Well said. While Legion shadow was fun and innovative, it was like bringing the Olympics to a small city. The events are great and it brings in a bunch of tourism, but after it’s all over, the city is busted and the government (class designers) don’t know what to do with all the infrastructure that’s been put into place specifically for the Olympics.
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This was borrowed power in a nutshell. It’s pretty obvious that even though classes may be at the focus of features for expansions, the resources for classes has not been changed since borrowed power stopped being the focus. And unfortunately Priests are one of the classes suffering as a result of that poor decision.
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I doubt that very much. Augmentation was creating a brand new spec. There would be massive backlash if they changed an existing DPS spec that some people have invested decades playing into a completely different roll. It’s highly unlikely.
I just think that the priest designers don’t quite know what to do with the spec which is why I’m trying to be specific about our shortcomings and how we might go about fixing it.
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I’m in the process of rerolling UH DK.
DoTs that do damage, a rotation that flows well, a talent tree that makes sense, pet utility is awesome. I now have access to two dps specs, mobility, an interrupt, more fun utility, EVERYTHING IS INSTANT, the list can go on lmao.
Everything being instant was such an eye opening experience after playing almost nothing but Spriest since WoD. When I did play alts it was mainly casters.
Jump ship everyone, it’s worth it.
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I had forgotten how good it felt to play a class that can actually burst and isn’t restricted by a long cooldown and ramp up time.
Whenever someone tries to argue that dots should arbitrarily remain difficult to apply, I bring up Unholy DK. Were as Shadow’s dots are merely a debuff for mastery multipler, single target cleave and procs without which our class can’t do anything.
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Insanity is several things. Shadow Priest mechanic, narrative NPC topic in regards to giving into the Darkness/Void, and repeating the same thing expecting a different result, like most of these threads. Although those of us who in the Long term loved Shadow Priest won’t give it up.
It’s something I’ve mentioned before, and I know players in this forum with much better number-crunching abilities could figure out how it could work, but I have a few things I’d love to see -
Talent tree options that allow you to go multiple builds for the same spec. Want high predictable burst? Go one way, want Dots/Hots (Like we had in MoP which I personally really liked) go another. They could even tie these to the Idol abilities so that there while there is a clear path you can take, you can tweak it.
An idea from a previous thread was maybe our cool void-black hole dmg effect also worked to drag enemies towards it like some boss mechanics have - If a problem is that Shadow Priests have always been turrets, it could go the other way that instead of greater mobility, you are a dedicated position of Void power, with added dmg/defense but you have to stay put, that can be decisively planned around- drag adds towards the SP vortex, guys.
I’d be fine with having one method that is a more mobile priest tossing around instants and dots and one that stays put but there’s a benefit for the raid using that. Just my few random ideas.
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While I can understand the frustrations this brings I would argue this is the only time insanity has ever been close to something resembling a coherent and positive design. Currently you still have the ramping issues, even if they are a bit mitigated, but in the end the only thing insanity does now is allow you to cast DP. It serves no other function than to gait that one ability compared to buffing damn near everything you did.
I would much rather have seen them work on balancing the ramping/draining mechanic that at least had a coherent design instead of hamfisting it into being little more than a tool to gait a single ability.
Keep in mind you’ll also have to balance the Draining mechanic in PVP, because right now Shadow suffers and is very easily shut down by being trained by an enemy team, (You see Halo or Void Torent? Interrupt. See void form? Stun and cc spam. Our dots aren’t even that scary to dispel compared to something like Warlock, and can’t be as easily reapplied like Unholy DK. And it was far, far worse in Legion
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Yeah don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying legion was perfect or balance, only that the design was actually coherent and that I would have prefered it if they had refined that design working on its pain points instead of butchering it, leaving us with the scraps and calling it a day.
Well, they did buff numbers on a few skills significantly, and I’m happy to see that, but there’s no other changes beyond that to address the myriad of mechanical issues.
I expect to see another DF moment where they overbuff some pve abilities, and then we do well in content, but better than they wanted, and bring down the nerf hammer on those numbers, and screw with mechanical aspects to nullify everything rather than work on a refactor of the entire class that it needs.
Oh well, at least now I might top some meters, and actually be able to do more than tickle people as the strongest classes continue to dominate in every way where my damage isn’t the issue, the design of the class is.
Edit, sorry Martyr, I didn’t mean to reply to you specifically, just the thread.
Sadly I expect this to. Its the nature and hallmark of a poorly designed class and devs who have no clue what to do with it. They over buff it, then instead a slight reversion they gut the mechanical elements of the spec that they don’t understand and the class/spec continues its slow death into irrelevancy while the playerbase pleads and begs for anything to save it.
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Did insanity serve an actual purpose regarding how it functioned specifically in Legion and as well in BFA?
Yes, it did. Insanity made sense with the draining mechanic that survived for 2 expansions.
But was that a great design and good direction to go for Shadow? Only in long form fights with low forced movement and hopefully no intermission phase.
