Totally agree… Void form is a mess and should just go. Shadow is the only DPS spec for priest and it shouldn’t be so chaotic because we don’t have more options like other classes do.
If void form will stay it should be an option for the player like a talent. Previously in Shadowlands pre patch they decide to remove Legacy of the Void because the conflict the talent did with our current design, now I think is possible to have our current void form design and the shadow orbs we had in the past depending the kind of playstyle we want to choose. Mist weaver monk is a good example that the spec could have two differents play styles, since the spec can heal whether casting mist using the statue or doing damage if you choose the talent Rising Mist.
So what DPS is worse then Shadow Priest? I cant think of any.
But I can vividly recall being very close to all the other DPS During Wrath, Cata, MoP, WoD with no issues. While also doing just fine leveling up and doing world content without feeling I am not pulling my fair share of weight.
In fact I vividly recall my 10 man H Dragon Soul group back in Cata that we were all different classes and still somehow we were all doing almost exactly the same DPS. I gave props to blizz that they did a great job in balancing during that time.
Disagree. I played at all levels and at all types of content on my Priest prior to Voidform and I and many others were competitive from the lows to the highs.
That is totally not true. Dot specs where nerfed many many times in the past because how how good they actually were. Shadow and Aff lock I recall lots of nerfs. But the playstyle still didn’t change that much and things still were decently balanced all around.
Edit:
Also just to add 1 more thing to consider.
I find it quite odd that everything surrounding the issues in every situation be it too powerful or too weak and in what environment be it dungeons, raids or PvP BG’s or Areans… Everything always inevitably comes back to Voidform… they have successfully made our entire spec revolve around Voidform.
Meaning that all our talents, all the PvP talents for the most part are to prop up and support Void form. That means they essentially designed the spec into a corner. They cant make any design choice outside of it affecting Voidform without it making little to no difference in the entire spec.
An example that is similar but better that I can think of is Fire Mages. They love that burst window when they use Combust. But… without that window, they can still play well as they can proc crits from other abilities in the toolkit that doesn’t require Combust to be up. This is not the case with shadow. You have no way of doing decent outside of Voidform. Also, consider this… I think they took it out but at least in Legion you had a Talent for PvP called Edge of insanity…
Edge of Insanity
Requires Priest
While not in Voidform, reaching 90 Insanity reduces damage taken by 5%, and increases damage dealt by 10% for 15 sec.
What this dose is make it so you at least can do something without needing to go into Voidform. But you would not be able to use your Void Torrent Dagger thing or use Void Eruption or Void Bolt.
The abysmal failure is present all around the game with everything tied to it and attempting to prop it up but it just keeps failing. Put the dead horse out of its misery… or seperate the playstyle by a talent choice and call it a day lol.
Affliction, for one, has more ramp up and worse upfront dps than shadow priest. Feral druid has historically had low ramp up. Prior to this latest tier set, demo warlock had much longer ramp up than spriest. Similarly, assassination rogue and unholy DK.
And dot specs were nerfed because of council raid fights, not because they did well on casual open world content or low m+ keys.
You can say you did just fine all you want prior to voidform, but the statistics do not bear that out. Shadow priest ahs historically been garbage on any encounter that wasn’t a council or single target fight. It’s always had horrendous aoe and burst damage.
Affliction at this point in the game is also not that enjoyable compared to how it played in the past, I will give you that. But that is proving my point… its a more awful design then in the past. At least with Aff, you have 2 other choices to pick… meaning maybe go Demo in world content then swap to Aff on raids and Destro for PvP or w/e. You have a choice.
Shadow… you are stuck with what you got. But in the past, Shadow DID do well on most fights… Did they top the meters? NO but they pulled there weight in EVERY category being low easy stuff to high hard stuff. They were not just good at 1 thing and bad at the rest. So that to me is a failure of the Voidform spec redesign. It alienated everyone that didn’t fit the ideal mold. That is BAD design.
Feral Druid do way better at short lived fights. Same with DK’s. I cant speak for Assassination rogues but I know Subtlety is good for quick fights. Remember the argument is for QUICK fights is where Voidform FAILS. Not Raids or M+ Fort fights. So you have to keep that in mind. All the examples you brought (for the most part) either have another DPS spec option or do better then Shadow priests in quick fights already. So your arguments fall flat. I am simply asking for an OPTION as well… since we only have 1 DPS spec. Then make our talents have the option to go for more classic DOT + Burst playstyle. I don’t understand why that is so difficult to ask for / accept lol.
Correct… But they still managed to do just fine on non council fights post nerf. Again though, my argument is for non High level types of fights in that we have no option / answer for.
Maybe the majority of the fights that were not council fights we didn’t get top ranks… but were were far from the bottom. We were where we fit… mid to upper mid and that’s FINE.
Not asking to be the best in every situation… just asking to not only be good in a single type of encounter… Long ones.
