So let’s say that by off chance any class devs are searching the forums for feedback as they develop 9.0… what was your biggest issue with priests this expansion (any spec) and how would you like to see that changed in Shadowlands?
1 Like
Voidform’s core underlying mechanics ripped out and replaced. The theme can stay, you can have a button called voidform, that’s fine. I really don’t care if I’m a void cultist or not, but the way in which the spec currently plays has got to go.
Issues it causes:
Focus on ramp over time as resources spent (VF drain) has to be loosely proportional to damage dealt.
Nonexistent Opener Damage
Lack of rotational decision making, as voidform spends your resources for you, and there is no interesting friction between sanity generation and damage output (Which is usually present in builder spenders)
Lack of “real” moving parts / ways to interact with the rotation from a tuning and development standpoint. The only thing you can do to “power up” voidform is make it longer, which we’ve seen happen in every patch since legion by some method (Minute cycle, Lucid, S2M, just more haste and crit) and it’s only caused balance and additional design issues.
Fixed damage pattern and overly punishing rotation.
RL: Hey Ellipsis we need more damage on this add, do you think you can shift your CDs around and help burst it down?
Me: …
The lack of flexibility in when you can do damage, where that damage goes, and how long it takes to start doing damage, is to me the biggest problem with shadow’s current design.
10 Likes
I’m kind of writing a really long post about this that I’ve just been tapping away at for a week or two now. It’s very long. I’ll copy some bullet points with regards to Shadow (I should be finishing that section today, then starting on Disc, expect to see the whole thing in like another week) that kinda hits on some of the same notes as what Hpellipsis talked about. I’m just coming at it from a different angle.
1. Remove lingering buffs from VF (LI/CoI) or make them static, not scaling, bonuses
LI and CoI are, I think, more problematic than we give them credit for. They make long VFs feel really good, but another way to put that is that VFs you can’t push to their limit for some reason or another feel really bad. If the goal is for the build up phase to a new VF to go a bit faster, there’s better ways to handle it (that don’t also make our DPS just entering combat feel like garbage).
2. Start VF at a ‘high’ level of haste and insanity drain
I don’t think the first 15-20 seconds of any VF are really all that interesting. It’s just more build up to the point where the spec actually starts to feel fun. Cut out that bit and just get to the good part.
3. Add an insanity spender (or two) aside from VF
This is where stuff goes off the rails. The ultimate goal should still be to VF as often as possible, but you’d have something else to do with your insanity (aside from hit the cap and wait) if it looks like you can’t squeeze one in or you might need it at a better time.
Does it delve into basic builder/spender territory? Yeah, a bit. I don’t think there’s a way around that. Builder/Spender works for how WoW content is designed and it’s hard to argue with results.
4. Add some procs and/or situational abilities to the baseline spec
This is mostly just gravy. I would prefer shorter but more impactful VFs if some of the other suggestions didn’t make that obvious. By extension, that means spending relatively more time outside of VF and that’s some of our worst gameplay. It literally cannot hurt to make that aspect of Shadow more interesting by giving us stuff to look out for.
4 Likes
Good points made by other people so far. I’ll be a bit more specific. I’d like to see Shadow Crash be a baseline spell and not a talent. The talent should be improved shadow crash, which leaves a void zone on the ground that deals damage over time. Misery could also be baseline. But that’s more debatable imo.
1 Like
Disc needs to be looked into while it is good, and a lot of fun to play, in raids it is difficult and frustrating to play high M+ keys. Especially on bursting/grievous weeks were all you can do is spam Shadow mend as much as you can or have to use all of your CD just to keep the group up.
One idea I have.
Take the mechanics Depth of shadows azurite trait and power word: radiance then bake it into atonement, for example:
When you apply atonement to a target, have it also build up stacks (lets say for the sake of this example, the stacks build up like depth of shadows when shadow word: pain/PTW deals damage it grants a stack) to were when you cast shadow mend on that same target, release a healing pulse that provides a strong single target heal to the primary target and have a percentage of that heal be split to nearby party members, have diminishing returns the more targets that pulse heals, this pulse can only be triggered by shadow mend.
To balance this, tune down the healing for power word: radiance but still have it apply atonement up to 5 targets.
Just an idea, I think the biggest issue with disc is in M+ were single target healing can be a real pain and damage can get out of hand real fast if the damage coming in is too great.
1 Like
I would like to have cascade back and for mythic plus it is allowed to hit the same person multiple times which was different then raids where it was one bounce per person
1 Like
You have to ask yourself a question, lets say they give us a 3 minute cooldown called voidform that gives you dmg boost or haste boost for X seconds, and tune all other numbers so that the class has burst and the entire current voidform mechanic gets scrapped and all numbers tune accordingly;
a; what would make us different from aff locks/ balance druids
b; is it fun to cast your 4 spells (mb, sw:p, vt and mf) for 3 minutes and then for X second cast them little stronger or faster and get access to voidbolt.