Anything outside of those strict parameters and Shadow struggled greatly to the point of being pathetically broken. This got amped up further in PvP as you were given the option to choose Edge of Insanity which literally prevented you from going into Voidform which then gated you out of a massive portion of toolkit as Void Torrent could only be used in Voidform and I thing Sphere of Insanity was also dependent on Voidform.
But people in PvP picked Edge of Insanity because at max Insanity, you had a passive 20% damage boost and if you didn’t pick Edge of Insanity, you were often just interrupted or stunned or any micro CC as soon as you got into Voidform or people just ran away from you resulting you you having nothing you can do to keep the drain aspect at bay and just wasted your brief moment to do anything and then this just repeats over and over again.
So no, the insanity drain mechanic was absolutely NOT a great direction for Shadow to go in.
I suggested and argued on the feedback forms in both Shadowlands and Dragonflight that the Insanity resource system is just pointless and should go away completely.
Either go back to just using mana only or since Shadow Orbs proved to be a well designed resource system in MoP and then improved in WoD with having them a max of 5 Shadow Orbs, then we can just go back to that.
The issue however is that would require a massive amount of design time to change your secondary resource system as I think Ian mentioned verbally in one of his interviews during Shadowlands Development period.
So as it stands, yes Insanity currently serves no real purpose other than it’s just what we have implemented on live today.
What I think would be better is to have Shadow Orbs as the base secondary resource system and then tie specifically Voidform to become a form where your Shadow Orbs go away and you start with a full Insanity bar and it drains away and now you are no longer limited to things like Devouring Plague costing Shadow Orbs and it will just naturally cost Insanity or something… Not sure exactly but the point is to only have an Insanity resource appear ONLY when you go into Voidform. Then be it draining or whatever can happen after the fact.
Basically remove Voidform having a timer and make Insanity the timer and the better you do, the longer you can stay in that form.
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Yeah, once again, I don’t disagree that the design had flaws, that wasn’t my argument, my point was that it was at least coherent and you could tell thought and time went into it and it wasn’t just an amalgamation of gutted mechanics attempting to form something resembling a spec.
As for Shadow Orbs I’m gonna be honsst I skipped MoP so I have no idea how those worked and have no basis to judge their design by. My main point is that Shadow, and really priest as a whole, needs coherence, it needs a design that gives the spec an identity. Legion shadow had its problems, but it as least had that identity, and it was well accepted and liked that people actually ask for the spec to be split between old shadow and old god void themes.
To me that says a lot about how well a coherent design, with all its pain points, can get players on board.
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Be careful with the insanity debates. You have awoken long-form essay aneurysm.
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Well…
This is the first time in a long while I’ve seen some one present feedback on a solution for the insanity mess that I’ve really, really agreed with. It’s so remarkably simple, and still plays into the class fantasy that people think should be a factor in balancing (Seriously, who thinks that because a skill doesn’t seem to match their personal preference as far as class fantasy, that there’s no way the class could have anything like it, you can simply retcon the lore like has been done many times before, or make the spell’s theme fit the class fantasy).
You could even go and say that shadow orbs are now your ‘insanity level’, and once you hit insanity level X you transform into voidform and have X amount of time (indicated by the insanity orbs being reduced/changed/whatever) as your cooldown phase. Simple to balance because say each mindblast gives an orb, and once you use your fourth mindblast you go into void form for 10 seconds and your damage is increased in whatever way for that time or you get access to casting while moving or some spells get empowered. You can change the time it’s active, and the damage modifier for tuning in whatever way is necessary that isn’t a nightmare. DP can now become a normal spell in our rotation and tuned as such.
Mobility can be factored into it, especially if the voidform is shorter duration/less damage increase but more frequent.
Hell, If I’m a floating ball of tendrils and shadow magic since I’ve ascended, you can make that form be able to cast while moving for a few seconds, or all of it.
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I feel so called out right now 
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Identity in what exactly? Mechanically? Sure. Aesthetically? I could care less if the mechanics are a failure.
Basically, mechanics should come first. Then dress it up however you like with glyphs or whatever.
If it was as loved as you think it was, it would still be around. People like me wouldn’t be here listing out all of its failures that never cease to always cause cascading issues with each expansion and Implementation over and over again.
We now have to keep in mind that there are 4 pillars in endgame that should be considered when it comes to class design.
- Raiding
- Mythic Keystone Dungeons
- Delves
- PvP
Making a drain mechanic the core identify of the spec would fail in the majority of those endgame systems because it’s fast paced content that you have to move around and CC and avoid etc.
Having a drain mechanic being optional is fine as you can avoid that forced gameplay if you choose.
Well they were rather simple in design and execution.
MoP you had 3 Shadow Orbs.
You could cast Devouring Plague which required at least 1 Shadow Orb but consumed up to 3 for increased damage for each Shadow Orb consumed.
In a way Shadow Orbs was a mix between Holy Power and combo points.
Holy Power always required 3 Holy Power but combo points were all consumed by your finisher.