Edit:
I can only speak for myself. But I last did organized raiding on my Priest in Cata. But logs only go back to MoP and I didn’t raid much then, only a bit to get the cloak and heirlooms from garry. So I did Pugs for all my recordings from some other person in the raid I guess because I don’t bother with it.
Having said all that.
I managed to look up my Hellfire Citadel logs and again, I only ran it to get leggo ring and the mount so I only have a few recordings on Heroic Difficulty and with a bunch of random non coordinated / non voice group of people and crap gear, I think my logs are pretty decent. So when you say the logs prove your case… Id like to see the logs yours referring to myself. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/character/us/nerzhul/anuerysm?zone=8#difficulty=4
Hellfire Citadel All rankings…
Shadow #7. Perfectly acceptable.
BRF All ranking…
Shadow #4. Looks pretty close to top to me.
HM All ranking…
Shadow #13. I admit, its on the low end (low meaning just about mid to lower mid). But that is 1st raid of new xp and our gear hasn’t scaled up yet (which is the trend).
Challenge modes…
Shadow #13. Yup same spot as HM. I am thinking that’s the gear capping thing (pretty sure it was gear capped then). So scaling is not taking into effect.
Unable to pull up any data from MoP and earlier sadly.
Now for Voidform…
EN All ranking…
Shadow #1… no surprise there lol. VF scaling was busted.
TOV All ranking…
Shadow #1… Same scaling issue…
NH All ranking…
Shadow #21… oof what happened here? I can tell you what didn’t happen… Voidform didn’t go away. Funny that so far, this is the WORST scores Shadow have ever seen at least as far back the logs go.
ToS All Ranking…
Shadow #4… I guess the scaling is still in?
ABT All Ranking…
Shadow #6… Yup still up there.
M+ for Legion All Ranking…
Shadow #9… Upper mid to high?
Uldir not showing…
BoD All ranking…
Shadow #3… Yup still high.
CoS All ranking…
Shadow #1… Crazy good here. Yup.
TEP All ranking…
Shadow #1… Crazy good here. Yup.
Ny’alotha All ranking…
Shadow #6… Betting all the crazy absurd borrowed powers threw everything out of wonk and pushed priest down I guess.
M+ for BFA All Ranking…
Shadow #16… oof back in the mid-upper mid huh?
CN All Ranking…
Shadow #1… Back on top huh?
SoD All Ranking…
Shadow #16… oof got smacked down huh?
M+ for SL All Ranking…
Shadow #27. oof wow… that’s the lower end for sure.
Conclusion…
Why did I show all that data? What do I see?
Well…
Looks to me that most of the time be it pre Voidform or Post Voidform… shadow is (not surprisingly) around mid to upper mid of the pact (as I predicted / stated). Only a small handful of times where they rocketed to the top (basically Voidform is the cause of this) and only a small amount of times was it in the bottom half of the pact (again only with Voidform).
So I draw 2 conclusions…
Shadow Pre Voidform was more “stable” and floated around the mid-upper mid and it was both expected and accepted.
With the introduction of Voidform, it creates the potential to have these massive volatile swings of either super good or crashes and gets left behind. This alone calls for readjustments to the spec as no spec should have wild swings up and down and all over. That is NOT healthy design.
So I ask you and I answer…
What is the more “healthier” version of Shadow Priest? Pre Voidform or Post Voidform… the data is in, it is Pre Voidform…
Mind you this is accounting for the BEST scenario for voidform. This is not taking into account the area that Shadow Priest absolutely falls flat and utterly fails with the Voidform redesign. Areas such as leveling/questing, PvP, normal, heroic, mythic dungeons.
That’s it. I think the case has be made… Voidform is a plague on the Shadow specialization. End it or at the VERY least… give an option to OPT out.
I’m not sure Mass Dispel should be that far down the Disc/Shadow side of the trees. That’s a spell that should be available to all specs. Maybe put it where Inner Focus is and move Inner Focus near the near those Inner Fire and Inner Will spells?
Perhaps, but to note you will be able to pick it up around level 52 if you want it. Also keep in mind, you have like 31 points in this tree, that’s enough points to get basically 2 columns worth of abilities and still get most of the utility.
So then I have to ask, what does belong at the bottom 20+ points area if Mass Dispel does not?
I see Mass Dispel as the ultimate form of utility that no other class has access to. Along with Leap of Faith. That is why they area located in the +20 points area.
To be honest, my intent with the class tree is that whichever spec you are, you will most likely drill straight down on your specs column and then go disc column. If your disc, then you go disc column then choose if you want to be a more throughput healer and go deep into holy column? Or weave the damage healing by picking up the shadow column.
