I don’t even mean OP and doing broken damage, I mean the spec simply feeling good to play.
My priest has been shelved since Shadowlands launch. I tried really hard to like it, to accept the huge changes and playstyle shift but I just couldn’t. I’ve been waiting ever since for it to feel good to play again.
So far, no luck
If only using the DF iteration of SP, the only QoL as seen pretty necessary from S1 to S3 is:
At this point in the in patch the pulls are just getting larger and chaining is prevalent.
Doing a EB the other day, the tanks chain pull, and I’m getting no PsyLink value on the plants, only the IT Mindbender slaps.
Going into S4 with BH, AA, RLP, NO, and Uldaman were all dungeons were the tank will pull a group into another or there’s just massive pulls, need to be able to DOT the packs quickly especially since we’re likely going back to the S2 Tier bonus which absolutely needs DOTs on targets for Shadowy Apps.
I just want them to redo the whole spec with a vision. They’ve spent the last four years scrambling around with their eyes shut with their only goal to be “make it different from Legion/BFA” and the result, for me, has been an unmitigated disaster with things being added for no reason other than they used to exist even if they serve zero purpose in the overall design.
Priest hero talent previews and the new expansion alpha should be coming out in a few months.
You need to be running void form at a minimum if you want shadow priest to work beyond 8 targets.
I’m running my same voidform apparition build from last season ish, with haste/crit and it works perfectly as long as the tank is somewhat predictable and not doing goofy unpredictable chains.
Let me tell you after playing destro and affliction a bit they have the exact same problem except it’s arguably harder for them.
This right here. Priest has gotten the short end of the stick and I believe had 1 or 2 devs outright quit in the middle of design. We deserve a proper rework with well thought out concerns of how to do Aoe as well as mitigate the ramping damage profile.
3 actually I think.
Maybe there was another in BFA that left?
So for sure 3 left, but possible 4 or more?
It’s 4.
The first was after Legion launch
The second was some time between EP launch and Nyalotha
The third was Immediately after SL beta
The 4th Was during the reveal for talent trees in DF Alpha.
Priest didn’t get their launch talent tree until 1 month before DF came out because the Druid/Priest class dev quit. That’s why Disc / Shadow got revamps in the middle of the expansion and Holy is waiting for theirs.
no it’s not.
I think the infinite gameplay loop needed to be addressed, but gutting the spec entirely and throwing away the whole playstyle was a mistake imo.
The spec has been limping along ever since. Feeling really fractured and directionless
Oh you’re right, infinite scaling with no ceiling is more easily balanced and tunable than having a set duration and cooldown.
Your argument and its in depth details explains this so clearly.
Bravo 
/end sarcasm
I think balance could’ve been more achievable and realistic if they had reigned in the post voidform buffs that carried over into the next cycle.
Without those, voidform could’ve been a much more static damage cycle that didn’t feed into itself so much and scale exponentially.
They probably didn’t do that because losing all that haste felt bad… but still, I think they could’ve tried a little harder to make it work instead of caving to people screeching on Twitter and just gutting the whole spec.
Or they could’ve at least waited to gut it until they had a good replacement lined up. Shadow from BFA → shadowlands is probably the worst mishandling of a spec most players have ever seen
I was not on the twitter scene for this. Was this actually happening? Was twitter filled with people screaming / screeching over the state of Voidform?
I know it was haughty discussed here on the forums, outside of that I wasn’t paying much attention.
All I can definitively say is that the way I was able to play and the things I can do prior to the Legion Pre-Patch made me feel like a god on my Priest where I can go anywhere and do anything and do it well be it raids, dungeons, PvP or world content.
Then the Pre-Patch hit and I couldn’t even group up a group of mobs in the world without a high risk of dying let alone doing dungeons and PvP.
When I began leveling in Legion, I kept finding myself going into Voidform on the mob death and then leaving Voidform by the time I get to the next mob thus constantly wasting my powered up state while walking to the next mob. This happened consistently and got annoying real quick.
