Mechanical feedback post, please ignore formatting I’m too lazy I’m sorry. Mostly shadow perspective, but I dabble in Holy and Disc in PVP mostly.
Class Tree
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The class tree as it stands feels super divided, there’s very little in the way of utility and half the utility is unusable by shadow. Nodes that affect smite alone feel really awkward as shadow, I know they aren’t for us, but the fact that they do nothing for us is just, not a great look.
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I actually things like Mind restraint, shadow mend, masochism all being on the tree. Especially for holy in PvP having access to that shadow school to heal is really cool and I think it’s a really strong identity for priest as a whole.
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PoM needs to not have a cast time, and honestly I think it should be usable in shadowform. I’d give up a GCD or throw it out between packs on occasion to add some extra healing, and then it makes things like benediction more attractive for shadow as well. Idk maybe it would be too strong but right now you just never look at it’s direction because you’re not dropping 2 GCDs to leave shadowform and CAST PoM.
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Shadowflame Prism - Please god don’t make this our only option in DF, I hate SFP with a passion, We’ve been using it for almost the entire expansion and not by choice. I’m not a huge fan of us being tied so heavily to our mindbender cooldown for cleave. Would rather just see our dots brought back up some.
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mind games - actually like seeing mind games in the tree, I think Fae Guardians would be a good option to put somewhere in here as well, thematically it might need to be changed to like “spirit guardians” or something, but Fae guardians with the legendary was at least interesting and really fit with the priest playstyle imo. Just paint it white or yellow and put it in there as a choice node.
- Now the nodes leading up to mind games are terrible, translucent image needs to be more accessible, and tithe evasion needs to be changed. I like the idea of tithe evasion but feels like it should just be baked into imp. SWD or something.
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Crystalline Reflection - Where to start with this one whole line. Charitable soul is a joke, PW:S is so weak it’s sad. Light’s inspiration is fine, but then we are right back to charitable soul is bad because PW:S is so weak. The damage gained from this might have been something interesting if it was meaningful, I could see its use in PvP or as an extra way to deal some damage while soaking mechanics with PW:S, but PW:S is basically just a movement cooldown with B&S. I don’t know if baseline PWS needs to change or if this needs to buff it’s absorb by a ton, but I don’t see anybody ever taking this right now, or at least nobody being excited to take it right now.
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power infusion - This topic has been done to death, As long as Twins is easy to reach and 1 point, I don’t care. It’s a fun cooldown, it’s just problematic.
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enlightenment - I still firmly believe this being in the class tree will make our base mana regeneration balanced around having it. I’d rather our mana regen just be balanced without it, as I just can’t see a world where 10% extra passive mana regen isn’t broken. If you want to add mana into the tree give us some way to interact with it.
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clerics armaments - Stop this. Delete this. Never do this again…
- Okay okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic but for real, this and sanguine teachings in the shadow tree. We all know this is terrible. We’ve seen the memes and the complaints. PWS doesn’t do enough for this to ever be relevant.
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Unwavering will - No strong comment on this one. Seems fine? I’ll leave it to more experienced healing players.
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Holy Word: Life - Actually a pretty interesting ability to me. Too bad it’s so costly to get to and I can’t cast it as shadow.
I’d love to see some stuff like dispersion, silence, and spectral guise over here on the class tree. It just really feels like this tree is nothing like any other class tree, and not in a good way.
ON TO THE SHADOW TREE
Ho boy where to start. This is just a block of quick thoughts but I’m just going to throw them out.
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Dev Plague shouldn’t be optional, you should not be able to build a tree where you don’t take the only spender you have that’s ridiculous. Vamp Touch feels like it shouldn’t be optional either, but if the tree is designed properly I’m fine with it being a point you just pick up along the way.
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There’s so much insanity generation on here, we don’t need any more insanity, being capped on insanity for long periods of time feels so bad.
Speaking of insane, why is Searing Nightmare and S2M still on this tree? Somebody insane must have designed this. Please get rid of these.
Please bring back dark archangel as an alternative to void form - I’d love to opt out of the void form/ void bolt PI cooldown for some shorter, more consistent but less powerful options. Something like a 1 min dark arch that gives a much smaller boost, or 45 sec cooldown that you can save charges of. IDK but I’m not a huge fan of void form in it’s current state, I miss being the “consistent damage” class.
Too many buttons there’s just so many buttons this tree adds. VoiT, Damnation, SN, Shadow crash, on top of all of our current abilities and probably taking Mindgames in the class tree, We need to scale it back just a bit.
—Honestly, I don’t like the cthun or yogg saron idols. We aren’t a pet class, and I’m not a huge fan of summons being a major part of our damage. I guess having this as an option isn’t bad, but I’d like to steer away from it as much as possible. Tentabro is slightly less offensive to me than the thing from beyond tho.
—Channels…One thing I personally like about shadow is having a channeled filler, but the emphasis on Mind Flay is a bit heavy, considering dark thoughts was changed because it emphasized mind flay too much.
—Monomania Void touched and Fortress of the Mind - I just don’t see a world where we can’t take these and start making mind flay rise in priority. I don’t mind fortress, I’m not terribly sad bout void touched, but Monomania feels like it just doesn’t mesh with the idea of not casting mind flay a bunch.
Generally the bottom of the tree feels too expensive, and I didn’t really talk about the utility much because I doubt we will have the points to really invest in it currently.
I like shadowy apparitions, maybe dark arch could interact with that? Double our app generation while it’s active and grant us some stats or damage? psychic link plus apps seems fun, casting a bunch of spirits is so cool.
Really really want to see cascade and spectral guise back. Please blizzard.
This is not the most organized, but hey, there’s some more thoughts for ya.