What exactly is the point of forcing shadow priests to cast shadow form? There is never a reason to leave shadow form. No meaningful decision to leave form for a sec to heal or whatever. It’s just a button you mustn’t forget to push whenever you change specs or res.
I’d honestly be happy to not be a purple blob all the time as well.
Shadow form should be cosmetic only - let shadow priests go shadow if they want, but let the rest of us see our mogs please!
i turn it off because i don’t want to match the 900 other shadow priests around me at any given time.
it absolutely sucks that it gets turned off when respawning, though.
Its one of those ‘it was historically designed this way’ and nobody bothered to mess with it kind of things.
Initially shadow priests could drop out of form and cast legitimate heals for a reasonable amount of time so they made the form cost GCDs to prevent abuse.
On that note since each spec is basically a different class these days it would probably be a fine thing to strip out and bake into the spec itself as a passive while allowing a spellbook that just toggles the purple effect
There used to be a glyph to make shadow form less shadowy.
I miss glyphs… 
sf is just another thing made worse by the current team at blizzard.
It was perf before they made it a purple blob.
Now its a useless purple blob too.
HE HE.
They could even make it work like worge form where you go shadow automatically in combat, I’d be ok with that because it would be easier to be non-shadowy most of the time.
It’s not like anyone had a problem recognising shadow priests from a distance either - we have a giant purple line connecting our hands to your face. And void form is obviously extremely recognisable.
It would be nice to be able to have it up all the time, but still have the option to whether be purple (it is thematic) or not (and thus able to see transmogs)
In MoP and before it was a limiting factor. Do good dps, but no healing. Wanna heal? Drop S-Form. You could be a decent off-heal in a pinch with a number of holy spells. You wouldn’t keep up with regular healers of course, but if the healer went down, maybe you could keep the tank up until a brez or the boss died. Also went in and out of S-Form a lot in Tol Barad battles.
But then they took out most Shadow Priest heals entirely and . . . now it’s like . . . why have it at all?
Glyph of Shadow still exists.
It’s the same with Moonkin Form. Every button click wastes extra seconds of time.
Edit: Wrong about Moonkin Form.
But unlike shadowform, boomkin form does limit you. You can’t cast heals, except for regrowth, in boomkin. Which means if I take damage, I have to make a conscious decision to spend time shifting out to cast heals on myself, or not.
This would be the fix right there. Make Shadowform always active in SPriest spec, and then have a glyph to hide the glow.
Make Professions mean something again…
That totally slipped my mind.
Edit: Wait nevermind, you’re talking about the resto affinity heals? Yes, I knew about those already. I would say you’re right that it isn’t redundant, since the other forms can be useful.
Shadowform was automatic in legion I believe.
If you were shadow spec, you were in Shadowform all the time. Then RPers complained about it.
Then Blizzard, in all their wisdom, did what they always do, and made it more complicated by turning it into a toggle rather than baking in the spell damage and removing Shadowform.
So now shadow has Shadowform, and super Shadowform (voidform)
They made it passive once. Everybody hated it. People wanted the ability to toggle it on and off.
On that point warriors should inherently have 5% increased attack power and give everyone they’re partied with the buff as well.
Oh yeh I’d hate having it passive and always on. Yuck.
Roll the buffs into a passive effect, make shadow form cosmetic only, let us switch it on and off at will (or auto switch into shadow when we cast any shadow spell, or when we enter combat).
Job done.
My 214 shadow priest Shadow Mends heal for like 7-8k non crit… Still pretty good, I can cast about 4 before I go oom.
That’s true but not really relevant to this thread - you no longer need to leave shadow form to heal.
It was relevant somewhat to who I replied to, even with a lot of heals removed, the one heal we have I still find very useful for healing myself or others in a pinch