In this world, you can put out a Devouring Plague with only 1 Shadow Orb which meant you can get going quickly if you choose, it will just do less damage. But it would still fuel procs like Surge of Darkness which granted you Instant Cast non dot ripping Mind Spikes for +50% additional damage or grant you Insanity which granted a 6 second 100% damage buff to your Mind Flay and Mind Sear.
Some of these effects might have only been added in WoD but the idea was the same except in WoD you had 5 Shadow Orbs which allowed you to bank up more Shadow Orbs so you can dump Devouring Plagues more often. Also, Psychic Horror cost Shadow Orbs to use back then and lasted longer for each orb you used up to max 3.
To generate Shadow Orbs, you used Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death. At this time Shadow Word: Death was only usable on targets <=20% health. This allowed a massive inflow of Shadow Orbs when you snipe low health targets with SW:D and really amped up your play style.
With the additional last talent row added in WoD, you had 2 primary gameplay choices with Clarity of Power and Auspicious Spirits.
Clarity of Power offered a run and gun play style as it made Mind Blast instant and it’s cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds alongside increasing damage done with Mind Spike, Mind Sear and Shadow Word: Death by 40% on targets without your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch on them.
The important bit is that Mind Blast can now speed up your Shadow Orbs generation since you no longer casted it and it’s cooldown was reduced. This made you extremely mobile.
Auspicious Spirits made your Shadowy Apparitions generation a Shadow Orb on impact instead of dealing damage. At this time it was your Shadow Word: Pain critical strike damage ticks that spawned a Shadowy Apparition.
This caused you to want to stack critical strike stat and have lots of targets. Once you had like 5+ targets spawning Shadowy Apparitions then you turn into just dotting things over and over again and dumping your massive inflow of Shadow Orbs into Devouring Plagues and sometimes you just dump your plagues over and over again as the amount of Shadow Orbs you got was flowing in quicker than you can manage. You truly became a dot/Rot gameplay spec.
So what this did was within 1 spec (Shadow) you had 2 gameplay defining talents that offered major differences in how you play you spec. Both were good and pending the situation, one or the other would lean a bit more heavily in its performance. But they both were very fun to play.
I could go more into them like the dotless play style or dot weaving that Clarity of Power offered but that’s not really necessary.
It is because of this moment in time with 2 key defining methods to play Shadow and were both fun and unique to each other that I state it was the peak of shadows fun.
This fact was even further enhanced by the toolkit we had as we had Spectral Guise which is a game changer all on its own as well as Cascade and a feather that gave 60% speed boost which was way more noticable when you can stealth with Spectral Guise compared to the 40% we have now that you just get shared anyway and can’t avoid via a stealth mechanic that Spectral Guise brought.
This is why I see Legion and BFA as such and utter and complete failures for Shadow as compared to WoD, it’s a major downgrade in all areas.
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I put him on ignore a long time ago. Any conversation inevitable ends in an extremely toxic dismissal and personal insults of anyone who doesn’t share his narrow vision of what Shadow ought to be.
I made this thread to have a good faith discussion about how we fix the class, I hope it doesn’t degenerate into every other priest thread.
Personal insults?
Maybe coming from you.
I would love for you to quote a personal insult that I have made.
Go ahead, I’ll wait.
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Yes you could go that route in making Voidform no longer have a cooldown or fixed duration and just make it so it costs Shadow Orbs to go into Voidform and then you have let’s say 20 insanity per orb. So if you go into Voidform and have 5 orbs, you start out with 100 insanity and draining from there.
Then each Devouring Plague you use consumes 20 insanity or Devouring Plague changes into a different spell similar to Shamans Ascension transforms their Chain Lightning into Lava Beam or something.
Not sure how to balance it but the focus would be to only see an Insanity bar while in Voidform and outside Voidform you just deal with Shadow Orbs and then Dark Ascension could take the Shadow Orb system into an empowered version of itself or just be the simple no change cooldown version. Not sure ATM what would be best.
Edit:
Maybe…
During Dark Ascension, each Shadow Orb you consume empowers your next Mind Blast to deal an additional 50% damage.
This would be similar to how Shadow Orbs worked in Cata. So you can elegantly merge both versions of how Shadow Orbs functioned.
So you could get a really hard hitting Mind Blast. Since you want to use Mind Blast often to generate Shadow Orbs, it creates both a positive feedback loop and prevents you from solely generating Shadow Orbs from Shadow Word: Death and Shadow Word: Pain only for a bit so you can have a giant Mind Blast damage nuke.
And/or your Dark Ascension duration is increased by 1 second per Shadow Orb consumed.
So with elemental Shaman at least, your Earth Shock can deal meh damage or a lot of damage pending your Malestrom amount.
So similar thing with this Shadow Orb system since it’s consuming nature is variable based on your Shadow Orb amount instead of a flat amount as with the case with insanity. I can’t tell you how many times I am just 1 insanity off to use a Devouring Plague and I am forced to cast something else to get that last bit of Insanity. But if you have a variable resource cost that Shadow Orbs offers, you have more freedom of choice as to when and how you play.
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