Generalizing the nuances of a spec can make any spec look simple at face value.
Legion/BfA incarnation of Shadow had a completely different set of nuances to Shadowlands Shadow and they are not comparable. The former was all about moment-to-moment gameplay and maximizing casting uptime, while the later is about making the most effective use of cooldowns. In essence, Shadow went from micro management to macro.
But it is undeniable that the current iteration of Shadow is now just another builder/spender. Whether you think that is a good or bad thing is entirely subjective.
The spec wasn’t more complex in it’s rotation, it was more complex in the gameplay required to maximize it
It may be pedantic, but you guys are conflating a ‘complex’ rotation to a ‘complex’ class.
Right now, the class really lacks depth. The reason for this is because nearly every skill is on a cooldown and the class mechanic literally has 1 spender which begs the question why it even needs to exist. A player really is just using every skill off cooldown, managing 2 DOTs, and that’s about it.
The class really does need more to do with insanity other than to just passively generate by using any skill they have off-cooldown and fat fingering DP so whenever you get 50 insanity you use it.
But this isn’t a problem unique to Priests. Balance Druids are in a very similar boat where their class mechanics may have been justified in expansions past, but right now they’re kind of just leftovers that players begrudgingly tolerate.
It always was, only legion and bfa changed that and it wasn’t for the better. Even back in the day we had orbs instead, acted like combo points and everyone loved it.
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this is why I liked orbs much better than the insanity meter. each orb empowers your DP so the more orbs, the higher the dps with DP was. You also didn’t need to spend all the orbs so in movement to movement you had to think if you needed to get more orbs or dump them now to move out of the way.
Void form from legion only really worked well in legion because of the artifact weapon. Once that went away, it opened up a huge issue of balancing for blizzard in BFA so they went back to the build and spender class that it was for a long long time.
Shadow priest was never a complex class to play, it was always vampric touch, then embrace and put on shadow word pain and mind flay. That was the rotation for a long long time until DP and orbs came into play.
Destro warlock is similar with this issue. However they have enough shards to cast multiple bolts and havoc which gives you a new way to maximize your spender
Shadow needs something to interact with it’s spender or insanity itself. Right now it’s just so cut and dry that it’s kind of boring