There are no buttons to press any more. The class feels dead and damaged, like I need to lose half my brain cells in order to enjoy it and appreciate it.
Shadow priest is a hybrid, its core kit is to have utility. Removing void shift has the sense of someone who has no idea what they are doing. Removing psychic horror in the context of all of the other class changes is equivalent, but maybe slightly less incompetent.
If you were to get a grade on a report card for the changes, it needs to be an F. The class and specs feel dull and boring.
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Void shift held priest back
It was a talent that was borderline broken when it could be used, and dead weight when it couldnāt. No in between.
Personally Iām happy to trade it for something thatās not so feast and famine and has more general utility use.
Problem is Blizzard forgot the last part lol
But yeah, most of priests utility is like that. Near OP when it can be utilized, dead weight when it canāt. Mass dispel, mind soothe, void shift, leap of faith. Theyāre all kinda terrible because of their lack of generally use but extreme power in niche use.
2 Likes
Such is the life of a priest I suppose.
But at the end of the day, thereās always PI.
Our greatest tool and heaviest shackle.
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Shackle Undead is still here. For why? I donāt know. But just doing damage aināt it. Not like you can outrun anyone. And that sorry shield and flash healā¦ and the cc that ccs you- mind control. 2004 TBC combat.
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Mobility is 100% terrible. Utility is overly niche.
Our on demand 20% Dr is quite strong though. One of the few perks that shadow has.
Void shift and horror existed for PvP and should have been made PvP talents. It was a huge nerf to shadow priest in PvP, and I strongly believe the void shift removal was the worst of the two. As a primarily support class we lost our one big support button while ret Paladin keeps lay on hands and blessing.
I think itās clear that Blizzard has made a lot of big changes in a short time frame without really considering all the angles and treating PvP as a secondary concern after theyāve gotten PvE smoothed over. Itās really unfortunate.
They make changes with no consideration for PvP. Although it is a huge player base, that is being killed by these types of changes and lack of sensible content.
It is a combination of lack of focus killing the game mode and player base, along with incompetence in being able to make the sensible changes themselves.
Even if you look at Classic TBC the PvP community is huge and thriving, because back then they had minimal amounts of due diligence and sense. Instead we get housing content, because animal crossing is apparently the main competitor for this IP.
4 Likes
Housing has its own separate team.
I donāt disagree that pvp is very rarely considered when making changes, but donāt pretend one feature is to blame for the decades of waning attention pvp has been getting. Itās definitely frustrating, but itās not housing.
Trade it for what? What did we get for it?
In PVP void shift is what made priest healing viable. Sucks now to see shamans with spirit link. Now that atonement has been gutted, itās awful. disc priest is notorious for struggling when they get behind in damageā¦ now without any big heals and gutted atonement and no voidshiftā¦ theyāre not as fun to play.
Definitely disagree that it was needed for PvP, we only got void shift for holy/disc relatively recently. Itās fine.
The bigger issue is shadow loses its major group utility. It feels more like a damage bot with not a lot of tools to setup a go or save a situation in SS.
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That means priest is poorly designed if 1 ability holds up the entire class
If Iām not mistaken, Void Shift was introduced in MoPā¦ like 14 years ago. Then, I believe they took it away in Draenor. They brought it back in Legion as an honor talent. That was the first expansion where I hit 2k in arena. Then, in BFA, they made it a pvp talent. It was in Dragonflight that it was added to the class tree (I think this is what you were thinking of). Now in midnight, itās gone again. Itās been an important part of our toolkit for at least 12 of the last 14 years. In PvP anyway. And Iām not talking about SS. I prefer the regular arena.
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Donāt get me wrong; there are other important abilities But, when it comes to arena, void shift is probably the most important āoh sh_tā cool down we had. It would be like taking away spirit link from shamans or lay on hands from pallies, or swiftmend from druids, or whatever that nonsense from evokers is called (it escapes me at the moment).
But I agree with your statement.
I donāt remember it being available for holy in BfA or Slands, at the very least I havenāt found any guide that reference it so it must have been non-meta to use it.
Donāt get me wrong, it was a super strong ability, but disc and holy were also S tier at different points of TWW. Void shift on top of two charges of pain suppression, dome, and ultimate penance was a ton of healer CDs, which is what Blizzard called out for healer pruning. They want core short CD abilities to feel impactful and not have matches drag on because of how many saves each class has.
A lot of people are against lay on hands in arena, simply due to how it works with dampening. Hpal certainly has more big CDs than other healers, but thatās its playstyle, its also very easy to CC (no fade, no shroud, limited mobility, and now no kick) so pre-CDing is kind of key to its gameplay.
That means priest is poorly designed if 1 ability holds up the entire class
We call that Power Infusion.
It certainly seems like what we are there for nowadays
First itās hard to talk about priest in absolute terms since all three specs are widely different, but at least for disc priest, dome and atonement ramp was already so valuable it was holding up disc as an S tier mythic raid spec almost every season. Shadow has been great in PvP thanks to being able to setup their own go at range and being very tank.
The only spec that really suffers is holy, because being good at straight healing just isnāt all that useful in any of the pillars. In PvP dampening kills it, in PvE scaling damage means % based mitigation is king as it scales with the damage. Holy is a victim of having a mechanically better healer spec attached to it. As long as disc has better tools and the same tools as holy, holy will always feel like itās āheld up by Xā.
Thatās why I believe Blizzard positions holy a the āintroā healer. Instead of balancing it with disc, they offer it as sort of an on ramp for a more difficult but more powerful toolkit.
Personally I think disc needs some kind of stop. Like the old rapture that gave you no CD giant shields.
If Blizz doesnāt want disc to have big on demand heals, then they need a damage stop of some kind
Currently they have neither, and although theyāre an āoffensiveā healer, their damage really isnāt anything amazing. Itās not like youāre being gimped by a disc priest lol
Discās big stop is two charges of pain suppression.
From what Iāve seen on youtube, it looks like Priests will be in a better spot at Max level. Iām going to have some faith ātil then.
Sometimes when youāre a priest all you can have is faith 