Feedback: Shadow Priest

In Development Undermine(d) PTR Discussion
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Hi Folks,

I want to have a conversation about Shadow Priest and the design direction it has taken over the past few years. My goal here is to hopefully arrive at a place where we can introduce meaningful and fun changes to the spec that bring us in line with other cloth casters. For context, my experience with shadow encompasses cutting-edge raiding and high-end M+ in Legion and BFA, and to a lesser extent, +10s in S1 TWW. Shadow is my favorite spec in the game thematically; but lately, I felt the need to reroll because of some outstanding issues with its defensive capabilities and DPS output. It is upsetting that we do not get to shine in a series of expansions where our artifact weapon is the main antagonist, or at the very least, one of the catalysts for the main antagonist. When I achieve content that cannot be done on my priest, such as +20s back in Legion, I swap to my Warlock. Lately, I have put my Shadow Priest aside once again for the qualms highlighted in this post. In this post, I highlight issues Shadow Priests have that I’ve run across while running dungeons that I feel will be exacerbated as the expansion goes on.

TLDR: Let’s discuss Shadow Priest’s design evolution and meaningful changes to align it with other cloth casters. I love Shadow Priest thematically but feel forced to reroll due to its defensive and DPS shortcomings.

Defensives:

What do we have available to us?

The Priest tree, in addition to the Shadow and Hero trees, has a lot of talents dedicated to defensive capabilities on two fronts: damage reduction (DR) and healing. Those among the damage reduction talents on the Priest tree are:

  • Spell Warding (3% magic DR)
  • Translucent Image (10% DR through Fade, which is on a 30 seconds (s) CD unless you spec Improved Fade, reducing the CD to 20s)
  • Protective Light (Flash heal grants 10% DR only when cast on yourself).
  • Manipulation reduces damage by 2% by targets affected by our Shadow Word: Pain.

Those in the Shadow tree are:

  • Dispersion (75% DR, a 25% heal over 6s, with a 2-minute CD, unless you spec Intangibility, which brings it down to 1.5 minutes and grants additional healing, up to 50% of your max HP.).

The other form of defense we have is through healing. On the Priest tree, we have:

  • Vampiric Embrace lasts for 12 seconds on a 2-minute CD, converts 40% of our single target shadow damage into healing a nearby ally; this is additionally beefed up by San’layn which buffs the amount of healing by 25% (although mine buffs it from 40% to 50%? Math is weird.) and reduces its CD to 1.5 minutes.
  • Power Word: Life is a talent usable when we or an ally is at 35% HP or below and grants an amount of healing. At 626.19 ilvl, it’s 11.9% of my maximum HP and increases in healing by .1% per 115,704 hit points. Thus, the healing scales with one’s health pool are not fixed values.
  • Angelic Bulwark procs at 30% HP and grants a shield for 15% of your maximum HP for 15s.
  • Crystalline Reflection, a two-talent node, empowers our baseline ability Power Word: Shield by healing us for a small amount that scales with our max HP. For me, if I am talented in both points, it’s 1%. The talent also reflects 6 and 12% of the damage absorbed, based on how many times it is talented. Considering that Power Word: Shield only gives me a shield equal to 5% of my max HP, this is not much.
  • Cauterizing Shadows. When Shadow Word: Pain expires or is refreshed when there is 5 seconds or less on its duration, the application will heal the player for a scaling amount less than 1% of their maximum HP.
  • Essence Devourer Mindbender/Shadowfiend heals an injured ally for an amount on cast [meaning when it’s cast, it heals for a flat amount], and its attacks also heal. For me, it’s an amount equal to 2.1% of my max HP on the cast, and each attack by the fiend heals for 0.7% of my max HP. This scales.
  • Void Shift swaps the priest’s current HP with a targeted ally. Outside of extremely niche situations and PVP scenarios, when will this ability ever be useful in more than a handful of situations?

The Voidweaver tree gives two talents that share a node:

  • Void Leech steals 4% of an ally’s maximum HP every 3 seconds if they are healthier than you.
  • Embrace the Shadow absorbs 3% of magic damage taken. If that magic damage happens to be Shadow damage, it’ll heal you for 100% of the amount absorbed. Mental Fortitude, which is on the same node as Intangibility, makes Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague grant a shield for up to 10% of your maximum HP, but only if you are already at 100% HP.

Baseline Defensives are:

  • Desperate Prayer on a 1.5-minute CD and it increases our maximum HP by 40%, while also healing us for that amount. It can be used proactively, but for greater value, is best used when you need a heal when anticipating damage.
  • Power Word: Fortitude increases our max HP by 5%
  • Focused Will grants us 5% magic DR and 15% physical DR when we are meleed. While often forgotten, Focused Will is great for delves, open-world content, PVP, and those odd pulls in a dungeon when mobs flock to you because your tank is randomly flattened by an overtuned buster while your Fade is on CD because splash damage is too dank this season.

We cannot take all of these talents at once. Some share the same node, while others, like PW: Life, are too deep into the tree. We could potentially reduce Desperate Prayer’s CD by 30 seconds through Angel’s Mercy, but this requires us to pointlessly waste 2 talents on Unwavering Will, thus restricting our talent choices on the other side of the tree, which is where we tend to spend our points on arguably more important defensive talents, like Manipulation, Improved Fade, and Essence Devourer.

TLDR: Trade-offs exist as talents compete for points or share nodes, limiting the ability to take all defensives simultaneously. Players often prioritize talents like Improved Fade, Protective Light, Manipulation, and Essence Devourer over less impactful ones. We do not gain full benefit of a very powerful baseline defensive via Focused Will in group content.

The Problem:

In a dungeon environment, I have noticed both when healing Shadow Priests and while playing Shadow, and through the anecdotes of my friends and guildies who have ventured into the pugging world, Shadow Priests will randomly fall over and die due to splash damage or targeted abilities, randomly or otherwise. Dungeon design has taken a turn such that many mobs will now randomly choose a target and cast an ability that needs to be kicked or they will truck the DPS or healer. Sometimes these abilities are not kickable so stunning or displacing their movement is required. If it is not a targetable ability, it’s splash damage that gets us. Just yesterday afternoon, we had datamined news saying that they’re adding even more AOE damage to Motherlode next season. So, it is safe to say they will continue to exacerbate this issue. So, what seems to be the problem, then? When compared to other cloth wearers, namely Warlocks and Mages, I fear we have fallen behind when it comes to mitigating these types of issues by some margin.

