For us vanilla slaves, SOD is pretty much the only option, so hopefully they just release p4 soon and we’ll see where the chips fall
The goal of this post is to outline what’s wrong with Shadow Priest Gameplay and how we can make it more fun and rewarding
The changes on PTR did very little to remedy the issues with shadow priest gameplay so here are what I see as the core issues and how we can fix them
Core issues with SOD Spriest:
- Rotation is extremely clunky with 3 dots, 3 pets, and VE. It’s 10 seconds into the fight by the time you have everything on the target and you’ve barely done any damage
- Pets feel AWFUL to use. Homunculi has terrible AI and if Eye of the Void’s curse resists then you might as well not be wearing a head rune
- Mind flay is useless in PVE outside of the T1 6p Bonus.
- Lack of scaling. If you look at TBC you will see shadow start of middle-bottomish on WCL and be dead last by the end of the expansion. Currently Shadow really only scales off of Shadow Damage, but adding additional scaling mechanisms can help prevent falling further behind other dps every tier
- No baseline aoe ability. Choosing between AOE runes and Single Target runes definitely makes sense but there is no baseline aoe ability for shadow priests which feels bad to constantly play around.
Potential Solutions for these issues
- a. When cast on an NPC only (so it doesn’t work in pvp), homunculi also applies Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch to the target. This works nicely due to Homunculi’s 2 minute cooldown so it cant be abused while helping reduce ramp up time in PVE by combining 3 globals into 1b. Remove Homunculi (my favorite suggestion TBH) and allow debuffs to be applied passively through different abilities. Homunculi could be changed to “Your Shadow Word: Pain applies the homunculi debuffs to the target. Can only be applied to a target once every 15 seconds”
- Eye of the Void - Allow eye of the void’s curse to be cast multiple times (or is guaranteed to be applied to the target)
3.Homunculi* - Any solution from part 1.
4.OR… GET RID OF THE PETS* and allow their abilities to be passively applied through our own spells. I’ve seen some good suggestions on this.
- Change Eye of the Void to Reduce CD on Shadowfiend to 3 minutes and have it apply a curse.
- Change homunculi to a passive debuff applied through our dots (outlined in 1b.)
- The t1 6p bonus should be baseline for shadow priests and mind flay should have a 30 yard base range. This allows Mind Flay to be a part of shadow’s core gameplay in SoD without relying on a band-aid fix from a tier set. The base range of this spell being 20 yards does not make sense in this version of wow
- a. Allow Shadow priests to have a modifier for Intellect or Spirit to give additional spellpowerb. Different spell power coefficients for PVP and PVE. This really is the easiest way to balance Spriest without affecting pvpc. New passive ability - Critical Strikes from Mind Blast procs Spirit Tap. While Spirit Tap is active, it increases your spell damage of all spells by 25% of your total spirit.
- As we scale further into endgame, despair will continually outshine void zone since it’s our primary form of scaling, which means void zone will eventually be replaced for good since despair also buffs mind sear. Making void zone BASELINE for shadow priest would be a great solution
This is still an imperfect AOE solution as Void Zone has a 30 sec cooldown meaning you would want to choose Mind Sear when you really want to pump AOE damage.
TLDR:
The goal of this post is not necessarily to buff Shadow Priest’s damage but to make their playstyle more fun and rewarding in PVE.
Shadow is a dot class and they are always plagued by a long ramp up time, but the pets only exacerbate this issue as their damage patterns resemble additional dots. Removing pets and/or allowing their abilities to be applied automatically through other means alleviates the ramp up time required in PVE.
Mind flay has always been incredibly weak and tying its viability to a tier bonus is a poor temporary fix. Allow this set bonus to be baseline so that Mind flay can find a way into the Spriest rotation for good.
Shadow has always had terrible scaling in classic. If we can add additional scaling mechanisms we can prevent the same scaling issues that happened in TBC from happening in SoD
Been playing 2h enh shaman all of SoD (and my classic career) the PTR has raised some concerns about 2h vs DW. I know when the devs first approached the 2h shaman vs dw they were worried about balance but every phase we have seen dw outperform 2h by a large margin. Hoping to see some adjustments around abilities and maelstrom generation when it comes to using a 2h. Feels bad to have lava burst on 8 sec cd when lava lash is a 6 sec cd and is a melee attack which has a chance at WF proc and a chance at maelstrom. Having something to fill that space as a 2h would feel better in the rotation. While playtesting on PTR it feels like the nob is being adjusted with just dw enh in mind and not 2h.
Instant cast Banish for Warlock will be too much for PvP unless Banish is reworked. If you play Meta in PvP you can currently silence/stun etc. the person casting Banish, but no more if the set bonus proceeds. Soul link PvP pet’s will be instant Banished too. Also, a 30 second CC useable in Battlegrounds is already rough.
Just my two cents on Warlocks into phase 4.
