Didn’t notice this before. So disc essentially gets a free talent point over the other specs. I get they’re a mix of holy and shadow, but they should only get SWD baseline given that PoM has been a Holy staple for a long time and never really disc.
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Wasnt PoM still used by disc in BC? Im happy to be corrected. I know it was used by disc in Wrath onwards and taken away at some point
Im sure the world first raiders will love power word barrier having an increased 20% damage reduction.
or as disc and have shadow word spells. MB SWD dead
I think the whole “insane old god” thing needs to go, it’s too far removed from the rest of the class and it really feels like it’s holding us back. Insanity doesn’t even make sense as a resource when you think about it.
As a shadow priest main I’m terrified at the thought of having to play another expansion with no real movement ability, the worst AoE button in the game, and an exceptionally busy cooldown window.
From what I can see, half the class tree is useless to us, we’d never even look in it’s direction, and our spec tree is extremely bloated. Too many competing DPS talents, not enough room to even look into utility.
Also, can we please not make shadowflame prism almost mandatory. A lot of people don’t like it, and it’s definitely something I’m fine with as an option, but I don’t think it needs to seem like such a defining pillar of shadow.
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Not a huge fan of Sanguine Teachings either to be honest.
I can see that it’s supposed to tie in with Mental Fortitude but how often are we actually going to be at full health, we’ll end up having to incorporate PW:S into the rotation
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Not entirely sure, you may be right. Just seems strange to essentially give them a free point to spend elsewhere.
Please review this Blizzard, Publik is one of the smartest guys when it comes to Shadow feedback and many of his ideas were used for the Shadow revamp at the start of Shadowlands.
Key takeaways:
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Surrender to Madness will never be chosen because shadow priests are generally insanity capped in void form. It’s pointless to have increased insanity generation
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Searing Nightmare being required to stand still to channel and unable to do anything else (ie - interrupt or CC) makes us very low on prio for M+
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Sanguine Teachings just needs to be removed, period. It’s essentially bloat in the same way +stam nodes were bloat in PoE. It doesn’t feel fun to take them and it gateways to things you actually want to use
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Bottom part of Shadow tree has more talents than any other spec at 22, it needs to be heavily pruned. As it stands there is no variety in play because you’re pigeonholed into very specific paths due to lack of talent points to play with
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Lack of direction going up the tree ie - single target DPS path, AE path, cleave path. There are AoE talents on BOTH sides of the tree which are impossible to get both
Please Blizzard we’re begging you to give Shadow a chance in Dragonflight. Some really cool ideas with the idols but if the tree goes live “as is” then Shadow is going to be at a huge disadvantage to other DPS specs. At the end of the day Shadow is a DPS spec even if 2 of its specs are healing. It feels awful to have DPS ignored to the point that a Priest feels pigeonholed into healing.
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Agreed that shadow suffers from a lack of coherent identity, leading to multiple disjointed mechanical and thematic aspects. Theoretically a talent tree is the perfect place to resolve that, as you can assign thematic identities to various aspects of the spec and let players build into them to creatre playstyles as they see fit. Shadow’s role being so detached from what priests are and do is also a huge problem when it comes to making things that are supposed to be for the benefit of the class as a whole.
I didn’t bring it up beyond a few fleeting points because the post was about the trees as stand alone not necessarily shadow priest in the context of it.
I don’t personally care what thematic identity Shadow lands on in the end, most spells and mechanics can be renamed / redrawn to match whatever new or old. The spec just needs a direction.
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Welcome back, and good post btw.
The lack of direction is what has me scratching my head as well. Shadow basically just does nothing but tunnel single target damage and that’s all its been good at this expansion for raiding.
There’s a ton of just passive RNG proc based stuff deeper into the tree. Also, you have to literally pick and choose abilities that are already core in the Shadow Priests package right now…
Like Mind Devourer, Void Eruption, Shadowfiend/Mindbender, Silence, Dispersion, etc.
Also some of the talents are a bit OP. Getting an extra +80% damage to Mind Blasts on-top of every possible damage boost at the same time will let Shadow Priests smash people in PvP.
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While that’s shadow’s mechanical MO this expansion, I wouldn’t particularly call it an identity in the sense I think Shadow has an identity problem.
Shadow doesn’t feel it was designed with any particular thematic ideas or goals in mind. It’s just a collection of mechanics and spells that just… exist. While that’s not automatically a problem, it feels like it becomes one when you’re not trying to make all these things part of a cohesive whole, and are instead just adding more “things” for the either the sake of adding them in the case of the spec’s multiple 30-60 second cooldown spells, or to add a reactive element in the case of the spec’s three talented procs.
Worth mentioning I don’t feel like Shadow has ever had a core thematic idea as strong as say any mage spec. Void was an attempt it at, a top down design that turned us insane and that had mechanics which played off that (Ramping haste, Drain, Insanity etc). That fell through for one reason or another, and now we’re in a sort of limbo where we have the thematics of void but none of the mechanics, and the mechanics of various older designs that didn’t really have much thematic direction to begin with.
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I’m hoping for a pretty substantial Talent tree rework of some kind. With that, I hope we can have viable builds that doesn’t require taking Void Eruption and by extension, Voidform… or the Idols. I’m not impressed with the Idols, I think it’s just some new paint trying to cover up the same underlying issues that plagues Shadow.
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Some gathering professions have more feedback than Priest on the alpha threads. #Sad
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Are you anywhere not on forums btw, I had an idea that might interest you but this isn’t the place for hypothetical fixes and talent redesigns.
I can be.
I can log in and /w you, or I can go to your twitch channel. or what do you suggest?
My discord is Ellipsis - Ice Bear#7667 , probably the best.
EU account so can’t just whisper you 
The meh:
-Like others have mentioned: Having most of our baseline abilities being in the first row just sucks and isn’t really creative or fun.
-Bottom right of the holy talent tree is DPS heavy but also feels pointless. I doubt we will need it to clear world content as a holy main and the healing sacrifices are too great to give up in m+. Rework all of that into better healing/holy options please. No one will use most of it.
-Halo is just a stupid spell compared to DS. I don’t understand why it’s still a talent. Might be biased here but I’ve never liked using it. Useless in m+ and people did the math that DS will still heal for more and do more dmg without pulling stupid.
-Not seeing too many options like they talked about. Ion was talking about 5-8 talent variations per class but I can see like…one…with the last 2-3 points being moved around if needed. This goes both for the holy specific tree and class general tree, very limited options and main class abilities are just thrown in the tree. If there is any cost to changing talent builds most people will just stick with the one build Im sure every holy priest came up with using the DF Talent calculator.
The Good:
-Afterlife sounds like a battle rez, something we’ve asked for for quite some time. Excited for that but how does it work? Will it be random? Will we have to cancel Angel form early to make it work? Does it count to the B rez limit? So many questions.
-Mindbender on holy. I missed the little guy. Please add a glyph or talent that makes it look like Sol ( the light elemental ) from Legion please. Having him back with talent options to buff it as a pet would be nice :3
-Lightwell love <3
-Seeing PoM buff talents is nice, hopefully it will feel good to cast again
Meh. Outside of the possibility of a b rez it’s whatever for priests from the look of it. Im expecting more thought and creativity put into the other healers. Priest feels half baked and unfinished.
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Not really. It depended on the fights (like Bloodboil was a good one) otherwise you were Flash Healing the tank.
When i mean used…i mean was there to be used as in Disc had it as as spell 
If I’m reading this correctly, yeah it was baseline with Priests 