Mages arguably have some of the best defenses in the game. They, like us, have many talents that buff their existing defensive kit in some form or another– granting a little heal here or a little CD reduction there. A frost mage specced Frostfire primarily relies on shielding for their defensives vis-a-vis Ice Barrier (25s CD, 1 min duration), Blazing Barrier (3min CD or 25s CD 1 min duration), and Tempest Barrier (25s CD, 15s duration); all of which produce a shield that protects them for a % of their maximum HP, can be applied simultaneously, and scale based on stamina. At 608 ilvl, for example, a mage can cast:

  • Ice Barrier protects them for 26.5% of their maximum HP
  • Blazing Barrier for 5.5% (if specced Imbued Warding, Ice Barrier also conjures a Blazing Barrier at 25% effectiveness), or 22.1% of their max HP (via the Meltdown talent mages can produce a Blazing Barrier after Ice Block or Ice Cold wears off).
  • Tempest Barrier at 6.6%.

Outside of these barriers, their other active defensives consist of a

  • Mirror Images provides a 20% DR when they fade
  • Ice Block, an immunity that heals for 50% of your max HP.
  • Ice Cold replaces Ice Block and reduces damage by 75%. Ice cold is off the GCD and mages can cast while it is active. Both abilities are reset via Cold Snap. Both abilities are reset via Cold Snap.
  • Alter Time copies the amount of HP the mage has at the time of the cast and reverts to that % after the ability fades or is canceled, and, of course, Mass Barrier is a talent that supersedes the CD of Ice Barrier and applies Ice Barrier when cast, and Diverted Energy can heal you for 40% of the damage absorbed from any of your barriers.

Warlocks are another story. Their defenses have attained a level of sophistication that can only be described as tanky. You have:

  • Soul Leech grants an absorb shield akin to 10% of your max HP.
  • Demonic Embrace, which increases your stamina by 10%, i.e., greater than Power Word: Fortitude when it isn’t buffed by the Archon hero tree talent Word of Supremacy. Soul Link transfers 10% of all damage done to the Warlock to its pet.
  • Dark Pact, at 620 ilvl, provides a 3-million HP shield. That is 50% of my Warlock’s maximum HP. This scales with gear and is not a fixed value.

Then, there are health stones.

  • Sweet Souls heals for 35% of your maximum HP. This talent also makes it so that when someone consumes a health stone, the warlock is healed for 10% of its max HP, which is added to the 35%.

In a dungeon or raid environment, you can imagine how much healing that can be. When one talents into Soul Burn, they can increase the healing done by their health stone to 75% when paired with Sweet Souls; this ability is further given value by Pact of Gluttony. PoG turns your health stone into a demonic health stone. It has a 60-second cooldown and can be consumed multiple times throughout a fight. Lastly, they have

  • Unending Resolve (UR), a baseline ability that provides a 35% DR, and when talented into Strength of Will, provides a 45% DR. When the Warlock runs the Diabolist hero tree, they can take Infernal Vitality– an ability that makes UR heal you for 35% of your maximum HP over 10 seconds.

Taking all of this information together, at their core, Shadow Priests are generally working with 2 10% DRs that need to be talented; one is in the middle of the Priest tree, the other at the end of the Priest tree. To get both, we have to sacrifice other defensive abilities. Protective Light needs to be hard cast for 1.2 seconds and only lasts for 10 seconds. We get Dispersion when it is talented in the Shadow tree. Our baseline defensives are Desperate Prayer and Focused Will; the latter of which will hardly ever be triggered in group content unless the tank is dead, thereby rendering its value null. In other words, we are quite squishy. We arguably need to perform much better than the other cloth classes so we are not immediately demolished as soon as splash damage or targeted abilities come into play. It has become increasingly frustrating to play this spec, to play perfectly, to preposition because we have limited mobility, only to be randomly obliterated by a random ability or splash damage.

TLDR: Shadow Priests struggle defensively in small group content due to limited defensive options compared to other cloth users. Dungeon mechanics increasingly involve splash damage or untargetable abilities that disproportionately punish Shadow Priests, exacerbated by weaker defenses and mobility.

  • Mage Defenses: Multiple scalable barriers (Ice, Blazing, Tempest) with strong HP shielding, versatile DR options (Mirror Images, Ice Block), and healing via Ice Block/Ice Cold or Diverted Energy. Alter Time and Mass Barrier further boost survivability.
  • Warlock Defenses: Extremely tanky toolkit with Soul Leech (10% HP absorb), Dark Pact (50% HP shield), enhanced Healthstones (up to 75% HP healing), and Unending Resolve (35%-45% DR, with healing when talented). Additional stamina boosts and pet-linked damage mitigation add durability.

Shadow Priests rely on weaker, inconsistent DR abilities to pick up the slack when Dispersion is on CD. For example, Fade and Protective Light, and minimal baseline defensives like Desperate Prayer and Focused Will. This leaves us vulnerable to dungeon mechanics, leading to frustration when outperformed defensively by other cloth classes. We require stronger defenses to remain competitive and mitigate the increasing challenges posed by dungeon design.

Defensive Solutions:

  1. Make Dispersion baseline. Take it out of the talent tree. New defensive talents can then be introduced in its place that makes Dispersion have 2 charges, but instead, reduces damage done to the priest by 40% instead of 75%. Reduce the heal to 25% max HP. Allow us to be able to cast while we have this DR up. This will give us more control over our defensive capabilities while also not being locked out of our damage. Dispersion used to be more powerful in the past when it froze the duration of Void Eruption, and now, it no longer does. When we disperse, we lose out on our Void Eruption uptime. Why are we punished for popping our main defense? Why can we not cast when it is active?
  2. Give back the 10% or 15% DR Shadowform used to give as a baseline. Originally, Shadowform reduced physical damage by 15%. It was changed to a 15% DR for all damage in Wrath. In Mists, this was changed from a DR to a 60% armor increase, and later hotfixed to 100%. This was later changed in Legion back to physical damage, but only at 10%, and later in BFA, it was tragically removed altogether, thus being in Shadowform gave zero defensive capabilities. If Shadow Priests received either armor or a flat % damage DR around 10%, this should smooth out some of the increased passive damage we are now experiencing. If you wanna get fancy with it, you can also potentially give a 10% flat DR WITH a 10% shadow damage DR. We are Shadow Priests. We should take the least amount of shadow damage out of any class.
  3. Introduce a talent in the Shadow tree that beefs up Power Word: Shield specifically for Shadow Priest. It should be shadow themed and renamed to something else. If you exchange Intangibility for a new shield talent, you can kiss/curse the ability so it isn’t too powerful. Allow it to grant up to 15% to 20% of my max HP, similar to Ice Barrier for mages or Soul Link for Warlocks, and increase its duration from 15s to 30s. In doing so, you may also increase its CD from 6.2 seconds to something like 25 seconds. This introduces a new problem, however, because one thing priests suffer the most from is movement– and our movement is tied to our PW: S. You could remedy this by introducing a new movement ability in the shadow tree akin to what Door of Shadows used to be. Or, just give us the Door of Shadows ability and let us teleport to a targeted location on a 1-minute CD. You can also make it so when this new shield is expended it increases our movement speed for 5 or 10 seconds, or make it so it gives us a movement increase when it is active.

