I just really want 3 things:
A defensive cd where i can still do other things other than move(fix or replace dispersion)
Mind spike…loved it then would love it now
One more mobility ability every class has at least 2 that they can have in conjunction with one another priest has an either or on pretty terrible mobility effects(we have conditions like i have to shield to get it or place a feather AND we only getting one)
It is my belief that the “Priest” class has the most issues of classes when you take into consideration similar / same abilities used across each spec.
- Shaman
Shamans of all spec use not just similar themes but similar spells as well.- Earth Spells
- Fire Spells
- Water Spells
- Air / Lightning Spells
- Elementals
- Totems
- Weapon Empowerments
- Shield buffs (Lightning, Water, Earth)
- Wolf Spirit related abilities
- Priest
- Holy Spells
- Are not used by Shadow almost at all
- Damage Absorbing Spells
- (Power Word: Shield) are not really used by Holy and only act as a catalyst for Disc as “Absorbs” = Bad apparently & Shadow uses them sometimes because its all it has
- Shadow Spells
- Not really used for Holy and cant be that strong baseline for Discipline or it will be too strong for Shadow or vice versa.
- Holy Spells
Seems no matter what type of Similar / Same spells you try to use for a particular specialization, it becomes either useless or overpowered if used by a different specialization thus creating the Identity Crisis within our Priest Class.
It also doesn’t help that it seems Each spec uses its own toolkit of spells that the others don’t have access too even if they are similar…
For example…
- AOE Heal
- Holy
- Holy Word: Sanctify, Circle of Healing, Prayer of Healing, Holy Word: Salvation, Divine Hymm, Halo, Divine Star
- Discipline
- Power Word: Radiance, Shadow Covenant, Halo, Divine Star
- Shadow
- Vampiric Embrace (Kind of a heal… so I will count it)
- Holy
I don’t want to list every little example of conflicting spells doing the same or similar thing but it really puts into perspective that each Specialization is really like its own class as they each now play so differently and have their own theme defining playstyles…
- Holy
- Throughput healing with Holy
- Discipline
- Damage Healing with Holy / Shadow
- Shadow
- Damage with Void now instead of the shared Shadow themes Holy and Disc “kind of” still have left
It really starts easily displaying the glaring issues the overall class has when little shared abilities are used across all 3 specs and the ones that can be shared are not really that effective pending the spec you are.
7 Likes
Very well said and put together. Better than I can do with my crazy mind haha.
I can agree with this 100 percent.
And you know, this is a reason why I wanted to see reworks for classes, not just priests.
For sure though, with priest. I think a good rework on the class itself could resolve this while bringing us to a new light of what priests could and can be.
The devs need to sit down and rethink the question. What are priest now in the current state of WoW. Who are they, what can they do, and what can they become. then properly redived the 3 specs.
The specs have changed so much that they have individualized too much away from each other. We need to harmonize and unite them again.
3 Likes
I think this is a must… a requirement if the Priest class wants to actually have decent Talent Trees that has some level of similar feeling when swapping to each spec.
My idea is to Focus on the “Angelic” theme and use that as a cornerstone for each Specialization.
I see the “Angelic” similar to how Warlocks is about “Demons” or how the “Titans” each represent some key theme and by extension, the Dragon Aspects do the same.
- Demons
- Titans
- Dragon Aspects
Priests = Angelic
We even have Bastion in Shadowlands with those Angel guys and the Forsworn “dark” side that we can use as a pillar for the thread that binds each spec together. Also the Angiris Council from Diablo 3 has all those Angels and then Malthael to act as the “fallen” or “Dark” Archangel side for Shadow.
They can do SO much if they use the “Angel” Theme as the cornerstone pillar to hold up and expand our class from.
6 Likes
Honestly, the priest designer(s) need to go back and look at talents from TBC, Wrath and Cata because they are creatively sapped right now when it comes to priests.
4 Likes
Honestly, it seems that over the course of the games history, the class was always inundated with the 3 specs and what they each need to be doing.
Holy was the defector healer, Discipline was the “Support” and Shadow was the Damage.
So instead of finding similarities between each spec, they instead just pushed forward and really drove a wedge between each spec and making them ever increasingly unique. This “worked” as long as we viewed each separately (Spec Focus) but now that we are taking a step back and looking at it with “class talents” in mind and thus really “embracing” class over spec, the flaws / cracks that have been eroding overtime are now blatantly in clear sight and its quite ruff.
5 Likes
But this is a very key difference.
Shields are better than heals, flat out.
Just slapping old divine aegis on current disc is a ~6% healing increase to current disc (assuming like 20-25% crit), but also it’s all shield, so in raid it’ll effectively be higher than that.
I think this has more to do with having two healers in a spec than it has to do with anything else.
