I miss when most of the toolkit was the same for holy/disc outside of cooldowns, mastery and number differences between things like PW:shield and Renew/etc. Cata was a fun time to be a disc and holy priest swapping each boss/encounter if needed to maximize fun and efficiency.
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The thing I donât really understand is why does Blizzard keep going back and forth with Priests and their toolkits.
When you played a Shadow Priest in Vanilla, BC, WOTLK, Cata, etc. you had access to all the Holy spells. Dropping Shadow Form was like changing a stance. Disc and Holy had access to Mind Blast, Shadowfiend, and Mind Sear.
So instead of getting new unique abilities each expansion weâre just getting the same abilities we used to have back.
Also, I did notice they made small changes to the top rows of the Priest General Tree. Dispel Magic is a choice now and it flows better into Twist of Faith for healers. Shadow Word Death is entirely optional now and unless you want Shadow Mend you donât have to pick it.
Twin Suns is a 1 talent choice instead of 2 so you can more easily budget in Shackle Undead. I think 3-4 points got saved up so things arenât as tight. Unwavering Will still shouldnât be a 100% mandatory pick though.
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See I think the original devs really found the perfect way to balance the Priests Healing specs with its damage specs with the cornerstone talent âShadowformâ.
Shadowform:
Reason being, With Shadowform it gave a 2 healer spec class a DPS transforming ability that balanced out the Shadow damage spells and Holy Healing Spells with some damage reduction (since it cant Heal while in Shadowform and it cant kite) with Mana being used as the throttle to prevent unlimited healing / buff potential Shadow can do.
- Shadowform
Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15% and reducing Physical damage done to you by 15%. However, you may not cast Holy spells while in this form.
Mana vs Insanity:
But with our current âresourceâ insanity is disconnected from our Healing Spells (for the little we have now) and so even if we want to pop out and heal things up, we cant really take advantage of it because we go oom so fast (even though mana regen as shadow is fast) but it just throws off that side of being a priest into best case its awkward as its not very good and you go oom fast and worst case its nearly pointless.
Shadow Orbs:
Again, another reason why WoD Shadow was such a good iteration as you had the Shadow Orb system that only came from 2 sources (Mind Blast & Shadow Word: Death) and with a double tap from SW:D, it changed up our sub 20% execution phase and really ramped up the pace the spec plays which was really fun and rewarding.
Healing/Support & Mana Regen:
All the while, we still had access to a lot of our Healing toolkit and used mana and Masochisms (SW:D feedback and/or Taking +10% damage grants mana) to balance out the healing potential so we can easily swap back and forth in this yen/yang as needed that felt really rewarding and dare I say it âPriestlyâ.
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I love how druids and hunters have gotten blue-post feedback twice already post-tree release. Weâve gotten zero. 
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The state of our trees in one gif
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my biggest complaint about the shadow priest talent tree is that there are too many things, too passive, you end up not being able to get the talents you need and you will always end up splitting without being able to reach your goals because you wonât have points. if you opt for the utility / defense skills from the shadow tree, he will run out of points for important damage skills.
the priest tree I found relatively good, we have damage or healing options, but I feel that it lacked some utility skill more effective than mass dispell and leap of faith.
I expect to see some value changes in shadow talents, especially those at the bottom of the tree. it would be nice if some were swapped all over the tree.
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Utility vs throughput issues and class tree pathing/options are huge problems, but bloat as mentioned seems to be a hugely underappreciated issue. Whereas right now we get 5 of 15 dps talents, with the new tree weâll be getting about 10 (or more) of 15. Thatâs a sizable jump. Our rotation on a single target fight will use the following abilities each and every time: SW Death, SW Pain, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mindgames, Mindbender, Vampiric Touch, Void Eruption/Bolt, Devouring Plague, Void Torrent, and PI. Thatâs 11 spells in our core, single target rotation. Basically a whole bar. And Damnation could be tossed in too, potentially. It might not seem like a lot, but compare it to any other current caster, and itâs excessive.
Itâs not just button bloat (though I would argue it is), but more importantly itâs playstyle bloat: a lot of these abilities just exist, are strong, so we have to use them, even if it doesnât really make the spec more fun, interesting, or otherwise flow better. Even if they donât really connect with one another in any notable way. Void Torrent is nothing but a roided up MF. Mind Games is just something you press on cooldown which has next to no interaction with the rest of our kit. SWD is only used regularly because of Shadowflame Prism (which is a legendary I wish wouldâve died, but thatâs beside the point). PI is simultaneously the strongest and the most boring DPS cooldown that currently exists.
Then thereâs all of the well noted AoE issues (Searing Nightmare, why?), utility problems (not just in choices, but VE vs Ancestral Guidance/Etc), and so much else.
Priest suffers from some historically disjointed design and, in this case, is also suffering from being one of the first trees put out (as theyâve clearly been getting better as Blizz has released them). The combination is not great, to say the least. The latter gives me room for hope that they will hopefully revisit this all and vastly improve, but the former - along with the lack of communication - less so :(.
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My godâŚ
It feels like some of you want to sacrifice disc so thay shadow can recoverâŚ
Go back to disc being a holy with different cds? Might as well delete it and make priest a 2 spec class.
Disc has a great tree. Donât destroy it to save shadowâŚ
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In lieu of mechanics that form a cohesive thematic whole, shadow has 5-6 spells with medium length cooldowns that pretty much boil down to âPress on cdâ.