TLDR: I propose defensive improvements for Shadow Priests aim to address current vulnerabilities by enhancing survivability and mobility:

1. Make Dispersion Baseline:

  • Remove Dispersion from the talent tree and make it baseline.
  • Replace with a talent that provides two charges of Dispersion but reduces damage mitigation to 40% (down from 75%) and healing to 25% of max HP.
  • Allow casting during Dispersion to prevent DPS loss and improve control.

2. Reintroduce Shadowform DR:

  • Restore a flat 10%-15% damage reduction (DR) or armor increase from Shadowform, as previously seen in earlier expansions.
  • Optionally, include an additional 10% Shadow damage DR for thematic consistency.

3. Upgrade Power Word: Shield for Shadow:

  • Introduce a talent to make PW: Shield more robust for Shadow Priests, increasing its effectiveness (15%-20% of max HP) and duration (30s) while balancing with a longer cooldown (e.g., 25s).
  • Provide a shadow-themed rework for the shield’s visuals and effects.

5. Enhance Mobility:

  • Address movement issues by introducing a new mobility ability, such as a teleport similar to Door of Shadows (1-minute cooldown).
  • Alternatively, tie movement speed increases to the upgraded PW: Shield, either while active or upon expending.

This will bring Shadow Priests defensively in line with other cloth classes while addressing core weaknesses in survivability and mobility.

These potential fixes are well within reason.

Damage Kit:

The core Shadow Priest rotation can best be described as a perfect blend of simplicity and elegance. One of the reasons why I keep coming back to this spec, aside from its very enticing eldritch theme, is because of how it feels to play. The rotation is smooth and has a nice flow. Void Torrent contributes to this flow, with the occasional Shadow Crash here or there (sometimes this feels disruptive to said flow). Voidweaver further enhances this playstyle by adding more flavor and changing up our gameplay through Void Torrent. With that said Archon is thematically boring and unimaginative. Exactly how do small increases to my damage or haste, or increasing the number of Halo rings equate to “an ascended state” or even “the ultimate version of themselves?” This tree should provide a Lightform for Disc and Holy priests, and a buff to Shadowform for Shadow Priests, perhaps with a new animation. Make it a CD that does explosive damage or healing and is visually and aesthetically appealing. How is it that Diabolists summon a pit lord and I get a second ring of Halo? Having my damage based on procs of insanity generated on a 1-minute Halo CD does not feel good. Engaging packs with Halo down does not feel good. It feels incredibly clunky to play with which is why I avoid speccing Archon when I can get away with it. Reducing the cooldown of Halo to 45 or 30 seconds will make these damage patterns FEEL better. By introducing zero iterations to the trees when going into Undermined, I can only assume you think the current iteration is fine, or that you are planning something big. Either way, a little communication goes a long way. Especially as we watch entire trees being remade.

Moving on, conceptually, I think Shadow Crash is a pretty boring ability. It was given to us in Legion, but it was introduced to the game in Wrath when we fought against General Vezax in Ulduar. The concept and animation are more or less the same as it was 15 years ago. Introduce something fresh in its place that has the same functionality. An AOE ability that spreads dots when talented. Call it Voidmaw, and have something like the shadowy maw of Yogg-Saron erupt from the ground that spreads our dots around. Something like this would be preferable to a slow-moving projectile. What I am suggesting is essentially a Shadow Priest version of Destruction Warlock’s cataclysm. Why is it a non-dot spec that hard casts most of its abilities better at being a dot spec than us? Between Cataclysm on a 30s CD with no travel time and Malevolence, an ability that buffs their dot Wither, they are arguably a better dot spec than us; They are more favorable to play particularly when you consider all of the defensive capabilities they receive for being Warlocks. While on the topic of AOE damage, the Mind Sear from Idol of C’thun feels inconsistent and lacks player agency.

One of Shadow Priest’s major pain points is our ability to spread our dots, particularly when Shadow Crash is on CD. We no longer can just Mind Sear and Void Erupt anymore to pick up the slack after dotting everything up manually. In Legion, after the Heart of the Void legendary was introduced, doing dungeons felt fun. The legendary increased the damage of Void Eruption by 200% and it felt like a really good button to pop. It was, more or less, on a one-minute cooldown because if we played well and extended our Voidform properly, it would be ready to press again in 1 minute. Which was about how long it took to ramp up again. Nowadays, we have no button to press to bring up the slack after ramping.

A major issue I have with the spec is that I feel we are not adequately rewarded for maintaining our dots, particularly in an AOE situation. A majority of our damage will come from Psychic Link, an ability that works in the background and essentially turns us into a single-target turret spec, rather than attaining damage from the dots themselves. A quick peek at M+ logs will show you that our dots rank rather low in our overall damage profile. A lot of our damage will come from insanity procs being spent on a single target. Damage is then spread through Psychic Link to everything within 45 yards when afflicted by our Vampiric Touch, but damage from our dots does not contribute to the damage afflicted by Psychic Link. Essentially the value of maintaining our dots, primarily Vampiric Touch, is no longer for the sake of the dot damage itself, but instead for the functionality of Psychic Link. As a dot spec, I think we should move away from Psychic Link and pursue a design philosophy centered around empowering our existing dot damage while we manage them. In other words, the longer the dots are on the targets, the stronger they should become. Our dots should not only ramp up in damage the longer we maintain them, but they should also be empowered, akin to how Destruction Warlocks get Malevolence; because as it is, we are essentially a naked version of something much better.