I think all that needs to change is rework Dark Ascention
Did you skip the word replaced? Nobody is suggesting just make voidform a cooldown and leave everything else essentially as is.
3 Likes
Add a proper defence for holy… not just more hp. Give us a bit more damage, we’re the worst damage healer wise even when actively contributing.
2 Likes
heres just a few ideas
spectral guise: bring it back.
voidform: instead of a mini game, just make it a dps cd like everyone else. baseline instant cast. activate it, increased damage and haste for x amount of time. obviously keep void bolt as well.
body and soul: increases your movement speed and cannot be slowed for the duration.
dispersion: 90% baseline damage reduction. heals 50% max hp.
void torrent: add a snare or something. make it a useful ability.
shadow word: death: baseline.
vampiric embrace: passive healing again instead of a cd.
power word: shield: stronger absorb. make it a void shield so it doesnt look so outdated and out of place.
again just a few ideas. and i do like the theme about the void. voidform looks great. mechanically its terrible. punished for movement during fights.
also…when can we get void portals to travel around azeroth like ner’zhul and magister umbric?
1 Like
My biggest issue and still remains is that we are overlooked by most with preference to druids, why can’t we be on the same level ie battle rez? I basically put my priest on the shelf with this as the main reason. Also seems our heals have lower output as a whole compared to Rdruid. It’s not fair.
I’d love it if they made trinket damage transfer over to Atonement healing like it did back in Legion. Please. 
wow, extremely this.
I was going to make a post like this, but they basically said all of it. Shadow priest really do be like that!
As for Disc, I’d give us more damage, and buff atonement itself in some way, that or simply give us more talents that interact with atonement, or shielding. Giving us sort of a choice or mix of the two. It’s the spec theme afterall. There’s a lot of Disc talents I’d like outright removed and replaced.
Also is it just me, or does Penance often feel bad to use? Just like, in general. I’d change it to increase the duration of atonement on allies it’s used on, or when used on enemies each hit increases the atonement duration on the closest target to the enemy by 3 seconds a hit or something. Sometimes I don’t really want to stop my damage rotation to reapply atonement, and the only option I have to fix that is Evangelism…which…isn’t really the most exciting spell in the world, and costs a talent point. Is 6 seconds of atonement really worth a talent point and a 1.5m cooldown? especially when it’s on the GCD? like, just reapply it…
Holy - It’s good. Sure, it could use some more wow factor going into the new expansion, but it’s a rewarding satisfying healer with huge impactful spells on a low cooldown. - This is what I’d like to say, but their spells really all just need to be buffed somehow, because their throughput is pretty bad.
seems so yes, same as 1 talent point is worth 3% damage reduction which i think badly needs to be kicked to the curb. It needs to be replaced with something to make us a little more then “viable” in keys next xpac
edit: I would also say thats part of the skill in playing disc, knowing when to apply atonements and when to dps and if you screw it up you suffer.
I don’t really see that as something skillful. It’s pretty simple. You put on atonement for sustained healing, you smite to reduce damage your tank is taking at the same time, then use other cooldowns to reduce damage accordingly.
The same level of “skill” could be achieved by allowing us more interesting ways to apply or interact with atonement, outside of a few abilities that apply it for a short duration.
TBH that whole last row of talents is trash. On many other specs and classes, it really does feel like the big talent. with Disc not so much. They all just do so little. One of them even replaces a skill that’s arguably more useful than what replaces it, which is just hilarious.
I would like a holy dps spec for priests
One it would be nice if you posted on your priest and 2 do you have some logs to back up your understanding of said simple process?
We dont smite to reduce damage, smite is our dps filler outside penance schism and solace if your using it. You put on atonement for sustained healing… yeah seems simple but how many, when do you do it. These are things that trip people up.
Of course I use Schism and solace. the other options are bad. Disc has a lot of super not optimal options in their talent tree.
Secondly, how is posting on my priest going to show you that I use atonement properly? My guy, it’s extremely easy to understand how that works…
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to use atonement, I’m sorry if I somehow hurt your ego with this statement. Also, Smite is both your DPS filler, and reduces damage to your tank. It’s a big part of the spell. Do you not know that?
Smite doesn’t reduce any damage that the tank takes.
really? do people somehow not know how smite works?
When you smite an enemy while in disc spec, it places a “shield” on the target you hit. When that target attacks the shield absorbs a portion of their attack equal to this shield. Thus reducing damage.
1 Like