My biggest issue thus far with shadow is it didn’t really even wiggle the table in terms of making things different or interesting. It still has nearly all the issues it had for things in PvE world
We are still made of spun glass compared to most classes. Not surprising but its there it feels like.
Silence is still one of the worst interrupts given its cooldown and with lockouts being increased it makes it worse in a fashion.
Defensive wise Shadow for M+ and Raids is TERRIBLE. Flash heal for 10% and Fade for 10%, utilizing a hard cast and then another ability to manage that.
Dispersion exists but for a total lockout of doing anything but moving…the healing isn’t worth it either since in M+ or Raid content you’d want to cancel after the damage prevention anyway, since rarely would you need to sit in it for the full 6 seconds.
Shield isn’t even worth mentioning at this point. Currently for a pure numbers view I get a 7.5k shield. Not even a solid 10% of my hp, barely more than 5% of my total hp.
Self healing is a complete joke now. Flash heal was nerfed TO THE GROUND currently at least. 2% leech, VE as a 2 min cooldown and 30% from madness is abyssmal for sustain. We are down to relying on Desperate Prayer on a 1.5 min cooldown as a ‘sustain’ ability.
Shadow Crash (now Tentacle Slam) at least sort of? Is improved in its ability to hit targets, less ‘disappears into nothingness’ sometimes and its speed prevents some of the LOS issues a LITTLE more (still has them but harder to cause?). From some testing it looks? like it is still hard capped at about 8 targets so we’ll still have issues in M+ with larger pulls and being able to keep up with damage other classes can do.
We still rely on shield and feathers for movement which is pretty mid given its a 40% which compared to many other classes is downright slow for moving and repositioning (exacerbated with the combat mod changes. We’ll see if they make sure all pve enemies give ample time to get out of things)
Void Form is kinda an unexciting cooldown overall but I mean its a cooldown and it seems they are happy with a class having a 15% damage buff cooldown of some sort. Its a shame its a talent and so uninteresting overall.
In the future Spec Lock is likely to be an issue given the SIX talents in the spec tree (and since apex are focused around them you’d obviously want all six to max their potency right?)
Playstyle wise though it feels very ‘you’ll play basically how you did before, with the same issues you dealt with before’. You’ll still get to play Decline Simulator in group finder if you pug keys because you don’t bring much interesting to a key as a dps since you don’t have lust or a battle res, maybe PI but are we really back to the days of SL where you had a token shadow priest who was just there to make someone else look good and carry the dps of the key?
If you loved how shadow played before then I mean, its basically going to play relatively similar for the most part since it really didn’t lose most of its core spells (Mind blast, flay, crash/slam, VE and Pain). You’ll still clip Flays for almost anything else, etc.
That is probably the most disappointing part of it all, for all the annoying issues, they couldn’t even come up with something truly interesting to do with shadow or inspired or fresh. Just “Heres the same sandwich we just call it something different and adjusted the topping amounts a little.”
Maybe since they had the ‘new void darling’ with Devourer DH all the people coming up with interesting stuff in the void/shadow department got used up in the Warlock and DH teams who knows. Its just sad.
