Identity, a clear theme with our design, interactions in our class that make sense.
List goes on. We are in a new expansion where every class has received new life being put into it, new themes, updates to their ebb and flow, or at the minimum communication. Communication would at least give a sense of not being forgotten.
But updates like x amount less of mana to cast Fort is embarrassing and disrespectful
This is very true. Now we cast halo and flay more often. That was our update 
Ah. So youâre disappointed with the 11.0.5 patch.
There will be others. We will get our time. Shadow does have a design that is actually quite synergistic, a couple builds that do good damage in a range of scenarios. It might not be how you like shadow priest (personally I prefer our dots to be the majority of our damage). But itâs still a design that functions and has us comfortably in the middle of the pack.
Homie, that was a mere example of the disrespect, but I could have listed the overall silence from the testing of the expansion up to now.
Synergy?
Explain archon/void eruption
Voidweaver/halo
Where is the synergy where does it thematically make sense?
It does not
This is what I donât think many of the people praising Priest just donât understand.
We didnât get any new gameplay features like a new button to press that creates new ways to play or like with Wither replacing Immolate for Destruction Warlock really changes up how they play since they no longer need to manually cant immolate can just jump around free casting Wither which just grants them procs to do more instant cast hard hitting damage and then they can still cast instant Incinerates when they are being attacked in triggering procs.
Priest (Shadow) doesnât get anything that changes up your gameplay. It just makes you rooted more often and youâre numbers are more if you stand still and consume your procs for Archon or Push as much damage into your Entropic Rift window as you can for Voidweaver which again just forces you to be rooted more often since you canât save your Shadowy Insight Mind Blast procs for on the move as often.
It reminds me of the Shadowlands version of Shadowy Insight where you could ONLY instant cast Mind Blast while you were channeling Mind Flay which required you to force plant yourself which just reduced your movement else you sacrifice damage you could do if you had to move.
I started my first warrior in Cataclysm as I wanted a warrior with Silence and it was then that Blood Elves were granted access to warrior.
I played/leveled up doing battlegrounds and did well with it. But I didnât enjoy it much and stopped before I even hit max level.
In MoP I instead made a Worgen Warrior as I didnât have a Worgen and they looked cool to me. I ended up absolutely loving the MoP Arms warrior and I am glad I can have a similar experience now but still itâs missing something that gave me the MoP feeling. But fury warrior seems to be fun to me so that works.
Going into WoD I absolutely loathed Arms Warrior but really enjoyed Fury.
Going into Legion I enjoyed Arms again and fury was alright.
So my question is⊠what is Warrior missing?
Because from my current experience playing it, it feels like it has like all the tools it needs to do what it needs to for whatever situation that comes up.
In my opinion, mop pvp and legion pve was the best shadow priests.
Back in those days, if a priest was mind flaying, that meant someone or something was about to be in trouble because all the spâs dots and damage was rolling on them and death was on its way. Devouring plague meant something. Now, nobody fears a sp until dampening starts, but up until then, enemies (especially melee) can play as careless as they want.
To me, that feels bad.
Sp as a whole gets nerfed because of mass dispel, fort and pi in m+? Mind soothe? Are you kidding me? Are there really any spâs out there that find those abilities super fun? Getting your healer out of cc feels good in arena sure, but those abilities in pve are a total snooze fest, yet our design continues to suffer because of them
Warlock gates and cookies, everyone uses. Time warp /lust, everyone benefits. Those classes are consistently at the top of damage and their utility is irreplaceable.
Over the years? Things have fluctuated but off the top of my head these were ones that were heavily talked about at certain iterations.
Sweeping strikes, cleave, defensive stance, gladiator stance, single minded fury, banners. To name a few.
Some returned, some didnât. It happens.
I hope priest gets some new or returning stuff, but the sky isnât falling. The hyperbole Iâve seen around the forums is exhausting.
Have you not been playing void eruption with archon?
My friend⊠you are missing out.
It sounds like youâre expecting every spell to link into every other spell like some Penrose stair.
Sometimes specific spells match up better than others. That is still synergy.
I am playing archon with void eruption but why?
Why if Iâm suppose to be this divine being of shadow and light do I use something that thematically takes me away from that?
Why do I have to be a dark angel when Iâm suppose to be overwhelmed with void?
These are simple things that add so much flavor and identity to design. Which we have none.
Conceptually what youâre talking here is simple. But youâre talking about fully new art assets. I see now.
I can see how Blizz dropped the ball there. Thatâs a fair point.
I love the Oracle visuals but it would have been nice to have more done to archon.
No, not just art assets, I want things to be clear and defined.
Archon should clearly work with dark ascension
Voidweaver should clearly pair with void form.
¿Por qué no los dos?
What youâre suggesting here then is actually less synergy, fewer options. You seem to be valuing aesthetics over choice.
Thats fine if itâs your preference, but if youâre expecting blizzard to adhere to that youâre going to be disappointed.
