I’d like to preface this post. Shadow priest is good, and is preforming well in all content.
That being said there’s some quality of life changes that still could be looked at, without completely breaking the spec. And while it’s good to have a fresh coat of paint on the game, with a spec rework every patch. I’d like for us to not get forgotten about after receiving ours.
Like in previous post I’ve made these request are going to be similar, and truth be told I just don’t want the spec to be forgotten. Just because it numbers are good.
First and foremost. Dispel protection.
Vampiric touch’s dispel protection is abysmal. Firstly there’s generally no penalty to healers what so ever. Many of them already “set themselves up” for the dispel ahead of time. Putting up HoT’s and shields before the dispel so the three seconds is inconsequential.
It also adds to the abundance of micro CC’s in the game. Which no one is enjoying at all. In fact it’s part of the reason that precognition was made craftable.
It’s an outdated mechanic that needs a face lift. I’ve seen two good ideas on changes and option A: give it a malediction effect to absorbs the amount of healing. Or option B: give it a mana burn effect. To punish healers for dispelling it. Personally I think option A would be better received.
Mobility
For good grief please remove body and soul and give us Door of Shadows in its place. 1 min CD 1 - 1.5 second cast 30 - 40 yard range. It was by far one of the best parts of playing Venth last Xpac. The class hurts in the mobility department bad. Which is fine till you start making fights like Mythic Raz where the CLASS isn’t viable. Not just a spec but straight up a class.
It is not fun relying on others to move your own character for you because by design your class just isn’t capable. We don’t need two sprint talents.
Those are the two big heavy hitters for me. Both of which I wouldn’t consider a change that would push it into a over powered spec.
The following things I’d like to see changed but I highly doubt we will get:
buffs to the lower left side of the tree, while I do like the right side and the gameplay being different. A slight number change could open that side back up for PvP use.
Instant cast Void form / Dark Asc. I realize you don’t want it because it would make it so we could pretty much macro everything together and you seem to dislike that. That being said having to cast our burst CD while every other class doesn’t feels like a PoS. Throttling us for no reason.
Mind flay / mind spike just being a choice node. Let the player decide their flavor.
MS:I instant cast and MF:I castable while moving.
I’m sure there’s plenty of things I’m missing but feel free to chyme in PvP or PvE. I’m in the boat that the class is fun to play but it’s certainly not perfect.
p.s. I hate twin priestess and would love for that thing to disappear while keeping PI our CD
Sounds similar to the Mind Restrain talent in the initial class talent tree in beta.
Would dispelling cause the healing absorb on the target you dispelled or the one that did the dispelling?
If caused on the target, can be abused to troll fellow players. Best if it was a punishment to the dispeller in that they are the ones that get a healing absorb debuff.
Also, since Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague are from different debuff classes, perhaps have different forms of dispel protection for both.
Vampiric Touch (Magic) = Mana Burn dispeller.
Mana regen roots so fits thematically to punish dispel by mana burn.
Devouring Plague (Disease) = Healing Absorb debuff on dispeller.
Healing DOT roots so fits thematically to punish dispel by healing absorb debuff.
Think old malediction trinkets from BFA, or necrotic strikes form DK’s
I think it would be best to debuff the dispelled target.
I don’t think you’d see that much trolling of players because at the end of the day
everyone is trying to win. How many times do you see Night elf tanks shadow meld to wipe a group. Or priest life grip people into death in raid.
Im not going to say it won’t happen but it generally doesn’t happen.
And while I would love that option, we got to pick our battles and there no way we’d see that happen.
Having a healing absorb on the dispelled target seems pretty pointless.
Healers won’t think about every dispel like they do for Unstable Affliction so they will just dispel on CD and so many self heals in the game that it will just not be noticeable at all on the target.
If you have to settle for only 1 dispel mechanic be it on VT or DP, then the question should be asked, which is more important and impacts the Shadow Priest more?
The answer to that question is Devouring Plague as so many mechanics and talents work or are severely impacted if DP is applied. In addition to the fact that DP costs resources where as VT does not and can even be applied instantly with talents.