TLDR: Shadow Priest’s damage kit has a strong thematic and rotational appeal but faces issues with flow, outdated abilities, and reliance on mechanics like Psychic Link that overshadow dot management. I therefore suggest that we:

1. Enhance the Archon Tree:

  • Make Archon thematically exciting and impactful with visually striking abilities.
  • Replace underwhelming effects (e.g., additional Halo rings) with transformative cooldowns that reflect an “ascended state,” such as buffs to Shadowform aesthetics with a greater damage increase.
  • Reduce Halo’s CDto 30-45 seconds for smoother damage patterns.

2. Update Shadow Crash:

  • Replace Shadow Crash with a modern, thematic ability like “Voidmaw,” a shadowy eruption that spreads dots (similar to Warlock’s Cataclysm).
  • Address the slow and outdated design of Shadow Crash for better usability.

3. Reward Dot Maintenance:

  • Shift focus from Psychic Link to dot damage empowerment.
  • Introduce mechanics that reward maintaining dots, such as ramping stacks/damage or additional effects over time, akin to Warlock’s Malevolence.
  • Ensure dots play a more central role in overall damage output, especially in AOE situations.

4. Improve AOE and Downtime Capabilities:

  • Reintroduce impactful cooldowns like a talent that is basically Legion’s Heart of the Void for Void Eruption to address ramp downtime.
  • Reintroduce Mind Sear to give players more agency over their AOE, instead of having it be baked into the Idol of C’thun, which has proven to be inconsistent in dealing damage and not controlled by the player.
  • Provide additional tools to spread and enhance dots when Shadow Crash is on cooldown.

By addressing these issues, Shadow Priests can retake their identity as an engaging dot spec.

Closing Thoughts:

Shadow Priests have seemingly suffered from an identity crisis since the end of the Emerald Nightmare. Their niche is occupied by classes and specs that do what we do but better, and bring a more attractive toolkit to boot. Our kit has remained largely the same over the past decade and the playstyle has slowly changed from maintaining stacks of Voidform to a builder/spender spec. It has moved away from its identity as a dot spec toward something else. I think a recentering is in order. Given the new philosophy regarding dungeons, and the developer’s vision of how they want tanks and healers to work going into 2025, Shadow Priests need an updated kit that allows them to keep up both defensively and offensively.

Another argument I’d like to point out is there is no real reason to bring a Shadow Priest to anything. In a raiding and M+ environment, you can get the same value you get out of a Shadow Priest through the class utility of the other specs (Fort, dispels, and Power Infusion). We are not particularly powerful when it comes to damage, and it would make more sense to bring a class or spec that brings more damage to the desired content while lining your healer roster with at least 1 Disc or Holy Priest. With the recent changes to Holy going into Undermined, they will become more desirable going into smaller group content. Their issues have, more or less, been addressed while ours have not. The only utility advantage we have over the other Priest specs is a 45 second silence. The CD of Silence can be reduced to 30 seconds via Last Word, but given its awkward positioning on the Shadow tree, we scarcely ever take it. We invest as little as we can so we can get our mediocre 45 second kick. A simple solution

To be clear, I do not think our damage issues are a matter of simple number tuning. It’s the gameplay itself. The idea that I can spin so many plates (multi-dotting) as a Shadow Priest only to be outclassed and damaged by a retribution paladin pressing 2 or 3 buttons feels silly. We put a lot of effort into establishing, maintaining, and managing our dots, yet we are under-rewarded for doing so. So, why the heck would anyone even bring or play a Shadow Priest?

I hope we can bring the spec to a place where it feels adequately rewarding to play, and also defensively in a place that makes it competitive with other cloth casters. Back in Legion and BFA, I liked to push keys in my downtime. After reaching +20s, my Shadow Priest simply did not have the kit required to deal with damage profiles at that level. So, my response was to source tank trinkets from raiding. When my raid leader couldn’t be convinced to give tank trinkets to a Shadow Priest, particularly after our tanks and their alts were adequately geared, I would do the harder content on my Warlock, which had an adequate defensive response to the content. I would like to see the day when Shadow Priest has its own competitive niche for content that is challenging, so I do not have to swap to my alts to do it.

TLDR: I find Shadow Priests are in an identity crisis, outclassed by other specs that do what we do—only better and with more utility. Our kit has stagnated for over a decade, and recent design philosophy has shifted them away from our dot-based identity without providing a compelling new niche. We struggle to bring value in both damage and utility compared to other specs, leaving little reason to include us in group content.

Identity and Role:

  • Shadow Priests lack a distinct niche or compelling reason to be brought to group content.
  • Our damage output requires significant effort (e.g., multi-dotting) but yields underwhelming rewards compared to other specs with simpler rotations which bring better utility and more damage.
  • Recenter the spec as a dot-based class with competitive utility and damage, rewarding effort and skillful management.

Utility Concerns:

  • Shadow’s utility overlaps with Disc and Holy Priests (Fortitude, dispels, Power Infusion), making it redundant in group content.
  • Last word is underutilized because of poor node placement. It does not connect with the next node. Either move it to a more accessible node, or change Silence to be a normal interrupt with a 15 second CD, and move it to the Priest tree.

Defensive Weakness:

  • Shadow Priests are squishier compared to other cloth classes like Warlocks and Mages
    • Defensive improvements are needed to make Shadow competitive in higher-level content, avoiding reliance on external solutions (e.g., tank trinkets).

Gameplay and Reward Structure:

  • Introduce mechanics that reward dot maintenance and management, making the effort feel impactful.
  • Address the mismatch between effort-intensive gameplay and low damage output.

What I propose:

  • Strengthen defensive tools to make Shadow more durable and self-reliant in challenging content, so we do not have to be entirely babysat by healers during busters.
  • Adjust gameplay to reward skillful dot management, moving away from Psychic Link’s single-target focus.
  • Improve utility, such as revising Last Word’s positioning or adding unique Shadow-specific group benefits.
  • Address damage design holistically—not just through number tweaks but by reworking how damage is generated and rewarded.

Conclusion:

Shadow Priests need a modernized kit that restores their dot-centric identity, enhances utility, and makes them competitive both defensively and offensively.