Gladiator stance was something I actually never ended up playing with but I did play against it. I do agree that it should have found its way back in the warriors toolkit as that is a gameplay changing talent.
Banners was also very fun to use with Intervene in MoP as another means to close distance.
But single minded fury is something that I donât see as gameplay changing and just caters more so to single handed weapons for transmog purposes.
The rest the warrior has in some form still.
But not having the things like Gladiator Stance or Banner doesnât impede you from doing what you need when you need it. You just have other ways to do it like 2 charges baked in instead of a reduced charge cooldown like in MoP as a choice in addition to having Intervene and Heroic Leap still and with what Gladiator Stance offered, you just use other abilities that more or less make up for it.
But Shadow quite literally has no options to do things you could do in the past. There is no alternative method to do something similar or different. You play the same way as you did since back in wrath with just standing still and hoping you donât get locked down while pumping out damage.
Now we are forced to manually cast more than we ever did in the past while being even more rooted by our own gameplay which increases our vulnerability in being rooted, snared and picked off because we canât line of sight as easily.
Now we are forced more so than any other class to play the juke the interrupt game with more interrupts than ever and mini stops with many knock ups and knock downs and knock backs and pull ins on top of the Stuns and Polymorphs and slow casting curses and poison effects.
See the problem isnât much of Priest not getting things we had before or things wholly new. Itâs the combination of all the other classes that get things that provide them an easier time to counter what we do over and over again while we get nothing to assist us in countering them.
Iâm sure if Warrior without Heroic Leap and could only charge once and out of combat every 24 seconds and then Intercept only if you have enough rage every 30 seconds facing a mage with not just Frost Nova but 2 charges of Frost Nova as well as Ice Nova where they can range root you in addition to Frozen Orb passively slowing you, you would feel a bit frustrated with the lack of options available to you in order to counter the class that is designed to always be more superior than you are when coming head to head.
Thatâs the feeling that Priest has for the most part as we see all these classes getting all these new cool toys each development cycle while we end up with nothing knew or what we get is either totally useless or itâs just another variation of a similar ability (Mind Flay/Void Torrent each a single target channel spell or Shadow Crash/Halo are both AOE spells that donât really work for AOE as they are more instead used to make single target get spells hit harder) or the outright removal of spells and interactions that actually allowed us to play slightly different to change things up.
I appreciate how detailed and well written your responses are. Iâm glad the Priest community has someone like you who can speak so clearly to our needs and pain points.
Weâre not on opposite sides here. I agree with much of what you said.
My point ultimately was to try focusing in on what specifically is bothering the vocal playerbase rather than perpetuate discussion that relies on hyperbole and poorly researched opinions.
Derp your right my bad on that. Although Iâm pretty sure my general point, IE blizz stating dispels was kinda discs speciality/strength, is still valid even with me mixing the expansions.
No I get it.
Trust me, I see plenty of noise that reverberates off the core issues which causes a lot of core issues being lost in the sauce if you will.
But when we are given a response like this from 2 years ago during the DF beta development cycle⊠itâs quite telling that the wow devs absolutely do not see or arguably play the same game as the rest of the priest community because it was sorely met by the community and since then we havenât heard a single thing in relation to what priests should or shouldnât have that isnât an outright contradiction in regards to other classes.
There reasoning for priests not having X is not equally applied to other classes as the very same update or following one they literally do the opposite and give other classes things that priest didnât get because of a universal reason or they gave other classes what priest has which devalues the few things priest brings.
https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic/us-en/1279512-feedbackyy-priests/
Greetings Priests,
Today, weâre shining some light on decisions weâve made for Priests over the past few weeks for Dragonflight. First, we want to share thoughts on how things are shaping up overall and then go into some specific spells that weâre reading feedback about.
Number of Active Spells
We agree. Priests have too many active spells. While we think there will be more to assess as the expansion plays out, the first spell that comes to mind is Shadow Mend feeling unnecessary with Flash Heal being available to all Priests. Instead of Shadow Mend as a talent that overrides Flash Heal, we are working towards removing the spell. We realize that losing a secondary healing school lockout may not sit well with Discipline Priests in PvP, but weâre happy with this direction overall. While no plans are in place right now, weâre also discussing Mindgames and Power Word: Life as contributing to the number of active spells for Priests.Class Tree
Overall, we feel the class tree is in a good spot. As mentioned above, there are too many active spells and weâre looking to pull back on that. For Shadow, the Class tree has shaped out well. Weâre less happy about how many nodes can feel mandatory for Holy and Discipline and this is something weâll be looking to improve over time.Discipline
We will continue to monitor feedback surrounding the changes weâve made to Renew and Power Word: Shield for Dragonflight. Currently, we do not have plans to change this and think it is playing well.Historically Discipline has revolved heavily around Penance. We want to allow for builds that are centered around Penance, but also open opportunities for other spells in the Discipline toolkit to shine if invested into, such as Smite and Power Word: Shield. We look forward to your feedback on if this is felt with the tree, tuning aside.
