i could see SS being useful but a niece ability for M+ mostly on a tyrannical weeks
when were mid ramp we’re usually immobile as is we can abuse the like 1.8 seconds of pen to reposition
2 Likes
Hello Blizzard Devs,
The running theme for 12 out of 13 class trees is: Integration of all 3 class (or 2 or 4) specializations.
Priest doesn’t have this. Shadow is apparently subject to being a class all of its own.
As someone who’s come to enjoy the spec this expansion it sucks to be literally the only spec in the game unable to celebrate what they’re getting in Dragonflight. Where is the sharing of spec utility in the class tree? Why is Silence and Dispersion not an option for Holy and Disc? Why does the left side of the class tree result in a dead end for Shadow? Holy Nova? – noone wants Holy Nova. And then to have dead talents only relevant to Holy coming after down the left side?? What? Where is the utility of Holy and Disc specs represented in the class tree? Nowhere.
Honestly I don’t understand. The class trees have been pulled off brilliantly for the other classes - especially on stuff like druids that I thought was going to be very challenging. Feral and Guardian having free reign to pick up niche utility that was formerly exclusive to Balance and Resto is amazing. This is very much something that I expect to have for Priest. I want Fear Ward, I want Cascade, I want Divine Star, I want Halo, I want Dispersion off of the Shadow Tree, I want Vampiric Embrace out of the Shadow Tree, I want Silence out of the Shadow Tree. Why not have Shadow Covenant and Purge the Wicked as options in the class tree? Hell, SFP and mindbender options need to be options in the Shadow tree, not mandatory form of gameplay – SFP gameplay is degenerate as is, most people hate playing it. Make it an option, not a must take.
I don’t have the patience or time to go in depth with everything but priest right now is a miserable failure. It’s a copy paste of Shadowlands conduits. The only new thing are idols, which are idiotically isolated by the hated 3 point talent stack. Lazy. And no iteration or redesign of shadow’s AoE which is desperately needed. Do not go live with searing nightmare, you’ll regret it.
Priests have so much potential and are thematically there that is being spoiled and insulted by Blizzard. The expansion cannot shine unless all 13 classes are ready. Priest isn’t going to be ready at this rate. It’s a shame, this is un-mess-up-able. Holy-Disc-Shadow. Disc bridges Holy and Shadow. Yet it’s nowhere right now, I don’t get it. Disc shouldn’t be getting Death and Mending. It should be getting PW: Shield as a third starter point in the middle of the tree. Let’s start there? It’s been months, no changes, no nothing? What?
7 Likes
Generally agree with your comments except for SFP, which is an interresting pick for m+ healers. Although I agree that it def must not be a mandatory pick for shadow.
If it stays in the class tree. Shadow needs some alternatives for it at the very least.
2 Likes
To be fair, they don’t have any that Shadow doesn’t already share or is a spec cooldown.
They have 3 choices in this arena to boost class tree utility: Create entirely new utility for the class tree, bring back very old utility/tankiness from classic-cata in stuff like inner fire/etc. or push more of Shadow’s utility into the class tree and give shadow better throughput options in their place on the spec tree.
6 Likes
I do love how they brought back lightwell and made it something that passively heals instead of having to click.
I just hope that they work on it further and make it more like the HotS iteration where healing reduces the cooldown.
Obviously, since holy has Echo of Light, it would need to be direct heals, but 3 minutes seems like a really long cooldown.
1 Like
I was looking at the Monk talent tree today and I’m honestly completely perplexed on why they’re giving every single healer ingame (except Priests for w/e reason) an interrupt.
5 Likes
My take is that they might have made the decision about interrupt for all after the priest tree was made. Druid got one too before priest, but it requires bear/cat form so it’s kind of constraining if you aim to dps as a boomy.
I feel that they might have been aiming to give free kicks to some specs, while other have a more constraining one to chose from, or even skip some classes/specs.
I’m pretty sure we’re getting a kick once we get a update. Remains to be seen if it’s a silence or a simple interrupt I feel 
Just a feeling though, I might be wrong…
To me it just seems like an unneeded arms race. In PvP you basically have to deal with 1 more interrupt every 15s than you usually did (except in the case of fighting against Shamans).
For raiding we had multiple bosses in the last tier that required most of the raid to split interrupts between 2-3 different adds. Now you have to factor in healers into the interrupt rotation which is just an extra layer of work for them to do.
