Priests need updated animations / spell effects

Classes Priest
1

How Power Word: shield still looks like those 20 year old graphics, even though it’s one of the most used Priest spells? I’ve seen on the PTR notes that Shaman’s Lightning Bolt is getting a visual update, but that spell wasn’t already updated multiple times? I love they’re getting attention, but other classes need it as well.

Levitate’s sparkling effect sucks when you’re in the Shadow spec. Can’t we have a glyph to just remove those, like how it once was? Also, can’t the baseline Levitate get the casting/steering/leaning moving animations that other Levitate-based spells like Rapture or Void Form get?

Shadowform also need some love via glyphs. One to make it more ‘simple’ like how it was in Vanilla, and another one to make it more void-y, to go along with the Voidweaver hero talents, which ironically favors Dark Ascension and not the actual Void Form.

Pretty sure that are many other spells that could use a visual makeover. I do feel that Power Word: Radiance looks kinda cheap to be the main Disc aoe component too.

6 Likes
2

For my money, the main spell that needs a makeover is Smite. It doesn’t even sound like a spell, more like a passive proc, and the undersized nike swoosh of light is completely unnoticeable even when solely spamming it.

5 Likes
3

I’m hedging my bets the PTR is going to have new visuals.

1 Like
4

:joy:
This tickled me.

5

Who cares we aren’t even going to be pressing it that much after Rapture gets nuked.

6

Personally, I think priests should have animation / spell effects that tie-in well with their race’s aesthetics & lore.

For example:

  • Lightforged Draenei and Blood Elves — To have ‘holy’ spell visuals for their shadow spells.
  • Void Elves and Mag’har orcs — To have ‘shadow’ spell visuals for their holy spells.

Lightforged & Void Elves is pretty self-explanatory, but Mag’har have beef with the powers-that-be of the light and the Blood Elves declared ANY who so much as TREAT with the void are to be exiled from their people … so naturally, belf shadow priests are no longer canon (thanks to the parasitic void elf lore).

Ultimately:

With that being all said, it’d be cool for priests to get a questline with unique-dialog depending on your race to have an option for both — or attain an artifact of great powers to each force that lets you: “Flip the coin of your nature within, to harness the power of its alternate reflection …”

It’d be interesting to see a Dark Naaru and a Light Naaru (or a prime Naaru and a void-lord) stand side-by-side one another, either in love or beheld by friendship to one another — That allow the player(s) to be ‘blessed’ by one or the other - to change between their respective forces, or allow them to simply correlate their powers naturally (how it is normally) similarly to the Warlocks green-fire NPC. :slight_smile:

It’d give some player variety, present roleplay accurate vibes to match what and WHO you’re playing as — along with giving us some more identity flavours to play with :dracthyr_nod:

1 Like
7

Shadowform really needs a facelift, imo. I would like to be able to see color on my character. Right now, it’s impossible to see, even with the glyph of shadows.

There has to be a better way to make spriest identifiable, without making it difficult/impossible to see the details of your character.

8

If many other classes get spells with more than one option with glyphs, I can’t see why Spriests (and Balance Astral form) can’t, like:

  • One to give the cleaner, actually shadowy, translucent version of the Vanilla Shadowform;
  • Another to make the effect like an external aura around the borders of your character model, so you can actually see what they wear without a lot of color washouts;
  • Another one to make it like a more subtle Void Form;
  • One to make Shadowform just an actual black shadow with glowing eyes;
  • Bonus if they could incorporate Shadow Ravens in one of those;
9

I’ll speak on shadow priest:

Mind blast is woefully boring. Keep the same purple head explosion, Just make it bigger and hit harder lol

I hate the new void torrent. If they insisted on making it purple, I wish they just would’ve changed the white ones to purple

Does mind games even have an animation?

Mass dispel could be better, but it’s current form is alright

Mind spike could be the same fix as mind blast: Just make the purple spikes bigger and hit harder

Void orb is pretty cool

I wish devouring plague made the target drip or radiate purple or something. As far as I remember, there’s literally zero animation

Void Valley is perhaps the worst animation in the game. Get rid of the floating diamond. Just drop a shadowy circle on the ground that has purple fumes or something. Make the reaction instant, like mass dispel. Obviously anybody inside the shadow on the ground becomes affected

I agree with many others, That it is time to update power word shield. I forget what the holy paladin spell is called, but it’s like that golden shower/explosion above the targets head. It’s like their refresher spell/renew. Make it do something like that and then just update the sphere that would come right after

Yes mind flay is iconic, But it’s pretty old and probably time for an update.

I think void eruption is still pretty cool

Dark ascension is totally whack. The shadow priest should come off the ground because the word ascension is literally in the name of the spell. Add tendrils, Shadows, Purple swirlies-anything Is better than what we have now

10

No visuals were updated on the PTR that I saw.

11

Ugh, so bad… But they didn’t add many assets yet other than world/ dungeons, did they? Hopefully those ‘minor’ stuff can come along those 2 months of PTR testing.

12

I think it would be both fitting and a way to include mobility into Shadow where during Voidform you float around like Xal’atath does and Dark Ascension you float around like Evokers can when using Hover (and perhaps upgrade the feathered wings affect to move and flap similar to Evokers Wings) and while doing either, you are completely immune to ground based CC and damage.

So all those roots or traps or swirls to avoid would become ignorable during those cooldown windows which by extension assists with mobility issues since you don’t need to move as often to avoid such things.

Then things like rock spikes coming up out of the ground will still damage you because the affect is happening above the ground.

So it would have to require extensive testing to see what can and can not be avoided.

13

The amount of shadow spells with virtually no visual effect whatsoever is hilarious. The entire core of the shadow kit is functionally invisible – shadow word pain, vampiric touch, mind blast and devouring plague all have insignificant visual cues. Voidweavers get a little bit of visual upgrade from their black hole buddy and the upgraded mind blast, and Archon gets to cast void bolt and hover around in Voidform at least, but the core of the spec is visually irrelevant.

14

But hey at least shamans get some awesome new lightning animations…
Just me being jealous here.

15

Honestly?.. I hated the new Lightning Bolt :joy:

It looks too “chunky”… like as if it’s magic missile but with some thunder flavor.

The pre-casting animation looks excellent, though.

Please throw Priests some candy…

1 Like
16

I don’t like the new Lightning Bolt either :frowning:

I was surprised when I logged in and checked. It really does look like a missile or a corkscrew drill now instead of being actually like a lightning bolt.

17

I suppose my jealousy stems from how Blizz often overlooks healers for animation updates. Like why do DPS deserve flashy more than healers? So many classes could use a facelift in the spell animation department.

18

I feel like shadow won’t actually get any updates till Midnight.