It’s the worst Talent tree released so far by miles.
If Shadows Talent tree doesn’t fit in a RED FLAG moment to require major reworks… I don’t even know what to say to that.
Shadow had over 400 likes on the top review for SL feedback forums in Beta which went into detail the major issues with shadow. The rest of the classes / specs has less then 100 likes for the top comment… Shadow had multiple posts detailing out concerns that had over 100 likes each.
By that comparison, it was clear that A LOT of attention from the community was directed at Shadow and all we got was a quick Band-Aid.
Now we get the new Shadow Talent tree for 10.0 and it seems to be the same issues only now magnified and clearly show a lack of a fundamental understanding of what Shadow Priest IS and what makes it GOOD.
So yes… Shadow tree is BAD… its REALLY bad on itself but also when you take into consideration that we have been down this road multiple times and atm it is not looking good. So the earlier the better to VOICE our major concerns so we can at least this time around… FIX the core issues.
I’ve read you opinion for that. And it remain that, an opinion.
I coule elaborate more but let’s skip it as I don’t feel it’s relevant to the discussion.
Well, for me most dps lacks that tbh. But I don’t really agree as I always miss tools from shadow when I play specs with similar niches. Like shadow word death for example. Not all classes have an execute, and certaibly not dot classes from range…
That is partially related to the problem I’ve mentionned above with builder/spender. But sure I agree.
True.
Kinda redondant with previous point.
Yes. Shadow needs attention. I’m not saying it doesn’t. And maybe it’s the worst tree so far. I’m saying the tree isn’t such utter crap that the devs should stop everything they are doing to fix it IMMEDIATELY is what I am saying… you guys are such drama queens…
If you would argue against this point, what do you think is Shadow’s gameplay identity? Because I don’t think this is a subjective topic at all, unless we have different definitions of the term.
Who? People who are giving feedback? People who show overwhelming support for those giving the feedback?
I find it interesting that some of the other released talent trees are getting some back and forth discussions. Meanwhile we hear nothing on the priests… same with SL beta. We didn’t get ANY acknowledgement until they just made the decision to do what they did and then it was too late to do anything else. Those changes again were just a band-aid.
So are we to just walk that road again and get nothing until its too late and what we get is just another band-aid?
That’s not acceptable this time around. We want a real addressing to the issues plaguing Shadows Tree and by extension, its class tree.
Giving the benefit of the doubt was already done in the past expansions feedback, we want an actual addressing in the core issues. If we can at least get some acknowledgement of that fact would do a lot for the community… silence is just making the problem fester.
They’d only have to give up Translucent image as is currently. You can take holy word: life and SFP currently without losing anything but the T3 in the middle.
Honestly, fair. I just don’t want it to be a focus of discussion cause it gets kinda tiring fast and I think discourages other people from offering up feedback.
As an aside, I had a couple more thoughts on Disc.
I like the kind of light side/dark side schtick the tree has going for it. But I wish the dynamic had more distinction in the mechanics than just the flavor. Cause I’m thinking you could have the dark side talents focus on Atonement, while the light side talents focus on traditional healing, so you could choose to some extent your own level of engagement with Atonement as a mechanic. Obviously, you can’t get away from it entirely, the first talent point is literally Atonement, but you could shift the balance a bit.
More specific thoughts:
Shining Radiance/Improved PW:R feels like a lot of points to invest to get what is now baseline functionality (aside from the healing increase). It might be preferable to swap the two, or just roll in the second charge. Third charge could still be an option, but I think that would deserve a spot deeper in the tree.
Entering the second tier just kinda feels weak across the board. Contrition is a consolation prize for having to use Penance defensively, Swift Penitence is a ~6% damage/healing buff for one spell for two talent points.
Shining Force/Psychic Voice feel like they should be in the class tree. Likewise, weird that Pain Sup is required to pick them. I don’t know what you put in their places. Maybe like Lenience or something (which I’ll get to).
It’s weird that you can grab Pain Transformation without grabbing Pain Sup. Feels like it should go just below Protector of the Frail and then could itself be a pre-req to Rapture. Dunno what you’d put in its place, but something.
I dunno if Purge the Wicked needs to stick around? It doesn’t feel as transformative as SCov has the potential to be, and it feels like it should. Maybe I’m undervaluing it because I really just raid, so it could just be shuffled elsewhere in the tree.
Evang/SS, DS/Halo and PW:B feel good as the entry points for the final tier. Some notes, but generally, yeah, good.