I agree. Although I’m really in favor of getting an interrupt in m+, because pugs…
But otherwise yeah…
I agree 100%…
Holy got Shadowmend, at least thats a heal out of holy school interrupted.
Disc got renew ?
What did Shadow get ? Anything holy gets us out of shadow form… so there is 0 synergy
Then im not even seeing Surrender to Madness PVP talent, the one that allows us to cast it and not die …
Extremely underwhelming, and what do we get ?
SILENCE… TOTAL SILENCE
2 Likes
Don’t say that, next thing you know, they will remove Silence 
4 Likes
I’m at least hoping we hear something this week.
After spending a bit reviewing all the healers trees: I would say pretty firmly that Holy Priests have the most lackluster healer tree after Holy Paladins. I ranked Holy Paladins higher because they’re getting fundamental playstyle changes that change how the spec plays and operates.
The Holy Priest tree in comparison is just a copy and paste of the existing talents we have ingame with little effort put into adding anything new. The complete lack of replacement of Flash Concentration and no buffs to Prayer of Healing basically just makes the spec walk into the new expansion nerfed.
With every other healer getting an interrupt except Priests, Paladins possibly getting a b-res, and Evokers getting Bloodlust… Holy and Disc are going to be bringing almost no raid or M+ utility. It’s a pretty crappy spot.
10 Likes
Wanted to share my thoughts on the current priest trees. Don’t have time to read through 1600 posts, so i’m sure most of it will be repetitive; just consider this my +1. My perspective is as a longtime shadow main, but I do flex both holy and disc, and have been playing a lot of holy in M+ the last two seasons. Shadow is the only spec tree i’ll comment on.
Class tree:
I think my biggest issue with this tree is the clear lack of choice. As an spriest i’ll never take the left side; as holy i’ll never take the right side.
Fixes:
—Move the spriest utility currently in the spec tree into the class tree (more on this later): silence, dispersion, vampiric embrace, psychic horror, san’layn, intangibility, last word. This will give healer specs access to some great utility that other healer specs are getting as well in their class tree.
—Move mind sear into the class tree. Gives healer priests some much needed aoe (holy nova sucks), and frees up spriest tree for better spec talents.
—Move divine star into the class tree. It’s a fun spell. Colour it purple for shadow.
—Make talents that affect key holy/shadow spells effect both; eg, flash heal becomes shadow mend, smite becomes mind flay, etc.
—give priests some more utility. We have been lacking utility for several expansions. Other than PI, our utility is incredibly situational, and mostly only good in raid. Give us a brez, buff or change vampiric embrace so it doesn’t suck (mana battery again?), give us a new party or raid buff, or something.
Second I am really disappointed to see shadowflame prism in the class tree. It means SFP will once again be shadow’s main playstyle. I’m fine with it being an optional playstyle, but it will be 100% pick where it is in the class tree. I’ll never take this as holy.
Fix:
—move SFP into spriest spec tree with some new bender talents for a build around that.
I am concerned that Twist of Fate currently only affects targets you heal. I’m assuming this is an error in the tooltip. Otherwise this is a giant giant nerf to shadow and deletes one of our few and dwindling dps niches (execute).
Fix:
—Ensure talent includes both current versions of the spell
Talents that depend on targets or yourself being shielded are pretty much useless for holy and shadow. PW:Shield is too weak to cast as holy, and no spriest want to spend globals casting shields instead of a dps button as a regular part of their rotation (can’t even fathom how bad maintaining a shield buff on yourself for a damage increase would be to play).
Fixes:
—Delete these talents and replace them with something beneficial for all priest specs.
—Move crystalline reflection into the disc spec tree.
Shadow priest spec tree
Main thought it how bloated this tree is and again, just the lack of choice and ability to move around to create different builds. There’s way too many utility talents and 3-point talents.
Fix:
—move utility spells into class tree
—get rid of 3-point talents
—fix pathing so there’s more ability to move left to right in the tree
Second main thought is while some of the Idol capstone talents seem cool, they are all passive pets. This is a continuation of shadowlands where we had our mindbender, rattling mage, living shadow, etc. IMO passive pets from passive procs is just lazy design. It doesn’t change our playstyle or add anything fun; it’s just like “oh my dude is up, hope he does dps”. Shadow isn’t meant to be a pet class. Idol of N’Zoth is the only one i’m excited about, but again, it’s a passive proc. I know blizz devs can be more creative than this!
