Turn the clock back 2 years to the BFA alpha, with the changes they were making and losing the artifact weapon it looked like shadow was going to be in a terrible spot, the spec needed a massive overhaul back then.
So beta hit with no changes and we later learned that they ran out of time for major fixes to Shadow Priest + Elemental/Enhancement Shamans and that changes will happen for 8.1 (sound familiar?) https://www.wowhead.com/news=284967/liveblog-of-the-june-14-battle-for-azeroth-beta-q-a-with-ion-hazzikostas
Shadow was so nonviable that I leveled and geared my warlock the week before mythic G’huun and was infinitely more useful to the group (even without the required 4 gateways).
Everyone was expecting major fixes to Shadow for 8.1, they abandoned us in the alpha/beta so they owed us (and shamans) proper expansion changes. What we got was this: https://www.wowhead.com/news=288094.2/upcoming-shadow-priest-changes-in-8-1
Basically we got longer more powerful voidforms, our dps talents further cemented for pve, and some minor QOL changes. The changes were minor, but made us powerful again, so most people didn’t complain. The fundamental problems of our scaling, ramp and reliance on borrowed power remained, but those were problems to be solved with a new expansion, not a content patch.
So here we are now, I was going to say Shadow was left on the cutting room floor, but that implies that there was some level of effort gone into the spec whatsoever. Basically all the changes to the spec from the BFA version make no sense. You would think that after the treatment we received in the BFA alpha we (along with shamans) would be at the top of the list of specs to work on and get right.
- Void Bolt Rank 2: only someone who has never played the spec before would come up with such an idea. Void bolt GCD’s are currently our only source of efficient movement during combat, and with this change it removes that efficiency. This change would only make sense if we could mind flay while moving.
- Mind Blast Rank 2: has a .5 sec longer cd than on BFA. why? seems like a huge oversight when adding the completely unnecessary Rank 2 version because it messes with our rotation (the 7.5 sec cd is exactly 5 gcd’s. but at 8 seconds will require a mind flay clip somewhere to be optimal). Also cements the talent Shadow Word: Void even more.
- Shadow Word: Death: making it baseline was good, but removing the 2nd charge, adding backlash dmg, removing insanity generation and increasing the CD to 30 seconds is just so stupid. It may do more dmg in 1 cast, but it’s much less useful overall than the talent on BFA. You’re pretty much forced to use the Death and Madness talent to get any value out of it. Depending on the content it may be completely unusable in raid because of the backlash, There’s a reason why backlash was originally removed from the ability, that type of mechanic is heavily outdated.
- Devouring Plague: where to begin…This spell was supposed to help on low hp content, it doesn’t do that at all. With the near required talent Legacy of the Void, DP costs just 10 less insanity and does significantly less damage than Void Eruption, and once in Voidform you can Voidbolt, which does nearly the same amount of damage instantly that DP does over its full duration. So optimally you’d use DP after VB, then try and stay in VF as long as possible to keep Bolting. The sanity cost of DP doesn’t even remotely justify the damage it does. To get DP to work the way they want it to, turn it into the new Mind Spike, make it hit really hard on dotless targets and problem solved. Or a more complicated fix is to make it drain sanity when active instead of cost it (and also hit a lot harder) opening it up to be used much earlier. Current version on alpha is nonsensical.
- Power Infusion: I’m not sure if this has been changed already, but being able to cast on allies is just asking for toxic group/raid environments. It will almost certainly not be most benefitial to cast on ourselves, so this gives us the option to be selfish and use on ourselves to the detriment of the group, or use on someone else to our own detriment. Either make it only castable on ourselves (if it hasn’t been changed already) or make it only castable on allies.
- Even something like Mind Soothe’s return, it could have been a good alternative to rogues aoe stealth in raid or m+, but it’s just so weak it would barely ever (if ever) be useful. This ability should be able to affect all enemy types, not just humanoid and dragonkin, and have it’s range detection reduction buffed enough that it’s possible to do trash skips (maybe it can show a visual circle around the target indicating its aggro radius).
Also the complete lack of changes to our talents: the talent tree has been mostly set in stone all expansion, if nothing else this needs to be changed up for some variety.
1st row: Shadow word: void is just too strong to pass, especially with the nonsence .5 sec cd increase to Mind Blast. If 2 stack mind blast was baseline that would open this row up for some very nice options.
2nd row: literally the only good row for choice, mobility vs synergy vs survivability. If I had 1 suggestion it would be to make Intangibility cause dispersion to make us immune for viability on some fights.
3rd row: ToF was nerfed but still our strongest ST option and will be locked in every time, minor choice when multiple targets to take Misery instead and a lock in option when theres constant low hp adds. Dark Void is too weak to consider in most content, only strong on intermittent very low hp adds that all appear at once. There is no real choice in this row. Make ToF baseline, buff Dark void and move Death and Madness to this row.
4th row: Mind bomb has the potential to be a strong niche cc like Song of Chi’ji or Sigil of Misery. But the duration is too short to be worth considering. At the moment its Psychic Horror on basically all content except interupt heavy pve encounters where you take Last word instead. Boring row. Buff Mind Bomb disorient to 20 sec.
5th row: AS has been the strongest choice since legion, only bested by Shadow crash on intermittent low hp adds, adding the talent that makes SW:D usable might make an interesting choice in this row, but I feel like either AS or Scrash will sim so much higher that it wont even be a choice for pve content, Death and Madness will only be picked in open world content/leveling. As previously suggested move Death and Madness to row 3. Then move Lingering Insanity to this row and instead of granting haste make it generate insanity, this will help with scaling issues later in the xpack and also get some use out of devouring plague after entering the next voidform.
6th row: Lingering Insanity is just so stupidly strong that it’s a must have for all pve content. If Lingering Insanity was removed from this row, you could add some sort of synergy for Devouring Plague in its place (reduce the cost or increase the damage). Mindbender and Void Torrent are too similar, they are effectively just ST dps buttons you hit on a 45/60 sec cd, simulationcraft will always rate one over the other and that leaves one as a dead talent. Re-work Void Torrent into an ability like Focused Iris Beam or Vexionas’ shadow beam, and buff the damage of Mindbender to make it more valuable on ST.
7th row: such a disappointing row, LotV will reign supreme yet again. Dark Ascension needs something more otherwise the 5% spell dmg from Legacy is just too strong. The new Surrender is so laughably bad it’s a shock it even hit alpha and doesn’t look like it’s getting updated for beta either. Just delete surrender already, it’s either going to be way too strong and be a must pick, or so weak it’s a dead talent. On alpha it’s a dead talent, so just remove it and come up with something else please. There could be a talent than makes voidformless gameplay viable.
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Put in the effort blizz, either make voidform actually work or scrap it and start over from WoD spec (preferably the 2nd option).
#removevoidform