If I were following my own little design note from above, I’d swap the position of Halo/DS and Evang/Spirit Shell. The only problem there is Wickedness is distinctly dark side-ish. But I’m also of the opinion that Halo/DS should probably be class talent capstones (or close to it).
I dunno if Lenience really belongs in the final tier? Like I’m not saying it’s not a solid standby, just that it feels like we should be swinging bigger in that tier. Kinda the same for Solatium/Indemnity. Again, not bad, but maybe not capstone quality. Maybe I just don’t have a good sense for how strong the final talents should be, cause I also feel like Lesson in Humility doesn’t belong, though weirdly I do think Stolen Psyche is workable because it also synergizes with SCoV.
Harsh Discipline feels like it should be more on the dark side of things. Also not sure if it deserves capstone status? I don’t have a good sense for how often it procs. My gut says it’ll mostly proc at ‘bad’ times, namely after you do a big combo, so it’s less likely to be effective.
So I watched a lot of Disc priest on alpha and play a lot of it currently so I think I can answer some of this. I agree with the stuff I’m not quoting generally though!
Contrition’s a strict increase to penance - it doesn’t have to be used defensively. It’s always been a good talent, but outclassed in HPS, but it’s not competing with sins anymore soooo good benefit.
Swift penitence is a pretty terrible talent though, yes. It’s our tier set from tomb coming back but weaker - and is about as bad as our conduit.
Purge the wicked doesn’t replace Shadow word: Pain. It’s a spell alongside SW:P right now. Also, if it DID replace SW:P it’s still pretty incredible QoL for us both in dot spread as well as duration increase. So this one makes sense to keep around.
I think the only reason it’s like this is because Wickedness is over there and they want to avoid that problem as much as possible (it’s still a problem with pain transformation, as you said).
Lenience probably does. It prevents way more damage than you’d think, especially in raid where you’re going to be blanketing for the biggest damage events - it should always be up then. It’s always been a talent that feels WAY lower impact than it is though. I think Solatium/indemnity are being overestimated since Disc usually makes a lot of use out of extra atonement duration, so they’re tuned really conservatively.
It’s pretty much every penance the way it’s tuned right now, pretty much. So long as you’re in group content, multidotting will keep it up all the time. It also goes away as soon as penance is cast, so all penance bolts (7) proc a new atonement event on every target. In a 20 man raid blanket, just penance on its own procs the next harsh discipline and harsh stacks up to 2.
In 5 mans, a radiance with like 3 mobs targeted will get you there in ~6 seconds or so. Honestly Harsh discipline is WILD at its current tuning.
I feel this is konda weird as attonement is the central and first piece of the tree. I prefer the light and shadow like now.
The speading it gives is REALLY useful in dongeon. And this seems to be improved in DF.
Yes and no. Defensive penance happens somethimes. Having a little something to make it better is great. Maybe it’s finaly time for this talent that has almost never seen use.
If they stay in the spec tree, where should they be? I mean, you’re very likely to pick pain supp anyway so they might as well be close by to allow for easy pickup.
Not sire about that. The left side is kinda the raid setup while right seems to be tending more toward small group setup. To me they make sense the way they are now.
For holy they are an entire tier earlier in their tree. Doesn’t feel capstone to me…
Right now it’s the pick for raids. And it seens super overtuned so it’s hard to say. Weird how you move everything around and they end up in the same side but on the other side
Pretty sure its not an oversight/bug as disc has shadow covenant that buffs shadow damage and purge the wicked is fire.
Though to me its weird that its behind contrition, cause needs offensive pennace to spread the dot but contrition wants defensive
You can almost say shadow covenant and purge the wicked are exclusive, but they arnt,
Also wanted to say in think the shadow side of disc spec tree feels more 5 man contenty to me from first look, but purge is on the oppisite side and is fire, would be nice of it counted as shadow damage imo
I think i could see it being there for those who want the holy side of disc flavor and give them something usefull for 5 mans. But not a fan of designs around flavor over function myself
yeah, that’s just a choice you’ll have to make, not spending points in both Shadow cov + PotW makes sense for that reason. Doesn’t make sense that a talent behavior changes like that + a ton of things are broken left and right across the board.
Plus, harsh discipline is way too strong with 2 dots creating atonement healing like that.
That does feel like an oversight to me, cause it always has replaced SW:P.