Thereâs also the fact that shadow now has access to numerous talents that were never designed to be taken together, such as mindbender, damnation, and void torrent. Three spells that basically do the same thing. Sometimes talents that were on the same row can work if both taken at once, but thereâs so much redundancy in shadowâs post rework spell design (Likely due to it needing to be rushed) that you canât really do that here.
That redundancy is also causing even more problems, the amount of resource gen the spec has specifically during cooldowns, because it has so many cooldowns that affect resource gen (Either by adding spells that generate it, increasing haste, or just generating it themselves) gets very unwieldy. Personally I was expecting changes to shadowâs core rotation and decisions in the tree to attempt to mitigate that, instead it makes it worse.
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Apart from the talent path rework idea we discussedâŚ
I would have to ask, what would you do to trim or shore up the abundance of redundant spells we have?
My #1 choice to toss would be Void bolt. Whatâs really the point of this spell? Just another button to press in Void Form and not much current 10.0 talent synergy with it aside from Void Touched to use it outside Voidform window.
In regards to Hungering Void, I think just make Devouring Plague synergize instead and remove Void Bolt.
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I will be honest, I really appreciate the design space of âCooldown that adds a spell to your rotationâ. I donât think itâs been executed perfectly for shadow, but I appreciate the added mobility and change in cadence it adds to the rotation. Definitely needs work though.
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Well respectfully, I think that is where our opinions diverge. I think we agree on most of the issues, but I just canât get behind the idea of having an extra button added into the rotation 1/2 the time playing. I just canât get around the muscle memory / keybind priority behind it.
Lets hope we at least get viable options that will provide paths for both types of play lol.
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What is a cooldown supposed to do other than enhance/alter gameplay? What would be an example of a satisfying cooldown for you?
I think the complaint isnât cooldown enhancing/changing play. Lots do that, directly or indirectly. The complaint is that Void Form, like Boon, enhances/changes play by adding a whole new ability - one that you can only use during that cooldown and which youâre seeking to use as much as possible.
Iâm not familiar with most melee, but if you look at all other caster cds - Ascendance (or Storm/Fire Ele) for Elemental, CA for Moonkin, Combustion/Arcane Power/Icy Veins for Mage, Tyrant/Dark Glare/Infernal for Warlock - Spriest is unique in that regard.
Personally, I like Void Bolt for the graphic alone, but I do think spriest needs some button streamlining. Why not just have MB transform into VB during Void Form (gaining charges, damage, and the other effects)? What would be lost? Because you then gain a whole bunch of synergy with tons of talents.
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Youâre not losing synergy from talents which affect Mind Blast since it continues to be cast on cooldown in Voidform. What Void Bolt does to the rotation is replace a global of channeled filler with slightly increased Insanity generation.
And I would very much prefer to cast Mind Flay as infrequently as possible.
You could just make Void Form remove the CD from Mind Blast like Ascendance does Lava Burst, if less filler is one of the goals of Void Form. Among other solutions.
Adding more abilities to dilute the core ones - even the boring, filler core like Mind Flay - shouldnât be the answer. Make Mind Flay better (not number wise, but feel wise). Or leverage existing abilities to make it used less. Either or.
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I donât want to get too much into psychology here, but fatigue with Void Bolt might just be an extension of 4 years of it being every 3rd GCD. When you think about it that way, itâs about as exciting as Crusader Strike.
If I had my choice, I wouldnât want a cooldown at all.
I like consistency in my gameplay, Shadow played like this all the way up until the Legion redesign.
Aside from The Dark Evanglism / Dark Archangel in Cata or Clarity of Power shake up in WoD.
Those added to your current damage in enhancing your dots or setting up for short burst windows. But it was relatively consistent and it didnât add to button bloat.
If Void Bolts only actual purpose is to give another instant cast button to press to avoid rooting yourself with Mind Flay as much as possible then I would say it should just replace Mind Flay.
Because it seems if Void Bolt had a cast time, it would seem just as purposeless to you since it still roots you. If thatâs really the only reason why it exists, then I think itâs not a well thought out design.
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Yeah, I donât mind void bolt as much as some of the other spells, but the shadow rotation in general just feels so crowded. Like on live right now with void eruption Iâm struggling to fit in any spells other than void bolt/devouring plague/mind blast. I like the additional movement, but everything just feels so busy, and with shadowflame prism mandatory then we have to fit shadow word death in there too. And then void bolt doesnât play nice with void torrent, and is negative synergy with all the mind flay talents. Itâs not bad, but honestly it is a relic of another age, like most of our spells, and there appears to be no thought about how they should all work together.
Void Eruption (and shadowflame, and several others) should be a choice, not core. It syergizes well with auspicious spirits, and insanity usage, so put it on that side of the tree. Then have mindflay talents on the other side. âPlayer choiceâ isnât a substitute for deliberate design, especially when we donât even have that many actual choices.
Something also needs to be done about insanity and devouring plague in general. Itâs forced. Get rid of insanity and give us DP as a 12-18 second dot. Like, itâs so obviously a relic to make insanity a thing. Stop trying to make insanity a thing. And give us our GCDs back. At the very least give us a talent to increase the insanity pool by 30 and have DP cost twice as much + last twice as long + do twice the damage.
Shadow used to be a deliberate spec. My favorite time was wrath, trying to refresh the buffed shadow word pain for as long as possible (be nice to see something like that come back), but even later it was about planning out your movement to maximize mind flays, then it was about planning your cooldowns to maximize your void forms. But with the current design, and the way that Blizzard appears to be continuing with, shadow just feels frantic and clunky.
This is how I feel as well. They talk about choice. Well give us the choice to choose the playstyle that made us fall in love with shadow in the first place.
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