Fixing the Shadow Priest Identity Complex

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

I’d like to propose a design discussion around Shadow Priest stat identity in Classic (to avoid altering Classic; Classic + would be a better fit, Inshallah). The first talent (classic) in the Shadow tree is Spirit Tap, which heavily emphasizes Spirit as a defining stat during leveling and solo play. However, deeper in the tree, we have Darkness, which provides a flat 10% shadow damage increase. While effective, it does not interact with Spirit. This creates a disconnect. Put simply, the tree opens by reinforcing spirit, but there is no late-game synergy or stat-prioritizing talent as in so many other trees.

I propose to replace Darkness(10% flat shadow damage) with something akin to Twisted Faith in WOTLK, more specifically, a 5/5 talent that increases your shadow spell damage by 20% of your spirit. This would preserve overall tuning instead of stacking, create a meaningful offensive incentive for spirit, differentiate Shadow from other caster DPS specs, and reinforce the characteristic long-fight attrition style gameplay of Shadow priest. The goal is not to make Shadow top meters. The goal is to make Shadow feel like a priest DPS spec, not simply a caster that happens to use Shadow damage. Spirit is already the defining priest stat across other trees. Allowing it to meaningfully influence damage would resolve the internal contradiction between Spirit Tap and the rest of the tree, while preserving Shadow’s niche and utility role in raids. The issue I’m raising is one of stat coherence and class Identity, not raw output. I’m interested in hearing thoughts from others on whether this would strengthen class identity without disrupting balance.

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Delete the shadow school entirely and limit them to only one spell school, nor should priest have a damage spec let alone talents for damage. The entirety of the class should be set up for healing only.

Do the same to druid, they shouldn’t be allowed to dabble in the arcane.

Druid should be fully limited to nature and further than this limited to WC3 themes not the world of Warcraft expansion of the class.

Additionally do similar with all the classes so that they’re more true to WC2 WC3 roots

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they’re just different talents, dude :expressionless_face: there’s no disconnect.

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I’m a peacock, you gotta let me fly!

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Boo this man. Boooo!

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I’m not here to say whether you’re right or wrong, but I do want to offer you some perspective.

The reason Warriors are so broken in Classic Era is because their damage scales extremely well with stats, especially crit. So, presumably, Classic+ would have two choices…

  1. Adjust everybody so they scale like Warriors.
  2. Adjust warriors so they scale like everybody else.

At the end of the day, when pursuing balance, it doesn’t really matter which you choose. However, it’s worth pointing out that Vanilla WoW lives in a relatively unique (from a WoW perspective) paradigm of having most of the content at end-game remain relative. Naxx gear is generally more powerful than AQ40, which is generally more powerful than BWL, and so on… however, there are pieces in MC that are nearly as good as pieces from Naxx. This creates an environment where it’s desirable to clear lower tier content even when you’re capable of clearing higher end content.

High scaling as a part of your class design shifts things so that as gear becomes more powerful, lower tier gear is generally less desirable. We see this start in TBC, find its path in WotLK, and continue all the way to the modern design where each tier is a complete reset on the last. In modern WoW, there’s no real point in running the previous tier’s content (or older) save for mounts and transmog.

I’m not here to tell you what kind of game to promote, this is your thread, I just wanted to give you the info. So you need to decide what kind of game you want Classic+ to be. Do you want it to be…

  • … Like retail (or SoD), with a steady stream of content that acts as a reset, putting everybody back on a relatively even playing field to tackle the new content, while effectively disposing of the old.
  • … Like Vanilla, where new content comes out offering incremental power gains or alternative paths to the same power gains that already exist (ie, ZG/AQ20). New content would be offered much less frequently but all content remains generally relevant and desirable.

Only you can decide what kind of game you would want Classic+ to be, but interestingly… how you design classes factors directly into this.

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7

Deathwish and Rage scaling after a certain weapon damage / level is met when paired with Auto pilot slice and Dice (flurry) in addition to several handout mechanics and duplicate abilities and the best PVE mobility in game.

Basically its a lot of reasons. Warrior has too much access to AE via WW and cleave, autopilot damage bonus via flurry, the best resource system in wow, and the best offensive CD in PvE bar none, because not only does it massively increase your output, but like zerker rage it can break fear and makes you also immune making some BWL and MC fights with these mechanics trivial.

Intercept is also incredible, and nearly all boss mechanics that are set up to push you away are also set with a CD similar to intercept so that warrior can get back on target giving them the most time on target.

If you want to make it dead simple to “fix” warrior, just delete deathwish, and nerf flurry down to 15%, and cut the healing debuff of MS down to 30% nerfed healing.

Additionally change zerker rage to require you use it before fear, etc is applied instead of it being capable of breaking fear. It should never have been a PvP trinket, nor should have deathwish done the same only better.

However with that said, damage absorb shields such as power word shield should not prevent rage generation, and they really should scale rage generation at 10 rage per sec while you are attacking a target regardless of damage done, with the only bonus to rage generation coming from flurry because you are striking more frequently. This makes warrior play better when you have noob gear and while leveling. Rage would still be a chunk awarded on hit, but the value would simply be Rage = 10 per sec / weapon speed with the single req you do hit the target with sword and board / 2 hand. With DW the offhand will generate 2 -5 rage per second with the requirement the weapon does hit the target. The 2 -5 value because its hard to say what will be actually needed for the class to play corectly.

The biggest problem is warrior is that tbr warrior class is crap when you dont have gear and becomes ridiculous once you do. Neither situation should be true, the answer lies in the middle.

As for the old debate on what class should be top DPS?

DW fury warrior, but just not as big a margin. IMO nerf them down to about where rogue is now, and only allow them to be like 1 or 2% better than rogue, and the reason is I would rather the BG’s be full of warriors and Rogues than any other classes.

If they made hybrids comparable to Warrior / Rogue / Mage for PVE DPS then the game would suck to PVP on.

Will any of this actually happen? No, instead we will see somthing like SoD happen again.

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I guess I didn’t lay out the disconnection itself. In both TBC and classic(especially classic) priest lack a stat identifier, which I believe, creates a disconnect with gear. What happens as a result is warlock lite for gearing a shadow priest. This is emphasized even further when vampiric touch is introduced because its damage based. So we end just stacking damage multiplier and effects, which comes on intellect and stamina gear. Meaning we compete with mages and warlocks for their gear without any significant crit chance because most of our kit are dots.