Hey all, I’ve played a variety of classes since TBC, but unfortunately didn’t get the chance to play a Shadow Priest during the Shadow Orbs era. What made Blizzard change/remove it? Was it just a boring mechanic? Was it too strong?
It didn’t really make much sense from a shadow priest perspective. It was like someone had created a mechanic with placeholder names / UI elements and then just put it into the game.
It worked fine, it was mostly the supporting cast of talents and interactions that went on top of it that made it so enjoyable.
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I’ll never know how it plays, but just by looking, it seems like the ramp up wasn’t as bad as it is now on Live. well, hopefully they rework or do something to make Shadow playable. Our damage can’t be piss poor AND us having to rely on gear 
Under the shadow orb play style, your damage ramped up after you casted Mind Blast three times.
Mind blast WAS on a cooldown, but it was only 6 seconds or so, so basically 13 seconds into the fight you were ready to cast devouring plague which was the peak damage of your standard rotation.
To be honest, it was strictly a priority based rotation with literally no interaction (Shadow Beast > Shadow word: Death > Devouring Plague > Mind Blast > Vampiric Touch > Shadow word: Pain > Mind Flay, if I recall correctly), maybe holding off on Shadow Beast & Devouring Plague if something coming up needed to be burst down, maybe bringing Shadow Word:Pain higher up if it would mean you could get a Twist of Fate proc on an add the was going to die fast.
Also, back then, our burst AoE was so terribly awful, that people would kick you or bail out of the group if the dungeon was Stonecore and there wasn’t another ranged DPS in the group. You simply couldn’t kill Corborus’s adds before they got to their target and murdered him.
WoW is filled with examples like this where theorycrafting says things are OK, but theorycrafting gets PWNED by mechanics. Shadow has been pretty much an encyclopedia of how NOT to design a class.
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Wish Shadow could find a happy-medium, not the best single target, but also not the worst. Not the best AOE, but not the worst. I honestly feel like most hybrids should be that way :l
I should also footnote, that back in Cataclysm, we had a second single target rotation (Mind Blast > Mind Spike) which was competitive with other classes in (single target) burst situations, but was mana-negative and couldn’t be kept up for more than about 45 seconds. This was stripped away from us with no replacement and/or explanation.
I swear every expansion prior to Legion I always thought about recording my gameplay but I was too lazy.
So sadly I only know of 2 vids of myself that show what Priests were like with Show Orbs from Swifty’s POV when we ran into eachother a few times in Arena during MoP beta.
Then I enjoy watching this Vid from Anboni as it reminds me how I play.
This should make you understand why losing the Orb mechanic from WoD to the now Void Themed era of Shadow Priest is so depressing.
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I only started raiding hard core back in Cata with the announcement of the Legendary staff. I wanted that thing so bad lol. I only did 10 man HFL and only got the finial phase of the staff at the beginning week of Dragon Soul opening.
But once I got my 4 set from Dragon Soul + the staff + Cunning of Cruel and went into RBG with my team. Oh man, so fun lol. Nuking so hard and shadow bolts everywhere lol.
Good times.
FYI for those that didn’t know How shadow Orbs worked in Cata and the interaction with 4 set T13.
You had a max of 3 Orbs and each orb enhances the damage of your Mind Blast or Mind Spike (set % + more based on mastery) and they consumed all orbs you had.
4 set T13 granted you 3 Shadow Orbs each time Shadow Fiend hit a target.
So you can time the cast of Shadow Fiend to get x3 orb Mind Spike for x3 30% crit on Mind Blast for total of 90% crit chance and then follow with x3 Orb Crit Mind Blast and finish off with SW:D x2.
Normal DPS health pools were around 150k back then and i could do 100k Mind Blast Crits with the right setup lol.
Then add in the cunning of cruel procs + Legendary Staff spell clone proc made it all the better.
So much fun.
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Shadowform that looks good 
Dark angel wings
Spectral guise
Devouring Plague
Cascade
Actually stands a chance against melee
Burst
Good survivability
The difference between shadow orbs and void form is night and day. Night and day. I almost wish I didn’t watch that video. It’s great, but it also serves as a reminder of how far Shadow has fallen.
Why are they so insistent on holding on to this failed voidform experiment? The guy that created the concept doesn’t even work on this game anymore.
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You know what was fun?
Back in WoD when playing Ashran, I got the Ancient Artifact several times and when I have that + the Lego Ring + killing the geode thing at the mine, I got like 325% more damage + proc Twisted Faith for i think was 20% dmg/healing back then as i am nearing 350% damage.
Then I casted Cascade in the middle of the Alliance army and used my flight ability from the class spell book and dispersed if needed.
Then the entire army dies lol.
It was dumb but fun.
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I have old videos from Cata -> Draenor on my YouTube if anyone’s interested:
Here’s our Warmaster Blackhorn from Dragon Soul for example:
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You guys are making me feel nostalgic about cata spriest playstyle. While I was a big fan of it at the time, my guild sadly made me heal 90% of the time.
While I never got the legendary staff, I had the aoe weapon off dw and the proc trinket which also made bgs a lot of fun.
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You forgot…
You have absolute control over your spec mechanic. You get to hold on to orbs or spend them whenever you see fit.
true player agency.
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I forgot how much I miss old shadow till I watched this.
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its like blizzard said to themselves “hey, we got the design right with this spec…LETS CHANGE IT TO FIT OUR STORY FOR LEGION!” instead of just leaving it and adding the lore they wanted. because apparently that was impossible to do…
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