Healers cross over into damage quite well. Saying that shadow spells aren’t useful for holy isn’t quite true - holy has no problem using traditional shadow spells. The only one it wouldn’t is possibly shadowmend? But even that has use in PvP for an extra school they have to kick. But as it stands right now, the shadow part of the base class tree is a bunch of stuff holy priest IS likely to use. Shadowfiend/bender? Awesome mana increase. Puppet master? Well, mastery’s great for hpriest. Twist of fate’s great as well, mindgames? Also good. Even when you get into the real straight up DPS side of things like Mind Blast/SW:D cooldown, yeah those are incredibly useful in PvP and M+. If you took Mind sear and made it base? Holy priest would LOVE that, etc, etc.
Disc priest has the same thing - they love extra damage. In fact, the only reason they’d stay away from the holy side of the tree is because it doesn’t offer damage, and they’re unlikely to want to spare globals on renew. But if mindbender wasn’t so attractive, you can bet Disc would be grabbing Benediction and casting PoM off CD for that passive healing increase.
Where it’s ugly is that Shadow priest shares nothing with healing classes. And that’s also true in the shaman’s tree. You’re not going to see Ele/Enhance go deep for ancestral guidance. And they’re going to avoid most the healing increase choices, etc. As a resto though, you have a lot of choice offered in the base class tree for some extra damage pickups.
I don’t really know that this is a fixable problem for Shadow barring a rework of disc that turns it more into its own damage dealer/tank spec, or cannibalizes Disc entirely so priest is a 2-spec class a-la DH or evoker. Right now Shadow’s kind of a hostage of a spec when it comes to talent tree real-estate.
3 Likes
My meaning behind this is that they are only used when you don’t need to do anything else like Heal or Shield etc.
They take a back seat in priority. Thus not really used “regularly” OR if they are, they cant be that good or that will cause imbalance issues for the other spec(s).
This is why Halo, Divine Star & Cascade “worked” across each spec as it was simple yet effective for all 3… but clearly they are for some reason not thinking Shadow at least should have that option anymore.
Sure, that’s fair. I still think they’re attractive talents for holy, regardless though. Disc and Holy, for the most part, don’t have a ton of bad feelings in the general spec tree. Shadow is the spec that feels incredibly railroaded through it. And barring like… making penance/dark reprimand its own base class spell or something, I don’t know what could really be brought over from another spec that shadow would even want.
1 Like
I’d absolutely kill to actually like…UX (do the user research & ideate) the hell out of the Priest tree because out of all classes that need it Priests do the most, and Blizzard need to put that level of design thinking into fixing this.
They have a chance to take a venn-diagram approach to designing the skill-tree from the outside → inwards from the disc, shadow and holy specs with core priest being in the center, and work their way from there.
The design thinking is simply not there. It’s apparent to everyone that they’re not following a process.
This kind of thinking is apparent in whoever was working on the Shaman tree though. They need to collaborate more honestly. It just appears that completely different people are working on different classes.
EDIT: This actually has me believing that the ‘Tree’ format is simply not sufficient for what they want to achieve and for the what the players need. It’s a nostalgia hit at the cost of good design. Something akin to Path of Exile’s skill/talent board would have been achievable and worked more towards both the needs of the players, and the vision of the developers.
8 Likes
I think trees can work. The issue is forming trees without reworking the class itself.
you are trying to make something work without adjusting to the old entirely.
Look at invoker for example. How well it blends together. WOW needs a good overhaul at its core feature, which are classes. Ironically, it’s the most ignored part of the game.
Priest are sadly one of the most affected ones with all 3 specs segregated entirely from each other for some reason. The issue here is that you cannot put the priest class into a tree without some level of groundwork. The class needs to be reworked entirely.
But i am open to other forms that allow for customizations similar to the trees.
Anything not like the current talents we have now. I find them really bland and boring.
Trees can be good, but they stink when most of the tree talents are just the whole spell book slapped in there. “cough” shadow spec.
If it was up to me, i would create trees that EMPOWER what the spec already has. With maybe a very few NEW unique abilities tied to that theme. Pretty much passives and talents that change how some spells work.
5 Likes
Trees are in my view outdated for what they need to achieve UNLESS they re-work Priest.
The fact is, Blizzard are attempting to avoid a class re-work but a re-work is absolutely required if they want trees to work with it. You can not apply an old tree system to a class that has undergone a different path of evolution.
It’s classic round hole square peg.
You know how you try and avoid a problem, and come up with another problem to deal with that said problem, making a compound problem? This is literally what is happening right now.
Hunters are also suffering from this currently. I believe Druids may be as well. Yes it will be ‘work’ to re-work classes, but I simply do not subscribe to the mindset of not doing something if it’s difficult. I work with developers every single day and it’s my job to solve problems along with them. It’s all doable.
EDIT: Evilkiss identified the same problem just ahead of me. Feels good when same-page stuff is happening!
7 Likes
As a shadowpriest, I’m disgusted by this tree. There are so many excellent shadowpriests here in the community. Blizzard needs to hire one of them, because it is obvious they do not understand our spec. These talent trees are a disjointed mess. There is no cohesiveness, no vision, and not even many compelling options. There are no choices throughout most of the trees (especially the priest one), and we are forced into a bunch of spells that clunk up our rotation. The reveal of this talent tree destroyed any excitement I had for dragonflight.