2 new DPS runes - fully destro based. Can AFF get some love? Or even Demo? In such a FAST paced BURSTY, environment right now, AFF is not viable.
Warlock tanks should have a way to spread their immolate to multiple targets, so they can push more than searing pain.
OR maybe Immolation Aura should be a little more than worthless. 30-40 damage ticks versus 250-300 for lightning shield shamans?
Just a few thoughts!
Still no release date 
Its funny because like warlock, other dps classes are being pigeonholed into a certain spec with these runes & changes. Survival & melee hunter is dead, forced to go to a complicated MM rotation with traps. Locks forced to go destro. Affi/demo is pretty much cooked. Rogues, well we’ve been stuck in assassination tree with multiate. Its too good to pass up. Saber slash nerf made it even worse for combat now. Our runes focus on AoE. Much needed, but its pivoting to tank rogues with 2 set. Very bland & boring. Warriors getting cooked and forced to go arms and stance dance is very boring. Theres no runes for fury now what-so-ever. Enhance got nerfed, but cant pass up on Storm, Earth, Fire for ele. Again, pigeonholed.
I know this is PTR and nothing is set in stone. But man, they really REALLY need to go back to the drawing board on this. These changes are lazy, and forcing people into playing specs they don’t want.
1 Like
Flying mounts kill world PvP. And as much as people will claim over and over and over to cope, world PvP does, in fact, exist, and it is NOT “just griefing”.
So many Andies who are soy at heart roll PvP to play with the big boys and then cry about it. In fact, the current Game Director for Retail WoW is one of those soy Andies. He literally ripped PvP out of WoW because he got ganked one too many times.
2 Likes
Doesn’t matter the update you do.
Keep filth around. The same will keep happening.
Paladin Tank feedback: Paladins will still have the worst mitigation overall. Many bosses abilities do spell damage. Paladins have no % damage decreases as literally every other tank has access to and no % health increases. This health problem gets compounded by often getting the “hybrid tax” on gear. + intel or +spellpower generally takes away from other tanking stats such as stamina. Warrior’s have higher stamina due to this gear rework. The solution: Please rework Improved Blessing of Sanctuary rune for the tanks. “Gives 15% stamina when cast on self and 10% damage reduction from all non player sources when in a raid”. Maybe add something in that ensures deep prot like, must have access to holy shield. As of now the Imp Blessing of sanctuary is for farming and dungeons only.
Warriors = 10% reduction from all damage in defensive stance + high stamina items
Druids = Heart of the Wild = 20% extra stamina + rune that gives 20% damage reduction and crit immunity.
Warlocks = Access to 15% stamina (talented) + rune that gives 20% damage reduction and crit immunity.
Shamans = from a rune 30% extra health, 10% damage reduction, and crit immunity.
Paladins = double the amount of flat damage done by blessing of sanctuary which at lvl 60 = 24 or 48 damage when doubled.
When a boss hits for 2,000 damage, 48 damage is trash mitigation, especially since it is calculated BEFORE ARMOR.
A druid will have higher armor, higher health, mitigate 20% more, and still be crit immune without having to obtain proper gearing. Warlocks are in a similar boat. The only other class that I feel for is warrior. They are also getting pretty screwed in a similar sense.
Please fix this issue.
feels too delayed. guilds are dying. feels like the devs are putting too much of their woke retail mindset into the game. dailies, multiple difficulty levels, stupid trinket toys that feel worthless and a waste of space and tricks u when u see purple but its a big nothingburger. honestly, i think sod is done with and the devs should just let it die and cease development on it. then move the current classic devs to a fresh vanilla project with less focus on content creation and more just bugfixing and server upgrades so we dont need layers and minor spec buffs so more ppl would choose rets shadows and moonkins and prot pallies and elem shammies.
1 Like
whether or not i liked SoD aside, they at least had a vision for SoD in the beginning - one of which was to make it guild centric and that they acknowledged that SoD wasn’t going to be for everyone.
LOL. How things change. Now we’re gonna have multiple modes, and most likely each mode dropping the same gear also (guessing). They’re panicking due to drop off of players.
open up CHAOS BOLT NA for SOD FRESH
If they stick with Alterac Valley version 1.12 I’m going to be so !@#$ing pissed…
And eugh more Blood Moon. Great.
Can we get a general release date please? I just want to know if it’s going to drop early July, late August, like what are we working with here?
3 Likes
Can we get spellfrost bolt range increased by Arctic Reach, as Frostfire bolt is increased by flame throwing?
Please make healing priests playable and not spamming the same 2 runes we’ve had since 25. I’ve written a thread full of suggestions and options and there are comments with good feedback.
i think its all the healers, the runes over power everything else just based on mana costs
oh my sweet summer child 
Yeah I refuse to use the Musk platform so here’s hoping they read their own forums idk.
1 Like