What changes would you propose to bring the spec a step forward in the right direction? Let’s discuss it!

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The game does not need more defensives. It is already hilariously bloated on that front and they need to be cut down significantly, continuing the arms race of only ever adding more defense is a terrible direction that Blizzard has been going into for a while.

Blizzard deleted the forum I posted a big post on this topic in, but I have it here as well: https://medium.com/@tradu/defense-creep-10d8fb7d8fa3

These 2 contradict each other. You can’t be rewarded for maintaining DoTs if those DoTs just get applied to the entire universe with 1 button. Blizzard also specifically doesn’t want DoTs themselves to do a lot of damage, instead having mechanics like PL and SA do the damage.

45 seconds would be bad. It specifically got changed to 1 minute so it’d neatly line up with our other CDs. Most of the time we’d end up holding the 45 sec Halo to stack it with other CDs anyway (see Phantom Singularity for Affliction). In theory there’d be the potential to make decisions based on kill times/time to die, which I personally like, but this would be very unpopular.

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This needs plastered everywhere. Nice writeup.

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While I agree that defensive creep is a problem, if Blizzard isn’t willing to cut back on defensives immediately for the most egregious offenders, I would prefer Priest’s survivability be addressed rather than remain untouched. Even if it were only temporary.

Why is it our class that seems to always be the exception to the norm?

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I appreciate you taking the time during the holiday to list your thoughts here. This, and all of the guides and videos you put out for the spec, showcase your care for it. Your Defense Creep post points out a greater systemic issue with the game. This particular quote sums it up well and resonates with me:

If you want to truly threaten the Retribution paladin with extra health, multiple armor and avoidance modifiers, plate armor, an immunity, multiple regular defensives and who stacks versatility for damage, how is the Enhancement shaman supposed to not get their head caved in?

Although the death statistics you link actually show Enhancement Shaman living compared to their Paladin counterparts.

With that said, I think it is a big ask of Blizzard to revamp the entire defensive system, which includes looking at all 13 classes, and their 39 talent trees. Their current design philosophy is not indicative that this is on the horizon, and if its something they will do, they will do it for an expansion release, not a content patch. This is assuming they even agree that a defensive overhaul is warranted to begin with. As @Ryeshot has pointed out, it is better that Shadow Priest survivability is addressed, preferably in Undermined, rather than remain untouched.

For example, a quick look at dungeon logs will show you that Shadow Priests, on average, require more healing than most because they take more damage. I specifically recommend looking at logs for +7s-10s when damage gets juicy.

If you want a raid account, consider looking at normal or heroic logs because this is where most of the population will be. Using mythic logs to build arguments, like you did in your post when you were looking at death statistics, biases the argument toward the very best of players, which, most players do not play on the same level as a mythic raider. Furthermore, Blizzard certainly does not balance classes based on mythic statistics because of the fact that they do not accurately represent the experience or challenges faced by most players.

These 2 contradict each other. You can’t be rewarded for maintaining DoTs if those DoTs just get applied to the entire universe with 1 button. Blizzard also specifically doesn’t want DoTs themselves to do a lot of damage, instead having mechanics like PL and SA do the damage.

I agree, they contradict each other and are not meant to be taken together. If the current design philosophy on Shadow Priest remains the same, I would like for us to move away from Shadow Crash because I think it is a poorly designed ability. It is a slow moving projectile that I think is unrepresentative of the overall class identity. Ideally, I would like to move away from more direct damage and that there be more of an emphasis placed on maintaining, managing, and empowering our dots.

I’m not sure where you got that Blizzard doesn’t want dots to do a lot of damage, particularly when specs like Assassination exist in its current functionality.

45 seconds would be bad. It specifically got changed to 1 minute so it’d neatly line up with our other CDs. Most of the time we’d end up holding the 45 sec Halo to stack it with other CDs anyway (see Phantom Singularity for Affliction). In theory there’d be the potential to make decisions based on kill times/time to die, which I personally like, but this would be very unpopular.

That is a fair criticism. I suppose what I am asking for is more consistent means to deal damage while playing Archon. The 1 minute cooldown does not change the fact that, at least for me, feels generally unappealing to play with. Furthermore, the description of Archon does not match up with the tree. I am not sure how Archon Priests are entering an “ascended state” and thereby becoming the “ultimate versions of themselves” is represented through pressing Halo. It is generally not exciting.

The purpose of this post is to generate ideas about how to make the spec better. Assuming Blizzard will continue on with their current philosophy on damage and defensives, as they have done for some time, we as Shadow Priests should be looked at and compensated.

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I’ll just simply add this…

Shadows Issues have been discussed at length multiple times throughout the years and basically ever since the rushed half measure job of implementing the Dragonflight talent trees mere weeks before the release of DF after the absolutely abysmal initial Priests talent trees were shown off which required a hard reset in the direction, it seems to only have ever gone on deft ears.

The issues were pointed out, many suggestions were provided in various forms and yet little to no change has been done for 2+ years.

The Shadow Crash issue is very clumsy to say the least and not having an optional alternative option like having Mind Sear back as a choice node with Psychic Link and other talents that support Periodic damage enhancing builds to really super charge your Mind Sears seems like an easy win among other easy wins.

Point is, I find it hard to believe at this point that blizzard are not aware of the issues plaguing Shadow and Priests in general, they just choose to not address them or when they do they do it with a post like they did 2 years ago with the Power Word: GFY post that came out alongside an update post for other classes that contradicted each other that clearly showed Priests are held to a different set design standard rules that is more restrictive and holds back fun design because of it.

What you currently see is intentional and did not happen by accident.

Until blizzard addresses the concerns we have all brought up over the past 2+ years with actual meaningful talent updates or a forum post then I will continue to expect what they have been doing which is radio silence while we see the other classes get multiple continued updates.

