had any statement from blizzard about shadow priest other than the original announcement.