Maybe I was a bit too quick to judge Shadow Priest

Oh, I do think you are too quick to judge that it is fun.

Please update us your experience when you reach 110 and start questing in BFA zones.

And then update us your experience when you reach 120

It won’t be that bad now. With the xp bonus I think some other changes hit to make this not suck as bad. Or at least the xp bonus makes 120 fly by to not get the full tour of pain.

Now when I leveled long ago…pain a word that came to mind. It was void aoe finding the 2-3 enemies I didn’t see. Coolness…its my only aoe, it and comes up when it wants to seemingly (I was used to say hunter multishot…got focus? spam this).

I now have a 5 on 1 on BFA scaled mobs. And…I walked away to get a drink of water since why fight the death that is to come. You just die aggravated that way imo.

Yea - it would definitely be less painful now for due to xp buff and flight.

Priest was my first toon to level to 120. I am so glad it was the first one i levelled - i think if I had done another other class first (which all felt OK), I would have given up levelling priest halfway.

We’ll just cus something is one of the most hated in the game doesn’t mean there’s no one who likes it

@OP Yeah, I mean it’s not so bad to the point where you can’t complete basic content and I do find it pretty fun too. That’s not where the main problem is…

If you play solo it will be slower to level than any other class due to the high ramp-up time and limited CC (so big AOE pulls are not really possible) but that’s also not that big of a deal imo (at least I personally don’t mind if I’m a bit slower in open world).

The real problem comes from those who main it and want to be competitive for Raiding and M+. Shadow is only “decent” if the damage tuning is really high, otherwise it provides no burst or priority target damage, gets severely punished for any downtime, and has no meaningful utility (outside of some very niche fights where mass dispel is useful). In other words, if the spec is not overtunned then it’s objectively worse than those who do have access to burst or all the other stuff (so almost every other class/spec).

Adding to that the voidform model is a really bad fit for M+, this basically means that unless the spec is completely broken in Raids it will not do good damage in most M+ situations. (But it’s not realistic to expect the spec to be that overpowered in raids).

Welcome to my entire life.

I main Aff, who are in a worse spot than shadow in both M+ and Raids, so ya.

Tried playing destro and that is some of the most mind numbing worse gameplay of my life. 2+ sec casts for anything. Its horrible.

I’m glad you’re enjoying the s-priest, I’ve played one for many years and love the class/spec. However, I wish that Blizzard would give us the ability to change the way our shadow form looks. Like back in Legion it was a solid purple hue, and there was a Glyph we could use to lighten look somewhat so that it was more transparent and we could see our armor. In BfA we’re stuck with the very dark purple and the “smoke” animation that I just hate. HATE IT!

I agree that’s true as of right-now due to the current tuning shadow just does more damage than affliction, but that can change at any second. Looking at it from a toolkit and damage profile perspective, if you had the same numbers for Shadow and Affliciton I’d give the advantage to affliction.

Anyway, that’s just my perspective… But in any case, it does seems like Affliction is getting serious attention and a proper rework for Shadowlands, so at leas there’s some hope there.

STATUS UPDATE

I now am starting to see what people are saying when they talk about ramp up time being an issue in dungeons. By the time I am ready to hit Voidform the pack of mobs is usually dead or nearly dead. And then sometimes by the time we make it to the next mob I have to ramp up again and that doesn’t feel good.

But I still contend that when you DO get into the right position to start dumping Voidform onto enemies that the spec feels really good. I’m still trying to figure out the best combination of spells to stay in it the longest, but that in itself is kind of fun. I enjoy learning a new spec.

Also I tried out Disc for the first time as well. And that was…yeah. Coming from Resto Druid to Disc priest is a bit of whiplash. Going from applying loads of HoTs and forgetting about it for a bit to CONSTANTLY being on the edge of my seat trying to predict incoming damage is a hell of a thing.

No one is disputing that fact. Spriest is so fun in raids and high level M+ where trash mobs don’t get one shot, and boss fights last a while. Voidform Shadow Priest is the most fun I’ve had in raiding to date, and I started raiding in WotLK. But a class being fun in ~10% of the game’s content is an awful design choice, don’t you think?

I do, but as long as I’m having fun I don’t really mind. And I do have fun still.

I agree changes would be nice though, but given what we have seen so far in SL it doesn’t seem like they are that interested in getting rid of Voidform.

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I personally like Voidform, which seems to be a minority among players who post on the forums. What I don’t like is that Shadow has a very narrow range of gameplay it ‘works’ in compared to many other specs. Shadow without gear and outside of high-level M+ or raids doesn’t ‘work’. Many don’t even consider what specs play like outside of these areas, but to me if a spec needs to have epics to even quest effectively there’s a fundamental problem with the spec somewhere.

The best part of Spriest is when you use Dark Void on a group of mob and with a lot of crit you see a raid of ghosts flying. That’s amazing.

But that will be nerfed with the AOE cap.

But yes, the Spriest is visually appealing. Even though I’d… make Void bolt bigger… How good it is, though? I just compare it with my other classes doing the same content, and seeing how I struggle x3 times on this class that I’ve been playing for some years compared to a class I started playing months ago…

Well, that sucks.

I think disc is one of the most engaging healers in the game right now; especially for 5-person content. You can’t just semi-afk and spam heals to catch up in quite the same way.

My largest issue with Shadow is the problem with many casters; too many hard casts and poor mobility. Can you even move during the transition to void form? (I should check).

You should 100% be able to move during mind flay, and I’d argue mind sear also.

The way the game has changed; every class needs a filler ability they can use on the move. A handful of instants with 6-8 second cooldowns aren’t enough.

Here you go

h ttps://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/20#bracket=15&class=DPS

Shadow (when played correctly) is an S tier spec.