Once max level in Legion and my artifact weapon talents filled out. PvP was a joke because it was difficult enough to get into Voidform let alone maintain it with movement and CC which just 1 tiny slip causes it to cascade onto itself in a failing array of misery due to the draining mechanic.
Then in dungeons, everyone killed the pack of mobs before I could even get going time and time again.
It was then I realized that only high level Mythic dungeons and raids where you are stationary for a long time is the only place Voidform can succeed in and because I only PvE as an aside to PvP, I was done and officially made my Demon Hunter my new Main.
Then going into BFA, shadow loosing its artifact was egregiously more painful compared to most because the entire spec was built around it. So needless to say that it was a miserable experience. So I quit playing it completely soon after as I didn’t want to waste yet again more time on a broken spec.
Then going into Shadowlands, it was clear on Alpha once you lost access to the numerous levels of borrowed power that the spec just fell and tripped all over itself. It was just a hollow husk with nothing going for it.
So then they made the update to make Voidform a controlled cooldown and added Devouring Plague back into the kit as the resource consumer.
This instantly netted shadow some solid ground to build on and actually allowed the spec to work on its own without requiring borrowed powers to prop it up.
I say all that to once again reiterate that making Voidform a controlled cooldown was the first step in a long time towards the right direction because they had 3 entire expansions to make it work and they didn’t and I saw no reason to believe they had any idea to make it work.
So I’m glad they cut their losses and moved on to something that has a better proven track record at working within the game environment everything else functions in, which is a controlled cooldown type of ability.
Sure it’s no longer unique, but it’s also no longer flat out non functional in a majority of the games content.
The main issue with Shadow atm is damage tuning and utility.
Shadow’s single and AOE is just not that great in raid so most top guilds bring just a Priest healer for the Fort buff. Also, there’s nothing to even Mass Dispel on Mythic so bringing two Priests isn’t needed anymore like in other seasons.
Shadow dropped hard in M+ popularity because it was no longer FOTM and they made Priests not mandatory anymore. With Disc being the fotm Priest spec for M+ people get their Priest utility kit from them.
S4 will see Shadow come back for raid because S1+S2 fated raids require mass dispels. Not sure what the dungeon sets going to be for M+.
It was not “haughtly discussed”. The forums were spammed to the point that Blizzard had to address it. It was effective albeit immature.
Okay…
It was discussed with much passion on both sides of the topic.
Granted, it was being spammed as well. But to act like it was not actually being discussed in detail would be very disingenuous.
It brought emotion and passion on both sides to a very active degree.
Meaning that there was a clear divide among the community enough where many people had many things to say on both sides.
I don’t know why I should even need to point that out because you and are are prime examples of partaking in such discussions and we are on opposite sides on this topic.
Some people took it too far. There were a few people who kept using the hashtag #removevoidform and they even went as far as listing/linking devs Twitter handles and telling people to go spam the hashtag at them.
There were also threads that said nothing except #removevoidform
There was a lot of actual discussion yes, but there was a handful of people just screaming as loud as they could for its removal without providing any direction in what they wanted instead. I suppose in a way they got what they wanted. Shadows pretty directionless now
Play the game more instead of just writing fan-fictions of shaow on forums.
Last time when I saw you was in BFA and you are still posting the same nonsense now.
Astounding…
So by your logic, when blizzard butchered Shadow going into Legion from how it was established for over 10+ years prior and totally ripped away everything I have invested into my preferred playstyle in the game… I should have just “played more” and be a happy little clam? Because the only thing that was missing that caused my grievousness towards the spec overhaul was that I simply “needed to play more” and all would be right in the world is that it?
I took a break from shadow and I have came back and gave it another shot here and there and until I actually find real enjoyment again, I will bide my time and put forth ideas and suggestions to improve Shadow because clearly after running through 4+ devs for shadow out… they simply have no clue and are directionless.
If you have ideas of how to improve shadow, then share them. Otherwise I could care less what your opinion is of how others should spend their time.
Truly we all should marvel at your wisdom.