I’m constantly casting dots now since I can’t voidform to extend them. VT and SW:P are too far apart in duration without void bolt to increase them. Devouring Plague needs to extend duration of dots by 3 seconds. Misery Talent needs to extend SW:P by 5 seconds to match VT.
Voidbolt at this point should go away and the damage and CD just merged into MindBlast alone. Why the extra button conversion from a 90sec CD. It’s cumbersome to have it be a 90 CD and a 3.5 sec CD on same button. It would be different if Voidform was considered a stance so I could at least attempt a macro, but you can’t.
Quality of life is so much worse.
Mind Flay channel still interrupted by Plague and MB unless procced for instant cast. Mind Sear isn’t worth casting, just spread dots and flay. Then you get more DP and more SA’s. MB itself isn’t really worth casting. The damage you gain in the window vs the amount of insanity isn’t worth it. Cast flay until you get proc so you can keep more DP’s up.
The only fix this class needed was Voidform on CD. Remove VoidBolt and make Mindblast instant cast during duration with more damage and a 50% reduced CD. Make DP increase dots by 3 seconds. Mind Flay fully channeled should increase haste by X% for 3.5 seconds so basically dots are ticking more often when flaying only. DONE.
And I have to spam my burst CD button because eruption turns into void bolt but only once every 90 seconds.
I don’t get how this was better. I like the smoothness of it before. I guess I’m the only one.
22 Likes
Its a little wonky for me to get use to as well, but I’m chalking that up to I only recently switched to shadowpriest in the last year. I never get the feeling of that ok now I’m going to bbq you moment that I get with other dps specs but maybe because shadow priest doesnt seem to have a huge offensive cooldown unless your counting voidform.
I’m still a little torn since I am a dps player at heart. Mage or shadow priest.
tryed frost mage last night and omg the damage
1 Like
Welcome to old style shadow where dot management was an actual thing 
52 Likes
Yea I hate it too. Was hoping the hype was true but after playing around with it for several hours, this feels so much worse 
3 Likes
Good. Now I can feel more special as all these FOTM Shadow priests leave.
Totally kidding. I like the rework though.
21 Likes
FotM? I LOVED the legion rework and have been a pro-VF supporter ever since. I wanted to like the new changes because so many players better than I were so hyped about it. But yea, builder/spender playstyles are boring and if I wanted to manage dots I’d play an afflock. On paper, the SL changes should be amazing, in practice it’s just wonky spell priority constantly refreshing dots rather than a fluid rotation.
5 Likes
I failed apparently. I was kidding and making fun of the anti-FOTM people.
You have some great points. When I was setting up my new keybinds yesterday, it was really awkward to know how to handle VF, since it’s both a long cooldown that doesn’t need to be very accessible but also a button that will be hit pretty frequently while VF is up. Given that Surrender to Madness seems very good in some content, I went ahead and gave VF/Void Bolt a pretty “good” key, since it will be used quite a bit. It would have made more sense for VF to just buff Mind Blast, though.
The awkwardness of VT and SW:P times is also wonky. It won’t always be an issue since Misery is looking competitive (mainly because we have to refresh more often now that VF isn’t up as much), but managing dots is part of playing a dot class, so I’m not very concerned about this.
You mentioned some spells aren’t “worth casting”, but I think that’s both an issue of tuning, which is still not finalized, and the specific situation and talents chosen, which will dictate your rotation. Surely Mind Sear is worth casting when you have Searing Nightmare, which is looking pretty good in Mythic+ for AoEing trash.
I think it makes sense for most spells to interrupt your channeled cast, so I can’t complain about DP and MB interrupting Flay outside of an instant cast proc for MB. Interrupting your filler channel for something that is higher priority has long been the case for Shadow and makes sense to me.
I think it takes some getting used to, but overall the spec is in a much better place. It’s not perfect imo, but playstyle is very much subjective, and I don’t agree that dots should basically be set it and forget it, as they’re always extended by some other spell.
4 Likes
I’ve been playing beta for a while now, I got used to it and would rather have new shadow any day over the void form style.
20 Likes
Who thought it would be a good idea for Mind Blast, our nuke that has a cooldown; to do LESS damage than Mind Flay, our spammed filler spell? Who?!
Honestly this rework is so clunky and slow let us have real voidform back please…
9 Likes
I feel 100% the same way. Very let down by those in the beta. Numbers don’t matter, that’s a tuning thing. The flow is what matters, and these beta testers either missed the mark or the devs flat out didn’t listen. I’m guessing the former. This is not the shadow I was expecting.
3 Likes
Our nuke is not mind blast, its devouring plague
21 Likes
I tested it yesterday and I loved it, reminded me of old shadow priest playstyle.
Was hard to get used to it again since Void priest was much easier to handle
4 Likes
I can promise you I and many others poured our hearts out providing feedback on the rework. If anything feels bad it is because of dev refusal to address that feedback.
4 Likes
I personally am really enjoying it. The options we have in talents is the biggest factor, different builds to play with. Having Devouring plague back feels incredible and not having to talent into SW:D is fantastic also.
I’ll admit dot managing feels a bit off with VT and SW:P having different durations, but its not that bad, talent into Misery may help that feel a tad more smooth.
Its only day 2 with the re-work given to the masses, practice with it more, once Shadowlands hits it will smooth out even more.
2 Likes
This means you are fotm re-roller.
18 Likes
If you say so. I’ve only played 2 toons since vanilla; a lock and this priest
Then you would know that you have had to manage dots/ debuffs since vanilla.
4 Likes
Yea, and it was nice that the legion/BfA model didn’t emphasize dot management as a core mechanic. What’s the difference between managing SW:P and VT while dumping insanity on DP and managing corruption, agony and dumping shards on UA?
1 Like
we play more like a mage now, but with dots instead of nukes and crits… basically
no more ramp up time, burn ur cooldowns on cooldown or save for the next pull and toss a few more dots out
shadow is kind of a mediocre spec now, sure the dps numbers are good and its tuned towards the top but it is wierd after bieng so used to the smooth play from b4
albiet its not bad and it will help with those innitial burst on pull pulls that DH dominated, we have options there now… drop a mind sear, spread out SW:Pain us’n that new talent, then drop some vamp embraces and back again, its not bad at all it works