4 Likes
7

Nice topic, i agree with some points, but the main thing that holds me to go back to my Spriest is that it doesn’t feel any good to play at the moment, it somewhat crazy that i can’t play Void Eruption, Mind Flay with Voidweaver, the entire VW hero talent don’t work well with Voidform, and it was the thing that i was most excited for this expansion, i don’t like Dark ascension/Mind spike build, if i ever have to play with that to do some damage or even go meta (wich spriest is not, actualy there isn’t a single soul that likes Spriest, not even the devs :rofl: ), or if VE/VF was deleted from the game, i would sadly delete my priest and would never touch the class anymore. As it is not the case, YET… cuz the way things are going looks like my Spriest would not see the light anytime soon :rofl:

The real problem for me is that Spriest don’t have a unique identity

As you said there, our tools that were unique for the class were given to other classes, saying that we couldn’t have that, cuz other class should have it, and they left us with nothing realy unique (honorable mention to our interrupt, that is unique in being the worst on the game).
The other thing that bothers me is that the spec tree doesn’t work with both talents (actually is a problem with the class, cuz disc and holy doesn’t work with oracle too), as i said before i dont like Dark Ascension/Mind Spike playstile, but Voidform/Mind Flay dont work well with Voidweaver, and DA/MS is weaker for archon compared to Voidform/Mind Flay. For comparison i take the example of paladin, wich is my main class on this expansion, all the pally specs work well with all the hero talents, for RetPally for example Templar is better than HoS, but it isn’t a big loss of damage, is just something about 10%, in some scenarios HoS is even better than templar for in utility, cuz it heals the party, and Eternal Flame is a realy good healing skill, out of ret, protection and holy works almost equaly with their hero talents, i played Holy paladin both with lightsmith and HoS, and had almost no difference. i know some classes suffer with the problem of having only one hero talent for every spec, but for Spriest looks like they don’t even want to fix it. I know most of you dont like the Dragonflight Spriest, but for me it was better than it is right now, and i’m not saying that it was good :rofl: cuz it wasn’t, but i at least had some fun and could play my class/spec having some fun pushing keys, the way Spriest is at the moment i don’t have the minimal fun with it, and it is sad that it was the first class i played in wow back in BC, the class that made me fell in love with wow back in 2007, and the class i always played as my main until this expansion, it’s realy sad, and it gets even more sad, when you see Enhancement Shaman getting their third rework, in less than a year, hunters getting second rework, mages getting a mini rework after being reworked 2 times along the expansion, that gets me upset

8

After finally leveling my Spriest and playing with the hero talent setups, is VERY easy to see how Voidform won’t match that well. How the Voidweaver archetype doesn’t favor the actual void form?! That’s insane for me - is like if they didn’t actually play the hero talents for Shadow in a real testing scenario to understand how this feel.

9

Maybe it’s what happened, cuz it doesn’t makes sense that the void themed cooldown don’t work with the void themed hero talent.

10

Hi Aneurysm,

Having Mind Sear return as a choice node on the same node as Psychic Link could be healthy for the spec. Our niche in a raiding scenario is spread cleave. Psychic Link in its current iteration helps us excel at this niche, but so does being a dot spec generally. Adding Mind Sear on the same node allows us to exchange some of this spread cleave damage for direct AOE damage, which would help out our damage in dungeons specifically. That said, I’d also love some talents that empower the sear and our dot damage. For example, surge of insanity could also affect Mind Sear, which would be delicious. This would offer a different play-style for those of us who want more agency over our AOE.

On a similar note, a fellow poster named Mommyafk on Reddit posted the following:

"Not gonna touch on everything in this post, but wanted to comment anyways. I’m a SP main from shadow lands s1 -now, arena is my main game mode but I also push keys (highest was a 25 in dragon flight) and get usually halfway through mythic raid with my guild

Defensively I agree In pve settings we’re very outclassed by mages and locks, and it’s especially frustrating warlocks 10% hp increase also piggybacking off our own fortitude. I think in that respect just granting us an extra 5% stamina, or even perhaps less would offset that. Raid balance is assumed every raid buff is present, so we ironically are getting the least out of our own raid buff.

Adding the flat % DR back to shadow form (and removing focused will, or minimum nerfing it) is warranted.

I understand the double charge of dispersion choice node but as a pvper that’d be a frustrating addition to the game

On your notes of psychic link, I was a big fan of mind sear in DF S1 for the reason of not being as punished for dot management failing, and inversely increasing dot uptime from channeling, however I think psychic link is good for the health of the game as it simply makes us more consistent and easy to balance. Shadow and affliction will always shine hard on council style fights, but it would be even worse with our bigger focus on dot gameplay

I love the idea of replacing shadow crash with a cataclysm style ability, but I’d still like that to be a choice node. Maybe like shadow crash slow projectile, 20 second CD, 8 dot applications, vs void maw being a 1 second cast, 5 dot applications but half duration of dots (extendable by good flay and void bolt usage)

But also, I feel the issue of us being outclassed by other clothes is that they have too much, not that we don’t have enough. And the m+ change to kicks and cc disproportionately hurt us."

This is my reply:

Hi Mommyafk,

Thank you for your post, I really appreciate it. If you don’t mind, I’d like to post it on my PTR feedback post in the reply section, as I think your contribution is important and should be heard.

I am going to address your final point first because I feel it is the most important.

Defense Bloat:

“I feel the issue of us being outclassed by other clothies is that they have too much, not that we don’t have enough. And the m+ change to kicks and cc disproportionately hurt us.”. This resonates not only with what I have to say about Shadow Priest defensives, but as others have echoed as well, particularly Tradu.

I think this captures the issue perfectly. If we were running dungeons below the +20 level back in Legion, I’d agree that priests had enough defensives to get by. But that was nearly a decade ago, and the game has evolved. Defensive bloat has been a consistent trend since then, yet priests haven’t been adequately compensated to handle the rise in random splash damage and unavoidable, non-interruptible mechanics.

As of 2025, we need to press two separate buttons just to achieve sufficient damage reduction and avoid being obliterated by this type of damage, on top of handling busters. For example, Protective Light requires a 1.2-second cast via Flash Heal , and Fade only provides damage reduction when paired with the Translucent Image talent. In contrast, other cloth-wearing classes can achieve the same outcome with a single button press. Such buttons are not even exclusive to Shadow and are shared by the other Priest specs, who arguably have better defensives from their specs, and take less damage than we do based on how they function.

This is why I firmly believe our defensives need to be re-evaluated to prevent damage more effectively upfront. Requiring two separate abilities to survive is excessive, and I reject arguments I have heard in the past that we “have enough” and just need to “press our buttons better.” That perspective doesn’t address the fundamental disparity or the added complexity priests face in managing defensives and is ultimately dismissive.

PVP concerns:
I hung up my PVP cloak after Legion Season 1 and I very scarcely ever PVPed as a Shadow Priest simply because of how frustrating it is to play a caster in PVP. I’m also not that good at PVP. I’m a Rival at best :slight_smile: I therefore don’t have a horse in this race. I’m happy to hear arguments regarding this issue however.