Fix:
—Give us some capstones that aren’t passive pets.
—Give us some agency over when/how to spawn passive pets.
Third is the tree seems incoherent and lacking in builds and differing playstyles. It’s just the same old with talents placed seemingly randomly around the tree
Fix:
—Reorganize trees and add/update talents so there’s more synergy and build options. Some ideas: mindbender/SFP build, dots/apparitions build, aoe Idol of N’zoth build, psychic link/mind blast cleave build
Searing Nightmare. Do I need to explain why it sucks at this point?
Fixes:
—Delete it and replace it with a way to spread our dots on multiple targets (shadow crash, some kind of DP spreader)
—Uncouple it from mind sear and make it an aoe spender that fits with our rotation like DP
There’s so many useless talents that buff our fillers and, as I stated with the class tree, buffs that depend on you being shielded as a dps priest is going to be AWFUL to play. You already said you know there’s an issue with buffing filler spells. Don’t make the same mistake again with different talents/spells. Where are the buffs to our main rotation spells: mind blast, void bolt, DP?
Fix:
—Delete sanguine teachings, rot and wither, monomania, abyssal teachings.
—replace with talents that buff our main kit or offer different ways to play
Button bloat. My bars and keybinds are already maxed out. How am I supposed to add even more?
Fixes:
—More “pick” talents (eg shadow crash/void torrent, damnation/psychic link)
—Less new spells and more spells to buff or change what we already have that fit into builds
Closing thoughts
I am honestly really worried about shadow priest and priest in general going into Dragonflight. These talents do nothing to address our core issues. The thing that has made me play shadow for so long is the fluidity of its rotation, and that’s been gone for about 2 patches now thanks to insanity and gcd bloat. Aoe feels awful. Meanwhile holy and disc are propped up by legendaries and powerful covenant spells that are going away in DF. These talent trees are uninspiring, show zero class identity, and overall lack creativity and vision. Add to that the lack of feedback and iteration from blizzard and I worry we are going to be left in the dust, when as a class we’ve been struggling for a long while now. We’re only ever wanted when we’re broken (either dps or healing output), but it’s pretty clear our class/spec foundations are weak and I hope there’s still time for these trees to address those issues.
7 Likes
Hey, look, Mistweaver feedback!
You’ve sure +1’d a lot of stuff.
Just some comments as a healer since your take is a lot more shadowy than anything.
SFP for healers is an option for m+ that I’m sure some holy priests would pick. Disc will definetely love it too.
While I 100% agree that shadow should not be forced into that gameplay, I feel the choice should remain in the class tree and have other options for shadow there.
Shining force should come in the class tree too.
While divine star could come in the class tree as well, I don’t think it should just become a shadow equivalent just like that.
Holy’s been using shadow for a while, I feel that shadow should finally step in there as well and be able to cast holy spells.
That said. I feel that all our specs should use smite. Make it a twilight spell or something (shadow+light) so as to unify the 3 specs under 1 core ability.
I like the channel spells as filler, but I feel this would be for the greater good in the end.
3 Likes
They haven’t even done a balance pass yet. Are you sure this is going to be an issue.
god no
Disc’s identity now is ‘mix holy and shadow’, please stop doing this to Holy
I fully support more spells that pull a Divine Star and are Holy or Shadow depending on your spec with different flourishes but stop throwing more purple stuff our way
This is fabulous criticism that I think anyone actively playing priest should agree with 100%.
Honestly I want cascade back. Actually that entire row: Divine Star, Halo, Cascade was pog.
2 Likes
DF is out by the end of November? Beta should release any time now. So yes, we’re panicking. (Or at least I am since I’d like to keep playing shadow. If it isn’t improved it will be unviable at launch. Or Blizz could just keep trolling us and buff searing nightmare to the point none of the other spells matter, problem solved. /s)
Some of the recent comments on having builds within shadow around it’s 4 points of play would be wonderful. The spec is the only dps spec in game with real distinction in the way it aoes, vs cleaves, vs single target; all supplemented with mindbender sfp or ideally a counter option of no mindbender sfp. That’s a lot to get right.
Current blanket tuning of over buffing searing nightmare so that we only ever aoe in light cleaves is absolutely aborrent. Publik’s aoe in dungeons is 50% his damage and he’s aoeing on 3 targets situationally. That honestly feels like they’ve given up and this is getting swept under the rug.
3 Likes