Dispelling VT hurts more so early on in the fight where as when you are going in for big damage, dispelling DP is more impactful in shutting down the Shadow Priest.
I think because the idea of dispel protection really originates from a Magic buff and Devouring Plague being a disease, it really opens a lot of counter play to DP without any risk as dispelling a disease doesn’t have a cooldown on dispel like magic does and so it can be used without any regard or thought.
This is why I think in the case with shadow and how reliant it is to having dots on the target (currently at least) that having 2 dispel protections should seriously be considered.
But if it was on the dispeller, then each time they dispel a target, they have an increasing risk of not being able to recover from it thus creating a moment of pause before the dispel each time as they will be the ones directly impacted by it.
Oh yes. This is by far the most frustrating part of playing shadow in pvp…especialy after losing damnation. …also the amount of unpunished autodispel mechanics added to the game like paladins judge etc…its unbeliveable…reverse difuse hunter feint dispel. And thats just talking about VT.
I would like to mention that theres nothing more hearthbreaking than getting massaged by two melees and when you finaly manage to get enough insanity for DP( which takes a while after rework) …dispell… with absolutely no consequences or punishment. The DP dispells even by dps like monks and rets are just stupid.
From mentioned punishments im all about the mana burn…5% mana for each DP dispelled. VT can stay with its horror effect.
If nothing changes then i hope the UA dispell backlash just straight up oneshots the dispeller so i can play with aff lock shadowplay and actualy “play” the game.
Also instant voidform and DA is a must…its the most awkward, easily shutted down and well telegraphed “look at me im trying to burst” cd in the game.
Just going to add my additional dispel protection thoughts/ideas from the unofficial Shadow Priest feedback thread.
Magic Buffs/Debuffs protection
Debuff protection
Vampiric Touch: Burn the mana of the dispeller (thinking 3-8% mana for each dispel)
Devouring Plague: Refund 50-100% insanity if dispelled OR make it undispellable baseline or through the Distorted Reality talent and perhaps change name to “Everlasting Plague”.
Magic Buff protection
Shadowfiend: Steals 1 magic buff each time the Shadowfiend attacks and transfers it to the Priest, lasts up to 15 sec. Shadowfiend: Applies 1 stack of Shadow Vulnerability to the target each time the Shadowfiend attacks. lasts for 15 sec.
Shadow Vulnerability increases the damage that both you and your Shadowfiend deals by 1% per stack.
Don’t know if you played much during that time but healing absorb effects, but they are indeed impactful. And lets say they get a -150k absorb on them, it can definitely be a major swing in momentum. Think of how Mindgames forces healers to dispel, you’d the ability to play off of it.
I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want two but its never been a think afaik for a class to have two different dispel protection. Also I’d think you’d prefer to have it on VT rather than DP because of the uptime of the ability. You’d get far more value out of it being dispelled from VT. Along with that you shouldn’t really be using DP on targets that don’t already have your dots on.
either way I think we both can agree that the current iteration needs to change.
If the punish effect is an healing absorb on the target instead of the dispeller, then you have the self heals of the target in addition to the one that did the dispel.
Meaning you have 2 people able to use self healing and raw healing to counteract the effect.
But if it punished the dispeller instead, the one that had the dot dispelled wont benefit from self healing.
In addition to negating self heals, the dispeller being punished could cause a stacking effect on itself for each dispel it deals which would cause an increasing amount of punishment vs it being spread out on multiple targets that can all do self healing and spread healing.
So in order to really notice the effect, it would be best if it punished the dispeller over and over again which again causes them to pause to actually choose to heal instead of dispel.
Then again with VT, because it’s so easy to apply via instant cast or hard cast. It’s not as big of a deal as DP to get dispelled because you can’t just use DP as much as you want and a disease dispel does not have a cooldown tied to it so it can just be used over and over again which would outright negate every single devouring plague used for no punishment at all. Which in turn absolutely tanks Shadows ability to deal massive damage and hursts it’s survivability in self healing a lot.
with absolutely no consequences or punishment. The DP dispells even by dps like monks and rets are just stupid.