DPS Talent Choice and Player Agency:

A fellow poster on the WoW forums, Aneurysm, suggested making Mind Sear a choice node with Psychic Link, and I really like this idea for the reasons they mentioned—particularly not being as punished for DoT management and improving DoT uptime while channeling.

I get that Psychic Link might make developers’ lives easier for balancing purposes, but as a player, that’s not my concern. It’s up to them to make it work while also delivering unique and engaging choices that make gameplay fun.

Right now, Psychic Link shines in spread cleave situations and streamlines our AOE in a way that’s distinct from Mind Sear, which excels in tightly grouped AOE scenarios. Being able to choose between these two abilities would, in my opinion, enrich the gameplay experience. After all, there are players who love Mind Sear and those who hate it—just like with Psychic Link. Offering a choice would cater to both camps and add depth to our toolkit.

I really like the idea of having the cataclysm-style ability I suggested on a choice node with Shadow Crash for the same reason I’d like Mind Sear on a choice node with Psychic Link. I think that providing alternatives to controversial abilities would sate both camps who like and dislike an ability, while also enriching our toolkit, and providing more choice. If they do this, then they can enhance Whispering Shadows to also apply to this cataclysm ability, either as a single talent or as a choice talent. The former makes more sense.

11

They didn’t test it. Archon and voidweaver were implemented in alpha and received zero iteration. All they’ve received is numbers tuning. Oracle received numerous changes in alpha due to the universally negative feedback it received, but also received no changes until the 11.1 PTR build.

Priest has had zero meaningful changes in TWW until 11.1. It’s running off alpha design while other classes have even received multiple full overhauls during the TWW development cycle alone.

2 Likes
12

If I recall correctly, Voidweaver was implemented either the week of or week before Alpha was released an then like another week or couple of weeks before Archon was implemented and as you said, basically no changes since.

Its a pure comedy at this point so whatever. However, I have been having fun playing with all my other characters Hero talent trees so that’s keeping my entertained for the time being lol.

13

I believe voidweaver and oracle were in alpha week 1, and archon was added the week before beta.

I’m still thinking we’re going to get class and shadow tree changes, but not the complete overhauls I previously thought they’d be getting. It’s feeling far more like they’re going to lazily change a talent or two, fail to test it, maybe solve one problem, and introduce 2-3 more problems.

3 Likes
14

I also am of the perspective that classes generally have too many defensives and Blizz really, if anything, should be pruning them across the board. I think Shadow’s defensives are pretty good, and priests who randomly fall over do so due to someone failing mechanics. In none of the content we regularly do - the +10s range of M+ - do spriests need more defensives to clear the content without dying.

Mage defensives are pretty stellar, but mage is really an outlier, having I believe a dozen defensives. One of the things that makes mage defensives gimmicky to analyze is that they are extremely vulnerable to dispels, which is an issue in PVP but virtually never in PVE, as enemy NPCs do not regularly dispel players.

Despite the occasional frustration of a missed Shadow Crash (which is 95% of the time the fault of the priest), dot management really isn’t an issue that often. It’s not gameplay-breaking to be expected to throw in a well-placed Shadow Crash for a single pack, or dot 3-4 mobs while the rank rounds up 2-3 packs and then Shadow Crash, and those approaches will cover 95% of the pulls in M+.

We don’t need the capability to dot 15+ mobs…other classes’ aoe are target-capped, either by hard caps (“hits 5 targets max”) or soft caps (“damage reduced beyond 5 targets”). Ours are simply capped by how many targets we can optimally dot before doing damage. In raids, Shadow’s dot management is a non-issue as most fights have 1-3 targets. The only time dot management really sticks out like a sore thumb is when there are multiple waves of low HP adds that get wiped out by warriors/pallies in 2 seconds before Shadow can dot them up, but Shadow performing poorly in those scenarios virtually never makes or breaks a fight. Our AOE also has a strength most specs don’t have: spread cleave. We can dot 5 targets that are spread out and our direct damage will hit them all through Psychic Link.

One thing I would like is for dots to be strong in and of themselves again, however.

More mobility would be a nice convenience, and it’s one reason why I am a Void Elf. It gets me out of jams imposed on me by…players performing mechanics poorly (which sometimes includes me!). But again, it is not a spec-breaking kind of thing. You may be surprised at how many mechanics players tend to use mobility for that do not require any speed boosts at all, although they may require optimal pre-positioning and moving out of danger immediately instead of waiting to finish a cast.

I sometimes feel like I am playing a different game than some of the forum-goers. Shadow seems to play fairly well for me - even smoothly most of the time. Sure, it has its weaknesses and a few rough edges, but it has its strengths and its graces, too, and I believe the latter substantially outweighs the former.

15

With the amount of customization granted in the new talent system brought in with Dragonflight, it’s silly to think each Shadow player plays essentially the exact same as the other when it comes to Shadow Priests. All the while you have other specs of other classes that allow you to really go the route of making the individual playstyle the way you want that can change things up in a big way when it comes to how you choose to play.

Ret paladin comes to mind in terms of how you choose to play as there are many options to choose from.

Fury Warrior is another option in picking how you want to approach how many AOE options you want to incorporate into your build.

Elemental Shaman has various ways to pick and choose on how you want to focus your damage be it more lava or lightning based.

There are others as well but the point is that Shadow doesn’t really have a choice. You are locked into the spread cleave with several weakness when to comes to large amounts of grouped up situations which seems to be the ideal scenario most other specs are designed around which makes the default gameplay in most situations to gather and group as many as possible and use all your major cooldowns and AOE and melt them down to nothing. While Shadow is forced to pick between manually dotting targets beyond 8 while dealing with the dots ticking down or start to do damage sooner but in a more limited and concentrated way which is quickly out scaled the more targets are clumped up which negatively impacts Shadow almost exclusively.

Simple wins like removing the cast time on our major cooldowns and bringing back Mind Sear as a choice with Psychic Link and providing talent options to amp up your periodic and non-periodic damage would really smooth out the gameplay options.

Then some features like cast while moving during your cooldown of Voidform or Dark Ascension would be that extra bit which would make a big difference. It also fits thematically as Voidform could allow you to move like Xal’atath does all floating around the way she does and with Dark Ascension, you can move around like Evokers do during Hover with your wings flapping.