BRING BACK DIVINE AEGIS and direct AOE heals for disc. The atonement + DPS style is really monotonous, niche, and requires too much set up to react quickly to random M+ damage. Maybe make atonement healing a CD
BRING BACK DIVINE AEGIS and direct AOE heals for disc. The atonement + DPS style is really monotonous, niche, and requires too much set up to react quickly to random M+ damage. Maybe make atonement healing a CD
Just tossing a couple ideas out. Why can’t we have a cd reduction based on sanity spent. Similar to fury warriors using rage to reset recklessness? Or instead of reducing voidform maybe shadowfind so we. An have it on like a 30 second window with the Lego that cleaves with mindblasts.
I personally enjoy the playstyle of shadow in 3 or less mobs/bosses. But searing nightmares needs to just replace mind dear and auto apply dots in ae.
I made it into a Choice talent (Seen above in my Shadow Talent Tree)
Fiend Acceleration
Reduces the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 3 sec each time Mind Flay critically hits.
OR
Fiending Dark
Increases the duration of Shadowfiend by 2 sec each time Mind Flay critically hits.
Mind You, I dislike Voidform for many reason, so my approach to the new talent system is to regulate Voidform and insanity as a resource to be a choice and not tied to the rest of how the class works. So for me, this is the reason why I don’t have any insanity spent = x outcome mechanic.
I also pvp. And in pvp you don’t use mindflay almost ever. It’s better to purge during the global you would be using mindfully as a filler. So there is always that side of the game to think about too.
Although I do think we need something more to the kit to allow for some damage every lack in m+. Raid the current design feels good
Oh trust me, I am a PvP first and PvE 2nd.
However, I haven’t done any serious PvP on my priest since the Voidform redesign in Legion. So my PvP mindset comes from the WoD perspective.
In saying that…
Why do you need to have more control on Shadow Fiend CD in PvP?
In Battle grounds, its not a big issue. So I can only think you want the CD faster in Arena. If that’s the case then I get the frustration at now being unable to access the spec synergy when it comes to anything tied to using Mind Flay. But… I think that’s just a hard pill needing to be swallowed as I firmly believe our roots for Shadow starts with Mind Flay and will always have a presence and more often than not, a big presence. So having our big DPS CD tied to Mind Flay just makes logical sense.
Once you start moving away from using Mind Flay, then I think the spec gets very limited really quickly and kind of looses its primary identify as a “Face Melter”.
Now in the past, we had a toolkit that allowed us to work around the handicap that Mind Flay pins us to, things such as… Spectral Guise, Clarity of Power, Surge of Darkness, Divine Insight, Void Tendrils, Psyfiend, Phantasm and more.
So what I am getting at is having something like using resource spent = reduce CD on Shadow fiend is a “fix” but I only see it as a band-aid as its just a symptom of the greater overall problem which is we simply don’t have the tools we used to in order to function at a decent level without constantly being locked down both offensively and defensively.
So in conclusion…
I get your plight, I just think there are better ways to improve the greater overall spec experience that will inherently resolve the want to need to have Shadowfiend out more often because without it we cant do much without crippling ourselves.
The only reason we still have void form is because in Shadowlands pre patch we had Legacy of the Void, talent that they removed after because its crazy and bad design that the only thing were good for is just raiding and there wasn’t time to remove void form at all and revamp the class…
Since that talent is not exist anymore there’s no reason to keep this void trash design and shadow could be again what it was.
It’s our 3min cd? Granted I think it does pitiful damage but if we get to keep the cleaving death/blast Lego. Then having it available more often for damage would be nice. I also think it should actually do damage right now I think it only generates sanity and tickles targets.
I understand that its a 3 min CD. What I am getting at here is because its such a long cool down… that’s intentional. Meaning if its easy to reduce the CD on something like Shadowfiend, I think it will have to be nerfed. But if its difficult to reduce the cooldown but you managed to do it with something that pins you in place (Mind Flay) then that should be rewarded for “skill” instead of just pressing buttons that use/build insanity.
Shadowfiend should be impactful. In the beginning it was our answer to regen mana in a pinch. Since then it has evolved to be just another damage ability to actually synergize with our spec like in Cata 4 set Dragon Soul it granted 3 Shadow Orbs per hit when at that time, each orb increased the damage of our next Mind Blast or Mind Spike by % based on our mastery. You can time that with Dark Archangel to really pump some burst out.
Currently with the Shadowflame Prism Legendary, its a similar effect abit more on the AOE side of things which is cool.
Point is, it needs to still feel like a cooldown and only rarely should we be able to reduce the cooldown.
That’s my stance anyway.
Would be nice to grant a charge of Dark Thoughts each time it hit.
Dark Thoughts
Increases the number of charges of Mind Blast by 1, Mind Blast can be cast instantly, and can be cast while channeling Mind Flay or Mind Sear.
I really really want to continue to have my Leap of Faith pull me to the target rather than pull the target to me. I have that legendary now and I use it all the time. I hope Blizzard will consider putting this in as a talent.