For Shadow Covenant, weâre looking to take away the downsides so that it encourages Shadow spells but doesnât discourage Holy spells. Shadow Covenant has gone through a lot of change, but weâre hoping this is a step in the right direction.
Holy
Lightweaver is our alternative design to Flash Concentration. Weaving between Flash Heal and Heal is fun, but wound up feeling like a maintenance buff. We believe having a back-and-forth between the spells with stacks to improve situational usability is a better direction for single-target focused builds.When it comes to Xâanshi (now known as Restitution), we are excited to keep the effect around for Holy Priests. We were uncertain of where this should belong in the tree, but after more deliberation decided it was best competing with the more powerful talents, so it has been moved to row 10 of the tree. We know adding this in was not desirable for PvP players. While we have no plans to disable the effect in PvP, we are discussing ways to tone down its effect in PvP so that the Priest is in more danger after resurrecting. This node also competes with two charges of Holy Word: Serenity, so they will be giving up valuable throughput for the effect.
Shadow
Now that the tree has been in front of players for a couple weeks, we are reasonably happy with what we have, with room to grow in the future. Our initial thoughts on Voidform being optional is something we stand by. How to accomplish this while continuing to support Voidform and improve its gameplay is a challenge we want to continue to discuss and work on. Currently, weâre happy with where weâve landed with Void Eruption competing with Dark Ascension so thereâs not too many cooldown spells. With that said, Dark Ascension is visually exciting, but we feel it is currently lacking in identity. Weâre discussing changes like Dark Ascension being more rotationally transformative while active or having a different cooldown than Void Eruption, so that its use cases over Void Eruption are more clear. We donât have plans to make major changes to either spell for Dragonflight launch, but they will be on our radar for the future.Mind Spike and Mind Flay coexisting is something weâre going to try but are wary of. Shadow has many spells to press rotationally, and this isnât helping that. At the same time, being able to build your own Shadow Priest was a goal with this iteration and we believe the tree allows for that.
Silence
We understand that Holy and Discipline are the two specs without access to an interrupt, either baseline or in a talent tree. We also realize Shadow has Silence in their tree which adds to the number of non-throughput nodes in their tree. With that said, we are not adding Silence to the Priest class tree. Having access to an interrupt is not something we view as necessary for all specializations. In PvP, Holy and Discipline already provide valuable control to their team and additionally having Silence would provide more control than weâre comfortable with. This is especially true with how much control is becoming available across all classes in Dragonflight.Vault of Heavens
This was discussed early on with this iteration with the intent to add it as a choice against Leap of Faith. Upon further consideration, Vault of Heavens is almost always more useful than Leap of Faith. But Leap of Faith is one of the more fun interactions in WoW. It changes your perspective on the battlefield. Youâre always ready to react to save someone. And of course, it has some clever uses to get your friends killed. If we allow for the choice, the choice is clear, or weâd have to nerf Vault of Heavens down to something that wonât feel very powerful. The fantasy of the Priest leaping to their target doesnât match our expectations for a Priest either, so we instead separated Body and Soul from Angelic Feather for a little extra movement support and kept Leap of Faith as a standalone.Shining Force
This spell was deliberately removed in Dragonflight. Powerful spells being removed can cause frustration; however, the amount of control available across all classes in Dragonflight is causing concern. On top of this, the prevalence of knockbacks is already increasing in Dragonflight PvP and knockbacks can be the most influential control effect on arena or battleground maps with verticality.Spectral Guise
Weâve read feedback about a desire for the return of Spectral Guise. We discussed the ability early on and decided against it, and our stance has not changed. We do not want Priests entering stealth especially in PvP, as it removes the Priest from the target and focus frame and occurs frequently. Hunters, Rogues, and Mages already do this often enough.Mind Bomb
In its current form as a disorient we donât think it is very compelling as a replacement to Psychic Scream besides preventing movement during the effect. What we anticipate is desired is the AoE stun version of the spell, but we are not planning to bring that forward. We pulled back on AoE stun duration and availability some time ago and decided against adding this one back so that we wouldnât find ourselves in the same situation we were in the past. If everyone has an AoE stun, then itâs not going to feel special to have one in the first place.Personal Defenses
For similar reasons as Silence, we will not be adding Dispersion to the Priest class tree. Healing Priests are understandably on the weaker side of the defensive spectrum, but our answer to that isnât to bring Dispersion to the class tree. Between Desperate Prayer, Power Word: Shield, Angelic Bulwark, Translucent Image, and Spell Warding, we feel Priests are in an okay spot. Weâve also increased the damage reduction effect from Translucent Image to 10% and separated Phantasm from it.Looking forward to your feedback!
So many words to say "screw this one class specifically. "
My god, you are unbearably unbearable.
I will take your critique under advisement.