Also both Voidform and Dark Ascension should really get some creative thinking attention the same way Ascendance for Elemental Shaman did where when activating it, it instantly throws out a ton of Lava Bursts and you can amp that up based on previous action taken.

So obviously with Voidform, the Void Bolt spell should do some really cool bits that contribute to the flow and burst of the spec while Dark Ascension should perhaps get Shadow Word: Death to gain additional functionality like always deals full damage or cools down faster or cleaves targets or spawns Shadowy Apparitions or does subsequent hits like the 2 set bonus back in DF.

Also having Shadowy Apparitions explode and deal a portion of its damage to surrounding targets like Banelings from SC2 would be amazing. My vote would be for this to become the capstone talent of Yogg-Saron since the other Shadowy Apparitions talents feed into it and you have instant feedback with the change in how they work and it’s a major gameplay change instead of a passive it does it’s thing when it does it without no control when it does it causing it to proc at the worst times making you feel sad. Also, this would help alleviate the situation when you got many low health targets that you simply can’t deal with by dotting each and every one of them while exploding Shadowy Apparitions would just melt those alongside your bigger dotted up targets. Then in the case of nothing but a lot of low health targets you still struggle or use Mind Sear if your got it.

Then introducing options to control how Mind Flay and Mind Spike work similar to the approach that Elemental Shamans have in that Earth and Frost Shock can become really hard hitting once certain actions are taken.

So Mind Spike should have options to make it a more hard hitting ability that is an additional spell to cast alongside Mind Flay instead of replacing it. Or have the ability to instantly cast Mind Spike again via procs but limit the proc rate and damage enhancement.

When you look at Frost Mage for example, the ability to cast Glacial Spike while moving with Ice Flows is such a game changer and if you get knocked back or up or pulled in, you can still get the cast off and allows the gameplay to continue to flow instead of being interrupted and then with Ice Lance it can proc to hit hard on targets that are not frozen while doing little damage outside of those procs and targets not frozen. Options like those makes frost very fun and good to play alongside the Frozen Orb mechanic that makes both single target and AOE very fun so it feels core to the spec instead of situational.

The point is, Shadow and Priest in general design is from an era of multiple expansions behind with dated concepts and rules that the newer talent tree remakes have solved and are better for it. Shadow needs the same overhaul of thinking treatment just like these latest examples else it will continue to recede into obscurity.

1 Like
16

I don’t at all, though. Instead, it is silly to think that all Shadow players are locked into one build, playstyle, and damage profile.

For example, the WoWhead guide lists no less than nine talent builds featuring both hero talent specs, and Void Eruption/Dark Archangel and Inescapable Torment/Non-Inescapable Torment playstyles. That’s a lot of variation, especially compared to pre-Dragonflight.

The Shadow tree also “has various ways to pick and choose on how you want to focus your damage,” allowing you to spec deeper into single-target, stacked cleave (Inescapable Torment), or spread cleave. And you can do it with a 2-min main damage CD or a 1-min main damage CD. You can also do it with a build focused on procs that allows more movement, or a build that allows more stationary play.

You can certainly post opinions about the imperfections of any of the above, or tradeoffs in any of the above, but it is simply, objectively, and factually false to hold the position that all Shadow players are locked into one build, playstyle, and damage profile.

I very much enjoy the variation in playstyles, talent builds, movement options, and damage profiles that the Shadow tree offers. That Shadow doesn’t have, say, the movement of a Mage doesn’t blunt my satisfaction of the spec, because there are other things distinctive to Shadow that I also like.

17

Please let’s not pretend like Shadow’s level of customization is in any way comparable to other specs’. Does it have it? Sure, but it’s so shallow it boils down to Void Eruption vs Dark Ascension, and that is now more informed by Hero Talents than the talent builds themselves.

The “build variety” of Shadow outside those cooldowns is a facade. The gameplay is the exact same for all PvE content. Except maybe not talenting into Shadow Crash when it isn’t necessary.

2 Likes
18

Actual gameplay changes for shadow involve hero talents, your choice of primary DPS cooldowns, inescapable torment, and whether you prefer more procs for heavy movement fights. In my opinion, that’s not bad, or a shallow facade, at all.

You are absolutely entitled to your opinion as to whether that gameplay is dissatisfactory to you. There is no disproving a matter of opinion. But again - objectively, factually - that gameplay variation exists.

Edit: an example of a truly restricted build is Discipline, which has far less variation in M+, despite being a “meta” spec. Unlike Shadow, there is little to no real gameplay variety and more than half of the bottom tree (Aegis of Wrath, Twilight Equilibrium, talents empowering Ultimate Penitence) is dead branches in, say, M+.

19

I don’t consider Inescapable Torment a compelling enough talent to qualify it as affecting gameplay. My rotational decisions do not change. Its dependent talent Mindbender also simply reduces Shadowfiend cooldown to 1min, nothing else.

As I stated, the build variety choices we are given is a facade, and your being content with them is giving them more reason to not modernize Shadow when it so desperately needs to be.

20

Ok, but that gameplay is open to people who do find it compelling. So, too, is the option to choose procs for heavy movement fights. I understand if you simply don’t like Inescapable Torment. To be honest, I don’t like using “pets”/minions as a priest, either, and I don’t like how they tend to complicate damage rotations.

The facade is the notion that all or most other specs are modernized but Shadow isn’t, or that Shadow has no build variety. Look at frost mage, for example, and try to find a build that doesn’t center around Glacial Spike. Your choices as a frost mage for gameplay rotations are simply “do I take Ray of Frost and/or Comet Storm?” That’s not very compelling either! Or look at Balance Druid, whose players complain (just as Spriests do) about mobs being dead while they are still trying to dot them up.

And to repost my above edit: an example of a truly restricted build is Discipline, which has far less variation in M+, despite being a “meta” spec. Unlike Shadow, there is little to no real gameplay variety and more than half of the bottom tree (Aegis of Wrath, Twilight Equilibrium, talents empowering Ultimate Penitence) is dead branches in, say, M+.

And so on.

Again, this is not to say the spec doesn’t have imperfections. But it’s not a spec that is stuck way in past by any means or fundamentally flawed. It’s a great spec with a lot of variety, even if not all its players find every permutation of that variety compelling or enjoyable.