4 Likes
Time to turn Disc into either a DPS or Tank spec ! 
1 Like
New build, no changes, so let’s write another post about the top issues (for me):
Searing Nightmare
Searing Nightmare is not fun to use as an AoE ability. It nullifies practically all other spec mechanics in favor of Mind Sear → Searing Nightmare. See this thread.
Utility abilities in the Shadow
The shadow spec tree has 9 nodes and 10 utility talents. These talents are in direct competition with damage talents and will therefore, outside of PvP, never be picked. In this interview it’s stated that the spec trees are exactly not supposed to place utility against dps choices, because it doesn’t work.
Mind Flay talents
Dark Thoughts was removed because “it placed a large emphasis on Mind Flay and made it feel mandatory to roll for procs”. Yet in the new shadow there are five talents that buff Mind Flay: Monomania, Void Touched, Abyssal Knowledge, Rot and Wither and Fortress of the Mind. There is a real danger that Void Bolt and Mind Blast are not worth casting (outside of movement or for Living Shadow)
Left side of the class tree
The left side of the class tree is effectively dead for Shadow, and also offers little options for Disc. Talent selection for shadow will have you pick up Shadowflame Prism and Twins of the Sun Priestess. Afterwards, the most damage/utility pick is Mind Games, locking in the final points.
Forced gameplay and button bloat
With the above Shadow is forced into the Shadowflame playstyle. There is no alternative to it. Shadow is also forced to pick up Mindgames. If you then want to pick up any Idols talents in the spec tree, you are further forced into using Shadow Crash or Void Torrent. Buttons and mechanics that currently are optional, are now bloating your standard rotation.
8 Likes
Lol, and it’s not just a “smart heal,” i.e., a heal that heals an injured player, but a “true smart heal” that heals the most injured player. Which is quite rare…I think the only “true smart” AOE/multi-target heals left are Wild Growth and Chain Heal.
1 Like
Can’t have those as priests though, it would be “game-breaking” for us.
Probably the worst-placed talent on the Priest tree is Translucent Image. It requires two points to unlock Mind Games and it’s in the bottom tier of the tree. This should be done away with or swapped with something else.
If the idea of nodes that unlock capstone talents or build up to them are supposed to synergize, then why are Translucent Image and Tithe Evasion preceding Mind Games? It makes no sense.
Same for Light’s Inspiration unlocking …Crystalline Reflection? Cringe.
Resto Shamans get synergy with Primordial Wave - not even the capstone btw in the bottom tier - and the nodes flowing down from it affect Primordial Wave.
How is this fair? How is this even considered consistent design across the healer trees? Seems like the devs prefer one healer class over another to me at this point.
After seeing all of the CC that Shaman get access to in every spec, it seems like Priest should get access to silence and/or Chastise in the base trees…
2 Likes
Further talk about why the class tree is bad for shadow (TLDR at the end).
Useless talents for shadow priests:
- PoM and Renew are undesireable and outperformed by Shadowmend or the baseline Flash Heal. PoM has three talents, Renew has two talents tied to it.
- Smite and it’s two talents are useless.
- Holy Nova and it’s two passive talents are useless.
- Mana regen is mostly useless to Shadow, so is the talent. Clear Mind is also bad.
- 1st and 2nd tier 3 column are tied to PW:S/Healing spells which you don’t pick and in competition to Mindgames and Shadowflame Prism. Useless.
- Taming the Shadows is useless.
Simply by design 20 talents out of 48 talents are useless to Shadowpriests. The remaining 28 talents offer 36 points to spend.
Shadowflame Prism and Mind Games lock 29 points in place:
As Shadowflame Prism and Mindgames have a real DPS value, 29 points are locked into place with various other DPS talents place to get this build. There are two remaining points to spend on Masochism, Leap of Faith, Shackle, Dominant Mind or Mind Restrain. Further the point in Mind Control can also be freely assigned to these spells.
TL:DR
The class tree is extremely lackluster for Shadowpriest. It has too many mandatory DPS picks and is lacking in actual interesting choices.
20 out of 48 talents in the class tree offer no value to Shadowpriests. The DPS talents (PI and Twins, Mind Games, Mindbender and Shadowflame Prism) lock in the vast majority of available talent points, leaving about 3 points to spend in a small number of interesting nodes.
Spec tree stuff that should imo be in the class tree:
Shadow:
- Vampiric Embrace, San’layn, Dispersion, Intangibility, Silence, Mind Bomb.
- Death and Madness (with added mana regen, similar to Throes Pain)
- Psychic Horror (or Chastice with integrated upgrade from Holy)
- Mind Sear (instead of Holy Nova)
Disc:
- Divine Star, Halo and Wickedness
- Shining Force
Holy:
- Spirit of Redemption, let us cast damage spells, and bring back X’anshi as a talent
- Chastise with integrated talent (or Psychic Horror)
- Symbol of Hope
3 Likes