I’ll buy that it should stick around (again, I mostly raid, so it has not been something I’ve felt like I’ve missed throughout my career), but I do still think it probably should be shuffled elsewhere in the tree. Maybe below Sins of the Many?
I know in the scheme of things it doesn’t particularly matter, it just feels…imbalanced? This is a me thing for sure, but when I look at the tree and I see two wings like SCov and PtW, my instinct is that they should be equal in impact. SCov feels like it’s playstyle defining and PtW feels like QoL. That’s not to say one is better than the other, but they don’t feel like equals.
Yeah, I just have a history of looking down on Contrition throughout Legion/BfA. Thinking it over, it’s definitely better than I am giving it credit for, since it’s no longer in competition with anything.
Re: Swift Penitence, I think they could just ditch it and put Sins of the Many in its place, then put something else in Sins’ current place.
For sure. If you moved it you’d either have to remove or rework Wickedness, which would be a real shame because Wickedness is great for SCov stuff, even without the silence. If Halo/DS were in the class tree, you could put Wickedness (renamed to something a little more general) just below it, modifying them based on specialization.
In my head I know Lenience makes an impact, but my heart is never going to be willing to accept it.
Solatium is the half of the old Depth of Shadows Azerite trait we actually liked, so it is a good option, but also you could probably make it a 2 point talent (adding 1 sec each) in the mid tier and it wouldn’t be broken.
Alright, good to know. That does sound overtuned (may or may not be helped along by PtW being a second DoT), I would guess the intent is to get the free double penance every…30 seconds or so? Maybe every second or third Penance. It’s got an easy tuning knob in the number of Atonement effects needed, but they could also add an internal CD to keep it under control.
I’m just spitballing. Atonement is kind of contentious, and while I don’t think people should be able to opt out completely (and I am strongly of the opinion that bubble Disc has to stay dead for the health of the game), I think there should be options to reduce your reliance on it.
Again, fair. I mostly raid, so it’s always been one of those ‘not unless it’s an add fight and even then probably DS/Halo’ kind of deals for me.
If they had to stay there? Psychic Voice I can’t really see a better spot for. Shining Force you could put below Inner Light and Shadow to kind of ‘balance’ the shape in the top tier, I dunno. I really just feel like they belong in the class tree, not in the spec tree.
I can see that.
I think they’d be good capstones/near capstones in the class tree specifically because they’re valuable to all 3 specs, certainly moreso than Crystalline Reflection or Holy Word: Life, and mostly stand alone as strong spells in their own right without needing additional support.
But just to put into words what I’m imagining, what I’d do is put DS/Halo as an entry point for the final tier of the class tree in the middle (right below Twins of the Sun Priestess), split to two two-point options (what those options are doesn’t specifically matter, but if I had to pick something, Twist of Fate and a modified Unwavering Will with relevance to Shadow could work - the AoE heal aspect could proc ToF for Shadow, and the self-healing could put you in UW range), which can then link you to a capstone like Wickedness but modifying DS/Halo depending on spec.
I do get it, I know it’s just moving deck furniture around, but it does matter to me in a weird way. Some of it is flavor, some of it is that whole thing I wrote about with SCov vs. PtW, some of it is how linked talents relate to one another.
As another weird example, I don’t like Twilight Empowerment where it is not because it doesn’t belong on that side, but because it has nothing to do with DS/Halo or Wickedness. It’s just kind of randomly there as a thing to put points in between DS/Halo and Wickedness. I don’t know a better place to put it, but I can’t shake the feeling it should go somewhere else.
They could make PtW deal Shadowflame (Shadow/Fire) or Twilight (Holy/Shadow) damage. Either one works.
Im hoping they revert the shining raidance and improved PWR for the second charge. Its suppposed to be about choice and blizz knows we need that second charge for raiding and they are forcing us to go through something we may not pick as a choice, for something we must have.
Might be. I hope it’s not though, because it may be the main cause for harsh discipline to be so strong. Otherwise, I don’t have it in me to handle 2 dots tbh. Sure PotW is easy to spread, but we already have a good deal of things to do I feel, one dot should be enough. But again, this is my opinion.
If and i agree with you its an oversighht that will get fixed, but if we kept it i would use it on bosses only probably. Actually change that. You could do it but its still messy
Another case where the usual troll is up in arms because someone else won’t undoubtedly agree with every subjective notion. How are the devs supposed to care about feedback when trolls like you only care to needlessly bicker and distract from actual productive discussion…
